Extra! Extra! 5/26 👯♀️
All the good news that's fit to print!
Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
Here’s your roundup of everything great that happened this week while we were busy focusing on the crazy headlines. It’s good to stop and remind ourselves that, while plenty of bad stuff is happening, there’s a parallel track where victories are occurring—we just have to make a point of getting on it for a few moments now and then.
So let’s bask in these wins here, now, together, and give ourselves the lift we need to get through another wild week.
And please share this list widely. It’s proof positive that there is progress to be made if we work for it. Maybe some new folks, reading this, will join us in that work!
Either way, thanks for all you do, and all you will do. With you at our side we can’t lose.
P.S. — 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.
Read This 📖
I have two absolutely magnificent reads for you this week; don’t skip either—trust me.
and this one.
Both are so, so good, and deeply inspiring. Enjoy.
Celebrate This! 🎉
California will be receiving $35.2 million in federal funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to plug 206 high-risk orphaned oil and gas wells. 🪓
The Port of Cleveland is going electric, thanks to funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. 🪓
The Austin City Council, including Run For Something alums Vanessa Fuentes, Paige Ellis, and Zo Qadri, passed a massive housing bill that dramatically cut the minimum lot size down, changed buffer zones, encouraged more density near transit, and more. This will directly lead to more affordable housing. 🪓
In Florida, Brevard County School Board member Jennifer Jenkins has started a new organization working explicitly to stop the conservative takeover of school boards. 🪓
The Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ rights group in the US, is launching a $15 million campaign to help Biden defeat Trump in November.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied plaintiffs’ request to hear a case seeking to overturn Oregon’s mail-in voting system, officially putting an end to the lawsuit. Woot!
The Supreme Court declined, for now, to hear a challenge to a Maryland law banning certain semiautomatic firearms commonly referred to as assault weapons.
New York labor law will require employers to provide up to 20 hours of paid leave in a 52-week period for pregnant employees to receive prenatal care, starting 2025. 🪓
Tennessee teachers can move forward with their lawsuit challenging a 3-year-old state law restricting what they can teach about race, gender, and bias. 🪓
The ATF’s life-saving rule requiring those engaged in the business of selling guns to become licensed firearms dealers and, in turn, run background checks on their customers took effect in 49 states this week. 🪓
President Biden announced that more than 1 million PACT Act related claims have now been granted, with benefits being delivered to veterans in all 50 states and in U.S. territories. 🪓
Governor Tim Walz signed into law H.B. 4772, the Minnesota Voting Rights Act. 🪓
OK Governor Kevin Stitt signed a law that will, beginning in 2025, restore the voting eligibility of citizens with past felony convictions upon discharge of their sentence, a pardon, or, under some circumstances, a commutation.
MS Governor Tate Reeves allowed a bill to be enacted without his signature that allows eligible voters who are incarcerated in prison or jail to request a mail ballot.
AL Governor Kay Ivey signed a bill that increases criminal penalties for crimes against election workers.
Several children and babies are plaintiffs in a first-of-its-kind lawsuit challenging South Korea’s climate policies.
Team Biden-Harris announced a $192 million war chest, the highest total of any Democratic candidate in history at this point in the cycle. 🪓
A majority of Disneyland cast members who perform as characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse and dance in parades at the amusement park, in California, voted to unionize with the Actors’ Equity Association. 🪓
Truth Social posted a net loss of $327.6 million for the first quarter of 2024.
Midwestern states have received about $30 billion in clean energy investment since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. 🪓
Senate Democrats confirmed their 200th Biden-nominated justice this week. 🪓
The Biden-Harris Administration announced new federal resources to drive consumer education and outreach efforts on the Inflation Reduction Act’s home energy rebate programs and tax credits. 🪓
The U.S. Department of the Interior announced $520 million to revitalize aging water infrastructure and strengthen drought resilience. 🪓
The DOI also announced $71 million to help Tribal communities electrify their homes with clean energy. 🪓
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee both easily won their primaries Tuesday. 🪓
Norfolk Southern has agreed to a settlement of about $310 million to resolve a lawsuit over the railroad’s discharge of toxic substances following last year’s fiery train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
The European Union agreed to use windfall profits from frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Ukraine. The roughly $3 billion “represents an innovative first step” in using the cash without facing legal challenges.
The House, led by a Republican Congressman, bypassed Speaker Johnson and overwhelmingly passed a bill that would provide federal tax relief for recent victims of hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters.
A Texas activist who ran for school board as a far-right hardliner has now reversed course and is fighting the attacks on public education she once helped lead.
Grocery prices have fallen for the first time in a year.
Colorado lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a bill to return North American wolverines, a threatened species, to Colorado’s high country.
Tennessee will become the first state to provide families on Medicaid with baby diapers.
Electric vehicle drivers should have an easier time finding charging stations through Google Maps, following a change that demotes gas stations and provides real-time info on charging availability.
President Biden cancelled an additional $7.7 billion in debt for 160,000 borrowers. 🪓
In a major milestone, Democrats in Congress formally referred their investigation into Big Oil’s climate deception to the Department of Justice for further action. 🪓
New standards for drug advertising come into effect in the US this week. They mandate that the presentation of known risks be clearly understandable in ads. No more rapidfire mumblespeech!
The Justice Department will file an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster. 🪓
Colorado just became the first U.S. state to pass sweeping AI regulations.
The NCAA and its five power conferences have approved a deal that paves the way for schools to pay athletes directly.
Illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border in May are down by more than 50% compared to the record highs reported in December.
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, a UN court on maritime law - found that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions can be considered a marine pollutant and that countries have a legal obligation to implement measures mitigating their effect on oceans.
A new analysis by a watchdog group finds that benzene emissions from oil refineries have recently plummeted due to strong federal regulations and oversight. 🪓
Rudy Giuliani agreed to stop falsely accusing two Georgia election workers of election fraud.
Under a new “climate and clean energy industrial partnership,” the US and Kenya will facilitate new investments from the private sector and development banks to convert Kenya’s large supply of clean electricity into climate-friendly exports. 🪓
California grid operators approved a $6.1 billion plan to boost the state’s transmission network. 🪓
Democrats are working to stop Louis DeJoy’s next planned USPS price hikes. 🪓
New polling shows that Americans increasingly understand that global warming is happening and that it’s human-caused.
CA Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new law to allow some doctors from Arizona to become temporarily licensed in California to perform abortions for their patients. 🪓
The Uvalde families are suing the manufacturer of the AR-15-style weapon used in the attack, as well as the publisher of Call of Duty video games and the social media giant Meta. Good.
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced the Million Women in Construction Community Pledge to bring more women into the construction workforce. 🪓
A Pennsylvania judge rejected a request from the Centre County GOP chair to disqualify mail-in ballots with undated or misdated outer envelopes.
Voters in Pawtucket, Rhode Island will have increased access to Spanish-language voter assistance after the Justice Department entered an agreement with the city requiring it to develop a voting program for those with limited English proficiency. 🪓
Senators Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse wrote to Chief Justice Roberts on Friday, demanding a meeting to discuss Justice Alito’s display of insurrectionist flags. 🪓
Robert De Niro helped cut an ad for Joe Biden’s campaign.
A Philadelphia jury decided that ExxonMobil must pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to a former mechanic who attributed his cancer diagnosis to years of benzene exposure from Exxon’s products.
The Environmental Protection Agency launched a new grant program that will turn contaminated and vacant “brownfields” into recreational hubs. 🪓
Watch This! 👀
A new one from Randy Rainbow…
Your scope in reporting positive developments on the political front cannot be overvalued. Thanks, Jessica Craven!
So glad I plowed through to the end. Randy Rainbow gave me the levity I needed! You’re a national treasure yourself, Jessica, for pulling so many threads together. Power to the People.