Extra! Extra! 1/28 🪓
Read all about it!
Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
Hope you’re all enjoying a bit of downtime before another bonkers week begins. To add to your enjoyment, please find below a list of all the amazing stuff that happened this week while we (generally) weren’t paying attention. Of course some of the wins were widely hailed (ahem, E. Jean Carroll) but lots more flew under the proverbial radar. Not anymore!
So bask in this list of what went right last week—you deserve it, because YOU helped make lots of these things happen! And don’t forget to share it, so that many more people can see what our hard work can get done.
Speaking of which, I have, as usual, popped an 🪓 next to every item folks like you helped make happen, or that got done by lawmakers we helped elect.
Enjoy that sea of 🪓’s!
Tomorrow we’ll get back to work making more victories.
Jess
Read This 📖
Have you heard of the “Quaker Comet?” I hadn’t, and I’m so glad someone sent me this article about him. Talk about a heroic activist! Very inspiring.
Another heroic activist, and now candidate, is Allie Phillips, a Tennessee mom who had to travel out of state for an abortion after her second pregnancy became non-viable at 21 weeks. Now she’s running for the state legislature. Amazing.
Celebrate This! 🎉
The EPA is lowering recommended screening levels and strengthening guidance for investigating and clean up lead-contaminated soil in residential areas where children live and play. 🪓
The Interior Department announced an updated roadmap for solar energy development to streamline siting and permitting on more public lands across the West. 🪓
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed a new congressional map into law, creating two majority-Black U.S. House districts in the state. The new map follows a lawsuit from advocacy groups seeking fair representation for Black Louisianans. [H/T Democracy Docket] 🪓
The Biden-Harris administration announced new actions to lower the cost of electric vehicles for Americans and build a convenient, reliable, Made-in-America EV charging network. 🪓
Two members of the Proud Boys were each sentenced to more than four years in prison for their participation in the Capitol attack.
The nascent market for "clean" energy tax credits under the 2022 climate law is "surging faster than expected, with deals totaling as much as $9 billion already done and tens of billions more expected this year." [H/T Climate Change Resources] 🪓
A two-year project aimed at providing monthly payments to 100 current and future Ann Arbor, MI entrepreneurs with low and very low incomes kicked off this month. The effort is funded with federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act. 🪓
A federal judge granted a request from voting rights organizations and Democratic groups to temporarily block a provision of North Carolina’s recently enacted voter suppression law. 🪓
Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom, a coalition of reproductive rights groups in Colorado, has officially kicked off an effort to place an amendment on the November ballot that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution. 🪓
Separate attacks on Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe faced setbacks, with a Dane County judge ruling that she lawfully holds her position while a lawmaker’s attempt to begin impeachment proceedings failed. [H/T Voting Rights Lab]
The Chilean Senate unanimously voted to ratify the UN High Seas (Global Ocean) Treaty this past week. Although 84 countries signed the Treaty in 2023, it will only enter into force if ratified by at least 60 countries. [H/T The Waggle]
The Klamath River, which runs through Oregon and California before emptying into the Pacific Ocean, is beginning to flow freely for the first time in over one hundred years. [H/T The Waggle] 🪓
The Biden administration announced a bunch of new abortion and contraception-related initiatives on the 51st anniversary of Roe v Wade. 🪓
A federal appeals panel in Boston ruled that a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Mexico against U.S. gun manufacturers whose weapons are used by drug cartels can proceed, reversing a lower court that had dismissed the case.
Cal State professors reached a tentative deal to raise wages, ending the largest strike by university faculty in U.S. history hours after it began. 🪓
Republicans in the Florida House have proposed legislation that would make it more difficult for people to challenge books en masse. 🪓
The U.S. government opened up 22 million acres of federal land for solar development. 🪓
Nigeria’s Lagos State has announced a ban on the usage and distribution of styrofoam and other single-use plastics.
Republicans are openly admitting that they’ve accomplished nothing since the start of the Congressional session, and that “it’s embarrassing.” Sure is.
New polling shows that Americans are VERY unhappy about Republicans’ impeachment of President Biden.
Turkey’s parliament approved Sweden’s accession to NATO, ensuring the military alliance will soon cover the entire Baltic coast.
The growth of fossil fuel-powered electricity probably peaked in 2023, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency.
A Swedish company secured $5 billion in debt financing to construct what will be the world’s largest green steel plant.
Climate activists sued the Dutch bank ING over its fossil fuel financing. The same activist group successfully sued Shell in 2021. 🪓
Daimler Trucks, Accelera, and truck maker PACCAR will build a huge battery cell factory for electric trucks in Mississippi. Thanks, Inflation Reduction Act! 🪓
Uber announced a partnership with Tesla to promote the use of EVs by its drivers in the U.S. as the company works toward its goal of becoming emission-free in U.S. and Canadian cities by 2030. 🪓
The Biden Administration announced $34 million in funding for 12 projects across 11 states to shore-up the nation’s aging power grid. 🪓
The Department of the Interior announced $80 million in funding to continue oil and gas well clean-up efforts in Texas. 🪓
Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced that the state will receive $15M – made possible by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – to install 58 new electric vehicle chargers. 🪓
In Kentucky, the state’s largest utility has built its first utility-scale wind turbine to test the potential for wind energy development. [H/T Climate Power]
End Citizens United filed IRS and FEC challenges against No Labels, which has been operating as a political party but evading disclosing their donors and other requirements by wrongly proceeding as a c4 nonprofit. 🪓
Peter Navarro got 4 months of jail time and was fined $9,500 for contempt of Congress. GOOD!
The Biden administration is pausing a decision on whether to approve what would be the largest natural gas export terminal in the United States. HUGE WIN FOR CLIMATE! 🪓🪓🪓
Unrepentant Proud Boy Marc Bru was ordered to serve 6 years in prison for participating in the assault on the Capitol on January 6.
The United Auto Workers (UAW) endorsed Joe Biden for reelection! 🪓
The North Carolina Judicial Standards Commission announced that it had closed an ethics investigation it never should have opened into State Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls.
A new report finds that bans on single use plastic bags are working! Billions fewer are being used in the US! 🪓
An Oregon jury ordered PacifiCorp, an electric utility, to pay $85 million to nine people who suffered losses during a 2020 wildfire.
President Biden vetoed a Republican-led effort that could have thwarted plans to build more electric vehicle charging stations. 🪓
New Jersey awarded two additional contracts for offshore wind farms, giving the industry a boost after setbacks last year. 🪓
The U.S. economy grew at a 3.3% pace in the fourth quarter, much better than expected. 🪓
The Biden-Harris Administration announced new executive actions to help promote safe storage of firearms. 🪓
In New Hampshire, nearly 125,000 New Hampshire voters showed up to deliver an easy (and unprecedented) write-in victory for Joe Biden after his allies and a ton of amazing volunteers organized a write-in campaign (THANK YOU HEROES!). 🪓
A wildlife cam captured a giant anteater walking through the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, where the animal has not been seen for 100 years. WOW!
A federal appeals court denied Trump’s request to remove a gag order imposed on him in the federal election interference case.
The final numbers are in! A record 21.3 million Americans signed up for Affordable Care Act coverage for 2024. Nearly 5 million more people signed up for Obamacare policies for this year compared with last year. 🪓
A jury ordered Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll over defamatory remarks he made about her while he was president in response to her rape accusation. They specified that he acted with malice.
The U.S. Postal Service has unveiled its first set of EV charging stations at an Atlanta delivery center. 🪓
The Los Angeles City Council voted to prevent landlords from evicting tenants who took in a dog, cat or other animal at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, even if that move violated the terms of their lease. 🪓
A promising new study out of Scotland demonstrates that people who were fully vaccinated against HPV experienced zero cancer cases years later.
Anne Hathaway walked out of a Vanity Fair photo shoot Tuesday morning in support of the Condé Nast Union walk out. 🪓
Kevin Monahan, 66, who fatally shot Kaylin Gillis, 20, in April when she mistakenly pulled into his driveway in New York, was found guilty of murder. Good.
Jon Stewart is returning to late night.
2023 was one of the safest aviation years on record.
Florida’s Miami-Dade County received Environmental Protection Agency funding that will increase its electric school bus count to 100. 🪓
President Biden announced nearly 5B in funding for new transportation projects across the country. 🪓
Dayton, Ohio’s city government has approved spending millions of Bipartisan Infrastructure Act dollars to try to reduce the level of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in their drinking water system. 🪓
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has finally signed off on the language for a pro-choice ballot measure. That means pro-choice organizers can start collecting signatures. 🪓 [H/T
]Watch This! 👀
Once again, I must thank
for this—he had it in his awesome Saturday newsletter. I’ve watched it ten times. Amazing.
Thanks for capturing so much gratifying good news. Bye-Don indeed.
I had also seen the Matt Friend video on Jay’s site, but I just watched it again about four times. I laughed when you said you watched it 10 times because it is addictive. Also, the good news this week was particularly satisfying. What President Biden has accomplished, and is continuing to do, is absolutely phenomenal, and this is why the Republicans are doing the freak out dance. They know how foolish and useless they are, and so do the American people.