Extra! Extra! 2/18

Trump's very bad week and more.

Hi, all, and happy Sunday!

Here’s your weekly list of good news, Democratic wins, MAGA losses, and climate victories. Enjoy it, savor it, and by all means share it. After all, what’s the use in working so hard if we don’t stop and bask in the progress?

I have, as usual, popped an 🪓 next to every item folks like us helped make happen, or that got done by lawmakers we helped elect.

THANK YOU. Without you, this country—and this world—would be a poorer place, indeed.

Read This 📖

Think one person can’t make a difference? Read this. [H/T subscriber Trina Warren]

Also, THIS:

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Celebrate This! 🎉

TOM SUOZZI WON BY 8 POINTS!! 🪓

We won in Pennsylvania, too! By 35 points! Go Jim Prokopiak! 🪓

A scientific paper key to the argument against the abortion pill was retracted by its publisher. 

A DNC billboard in Harrisburg, PA featured comments Trump made after a recent school shooting as he came into town for an NRA convention. 🪓

An new ironmaking method could slash carbon emissions and even be carbon negative!

58,000 Ford workers are getting bonus checks of up to $10,400 as part of the profit-sharing arrangement they won during their strike. Relatedly, the UAW got a majority of workers at a Volkswagen plant in Tennessee to sign up to unionize. [H/T

BIG by Matt Stoller

] 🪓

The D.C. Attorney General sued 14 of the district’s biggest landlords over rent-fixing via software. 🪓

Two Israeli-Argentinian men taken captive by Hamas on October 7 were rescued.

President Biden’s Chips and Science Act is transforming Maricopa County, AZ into one of the world’s most important manufacturing sites for the tiny components that power all modern electronics. 🪓

President Biden officially joined TikTok.

The Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy, a liberal political organization that promotes economic policies for working families, will spend $40 million backing President Biden’s re-election bid and other Democratic candidates for the House and Senate.

A New York state law will require businesses to clearly display the cost of purchasing items with a credit card, including any surcharges.

Minnetonka first started selling its “Thunderbird” moccasins in 1965. Now, for the first time, they’ve been redesigned by a Native American designer.

After blowback, Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen is reversing course and accepting federal funds for the USDA’s expanded Summer EBT program. 🪓

The Wisconsin Elections Commission issued guidance directing clerks to accept mail ballots with incomplete witness information.

Maine will use $4.4 million in federal funds to strengthen electric grids vulnerable to extreme storms. 🪓

California sea otters almost went extinct, but now they’re returning in big numbers and restoring their habitat as they do.

Americans bought 21 percent more heat pumps in 2023 than the next-most popular heating appliance, fossil gas furnaces. That’s the biggest lead heat pumps have opened up over conventional furnaces in the two decades of data available. 🪓

The character and parade performers at Disneyland have decided to unionize with Equity!

The Biden administration has announced support for a major transmission line project in Utah as part of a broader plan to expand renewable energy on public lands. 🪓

The Biden administration announced it is providing $970 million for improvements at 114 airports around the country, including in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Masachussetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. 🪓

Justice Juan M. Merchan determined that Donald J. Trump must go on trial in a Manhattan courtroom next month to face charges that he covered up a potential sex scandal to aid his 2020 presidential campaign. The trial starts 3/25

A Republican winning an Oklahoma special election on Tuesday night in a deep red area by just five points has sparked more concerns about the GOP's performance in November's races. 🪓

Officials have spotted another pod of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

President Biden announced an order to shield thousands of Palestinians in the United States from being removed from the country for 18 months as the war in Gaza rages on, and as humanitarian conditions there continue to deteriorate. 🪓

Republican Rep. Mark Green is retiring.

Condoms are now covered by the ACA. 🪓

The Missouri state Supreme Court again ruled that Republicans’ efforts to ban Planned Parenthood from getting Medicaid reimbursements are unconstitutional.

A federal court rejected Alabama Republicans' argument that voters cannot sue to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The new Democratic trifecta in Michigan voted to repeal the state’s anti-union right-to-work law last year. That legislation went into effect this week. 🪓

Right-wing "election integrity" group True the Vote admitted to a judge that it has no evidence supporting its claims of "ballot stuffing" in Georgia during the 2020 election and 2021 Senate runoff.

A judge has ruled in favor of conservation groups and the state of Hawai‘i, allowing a project to suppress mosquitos to protect imperiled Hawaiian honeycreepers on east Maui to proceed. 🪓

Special counsel David Weiss announced new charges against a former FBI informant who officials say lied about the Bidens’ business dealings. With these charges James Comer’s main Biden impeachment justification is gone.

The Yellowstone Club, an elite resort near Big Sky, has become the first ski area in Montana to turn wastewater into snow.

The White House unveiled a significant expansion of its plans to cancel student debt. 🪓

President Biden and Democrats have a double-digit trust advantage over Republicans on handling health care.

The latest “State of the Rockies” poll finds that Western voters across party lines rate conservation issues as an important factor in their vote this year; for the first time in the poll’s history, the majority of Republicans say that conservation should be prioritized over maximizing fossil fuel production. Wow.

Indigenous nations, farmers, and ranchers throughout the Klamath Basin in the Pacific Northwest reached a rare agreement to collaborate on ecosystem restoration projects and to improve water supply for agriculture. 

The New York State Common Retirement Fund will restrict its investments in eight integrated oil and gas companies, including the divestment of a small share of its holdings in Exxon Mobil. It’s a start! 🪓

Joe Manchin announced that he will not run for president.

Under new rules that went into effect this week, any new road and homebuilding projects in England are required to result in more or better natural habitats than before.

2023 was the first year without elephant poaching in Republic of Congo National Park!

Franklin — the first Black character in the “Peanuts” comic strip — is getting his own animated Apple TV+ special this month.

The cleanest sources of electricity could soon make up the largest share of electricity generation in the European Union.

The U.S. Census Bureau has put the brakes on a controversial proposal that would change how it counts people with disabilities.

Black workers are enjoying a jobs boom in America. 🪓

The Michigan GOP currently has two people claiming to lead it. Neither will back down. Schadenfreude abounds.

Civil lawsuits seeking to hold Trump accountable for the January 6 attack can move forward after the former president declined to ask the Supreme Court to decide whether he is shielded by presidential immunity.

Former President Trump and the Trump Organization must pay $354 million in damages to the state of New York for civil business fraud. Trump stands to lose at least 13% of his net worth.

Consumer sentiment is even higher this month. 🪓

The States Project met a $825,000 January/February matching goal before February was even over! (If you’ve given to my Chop Wood, Carry Statehouses fund over the last few weeks YOU HELPED us get there! Thanks!) 🪓

A U.S. district judge halted a pair of developments where panthers remain in the western Everglades in Florida.

Kansas just signed legislation to eliminate a loophole that has long allowed employers nationwide to pay people with disabilities far below states’ minimum wage.

The federal government finally issued guidelines cracking down on health insurance companies using artificial intelligence to determine whether patients qualify for health coverage.  🪓

Scientists discovered a man-made stone age wall at the bottom of the Baltic Sea off of Germany’s coast that’s somewhere between 10 and 14 thousand years old. It may be Europe’s oldest human-made intact mega-structure. WILD.

In Arizona, state lawmakers approved bipartisan legislation that ensures county officials will have more time to finalize election results. 🪓

The Department of the Interior announced more than $157 million from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to restore our nation’s lands and waters through locally led, landscape-scale restoration projects. (A full project list is available on the Department’s website.) 🪓

They also announced formal establishment of Amache National Historic Site in Colorado as the nation’s newest national park. 🪓

Ethiopia is banning gas-powered cars. Not in a few years, either. Now.

High speed rail is finally coming to California’s Central Valley!

Ecosia, a search engine that plants a tree for each search, just hit 200 million trees planted. 🪓

A landmark Utah geothermal project is outpacing expectations.

Electric vehicles once again beat their gas-powered counterparts in Super Bowl ads.