Arizona Coyotes defenseman Travis Dermott shamed the NHL into rescinding its ban on Pride tape; Scholastic might have reconsidered its stance, too

May:

There's been a trend this NHL season that has nothing to do with the sport's on-ice product. Several teams have announced plans to hold Pride Nights, during which players wear jerseys celebrating the LGBTQ+ community either during warmups or games -- or both.

But many of those plans have been scraped by teams after being made public. 

...

As the Athletic notes, five percent of the NHL's players are Russian.

"These are legitimate fears," Ben Noble, associate professor of Russian politics at University College London, told the Athletic. "'If you put on a Pride jersey, then there is uncertainty regarding how this would be interpreted by law enforcement in Russia — and that's a risk.

June:

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says the league will no longer have teams wear themed jerseys during warmups for Pride Nights or any specialty night games going forward.

Toronto Star:

Don’t you see? The NHL had a problem, and it had to solve it. NHL teams have been holding Pride nights for 10 years and ... uh, OK, there was no problem for pretty much all of that. The first NHL Pride Night was in Florida in 2013, and for almost a decade it was a lovely little inclusive thing, along with other nights: Hockey Fights Cancer, Military Appreciation and more — from Indigenous celebration nights across Canada, to South Asian Heritage Night in Winnipeg, to Gender Equity Night in New Jersey. 

CBS:

Arizona Coyotes defenseman Travis Dermott recently became the first player to challenge the NHL's ban of Pride Tape when he used it on his stick in a game against the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday. Following Dermott's decision, the NHL has rescinded its ban on players using Pride Tape, the league announced on Tuesday.

...

"It was kind of just an, 'All right, I'm doing this, and we're going to deal with the consequences and move forward, and hopefully I'll have a positive impact on some people that needed that positive impact.'"

Pride Tape is back because Travis Dermott, a completely expendable defenceman on a one-year deal just above the league minimum, had the balls to stand up for his convictions at what could have been at a cost to his career. https://t.co/vOZlwwU6WO pic.twitter.com/Wz2FkJTqa3

— Mike Beauvais (@MikeBeauvais) October 24, 2023

Supposedly Scholastic is reconsidering appeasement, too--I haven't seen this written up anywhere, and their most recent press release is still justifying their appeasement strategy:

Scholastic has sent a letter apologizing, reversing the program, and redoubling efforts to combat book banning legislation. Thank you to all who signed and shared the statement which helped instigate forward momentum for Scholastic's decision. 👏 pic.twitter.com/uoZx0mNSxu

— Vicky Fang (@fangmous) October 24, 2023

Ok but "we understand now that it was a mistake to segregate..." is one of the funniest sentences I've read in the year of our Lordicus 2023 pic.twitter.com/Y2GnY0iKGh

— Daniel José Older (@djolder) October 25, 2023

"A coach with Cuba’s first-ever Little League World Series team has gone missing"

AP:

Little League worked with the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control and the State Department to get 20 visas for the Cuban team, plus coaches and baseball officials.

Free access to books banned in your area via the Digital Public Library of America

Here's a summary from the Smithsonian:

A new program aims to change that: Earlier this month, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) launched the Banned Book Club, which provides users with free access to titles pulled from the shelves of local libraries.

...

The app uses “GPS-based geo-targeting” to stock virtual libraries across the country. After visiting TheBannedBookClub.info to see a list of titles banned in their area, readers can download those books for free via the Palace e-reader app.

British "Police and the security services have foiled 15 plots by Iran to either kidnap or kill British or UK-based individuals it considers 'enemies of the regime'"

Guardian:

The toll of attempted assassinations and abductions was made public hours after a London-based Iranian broadcaster announced it had moved operations to the US after mounting safety concerns against its journalists from Tehran.

...

Last November, armed vehicles were deployed outside the Iran International studios in Chiswick, west London, after “severe and credible” threats were made against two of its UK-based channel’s journalists.

It's a story from last month, but one I learned about from this thread asking questions about the announced Iran-Saudi Arabia rapprochement:

8. How will this deal impact Iran International, the Saudi-supported satellite TV channel that has become the most watched news channel inside Iran? Tehran has been actively trying to assassinate exiled Iranian journalists working for Iran International. https://t.co/x3HsMh2AjF

— Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) March 10, 2023

States considering prosecuting people who leave the state to get medical services; Idaho moves closer to prosecuting librarians; Disney sure has canceled a lot of its "inspiring content"

Idaho's house just passed HB 675.

It passed by a vote of 55-13.

It would make providing gender affirming care to trans teens a felony with a life sentence..

Worse... it makes leaving the state with your trans teen to move elsewhere and provide them with care a felony as well. pic.twitter.com/k3jX086h9a

— Erin, Trail Mom (@ErinInTheMorn) March 8, 2022

Summary. Text.



Missouri:

a prominent antiabortion lawmaker in Missouri, from where thousands of residents have traveled to next-door Illinois to receive abortions since Missouri passed one of the country’s strictest abortion laws in 2019, believes she has found a solution.

An unusual new provision, introduced by state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion out of state, using the novel legal strategy behind the restrictive law in Texas that since September has banned abortions in that state after six weeks of pregnancy.

Coleman has attached the measure as an amendment to several abortion-related bills that have made it through committee and are waiting to be heard on the floor of the House of Representatives.

 



Idaho:

The Idaho House of Representatives passed a bill Monday afternoon that critics said could lead to librarians being prosecuted for checking out materials that are deemed harmful to minors.

Following a long debate, the Idaho House voted 51-14 to pass House Bill 666.

...

“I would rather my 6-year-old grandson start smoking cigarettes tomorrow than get a view of this stuff one time at the public library or anywhere else”        

Disney and homophobia is trending, so here's a reminder that within a year of becoming CEO, Bob Chapek cancelled The Owl House, Nimona, and the theatrical release of Everybody's Talking about Jamie. https://t.co/Mveu3YEHGZ

— Zanzi 🇺🇦 (@tangled_zans) March 7, 2022

The Owl House, Nimona, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.



It's not all bad news:

The Senate on Tuesday passed sweeping bipartisan legislation to overhaul the US Postal Service's finances and allow the agency to modernize its operations.

The final vote was overwhelmingly bipartisan 79-19. The bill now heads to President Joe Biden's desk for his signature.

The "sound that you 'hear' is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine"

NPR on Texas's abortion law:

The Texas abortion law that went into effect this week reads: "A physician may not knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman if the physician detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child."

...

"At six weeks of gestation, those valves don't exist," she explains. "The flickering that we're seeing on the ultrasound that early in the development of the pregnancy is actually electrical activity, and the sound that you 'hear' is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine."

That's why "the term fetal heartbeat is pretty misleading," says ... an OB-GYN and associate professor at the University of California San Francisco.

"What we're really detecting is a grouping of cells that are initiating some electrical activity," she explains. "In no way is this detecting a functional cardiovascular system or a functional heart."

...

The term "fetal heartbeat" has been used in laws restricting access to abortion for years. According to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive health policy, the first such law was passed in North Dakota in 2013, but it was struck down in the courts. Since then, over a dozen states have passed similar laws, but Texas's is the first to go into effect.

"Welcome to China. You Probably Can’t Buy Anything, Though"

WSJ:

China was never an easy place for tourists, but lately just about everything seems to have gone square-shaped—as in the payment-app QR code needed to unlock much of the Middle Kingdom.

It’s how people hail taxis, consult doctors, pay for meals and book flights. Even beggars are asking for money via QR code. Not needing a wallet has simplified life for China’s 1.4 billion people, but it can leave the 140 million tourists arriving in the mainland each year helpless.

They can’t rely on familiar apps. Google is blocked in China. Uber has ceded the field to local ride-hailing app Didi. Yelp doesn’t operate in China.

The dominant payment platforms— Tencent Holdings Ltd. ’s WeChat Pay and Ant Financial Services Group’s Alipay—have been near-impossible to use without a Chinese bank account.

...

“Ten years ago it was cash for everything. Now it’s WeChat for everything,”

...

Regulators are trying to help. The People’s Bank of China has declared it illegal for businesses to refuse cash. The bank’s Shanghai branch recently said it was examining payment barriers for foreigners.

"China’s clampdown on Muslims creeps into the heartland, finds new targets"

WaPo:

Members of the Hui minority, who number 10 million, hoped that the state crackdown would not arrive here, in the fertile valleys and loess hills of Gansu province, as it had in Xinjiang, the homeland of the other major Muslim ethnic group in China, the Uighurs.

Hope faded in April. Government cranes began appearing ominously over Hui mosques. A video surfaced on social media showing workers taking apart the Gazhuang mosque’s gold dome, then smashing it into the prayer hall.

...

That tide of “Sinicization,” as Chinese policymakers call it, is surging nationwide. A recent, unescorted trip through Gansu, a corridor that once ushered Silk Road caravans and Islam into imperial China, revealed an accelerating campaign to assimilate another Muslim minority, the Hui, a Chinese-speaking people with no recent record of separatism or extremism.

...

Domes and minarets are lopped off mosques and replaced with curving Chinese roofs. News broadcasts are forbidden to show pedestrians wearing traditional Hui skullcaps or veils. Arabic script is outlawed in public spaces, so practically every restaurant has a sun-beaten facade with dark traces where the word “halal” has been scraped off.

This photo from the story strongly reminds me of the multi-level cities described in David Wingrove's epic series about China conquering the world.

"With Pens, Paper and Motorcycles, Journalists Chronicle Kashmir Crackdown"

NYT:

His workers cannot get to the printing press — they live deep in neighborhoods totally cut off.

There is no way to electronically transmit data to the printer — the Indian government has shut down mobile, internet and landline connections.

So Mr. Mohi-ud-din hand-carries the next day’s news to the presses and operates the hulking machines himself, something he has never had to do before.

At 5 a.m. he emerges, sometimes with a make-do edition that is sometimes just one sheet of paper (two sides). But he says a crowd always awaits him, the bearer of practically the only journalism available.

“People are desperate to see a newspaper,” he said.

...

The reporters have no access to the news wires or social media. They cannot fact check anything online or make phone calls. They do their work the old-fashioned way, with notebooks and pens.

"Missing Emirati princess 'planned escape for seven years'"

Guardian:

Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum is the daughter of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Dubai’s ruler and the prime minister of the United Arab Emirates. The 32-year-old has not been seen or heard from since she was grabbed by armed men about 30 miles off the coast of India in early March, according to witnesses.

The detailed planning for her doomed escape bid is laid out for the first time in a BBC documentary, Escape From Dubai, through interviews with a French ex-spy and Finnish capoeira teacher who say they helped her plan it

...

Latifa is the second of the Sheikh’s daughters to try to flee a life of a caged luxury and then vanish after reports of recapture. Her older sister, Shamsa, was seized on the streets of Cambridge after fleeing the family’s Surrey estate in 2000, in an apparent abduction never fully investigated by British police.

"In Menlo Park, Calif., Facebook is building a real community and testing the proposition: Do people love tech companies so much they will live inside them?"

NYT:

In the textile town of Lowell, Mass., in 1846, the mill clock slowed down to lengthen shifts and then sped up at night when the workers were off, according to one contemporary reformer. U.S. Steel built Gary, Ind., but took little responsibility for its employees, many of whom lived in substandard housing in crime-ridden neighborhoods.

There were more benign examples too. Milton Hershey began building a chocolate factory in the middle of Pennsylvania in 1903 and then surrounded it with a community where, he pledged, there would be “no poverty, no nuisances, no evil.” In return for surrendering certain rights — like local elections and privacy — workers in the town of Hershey got medical coverage, a free junior college, parks and a zoo.

"Turkey has removed the concept of evolution from its high school curriculum, in what critics fear is the latest attempt by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government to erode the country’s secular character"

NYT:

It “uses religion to get votes,” said Jenny White, an expert on the changing role of Islam and secularism within Turkey. “But they do not have a coherent theological, religious ideology.”

Relatedly: "Thai activist arrested for commemorating democratic revolution"

In recent years small groups of democracy activists have gathered each anniversary to lay flowers on a small bronze plaque marking the spot where revolutionaries proclaimed the end of absolute monarchy in a fiery speech lambasting the king.

But the 30-inch plaque was mysteriously removed from Bangkok's Royal Plaza this April and replaced with a new marker bearing a royalist message.

Authorities have not offered an explanation for the incident and earlier this month police banned people from gathering around the memorial on the revolution's anniversary.

On Saturday an activist, Ekachai Hongkangwan, was taken to a Bangkok military base for "attitude adjustment" after he tried to lay a replica of the original plaque on top of the new one, said Phanurat Lukboon, deputy Metropolitan Police commissioner.

The soccer team that defected from Eritrea

NY:

Despite its self-imposed isolation, Eritrea wants to be seen as a normal country, and international sporting competitions are a way to present a good face to the world. Eritrean athletes—runners, cyclists, and soccer players—are sometimes permitted to compete in other countries. The Red Sea Camels are a particular source of pride; Eritrea is no less soccer-mad than Italy or Brazil. But, embarrassingly for the government, members of the national soccer team have repeatedly defected after games abroad: Angola in 2007, Kenya in 2009, Uganda in 2012.

After the last defection, the government disbanded the team. Then, in the fall of 2015, it came up with a solution.

...

Arefaine had been contemplating escape for years. He had kept in touch with several players who defected in Uganda, and after they resettled, in Holland, he had asked them for advice on how to get asylum. The most important thing, they told him, was to persuade the entire team to go with him. Any one of his teammates who refused to go could betray him.

It was hard to know whom to trust. Some of his teammates later confessed that Eritrean security officials had asked them to inform on the others in case of an escape plot. “There was no closeness among the ten of us—we were not friends,”

"China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission"

In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."

Newsweek.