Extra! Extra! 12/18 🎊
Hi, all! Happy Sunday.
And a happy first day of Hanukkah to those of you who celebrate it.
For all of you: here’s your dose of positivity, progress, and delight for the week. Enjoy it! You deserve to. After all, it’s because of all of you that this particular newsletter gets longer every week.
Talk soon!
Jess
Read This 📖
Sierra Club reviews their 30 biggest environmental victories for 2022—there’s some great stuff on the list!
And this article will give you some hope around the gun issue! (It’ll also show you how important your calls are!)
Celebrate This! 🎉
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $587 million initiative to support up to four Indigenous-led conservation projects over the next seven years.
The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation launched a new relief fund aimed at Black student-loan borrowers. It was launched because of the continued legal challenges to President Biden’s student debt relief program.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request by R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco interests for an emergency injunction to block implementation of California’s law ending the sale of most flavored tobacco products – a law that was overwhelmingly approved by state lawmakers in 2020 and upheld in November by 64% of the state’s voters.
President Biden announced the formation of an interagency group to draft an antisemitism strategy.
Inflation cooled more than expected in November.
On Tuesday, the Department of Energy announced a long-awaited milestone in the development of nuclear fusion energy: net energy gain.
Bus fares in Washington, D.C., will be free for residents starting next summer, making it the biggest U.S. city to institute a permanent no-pay policy in an effort to boost public transit usage.
Special counsel Jack Smith has sent a grand jury subpoena to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger.
Suedi Murekezi, a U.S. Air Force veteran whose family says he was captured by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine earlier this year, has been freed in a prisoner swap.
With just a few weeks left in office, Oregon Governor Kate Brown commuted the sentences of the 17 people left on death row and ordered that the state’s execution chamber be dismantled. Both of these actions effectively end the death penalty in the state.
At an international donor conference in Paris, dozens of countries and international organizations threw their support behind more than $1 billion in aid pledges to Ukraine to keep the country’s citizens fed and warm, and to restore or maintain their electricity as winter sets in.
Rupert Murdoch was deposed under oath in a defamation lawsuit over his network’s coverage of the Big Lie.
President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, enshrining rights for same-sex and interracial couples to protect both institutions from the Supreme Court.
A new vaccine for a deadly form of skin cancer has shown promising results in clinical trials.
An Iowa judge upheld a 2019 block on a 6-week abortion ban.
Vermont Gov. Phil Scott signed a document that formally changed the state’s constitution to protect abortion rights.
France will make condoms free in pharmacies for anyone up to age 25 in the new year.
New York enacted a bill that will ensure eligible votes cast at an incorrect polling place are still counted.
Workers at a General Motors-LG Energy plant in northeast Ohio overwhelmingly voted to join the United Auto Workers union, a huge win for workers in the nascent electric vehicles supply chain sector.
Banking giant HSBC announced it will stop funding new oil and gas fields and will expect more information from energy clients over their plans to cut carbon emissions.
In a global first, the European Union has agreed to impose a carbon tax on goods imported into the supranational trade bloc, requiring emissions-intensive foreign companies to pay the same CO2 taxes as their European competitors.
President Biden hosted nearly 50 African leaders at the first U.S.-Africa summit since 2014, pledging billions in investments for the continent.
The House passed a bill to temporarily avert a government shutdown.
Georgia’s top official in charge of voting called for an end to the state’s runoff election system. The system is a relic of Jim Crow-era laws that aimed to limit Black voters’ political power.
A ghastly trans sports ban bill failed in Ohio after Republicans split on genital inspections.
A grand jury indicted five Louisiana officers in connection with the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, a Black driver.
A white police officer was found guilty of manslaughter in the death of Atatiana Jefferson, a Black woman who was shot at her home in Texas.
The Ukrainian people and their representatives were given the European Union’s top human-rights prize for their resistance to Russia’s invasion and steadfast defiance during the war and occupation of the illegally-annexed regions.
The Biden Administration announced that it will resume its popular free at-home COVID-19 test program through the USPS. Make sure to sign up for yours!
The Washington, DC, teachers union voted to approve a new labor contract, securing raises and other benefits for 5,500 public school teachers after more than three years without a contract.
Attorney General Merrick Garland instructed federal prosecutors to end sentencing disparities in cases involving the distribution of crack and powder cocaine after decades of law enforcement policy disproportionately treating crack offenders (ie, Black and Brown people) more punitively.
Researchers from Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a new way of administering medication to mice with malignant brain tumors — a milestone achievement that could one day help treat humans who are battling brain cancer.
Nearly 300 Moms Demand Action volunteers ran for office in 2022 — more than half of them were elected. The newly elected officials will bring a much-needed voice for gun control to decision- and policymaking.
Watch This! 👀
Watch this if you have the time — it’s amazing.
Thank you for all these updates and
links. You're rocking it.😁
Wow, Loretta rocks. Thanks for keeping tabs on all the good news.