The Top 7 Best News of Last Week — August 22, 2022
🎉🎈 — I created this newsletter exactly one year ago! I hope I have made your weeks slightly better. Thank you for being a subscriber
The start of the new school year is right around the corner! And for most middle and high schoolers, that could mean getting more sleep. Starting July 1, a California state law now requires middle school start no earlier than 8 a.m.
For high school, it’s 8:30 a.m. “This is a public health issue because the sleep deprivation in teens is really at epidemic levels,” said Joy Wake, Policy and Advocacy Director for Start School Later.
2. Pennsylvania governor signs executive order banning conversion therapy
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf signed an executive order Tuesday to ban conversion therapy, a discredited form of therapy that seeks to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, for minors.
The executive order directs state agencies to discourage conversion therapy for people of all ages, and to instead promote evidence-based practices for supporting LGBTQ people. The order also directs the Department of Human Services, among other agencies, to ensure that state funds are not being used to provide or reimburse for conversion therapy.
Astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann, of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, will be mission commander — responsible for all phases of flight. She will go to the International Space Station on 29 September, Nasa says.
“It’s very exciting,” she told newspaper Indian Country Today.
“I think it’s important that we communicate this to our community, so that other Native kids… realise that some of those barriers that used to be there are really starting to get broken down,” she added.
Big Dog Ranch Rescue — the largest cage-free, no-kill rescue in the U.S. — is opening a 100-acre facility in Alabama.
The ranch will be located at the former home of a greyhound training facility in Shorter in Macon County and will serve as a rescue, rehabilitation, medical and adoption center for dogs across the south. The Alabama property will allow the rescue to save an additional 5,000 dogs each year.
5. Scotland to become first country in world to provide free period products
On Monday, when the Period Products Act comes into force, councils and education providers in Scotland will be legally required to ensure free sanitary products are available to anyone who needs them.
Scotland’s councils will each decide what exact arrangements are put in place, but they will have a legal obligation to give “anyone who needs them” access to a range of period products “reasonably easily”.
6. World’s smallest sea turtle nests in Louisiana for the first time in 75 years
“Louisiana was largely written off as a nesting spot for sea turtles decades ago, but this determination demonstrates why barrier island restoration is so important,” Chip Kline, chairman of the Louisiana Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority, said in a news release.
Crews monitoring the Chandeleur Islands — a chain 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of New Orleans — to help design a restoration project found tracks of females going to and from nests and of hatchlings leaving a nest.
7. Sacheen Littlefeather receives formal apology for mistreatment at 1973 Oscars.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has formally apologized to Sacheen Littlefeather for her mistreatment at the 1973 Academy Awards, where the Native American actress and civil rights activist was booed and ridiculed as she declined the Best Actor award on Marlon Brando’s behalf.
“The abuse you endured because of this statement was unwarranted and unjustified,” Academy President David Rubin wrote in a “statement of reconciliation” sent to Littefeather in June, and posted on the Academy’s website Monday. “The emotional burden you have lived through and the cost to your own career in our industry are irreparable. For too long the courage you showed has been unacknowledged. For this, we offer both our deepest apologies and our sincere admiration.”
I love how she was able to apply humor to the situation. She quipped, “We Indians are very patient people. It’s only been 50 years”. Bless her, that’s awesome.
