Side Items
MAGA in New Mexico: Last week, a man wearing a MAGA hat in New Mexico shot a peaceful demonstrator at a protest over plans to reinstall a statue of a Spanish conquistador in Espanola, in the northern part of the state. 23-year-old Ryan Martinez was arrested on Thursday after he shot a 42-year-old man while attempting to disrupt a protest at a civic center. The linked article does a great job illustrating the continued dangers of Trump and how his rhetoric has been normalized to the point where this kind of tragedy is an everyday occurrence
Chipotle Bigotry: A federal agency is suing everyone’s favorite below-average Mexican spot, as Chipotle is being accused of religious harassment and retaliation. This charge comes after a manager at a Kansas location forcibly removed an employee’s hijab, which is unquestionably grounds for a beating, or in this case, a lawsuit. In the complaint filed last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said that back in 2021, an assistant manager at a Chipotle in Lenexa, Kansas, repeatedly harassed a Muslim employee by asking her to show him her hair, despite her repeated refusal. After several weeks, the harassment reached a point where he grabbed and partially removed her hijab
“Advanced Recycling in NC”: This article tells the story of a facility in Zebulon, NC that claims to process and recycle plastic waste in what they’re calling “advanced recycling”. While most traditional recycling is able to process ~8.7% of America’s plastic waste, the process used in this Zebulon facility, pyrolysis, uses high temperatures and low-oxygen conditions to break down tough plastics like films and Styrofoam, eventually turning them into feedstock oil for new plastic production. The only problem is that environmentalists say this is almost entirely untrue because the majority of the plastic processed at these facilities isn’t actually recycled at all. In fact, researchers found that the pyrolysis process uses more energy and has a worse overall environmental impact than initial plastic production. But that hasn’t stopped lawmakers across the country from embracing the questionable technology, at the urging of a powerful lobby of course. As of last month, 24 states have passed bills that reclassify chemical recycling as manufacturing, which is a crucial reclassification. This change effectively deregulates the process, since manufacturing facilities tend to face less stringent guidelines than waste incinerators