Girl From Ipanema Goes Walking! Tabs, Mon., Jan. 13, 2025

Morning news roundup and things to read!

Tabs gif by our friend Martini Glambassador!

Rebecca realized I have been working on Sundays and has now put me in charge of Monday tabs so she can have a day off! Hi everybody, look at that cute baby hippo up there! Here’s some bite-sized news bits and stuff to read and watch!

Handsome Joe Biden has extended Temporary Protected Status for about 600,000 Venezuelans, right before leaving office. Suck it, xenophobe weirdos. (Miami Herald)

Well this is nice! Starting on Jan. 22, Thailand will become the first South Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage. “To celebrate this joyous occasion, APCOM [Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health], as part of the Thailand Pride working group will also host an event where LGBTQ couples will register their marriage at the Bang Rak district office — the most popular district that couples register their marriage because it is believed that it is an auspicious name and will make your love life happy (Rak in Thai means Love),” said Midnight Poonkasetwattana, executive director of the APCOM Foundation in Thailand. AWWW! (Washington Blade)

As the world moves ahead, America’s sinking into meanstupidness: Idaho Republicans have filed a resolution to repeal marriage equality. It carries no legal weight, they just want everybody to know they disapprove. Whatever, assholes. (Advocate)

And Montana legislators heard the first anti-trans bill of the year, HB 121, which would ban transgender individuals from using restrooms that correspond with their gender identity in all publicly owned facilities across the state, from schools to libraries to museums and the capitol. Who’s going to be going around checking the genitals of people with short haircuts who go in the girls’ room? The bill does not say. The state has two trans legislators, Representatives SJ Howell and Zooey Zephyr. (Erin in the Morning)

After years of demanding the cleanup of radioactive uranium waste on the Navajo Nation, the EPA will finally remove more than 1 million cubic yards of waste from sites about 20 miles northeast of Gallup, New Mexico, and is set to remove a million more. (AZ Central)

The neo-Nazi organization Blood and Honour has earned the distinction of being the first extreme right-wing group to have its assets frozen by the UK government. The group was founded in 1987 by the lead singer for the skinhead rock band Skrewdriver, because he thought the other skinhead groups were not racist enough, fucking yikes. (BBC)

Academic researchers have put their minds towards identifying news deserts, so that perhaps philanthropic organizations can help support local news in underserved communities. Trump won 91 percent of counties with no local news source, which is maybe not a coincidence! (Nieman Lab)

With Southern California still on fire, it’s a good time to read Joan Didion’s essay “The Santa Anas.” And why not Raymond Chandler’s “The Red Wind,” too? And then re-watch Chinatown! (Murrieta Valley California Unified School District)

There’s a proposal headed to the South Carolina General Assembly for a statue of American hero Robert Smalls that will be staring down “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, which sounds awesome. (AP)

Charles Person, the youngest of the Freedom Riders, has died at 82. The Klan beat the shit out of him for not sitting at the back of a bus, he got his head bashed in with bats and pipes for not sitting in the colored section of an Alabama bus terminal, scarring him for life. In 2020, he co-founded the Freedom Riders Training Academy, an initiative to “teach people how to protest legally, effectively, peacefully.” (Washington Post archive link)

There’s brave heroes, then there’s Heart-of-Markness Zuckerberg, who picked an $895,500 watch to wear when he announced all the new hate speech Meta is gonna allow now. (GQ)

That Man’s junk drawer of assorted under-qualified Putin suckups, greedy billionaires, and yeehawing Project 2025 villains begin their Senate confirmation hearings on Tuesday, here is the schedule. (AP)

Oh boy, a New York appellate court said that Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion defamation suit against Fox News can go on ahead! Poor Fox is gonna be so broke that the morning news hosts will have to start drinking rail vodka. (NPR)

With all the Greenland talk, this song has been in my head for a week. Now it can be in yours too!

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