RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/June 2021

June 2021
Based on an earlier petition that the EU received from 1.4 million citizens, both the European Commission and the European Parliament have agreed to phase out caged animal farming in its entirety by 2027. Will Brazil manage to do to Bolsonaro what America couldn't do to Trump? Bolsonaro’s impeachment ‘super motion’ lodged in the Chamber Ireland's largest high-interest lender Provident has said it is closing its business, no longer collecting any monies, and any debts people have with the provider would be written off. Bush Defense Secretary and architect of the Afghan and Iraq wars, Donald Rumsfeld has died. The UK's third-largest Protestant denomination, the Methodist Church has overwhelmingly voted to allow same-sex marriages to be performed in its churches. Pennsylvania's Supreme Court overturns Bill Cosby's rape conviction. Another day, another residential school, another 182 bodies. Leaked documents reveal that the membership of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans includes VIPs, military officers and elected officials, and that the neo-confederate organization has been growing over a desire to protect confederate statues It has been revealed that one of the biggest corporate sponsors to the GOP, especially to candidates who believed that the 2020 vote was fraudulent, is the Japanese motor manufacturer Toyota. YouTube has permanently banned the media watchdog group Right Wing Watch, and denied their appeal. As of writing, YouTube has not responded to a request for comment. Update: Article says ban is removed and was "a mistake". Despite having good ratings at the start, GB News has been trounced in viewing figures by Welsh language programmes in the ratings including the soap Pobol y Cwm and the children's programme Patrôl Pawennau (Paw Patrol).

Social reformer and women's education champion will be the first woman to appear on a Royal Bank of Scotland banknote, No ET, no answers: A comprehensive intelligence report on 143 UFOs (of which 18 have "unusual movement patterns or flight characteristics") is finally released. After being caught on CCTV breaking COVID regulations by kissing and hugging his mistress Gina Coladangelo, and then giving her a paying non-executive directorship in the health service, Matt Hancock has resigned as Health Secretary. Update: Randian former chancellor Sajid Javid has been chosen to replace Hancock. China recognizes Argentina's claim over the Falklands Derek Chauvin, convicted of murdering George Floyd, sentenced to 22.5 years in jail. Since the beginning of the War on Terror, suicides have taken more than four times as many lives among active-duty US military personnel than combat. Voters in a referendum on the British overseas territory of Gibraltar have voted to liberalise the territory's strict abortion laws. Rudy Giuliani suspended from NYS Bar Association over election lies; The court cited "there is uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign." (PDF) An archeological expedition led by the Cowessess First Nation has announced its discovery of 751 mostly unmarked graves on the former grounds of the Marieval Indian Residential School and 215 similar graves were found at another. We don't know if there are any more to be found. The children were neglected and many were abused Because the children were neglected so many of them died. The Roman Catholic Church ran these two schools and the people running them must have known too many children were dying. Yet those running the schools continued unrepentent with bad practise till so many were dead. Then Catholics try to lecture the rest of us on what they consider gravely sinful. One benefit of EU membership, tariff-free mobile phone roaming across the EU has been scrapped by the UK's biggest networks EE from January 2022. While another one, O2 is lowing its data limit. Connecticut legalizes recreational pot Florida moves towards authoritarianism by requiring college students and professors to register their political views

TV commercials for foods high in salt, sugar and fat will only be allowed to air in the UK between 9:00 at night and 5:30 in the morning. John McAfee, computer security pioneer and libertarian eccentric, has been found dead in a Spanish prison shortly after a court granted his extradition to the US on tax charges. In light of a lawsuit that claimed Subway's tuna sandwiches contained no tuna, laboratory tests detected "no tuna DNA in 60 inches of tuna sandwiches that were examined." This could be because there is no tuna, or it's been so processed as to make DNA unidentifiable. The British government is planning to sell the publicly-owned, commercial broadcaster Channel 4. Proposals for schoolchildren to sing a government-backed patriotic song “One Britain, One Nation” on Friday, have been seen as a spoof and cringeworthy. Alan Turing, the computer pioneer who helped save the world from Nazism before being persecuted by his own country for being gay, appears on the new £50 note that has just gone into circulation. Carl Nassib of the Las Vegas Raiders is the first active NFL player to come out as gay. Barnaby Joyce sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister "after Michael McCormack was ousted in a leadership spill." An investigation by ITV News has found a UK Amazon warehouse has been destroying millions of items of unsold stock, including expensive electronics and needed PPE, each year. New Zealand weighlifter Laurel Hubbard has been chosen to become the first transgender [ AMAB ] athlete to compete at the Olympics. Germany is planning to outlaw flying the flag of Hamas, by putting it on the list of prohibited symbols in German Criminal Code. This would put the flag on the same level as flying the Nazi swastika flag, and black flag of ISIS. China has launched its first crew to the Tianhe module, which is the first module of the Tiangong space station. [https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1007363054/congress-is-poised-to-take-back-some-of-its-war-powers-from-the-president The House of Representatives voted to repeal 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which allowed the United States to invade Iraq during the Iraq War. The bill passed 268-161 and now moves to the senate.] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/15/hungary-passes-law-banning-lbgt-content-in-schools In an audacious effort to further curtail the modicum of rights the LGBTQIA+ community even possesses in Hungary, the government has passed a law which outright bans any LGBTQIA+ presence in under-18 television shows or in school materials for underage constituents. This comes as the far-right Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and his party Fidesz set out to assail the LGBTQIA+ communities in Hungary.] [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-840_6jfm.pdf By a 7-2 vote, the US Supreme Court has upheld Obamacare and rejected a last-ditch legal effort by Republican-controlled states to overturn the healthcare law. The two dissents were Alito and Gorsuch]. GB News, the pro-Brexit, anti-woke, poor cousin to Fox News launches, and is a prefect mix of amateur hour mistakes and long monologues about how they're a station that won't do long monologues. Highlight so far, besides badly spelled chyrons, is a guest who felt the need to explain the difference between a pedophile and ephebophile, when defending Jeffery Epstein. US to add federal holiday marking end of slavery. Turns out that story about the 10 babies (see below) appears to be a mix of some weird hoax, and very shoddy journalism. Allegations have been uncovered that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficing ring also included the United Kingdom, and questions have been raised about why it was not investigated by the Metropolitan Police. Legislation has been put forward to allow gardaí [police] to demand passwords for devices when carrying out search warrants. The Isle of Man holds its first ever Pride event.

Gay men in sexually active monogamous relationships are finally allowed to donate blood in England, Scotland and Wales. He's out! Benjamin Netanyahu has been ousted as prime minister of Israel, however far-right politician Naftali Bennett has been sworn in as prime minister. Rupert Murdoch has written down the value of The Sun newspapers to zero as the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic helped to fuel a £200m loss at his flagship tabloid titles. The Keystone XL Pipeline project has been terminated. EDIT: South African woman allegedly gave birth to 10 babies, only for it to turn out to be a hoax. This is one month after another woman (also from Africa) broke the record with 9 babies. El Salvador's president has said he is proposing a bill which would make the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, the country's second official currency together with the American dollar. Update: Bill has been approved by the Salvadoran congress, and it is now official. Tamil Nadu set to become the first state to ban conversion therapy after Madras High Court ruling in favor of lesbian couple A Toronto statue of Egerton Ryerson, the founder of the Indian Residential Schools system, whose system was the site of a massacre of 215 Indigenous children in Kamloops, has been pulled down. Also a petition by the resident faculty of the namesake university, has demanded that the university change its name. David Dushman, last surviving liberator of Auschwitz, dies aged 98 Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows put forward the bizarre and laughable claim that Italian military satellites interfered with voting machines to change the votes from Trump to Biden. 70 metre replica of Noah's Ark is impounded as unseaworthy in England. Just as well the real Noah didn't have such busybodies. Finance ministers of the G-7 have provisionally agreed to create a minimum corporation tax of 15%, and to curb the tax avoidance of the big tech. Scottish "gender critical feminist" Marion Millar has been arrested for alleged homophobic and transphobic tweets. Millar works for For Women Scotland, an organisation which has taken a prominent role in suing organisations that accept trans women are women and has campaigned against self-declaration of identity. The statue of slave trader Edward Colston, thrown into the sea in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest last year, goes on temporary display in a nearby museum, complete with the damage it sustained last year and alongside placards from the protest. A heavily armed apocalyptic cult run by the son of the Moonies founder with ties to Trumpists bought a Texas compound to prepare for war with the deep state Arizona plans to use Zyklon B in its gas chamber. You know, the stuff those guys used. The NFT market bubble has popped and here's the charts to prove it The world's largest meat processor, JBS, is hit with a ransomware attack believed to originate in Russia, threatening to disrupt the meat supply. Joe Biden suspends leases granting permission to drill for oil and gas in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that were sold by Donald Trump.