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RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/September 2023
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September 2023[edit]
   | 29 |   A couple 4chan (/pol/) loons were arrested for alleged murders recently. "Laseranon", an Alaskan notorious for posting threats to blind people with laser pointers, was known to the FBI because he tried to blind pilots who flew overhead. He is suspected of two murders. In one post, he declared: "I am an actual terrorist!!!!". "Motoranon", an incel Dutchman, allegedly killed three at a Rotterdam university-hospital and posted "death to all normies". |
| 2 |  55 die in a suicide bombing in Pakistan targeting a festival celebrating Muhammad's birthday. |
| 21 |   Serbia has put forward significant military deployment on its border with Kosovo. The U.S. has urged them to stop. |
| 27 |  
Montana judge blocks a ban on gender-affirming care for youth, citing it as unconstitutional. |
| 21 |  GB News has suspended its 3rd far-right presenter in one week. Calvin Robinson has been fired right after Dan Wootton and Laurence Fox were. |
| 10 | Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull’s political party was rejected by the electoral commission. |
| 24 |  Dianne Feinstein has died. |
| 14 |   The leader of Nagorno-Karabakh Samvel Shahramanyan has signed a declaration stating that the statelet will cease to exist from 1 January 2024. |
| 11 |  Heatwaves, drought and hailstorms caused by climate change have led to a severe shortage of olive oil in the Mediterranean, causing middlemen to source the golden oil from South America for the first time. |
| 14 |  Black Illinoisan drivers' traffic stops at 20-year high despite law championed by Obama. |
| 18 |  US rebukes Egypt for using child soldiers. Will still fund them anyway. |
| 20 |  Half the entire Nagorno-Karabakh population flees to Armenia. Possibly, more will follow. |
| 45 |  Joe Biden makes history by being the first President to support a union strike and then join them on the picket line. Update: In contrast, Trump went to speak at a non-union shop today. |
| 65 |  A New York court has ruled that Trump committed fraud while building his real estate empire. |
| 47 | The EU has warned Musk that Twitter needs to comply with its laws towards disinformation and Russian propaganda. Whether Melon Musket will comply, is a completely different story. |
| 55 |  In Amsterdam, a scheme offering PrEP to anyone has reported a 95% drop in new cases of HIV/AIDS since 2010. For example, there were 128 new cases in 2019, in 2022, there were just nine new cases. |
| 22 |  The Canadian government held a standing ovation for a member of the Waffen-SS Galizien division. The House Speaker has now apologised. Update: The Speaker has now resigned. Second update: Poland may request extradition of the former soldier in question. |
| 21 |  British police have opened an investigation into Russell Brand following multiple sex crime allegations. |
| 47 |  NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returns to Earth with the first-ever samples of an asteroid called Bennu. |
| 42 |    The world's oldest known wooden structure, dating back over 476,000 years and speculated to have been created by homo heidelbergensis, has been uncovered near the Zambia-Tanzania border. |
| 12 | A Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire deal is reached between the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments. |
| 69 | NFTs are now dead. |
| 27 |  U.S. Senator and Democrat Bob Menendez and his wife have been indicted on bribery charges, accused of secretly aiding Egypt. The indictment involves hidden cash, literal gold bars, and alleged corruption with three New Jersey businessmen. |
| 25 | British government considers banning cigarettes for young people (even once they become adults). They are also considering implementing fines on people who miss doctor's appointments. For some unknown reason the prime minister's net favorability is at an all-time low. |
| 20 |  Supposedly the existence of a "fox-dog hybrid" was genetically confirmed. It was discovered by an animal shelter in Brazil two years ago. It has since died. The confirmation claim was published in an MDPI journal, Animals. |
| 42 | Joe Biden has launched the climate corps. A New Deal-esque plan to fight climate change. Good one Joe! |
| 16 |  China forcing employees of international businesses to study the ruling party's ideology. Financial firm workers are said to attend mandatory study sessions in "Xi Jinping Thought", read books, write papers, etc. |
| 20 | Project Veritas has seemingly collapsed. This after James O'Keefe was removed as leader seven months ago. Some employees responded to this news thinking the group had already collapsed, and wondered how the remaining money was even being spent. |
| 19 |  Alabama band director tased by police for not stopping his students' performance. |
| 27 | Former aide-de-camp to Jair Bolsonaro testifies that Bolsonaro floated the idea of a coup to overturn the election he lost in 2022 to his military commanders. The plan was backed by the navy commander, but not the army. (Brazilian Portuguese source). |
| 18 | 92-year-old owner of Fox and News Corp, Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as CEO, in favour of his son Lachlan. He will continue as chairman emeritus. |
| 22 |  
Hong Kong's top court rules in favour of same-sex civil unions but not marriage. In a separate case, a lesbian couple have won a court decision for their son born through IVF, to have both mothers regarded as the child's parents. |
| 15 | Wired reports that questions are beginning to appear about how the monkeys that Neuralink were using to test the brain-linked bio-implants were treated. |
| 38 |
On the twelfth anniversary of the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", the Department of Defense is offering LGBTQ+ veterans a chance for a review of their discharge to an honorable discharged, so they could get better veteran's benefits. |
| 12 | MEPs from the three main mainstream political groups, centre left S&D, liberal Renew & centre right EPP, have put forward Mahsa Amin, and either the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement or the women of Iran for the European Parliament's annual human rights prize, the Sakharov Prize. On the other hand, MEPs from the far right I&D have put forward the Muskrat for his support for freedom of expression on Twitter.
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| 15 |   Poland stops sending Ukraine weapons due to grain dispute. Update: Poland seeks to mend rift, walks back remarks on arms deliveries. |
| 17 | Another big copyright suit against OpenAI and their LLMs (like ChatGPT). It is not the first. There have also been lawsuits against several other companies for similar reasons. |
| 2 |  Muslim woman arrested for "inciting hatred" in Indonesia after saying an Islamic phrase before eating pork skin on a TikTok video. The top Islamic authority in Indonesia calls her video blasphemous. |
| -12 | British Parliament passes "Online Safety Bill". |
| 26 |  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton acquitted by state Senate, still faces federal corruption investigation. |
| 29 |   Ukraine sues Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia over food import bans. |
| 35 |  Canada accuses the Indian government of carrying out an assassination against Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was in Canada upon being killed. Update: India and Canada expel each other's diplomats. |
| 22 |  ‘Like a lost cat’: U.S. military can’t find F-35 fighter jet on autopilot after actual pilot ejected. The public has been asked to assist by sharing observations. Update: jet debris found. |
| 30 | Walking self delusion, conspiracy fruitcake, faux activist and rampant abuser of language, Russell Brand, faces multiple allegations of sexual assault, rape and coercive control in the UK and US |
| 21 |  According to Ukrainian intelligence, the leader of Chechnya and close confident of Putin, Ramzan Kadyrov, is in critical condition due to serious illness. Rumours are about saying he is in a coma. Kadyrov posted a video to dispel the rumours.
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| 20 |  Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull has cancelled her return visit to New Zealand. Protesting bigots works. |
| 3 | Poland will block Ukraine from joining the European Union unless Ukrainian grain imports are restricted. |
| 12 | President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has been indicted by special counsel David Weiss in connection with a gun he purchased in 2018, the first time in U.S. history the Justice Department has charged the child of a sitting president. |
| 12 | Kevin McCarthy has opened up an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, despite there being no evidence of him committing any crimes. |
| 9 | 36-page NASA report says there's no proof UFOs are controlled by extraterrestrials. But it's not impossible. |
| 17 |  Torontonian school district purges all library books published prior to 2008. This is a bizarre interpretation by the district, of a wider Ontario initiative to promote equitability at libraries. Ontario's education minister was not happy with the outcome, and ordered the district to reverse the decision. |
| 34 |  Italy intends to pull out of China's economic investment program and foreign policy staple, the Belt and Road Initiative. |
| 20 |  Wisconsin Republicans threaten to impeach recently elected liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz if she strikes down their gerrymandered maps. |
| 30 |  At least 2,000 dead and 10,000 believed missing in Libya as ‘catastrophic’ flooding breaks dams and sweeps away homes |
| 15 | The FBI has now collected over 21 million DNA profiles – 7% of the U.S. |
| 25 |
Russia is moving on from its framing of transgender identity as a threat to children and transitioning onto treating it as a problem of Western-influenced "extremism", and has begun taking children away from trans parents. |
| 21 | Methodist Christian group wants to keep a tradition of shuttering a beach it operates on Sundays, in agreement with the township. New Jersey wants them to cut it out, in the interests of separation of church and state. |
| 17 |  Russia and North Korea strengthening ties "on all fronts". |
| 15 | Republican strategists consider rebranding away from "pro-life" label after their abortion stance helped thwart the planned "red wave" in the 2022 midterm elections. |
| 16 |  A powerful earthquake in Marrakech kills more than 1,000 people and damages several historic buildings. EDIT: The death toll is now in excess of 2000. |
| 28 |  US and Vietnam upgrade ties to a strategic partnership amid conflicts with China. "Vietnam has until now reserved this status for only four countries: China, Russia, India and South Korea." |
| 13 | EU's centre faction Renew Europe says that "A renewed Europe can only be built from the political center". This is amusing, given that most of its members have formed governments with right-wing parties from the EPP & ECR factions in the past & present. |
| 60 | Most EU countries are now expected to hit their 2030 solar targets years before 2030, fuelling optimism on efforts to bring down global emissions. |
| 42 | Elon Musk secretly ordered SpaceX engineers to switch off the Starlink satellite communications network near the coast of occupied Crimea in order to thwart a Ukrainian surprise attack on Russia’s naval fleet, according to a report. |
| 29 |  The Biden administration has cancelled all remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic Refuge. |
| 14 |  A terror suspect, who is also accused of stealing secrets for Iran whilst working for the military, escapes from prison while awaiting trial, triggering a manhunt. Update: police have caught him |
| 54 |  Mexico's supreme court decriminalizes abortion nationwide. |
| 42 |  Better late then never, the British government has put the Russian mercenary group the Wagner Group on the its official terrorist organisation list. |
| 29 | 
Some central Florida lawmakers said they were considering “all legislative, legal and executive options available” to stop business owners in a small town from voluntarily displaying rainbow decals in their windows. |
| 13 |  Over 70,000 people are stuck at the Burning Man festival in Nevada due to intense rain which created thick, ankle-deep mud. One person has died already. |
| 8 |  Georgia indicts sixty-one Stop Cop City protestors on RICO charges. |
| 17 |    Sudan war crime trial of former oil firm executives starts in Sweden: Prosecutors say ex-chair and CEO were complicit in atrocities by Sudanese army and militias, which both deny |
| 32 | Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio has been sentenced to 22 years in prison, the longest sentence for any Jan. 6 rioter yet. |
| 20 |  The Scottish government has announced it is planning to outlaw disposable e-cigarettes due to being a fire hazard, inability to recycle & encouraging children to take up the habit.
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| 18 |  Cuba uncovers ‘human trafficking ring’ recruiting for Russia’s war in Ukraine: Havana says it is dismantling network seeking to recruit Cubans as mercenaries as Moscow attempts to boost its forces. Update: Cuba arrests 17 in relation to the trafficking ring. |
| 10 |  Lawsuit alleges that Twitter discloses far more user data to Saudi Arabia than it does to the U.S., the UK, or Canada. |
| 30 |  Japan could force their branch of the Moonies to disband in the wake of controversy over the LDP's ties to it, a little over a year after those ties resulted in Shinzō Abe being assassinated by a victim of the cult and started to cause public sentiment to turn against the LDP. |
| 22 | After Apple flipped to support a right-to-repair bill in California it had long opposed, the Church of Scientology decided it was their time to shine, now lobbying against such rights. Because e-meters, probably. |
| 24 | Some of the largest U.S. insurance companies have cut natural disasters from their policies as climate risks grow bigger and bigger. |
| 27 |  Health authorities in Paris have fumigated areas of the French capital for the first time to kill disease-carrying tiger mosquitoes whose rapid advance through northern Europe is thought to have been accelerated by climate change. |
| 17 |  Protests in southern Syria sparked by economic problems have turned into anti-government protests. The Druze minority common in the area participated. |
| 13 | The Egyptian-born former owner of the Harrods department store and Princess Diana conspiracy theorist Mohamed Al-Fayed has died, aged 94. |
| 24 | Saudi man sentenced to death for anonymously retweeting posts critical of Mohammad bin Salman from his account with just 10 followers. |