Ohio voters rejected the Republicans' special rush referendum which asked them to make it harder for future referendums to be held or or adopted.

Republicans especially wanted to block a scheduled referendum on legalizing abortion and a proposed referendum to put an end to the gerrymandering that enables Republicans to control the state legislature with a minority of votes.

*Progress on slowing deforestation [in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil and Colombia] could boost climate efforts, say experts.*

Europe is leading the way in decarbonizing the use of ships, with governments pushing for change. So far, not many ships use electric power, but the change is profitable so more will follow.

Biden has protected an area near the Grand Canyon from mining.

Muslims in Sweden think that there must be "boundaries" to freedom of expression, and these must include criminalizing burning a Qur'an.

Burning a symbol of something you condemn is a form of protest that everyone is entitled to. That's why the US Supreme Court invalidated the law that used to criminalize burning the US flag. Burning it is a symbolic act of denunciation of the US, not material damage to the United States. Likewise for burning any religion's holy book, or Mao's little red book, a copy of the Bill of Rights, a copy of a Microsoft software license, a copy of the GNU GPL, or any text that represents something you oppose.

Where Muslims are in charge, they usually protect their feelings by censoring any criticism of their religion. They label criticism of Islam as "blasphemy" and punish it very severely — in some countries with death. This violates the human rights of people with certain views.

Where Muslims are in charge, they don't respect religious freedom either. Many countries which make Islam the established religion punish any Muslim who tries to stop being a Muslim. In Malaysia, the law simply says that people of Malay race are Muslims whether they like it or not. This too violates the human rights of people with certain views.

We need more respect for human rights, not less. Sweden must not use "hate crime" as an excuse to repress condemnation of Islam.

Nor is it legitimate to claim that an act of symbolic condemnation "endangers national security". How could that ever happen? If Muslims (or any other group) threaten to attack the nation in revenge for a symbolic act of condemnation, they are the ones threatening national security, not the people they demand to repress.