Welcome back to the Monday Good News Roundup, where your humble GNR Newsroom (Myself, Killer300 and Bhu) provide all the good news to start your week off right.
Last week has been…. pretty challenging for me to say the least. I dislocated my arm on monday, not a major injury they popped it back in immediately and I’m in no real pain, but I can’t work for at least a month, So I need to deal with unemployment. A far more looming concern is that my father told me that our landlord is in financial trouble settling the estate she owns and she has to come up with a ton of money or we’re going to lose the apartment complex. They are working hard to try and figure out a way to get the money, so I will keep you all posted if we need any help or anything on that front.
Whew, okay. That’s out of the way, sorry for starting on such a low note, lets get to the good news wont we?
Since its 2019 founding, the Sacramento, California-based startup has built software that’s being used by customers, car dealers and automakers including Nissan and Toyota to seek out and calculate new EV incentives. It has also secured a total of $10 million in EV financing credit from investors to make loans based on what Glenn called its “EV-focused underwriting model.”
EV Life expanded from new EVs to used EVs in February. “I was hesitant to get into used EVs,” Glenn said, “because there are factors including residual values” — what a leased car is worth at the end of its lease period — “that start to get weird.”
But with so many affordable used EVs coming onto the market — and “so much organic demand coming to our platform from folks wanting to finance used EVs” — he decided that it was worth the effort.
Good, we need companies to invest in EV’s on all levels: New and used.
In celebration of the Broadway bike lane project's completion, the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) will host a community bike ride along a 1.5 mile stretch of the protected bike lane on Saturday.
The ride will begin at 7th Avenue and Logan Street and travel down the bike lane as a large group. The ride will end at the Illegal Pete's at 270 S. Broadway where participants can get a bite to eat while city and community representatives deliver remarks.
Speakers at Illegal Pete’s will include:
- Jill Locantore, executive director, Denver Streets Partnership
- Amy Ford, executive director, DOTI
- City Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez, District 7
- Luke Johnson, president, Broadway Merchants Association
Great news for Denver, sounds like it will be quite the shindig.
This week’s monopoly round-up has lots of news, as usual, including some victories for the Antitrust Division, the government causing big health insurance stocks to tumble, and a privacy bill deal in Congress.
But I want to start with a ray of hope for those who want to break up big tech and are tired of waiting. A judge in California finally has the power and mandate to take apart Google. Not in five years. Not after a long trial. But right now. Will he? Guest-author and antitrust lawyer Lee Hepner has written an important piece on the subject.
I certainly hope he does, Google needs to be taken down a peg, all these corporations do.
On a busy high street in Southall in June 1976, people quietly shuffled past a police cordon outside the Victory pub. Behind the tape was a pool of blood that had come from Gurdeep Singh Chaggar, an 18-year-old Sikh teenager who had been stabbed to death during a racist attack in the centre of the south Asian community in west London.
His death stunned Southall. The idea of white youths coming to their area to kill a Sikh boy seemed unthinkable, but in reality it was part of a sustained campaign of racial violence that spread across the entire country. In his classic book Staying Power, about the history of the Black and south Asian presence in Britain, Peter Fryer estimated that, between 1976 and 1981, 31 people had been murdered by racists in Southall, Brick Lane, Swindon, Manchester and Leeds.
The Singh Chaggar story is the opening act of Defiance: Fighting the Far Right, a new three-part documentary series on Channel 4 that tells the story of how groups of British south Asians fought back against a tide of racial violence that has mostly been forgotten. Groups such as the Asian Youth Movement in Bradford battled fascists in the street, organised legal defences for deportation cases and vowed to protect their own communities when the police refused to do so.
Riz Ahmed’s production company, Left Handed Films, are part of the team behind the series. They’re joined by Rogan Productions who have a track record of making incredible, little-told stories of Britain’s racist past, including Uprising – the three-part documentary inspired by Steve McQueen’s Small Axe films that homed in on the aftermath of the “New Cross massacre,” Subnormal: A British Scandal and Black Power.
Very inspiring story. Nothing I love more than stories of fascists being put in their place.
STRASBOURG, France (AP) — Europe’s highest human rights court ruled Tuesday that countries must better protect their people from the consequences of climate change, siding with a group of older Swiss women against their government in a landmark ruling that could have implications across the continent.
The European Court of Human Rights rejected two other, similar cases on procedural grounds — a high-profile one brought by Portuguese young people and another by a French mayor that sought to force governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
But the Swiss case, nonetheless, sets a legal precedent in the Council of Europe’s 46 member states against which future lawsuits will be judged.
“This is a turning point,” said Corina Heri, an expert in climate change litigation at the University of Zurich.
When our governments fail us, they should be brought to task, and this is the sy to do it.
In the decade analyzed by Climate Central, solar went from generating less than half a percent of the nation’s electricity to producing nearly 4 percent. In that same period, wind grew from 4 percent to roughly 10. Once hydropower, geothermal, and biomass are accounted for, nearly a quarter of the nation’s grid was powered by renewable electricity in 2023, with the share only expected to rise thanks to the continued surge in solar.
Great news, but we can do better, we need to do better.
But over the past three years, HarperCollins’s designers have put their skills toward a new mission: saving paper. In an effort to reduce the carbon footprint of each book, they’re tweaking fonts, layout, and even the ink used. The goal is to pack more into each page, while ensuring that the pages are as readable as ever. And so far, these subtle, imperceptible tweaks have saved 245.6 million pages, equivalent to 5,618 trees.
Little changes can add up to big leads.
Dr Cecilia Aquino, the National TB Programme medical coordinator for Valenzuela City, says this system is much quicker than the previous one, which relied on suspected TB patients going to a hospital and paying for an X-ray. The turnaround time for X-ray results alone could be a day, she says, while for “the specimen results, we’d have to wait three to five days”.
The new system means the right treatment can be started sooner – to cure the patient and prevent others in their household from being infected.
The diagnostic equipment can also be taken on foot in its “suitcase” to places inaccessible to vehicles. Medics have carried it by boat to remote islands, and it is robust enough to be dragged up to mountain communities.
Other advances in TB treatment are imminent. There are 17 vaccine candidates, five of which are in phase 3 clinical trials. While the BCG vaccine – more than 100 years old – protects young children against severe and deadly forms of TB, it does not prevent transmission among adults. It is hoped the new vaccines will.
Glad to see some people are taking vaccination seriously.
A proposed new California bill promises to give some workers easier and speedier compensation for heat-related conditions in the agriculture industry.
California State Senator Dave Cortese introduced Senate Bill 1299 in February, which would establish a workers' compensation presumption for heat illness. The law is undergoing a hearing today to see if it moves forward.
Read more: Compare Top Health Savings Accounts
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), heat related injuries caused 1,670 deaths nationwide in 2022, and with rising global temperatures, more agricultural workers continue to be put at risk yearly. While headaches, dizziness and heat stroke are some of the most common consequences of excessive heat exposure in the workforce, it can also lead to chronic health issues or even death.
Neat. Makes me wish it was as easy for me to get my disability benefits.
Scientists have discovered a genetic variant that could reduce the odds of developing Alzheimer's disease by up to 70 percent. By learning more about this protective variant, the researchers hope to open new avenues in Alzheimer's drug development to effectively prevent or treat the disease.
Alzheimer's affects roughly 5.8 million Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The progressive condition is characterized by memory loss and cognitive decline in the brain regions involved in thought, memory and language.
I usually say I love living in the future, let me addend that to say that Science is awesome.
All this, as I’ve argued before, adds up to an impressive wave of policy action—and there are similar waves occurring in places across North America. We are in the middle of a sea change: the most dramatic rethinking in over half a century of the land-use principles adopted almost everywhere in the mid-20th century during the spread of rigid zoning across the U.S. and Canada. It was a massive, radical, uncontrolled experiment, and its costs have become obvious.
The fight to make housing affordable again is still raging, and slowly but surely we are winning.
Recent efforts have proven that reefs can bounce back from injury. Decades of dynamite fishing, which uses explosives to kill or stun masses of fish, had destroyed swathes of reefs in Indonesia, home to more coral than any other country. In 2018, teams from a Mars Inc.-funded nonprofit, in collaboration with local communities, began placing “reef stars”—hexagonal metal contraptions coated with coral sand—into the damaged reefs, to stimulate and aid regrowth.
Results published last month about the work were promising. Within four years, sections of the coral reef loaded with reef stars were growing at the same rate as undamaged ones. The reef-star sections had less species diversity, however.
The Mars nonprofit has sites around the world. There is even a daily livestream you can watch from one of their project locations in the Maldives, where reef stars were introduced in 2021.
Yay coral!
"With the solar-powered well in my house, at least 1,000 people benefited and received clean water every day," Assalia said. "Now people from other neighborhoods have come to use it and we're trying to help more by operating as many wells as possible."
Assalia said he has coordinated a group of people to help with his project, capitalizing on each person's expertise: Khalil Samara, an alternative energy engineer; Mohammed Hajj-Ali, a welder installing the bases for the solar panels; and Masoud Nabhan, a plumber experienced with fixing wells.
In dark times, its important to look for the helpers.
The practice of breeding big cats to later have them shot by wealthy hunters typically paying thousands of US dollars has long been loathed by conservation and animal rights groups.
Hunters, usually foreigners, sometimes take home the head or skin of the killed animal as a trophy.
The South African government had already announced its intention to ban the breeding of lions for hunting in 2021 and an ad hoc panel has been working on the issue for the past two years.
"The panel recommended the closure of the captive breeding sector, including the keeping of lions in captivity, or the use of captive lions or their derivatives commercially," Environment Minister Barabara Creecy told a press conference in Cape Town.
Yikes, file this under “Why was this even a thing to begin with?” at least its over now.
The Biden administration on Wednesday finalized strict limits on certain so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water that will require utilities to reduce them to the lowest level they can be reliably measured. Officials say this will reduce exposure for 100 million people and help prevent thousands of illnesses, including cancers.
The rule is the first national drinking water limit on toxic PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are widespread and long lasting in the environment.
Health advocates praised the Environmental Protection Agency for not backing away from tough limits the agency proposed last year. But water utilities took issue with the rule, saying treatment systems are expensive to install and that customers will end up paying more for water.
Biden Administration knocks it out of the park yet again.
If the United States had a public transit problem, Washington’s Metro was a good case in point. In the years leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic, DC’s transit system — widely considered to be one of the best in the nation — found itself plagued by frequent delays, safety concerns, and falling ridership.
Other US cities were struggling, too. America’s public transit agencies often fall victim to a vicious cycle that looks something like this: Politicians slash budgets, agencies cut their services, riders look for alternative ways to get around town, and fare revenues take a hit — eventually leading to even more cuts, fewer riders, and so on.
Over the last couple of years, despite being bogged down by some safety issues, DC has tried to break out of that cycle. Flush with cash from federal pandemic aid, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA) doubled down on an “if you build it, they will come” strategy. It improved bus and train services and, in some cases, made fares more affordable in order to lure riders back. While other transit agencies took similar approaches — including reduced fares for riders or handing out signing bonuses to hire more workers — many still imposed service cuts rather than expansions.
WMATA’s strategy has been successful so far: In February, ridership across the system was at 83 percent of pre-pandemic levels, and DC has now seen a faster transit recovery than any other major metro area with a comparable public transportation network.
“It’s a risky approach, because it means they’ve spent more money more quickly,” said Yonah Freemark, a researcher at the Urban Institute who often focuses on transportation policy. “At the same time, the process has paid dividends.”
If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere. Lets save out public transit systems and make them better.
So, in September of 2023, New York City decided to do something about it. A series of bold requirements capped the total number of short-term rentals (STRs) and limited guests to just two at a time. They required STR operators to be primary homeowners — and to be present in the home while hosting. The city also promised to enforce those requirements, a move that would wipe out nearly 90 percent of active listings at the time.
Though it may sound revolutionary, New York’s crackdown isn’t the first of its kind. In fact, it’s part of a growing trend — one largely spearheaded by much smaller towns. Over the last decade, communities from Irvine, California, to Durango, Colorado, have implemented clever regulations, taxes and zoning policies to hobble the STR market — or, in some cases, eliminate it altogether. As the success stories pile up, a growing body of research points to the dramatic positive impacts of policies like these, including lower rents, more equitable housing markets and the promise of a sustainable tourism economy.
Good, I hate AirBnB and House flippers a great deal. Low income homes are for people to live in, not for hucksters to make a quick buck.
And on that note I think its time to withdraw for the week. I hope everyone has a better week than I had, and lets keep the flame of hope alive.