Citizen Cartwright

Note to readers

I’m going to take time off for the holidays and will be back Tuesday, Jan. 2. Warmest wishes to each of you!

Future Crunch: '66 good news stories you didn't hear about in 2023'

The artwork at the top of our Australian friends’ year-end round-up reminds us that our problems on this little planet are caused by us and can be solved by us.

 

I hope you’ll have a chance to at least scroll through Future Crunch’s top 66 examples of "how millions of lives are improving, about human rights victories, diseases being eliminated, falling emissions, how vast swathes of our planet are being protected and how entire species have been saved."

Also in the news

Israel locates major Hamas command center in Gaza City, cease-fire talks gain momentum

ProPublica: 'How verified accounts on X thrive while spreading misinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict'

WHO tracking JN.1 coronavirus variant as it spreads rapidly around the globe

AP: Senate, White House deal on U.S. border policy is closer than it seems, even as Senate leaves until Jan. 8

Federal judge blocks California law that would have banned carrying concealed guns in most public places

Descendants working to retain historic Black communities; researchers estimate fewer than 30 are left in U.S.

ProPublica’s new database on Supreme Court justices’ financial connections to companies, individuals

KFF: Deep flaws in FDA oversight of medical devices, and patient harm, shown in lawsuits, records

Colorado Supreme Court’s removal of Trump from primary ballot

The court on Tuesday was the first in the nation to find that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — which disqualifies from office people who engage in insurrection against the Constitution after taking an oath to support it — applies to former President Trump.

 

The court stayed the decision until Jan. 4, or until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the case. Colorado officials say the issue has to be be settled by Jan. 5, the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots.

 

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed nationally to disqualify Trump under Section 3, which was put in place to keep former Confederates from returning to government after the Civil War. It's been used only a handful of times since the decade after the Civil War.

 

All of Colorado’s Supreme Court justices were appointed by Democratic governors; the ruling was 4-3. The court overturned a ruling from a district court judge who found that Trump incited an insurrection for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but said he couldn't be barred from the ballot because it was unclear that the provision was intended to cover the presidency.

 

The state Supreme Court didn’t agree, siding with attorneys for six Colorado Republican and unaffiliated voters who argued that it was nonsensical to imagine that the framers of the amendment, fearful of former Confederates returning to power, would bar them from low-level offices but not the highest office in the land.

 

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said: “Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice. We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits.”

 

Several legal experts say in interviews with The New York Times that the case involves novel legal and constitutional questions for which there's no clear precedent. 

Also in the news

EU agrees on new rules to better share cost of hosting migrants, limit numbers of people coming in

 

UN Security Council votes unanimously to start withdrawal of peacekeepers from Congo by year end, after 2 decades

 

Schumer, McConnell say they’re ‘committed’ to Ukraine-border deal in January, as Senate prepares to leave town for the year

 

Senate unanimously confirms 11 top-ranking military officers, ending blockade by Alabama GOP Sen. Tuberville 

EPA to provide $600 million in anti-pollution grants through regional organizations

 

IRS to waive $1 billion in penalties for people, firms owing back taxes for 2020 or 2021

 

New York state to set up a commission to consider reparations for slavery

 

Minnesota panel chooses new state flag featuring North Star to replace flag seen as racist

 

California approves rules to recycle wastewater into drinking water

 

NASA beams ultra-high definition video 19 million miles, another step toward sending humans to Mars

 

Sandra Day O’Connor called a pioneer and ‘iconic jurist’ as she's memorialized by Biden, Roberts

Increased secrecy in local governments? Uncle Bob would have a few things to say

When some friends and I traveled to the memorial service of my beloved, never-bereft-of-a-comment Uncle Bob, we stayed at a bed and breakfast in Volant, Pa., population 126.

 

Imagine my surprise to find tiny Volant the lead example in an Associated Press article on a trend toward secrecy among local governments across the United States.

 

The Volant council, without discussion at public meetings, raised property taxes 57 percent. The unexpected hike could be a burden for the community, where half the population is over 65 and the median salary is below the state median, notes AP. Uncle Bob would not be pleased by the process or the price tag.

 

From school districts to townships and county boards, public access to records and meetings in many states is worsening, according to open government advocates and experts.

 

“It’s been going on for decades, really, but it’s accelerated the past 10 years,” says David Cuillier, director of the Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida.

 

Elected officials are discussing significant public business in closed sessions. And local agencies generally lack sufficient staff and infrastructure to efficiently process records requests. Then there's the decline of local media, which have limited resources for costly legal battles over access to meetings and records.

Compounding the issue is the increased polarization of communities nationwide, says AP. Election offices across the country have been flooded with records requests from activists motivated by election falsehoods. And school boards have become political battlegrounds over coronavirus policies and curriculum, prompting records requests, accusations of public meeting violations and intense scrutiny. 

 

This article makes me want to walk on over with Uncle Bob for a confab at Volant’s Knockin Noggin Cidery and Winery (named for Isaac Newton’s experience sitting under the apple tree). 

Also in the news

Egypt’s authoritarian President Sisi elected to third term with 89.6 percent of vote

 

Biden administration says environmental enforcement is on the upswing after a decade of budget cuts

Justice Department creates database to track records of misconduct by federal law enforcement officers

Senate confirms former Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley as Social Security commissioner, on 50-11 vote

 

Texas governor signs bill allowing police to arrest migrants who enter U.S. illegally

 

Appeals court rules that Mark Meadows can’t move Georgia election case charges to federal court

 

Some Trump fake electors from 2020 have roles in how the 2024 race is run

Google to pay $700 million and allow for greater competition in its Play app store

 

Sandra Day O’Connor, first woman on Supreme Court, lay in repose there; funeral is Tuesday at National Cathedral

Biden administration pleading with states after millions of kids lose Medicaid coverage

The clean energy ‘revolution’

“Beneath the bad climate headlines, a business and technological revolution is taking place,” says an article in The Wall Street Journal’s series “Experts look back on 2023.”

 

The expert is Jon Creyts, CEO of RMI (the Rocky Mountain Institute) a non-profit energy think tank.

 

“If you read the headlines from the past year about wildfires in Canada and Maui, hurricanes in Mexico, and the United Nations telling us we are way off track to meet climate targets, you may assume it is game over for the planet,” he writes. 

 

“From my vantage point,” Creyts says, “it’s game on.”

“There is a shift happening across the economy, accelerating markets for clean-energy solutions. Thanks to economic and technological innovation — alongside the push for greater energy security — we are seeing exponential growth in clean-energy technologies in diverse parts of the world driven primarily by markets and smart business decisions,” he says.

For example, RMI research shows that clean-energy technologies like solar power and batteries are on growth paths that will transform the electricity sector this decade, Creyts says. Solar and wind already are the cheapest form of new energy for 85 percent of the world, and RMI expects their costs to continue falling, if trends continue, by another 25 to 50 percent by 2030.

 

The Inflation Reduction Act “is the single largest commitment any government has yet made to vie for leadership in the next energy economy,” says Creyts. “And while it is still early in implementation, the legislation has already yielded a massive private response, rallying more than $300 billion in new manufacturing commitments.”

 

This fall, the International Energy Agency noted that the transition to clean energy will cost $12 trillion less than a “business as usual” scenario, meaning that saving the planet is cheaper than destroying it, Creyts says.

Also in the news

Sickle cell affects more families in Africa, India, but new gene therapies are out of their reach

 

Chile voters reject conservative constitution, after defeating leftist constitution last year

 

Senators holding up 43 Biden diplomatic nominees, who’ll have to be renominated if not confirmed soon

 

California regulators vote to extend Diablo Canyon nuclear plant's operations through 2030

 

$148 million verdict in election worker defamation case adds to Rudy Giuliani’s financial woes as he awaits criminal trial

 

NYTimes: Behind the scenes at Supreme Court's dismantling of Roe v. Wade

 

Linda Greenhouse in NYT opinion essay: 'What Sandra Day O’Connor got wrong'

Using your home’s rooftop solar to power your electric vehicles on clean electricity

 

KFF tracking how state, local governments use, misuse $54 billion in restitution from opioid makers, distributors

Future Crunch on its year-end good news roundup

Our Australian friends are working on their annual good-news summary, to be published next week. "Did you know it was the best year ever for public health, clean energy and conservation?" they say in this week’s note to readers.

 

Meanwhile, "If you're looking for a good way to spend half an hour can we suggest our new podcast episode? In 2020, a bunch of college students in the United States rented a U-haul with an idea to help their local food bank. Today, their 'one truck' mission has rescued almost 100 million kilograms [220 million pounds] of fresh produce that would otherwise have gone to waste, distributed it to people in need, and flourished into a movement across the North American continent. Check out our interview with Farmlink's co-founder, Aidan Reilly. These guys are absolutely amazing."

 

Also, Future Crunch is thanking its paying subscribers for helping it donate more than $50,000 to small charities and individuals who are "making a real difference," such as a teacher setting up a school for nomad children in Chad. Other donations include sending supplies to Turkey in the wake of the earthquake, contributing to the upgrade of a birthing clinic in Myanmar, and buying a drone and trackers for turtle conservation in Costa Rica.