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RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/April 2024
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April 2024[edit]
   | 34 |   
Two defections prevented Republicans from overriding Governor Kelly's veto on their bill that would have banned gender-affirming care for minors. |
| 43 |   Welsh politicians are considering criminalising lying by politicians. |
| 11 |  Russia Clones Wikipedia, Censors It, Bans Original |
| 36 |   UN investigators said they found remains of North Korean Hwasong-11 ballistic missiles in Kharkiv, Ukraine. This means that Russia has clearly violated North Korean weapons sanctions. |
| 22 |  First Minister Humza Yousaf will resign. He had been facing a no-confidence motion following the collapse of the SNP-Scottish Green coalition deal. |
| 18 | A Briton has been charged for masterminding an arson attack against an Ukrainian-linked target in London for the benefit of the Russian state. It has been said that he was recruited by the Wagner Group to commit arson in the UK. |
| -9 |  
Iraq has criminalised homosexual activity, with a maximum of 15 years in prison as punishment. |
| 23 |  Wagner Group mercenaries are now on the hunt for Joseph Kony. |
| 56 | The FCC votes to restore net neutrality. |
| 25 |  US military begins construction of a temporary pier to deliver aid to Gaza, including food aid. |
| -3 |  Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction has been overturned. |
| 47 | 
Homosexual activity in Dominica is now legal, as they've overturned their anti-sodomy laws. |
| 22 | US Department of Labor attempts to expand eligibility for overtime pay to millions more workers. |
| 15 |  "Burkina Faso’s military summarily executed more than 220 civilians, including at least 56 children, in two villages in late February, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch." |
| 22 | The Secret Service are preparing for the possibility of having to protect Trump while he is in jail. |
| 17 |  Mass graves of Palestinians have been found at the Al-Shifa hospital. |
| 18 | The Gateway Pundit files for bankruptcy. |
| 11 |  Taoiseach Simon Harris has formally apologised in the Dáil to the families and survivors on the government’s handling and response to the Stardust tragedy, a nightclub fire that killed 48 people in 1981. |
| 10 |  An aide of the AfD politician Maximilian Krah has been arrested. Allegedly, he spied on Chinese opposition members and repeatedly passed on secret information from the European parliament to China. Another member of the far-right party, Petr Bystron, is currently being investigated by the Czech secret service for receiving money from the Russian propaganda channel "Voice of Europe". Krah also received "compensations" for "technical expenditures" from the pro-Russian activist Oleg Woloschyn. |
| 23 | The FTC has voted to ban non-compete clauses. |
| 23 |  Prime Minister Albanese has labelled Musk ‘an arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law’ in response for not removing video showing the church stabbing. |
| 13 | An independent probe has found that Israel hasn't provided any evidence for their bullshit UNRWA allegations. |
| 13 | Judge throws out Government's case; the accused's crime? To remind jurors at a climate activist trial (with a sign outside the court) that jury nullification is a thing in England & Wales. |
| 26 | Rolling Stone has revealed that Trump's Save America Super PAC is running out of money, due to Trump's personal legal fees. |
| 8 | Despite claims that the Biden administration supports Palestinian statehood, leaked cables reveal that the US has been exerting diplomatic pressure on Security Council member states to reject a bid for full Palestinian membership in the UN, contradicting these apparently bullshit claims. Ironic how the US keeps advocating for a two state solution yet keeps rejecting the recognition of one state whilst bootlicking the other. |
| 13 |  In discussing the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, Dmitry Medvedev has proposed reintroducing the death penalty, something that would need a constitutional amendment. While former NRA member and Russian spy, now Duma deputy Maria Butina has proposed extraditing the attackers to Belarus where the death penalty exists. |
| 31 | The Future of Humanity Institute shuts down. Among other things it claimed to have a goal of reducing existential risks to humanity (earning it funds from Elon Musk among others), and it was associated with the effective altruism movement. |
| 23 | A man set himself on fire outside the Trump trial. Before doing so he scattered pamphlets about "a 'hellish fascist dystopia' that includes cryptocurrency, climate change, Covid vaccines, Palantir Technologies founder Peter Thiel, artificial intelligence, and 'The Simpsons' cartoon television show." |
| 33 |  Nestlé shareholders reject proposals to change the company's business model to focus on healthier / more nutritious products. Reason; it would possibly cost them some profit. |
| 17 | Rishi Sunak has plans to strip doctors of their ability to issue sick notes. He claims the U.K. has a "sick note culture" and that benefits have become a "lifestyle choice". No, this is totally not a headline grabbing lash-out at benefit scroungers minus any actual productive help for said people merely to tickle the bellies of Mail and Express readers due to fears of Conservative wipeout in the upcoming general election. |
| 16 |  Israel strikes Iran, possibly at multiple sites. |
| 21 | Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson introduced separate aid bills for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. This comes with resistance among a few other House Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG), who threatened an attempt to remove Johnson as Speaker due to the standalone Ukraine aid. MTG proposed an amendment to the Israel aid bill, so that it would also fund a "space laser" targeting migrants at the US-Mexico border. |
| 12 |  Republicans in Colorado's state-level Senate block a measure that would have allowed voters to decide via referendum whether child sex abuse victims can be exempted from the statute of limitations — thus allowing them to sue their abusers. The measure required a supermajority and failed by one vote, with Democrats and Republicans all voting party-line. |
| 19 |  Researchers at MIT demonstrate that LLM chatbots can be used to durably persuade some conspiracy theorists to reconsider their beliefs. (Paper here, currently in preprint.) |
| 26 | 
Sweden's parliament has passed a law that changes the minimum legal age to change your legal gender from 18 to 16. You also no longer require a gender dysphoria diagnosis. |
| 22 | SCOTUS just effectively abolished the right to mass protest in three states. |
| 15 | US House of Representatives delivers articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Senate. Roll Call suggests he will "almost certainly" not be convicted. Update: The Senate dismissed the articles of impeachment without trial. |
| 13 | David Cameron, the UK's current foreign minister, says during his visit to Israel: "It's clear the Israelis are making a decision to act", i.e. to retaliate against Iran. The US, UK, and others are likely to impose economic sanctions on Iran in the hopes these "will help persuade Israel to limit the scope of its retaliation." |
| 22 | Trump on trial in Manhattan for a hush money case. On the second day of the trial, jury selection continued, and many were disqualified because they posted memes mocking Trump online. |
| 11 |  Florida bans city and county governments from mandating heat protections for outdoor laborers beyond state and federal protections. |
| 15 | Muslim pupil loses High Court challenge to pray at school. The school fought this case on the reason they are strictly secular. However, the headteacher is also the 'Tiger Teacher' who is rigid, authoritarian, treats resistance like a steam-roller does grass and is geared solely towards exams and obedience. |
| 12 | Eternal ban on purchasing cigarettes for those born on or after 2009 in the UK passed in the Commons. As the opposition Labour Party is also in favour, it is highly unlikely to be scrapped after the upcoming elections (like in New Zealand), making it the first country to potentially have a 'smoke free' generation (unless they take up pipes or cigars). |
| 11 |  'National Conservatism' conference 'closed' by Brussels police. Cue wails of anguish, 'censorship' and 'thought police' from attendees such as everyone's fave Brits Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman. Closing the thing (if indeed it is closed) could be courting the Streisand effect as reports state attendence was rather low (~250 with a capacity for ~850). A court has now overturned the closure. |
| 13 | US CDC study finds no link between COVID-19 vaccines and deaths among young people due to heart problems. The analysis looked into death certificates in the state of Oregon, and it also found that of thirty people killed by COVID-19 in the same sample, a majority were unvaccinated. |
| 20 | 6 dead in Australian knife attack. Police officer manages to kill offender (who was actually armed and a danger to all!) using only 2-3 bullets. UPDATE: The perpetrator has been identified, but not before the usual reactionaries and pro-Putin trolls on social media (particularly Twitter) circulated several false claims attributing the attack to either a Jewish individual or a Muslim. |
| 30 | Kansas governor Laura Kelly has vetoed a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for minors, a measure to require more reporting from abortion providers, and what she called a "vague" bill making it a crime to coerce someone into having an abortion. The GOP has narrow supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. |
| 36 | Israel and the United States prepare for a possibly imminent direct military retaliation from Iran, weeks after Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus. (Update: they've done it.) |
| 26 |  Global monthly heat record broken for a tenth consecutive month, "with the past 12 months being 1.58 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels." |
| 18 | Members of the Swiss far-right SVP have put together a referendum proposal which would effectively end Swiss sanctions on Russia and China, stating that such actions would break the country's strict neutrality. |
| 36 | Global poverty and inequality have declined dramatically between 1980 and 2019, with both declines accelerating over time. By using a poverty line of $6.85 a day, poverty rates have declined from 60-70% to 50% of the global population. |
| 47 | O. J. Simpson dies at age 76. |
| 34 | Sky News has revealed that millionaire hedge fund manager Sir Paul Marshall, who is the biggest owner of GB News, is quitting as a member of the channel’s executive board. |
| 39 |  Russian troll factories are supplying Republicans such as Marjorie Taylor Greene with talking points against Ukraine. |
| 39 |  The Supreme Court of Arizona has banned abortion in all cases. Gov. Katie Hobbs has denounced the decision. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has has said she won't enforce the law. In fact, this is so bad even Kari Lake denounced the decision. |
| 7 |  It's a newsroom bloodbath in Aotearoa with Newshub, which does the news for TV channel Three and various commercial radio stations, saying it is closing down in July. On the same day, public broadcaster TVNZ said a number of news programmes including Midday, Sunday and Fair Go, are to be cut due to budget issues.
|
| 19 |  Chechnya bans all music that's not between 80-116 BPM |
| 16 |  Canada has said it's in talks about joining AUKUS, and it's planning to buy nuclear submarines. |
| 25 |   Ecuadorian police break into the Mexican embassy to arrest former vice president Jorge Glas, who's seeking asylum in Mexico. This is considered a violation of international law. Mexico has ended diplomatic relations with Ecuador over this. |
| 24 | In New Zealand a "sovereign citizen" is fined for resisting police, having just come from a 21 day jail sentence for contempt of court for disruptive behavior including the usual stuff about not recognizing the authority of the court and similar. |
| 13 |  The Spanish government has said it is following the lead of other countries and introducing plain packaging for cigarettes by the end of the year. |
| 26 |  Bernie Sanders's office in Vermont targeted by arson. Fortunately, no one was injured. |
| 7 |  The courts in the state of Hesse have ordered a chain of human-free digital supermarkets to close on Sundays and public holidays, as they violate Sunday trading laws.
|
| 37 |  ‘Severely decreased their sexual intimacy with their husbands’: Indiana appeals court uses Mike Pence’s religious liberty law to block abortion ban |
| 23 | Björn Höcke has been charged with using a Nazi slogan, again. |
| 30 |  The city of Enid, Oklahoma, has voted out city council commissioner Judd Blevins after it was revealed he was a neo-Nazi who ran a Groyper Twitter account and attended Charlottesville. |
| 35 | The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal. |
| 19 | A former Massachusetts city councilor who was charged with possession of child pornography in 2020, has skipped his trial and has been found working for the Russian Army in the War in Ukraine. |
| 17 |  Italian island offers goats up for adoption. |
| 19 | The Guardian reports that the Conservatives planned to create a “True Blue” app to track party members and allow companies to "geo-market" products to users based on their location.
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| 32 | The Guardian reports that Truth Social was nearly bankrupt in 2022, but was saved by loans by a Russian-American who was under criminal investigation and a Dominican bank that is used to evade sanctions.
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| 29 |  Amazon is scrapping its “Just Walk Out” feature in its Amazon Go grocery stores, as they revealed that in reality it is just a load of Indian workers watching cameras. |
| 15 |  An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 hits the city of Hualien, leaving some buildings to look like the Tower of Pisa. 9 people died and 821 injured and counting. |
| 17 | The World Central Kitchen has halted its humanitarian work in the Gaza Strip after the IDF struck three of their vehicles, killing seven WCK workers. Bellingcat believes these strikes to have been from low-yield munitions. |
| 18 | Ukraine lowers military conscription age from 27 to 25. |
| 20 | Abortion rights and recreational marijuana legalization will be separately put to the test on Florida ballot initiatives this November. The same day, Florida's supreme court has allowed enforcement of the exact 15-week abortion ban which one of said ballot initiatives could overturn. |
| 26 |  Netanyahu has threatened Al Jazeera and other foreign news providers with expulsion by a new security law which will restrict foreign broadcasters. |
| 27 |  6 killed as Israel strikes Iran embassy annex in Damascus |
| -32 | Unraveling Havana Syndrome: New evidence links the GRU's assassination Unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on U.S. officials and their families. A yearlong investigation by The Insider, in collaboration with 60 Minutes and Der Spiegel, has uncovered evidence suggesting that unexplained anomalous health incidents, also known as Havana Syndrome, may have their origin in the use of directed energy weapons wielded by members of Russian GRU Unit 29155. |
| 38 |  Hochdeutsch (hochdeutsch = high German, 'standard' German) has gained another meaning as Germany has formally legalised cannabis. Germans can now possess up to 25g of pot, or have up to three plants at home. |