Extra! Extra! 3/24 🎉🎉🎉
Greetings from The Hague!
Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
Greetings from The Hague!
Here’s your list of everything excellent that happened this week—or everything I was able to find, anyway. As usual, the week was chock full of craziness, but also wonderful things that largely flew under the radar. It’s our job to change that, so please enjoy this good news rundown, and then please, please share it with those who feel that “nothing is going right.” A lot is!
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. Remember, when we chop wood and carry water, amazing things happen!
P.S. — A friendly reminder that there will be no newsletters this week, as I’m on vacation in Europe with my family. Apologies to my newest subscribers—I rarely take time off but this week I’m making an exception. I’ll be back 5 days a week the following week, and will likely not take another pause until after the November elections.
Read This 📖
This is absolutely incredible and inspiring! Thanks to subscriber Fran K., who sent the piece my way!
Celebrate This! 🎉
The Biden administration proposed to save an imperiled bird—the greater sage grouse—by limiting oil and gas drilling, mining, livestock grazing and other activities across much of the American West. 🪓
Retrofitting giant, rigid sails to a cargo ship has effectively cut its fuel use and CO2 emissions.
The White House committed to restoring the Antitrust Division budget next year. 🪓
Workers at Volkswagen in Chattanooga, Tennessee, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board for a vote to join the UAW. 🪓
A new Facebook page, Republican Voters Against Trump, is highlighting the testimonials of former Trump voters who will now not support him. Pretty cool!
New York City’s pedestrians had their safest-ever year in 2023.
Roosevelt Island in NYC will soon have a mini forest on it!
Actor Ed Begley Jr. took public transportation to the Oscars. His daughter filmed him and 6 million people saw it on TikTok. 🪓
After three decades of attempts, the Environmental Protection Agency has banned the only form of asbestos still in use. 🪓
Trump is unable to finance an appeal bond for $450 million.
President Biden signed a new Executive Order that directs the most comprehensive set of executive actions ever taken to expand and improve research on women’s health. 🪓
A study has found that Giant redwoods - the world's largest trees - are flourishing in the UK.
The EPA is distributing $20 billion to various nonprofits to make green lending more accessible to the American public. 🪓
The League of Conservation Voters pledged to donate $120 million to support Biden and his allies. That brings Biden’s total contributions from outside groups to $1 billion.
Members of the Kennedy family posed for a photo with President Biden at the White House, showing that they support him over their anti-vaxxer relative.
Congress has agreed to extend a widely hailed program to counter HIV and AIDS worldwide that was imperiled due to GOP concerns that it was indirectly subsidizing abortions. 🪓
Donald Trump failed to prevent Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen, his former attorney, from testifying at his New York criminal trial.
Colorado is expected to create units for transgender women within its prisons in response to a settlement in a class action lawsuit. 🪓
A new poll indicates that seventy percent of Americans believe presidents should not be immune from criminal prosecution, with 48% of GOP voters also opposing immunity.
Under pressure from Sen. Bernie Sanders and the Federal Trade Commission, pharma giant AstraZeneca announced that it is cutting the out-of-pocket cost of its inhalers to just $35 per month for most U.S. patients, down from as much as $645. 🪓
The Department of the Interior announced the establishment of the Everglades to Gulf Conservation Area in southwest Florida as the 571st and newest unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System. The new four-million-acre conservation area will provide crucial protected wildlife corridors, enhance outdoor recreation access to the public and bolster climate resilience in southwest Florida. 🪓
The U.S. Department of Energy, Department of Transportation, and the EPA released the first-ever National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy. 🪓
The U.S., Canada and several indigenous groups announced a proposal to address pollution from coal mining in British Columbia that officials say has been contaminating waterways and harming fisheries on both sides of the border for years. 🪓
Divest Oregon has passed HB 4083 the COAL act! It is now on its way to the Governor for a signature and that will make it the 3rd divestment legislation to be passed in the US and 4th globally. 🪓
New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin (D) said the state's controversial “party column design” on county primary ballots is unconstitutional and won't defend it in court. 🪓
The Delaware Department of Elections announced a new pay scale for election workers that nearly doubles their daily compensation. 🪓
In Utah HB290, a bill that would have ended ranked-choice voting in the state was defeated. 🪓
The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Couy Griffin, a convicted January 6 insurrectionist who was barred from public office in New Mexico under the Constitution’s insurrection clause.
The French town of Saint-Joachim is installing an array of solar panels that will be the first project in the country to distribute energy evenly among such a large community.
Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch will no longer receive Ruth Bader Ginsburg awards. Good. 🪓
Peter Navarro arrived in Miami to begin serving a four-month sentence for refusing to testify in front of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. Buh bye!
Nearly 20% of Republicans in Ohio told exit pollsters that they will refuse to vote for Trump in November, with 11% outright saying they will vote for Biden. In general, the anti-Trump Republican vote is a real thing.
Nine more Starbucks stores unionized. 🪓
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) signed three election bills into law. The laws make it easier to register to vote, help prevent delays in statewide election certification and allow counties to pilot new programs for signature verification. 🪓
The U.S. announced strict new emission limits for automakers, a step toward making most new American cars either electric or hybrid by 2032. The New York Times called it “one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history,” and a major component of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda. 🪓
The Biden Administration cancelled student loans for an additional 78,000 public service workers – teachers, nurses, firefighters, and more – through Public Service Loan Forgiveness. 🪓
The Justice Department and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of breaking federal antitrust law in a sprawling lawsuit unveiled Thursday. 🪓
The Fed is signaling that it will stick to its plan to cut interest rates three times this year even as it projects even stronger economic growth.
In Idaho, twice as many Democrats are running for statehouse seats than did in 2022! Wow! 🪓
U.S. life expectancy rose by more than one full year from 2021 to 2022, from 76.4 years to 77.5 years.
Over 40 anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ riders were defeated during budget negotiations with Republicans. [H/T
] 🪓Sen. Todd Young (R-IN) says he will not support Donald Trump for president.
The Montana Supreme Court overruled the state attorney general’s January finding that a constitutional initiative to explicitly protect abortion rights is “legally insufficient,” resolving one of many obstacles to the proposal being placed before voters on the November ballot.
The U.S. awarded nearly $20 billion in incentives to the chip giant Intel to manufacture cutting-edge semiconductors in the country. Funding comes from the Chips and Science Act. 🪓
America’s first utility-scale offshore wind farm is finally finished. All 12 of the wind farm’s towering turbines are now in place and producing enough clean electricity to power roughly 70,000 homes in Long Island, New York.
New research indicates that an exponential surge in solar, wind, and battery capacity is putting the world on track to reach ambitious net-zero goals by 2030.
The French company Schneider Electric has reached a partnership with a power-generation startup aimed at displacing diesel generators across the United States.
Approximately $25 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will help rebuild Mohave Road in La Paz County, Arizona. The road has had a history of fatal crashes and is also home to the Colorado River Indian Reservation headquarters. 🪓
One of the founders of RIP Medical Debt, a non-profit that’s forgiven more than $10B in medical debt in the U.S., has a new goal: to convince the US government to forgive $6B in debt it holds against military veterans. (He’s also a subscriber! Woot!) 🪓
United Steelworkers endorsed President Biden!
A federal court dismissed a right-wing lawsuit seeking to block a Washington, D.C. law allowing noncitizens to vote in elections for mayor, city council, neighborhood commissions and other local races only. The law will remain in place.
Donald Trump has less than $42 million cash-on-hand, which is less than one-third of the $155 million cash-on-hand that Team Biden-Harris has. 🪓
President Biden now leads Trump in the Economist’s weekly polling average for the first time in 6 months.
Six former Mississippi law enforcement officers were sentenced to prison this week for torturing and abusing two Black men in Rankin County, Mississippi.
U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher is resigning in April.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) signed two bills into law that prevent cities from closing a significant number of polling places close to an election and make it a felony to physically assault an election worker. 🪓
The Biden Harris administration announced new actions to protect our freshwater resources and ensure every community can count on clean water when they turn on the faucet. 🪓
Under a historic “memorandum of understanding” signed this week, the Yurok Tribe of California officially became the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service.
Women veterans are receiving more benefits and care from VA than ever before. Progress in the department is attributed to legislative measures and ongoing initiatives such as the PACT Act and the new Women's Health Research Collaborative. 🪓
EU countries just backed a new law to enforce stricter checks on forced labor and environmental damage. The European Supply Chain Act will apply to companies with over 1,000 employees and annual revenues of over $490 million.
Absolutely amazing amount of great news compiled in one place. Thank you, Jess, for this prodigious effort. Giving me more hope that “we shall overcome!” Enjoy your week of family travel.
Thank you so much for writing this despite the fact you're on vacation. And I can't imagine anyone who deserves it more! Really enjoyed the article about what is happening in Guatemal and the article about the Republican voters who do not support Trump. And I was very happy to read all the good climate news! Enjoy your time away with your family.