Bits n’ pieces from east, west and beyond

East, west or beyond, sooner or later events elsewhere may have a local impact.

A recent sampling:

Texas, which has been suffering a record-breaking heat wave, is getting backlash from a state bill, to activate in September, which would eliminate water breaks for construction workers.

NBC said the city of Houston filed suit to block the law and declare it unconstitutional.

The JFK-QAnon cult leader who believed John F. Kennedy and JFK Jr. are still alive and claimed he met the deceased Michael Jackson in disguise, recently died due to injuries from a dirt bike accident, Salon said.

In 2021 Michael Protzman took fellow believers to Dealey Plaza (where JFK was assassinated in 1963) to witness what he said would be JFK Jr. re-instating Donald Trump to the presidency. Protzman regarded JFK as the reincarnation of Jesus, his wife as Mary Magdalene and Trump as the Holy Spirit.

Lowering health care expenses is the goal of President Joe Biden’s new initiatives, AP reported. They include cracking down on “junk” insurance plans (which Biden describes as a “scam”), working to prevent “surprise” medical bills and a plan for reducing medical debt tied to credit cards.

A Forbes investigation indicates Russia has secretly spent, as part of a significant trend, over $300 million to influence foreign elections. In 2021 the U.S. Federal Elections Commission ruled that foreign donors can finance U.S. referendums. The FEC decision, according to the Campaign Legal Center, “reflects a big loophole in the federal ban on foreign money in U.S. elections.” Rep. Jamie Raskin has introduced legislation seeking to eliminate the influence of foreign money in U.S. elections.

ADP, a payroll processing firm, said private sector jobs were up by 497,000 in June, with leisure and hospitality adding 232,000 new hires. Most of the jobs were with companies having fewer than 50 employees. As well, annual pay rose 6.4%.

Using robots, a facility in Colorado has destroyed some of the last of the nation’s chemical weapons stockpile. Some weapons were in storage for over 70 years, The New York Times reported.

Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) is the difference between the amount of moisture in the air and the amount that could be there if it were saturated, says the Union of Concerned Scientists. When there is a significant gap between the two, the air pulls more water out of plants and soils, impacting wildfires via dryer vegetation. The same VPD action can trigger a need for more crop irrigation.

Last week a federal judge restricted government communications with social media platforms, following a lawsuit from Louisiana and Missouri. The states accused social media of censoring right-leaning content. A preliminary injunction says the Dept. of Health and Human Services, the FBI and “other parts of government” are to cease communications with social media for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression or reduction of content containing protected speech,” The New York Times wrote.

Those disagreeing with the new restrictions say there is no issue to address, since the government is not coercing removal of content and is instead notifying companies of potentially dangerous messages.

Typically disinformation or misinformation in violation of social platform policies is noted by nonprofits, researchers or people and software at the social platforms.

A Center for Countering Digital Hate spokesperson said the U.S. is “fangless” as regards dangerous content in comparison to places like the European Union and Australia and needs to update social media platforms’ liability rules.

He added that “It’s bananas that you can’t show a nipple on the Super Bowl, but Facebook can still broadcast Nazi propaganda, empower stalkers and harassers, undermine public health and facilitate extremism.”

So far over 1,000 people have been arrested for participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 melee at the nation’s Capitol. The reach of the law is going higher, according to NPR and CBS: rather than be disbarred, a Trump lawyer who promoted 2020 election lies is instead being allowed to retire his law license. And a Trump aide has been charged with withholding documents and conspiring to obstruct justice over allegations he helped Trump hide documents.

Presidential candidate and former vice president Mike Pence has told pro-lifers to never give up, “until abortion is illegal in every state,” according to the National Review.

Speaking recently to Moms for Liberty, North Carolina Gov. Mark Robinson said words from dictators like Hitler and Mao have been taken out of context and should be reconsidered. Salon said Robinson has a history of discriminatory comments and Holocaust denial and regards communism as a greater threat than Nazis.

Moms for Liberty has been pushing books bans in schools and opposes mention in schools of race, ethnicity, LGBT rights and teaching the history of the nation’s racism.

Blast from the past: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” - Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013, anti-apartheid activist imprisoned for 27 years. He negotiated the end of apartheid in South Africa and became the country’s first Black president.