Extra! Extra! 1/8
Hi, all, and happy Sunday night!
Here are some things to feel good about after a week of moderate chaos. Take it all in— enjoy. Remember, the news will focus on what’s going wrong. Most pundits will focus on the same. As will many influencers. And lots of regular Americans.
It’s our job to focus a bit more on the good, because what we focus on the most grows. So let’s do that one more time, then work to make more good things happen tomorrow.
That’s how we win; that’s how we thrive.
Thanks for being in this fight with me.
Jess
Read This 📖
This week I want to recommend a book for you. It’s “Hope in the Dark, by Rebecca Solnit. I know things feel tough right now, and that we’re all bracing ourselves for another very challenging year. I can’t think of another volume better designed to help us get through it and encourage our continued activism.
Here’s an excerpt:
Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.
― Rebecca Solnit, Hope in the Dark
Truly a book for this moment in history. Your local library should have it.
Celebrate This! 🎉
Since NFL safety Damar Hamlin’s collapse during Monday’s Buffalo Bills game, fans have raised over $8 million (and counting) for a toy drive the athlete started back in 2020.
Arizona Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs is taking the state’s child protective services agency in a radically different direction in the wake of a ProPublica-NBC News investigation into the racial disparities that have plagued the child welfare system there. This week she announced that she has selected Matthew Stewart, a Black community advocate, as the new head of Arizona’s Department of Child Safety.
Brazilian authorities say they will revive a 2008 fraud case against Representative-elect George Santos.
The Biden administration released a plan to reduce homelessness 25% by 2025.
Brazil will also have its first Indigenous woman chief in a key governmental role. The country’s new President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced that Sônia Guajajara will head up a new Ministry of Indigenous Peoples.
In an effort to safeguard hundreds of thousands of rivers, streams, and wetlands across the United States, the Biden administration finalized a new rule last week clarifying which of the country’s waterways qualify for federal protection under the 1972 Clean Water Act.
George Santos, who made false claims about his background, spent his first day in Congress shunned by his Republican colleagues.
The Department of Energy proposed stronger efficiency standards for light bulbs to conserve energy and cut energy bills.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) will be the first woman to hold the position of Senate president pro tempore, making her third in line in the presidential succession.
Katie Hobbs, Kris Mayes and Adrian Fontes were sworn in as the governor, attorney general and secretary of state of Arizona, respectively. This ceremony comes on the heels of several weeks of litigation challenging election results.
In a pair of true surprises, moderate Democrat Mark Rozzi was elected speaker of the Pennsylvania state House Tuesday just before he announced that he’d lead the chamber as an independent. (Republicans had been trying to poach the Speakership and most feared they would succeed.)
The Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule to ban employers from imposing noncompete clauses on their workers, which could increase worker earnings by nearly $300 billion per year. Huge!
South Carolina’s draconian six-week abortion ban was struck down by the state’s Supreme Court, which rightly concluded that six weeks is insufficient time for people to know they are pregnant and seek an abortion.
In the absence of a speaker, the disorder in the House accidentally created another historic moment, leaving a Black woman, Cheryl Johnson, in charge of the chamber for the first time in history.
For the first time, the FDA announced that it will allow abortion pills to be sold at retail pharmacies. The pill can be taken up to 10 weeks into pregnancy, is safe, effective, and the change will improve access to this aspect of reproductive health care.
This is so cool! Moderately conservative Republican Jason Stephens, with the help of the Ohio Democratic party, snatched the coveted Ohio House Speaker job Tuesday from a far-right lawmaker who was already elected speaker in a non-official party vote.
The Department of Justice has issued an official opinion stating that the United States Postal Service can continue to deliver prescription abortion medication despite the Dobbs ruling.
New Jersey is allocating $15 million for healthcare facilities offering abortion services
Thank you for all of these uplifting treasures!!! You - and they - are gems. Happy Monday morning from Spain. 🌟
I love Hope in the Dark!!! It was such an inspiration when I first got involved as an activist. It definitely helps to frame our ongoing battles. I refer back to it regularly when I need feel centered.