This month the Ohio Senate’s Energy and Public Utilities Committee held the second hearing for a bipartisan billthat would repeal yet another unnecessary ratepayer-funded bailout implemented by the historically corrupt HB 6. SB 117 ends the costly bailouts going to two Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC) coal plants – one called Kyger Creek, which is in Ohio and another called Clifty Creek, which is in Indiana. For anyone who needs a visual aid of how Ohio is different from Indiana, I recommend looking at a map and checking it out, especially if you’re a Republican state legislator.

On April 1, a mural appeared in the Southern Italian city of Naples, depicting Palestinian workers lining at an Israeli military checkpoint near the occupied city of Bethlehem, in the West Bank. It is called ‘Welcome to Bethlehem’.

The mural, which quickly became popular in the town and on social media, was the work of a well-known Italian artist and photographer, Eduardo Castaldo.

Castaldo, who is a cinematic and television photographer, is not your typical artist, as he dedicates part of his time and efforts to championing struggles for human rights, equality and justice, especially in Palestine and throughout the Middle East.  

For over seven years, waves of Ohio State University students have been working tirelessly to remove Wendy's from their campus, drawing attention to the University's complicity in farmworker exploitation due to its ongoing business relationship with the only major fast-food chain yet to join the award-winning Fair Food Program. Year after year, students have peacefully demonstrated, marched, and even held a courageous weeklong fast in 2017 after the University went back on its promise to students and renewed its contract with Wendy's. This spring, building on the rich and lengthy history of student organizing at OSU in solidarity with farmworkers, the Undergraduate Student Body passed a unanimous resolution endorsing the Wendy's Boycott and calling on the University administration not to renew the Wendy's lease, which is set to expire on June 30.  As that date grows closer, the students' calls for justice have only been met with inaction on the part of the administration. But the fierce student organizers with the Ohio State Student/Farmworker Alliance are committed to fighting tooth and nail until Wendy's no longer has a home on their campus.

While the proposal for a global ceasefire during a disease pandemic has done the opposite of catching on, there are a few small signs of sanity and even of successful activism. While most big military spenders (including the super-mega-biggest one) have increased or kept their spending steady, the SIPRI numbers show a serious reduction from 2019 to 2020 in military spending by Brazil, and reductions as well by China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey (the only NATO member stepping out of line on this), Singapore, Pakistan, Algeria, Indonesia, Colombia, Kuwait, and Chile.

Chile is reducing its military spending by 4.9% in order to better address the health crisis. I did say “small,” but small percentages tend to be significant amounts of money when you’re talking about military spending.