Extra! Extra! 5/17
Yes! Good things are STILL happening!
Hi, all, and happy Sunday.
It’s been a Godawful week—I know I say that every Sunday but I do think this one deserves special (negative) recognition. Still, there were signs everywhere that Republicans’ desperate attempts to roll back the clocks and consolidate their rule are failing. Their counterparts worldwide aren’t doing much better.
So let’s take a minute to celebrate our many wins of the week before we get back to the work of saving democracy—and maybe the world—tomorrow.
So proud to know you folks. Thanks for all you do!
Celebrate This! 🎉
Hawaii’s Democratic governor signed into law a bill that uses a novel approach to reduce the influence of corporations and hard-to-track “dark money” groups that have been able to spend unlimited amounts on politics since SCOTUS ruled in Citizens United. This is a really big deal!
Activists, clergy, civil rights leaders, Democratic lawmakers, and voting rights advocates held a wildly successful “All Roads Lead to the South” event in Alabama yesterday. It got great news coverage and was billed as being just the beginning of what will become Freedom Summer 2026. So awesome!
The University of Chicago is offering free tuition for students from families earning less than $250k annually.
The DeSantis administration has announced that the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center will be closing and broken down starting in June.
Nearly 800,00 Louisianans voted yesterday and rejected all 5 state constitutional amendments put forth by Governor Jeff Landry. Also Bill Cassidy lost his primary. He won’t be replaced by anyone better but still—he’s awful. Buh bye.
A state court in Kansas has blocked a gender affirming care ban in the state.
Back in 2018, New Jersey became the first state to adopt its own drinking water standards for PFAS. Now, researchers at Rutgers University have crunched the data to see how well it worked. They found that levels of the regulated chemicals dropped by as much as 55%.
Michigan just permanently protected 73,000 acres of land in the Upper Peninsula and opened it to the public. The deal, which was 5 years in the making, protects the land from habitat fragmentation and oil and gas exploration.
An Alamo Heights family whose detention by ICE sparked protests, community rallies, and condemnation from Texas lawmakers has been released from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley.
A federal judge temporarily blocked US sanctions against Francesca Albanese, a UN expert on the Palestinian territories, finding that the Trump administration likely violated her free speech rights by imposing the measures after she criticized US ally Israel’s war on Gaza.
Dr. Bibi, an emergency room physician working legally in an underserved Texas region, has been released from ICE detention after being held for thirty days.
South Korea just deployed a new ferry that purifies the water while people ride. Ecopeace’s Eco-Bot is an autonomous solar-powered boat that uses artificial intelligence to clean floating pollutants, oil spills, and excesses of green algae.
Joining California, Massachusetts became an official member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a global network of more than 1,400 governments and organizations.
Australia’s Trump Tower plans have been scrapped after its developer said his brand has become ‘toxic’.
A South Dakota mining company has canceled a drilling project in the Black Hills after opposition from Native American tribes and local groups.
Ras Baraka has won reelection as mayor of Newark, NJ’s largest city. Baraka is a progressive who was detained last year while protesting ICE.
Colorado officially became the third U.S. state to approve plug-in solar panel systems, which are a regularity in countries like Germany, but are more slowly spreading throughout the U.S.
State regulators ruled that data centers in Oregon must pay more for electricity, to help ensure the state’s biggest electricity users bear more of the grid’s long‑term costs.
Trump’s disapproval rating on the economy just hit a whopping 70% in a new poll — the lowest of either term and more than 20 points higher than his first term.
Secret Handshake, an anonymous group of artists, is out with a new video game about Trump and the Iran war. The game is available to play online, but three fully functional arcade cabinets are currently installed at the Washington, DC, War Memorial and will remain there for the next few days. The game is impossible to win—and that’s the point.
New York City saw its fewest murders in recorded history in the first four months of 2026, with last month alone seeing the fewest murders for any April ever in the city’s history.
A new study found that most Americans, including Republicans, believe that saving the environment is “worth the cost.”
Public opinion has turned decisively against data centers.
More than half of states now cover Doulas under Medicaid.
The Senate Parliamentarian nixed Trump’s ballroom funding being in the reconciliation bill.
A new dashboard that tracks national and state-level progress on deploying clean energy finds that the U.S. produced nearly three times as much solar, wind, and geothermal power in 2025 as it did in 2016.
The Trump administration is being sued for painting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool blue.
Two bald eagles hatchlings have been spotted in a nest in a Chicago park in what city officials believe is the raptors’ first successful wild breeding in the Windy City in more than a century.
Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children, has renounced her life as a pro-Trump provocateur and now makes videos exposing the scammers who get paid to spread Trump’s messages.
The US has now seen three — going on four — years of historically large decreases in the murder rate, bringing us to rates lower than before COVID.
A viral video is making the rounds online of UCF students booing their commencement speaker after she praised AI.
The world is installing grid batteries at a blistering pace. A total of 112 gigawatts of batteries were deployed around the world in 2025 — 10 times the amount added just four years prior.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is taking the lead on demanding SCOTUS reform.
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a ban on assault weapons and ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds — a month after she signed a dozen other gun reform bills.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a city budget that completely eliminates a $12 billion deficit left over from the Adams administration, the largest gap since the Great Recession. He accomplished it by taxing the rich, working with Gov. Hochul, and firing pricey consultants—not cutting services for working New Yorkers!
California announced a $1 billion rebate program for electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks as part of an effort to boost sales of zero-emission semis.
Mike Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries announced a new effort to combat sexual misconduct on Capitol Hill following several high-profile cases.
More than any other industry, voters say that they are concerned about the political influence of oil and gas.
The Supreme Court upheld access to the abortion pill mifepristone. The order means the pill will remain available via telehealth as a case brought by Louisiana against the FDA proceeds through the lower courts.
Two men have opened the first new library in Gaza, filling it with books found in rubble.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s chief spokesman resigned in protest over the administration’s push to allow major tobacco companies to begin selling flavored vapes that appeal to children. His departure came one day after the head of the Food and Drug Administration quit for the same reason.
Trump’s Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks unexpectedly announced his retirement after allegations about repeated sexual improprieties resurfaced—nice job Raid Podcast!
Orange County, CA will stop spraying local flood control channels with toxic chemicals thanks to the efforts of local organizers.
EVs are suddenly the hottest used-car option—and the most affordable in total cost of ownership
Georgia passed the “Sickle Cell Disease Protection Act,” which requires the state to conduct annual reviews of emerging sickle cell treatments. Georgia has one of the highest patient populations in the country for sickle cell disease.
The Colorado Legislature gave final approval to a bill that would allow Coloradans who are survivors of “conversion therapy” to take legal action at any time against licensed providers who conducted the practice.
The DHS’s inspector general launched a probe into the $38 billion warehouse-to-detention program championed by former Secretary Kristi Noem.
Trump Media posted 2026 first-quarter losses of about $406 million, the “vast bulk” of which resulted from underperforming cryptocurrency investments it made with cash from the financing deals. Also, they very quietly seem to have broken ties with Donald Trump—he is no longer running the company.
California’s attorney general announced a $12.75 million settlement with General Motors, one of the Big Three automakers, over charges that the car company sold Californians’ location and driving data illegally.
Brazil’s Atlantic forest, the country’s most threatened biome, last year recorded its lowest level of deforestation since monitoring began 40 years ago, a new report shows.
German counterintelligence has chosen the French software ChapsVision over the American Palantir platform for analyzing large data sets.
The media empire built by former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government, a key pillar of the nationalist leader's 16 years in power, is swiftly unravelling following an election last month that abruptly ended his rule.
The Texas Supreme Court refused to declare that Democratic lawmakers who briefly fled the state in 2025 to block a vote on new congressional maps pushed by Trump had vacated their office.
A group of Miami residents sued in an effort to prevent Trump’s presidential library from occupying a prime piece of waterfront property in the city.
Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Rohit Chopra, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to lead a new CA agency focused on consumer protections and business regulation.
Home of the Brave also launched a brand-new $200K billboard campaign bringing the following message to eight cities across the country: Trump is focused on his ballroom. Not your gas prices. Not your grocery prices. Not your healthcare. Not you."
Watch This! 👀
This is magnificent, and exactly the energy we need right now! Thanks to Now This Impact for posting.
Thank you. I am so fucking tired of trump and his bullshit. Thank you for keeping in the fight.
Thank you. I needed this today😄👏