HERA: Crafting Stories on Walls Around the World

HERA, a German street artist, has made a name for herself with murals that blend fine art and graffiti. After stepping away from HERAKUT, she now …

HERA: Crafting Stories on Walls Around the World

North Carolina residents defy hurricane aftermath on first day of early voting | US elections 2024 | The Guardian

Turnout for early in-person voting has started strongly in the presidential battleground of North Carolina, including in mountainous areas where deadly Hurricane Helene destroyed property and upended lives but apparently did not dampen a fierce desire to participate in elections.

More than 400 early voting sites opened as scheduled on Thursday for the 17-day period, including all but four of the 80 sites previously anticipated for the 25 western counties hardest hit by the storm, said the executive director of the state board of elections, Karen Brinson Bell. She credited election workers – including volunteers affected by the severe weather – emergency management officials and utility crews.

“I know that thousands of North Carolinians lost so much in this storm. Their lives will never be the same after this tragedy,” Brinson Bell told reporters in Asheville, the region’s population center and a city devastated by the historic rainfall. “But one thing Helene did not take from western North Carolinians is the right to vote in this important election.”

Source: North Carolina residents defy hurricane aftermath on first day of early voting | US elections 2024 | The Guardian

Labour to legalise harmful practice of carrying chickens by legs, say charities | Farming | The Guardian – (Me: Labour stepping back into inhumane void for animals)

Labour is using its first animal welfare policy since entering government to dilute standards by legalising the harmful practice of carrying chickens by their legs, charities have said.

European transport regulation 1/2005, which still applies in the UK, prohibits lifting chickens by their legs on farms and during loading and unloading, but the government is going to change the law to permit the widespread but illegal method, according to the Animal Law Foundation.

This comes despite the animal welfare committee of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) having previously said that it caused distress and injuries such as fractures and dislocations.

Edie Bowles, the executive director at the Animal Law Foundation, said: “It is shocking that the Labour government has chosen a dilution of welfare protections as its first animal welfare policy. It is especially surprising given it is the first dilution of an EU animal welfare protection since Brexit.

Source: Labour to legalise harmful practice of carrying chickens by legs, say charities | Farming | The Guardian