Extra! Extra! 5/19

Hi, all, and happy Sunday!

Here’s your list of everything good that happened this week. Please, take a nice long (and well-deserved) break from doom-scrolling and enjoy the many, many great things that transpired! After all, you worked for many of them.

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

Please share this email widely. People need to know that things are tough, but that we’re ALSO winning!

P.S. — I’m sending this list without the audio version today, folks. I’m sorry to do it, but I need to take at least an hour off tonight, and as you can tell I’m already quite behind. It’ll be back tomorrow.

Celebrate This! 🎉

Detroit has received $85M from the federal government to replace 8,000 lead service lines annually. 🪓

Pennsylvania has received more than $37.5 million from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to make their drinking water safer and cleaner. 🪓

The U.S. government is dedicating $60 million over the next few years to projects along the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico and West Texas to make the river more resilient in the face of climate change and growing demands. 🪓

All New York voters will continue to have the option to vote by mail, as an appeals court dismissed a challenge to a law expanding access.

U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has agreed to pause planned further consolidation of the postal service's processing network after a bipartisan group of senators raised concerns about the impact on mail deliveries. 🪓

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that transgender health insurance exclusions violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Paul Manafort is no longer planning to help manage this summer’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

A New York state appellate court rejected Trump’s request to have his gag order removed.

In a win for voters, an Arizona judge dismissed the Republican National Committee's lawsuit that tried to block part of the state's 2023 Election Procedures Manual relating to proof of citizenship, mail-in voting and more.  

In another win for voters, a federal court rejected Florida's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that its state Senate districts are racially gerrymandered and violate the 14th Amendment. The lawsuit will continue.¹

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the state’s 1864 abortion ban won’t be enforceable until mid-August, giving abortion rights advocates and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes some time to argue that it not be enforced at all.

An anti-abortion activist who attacked a clinic in Washington, DC has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Highly endangered Hammerhead Sharks are back in the Caribbean, a hopeful sign of early recovery.

The political arm of the largest Latino civil rights organization in the US officially endorsed President Biden for re-election.

America is in the midst of an extraordinary startup boom. 🪓

FERC released a long-awaited rule meant to fix the sluggish power line buildout. Advocates say it’s a win for clean energy, consumers — and grid reliability. 🪓

EU countries approved a law that will eliminate carbon dioxide emissions from trucks, promising that most new heavy-duty vehicles sold in the European Union from 2040 will be emissions-free. 

Pelicans were seen nesting on Great Salt Lake’s Gunnison Island for the first time in over 80 years.

The US began flying contractors and equipment to Haiti to support the deployment of a long-delayed international police force.

Biden-Harris 2024 launched Health Care Providers for Biden-Harris, a national organizing program to engage doctors, nurses, and other health care leaders and providers across the nation to reelect President Biden and Vice President Harris.

House Democrats opened an investigation into Trump’s meeting with oil executives, in which he reportedly begged for $1 billion in campaign donations in exchange for axing dozens of Biden’s environmental policies. 🪓

For the first time, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that a majority of Americans — 52% — believe Donald Trump “falsified business records to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star.”

Inflation eased slightly in April. 🪓

The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe in central South Dakota has joined six of the state’s tribes in preventing Gov. Kristi Noem from coming onto their tribal land, leaving the governor just two reservations she can still travel to.

Nikki Haley took 20% of the vote in Maryland’s Republican primary this week, as well as 18% in Nebraska and 9% in West Virginia.

UNITED FOR DEMOCRACY, a coalition of progressive groups and labor unions, is gearing up to launch a $10 million persuasion and base activation campaign centered on “the MAGA Supreme Court.” 🪓

The Georgia state Republican party, like so many other GOP state parties, is a hot mess.

The Supreme Court ordered Louisiana to use a congressional map drawn with an additional majority Black district in this upcoming election, reversing a lower court ruling that called the map an illegal racist gerrymander.

The number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. fell 3% last year, marking the first annual decline since 2018. 🪓

Since May 1, more than 39,000 volunteers have signed up to write 5 million postcards to voters across 11 presidential and Senate battleground states with Postcards to Swing States! 🪓 (There are still LOTS left to be adopted.)

A major battery plant near Los Angeles will be among the largest in the world when it comes online later this year, promising to shore up California's power grid during the peak summer season and help the state a meet ambitious climate goals. 🪓

Nearly 168,000 acres of private forestlands across the country will be preserved thanks to a new initiative from the USDA Forest Service. 🪓

Angela Alsobrooks won Maryland’s Democratic Senate primary, showing, once again, that the many are more powerful than the money! 🪓

A Democratic-aligned health advocacy group is launching a series of digital ads in key Republican districts, highlighting how lawmakers there opposed the Biden administration’s efforts to lower drug prices and health costs. 🪓

The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 40,000 for the first time. 🪓

Vermont is requiring all utilities to provide 100 percent clean energy by 2035. 🪓

Denmark is easing its abortion law for the first time in 50 years, now allowing them up to the 18th week of pregnancy instead of the 12th week. Minors over the age of 15 will also be able to have an abortion without parental consent.

The Biden administration announced it will end coal leasing on federal lands in the Powder River Basin, which produces nearly half the coal in the United States. 🪓

The Justice Department is moving ahead with its plans to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. Reclassification wouldn’t legalize weed outright, but would federally recognize its medical use and take it out of the category with drugs like heroin and LSD.  🪓

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced her intention to sue the fossil fuel industry for its role in changing Michigan's climate and threatening the state's environment, infrastructure, health and economy. 🪓

The Biden campaign raised $2 million in the 24 hours after it challenged Trump to a debate, more than double its daily fundraising average. 🪓

There are now over 5 million solar installations in the United States. It took America 50 years to reach that number—but it will only take us 6 years to reach 10 million. 🪓

The man convicted of attacking Paul Pelosi with a hammer has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) allowed over a dozen people with prior felony convictions to have their voting rights restored.

Giuliani finally got served in the Arizona false electors case, and how we got served is just…beautiful.

Democratic state senators in Missouri held the Senate floor in a more than two-day filibuster (the longest in state history) to stop a horrible anti-democratic bill, and they succeeded! Read the whole story. 🪓

Nine new Starbucks stores won their unionizing elections this week! 🪓

The CFPB just survived an existential legal challenge, protecting nearly every policy it has ever implemented and allowing it to keep defending Americans from predatory financial practices.

President Biden took new actions to ensure environmental protections of the Antarctic region. 🪓

The Biden-Harris Administration announced a new record in Federal funding and investments in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) totaling more than $16 billion from Fiscal Years (FY) 2021 through current available data for FY 2024. 🪓

An Ohio judge declared unconstitutional a state law, supported by Big Tobacco, that would strip communities of their authority to enact measures aimed at reducing tobacco use.

Ten HBCU student newsrooms will receive nearly $200,000 towards new technologies, business operations, audience engagement, and reporting. 

Officials in Colorado and South Dakota have certified proposed amendments that would enshrine abortion access in their states' constitutions to appear on the November ballot. 🪓

The floating aid pier the US built to deliver aid to Gaza is now operational.  🪓

The Biden-Harris Administration introduced key principles to safeguard workers from the risks associated with artificial intelligence. 🪓

Attorney Sidney Powell said that she is finally conceding defeat in a failed four-year-old lawsuit that claimed widespread voting fraud cost Donald Trump the 2020 election in Michigan, after a federal appeals court denied her latest bid to avoid sanctions in the case. She will now pay fines of over 150K.

Local activists have finally saved ‘the Yosemite of South America’ after decades of battling with the industrialist who owned it. 🪓

Biden signed the FAA reauthorization bill into law—WITH the airline automatic refund provision we fought for included! WOOT! 🪓

​One in three Americans say they’ve reduced how much plastic they’re using.  🪓

A new study found that a single bison herd can help store the CO2 equivalent of 2 million cars.

In New York City, a fleet of 60 new electric buses will soon traverse across Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn along routes in low-income and minority communities. 🪓

Democrats flipped Anchorage Alaska’s Mayoral seat! 🪓

A federal court permanently blocked a provision of Florida law S.B. 7050 that undermines community-based organizations performing voter registration and civic engagement.

Watch This! 👀

This video was in a tweet by Tim Brannigan that

Jay Kuo

posted in this week’s “Just For Xeets and Giggles.” I’m putting it here minus the X link so you don’t have to click through. It’s not political but it’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time, and a good laugh is always a win. I’ve watched it about ten times in a row.

The caption reads: “For all you followers who don’t live in England and think that they all talk like characters in a Hugh Grant movie. This kid.”

1. This and the item above from

Democracy Docket