To extrapolate:

People often say that one should not worry about what others think of them, but life simply doesn't work that way. What other people think of you really does matter; point-in-fact, it can be everything depending on what field you go into.

Like say, for example, you're a business owner and you're recorded arguing with an angry Karen of a customer, the video's posted online, and the internet sides with the Karen. Then, people boycott your business and you're left without a livelihood.

Or perhaps you say something crass and get cancelled. Or simply anger or inconvenience someone with a lot of influence.

Or, even more horrifyingly, say you were assaulted and you came forward, and were ostracized and shunned by your community as a result.

How could one set up their life such that it would be impossible for people like that to rob one of their livelihood? How could one make it impossible for others to shun or ostracize them?

How could a business owner set up their bu

Six people were killed in the unprecedented wildfires that tore through the Hawaiian island of Maui overnight, authorities said.

The fires, fanned by strong winds from Hurricane Dora, destroyed businesses in the historic town of Lahaina, and left at least two dozen people injured, officials said at a press conference Wednesday. There have been 13 evacuations for three fires.

Rescuers with the US Coast Guard pulled a dozen people from the ocean water off Lahaina after they had dived in to escape smoke and flames. Burn patients have been flown to the island of Oahu, officials said.

Delivering a win for abortion rights advocates, Ohio’s Issue 1 will fail, the Associate Press projects. The Republican-backed ballot initiative would have increased the threshold to amend the state's constitution, making it more difficult for a measure that would enshrine abortion rights into the state's constitution to pass later this year.

A "yes" vote on Issue 1 meant that constitutional amendments, including the abortion amendment, would have needed 60% support, rather than the existing minimum of 50% plus one. The increased threshold would have been put into place immediately if Issue 1 had passed.

Issue 1 also would have created more strict signature requirements for citizen-led measures to appear on the ballot. Currently, organizers must collect a number of signatures equal to 5% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election from half of Ohio’s 88 counties. If Issue 1 had passed, organizers would have needed signatures from all 88 counties.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/3476435

Air pollution is helping to drive a rise in antibiotic resistance that poses a significant threat to human health worldwide, a global study suggests.

The analysis, using data from more than 100 countries spanning nearly two decades, indicates that increased air pollution is linked with rising antibiotic resistance across every country and continent.

It also suggests the link between the two has strengthened over time, with increases in air pollution levels coinciding with larger rises in antibiotic resistance.

“Our analysis presents strong evidence that increasing levels of air pollution are associated with increased risk of antibiotic resistance,” researchers from China and the UK wrote. “This analysis is the first to show how air pollution affects antibiotic resistance globally.” Their findings are published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the fastest-growing threats to glo

A dramatic brawl on the Montgomery, Alabama, riverfront pitted people standing up for a Black riverboat worker against a group of white people who began beating him for telling them to move their illegally parked pontoon.

The Saturday night fight, which was captured in multiple videos posted to social media, appeared to unfold largely along racial lines. And many social media users celebrated footage of the riverfront dust-up, which showed the white assailants get the tables turned on them by Black people who rushed to the riverboat worker’s aid.

“This is not … 1963 anymore,” read one comment, alluding to the year before the signing of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of race.

Montgomery police confirmed they responded to reports of a disturbance on the 200 block of Coosa Street in the area of the Montgomery riverfront park. They said officers had “located a large group of subjects engaged in a physical altercation”.

“Several subjects have been det

A voting rights group in Florida filed a lawsuit against the rightwing governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, saying his administration created a maze of bureaucratic and sometimes violent obstacles to discourage formerly incarcerated citizens from exercising their right to vote.

Florida voters in 2018 overwhelmingly passed a constitutional referendum, called amendment 4, that lifted the state’s lifetime voting ban for people with felony convictions.

Yet what ensued in the years since 2018 was an aggressive campaign, led by DeSantis, to sow confusion and fear among formerly incarcerated people. The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC), which championed amendment 4, said state officials have continued to disenfranchise 1.4 million Florida residents – roughly a quarter of the state’s eligible Black voters.

A Republican-backed spending bill threatens to end national access to mail-order abortion pills and cut billions from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) that provides low-income families with food benefits.

The legislation is part of a spate of appropriations bills that lawmakers will debate this month, and which Congress must reach a decision on by the end of September in order to pass a budget for the 2024 fiscal year and avoid a federal shutdown. It was already approved by a House appropriations subcommittee in May, while being condemned by Democrats and causing internal rifts among Republicans. Republicans have added several provisions to the bill that would have wide-ranging effects on reproductive rights, health policy and benefits. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, at the Capitol in May.

The food and agriculture spending bill is the latest front in the rightwing campaign against reproductive rights. In the year since the supreme court overtu

A vital ocean current system that helps regulate the Northern Hemisphere's climate could collapse anytime from 2025 and unleash climate chaos, a controversial new study warns.

The Atlantic Meridional Ocean Current (AMOC), which includes the Gulf Stream, governs the climate by bringing warm, tropical waters north and cold water south.

But researchers now say the AMOC may be veering toward total breakdown between 2025 and 2095, causing temperatures to plummet, ocean ecosystems to collapse and storms to proliferate around the world. However, some scientists have cautioned that the new research comes with some big caveats.

The AMOC can exist in two stable states: a stronger, faster one that we rely upon today, and another that is much slower and weaker. Previous estimates predicted that the current would probably switch to its weaker mode sometime in the next century.

Related: Gulf Stream could be veering toward irreversible collapse, a new analysis warns

But human-caused climate ch

Spain appears destined for painful political negotiations after Sunday’s elections, when no single party won enough parliamentary seats to form a government. Prospects for coalition-building now remain uncertain.

With over 99% of the vote counted, the center-right Partido Popular (PP) is set to come in first, winning 136 seats. The upstart far-right Vox party, a possible coalition partner to PP, is forecast to win 33 seats.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s ruling center-left Socialist party meanwhile is on course to win 122 seats, with likely coalition partners Sumar at 31 seats.

Former President Donald Trump's trial into his handling of classified documents is set for May 20, 2024. It's one of several criminal and civil cases Trump faces as he runs for president.

Trump, who has pleaded not guilty in the documents case, called it an "empty hoax."

The Justice Department wanted the trial to start in December; Trump's legal team wanted to push it past the 2024 election.

Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia Law School, said U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's order Friday setting a May 20, 2024, trial date was "an appropriate and reasonable effort to balance the legitimate needs of the defendants against the need to move the case forward as expeditiously as possible."

But the legal complexities involved, the quantity of classified evidence, and Cannon's lack of experience in such a case could contribute to lingering delays and headaches for prosecutors, Richman and other legal experts told NPR.

"[Cannon] doesn't have any experience in criminal cases inv

Rightwing organizations in Ohio are trying their best to tank the abortion rights constitutional amendment that’s on the ballot in November. Their latest tactic? Link the language of the referendum, which would protect abortion rights, to the conservative boogeyman du jour: demonizing trans people.

The “how” here is a bit confusing, though. There are two upcoming elections in Ohio. In November, citizens will vote on enshrining (or not) abortion rights in the state constitution. Earlier this month, advocates turned in more than 700,000 signatures (more than double the requirement!) to get the amendment on the ballot.

But first, in August, citizens will vote on amending the state constitution amendment process, a ballot initiative called Issue 1. Currently, like most reasonable places, only a majority of voters need to approve a state constitutional amendment. But conservatives want to raise that threshold to 60 percent, which would have the immediate impact of making it harder to add

The Powerball lottery is up to $1 billion tonight. If you won it, what would you do?

If so, what's your favorite place to get it from?

If not, would you want to try it?

Because not gonna lie, that was my favorite of the Civ games, if it counts as one.

A Republican LGBTQ group has blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) over an ad released by his presidential campaign that the organization called “homophobic.”

Log Cabin Republicans, the largest GOP organization representing LGBTQ individuals, said in a tweet that DeSantis’s message for his presidential campaign is “divisive and desperate” and is alienating swing-state and younger voters.

“Conservatives understand that we need to protect our kids, preserve women’s sports, safeguard women’s spaces and strengthen parental rights, but Ron DeSantis’ extreme rhetoric goes has just ventured into homophobic territory,” the group said.

The DeSantis campaign released the ad on Friday, the last day of Pride Month, attacking former President Trump for statements he has made in support of the LGBTQ community. The post accompanying the video states that Trump “did more than any other Republican to celebrate” Pride.

The ad features clips of Trump saying he would “do everything in my power” to

So here's a table of the legal status of LGBTQ+ Americans, by state and by what kind of law each state has. It's... not looking good out there right now, but as long as we all have each other, we can make it.