Extra! Extra! 8/13 🥰
Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
Get ready for another super long list!
For as awful as this week has been in many ways—with the tragedy in Maui (deservedly) at the forefront of the news—there were also tons and tons of victories. So let’s take a quick break from everything that’s wrong and enjoy a soothing tour of what went right. It’ll help ease the stress a bit, I promise, which is necessary if we’re to keep working to improve this messed up but beautiful country of ours.
Once you’ve read the below please consider sharing it. Everyone needs a lift these days; one of the best ways to feel better is to help someone else find a bit of hope. So let’s do that!
Thanks for being my heroes! We all need a few of those.
Jess
Read This 📖
The “World’s happiest man” shares his three rules for life.
Celebrate This! 🎉
President Biden designated nearly a million acres of land near the Grand Canyon as a new national monument to protect the area from uranium mining.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced a $44 million investment to strengthen climate resilience across America's National Parks system, including 43 projects across 39 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
A federal judge appointed by Trump dismissed a lawsuit by conservative religious groups in Ohio seeking to prevent transgender teachers and students from using restrooms corresponding with their gender identity.
Massachusetts lawmakers approved reforms that will eliminate the exorbitant charges people face to keep in touch with loved ones in jail and prison, removing a heavy financial burden for thousands.
Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, the two Black Democrats expelled from the Tennessee House by Republicans in April, easily won their seats back in special elections held in Memphis and Nashville.
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed legislation to automatically register Medicaid recipients to vote.
A three-judge panel on the Fifth Circuit Court Appeals struck down Mississippi’s harsh felony disenfranchisement statutes; this is a big win for voting right advocates in a state that permanently bars more than 10 percent of its adult population from voting.
State Republican parties across the country are struggling financially. Woot!
The Supreme Court temporarily revived the Biden administration’s regulation of “ghost guns” — kits that can be bought online and assembled into untraceable homemade firearms.
The Biden-Harris administration announced changes to labor rules that would give higher wages to construction workers on federal projects.
American employers added 187,000 jobs last month, experiencing 31 straight months of growth. The unemployment rate sank back to 3.5 percent, near a record low.
The Biden administration started taking applications Thursday for billions of dollars in federal tax rebates meant to flow through states to subsidize home improvement projects that save energy or swap fossil-fueled appliances to electric alternatives.
The White House convened government officials, school administrators and private sector companies to announce new steps to boost cybersecurity in U.S. schools – recently plagued by ransomware attacks.
A $1 billion solar project is planned in Eastern Kentucky at the site of a former coal mine, and it will generate up to 800 megawatts — which could power more than 500,000 homes.
Greta Gerwig has become the first solo female director to have a film surpass $1 billion at the box office.
Simone Biles is back.
The PACT Act hit its one-year anniversary and veterans are benefitting from a historic expansion of benefits for toxic burn pit exposure as a result. More than 4 million veterans have already been screened for toxic exposure, more than 744,000 PACT Act claims have been filed, and hundreds of thousands of veterans have been approved for expanded benefits. 1
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law sweeping reforms that for the first time will give tribal nations — not state agencies, universities or museums — final say over how and when the remains of their ancestors and sacred items are returned to them.
A bipartisan group of Congressmembers introduced sweeping legislation that aims to reduce the country’s stillbirth rate, tackling gaps in research, data and awareness as well as authorizing tens of millions of dollars in new funding.
Five of Run For Something’s six endorsed candidates up last Tuesday either won outright or moved on to the general election. And on Thursday both of their Tennessee candidates won! Read the full feel-good update here.
Installation is set to begin this week on the country’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, located in the Atlantic about 15 miles south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
Thanks to conservation efforts, experts say shark populations off U.S. coasts are rebounding after decades of decline.
U.S. regulators approved a pill for postpartum depression, the first such oral treatment.
A new lobbying group is pitching Ukraine aid to American conservatives by running ads with trucks, flags, and gritty guitar riffs.
The Biden administration has proposed a new energy efficiency rule for residential water heaters, a move that would jumpstart the adoption of energy-saving heat pumps and significantly reduce carbon emissions from U.S. homes.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) passed a new rule that could finally streamline the backed-up US grid interconnection process.
The UK has reduced single-use plastic bags from major supermarkets by 98% since 2014 when they started charging for them with the average person now taking just two single-use bags a year, compared to 140 before the charge was introduced.
In a major win for accessibility at the ballot box, Pennsylvania Republicans withdrew their appeal of a decision that upheld Act 77, a state law that established no-excuse mail-in voting. The Republicans' challenge to the law is over and Act 77 will remain in place.
Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected an effort by Republican lawmakers and special interests to change the state’s constitutional amendment process. THANK YOU FOR HELPING US WIN!!
Golden lion tamarins — small monkeys with golden fur and long tails native to Brazil’s rainforest — are rebounding from the brink of extinction. Thanks to a vaccination campaign against yellow fever, which had decimated their number, and an increase in living space driven by a reforestation program, there are now about 4,800, up from as little as 200 in recent years.
The Tennessee Three’s unofficial "Good Trouble Caucus" will add a new member, as long-time progressive activist Aftyn Behn won her Nashville HD-51 race.
Billie Eilish performed a solar-powered Lollapalooza set.
A Texas school district announced the return of free breakfast and lunch for all students for this school year.
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from Michigan Republicans seeking to decertify and "rerun" the 2020 presidential election in the state. 🙄
New research found that if people with a high-meat diet reduced their intake it would be like taking 8 million cars off the road. Good news because it’s SUCH an easy change to make!
The family of Henrietta Lacks reached a settlement with the biotech company that profited from the non-consensual use of her cells.
David Hogg, a co-founder of March for Our Lives, and Kevin Lata, the campaign manager who helped elect Maxwell Frost, are teaming up to launch a new organization focused on getting more young progressives elected to office, primarily focusing on state lawmakers.
Five Americans who had been imprisoned in Iran are now under house arrest – the first step in a deal that would result in their return to the US.
U.S. inflation rose by slower-than-expected 3.2% in July.
A majority of Alabama voters say Sen. Tommy Tuberville should end his months-long hold on military nominations over new Department of Defense policies concerning abortion.
Biden’s campaign announced they are using a new database covering 90% of U.S. voters to boost its ability to target swing voters in 2024. This is a much-needed development.
An NYU study found a precipitous drop in emergency room visits and hospitalizations for heart ailments in the years following the closure of a coal-burning plant in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County.
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s campaign manager has been ordered to pay $25,000 for his role in a charity scam aimed at capitalizing on the East Palestine train crash.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cracked down on Colorado’s only major oil refinery, objecting to the company’s permit renewal after a series of chemical releases and air quality violations and requiring the state to enforce changes to decrease toxic pollution.2
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was sent to jail after a federal judge in New York revoked his bail, accusing him of trying to influence witnesses who are poised to testify against him.
New England's largest energy utility, Eversource, has parted ways with the American Gas Association — a powerful industry group that environmentalists say has been instrumental in blocking efforts to address climate change around the country.
The wildfires raging on Maui came to the doorstep of an endangered bird center housing some of the rarest birds in the world. A tiny number of staff and neighbors saved them.
New filings show that Trump’s PACs, along with the independently operated super PAC devoted exclusively to helping him, are spending more than they raised so far in 2023 — largely because of his legal expenditures. They have used roughly 30 cents of every dollar spent so far this year on legal-related costs.
Fani Willis is finally moving to seek charges following a two-year investigation into former president Donald Trump and his allies.
Thousands of workers represented by Service Employees International Union Local 721 left their jobs on Tuesday, in one of the biggest labor actions seen by city government in a generation.
The White House Twitter X account is trolling Tommy Tuberville for actually living in Florda.
The Ohio Supreme Court unanimously rejected the GOP’s last-ditch lawsuit to keep the pro-choice ballot amendment off of the ballot in November.
A federal judge in Idaho issued an order putting the state’s new law banning transgender students from using the restroom in accordance with their gender identity on hold, just days before the start of school in the state.
The Biden-Harris Administration announced the availability of up to $206 million in funding for local projects to restore the Chesapeake Bay and watershed, and advance environmental justice.
In a win for voters, a federal judge struck down Washington state's legislative districts, ruling they violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting strength of Latinos in the Yakima Valley region.
It’s also the one-year anniversary of the CHIPS Act being signed into law. In that time, companies have announced over $166 billion in manufacturing in semiconductors and electronics, and at least 50 community colleges in 19 states have announced new or expanded programming to help American workers access good-paying jobs in the semiconductor industry.
A group of Wisconsin-based mathematicians and computer scientists filed a lawsuit in the Wisconsin Supreme Court challenging the state's legislative maps. This would be the second such lawsuit against WI’s awful maps.
Two prominent conservative law professors have concluded that Donald J. Trump is ineligible to be president under a provision of the Constitution that bars people who have engaged in an insurrection from holding government office, and their article, according to
, is a “tour de force.”A major UK charity just announced it would no longer bank with Barclays because of its oil and gas financing. The 78-year-old charity has kept its money with Barclays since 2015, which has financed around $190 billion in fossil fuel projects between 2016 and 2022.
Four of the White people who attacked a Black boat captain in Montgomery, Alabama last weekend have been charged with assault. (More on this below. 😉)
Watch This! 👀
OK. I feel a little guilty laughing at a video based on a now-well-known incident that involved violent, racist, and abhorrent behavior on the part of some White people, but, since the joke is at their expense, I feel the below is just too good not to share.
Forgive me in advance, and thanks to
, who posted this video first in his newsletter. DO NOT WATCH if you don’t want to see a bit of violence and/or read a curse word.
Jay Kuo is a comedic genius!😂
Let Bankman-Fried be a cautionary tale for. DJT.
Crock socks 😂