Did you read any positive news lately?

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Alessandra Kelley

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AHHHHHHHHH!

THE SUPREME COURT SAYS YOU CAN'T FIRE SOMEONE FOR BEING LGBTQ+ IN THE WORKPLACE!

Supreme Court says federal law protects LGBTQ workers from discrimination


Federal civil rights law protects gay, lesbian and transgender workers, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The landmark ruling will extend protections to millions of workers nationwide and is a defeat for the Trump administration, which argued that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act that bars discrimination based on sex did not extend to claims of gender identity and sexual orientation.

The 6-3 opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's four liberal justices.

Also:
https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1272534362085642241
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

And the Supreme Court declined to hear the case that You Know Who's administration made which would have dismantled California's Sanctuary State laws. Sanctuary State laws remain in place. Oregon has them too.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

Roxxsmom

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Victoria Gray, the first person to receive CRISPR gene-editing therapy for a genetic disorder, is doing very well a year after her treatment. After months of careful testing, the benefits of her treatment do not appear to be waning. It's early yet, but his is really hopeful news for the millions of people who live with Sickle Cell Disease and with other genetic disorders. I think it takes a lot of courage to volunteer for a procedure like this, and I hope she continues to thrive.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...e-editing-for-sickle-cell-disease-is-thriving
 

RC turtle

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Victoria Gray, the first person to receive CRISPR gene-editing therapy for a genetic disorder, is doing very well a year after her treatment. After months of careful testing, the benefits of her treatment do not appear to be waning. It's early yet, but his is really hopeful news for the millions of people who live with Sickle Cell Disease and with other genetic disorders. I think it takes a lot of courage to volunteer for a procedure like this, and I hope she continues to thrive.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...e-editing-for-sickle-cell-disease-is-thriving

Any chance you can point me to an article that explains clearly the nuts and bolts of how this works?
 

Roxxsmom

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Here's an earlier article, from last year, on Victoria Gray and her treatment.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...-through-a-pioneering-gene-editing-experiment

These articles talks a bit more how CRISPR works specifically for sickle cell disease.

https://www.synthego.com/crispr-sickle-cell-disease

https://www.advancedsciencenews.com/the-first-crispr-gene-therapy-to-cure-sickle-cell-disease/

What they have done is introduced a genetic change to the stem cells in her bone marrow, so they produce fetal hemoglobin. In this case, they determined that this approach was easier than deleting and replacing the faulty gene for adult hemoglobin. It's not so much a cure as a therapy that allows for the fetal hemoglobin to be able to supplement the patient's own faulty hemoglobin, as I understand it, and it prevents many of the disease's complications.
 

Lyv

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I love this:

How Arlington’s Sarah Kamya Is Diversifying Little Free Libraries Across the Country

When the COVID-19 pandemic sent workers everywhere home, Sarah Kamya, a school counselor in New York City, decamped to her hometown of Arlington, Massachusetts. To pass the time in lockdown, she started taking long walks around her neighborhood, and made a discovery as she traveled her daily route—the books in the three little free libraries she passed by were predominately stories about white characters written by white authors.

So, when the Black Lives Matter protests began to pick up steam at the beginning of June, and Kamya began to see people looking for places to donate money to fight racism and support the movement, she had a suggestion.


“I posted on my Instagram and said, ‘Here’s something you can do, and I’ll make it super easy for you,'” Kamya recounts. Her plan? Collect a few donations via Venmo from her followers, and then use those funds to buy diverse books to disperse throughout Arlington’s little free libraries, the neighborhood book exchanges where people are encouraged to take a book or leave a book. Often housed in cheery little boxes on well-trafficked street corners, there are over 50 little free libraries sprinkled across Boston, Cambridge and Somerville alone.


Within an hour of posting, Kamya received $1,000 in donations—and the project only grew from there. She’s now fully stocked the little free libraries in Arlington, and has sent more books to little free libraries in Beverly, Wellesley, Lexington, Charlestown, Cambridge, Medford, and the Boston area. In the month since she received her first donations, Kamya has raised over $12,000—$5,000 of which came from Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest’s morning show, Live with Kelly and Ryan, after she was featured as one of the show’s “Helping Heroes”— and she has purchased about 624 books from Black-owned bookstores across the country. Kamya’s project, dubbed Little Free Diverse Libraries on social media, also gained the attention of Instagram fashion maven Eva Chen, who encouraged Kamya to create an Amazon Wishlist to make donating books a simpler process. Chen then shared the Amazon list to her 1.4 million Instagram followers, and nearly 600 books from the list have been dropped off at Kamya’s home since.

More at the linked article.

I've been diversifying my neighborhood association's Little Free Library for years, but I haven't checked it lately. Might be time for a walk and see what shape it's in (I'll order some appropriate books from More than Words, a bookstore that exists to empower and assist kids in the foster system. It's one of my favorite places, the location my memorial service would have been held if you could still do those and I weren't now trying to stick around to help my husband through this mess).
 

MaeZe

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BBC: Young skater goes viral performing at Black Lives Matter Plaza


She's nine, beautiful and very good.
A video of Kaitlyn Saunders skating on the square opposite the White House has amassed over 5 million views.

The nine-year-old decided she wanted to contribute after hearing about the protests.

Kaitlyn's mother Katrice said she was "in awe" of her daughter skating there.

In early June, the mayor of Washington DC named the square outside the White House Black Lives Matter Plaza in a rebuke to President Trump after he had ordered authorities to forcibly remove peaceful protesters so he could cross the street to take a photo in front of a church.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, also unveiled a two-block-long mural painted onto the street leading up to the White House declaring "Black Lives Matter"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxYv8ybU_Rg
Kaitlyn Saunders, @the.skate.kid on Instagram, improvises a figure skating performance on Black Lives Matter Plaza. Skating to “Rise Up” by Andra Day, Kaitlyn expresses her hope for the future admist the social unrest. She wants all people to feel “free” - the feeling she gets while skating.

Not sure why the link isn't working. I hit 'learn more' and then play and it started playing.
 
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Roxxsmom

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Sonya Heaney

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Okay, this isn't exactly "good news", but I keep randomly giggling about it. In Canberra - Australia's capital city, and my home - we have compulsory two-week isolation for people returning from interstate or overseas.

And ... Apparently when the police have been checking on people, they keep answering the door naked!
 
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Lyv

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That's wild, Sonya. And I like "in the nuddy."

Statue of Black protester replaces toppled UK slave trader

Marc Quinn created the life-size resin and steel likeness of Jen Reid, a protester photographed standing on the plinth after demonstrators pulled down the statue of Edward Colston and dumped it in Bristol’s harbor on June 7.

The statue, titled “A Surge of Power (Jen Reid)” was erected before dawn on Wednesday without approval from city officials.


Reid, who came to inspect her likeness, said “it's something that fills me with pride.”

The statue is beautiful.
 

frimble3

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And I like that it's a statue of a specific person, as was the statue it replaced! They could have done it as a generic 'protester', but this makes it so much more real, and more of an equivalent trade.<br><br>Even in other locations, where they 'can't' dispose of a slave-trader statue, put up a statue of her or some local figure, facing him down.
 
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cbenoi1

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Chris Evans sending 'Captain America' shield to little boy who saved sister from dog attack
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/16/entertainment/chris-evans-little-boy-dog-attack/index.html

The Captain America star sent a video message to Bridger Walker, 6, who saved his four-year-old sister from a dog attack. Walker was badly injured requiring a two-hour surgery and 90 stitches to his face.
"Captain America here, so I read your story, I saw what you did and I'm sure you heard a lot of this over the last couple days, but let me be the next one to tell you, pal, you're a hero, what you did was so brave, so selfless, your sister is so lucky to have you as a big brother. Your parents must be so proud of you," Evans said in a video message posted to an Instagram page started by Walker's aunt. "I'm going to track down your address and I'm going to send you an authentic Captain America shield because pal, you deserve it."

-cb
 

Maryn

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cbenoi1

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Captain Tom Moore knighted by the Queen and jokes: 'If I kneel down I'll never get up again'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...moore-knighthood-sir-knighted-queen-ceremony/

Capt Sir Tom led a fundraising effort that encouraged members of the public to donate tens of millions of pounds to NHS charities via a JustGiving page during the coronavirus lockdown, resulting in £32.7 million being raised. He received his honour in exceptional circumstances - outside of the usual timescale for knighthoods, and at a time when the pandemic has led to the postponement of all other honours being conferred. It has marked another special day in an extraordinary few months for the man that Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who made the nomination for the knighthood, described as a "national treasure".

-cb
 

FletcherHavarti

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In Rochester, New York, two drunk college students toppled a statue of Frederick Douglass in 2018.

On July 5, a different Rochester statue of Douglass was toppled. The former college students volunteered to install its replacement.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ed-ny-statue-help-install-new-one/5451277002/

I'm usually happy to see my hometown come up in the headlines... but tearing down Frederick Douglass statues is not a great reason to be in the news. At least these two guys are trying to do something to make up for it.

There are two honorary Rochesterians that one does not mess with: Douglass and Susan B. Anthony.
 

Maryn

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Amen. I love how every election day, Susan B's headstone at Mount Hope is covered with "I Voted" stickers.
 

MaeZe

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RB Ginsburg is actually on the mend. She apparently released the news about her liver cancer only after it was responding to treatment. It was discovered last Feb, the tumors are shrinking.

NYT, looks like open access but this is the key part of the story:
She said that the lesions on her liver had been detected in February and had been reduced by the chemotherapy. “Satisfied that my treatment course is now clear,” she said “I am providing this information.”
 

frimble3

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RB Ginsburg is actually on the mend. She apparently released the news about her liver cancer only after it was responding to treatment. It was discovered last Feb, the tumors are shrinking.

NYT, looks like open access but this is the key part of the story:

Smart woman to keep the information to herself. Must have been a hard few months, but better than having your enemies rubbing their hands with glee and gloating. Not to mention sending 'Don't get well soon, you might as well just give up now' cards.
Brave woman, hang in there!
 

Introversion

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Northern California Esselen tribe regains ancestral land after 250 years

The Guardian said:
Two-hundred and fifty years after they were stripped of their ancestral homeland, the Esselen tribe of northern California is landless no more.

This week, the Esselen tribe finalized the purchase of a 1,200-acre ranch near Big Sur, along California’s north central coast, as part of a $4.5m acquisition that involved the state and an Oregon-based environmental group.

The deal will conserve old-growth redwoods and endangered wildlife such as the California condor and red-legged frog, as well as protect the Little Sur River, an important spawning stream for the imperiled steelhead trout.

Tribal leaders say they’ll use the land for educational and cultural purposes, building a sweat lodge and traditional village in view of Pico Blanco peak, the center of the tribe’s origin story.

“We’re the original stewards of the land. Now we’re returned,” Tom Little Bear Nason, chairman of the Esselen tribe of Monterey county, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

“We are going to conserve it and pass it on to our children and grandchildren and beyond.”

...
 

frimble3

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https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/worl...saved-jews/ar-BB17pSpr?li=AAggFp4&OCID=FIRPLC

Chiune Sugihara, Japanese diplomat, saved thousands of Jews in WWII by writing them transit visas to Japan, while he was working in Lithuania.

There is a little museum to him in his old consulate in Lithuania, but, with COVID, there are no tourists, and therefore no money. (Most of the tourists were Japanese.)
But, the good people of Mr. Sugihara's home in Japan raised a chunk of money to help the museum survive, and are promising more in the fall.

Even if he was working without his government's approval at the time, a brave man lives long in memory.
 
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