good news
Milestone: US passports now have the “X”
American passport
© christinarosepix
Good news: There is now an “X” in US passports +++ First black female Supreme Court judge in the US +++ Natural corks can be recycled and processed into insulation.
The best news in the BRIGITTE Good News Ticker for April 2022
The news often shows the horrors of this world – currently, for example, the corona pandemic and the Ukraine war. But there are not only the dark sides, our world has so much beauty in store for us. We want to celebrate the little everyday things and give you something positive to take with you. It’s time for good news – if not now, then when?
April 11, 2022
Milestone: US passports now have the “X”
Beginning April 11, Americans will be able to select an X as their gender when applying for a passport. That is a milestone and we have achieved “to better serve all citizens, regardless of their gender identity,” said Foreign Minister Antony Blinken. The ministry is the first federal authority to make this possible.
The “X” stands for what is colloquially referred to as the third gender. However, it tends to encompass different, non-binary identities, independent of a person’s biological sex characteristics.
April 8, 2022
First black female Supreme Court judge
For the first time, a black woman is now a judge on the Supreme Court of the United States. The Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the office by a vote of 53 out of 100. President Jo Biden proposed it in February. He called Jackson one of “our country’s brightest lawyers” and a “historic candidate”.
Jackson has been a judge since 2013 and has worked at the Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Colombia since 2021. She studied in Harvard and has already worked as a lawyer.
“I stand here on the shoulders of generations of Americans who have never had an opportunity like this. I hope that inspires confidence and inspires people to understand that our dishes are like them,” Jackson said at one Senate hearing in March said.
However, the majority on the Supreme Court remains conservative. Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump had placed three judges in the Supreme Court, so that six of the nine judges are currently considered conservative. Jackson will be the 116th female Supreme Court judge. So far, 108 white men, two black men, four white women and one Latina have held office, according to TV broadcaster CNN.
April 5, 2022
Please do not throw away wine corks!
A glass of wine, great conversations and maybe something good to eat – this is what a perfect evening with friends could look like. And if you now pay attention to this small detail, you can even do something for the environment: Under no circumstances just throw the wine cork in the garbage. Because it can be recycled and take off in a new life as an insulating material for walls and floors.
It is estimated that more than 1.2 billion natural corks are pulled out of wine bottles in Germany every year. Most of them end up in household waste. Only about 10 to 15 percent is recycled.
In order not to simply incinerate the extraordinary properties of the natural substance, the Nature Conservation Union in Hamburg launched the “KOR campaign”. A total of 32,000 cubic meters of ecologically valuable insulation granulate for house construction could be made from the corks that are produced.
If the ancient Romans already used cork as step insulation for their sandals and it is built into space shuttles as heat protection, we should now be careful not to simply throw such an important raw material in the garbage.
Would you like more good news?
For even more good mood, just take a look at our Good News Ticker from March.
Sources used: nabu.de, tagesschau.de, faz.net