Space Force: New US Military Branch, DNA of Every California Baby Stored, Solutions Journalism
Revealing News Articles
June 26, 2018

Dear friends,

Explore below key excerpts of revealing news articles on the creation of a new branch of the military in the US called the 'space force,' California's practice of storing genetic material from every baby born in the state in a DNA biobank accessible to third-party researchers, the private contractors making big money in the migrant shelter business, and more.

Read also wonderfully inspiring articles on the emerging field of 'solutions journalism' challenging the negativity bias in standard news reporting, tech billionaire Marc Benioff's leadership on changing corporate values to include social responsibility, and commitments by several major companies to switch to recycled and sustainable packaging. You can also skip to this section now.

Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails, see this page. The most important sentences are highlighted. And don't miss the "What you can do" section below the summaries. By educating ourselves and spreading the word, we can and will build a brighter future.

With best wishes for a transformed world,
Mark Bailey and Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info

Special note (sources may be less reliable): Read a chemistry professor's blog with strong evidence that aluminum in vaccines is linked to autism. Explore an intriguing article on how spiritual people often refuse to look at conspiracies and truth seekers often dismiss spirituality. Watch Oprah and Brene Brown discuss the power of embracing challenging emotions, failure as potent teachers with concrete ideas on how to turn failure into success. Read an inspiring story of how Gandhi's successor Vinoba Bhave inspired the largest donation of land to the poor in the history of mankind.

Quote of the week: "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie"  ~~  Russian proverb

Video of the week: Watch an inspiring 25-minute video on the challenging, yet blessed life of child prodigy artist Akiane Kramarik. An amazing 5-minute video of her at age 10 is available here.

'Space force': Trump orders new branch of US military
June 19, 2018, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/18/space-force...

Donald Trump said on Monday he would direct the Pentagon to create a “space force” as a new branch of the US military to shore up American dominance in space. Trump claimed that the plan will ensure that America, which plans a return to the moon and a mission to Mars, stays ahead of China and Russia in any new space race. But it is likely to raise fears over the militarisation of space. “Very importantly, I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces,” the president said at the White House. “We are going to have the air force and we are going to have the space force – separate but equal.” The president was speaking at the third meeting of the National Space Council, revived after a quarter of a century. He was joined by Mike Pence, the new Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine and former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. But there was a skeptical reaction from Bill Nelson, the Democratic senator for Florida. He tweeted: “The president told a US general to create a new Space Force as 6th branch of military today, which generals tell me they don’t want. During his remarks, Trump ... insisted: “When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space. So important.” Trump has floated the idea of a space force before but met both mockery and high-level resistance.

Note: In 1974, the founder of modern rocket science Wernher Von Braun told his spokesperson Dr. Carol Rosin that "first the Russians are going to be considered the enemy. Then terrorists would be identified. The next enemy was asteroids – against asteroids we are going to build space-based weapons. Then ... the last card is the alien card. We are going to have to build space-based weapons against aliens, and all of it is a lie."

DNA of every baby born in California is stored. Who has access to it?
May 12, 2018, CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-biobank-dna-babies-who-has-access/

The Newborn Genetic Screening test is required in all 50 states. Nearly every baby born in the United States gets a heel prick shortly after birth. Their newborn blood fills six spots on a special filter paper card. It is used to test baby for dozens of congenital disorders. Some states destroy the blood spots after a year, 12 states store them for at least 21 years. California, however, is one of a handful of states that stores the remaining blood spots for research indefinitely in a state-run biobank. The child's leftover blood spots become property of the state and may be sold to outside researchers without the parent's knowledge or consent. "I just didn't realize there was a repository of every baby born in the state. It's like fingerprints," new mom Soniya Sapre responded. In California ... you do have the right to ask the biobank to destroy the leftovers after the fact, though the agency's website states it "may not be able to comply with your request." You also have the right to find out if your child's blood spots have been used for research, but you would have to know they were being used in the first place and we've discovered that most parents don't. But researchers with the California Genetic Disease Screening Program aren't the only ones with access to samples stored in the biobank. Blood spots are given to outside researchers for $20 to $40 per spot. According to biobank records, the program sold about 16,000 blood spots over the past five years, totaling a little more than $700,000.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the disappearance of privacy.

The Billion-Dollar Business of Operating Shelters for Migrant Children
June 21, 2018, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/us/migrant-shelters-border-crossing.html

The business of housing, transporting and watching over migrant children detained along the southwest border is not a multimillion-dollar business. It’s a billion-dollar one. Southwest Key Programs has won at least $955 million in federal contracts since 2015 to run shelters and provide other services to immigrant children in federal custody. Its shelter for migrant boys at a former Walmart Supercenter in South Texas has been the focus of nationwide scrutiny, but Southwest Key is but one player in the lucrative, secretive world of the migrant-shelter business. About a dozen contractors operate more than 30 facilities in Texas alone, with numerous others contracted for about 100 shelters in 16 other states. Trump’s order ... calling for migrant families to be detained together likely means millions more in contracts. A small network of private prison companies already is operating family detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania, and those facilities are likely to expand. Defense contractors and security firms are also building a presence in the system, including General Dynamics ... and MVM Inc.. In Harlingen, [Texas] one recent morning, the federal courthouse that hears immigration cases was packed. Teenagers who had been apprehended crossing the border sat in the courtrooms. In the lobby, a group of men and women ... patiently waited for the hearings to end. They were there for the migrant youth. But they were neither relatives nor lawyers. They were contractors.

Note: What this article doesn't include is the possibility that some of these children are being fed into secret mind control programs and possibly even clandestinely sold into sex trafficking. For more on this, read this essay . For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

US quits UN Human Rights council: What message does it send to the world?
June 20, 2018, CNN News
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/20/politics/us-human-rights-council-intl...

The United States has quit the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), saying the body is a "cesspool of political bias." US ambassador Nikki Haley announced the move Tuesday, which followed criticism by the UNHRC of Israel's shooting of unarmed protesters and the separation of children from their parents at the US-Mexico border. While US officials have tried to frame the move as pro-human rights, Washington's withdrawal is likely to renew criticism that the Trump administration places less value on human rights than its predecessors, as exemplified by Trump's dealings with alleged human rights abusers like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. The UNHRC is only the latest international body or agreement that the Trump administration has withdrawn from, including the Paris climate accords, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Both Haley and Trump have previously sparred with the wider UN ... with Haley claiming the international community pays outsized attention to Washington's actions while ignoring the "reprehensible human rights records of several members of its own Human Rights Council." That comment was in response to UN criticism of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy. However, both the Trump White House and previous US administrations have been open to dealing economically and otherwise with human rights abusers such as Saudi Arabia, China and Egypt.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

The Equal Rights Amendment has been dead for 36 years. Why it might be on the verge of a comeback.
June 18, 2018, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/06/18/the-equal...

On May 30, Illinois became the 37th state to pass the Equal Right Amendment (ERA), which says, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Next, advocates aim to secure the final state needed to ratify the amendment. They will probably target Virginia, North Carolina or Georgia. The law is overdue. Many Americans assume that the United States already has gender-equality rules. The Civil Rights Act, Title IX and the Equal Pay Act all offer protections against discrimination. But these are pieces of legislation. New laws and Supreme Court rulings can diminish their power. An amendment, by contrast, would force a constitutional reckoning for sex-based discrimination. Activists lobbied, marched, went on strike and persuaded Congress to pass the amendment in 1972. Within just two years, 34 states ratified it. Then the momentum faltered. The amendment failed to secure ratification from the four additional states needed before 1982, the expiration date set by Congress. Passing the ERA will not be easy. Fierce opposition has long accompanied feminist surges, and this is already happening today. In Illinois, Republicans largely spoke out against the amendment. The dominant party could block the ERA’s path at the federal level, and other states could rescind their decades-old ratification. Securing the final state to pass the ERA will probably prove as challenging as it was to secure the final state to pass the 19th Amendment a century ago.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing civil liberties news articles from reliable major media sources.

Interior agency blocks group of archaeologists from attending scientific conference
May 3, 2018, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy...

The Bureau of Land Management blocked at least 14 of its staff archaeologists and other specialists from attending a major scientific conference this year, at a time when archeological sites have become a flashpoint in the debate over public lands protection. The archeologists and other BLM employees ... were originally scheduled to attend the annual meeting in Washington of the Society for American Archaeology. But officials at BLM’s headquarters in Washington only authorized the attendance of three archaeologists, citing “the potential travel and other costs” of the trips. The archaeologists from BLM were scheduled to give a presentation at a symposium titled “Tough Issues in Land Management Archaeology,” which ultimately had to be cancelled due to the lack of participation of government scientists. Some ... point to the decision as another example of the Trump Interior Department’s effort to restrict researchers’ communications with the public and fellow scientists." This entire incident reeks of scientific interference," said Aaron Weiss, media director at the Center for Western Priorities. Last year, officials at Interior headquarters directed the U.S. Geological Survey to delete a line from a news release discussing the role climate change played in raising Earth’s oceans and removed two top climate experts at Montana's Glacier National Park from a delegation scheduled to show Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg around the park full of shrinking glaciers.

Note: This follows reports that the Department of Agriculture, Department of Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection Agency have been "gagged" by the Trump administration. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the scientific community.

Canada becomes second nation in the world to legalize marijuana
June 20, 2018, CNN News
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/20/health/canada-legalizes-marijuana/index.html

Recreational marijuana use will soon be legal in Canada after the Senate passed a "historic" bill. Canada is only the second country in the world - and the first G7 nation - to implement legislation to permit a nationwide marijuana market. In the neighboring US, nine states and the District of Columbia now allow for recreational marijuana use, and 30 allow for medical use. The Cannabis Act, stems from a campaign pledge of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to keep marijuana away from underage users and reduce related crime. Uruguay was the first country to legalize marijuana's production, sale and consumption in December 2013. The justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, ... applauded the vote. "This is an historic milestone for progressive policy in Canada," she tweeted. "This legislation will help protect our youth from the risks of cannabis while keeping profits out of the hands of criminals and organized crime." Once the bill is formally approved, adults will be able to carry and share up to 30 grams of legal marijuana in public. They also will be allowed to cultivate up to four plants in their households. However, stringent rules will still govern the purchase and use of marijuana. Consumers are expected to purchase marijuana from [regulated] retailers. Marijuana will also not be sold in the same location as alcohol or tobacco. The Canadian government has also implemented changes to their impaired driving laws, to address repercussions for driving under the influence of cannabis.

Note: In the US, more people are arrested for marijuana use than for all violent crimes combined.

Baby P detective sues ‘bully’ police after exposing child abuse and corruption
November 12, 2017, Sunday Express (One of the UK's most popular newspapers)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/878384/baby-peter-detective-john-wedger...

John Wedger said he was forced into early retirement from the Metropolitan Police. The former detective constable has begun a civil claim against Scotland Yard seeking damages for psychiatric injury arising from work-related stress. Mr Wedger, 47, was involved in an investigation into a well known prostitute in 2004 who was suspected of using children. She was linked to organised crime but intelligence from “multiple sources” suggested she also had connections within the local police. The prostitute would ply youngsters, including a 14-year-old girl, with drugs and alcohol and then pimp them out to men in budget hotels. During the course of the operation, Mr Wedger says he found that not only were the police aware the youngsters were being used for sex but he believed at least one officer was supplying the criminal gang with information about the investigation. After filing an intelligence report, he was brought in to see a senior officer at Scotland Yard headquarters. Mr Wedger said: “He told me in a firm and formal manner that I had ‘dug too deep’. He then stated that if I mentioned a word of my findings outside of his office then he would make sure I was ‘thrown to the wolves’. On his last day with the unit he was called in by the same officer. “He said, ‘You must give your word that you will never look into child prostitution ever again.’ The experience left me traumatised and paranoid.”

Note: Watch a highly revealing video of this courageous police detective giving testimony on his horrendous experience of trying to expose massive child trafficking often reaching to high levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.

Fellow police made my life torture for trying to stop Rochdale sex ring, claims detective
November 19, 2017, Sunday Express (One of the UK's most popular newspapers)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/881325/Police-Asian-grooming-rapists...

Maggie Oliver said her professional life was made “torture” after she told senior officers that police were not doing enough to protect girls from a predominantly Asian paedophile ring. The former detective constable resigned from Greater Manchester Police in late 2012 over failures that allowed the Rochdale perpetrators to escape justice for many years. However before she quit she alleges she was bullied for a year and a half while working on Operation Span, the investigation into Rochdale. She has now decided to speak out to support another detective John Wedger who the Sunday Express revealed last week is suing the Metropolitan Police for a psychiatric injury he suffered as a result of bullying. Ms Oliver was tasked with gaining the trust of vulnerable but hostile victims. However, when they began to identify Asian grooming gangs, she said the police cooled their interest in the investigation. She said: “GMP had a specialist interview suite for vulnerable victims. “Yet I remember one senior officer screaming down the phone at me telling me that I had to take vulnerable victims to a suspect interview suite where some of them had been taken previously when they were accused of something they hadn’t actually done.” Ms Oliver claimed the harassment stepped up when she was off work with stress. She said: “Two senior colleagues turned up at my house one day and demanded that I surrender the police phone I’d had for 15 years. “It was ... another attempt to isolate me further and shut me up.”

Note: This 2015 Newsweek article further describes the child trafficking ring in Rochdale that Oliver was investigating. Watch a highly revealing video of courageous police detective Wedger giving testimony on his horrendous experience of trying to expose massive child trafficking often reaching to high levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.

Parents are warning that 'Show Dogs' portrays sexual abuse and is not OK for kids
May 22, 2018, USA Today
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/allthemoms/2018/05/22/show-dogs-movie...

Show Dogs is a slapstick, buddy-cop comedy with talking dogs that seemed perfect for kids. Terina Maldonado, a Mesa, Arizona writer for Macaroni Kid wrote a column, imploring parents to keep their kids far away from the movie. The column struck a nerve. Max the Rottweiler and [Frank], his human partner ... are undercover officers who must crack the case of a kidnapped panda by infiltrating a prestigious dog show. The first troubling scene comes when Frank (Will Arnett) tells the dog Max (Ludacris) he needs to get used to getting his privates touched - which is a part of any inspection in a dog show. "He was telling him he needs to go to his zen place, and I like right away was wait ... what? When it turns into this big pivotal scene in the end and he needs to be allowed to be touched to win the competition ... red flags were going up and around in my mommy head," Maldonado said. A second scene in the movie shows Max having his private parts handled during the finals of the dog show competition. Max goes to his zen place and pictures himself flying through the sky. Finding the stolen panda depends on his ability to let this happen. "If it has just been a casual part of the movie, it wouldn't have been inappropriate." Maldonado said. "But it turned into this pivotal moment and it was teaching him to disassociate from himself while they were touching his private parts." As a survivor of child abuse, Maldonado said that this type of disassociation is what child predators tell children to do when they're upset about being touched.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.

Trump team cannot get its story straight on separating migrant families
June 18, 2018, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily...

“We do not have a policy of separating families at the border,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen tweeted. President Trump’s top domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller, was quoted in Sunday’s New York Times touting the crackdown. “It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry,” he said. “Period.” DHS announced last week that around 2,000 children have been taken from their families during the six weeks since the policy went into effect, and officials acknowledge the number may be even higher. More than a month after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced Trump’s new “zero tolerance” policy to great fanfare, members of the administration continue to struggle with how to talk about it – alternating between defending the initiative as a necessary deterrent, distancing themselves, blaming Democrats, trying to use it as leverage for negotiations with Congress or denying that it exists at all. Former first lady Laura Bush compares what’s happening to Japanese internment: “I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart. Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso. People on all sides agree that our immigration system isn’t working, but the injustice of zero tolerance is not the answer.”

Note: On June 20th, Trump signed an executive order intended to keep families of immigrant detainees together, though the fate of the more than 2,300 children already separated is not clear. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.

Our Opinion: A solution to 'bummer gun' journalism
February 8, 2018, Portland Tribune (One of Oregon's leading newspapers)
https://portlandtribune.com/pt/10-opinion/386084-275054-our-opinion-a-solution...

At Portland's Aladdin Theater at the close of 2017, Storm Large confessed that she finds it hard to follow headlines these days. "It's like a bummer gun aimed right at your face," she said, pointing a pair of imaginary pistols at her head. An April 2016 study by The Tow Center for Digital Journalism offered this sobering observation: "In a journalistic environment where the mantra 'if it bleeds, it leads' continues to resonate - and is amplified ever more by the clickbait web - there is a professional bias in favor of reporting on violence ... and other negative tropes." As journalists, it's our job to point out problems. However, I've come to see that we messengers are part of the problem - and, thankfully, that there's a fix. When I first heard about [the Solutions Journalism Network] I was skeptical. Their point is that journalists ... consistently do an amazing job of providing independent, objective reporting on societal problem. What we don't do as well is report how people respond to those problems, leaving readers like Storm feeling depressed. SJN, led by New York Times reporters Tina Rosenberg and David Bornstein, aims to change that. They're not asking us to dish out "happy news" but simply use a slightly different lens when we look at issues, to take the same professional rigor we bring to our reporting on problems and apply it to investigations of potential remedies. SJN has found that solutions journalism ... engages readers and leaves them feeling empowered, rather than helpless.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing mass media news articles from reliable sources.

Inspiring Articles

The good news is … people like to read good news
February 12, 2018, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/12/but-first-here-is-the-good-news-

Strange thing happens when you write about something going right. People take notice. They read to the end. They share it with their friends. They write to thank you. Eighteen months ago, the Guardian launched a pilot project to see how readers would respond if we deliberately sought out the good things happening in the world. More than 150 pieces of journalism later – in which we have examined the relative merits of everything from dog turds to ketamine, the blockchain to microhouses, and gardening to exoskeletons – we have proof of concept. Reader numbers for this kind of journalism have proven remarkably robust throughout the project. While audiences have always been riveted by bad news (it serves as both an early warning system and a reassurance about the comfort of their own lives), they are tired of the avalanche of awfulness. They are switching off. If people just shrug at news because they feel there is little they can do, nothing will change. Journalists in the US, Europe and the UK are waking up to this by publishing what is variously described as constructive journalism, solutions journalism or, somewhat misleadingly, positive news. Now the Guardian is deepening its commitment to this type of work. Our new series, The Upside, launched this week with [a] determination to show readers all of humanity, not just the bad bits. As our editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, promised in a speech ... recently, “we will develop ideas that help improve the world, not just critique it.”

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

Marc Benioff of Salesforce: ‘Are We Not All Connected?’
June 15, 2018, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/business/marc-benioff-salesforce-corner...

Salesforce may not be a household name like Facebook or Twitter, but the software company and its chief executive, Marc Benioff, are hugely influential. Salesforce is worth roughly $100 billion, and Mr. Benioff is a billionaire many times over. Success has emboldened him. A fan of Buddhism, Mr. Benioff has installed meditation rooms throughout Salesforce offices and emerged as an outspoken voice on social issues including L.G.B.T.Q. rights, the gender pay gap and the deleterious effects of social media. "There’s a shift going on," [said Benioff]. "When I went to U.S.C., it was all about maximizing value for shareholders. But we’re moving into a world of stakeholders. It’s not just about shareholders. Your employees are stakeholders, so are your customers, your partners, the communities that you’re in, the homeless that are nearby, your public schools. A company like ours can’t be successful in an unsuccessful economy or in an unsuccessful environment or where the school system doesn’t work. We have to take responsibility for all of those things." This idea that somebody put into our heads — that companies are somehow these kind of individuated units that are separate from society and don’t have to be paying attention to the communities they’re in — that is incorrect. We need to have a more enlightened view about the role of companies. This company is not somehow separate from everything else. Are we not all connected? Are we not all one? Isn’t that the point?"

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

How big brands are trying to pull off a recycling revolution
June 11, 2018, CNN News
http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/11/news/companies/recycling-revolution/

Coca-Cola said in January that by 2030, it will collect and recycle one bottle or can for each one it sells. Dunkin' Donuts said it will try to stop using foam cups by 2020. Several others, including McDonald's and Procter & Gamble, have made their own ambitious commitments to use sustainable packaging. Recycling can give companies better control over their supply chains, explained Bridget Croke, who leads external affairs for Closed Loop Partners, which invests in recycling technologies. Recycled materials aren't always cheaper than raw materials, she said, but their prices are consistent. There are other advantages to going green. Kevin Wilhelm, who runs a sustainability consulting firm, said that companies typically make recycling pledges because they've found that waste hurts their bottom line. The Closed Loop Fund and the Recycling Partnership, [a nonprofit group], count several major corporations as their funding partners, including Amazon, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Target, Walmart (WMT) and others. Croke said that at this stage, companies are better served by joining forces than by trying to work separately. "Smart companies," she said, are trying to figure out, "'What are the disruptive collective actions we can take to make the most out of our resources?'" Working together, companies can pour significant funds into development projects and create collective demand for sustainable products, like recyclable, compostable paper cups.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

McDonald's to scrap plastic straws in UK and Ireland
June 15, 2018, CNN News
http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/15/news/mcdonalds-plastic-straws/index.html

McDonald's has joined the fight against plastic pollution by switching to paper straws at its restaurants in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The change, which will begin to take effect in September, follows trials of paper straws at select locations. The US fast food chain said a majority of its customers supported the move away from plastic. McDonald's ... uses 1.8 million straws each day at its 1,361 restaurants in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company said the changeover would be complete in 2019. Plastic straws are the sixth most common type of litter globally. Only 1% are recycled. According to the UK government, 1 million birds and more than 100,000 sea mammals die every year from eating or getting tangled in plastic waste. And research shows there will be more plastic than fish by weight in the world's oceans by 2050. UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove called on other companies to follow the example of McDonald's. "McDonald's has made a significant investment in UK manufacturing to produce an alternative to plastic, showing British businesses are taking a global lead," he said in a statement. The flurry of commitments comes as efforts to eliminate single-use plastic intensify. The European Union moved last month to ban 10 items - including plastic cutlery, straws and cotton swabs - by 2030 in a bid to clean up the oceans.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.

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Please note that most of the summarizing of the revealing news articles in the above summary was done by Mark Bailey of WantToKnow.info. Many thanks to Mark for all the time and skill he puts into this. The section below provides several ideas on what you can do to spread the news.

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