Extra! Extra! 6/11 🥳
Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
It’s been a huge week in good news. Like, HUGE. There’s an incredible amount of stuff to celebrate, a lot of it quite unexpected. So let’s take a few minutes away from doom-scrolling and celebrate all the victories we had, shall we? After all, what’s the point in working so hard if we don’t celebrate our wins?
So let’s do that.
Read This 📖
Read this hopeful twitter thread about the “Renewable Revolution.” WOW!
Celebrate This! 🎉
The White House has unveiled a great new website detailing the investments now being made in America due to the President’s successful economic policies.1
New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced a partnership to house asylum-seekers in 50 houses of worship across the city and said he hopes to expand the program to private residences with spare rooms.
A Texas county sheriff has recommended criminal charges in the case of 49 asylum-seekers who were flown involuntarily from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on flights chartered by DeSantis.
A study released this week found that taking the drug osimertinib after lung cancer surgery reduced the risk of patients dying by 51%!
A federal judge ruled that Florida’s bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors are likely unconstitutional in an opinion that called out the state’s anti-transgender motives as being “targeted at a discrete and insular minority” — a touchstone for heightened protections under the law against discrimination.2
President Joe Biden is awarding $115 million to support needed investments to rebuild Jackson, Mississippi’s water infrastructure.
Billboards promoting President Joe Biden’s economic track record will soon greet drivers along the famous I-4 corridor in Florida, a populated but politically swingy region that often determines who wins Florida’s electoral votes in presidential contests.
Since the lifting of the public health order known as Title 42 at midnight May 12, unlawful border crossings have plummeted by more than 70%, robbing Fox News of a beloved talking point.
U.S. murder rates have fallen for five straight months now.
Mark Meadows, the final White House chief of staff under President Donald J. Trump and a potentially key figure in inquiries related to Mr. Trump, has testified before a federal grand jury hearing evidence in the investigations being led by the special counsel’s office.
A petition to disband the Starbucks Workers United labor union at the Mount Hope Avenue store in NY was dismissed by the National Labor Relations Board’s Buffalo office. This is the second such dismissal, and only one petition remains standing nationwide.
Chris Licht, the CNN head who greenlit the disastrous Trump Town Hall, will be stepping down as the CEO and Chairman of CNN.
The Federal Railroad Administration, a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation, announced Monday that the Biden administration has dedicated $570 million to railroad projects in 32 different states to reduce collisions between cars and trains.
In Connecticut, the largest federal investment into EPA's Brownfield program ever will revitalize polluted sites in seven local communities.
The Biden administration released the first-ever U.S. national strategy to counter antisemitism.
The Supreme Court ruled that Alabama's 2021-enacted congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 because it unfairly diluted Black political power. This is a huge win for democracy, for fair representation, and for the more than one million Black voters that would have been silenced by this map. Also, Alabama won’t be the only state affected by this decision. Aside from Allen, there are currently 30 ongoing redistricting lawsuits in 10 states that stand to be impacted. We could pick up SIX Congressional seats as a result!
The Court also handed down a much lower-profile decision Thursday, but one that similarly shocked all who were tracking it. In HHC v. Talevski, the Court in a relative landslide — 7-2 — upheld private rights of action for beneficiaries of federal spending programs, preserving their ability to sue should states violate their rights while providing programs including Medicaid. The threat to spending programs like Medicaid was existential; one expert told TPM that this case “was to Medicaid what Dobbs was to abortion.” 3
The U.K. has banned greenwashing ads by fossil fuel companies.
A black-and-white butterfly has returned to England, a century after it was thought to have died out.
A bipartisan group dedicated to building trust and confidence in elections launched Monday in Wisconsin, a state that was at the center of false claims of election fraud in 2020.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed an executive order declaring the state a sanctuary state for transgender people fleeing other states. Maryland is the 12th state to pass a sanctuary state law for transgender people this year.4
Kevin McCarthy had a very bad week.
Two major conventions have cancelled their events in Orlando FL due to Florida’s awful laws.
MTG and Steve Bannon are fighting.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined a request by the oil industry to review a lower court ruling barring fracking off California’s shore.
An Emirati-led consortium secured land in Egypt to build what will become Africa’s biggest wind farm. The Emirati energy company, Masdar, and its partners plan to build the $10 billion, 10-gigawatt plant — enough, when running at full capacity, to power 7 million homes — by 2030. The facility should displace 9% of Egypt’s carbon emissions, and could export power to other parts of the Middle East and Europe.5
In Georgia, the Democratic majority of the Fulton County Commission rejected the nomination of a serial voter challenger to the county election board.
Arkansas organizers seeking to repeal a bill promoted by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders that purports to ban critical race theory in public schools got the go-ahead Monday to begin qualifying a referendum for next year's ballot.
The Biden administration announced plans to release $1.7 million for new federal programs to support the health and mental health of LGBTQ youth.
Researchers at Dartmouth and Princeton released a new report on the estimated impacts the Inflation Reduction Act will have on the U.S. wind and solar industry. The report finds that the Inflation Reduction Act offers wind and solar developers an airtight business case to use U.S.-manufactured components and pay workers fair wages.
Sixteen young Montanans are suing their state over its support of the fossil fuel industry in a climate lawsuit that is the first of its kind to go to trial.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) on Tuesday signed legislation capping monthly out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 starting Jan. 1.
Jeffrey Clark, the Trump stooge who angled to become attorney general and preserve Trump in office in 2021 lost a bid to stop DC bar proceedings against him.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said Thursday that he would veto a series of LGBT- and transgender-related measures passed by the Republican-led state legislature in recent days.
The House Ethics Committee is relaunching its probe into Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. over allegations that he was involved in a sex trafficking scheme.
Owners of General Motors-built electric vehicles will soon be able to access Tesla’s network of superfast EV chargers.
Grocery inflation is finally showing signs of cooling.
The Connecticut General Assembly passed a state Voting Rights Act!
A legal challenge to Indiana’s abortion ban was classified as a class action suit yesterday.
Norfolk Southern became the first major North American freight railroad with deals to provide paid sick time to all of its workers.
Boris Johnson resigned!
Allina Health, a large nonprofit health system based in Minnesota, announced on Friday that it would stop withholding care from patients with outstanding medical debt as it “re-examines” its policy of cutting off services for those who have accrued at least $4,500 in outstanding bills.
New York's attorney general filed a federal lawsuit on Thursday against an anti-abortion group whose members have been arrested for blocking access to health care clinics in New York and other states.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced plans for Medicare Part D to cover treatments for Alzheimer’s disease that receive FDA approval.
Biden announced a new coordinator to train schools on how to deal with book bans, the impact they have on LGBTQ kids and how they violate civil rights laws.
Biden vetoed Congressional Republicans’ bill blocking the Administration’s plan to provide up to $20,000 in student debt relief to working and middle class Americans.
The Maryland Board of Public Works approved $1 million in funding for a two and a half year stockpile of mifepristone.
The EPA reversed a Trump-era decision on plastic processing, closing a major loophole that allowed the chemical industry to pass off toxic disposal as sustainable recycling.
Dollar General shareholders agreed to a resolution calling for an independent audit of worker safety, after hundreds of workers from multiple states showed up at the company’s headquarters in Tennessee to protest dangerous working conditions. 6
Did I mention DONALD TRUMP GOT INDICTED?
Watch This! 👀
Taylor Swift celebrating Pride with her Chicago audience—and reminding them why it’s so important to VOTE—is just the best thing ever. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Talking Points Memo
Your weekly roundup gives me hope and keeps me sane.
I am so happy to read this list. It is essential to read about the wins! Negative news comes at us so fast, and it's incredibly important to focus on the good news as well. Thank you!