Extra! Extra! 5/11 🥰
Good news after a hard week.
Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
Happy Mother’s Day, too, to all who celebrate it. Whether you are a mom, have a mom, or fill a mom-like role in someone’s life, I hope you’re feeling the love today.
Speaking of which, here’s some news you can love after what’s been, once again, a truly challenging week. We’ve all read some awful headlines and seen a lot of horrifying footage over the last 7 days. Let’s take a few minutes, then, to replenish our spirits by reading about the good things that happened as well.
Remember, we can only keep fighting if we occasionally attend to—and replenish— our morale. This list will help do that, and then some.
So let’s get to it. After you’ve read it please share this good news with someone who could use the lift.
Tomorrow we’ll all go back to work.
Sending love and gratitude for all you do.
Read This 📖
From “Force Fields and Resistance,” by the folks at Choose Democracy:
It’s worth pausing here to note our feelings in these tense times. Many days it’s easy to ask “Are we winning? Are we losing?” Like a basketball game, many of us do a kind of score keeping about how many points are we down? But, just to walk further into the sports analogy, this is more like soccer — where a lot of the game isn’t about immediate scoring but about positioning, repositioning, quick advances, quick retreats. Progress may not always be visible or immediate, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Highly recommend reading the whole thing.
Celebrate This! 🎉
In a ruling that put an end to nearly six months of legal battles over North Carolina’s contested Supreme Court election, a federal judge ruled against the Republican candidate’s effort to overturn his narrow loss. Shortly thereafter he conceded. HUGE WIN!
Under new rules, solar panels will be mandatory on all new-build homes in England by 2027.
The IRS unveiled increased contribution limits for health savings accounts, starting next year.
A ban on fossil fuel advertising in The Hague has been upheld by a Dutch court, in a “historic ruling” that campaigners hope will embolden other cities to take action.
Community solar is winning over Republican lawmakers around the U.S.
Republican Brian Kemp has passed on a Senate run against Sen. Jon Ossoff in 2026. He was the only one who was polling competitively with Ossoff, so this is great news!
New York City is changing longstanding rules to help fill affordable housing units faster.
Nonprofit org More Perfect Union has erected 300 billboards in more than 40 cities across the country to protest cuts to National Park budgets. The billboards say things like: “Rocky Mountain National Park: Now with reduced staff.”
Ann Telnaes, a longtime Washington Post editorial cartoonist who quit in protest after editors cut her sketch criticizing the paper’s owner, just won a Pulitzer Prize.
For the fourth year in a row, New England’s grid saw a new record low for electricity demand.
Pittsburgh International Airport, already the first airport in the US to be fully powered by a microgrid, is expanding its solar field in a nearby landfill. The new solar project will generate an additional 4.7 megawatts of renewable energy. That’s enough to cut around 5 million pounds of carbon emissions annually.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) told CBS News that she expects Mike Waltz to have a “brutal hearing” for U.N. ambassador. Bring it on, Dems!
New York’s congestion pricing scheme raised $169 million for public transit in the first quarter of its operation—while also clearing up traffic jams, reducing car crashes, and making Manhattan considerably quieter.
Citing backlash, Republicans have removed language from their upcoming budget reconciliation package that would have given the Federal Trade Commission’s independent antitrust enforcement authority to the Justice Department.
Rejoice! Carmakers are embracing physical buttons again.
The Met Gala rejected Trump's anti-DEI crusade and celebrated diversity.
Voters in Lincoln, Nebraska, approved a ballot measure that bans landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants based on their source of income. Without such protections, people who rely on Section 8 vouchers, for instance, can struggle to find housing.
The DOJ won’t appeal a judge’s order blocking part of Trump’s election order that imposed a documentary proof of citizenship requirement when registering to vote — a win for voters.
A trio of appeals court judges upheld the convictions of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and ex-Ohio Republican Party Chairman Matt Borges. Both were found guilty for accepting millions of dollars in bribes from FirstEnergy to pass power plant bailouts.
In Texas, Ileana Garza-Rojas has won her re-election to school board for Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District, and Elizabeth Villafranca won her race for Farmers Branch City Council! Garza-Rojas won in a landslide, and Villafranca flipped a MAGA seat by a healthy margin! Postcards to Voters volunteers helped make this happen!
For the first time in years, Democrats are running a candidate in every single VA House district. Amazing! (Also, Run For Something had a lot to do with this!)
The Chicago City Council has voted to create a city-owned nonprofit housing developer.
Pro-immigrant sentiment has surged since Donald Trump took office, a possible sign that his deportation policies are backfiring, according to new polling.
Chefs in Florida are speaking out against proposed SNAP cuts.
According to G. Elliott Morris, Trump’s approval average now sits at -14.3% on the economy, -20.5 on trade, and -22.6 on inflation/cost of living. Yikes.
Environmental think tank E3G recently polled 1,500 global business leaders about the clean energy transition, and the results are in! Not only do execs almost unanimously support the clean energy transition, but 90% see access to clean power as a top priority for choosing where to invest. [H/T
]U.S. job growth remained strong last month, with employers adding 177,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department.
Dominion Energy says its Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind farm is on track to begin delivering power in 2026, despite tariff-related cost increases and fierce opposition to offshore wind from the Trump administration.
The Trump administration temporarily reinstated dozens of fired federal workers who help screen coal miners for black lung.
The Trump regime’s decision to target ActBlue resulted in the left-leaning platform’s biggest fundraising day of the year.
In Lincoln, Nebraska, several Democrats won key races, including seats on the City Council, Lincoln Public Schools Board, and Airport Authority.
Charitable foundations that raise funds and recruit volunteers for U.S. National Parks have seen a big uptick in donations and volunteers.
Europe announced its plan to ban all gas imports from Russia within two years.
The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union announced they would work together to provide peer-reviewed research that assesses the current and future impacts of climate change on the U.S. This after the Trump admin, of course, shut down similar research.
Exxon and Chevron reported lower profits for the first quarter of 2025 as the trade war with China raised their expenses and eroded fuel demand.
The U.S. BLM approved a permit for a utility-scale solar project in Arizona, possibly a first under the Trump administration, which paused solar permitting on federal lands earlier this year.
Ed Martin’s nomination is dead.
A federal court confirmed—again—that the Voting Rights Act requires that Black voters in Alabama have two congressional districts in the state.
Multiple performers in a touring production of Les Misérables are reportedly planning to boycott a performance at the Kennedy Center that President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend.
Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed three anti-transgender bills passed by her state’s Republican legislators, telling them instead to “focus on real issues.” 🙌🏼🙌🏼
The venerable New York law firm that struck a deal with Trump is hemorrhaging lawyers.
A group of Quakers are marching more than 300 miles from New York City to Washington, D.C., to demonstrate against the Trump administration's crackdown on immigrants.
A California judge ordered the Trump administration to halt much of its dramatic downsizing of the federal workforce.
Salt Lake City, UT and Boise, ID have both just adopted “official” pride flags to skirt Republican bans.
Rumeysa Ozturk is free!
The White House has backed off of Trump’s social media proposal to change the name of Veterans Day to “Victory Day for World War I.” It’s the little things.
A federal judge refused to withdraw her order requiring the Trump administration to seek the return of a Venezuelan man deported to a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador in violation of a legal settlement.
Orlando City Commissioner Tony Ortiz left the GOP and joined the Democratic Party, saying he no longer recognizes today's Republican Party.
A federal judge has halted Trump's attempt to eliminate the Institute of Museum and Library Services — the agency which provides federal funding to libraries and museums across the country.
New York governor Kathy Hochul announced that the state will be distributing inflation refund checks to more than 8 million New Yorkers.
JD Vance endorsed his younger brother for Cincinnati mayor and he proceeded to get 13% of the vote.
We convinced all 47 Senate Democrats to FILIBUSTER the "GENIUS" bill to legalize crypto corruption and money laundering. NIEC WORK, ALL!
We got a new Pope! He’s American, for the first time in history. MAGA hates him. He seems relatively progressive and kind and is definitely staunchly pro-immigrant. All in all, a win!
Litter on the EU coastline has declined by nearly one-third in five years.
Bill Gates announced he is committing his foundation to 20 more years of generous aid, more than $200 billion in total, targeting health and human development.
Nineteen states and D.C. sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, arguing that the department’s layoffs of 10,000 employees were unconstitutional and exceeded the department’s authority.
More than 150 former state and federal judges signed a letter to Pam Bondi condemning the Trump administration’s escalating battles with the judiciary and calling the recent arrest of a sitting state court judge in Milwaukee an attempt to intimidate.
John Roberts spoke out in defense of an independent judiciary again. Look, it’s something.
LA is ushering in its first Mexican-American Latina Postmaster.
Thank you Jessica and all contributors- this post is so uplifting and I am sure took many hours/days/weeks of diligent work and research to fact check and bring to us!! I am so grateful for the continued efforts to hold up our democracy.
Use this spreadsheet to call/email/write any of our representatives as often as possible. Not just your own state reps, reach out to those in other states. Be as loud as you can and share this. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit