RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/August 2023

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August 2023[edit]

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32United States Proud Boy Joe Biggs sentenced to 17 years in Jan. 6 seditious conspiracy case.
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34United States Biden administration may loosen federal marijuana scheduling, following a review and recommendation by the Department of Health and Human Services. The Drug Enforcement Administration will conduct its own review.
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28Russia Russian government concedes the obvious: Wagner Group leader Prigozhin's plane crashing may have been due to "deliberate wrongdoing".
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-4United States MrBeast has been criticized as a "White Savior", because "orphanages across the world are set up to exploit children for profit, exposing children to harm and abuse. By promoting orphanages, even well-intentioned ones, we promote the work of those that are not, continuing the cycle of exploitation."
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34CanadaGay Pride Flag.svg United States Canada has officially issued a travel advisory update warning queer people about the dangers of entering the U.S.
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19Gabon Gabon's military started a coup d'état on August 30 as a result of Ali Bongo OndimbaWikipedia being re-elected as president on the 29th.
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31United States Thanks to Trump-enabled COVID-19 denialism, more US dog owners are "questioning" the "safety" of the rabies vaccine.Wikipedia
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25Australia As part of the fallout of Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull's #LetWomenSpeak rally earlier this year, Victoria is banning Nazi saluting in public.
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43European Union Young activists from Europe that are close to Greta Thunberg are demanding that the environmental group Greenpeace change its stance on nuclear power. They say that that the charity’s viewpoint is old-fashioned, and is indirectly supporting the fossil fuel industry, by making the transition to green energy harder.
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7United StatesIsraelSaudi ArabiaPalestine The US is attempting to mediate a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, though the Saudis are asking for concessions from both Israel and the US, such as access to American weaponry, help with a civilian nuclear program, and a path to statehood for the Palestinians.
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-33Denmark Denmark is considering a law that would make it a crime to desecrate holy books in public.
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4France France will be banning abaya dresses in state schools.
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8United StatesFlorida. Cuba Tropical Storm Idalia is about to hit Florida & Cuba on Monday, bringing high winds and storm surges later in the week. There's a big chance Idalia could become a Hurricane, given its current strength.
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36United StatesGay Pride Flag.svg Major right-wing groups have formed a coalition to criminalize LGBT via criminalizing porn; they would define any LGBT content as porn. They add: "people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders."
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47UkraineSerbiaRussia Serbia breaks with Russia (its historical ally), vowing friendship with Ukraine and calling for the reintegration of Crimea into Ukraine.
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7United StatesFlorida. Racist shooting in Jacksonville, Florida at a Dollar General store. Four killed, including the shooter.
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25United States The U.S. is suing SpaceX for hiring discrimination against asylum recipients and refugees.
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35United StatesCalifornia. Trans flag.svg Charges dropped against trans man who had the shit kicked out of him by thuggish cop on live video.
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43United StatesGeorgia (U.S. State). Trump's mugshot has arrived.
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34BrazilGay Pride Flag.svg Brazil high court rules that homophobic hate speech is on the same level as racist hate speech, and thus is now punishable with prison time.
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25United StatesFlorida. Florida is seeing significant drops in tourism revenue as a direct consequence of its social policies; conventions and conferences have skipped the state, citing a grab-bag of state government policies as reasons why.
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-3United States The first GOP primary debate happened. Here are all the takeaways.
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28United StatesLesbian Pride Flag 2019.svg Some states pull out of the American Library Association due to a resurfaced post by the newly elected president of the group, where she identifies as a "Marxist lesbian". She responds "I didn't anticipate these kinds of targeted attacks being used as a bludgeon against library workers across the country. I really think that is regrettable".
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27United StatesGeorgia (U.S. State). Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell arrested and released on $150k/$100k bond in Georgia. Trump himself has stated he will "proudly be arrested".
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32United KingdomEngland The UK has had its first successful womb transplant. Naturally, this has caused the usual suspects to cry that this is "women erasure
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37Russia Yevgeny Prigozhin's plane has been shot down. Wagner-linked Telegram channels are claiming it was Russia. According to the Russian Aviation Authority, Prigozhin was on the plane. Russian sources say that Dmitry Utkin was also on the plane.
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32Canada Jordan Peterson has lost his court battle over "degrading" and "unprofessional" tweets. He will be forced into remedial social media coaching.
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18United States Internal Secret Service emails indicate close communication between Secret Service agents and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes.
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24GermanyTrans flag.svg The German government has approved a new law that'll allow for gender and name changes through a simple procedure at government registry offices.
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24Germany A bill has been tabled to change Germany's citizenship laws including reducing the period from eight to five years and allowing dual nationality for all citizens, not just Europeans.
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20United Statesthe District of Columbia. The Washington D.C. Attorney General is conducting an investigation into Leonard Leo for allegedly funnelling donations for his non-profits into his for-profits. Leo, who is co-chairman of the Federalist Society's board of directors, is often cited as being responsible for a lot of the conservative Supreme Court judge nominations in the past decade.
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31RussiaGay Pride Flag.svg A Putin adviser says the U.S. is using brainwashing to make gay Ukrainian super-soldiers: Ukraine's Armed Forces will become "zombified and unified through gay sex, along with cult members ready to sacrifice themselves," he said.
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17Pakistan The Pakistani president is accusing his staff of forging his signature on a bill. The Ministry of Truth and Justice has accused him of "purposely" delaying the approval of the bills.
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-2United StatesCalifornia. Gay Pride Flag.svg California store owner and mother of nine shot to death because she displayed a pride flag outside her store.
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26ChinaGay Pride Flag.svg Chinese hacktivist lesbian with 1.6 million subscribers on her YouTube channel has seemingly been disappeared by the Chinese government, following a large amount of crackdown on queer life by the CCP.
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20United StatesCalifornia. Inmates at California women's prison sue over continued sexual abuse
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17Niger Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani has promised to return Niger to civilian rule in three years. Meanwhile, thousands of Nigerien men gathered in a stadium to volunteer to fight if ECOWAS invades. So many men in fact that they were unable to start the official registration process.
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26Russia Luna-25 has crashed. The Russian moon-landing probe mission has failed.
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21United States The Patriot Legal Defense Fund website has been hacked.
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24United KingdomEngland The doctor who helped catch Britain’s worst baby killer: Dr. Ravi Jayaram spent two years pleading with hospital managers to investigate Lucy LetbyWikipedia. Instead, they made him apologise and attend mediation with her.
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17Sudan In Sudan, over 1,000 bodies have been discovered in mass graves after the El Geneina massacre.Wikipedia
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24United States DeSantis' debate notes for the first primary have been leaked. He's been told to defend Trump and attack Ramaswamy.
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22United StatesNew York. James O’Keefe said he was exposing waste, fraud & abuse: Now he’s under investigation for looting Project Veritas.
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44SwedenSwedish government plans to build at least 10 nuclear reactors in the next 20 years.
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19United StatesFlorida. Wanted: Search renewed for goats at large on University of Florida campus
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15the WorldTrans flag.svg International Chess Federation bans trans women from women's competitions for 2 years, will strip trans men of pretransition titles. The decision was made by the FIDE council, whose members (12 out of 15) are mostly men.
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39Germany Germany unveils a bill which would legalise cannabis country-wide.
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31United StatesFlorida. Academia goes to court with Florida, saying DeSantis's "anti-woke" law regulating what can be taught violates academic freedom and the Bill of Rights.
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15United StatesMississippi. 13 year-old girl forced to give birth in Mississippi after her family was unable to find an abortion provider.
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31China China halts youth jobless data as economy falters
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35Saudi Arabia The Guardian reports that insiders have said that Vice Media quashes any news stories about criticism of Saudi Arabia, since its agreement with the Saudi MDC media group and its major advertising deal with Saudi tourism.
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29United StatesGeorgia (U.S. State). Georgia has unsealed the official indictment in their 2020 election subversion probe. The 41-count indictment accuses Donald Trump and 18 other defendants of racketeering (RICO) and other charges for conspiring to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. Other people charged include Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, and Sidney Powell.
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21Taiwan Taiwan unveils a memorial honoring the island's collaborators with the Empire of Japan during WWII. Needless to say: WTF?
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16United KingdomGay Pride Flag.svg Two men have been stabbed outside a gay pub in Clapham, London, which police are saying they believe it is a hate crime. Many members of the LGBTQ+ community point to growing queerphobia in the British media.
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29India After a series of gang rapes, India will revise colonial-era penal code and toughen laws protecting women.
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30Australia Rupert Murdoch's Australian media properties have been spewing AI-generated bullshit for years. In a recent revelation, News Corp Australia's executive chairman said they generated 3,000 AI articles a week this way. The company's employees had no idea, and only learned this from media reports.
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25United StatesNew York. Effective altruist and disgraced crypto-entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried had his bail revoked after he was found to have attempted to influence two witnesses for his upcoming trial
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7United States Record labels sue the Internet Archive over copyrighted vinyl works from the 1890s–1950s. They want $412 million dollars. The original musicians are dead. The Archive will also likely pay an undisclosed amount to major book publishers due to a separate lawsuit.
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16United StatesHawaii. Maui's wildfire death toll goes up to 89 & 1000 people have been reported missing
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12United StatesPakistanNewly released White House photos show the day Bin Laden was killed
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26Russia Ruble's exchange value gradually approaching lows not seen since the beginning of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Update: The ruble has broke the psychologically important floor of US$1=100₽.
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17United StatesMichigan. Innocent pregnant woman jailed amid faulty facial recognition trend
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6Russia Russia launches rocket aimed at the Lunar South Pole, aiming to be the first power to land on the Lunar South Pole
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2IraqGay Pride Flag.svg Iraq bans the words "homosexuality" and "gender". The government now requires media to say "sexual deviance" instead.
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16Niger ECOWAS has ordered deployment of a "standby" force to restore democracy in Niger. The junta has said they will kill the president if any countries intervene. It's an international hostage situation.
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15United StatesHawaii. Extreme heatwave has burned down an entire town in Maui, Hawaii, and has killed over thirty people. Unaddressed climate change has made it exceedingly hotter and rain rarer.
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24United States Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for Donald Trump's Twitter account, prompting a legal dispute with Twitter that led to a $350,000 fine for the company's initial resistance.
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27United StatesOhio. Trans flag.svg A Trump-appointed judge in Ohio has denied a "right to transgender-free bathrooms" in schools.
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20Germany Russia A member of the Bundeswehr has been arrested by the country's intelligence agency the BfV for allegedly spying for Russia, by offering to pass secret information to Russians by their embassy in Berlin.
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14the World World’s oldest moss could go extinct as a result of climate crisis
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26Australia The Australian public broadcaster the ABC, has deplatformed nearly all of its 𝕏 [Twitter] accounts, citing toxicity and better engagement elsewhere.
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37United StatesOhio. In a win for abortion-rights supporters, Ohio voters overwhelmingly reject Issue 1. In short, it would have weakened ballot initiatives and made them harder to conduct. Because GOP abortion policies are so unpopular (as demonstrated even in Kansas),Wikipedia plebiscites threaten their ability to implement such policies.
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27Poland 'Satanic' band Behemoth donates money to children's hospital, but Polish UNICEF doesn't accept due to the band's 'message'.
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15RussiaNiger Niger coup: Wagner Group is taking advantage of instability
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16China Reforms implemented in China to salvage the economy, which has had lower than expected growth. Some reforms have to do with free movement, both for foreign businesspeople and for domestic workers; Rural Chinese people will be able to move into cities more easily.
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18Ireland Irish conspiracy newspaper The Irish Light has been sued for defamation and harassment over false claims that the COVID vaccine killed the plaintiff's son
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-4United StatesThe FBI groomed developmentally disabled teenager into "joining ISIS" for over two years from when he was 16 until after he reached the legal age of majority.
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14the World Canada Alberta. The future of the Commonwealth Games is looking doubtful, after Alberta, Canada has backed away from hosting the 2030 Games. This was only a few weeks after the Games in Victoria, Australia were scrapped.
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29United StatesTexas. A Texas judge has ruled that the state's abortion ban is too restrictive for people with serious pregnancy complications, and must allow some exemptions.
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7Pakistan Imran Khan, Pakistan's ex-Prime Minister, has been sent to jail for three years on corruption charges.
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22Italy Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is suing Placebo singer Brian Molko for defamation after he called her a fascist and a racist during a gig in Turin last month
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23ItalyEuropean UnionGay Pride Flag.svg Protests across Europe opposing Italy's legal targeting of two-mom families, e.g. lesbian mothers.
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17United States The EPA have approved a fuel ingredient even though it could cause cancer in virtually every single person exposed over a lifetime.
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20United States Robert Bowers, the shooter of the Tree of Life synagogueWikipedia, has been given the death penalty. The shooting was the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
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14NigerNigeria The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has threatened Niger with military intervention to reinstate the elected president. Following this, Nigeria cut its electricity supply to Niger. ECOWAS has previously followed through on an intervention threat against The Gambia.
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14Russia Russia looks to ban internet anonymity and privacy. The proposal would force identity verification before using websites. Furthermore, sharing advice for how to use VPNs or Tor would become illegal.
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21United States US credit rating cut from AAA to AA+ due to "steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters, notwithstanding the June bipartisan agreement to suspend the debt limit". It goes to show that recurring debt ceiling battles may impact trust for the US.
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39United StatesOhio. Trans flag.svg Federal judge denies a "right to bully" trans students in Ohio.
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26Peruthe WorldNewly discovered species of extinct whale dating to the Late Eocene may be the largest animal to ever exist
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24United States Twitter sues the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), claiming it lost tens of million dollars in advertising revenue by exposing unregulated hate speech on the platform, in multiple articles since Elon Musk's acquisition of the platform. CCDH's response to the suit
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35United StatesGeorgia (U.S. State). Missionary Raised $30M for Bibles—Then Blew It on Diamonds and Gambling: DOJ. Jason Shenk allegedly spent about $1 million on diamonds, gold and precious metals, among other hefty personal purchases. US$320,000 of the allegedly stolen funds were used to buy property at Galt's Gulch, Chile, a Libertarian real estate scam
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54United States Donald Trump charged with 4 counts, including conspiring to defraud the US, over his handling of his 2020 election loss. Update: Of course, he has pleaded not guilty on all 4 counts
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34United States NASA has lost contact with its Voyager 2 probe billions of miles away from Earth after mistakenly severing contact with it. Update: They got contact back.