Good news in politics
Kamala Harris Is Gaining Swing-State Voters' Trust to Step In for Biden
🎩 to T Maysle, our most faithful provider of good news links, for this very encouraging story, mentioned in a comment last Friday.
From Bloomberg:
Vice President Kamala Harris is increasingly endearing herself to swing-state voters, a development that if it persists, stands to neutralize Republican attacks around Joe Biden’s age.
Nearly half of swing-state voters, 48%, say they trust Harris to fulfill the duties of the presidency if Biden were no longer able to serve, according to a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll conducted in early May. The reading marks the highest level of confidence since the survey was first conducted in October.
In recent months, Harris — the first woman, Black or Asian vice president — has held a series of high-profile events that resonate with key parts of the Democratic base. They include a historic visit to a Minnesota abortion clinic, a nod to the rollback of federal reproductive rights that has galvanized women voters, and an impassioned speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, a landmark of the Civil Rights era. Harris and the administration have also leaned into detailing her personal arc and record in public office. ✂️
Over the last year, the White House has deployed her on the offensive to counter political opponents, condemning book bans and new reproductive health restrictions. Harris frequently appears in front of audiences of color and young voters, which polls show are among the most disillusioned blocs of the Democratic base. Last week, she went viral online when she encouraged an audience of young Asian Americans to “kick that f—— door down” in pursuit of their careers.
America's largest LGBTQ rights group plans $15 million swing state blitz to re-elect Biden
The LGBTQ+ community is huge and is already disposed to support Biden. Mobilizing them — and educating them if necessary about Biden’s support for them — will definitely help us win in November.
From NBC News:
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ rights group in the United States, is launching a $15 million commitment to help Democratic President Joe Biden defeat Republican Donald Trump in the 2024 election. The spending blitz, shared first with NBC News, will cover the six key battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. The group says it will include paid ads, staff hires, field campaigns and events in those states, which are poised to decide who wins the presidency and Congress.
And after crunching the numbers, the organization sees warning signs in the form of soft support for Biden in the 2024 electorate. HRC estimates that this year there will be 75 million “equality voters” — who vote based on support for LGBTQ rights — up from 62 million in 2020 and 52 million in 2016. But the group says one-third of them aren’t a lock for Biden. In the six key swing states, hundreds of thousands are “at risk of not voting,” and another group of hundreds of thousands of voters are what HRC refers to as “double doubters” who will likely defect to a third party, according to data HRC shared with NBC News.
HRC President Kelley Robinson said those uncertain voters could make or break Biden’s re-election bid. “This group of voters, when you break them down by state, can actually make the difference. In a state like Arizona, where President Biden won it by about 10,000 votes, you got 1.4 million equality voters,” Robinson said in an interview. “This is a powerful constituency, a powerful community. It’s our job to make sure that they have the tools that they need to show out to the polls. So we’re going to be knocking on doors, making phone calls, engaging every member that we’ve got to make sure that our people turn out.”
FL Miracle Update: Uncontested Districts Down to ZERO. Now let’s fund them all
This is the way to turn Florida blue and take back the House!
If you want to donate to 140 Blue Florida, here’s the link: secure.actblue.com/...
From a DKos diary by Kossack Bethesda 1971, published last Friday:
In February this year, 45 Florida state House and Senate Republicans and seven Congressman had no Democratic opponent in this year’s November 2024 election. Through the incredible efforts of 140 Blue Florida, the number was down to 17 on May 2, when I wrote The Unknown Reason why Al Gore "lost" Florida in 2000 and how to stop it this year. Now every one of those Republicans has a Democratic opponent. ...
By May 15, through the efforts of the great people at 140 Blue Florida, that number was down to five. ...
Today, there are Democratic candidates for every Congressional and state legislative district in Florida — unlike in prior years, there are no uncontested seats for either Congress or the state legislature in Florida.
Compare this with just two years ago, when there were fifty-three Florida legislative districts where Republicans ran unopposed. Is it any surprise Dems lost the governorship by 19 points, when Biden lost by only three points in 2020 (when there were candidates for nearly every legislative seat)?
And more good political news from Florida:
Florida Democrat launches group to fight conservative takeover of school boards
When we fight back, we win.
From Politico:
A Florida Democrat who unseated a Moms for Liberty co-founder in a contentious school board race is now leading an organization aiming to combat the influence conservatives have wielded on local education policies.
The PAC, “Educated. We Stand,” [launched on May 16th] with the goal of “protecting, recruiting and electing” school board members that will help “limit the influence of far-right extremists” across the country. Plans for the organization were shared first with POLITICO.
The launch pits the group directly against a well-oiled political machine that has helped dozens of conservative candidates win school board races across the country since 2022, backed by organizations like Moms for Liberty and state leaders such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. ✂️
Conservatives have been widely successful in altering the education landscape in places like Florida, where state and local leaders have introduced policies on scores of culture war issues. Although there has been a backlash from some liberals to organizations like Moms for Liberty — and some conservative candidates have lost contested elections — there has not been a cohesive national response. ✂️
The new PAC led by Jenkins is “solely dedicated to blunting the progress of far-right school takeovers” by countering conservative efforts to restrict books for students, change curricula and “limit the autonomy of educators,” according to its website. As such, “Educated. We Stand” is aiming to raise cash and build up campaigns nationwide backing school leaders who “support factual broad-based public education — and defeat those who do not.”
Building "Idaho Women for Biden-Harris"
Knowing how to read the room is skill #1 for anyone who does political work. Good for these smart women for working hard to make their message appealing to as many voters as possible.
From The Grassroots Connector:
The founders of Idaho Women for Biden-Harris have an online presence that stands out. Not only is it a safe space in ruby red Idaho with members in every county, but it has become THE model for all other Women for Biden-Harris state group platforms.
Idaho Women for Biden-Harris is a grassroots group that grew organically from a couple friends with an idea into an active membership of 11,000. Three take-aways from their success: 1. reach beyond party identification; 2. keep members safe within a private Facebook group; and 3. emphasize values and even respectful, religiously-informed perspectives in posts that offer accurate and up-to-date analysis. ✂️
Idaho Women for Biden-Harris know their audience. Many members are strongly rooted in their faith communities, including a number of Latter Day Saints and others who belong to evangelical congregations. “We talk about values like integrity, courage, decency, and the importance of public education. A lot of groups out there discourage mention of religion, but we don’t shy away from posting progressive religious perspectives from many faiths. We make it clear that we aren’t pushing any one religion and that we gladly embrace atheistic and agnostic members too.”
Their Facebook group offers up-to-date, accurate information that is typically spread across different news sources. “We try not to post the news, which you can get anywhere, but rather we try to pull the best analysis to increase understanding of the news. We curate materials to appeal to people across the spectrum of views and formal knowledge about civics/government.”
The team is proud of its tremendous member participation. “At least 5-10 people submit content to post every day.” The team reviews suggestions and posts several times daily to its 11,000+ members. But as Betty reminds us, “The story isn’t just that we have a lot of members. Just as important is the fact that we have a lot of engagement. Every post elicits many emojis, comments, and questions.” Civility and respectful dialogue are key to our group culture.
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The media messing up
Crime Is Not On The Rise. Why Do Voters Think It Is?
From Claire Potter in her Substack “Political Junkie”:
Potter’s sub-headline is “Democrats are ceding the narrative to Republican misinformation, when they need to talk about why their own policies are successful.” Yup. And MSM has been boosting those rightwing scare narratives. Here’s what she suggests we need to do:
Here’s what I would do if I were the Democrats. Instead of allowing Republicans to take over the narrative [and allowing mainstream media to amplify it], I would look for the programs that work, and that have contributed to reducing crime. I would create a series of advertisements featuring police officers talking about why community policing methods work; mothers talking about how “second chance” diversion programs turned their kids around; programs that support students in graduating from high school and going on to college; men and women who finished technical training, or high school and college degrees, while incarcerated started afresh; and formerly incarcerated men working as violence interrupters.
These are just a few of programs that produce thousands of success stories—and reductions in crime. That story is happening now, and American voters need to know it.
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Good news from my corner of the world
US Supreme Court Rejects Right-Wing Attempt To Upend Oregon’s Mail-In Voting System
It’s a relief to have this bullshit case finally laid to rest. I’m not sure why Democracy Docket chose the word “voters” to describe the bad-faith Republicans behind this case. I fixed the language for them. 😉
From Democracy Docket:
[On May 20th,] the U.S. Supreme Court denied voters’ [Republicans’] request to hear a case seeking to overturn Oregon’s mail-in voting system, officially putting an end to the lawsuit.
Despite Oregon voters’ reliance on mail-in voting, voters [the Republican plaintiffs], led by Republican Marc Thielman, filed a lawsuit arguing that Oregonians “suffer from a crisis of confidence in their election system” and that election officials have violated the 14th Amendment by using electronic vote tabulation equipment. As evidence of these outlandish claims, the plaintiffs cited the debunked, right-wing propaganda movie “2000 Mules,” which they claim “shows, for everyone to see, illegal ballot trafficking” during the 2020 election.
The plaintiffs also argued that “[e]very phantom vote cast disenfranchises a legitimate vote” and requested that the court overturn the state’s mail-in voting system. Last summer, the district court dismissed the lawsuit, but the plaintiffs appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which also subsequently dismissed the case last December. In their petition to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs asked the Court to address if they had the ability to bring the lawsuit as it was previously dismissed on standing grounds. The Court today declined to take up this question.
In 2001, Oregon became the country’s first universal mail-in voting state and has since been consistently highly ranked in terms of voter turnout. Overturning this system would be detrimental to Oregon voters who have voted by mail for decades.
Portland State president and student government come together in effort to end campus violence
PSU did almost everything right during the protests, including encouraging the police to avoid a heavy-handed response. The result is that now there’s an agreement between the administration and the students.
After weeks of protests, the Associated Students of Portland State University and PSU President Ann Cudd released a joint statement Friday evening that appeared to address some of the student protesters’ demands.
The statement, signed by both Cudd and student body president Yousif Ibrahim, called for a ceasefire in Gaza and acknowledged the peaceful student protests that have occurred on campus. It also denounced the destruction of university property and violence amid some demonstrations.
Cudd is also committing her support to new curriculum proposals focused on breaking down Islamophobia, anti-Jewish, anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab rhetoric.
Additionally, PSU has agreed to host a Palestinian scholar during the fall 2025 quarter and create scholarships for students directly impacted by the fighting in Gaza.
Freeway opponents launch latest effort to stymie a contentious Portland highway project
Apologies for getting nerdy here with so many details about the fight against this freeway expansion, but it’s not only an important Portland story, it’s also useful in the context of other such fights around the country. It seems that transportation departments everywhere have a total blind spot on the subject of the “induced demand” that expanded freeways invariably cause. If that term is new to you, here’s a link to a good explainer: What's Up With That: Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse.
From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
As plans to widen and cover a section of Interstate 5 through Portland’s Rose Quarter move forward, … five organizations filed suit against state transportation officials in Multnomah County last week, arguing that the latest version of the nearly $2 billion project on a two-mile stretch of Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter flies in the face of growth plans adopted by the city of Portland and Metro. ✂️
The suit is part of a multipronged war that No More Freeways and its allies have waged against the Rose Quarter project for the last seven years. The group previously filed suit in both state and federal court over a previous iteration of the plan, but those lawsuits were dismissed in 2022, after state officials scrapped the configuration because of public pushback. Now the Oregon Department of Transportation is proceeding with a far grander vision: Not only will it add two auxiliary lanes to the interstate in an effort to ease congestion through the Rose Quarter, it will also build a “cap” that covers the freeway and reconnects a piece of the historically Black Albina Neighborhood severed when I-5 was constructed.
Previous versions of the project included freeway covers, but those design plans didn’t allow for structures to be built atop the covers. The latest plan does, but that, along with inflation and years of delay, has driven costs upward. The more robust covers were a major addition pushed by the nonprofit Albina Vision Trust. The change was a central reason Portland city officials signed back onto the Rose Quarter project in 2022, after earlier ordering city staff to stop working on it.
The revamped project has been picking up momentum. In March, the Federal Highway Administration issued a “finding of no significant impact” that will allow plans to proceed, and the federal government also announced it would award $450 million to help cap the freeway. ODOT issued its own findings that the project complies with all relevant plans that control how Portland can grow.
It’s those findings that the new lawsuit takes issue with. The plaintiffs say the project actually runs afoul of both a Central City 2035 plan adopted by the city in 2018 and a regional transportation plan adopted by Metro last year.
Among their points:
- That the city’s plan requires that “congestion pricing” — tolls that combat traffic jams by charging drivers more at peak driving times — be implemented in conjunction with the Rose Quarter project. Gov. Tina Kotek recently scrapped a program that would have instituted congestion pricing on Portland freeways. “There is no plan,” said Chris Smith, a member of No More Freeways and a named plaintiff in the lawsuit. “They can’t meet the city’s condition.”
- That the project would widen the interstate far more than required for the two additional merging lanes ODOT has promised. “This level of extra paving would also allow for at least six additional lanes of traffic, and possibly more, which is far beyond what has been proposed, and far more than has been accounted for in any environmental or compliance analysis,” the lawsuit says.
- That ODOT has not demonstrated that the congestion it is seeking to ease could not be solved by strategies besides adding the so-called auxiliary lanes, as required under Metro’s plans. ✂️
Lawsuits are not the only thing standing in the way of the Rose Quarter project. Mired in a funding crisis, ODOT needs to figure out how to pay for the project – particularly in light of Kotek’s decision to scrap tolls. The agency has said the project could cost up to $1.9 billion, the majority of which it does not have.
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Good news from around the nation
Starbucks Workers Are Doing What Many Thought Was Impossible
This truly seemed impossible just a couple of months ago. Persistence works! The video is kind of long but well worth watching.
From More Perfect Union:
After they survived an intense and often cringeworthy early union-busting campaign by the company’s top executives...and won NLRB elections in two out of three cafes that December, [the union organizers] were off to the races. The campaign began spreading like wildfire while Starbucks became more and more brazen about its union-busting, to the point that it seemed as if Schultz was ready to burn it all down.
It was guerilla warfare of sorts for the young union organizers, most of whom were millennials or members of Gen Z who were often either already on the political left or just increasingly resentful of the profits that the company raked in while offering worsening health insurance, minimal raises, and plunging hours. ...They’d quietly organize stores, put together smart media plans...and go public to great fanfare. Whereas Starbucks once had a reputation as a progressive employer, its sheer size and ubiquity, which made it the McDonald’s of coffee, fueled resentment among the kinds of people who were likely to comment on social media and YouTube, and show up at rallies.
The campaign flourished after Buffalo workers won those two store elections. There were more than 70 Starbucks stores where workers filed to unionize in March 2022 and over 50 more that April. The union was putting up unreal, unprecedented numbers. And then the company decided that it was willing to piss off customers and break the law in order to crush the union. Hundreds of workers were illegally fired, nearly two dozen stores closed, and the NLRB was investigating upwards of a thousand unfair labor practice charges. ✂️
As you can see in our new video below, which I reported and produced, things finally began changing in February when Starbucks gave in and asked to sit down and negotiate a master contract agreement. There was a lot that led up to that, obviously, but that’s what the video is about; it’s both a history of the past few years and an instructional video for other unions facing the same challenge.
Austin enacts sweeping reforms to cut down housing costs
Allowing single-family homes on smaller lots sounds like good policy. I prefer it to simply building more apartments, though obviously those are needed, too.
From The Texas Tribune:
Austin will now allow single-family homes to be built on smaller lots, capping off a slate of sweeping land-use reforms intended to help ease the city’s housing affordability crisis.
The Austin City Council voted Friday to dramatically reduce the amount of land the city requires single-family homes to sit on. The vote came after a two-day hearing that included passionate and often rowdy testimony from advocates pushing for greater housing density and opponents who believe the policy will accelerate gentrification and displacement. The council also voted to allow apartment buildings to be built closer to single-family homes and denser development along a planned light-rail line.
"Austin has an affordability crisis, and City government has been too slow and inefficient addressing it," Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said on the social media site X after the vote. "We needed to act on Austin’s needs and with real results. Today, we did that." ✂️
Record high home prices and rents brought on by the Austin region’s explosive growth during the pandemic — and pressure from Texas lawmakers to address the city’s housing affordability crisis — fueled a sense of urgency among local policymakers to enact reforms and accelerated a political realignment around housing. That renewed focus has resulted in the most significant changes to what kinds of housing the city allows since the Reagan administration.
New York is officially the first state to mandate PTO for prenatal care
Prenatal care is indispensable, so it shouldn’t cause a hiccup in your paycheck. Let’s hope this policy gets adopted by both public and private employers all over the nation.
From Motherly:
Parents, rejoice if you live in New York—because New York Governor Kathy Hochul said in a press release that beginning in 2025, New York employees will receive 20 hours of paid prenatal care leave. The best part? This allows employees to attend appointments without cutting into their existing 12 weeks of paid family leave.
And it doesn’t stop there when it comes to making life easier for parents. Per HR Dive, “In addition, employers must provide up to 30 minutes of paid break time for nursing employees to express breast milk for up to three years after a child’s birth.” Breastfeeding mamas who work outside of the home rejoice.
In the press release, Hochul said, ““No one should ever have to fear seeking care because of the costs it will impose or time missed from work.”
New York is the first state in the nation to create paid parental leave for pregnant moms, and this is huge. This all stems from an initiative to “improve New Yorkers’ health” as part of the 2025 fiscal year budget agreement (FY25 Budget).
Historic Agreement with the Federal Government and Arizona Gives Colorado River Indian Tribes Control Over Use of Their Water off Tribal Land
This a win-win for the tribes, who will get paid for sharing their allocated water, and the surrounding areas that need more water.
From Inside Climate News:
From left: Amelia Flores, Colorado River Indian Tribes chairwoman, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs approve the tribe’s authority to lease, exchange or store its portion of Colorado River water.
Against a backdrop of the Colorado River, members of the Colorado River Indian Tribes watched Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and Amelia Flores, the tribe’s chairwoman, sign a historic agreement on April 26 that asserts the tribe’s right to lease portions of their allocation of the river’s water to users away from the tribal land. The agreement between the tribe, the Interior Department and Arizona gives the tribe the ability to lease, exchange or store a portion of its Colorado River water entitlement. As one leader expressed, the tribe is stepping away from the “outdated framework” of federal restrictions that constrained their means to supply water to areas off the tribal land.
The financial gain for the tribe will allow them to invest in services that help tribal members, to build needed infrastructure and update systems for agricultural purposes. ✂️
Although the tribe holds the largest and most senior right to Colorado River water in Arizona, they were blocked from deciding alternatives for its use outside of their land. According to [Margaret] Vick, [the tribe’s water attorney], the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963 confirmed the tribe’s reserved water rights—an allocation with priority dates ranging from 1865 to 1876. “These early priority dates are the most senior in the lower basin and it is this seniority that makes them such a valuable asset,” she said.
About 40 years ago, tribal leaders started examining the possibility of leasing river water to users outside their reservation. The effort became viable in the last decade because of the looming shortages in the Central Arizona Project, a system of canals that deliver Colorado River water from northern Arizona to the central and southern parts of the state.
Independent booksellers continued to expand in 2023, with more than 200 new stores opening
The more independent neighborhood bookstores we have, the less impact the book-banners will have.
Another great find from T Maysle. Thanks, T!
From AP:
Three years ago, Erin Decker was a middle school librarian in Kissimmee, Florida, increasingly frustrated by the state’s book bans and worried that she couldn’t make a difference remaining in her job. So, she and fellow librarian Tania Galiñanes thought of a way to fight back.
“We just put our heads together and decided a bookstore would help make sure students could get to books that were being pulled from shelves,” says Decker, whose White Rose Books & More opened last fall in Kissimmee. The store is named for a resistance group in Nazi Germany and features a section — ringed by yellow “caution” tape — dedicated to such banned works as Maia Kabobe’s “Gender Queer,” Jonathan Evison’s “Lawn Boy” and John Green’s “Looking for Alaska.”
White Rose Books is part of the ever-expanding and diversifying world of independent bookstores. Even as industry sales were slow in 2023, membership in the American Booksellers Association continued its years-long revival. It now stands at 2,433, more than 200 over the previous year and nearly double since 2016. Around 190 more stores are in the process of opening over the next two years, according to the ABA.
“Our numbers are really strong, and we have a solid, diverse pipeline of new stores to come,” says the book association’s CEO, Allison Hill. She cites a range of reasons for people opening stores, from opposing bans to championing diversity to pursuing new careers after the pandemic.
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Good news from around the world
Revolutionary Portable Airdrop Hospital Unveiled in India Quickly Deploys to Treat 200 People During Disasters
This is an amazing breakthrough in disaster response.
From Good News Network:
Developers showed how the mobile hospital, named the BHISHM Cube, can quickly fall to the ground and allow on-the-spot treatment for patients during mass casualty incidents and other emergencies.
This cube is a part of the broader initiative named “Project BHISHM” – Bharat Health Initiative for Sahyog, Hita and Maitri – and is tailored to treat up to 200 casualties simultaneously, emphasizing rapid response and comprehensive care. It incorporates advanced medical equipment, AI, and data analytics to improve the efficiency and coordination of medical services.
The Indian air force tested the device in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, on May 14, and upon landing, the hospital was operational within 12 minutes. ✂️
The robust, waterproof, and lightweight unit consists of 72 components that can be easily transported by hand, cycle, or drone, demonstrating unparalleled flexibility.
Contents of the BHISHM Cube.
Each of the cubes weighing 1,500-lb (720kg) includes solar-powered equipment like x-ray machines, and ventilators, along with blood testing devices and provisions for treating a wide range of injuries such as gunshots, burns, fractures, and major bleeding.
Kazakhstan President Signs Landmark Legislation on Domestic Violence
This is another sign that the rights of women and children are being increasingly recognized all over the world.
From The Times of Central Asia:
On April 15, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed into law amendments and additions passed by Kazakhstan’s parliament on April 11 on legislative acts and the code on administrative offenses on ensuring the rights of women and the safety of children. ✂️
This is seen as the latest improvement in an upward trend. Since coming to power in 2019, President Tokayev has tightened criminal liability for crimes against women and children, as well as human trafficking. Special units were formed within the Ministry of Internal Affairs to protect women, and...specialized female investigators were also introduced to investigate violent sexual crimes against women and minors.
The new law, which goes further in introducing additional legal mechanisms to protect women and children, comes on the heels of domestic and international protests following the televised trial for the alleged violent murder of Saltanat Nukenova by her husband, Kuandyk Bishimbayev, in November 2023. In addition to local rallies, the Kazakhstani diaspora in New York, Amsterdam , Milan, and many other places around the globe have also called for increased accountability for domestic violence under the hashtag #ForSaltanat. Critically, the new legislation criminalizes domestic violence, increases penalties for perpetrators and provides a range of preventative measures alongside punitive ones. It also imposes tougher penalties for all forms of violence against children. Overall, it is an important step in improving the legal, economic, and social foundations of state policy and strengthening the principle of social equality with zero tolerance against violence towards women and children. ✂️
The law provides a legal framework for the operation of a call center on family issues and the protection of the rights of women and children, as well as the legislative consolidation of the creation and operation of Family Support Centers. It has a provision of mandatory psychological assistance to criminals by court decisions. Additionally, the victims of abuse can receive full protection and support, including in the event of a “loss of the breadwinner.”
Meet the Montreal Mayor Who Declared War on SUVs
It’s about time for SUV owners to pay extra fees to compensate for taking up extra space. I love the detail that SUVs are now bigger than the tanks used in WWII. Skeptical? Here’s a link: www.dailymail.co.uk/...
From Bloomberg:
On a brisk spring morning in Montreal, Francois Limoges set off on a walking tour through Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie, the borough he leads as mayor. Wearing sneakers and an artfully tied scarf, Limoges, 52, proudly pointed out the area’s new corner stores, stormwater-friendly “green alleys,” and contraflow bike lanes. Then he paused, frowning, to point toward an SUV hugging the curb next to us. “At 5 p.m., these will be everywhere,” he told me. “There will be nowhere to park.”
Parking is a perennial complaint in Rosemont: According to Limoges, an influx of larger vehicles has shrunk the borough’s on-street parking capacity by at least 4,000 spots. As a result, those owning smaller cars must prowl the neighborhood longer than ever to find a space.
So the mayor is fighting back with one of the few tools available to him: parking fees.
Last year, Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie overhauled its residential parking permit system. Instead of scaling with engine power, the annual fees are now based on vehicle weight, which tightly correlates with size. Residents whose gas-powered cars weigh more than 1,850 kilograms (4,079 pounds), pay C$205 (US$150), while those owning the lightest cars pay C$115. (The weight thresholds are higher for electric or hybrid cars, and those with disabilities or low incomes pay the bottom rate no matter what they drive.)
Paying more for parking may seem like a modest step, but it sends a clear message about the societal costs that oversized vehicles impose on everyone else. “It’s an idea that makes sense if you want to make a lively, a human-scale city,” Limoges said. “You cannot do nothing about the fact that cars are the size of Second World War tanks.” (He’s not wrong, by the way.)
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Good news in medicine
New small molecule offers hope in combating antibiotic resistance
This is an ingenious solution to antibiotic resistance.
From News-Medical.Net:
Researchers from the University of Oxford have developed a new small molecule that can suppress the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria and make resistant bacteria more susceptible to antibiotics. The findings have been published in the journal Chemical Science. ✂️
Some antibiotics (such as fluoroquinolones) work by damaging bacterial DNA, causing the cells to die. However, this DNA damage can trigger a process known as the 'SOS response' in the affected bacteria. The SOS response repairs the damaged DNA in bacteria and increases the rate of genetic mutations, which can accelerate the development of resistance to the antibiotics. ...
The researchers studied a series of molecules previously reported to increase the sensitivity of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) to antibiotics, and to prevent the MRSA SOS response. MRSA is a type of bacteria that usually lives harmlessly on the skin. But if it gets inside the body, it can cause a serious infection that needs immediate treatment with antibiotics. MRSA is resistant to all beta-lactam antibiotics such as penicillins and cephalosporins.
Researchers modified the structure of different parts of the molecule and tested their action against MRSA when given with ciprofloxacin, a fluoroquinolone antibiotic. This identified the most potent SOS inhibitor molecule reported to-date, called OXF-077. When combined with a range of antibiotics from different classes, OXF-077 made these more effective in preventing the visible growth of MRSA bacteria.
In a key result, the team then tested the susceptibility of bacteria treated with ciprofloxacin over a series of days to determine how quickly resistance to the antibiotic was developing, either with or without OXF-077. They found that the emergence of resistance to ciprofloxacin was significantly suppressed in bacteria treated with OXF-077, compared to those not treated with OXF-077. This is the first study to demonstrate that an inhibitor of the SOS response can suppress the evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Moreover, when resistant bacteria previously exposed to ciprofloxacin were treated with OXF-077, it restored their sensitivity to the antibiotic to the same level as bacteria that had not developed resistance.
Scientists make potential breast cancer breakthrough after preserving tissue in gel
This will be a godsend for breast cancer patients and their doctors trying to determine the best drug treatments for them.
From The Guardian:
Scientists say they have a made a potentially “gamechanging” breakthrough in breast cancer research after discovering how to preserve breast tissue outside the body for at least a week.
The study, which was funded by the Prevent Breast Cancer charity, found tissue could be preserved in a special gel solution, which will help scientists identify the most effective drug treatments for patients. Experts found the preserved breast tissue maintained its structure, cell types and ability to respond to a series of drugs in the same way as normal breast tissue.
Published in the Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia, the research could bolster the development of new drugs to treat and prevent breast cancer, without the need for testing on animals. ✂️
Dr Hannah Harrison, a research fellow at the University of Manchester, said...“There are various risk-reducing options for women at high risk of developing breast cancer – for example, those with a significant family history or who have mutations in the BRCA [breast cancer] genes. However, not all drugs work for all women. This new approach means that we can start to determine which drugs will work for which women by measuring their impact on living tissue.Ultimately, this means that women can take the most effective drug for their particular genetic makeup.”
Harrison and her team managed to keep breast tissue viable outside the body for relatively long periods. “By testing different hydrogel formulas we were able to find a solution that preserves human breast tissue for at least a week – and often even longer,” she said.
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Good news in science
Ancient Chesapeake site challenges timeline of humans in the Americas
I love it when scientific certainties get questioned. This particular discovery opens a new window onto American prehistory and poses a lot of fascinating questions.
From The Washington Post (gift link):
With the Chesapeake Bay sloshing at his knee-high boots, Darrin Lowery stood back and squinted at a 10-foot-tall bluff rising above a narrow strip of beach. To the untrained eye, this wall of sandy sediment is the unremarkable edge of a modest island southeast of the Bay Bridge. To Lowery, a coastal geologist, its crumbling layers put the island at the center of one of the most contentious battles in archaeology: when and how humans first made their way into the Americas.
...The timeline of when people arrived has shifted earlier in grudging steps over the past century, and scientists today mostly agree people were in the Americas at least 15,000 years ago.
Lowery’s site and others like it could revise the story again, pushing back the timeline earlier than most experts thought possible. In total, Lowery and a motley crew of collaborators have discovered 286 artifacts from the site on the island’s southwestern edge. The oldest, they reported, was embedded with charcoal dated to more than 22,000 years ago, a time when much of the continent would have been covered in ice sheets.
If Lowery is right, Parsons Island could rewrite American prehistory, opening up a host of new puzzles: How did those people get here? How many waves of early migration were there? And are these mysterious people the ancestors of Native Americans?
Casts of tools found at Parsons Island are seen on display. Lowery and his team have unearthed 286 artifacts from the site so far.
‘An amazing discovery’: Scientists hit upon first nursery for hammerhead sharks in the Galápagos
Good news for sharks is good news for the health of ocean ecosystems.
From EuroNews:
Scientists have discovered what could be the first known smooth hammerhead shark nursery in the Galápagos. The vulnerable shark species - so-called for its elongated head which forms a straighter curve than the scalloped hammerhead - is rarely spotted in the marine reserve.
But after observing several young pups in a small bay at Isabela Island, the Greenpeace expedition team believe they have found a breeding ground in the archipelago - and they’re rightly excited. ✂️
Though it will take more monitoring to certify the site, the findings from Greenpeace’s six-week expedition are testament to the extraordinary biodiversity of the Galápagos Marine Reserve. ✂️
The scientists were also able to fit a satellite tracking device to a subadult smooth hammerhead for the first time in the Galápagos. … As the scientists track [the female shark’s] journey, they will be able to assess her vulnerability if she leaves the Galapágos Marine Reserve.
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Good news for the environment
How Electric Harps Are Protecting Honey Bees
What an clever solution!
From Reasons to Be Cheerful:
Asian hornets first arrived in France from China in 2004, having hitched a ride in a shipping crate. Back in their Asian homeland, they predate a diverse diet of other creatures, including honey bees. The honey bees indigenous to those territories have evolved strategies to evade the marauding hornets over time. But the hornets’ invasion of Europe caught local honey bees defenseless. According to one estimate, an Asian hornet can decapitate, dismember and feed the vulnerable European honey bees to their larvae at a rate of 30 per day.
The hornets have been causing chaos in apiaries across western Europe, penetrating deeper into the continent every year. ...[The collapse of bee colonies] not only increases the cost of honey production, but also places entire ecosystems at risk as a result of the reduced pollination activity, in which honey bees play a significant part. And this threat is no longer contained within Europe. In August 2023, scientists confirmed that Asian hornets had flown into US airspace for the first time.
It’s unclear exactly who developed the initial idea for electric harps... The concept remained relatively unknown for a while, but as scientists have produced more research that supports claims of their efficacy, more European beekeepers have adopted them. According to a recent survey of beekeepers across southwest Europe, 16 percent now use them.
Although the harps take different forms, each one is made of some sort of large frame, which is then “strung” with conductive metal wires. These are then connected to a source of electricity, often solar panels, so that the wires conduct simultaneously positive and negative charges. When a hornet flies through, its wings touch the wires on either side, completing a circuit, and thereby delivering a fatal current of electricity. Beekeepers then place the harps around their hives in positions along the hornets’ frequent flight paths. ✂️
One crucial benefit is the harps’ specificity in targeting Asian hornets. Their metal wires are spaced about two centimeters apart, which is wide enough for a bee to fly through unharmed — but not a hornet. Because of these selective dimensions, the harps offer a means of killing hornets that is better for biodiversity than other methods. A 2023 study by a group of Spanish scientists found that 91 percent of the insects that the harps killed were Asian hornets. Only one percent were domesticated honey bees.
Snow joke: Icelandic glacier makes presidential bid
This is a good example of using a headline-grabbing action to bring increased attention to a big problem.
From Positive News:
Snæfellsjökull is a glacier-capped volcano in western Iceland. It’s thought to be around 700,000 years old, but campaigners say that at the current rate of melting it could vanish altogether within the next half a century.
Aiming to position the climate crisis centre stage in Iceland’s presidential election on 1 June, they set out to have Snæfellsjökull’s glacier included on the ballot. Although they ultimately failed to garner sufficient signatures in support of the nomination, activists behind the candidacy bid say it’s just the beginning.
“It’s definitely something we’re serious about, it’s not just a stunt,” campaign member Cody Skahan told Positive News. “We have thought carefully about how the glacier might fulfil its presidential duties. ...This first campaign was just a matter of gaining momentum, seeing who’s interested, and getting people used to the idea. In the next elections, we’ll have a lot more traction, we’ll have a lot more momentum.”
On paper, Snæfellsjökull ticks all the boxes: an Icelandic president must be at least 35 years old with no criminal record. Moreover, the glacier has been a beacon of stability and perseverance in the face of challenge and hardship for millennia.
The idea to make it president came to artist and campaign manager Angela Rawlings...over a decade ago. Its origins lie in the global Rights of Nature movement, which aims to give rivers, oceans and mountains the same legal rights as humans.
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Good news for and about animals
Brought to you by Rascal, and the beautiful spirits of Rosy and Nora.
Rascal, Rosy, and Nora.
Rascal gets two stories again today!
Tiny Indian Ocean Island Shows How Quickly Seabirds Recover When Invasive Predators Are Removed
Getting rid of invasive predators is one of the best ways to bring back endangered species, especially birds.
From Good News Network:
Pair of brown noddies (by Phil Guest, CC license); and red-footed booby (by Gregg Yan, CC license)
18 years after rats were eradicated, Tromelin Island off the coast of Madagascar is a thriving colony of seabirds once again.
The same story happened over and over during the age of exploration: Europeans brought rats or rabbits on board their ships and dumped them on delicate, pristine island ecosystems. Hundreds of islands became desolate wastelands this way, damage that has for the most part been reversed, as GNN has reported, in one of the greatest conservation stories ever told.
Now, this small teardrop of sand, rock, and palm trees in the southern Indian Ocean, is the most recent example of conservationists being able to completely rewild a landscape back to a period before European contact. Spanning just 1 square kilometer, Tromelin Island is now home to thousands of breeding pairs of 7 seabird species like the masked and red-footed boobies.
By 2013, these two species had doubled in number from the precarious, rat oppressed lows of just a handful in 2004. In the subsequent 9 years, white terns, brown noddies, sooty terns, wedge-tailed shearwaters, and lesser noddies all came back on their own initiative.
Researchers discover hidden step in dinosaur feather evolution
How dinosaurs evolved from being scaly to being feathered is one of evolution’s biggest mysteries. The fossil used in this research is definitely a miraculous find: the skin preserved in the fossil is composed of glass-like silica, visible only under U-V light!
From Science Daily:
A rendering of Psittacosaurus based on the fossil used for this research.
Palaeontologists at University College Cork (UCC) in Ireland...studied a new specimen of the feathered dinosaur Psittacosaurus from the early Cretaceous (135-120 million years ago), a time when dinosaurs were evolving into birds. The study shows, for the first time, that Psittacosaurus had reptile-like skin in areas where it didn't have feathers.
[Lead palaeontologist] Dr [Zixiao] Yang says: "The fossil truly is a hidden gem. The fossil skin is not visible to the naked eye, and it remained hidden when the specimen was donated to Nanjing University in 2021. Only under UV light is the skin visible, in a striking orange-yellow glow.
"What is really surprising is the chemistry of the fossil skin. It is composed of silica -- the same as glass. This type of preservation has never been found in vertebrate fossils. There are potentially many more fossils with hidden soft tissues awaiting discovery."
The most exciting aspect of the discovery, however, is what it tells us about the evolution of feathers in dinosaurs. Prof. [Maria] McNamara, senior author on the study, says: “"The evolution of feathers from reptilian scales is one of the most profound yet poorly understood events in vertebrate evolution. While numerous fossils of feathers have been studied, fossil skin is much more rare. Our discovery suggests that soft, bird-like skin initially developed only in feathered regions of the body, while the rest of the skin was still scaly, like in modern reptiles. This zoned development would have maintained essential skin functions, such as protection against abrasion, dehydration and parasites. The first dinosaur to experiment with feathers could therefore survive and pass down the genes for feathers to their offspring."
Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office swears in new comfort dog
Rosy would definitely have applauded this story. I often thought that she would have made a wonderful comfort dog, since she loved everyone she ever met.
From KOIN:
Burton is the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office’s new comfort dog.
The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office’s new comfort dog, Burton, was officially sworn in on [May 20th].
Along with his handler, Kerri Oman, Burton, the three-year-old, long-haired German Shepherd, “will respond to calls for service to relieve stress and anxiety for families, community members and first responders, attend community events, and be an overall support to our agency,” MCSO said.
According to the sheriff’s office, comfort dogs can lower blood pressure, have a calming effect and improve cardiovascular health.
“Burton will be a valuable resource for alleviating stress and anxiety for our members and providing support during times of crisis,” Sheriff Nicole Morrisey O’Donnell said. “I am also hopeful that Burton will help facilitate community trust and confidence by breaking down barriers and encouraging positive interactions between MCSO and our community.”
Burton was donated to the sheriff’s office by the organization “Working Dogs Oregon.”
Flabby Feline Has Taken to Swimming Lessons for Losing Weight–And it’s Working
I’m not sure what Nora would have thought about this story. She definitely wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with that pool!
From Good News Network:
Moses, who weighs as much as a French bulldog, started the unusual hydrotherapy sessions in a bid to slim down in much the same way that people with bad knees, a bad back, bad hips, or too great a body mass index use pools to start exercising.
The nine-year-old cat piled on the pounds after refusing to go outside or exercise despite his owner putting him on countless diets.
At Avonvale Veterinary Centre in Wellesbourne, Warwickshire, staff say that his weight loss mission is going ‘swimmingly.’ “When he first came to us, Moses was nearly 10kg in weight,” said Olivia Stokes, veterinary hydrotherapist, meaning 22 pounds. “His owner said he had been on diets and been encouraged to exercise before but had still not been able to lose weight. So, we decided to try a different approach with hydrotherapy. I have been in the industry for five years and a qualified hydrotherapist for almost two years, and I have never experienced hydro with a cat before, so Moses was a first for me.”
Obviously this was because Moses didn’t like water, as is true for so many cats. Stokes tried a variety of toys and treats to get Moses started but eventually switched to tougher methods, including starting him on a moving treadmill before adding water. Now she says that Moses sits and waits on the treadmill for the water level to come up before starting.
“Once he has been walking for 13 minutes, I then lift him up, raise the water level further, and swim him for a couple of minutes to give him a full body workout,” she added. Moses is now starting to shape up, and as well as losing weight has become far more active and livelier at home. He is already down 2.2 pounds, and the vets see an increase in muscle tissue as well.
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