Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
You didn’t think I was going to skip this good news roundup just because I’m overseas, did you? I would never! Too much great stuff happened this week— the absolute horrors that also occurred notwithstanding. If we don’t stop and savor our victories what’s the point in working so hard, right?
So take a few minutes to read through all the ways we made progress, scored wins, or saw Trump take losses this week. It’s a long list!
Thank you for all you do, and for all the ways you give back to your country. It’s because of people like you that I can continue to churn out good news lists week after week after week!
I’m truly proud to be in the presence of so much courage, determination, and resilience.
Now enjoy the fruits of your labor!
Celebrate This! 🎉
It appears that U.S. Border Patrol has ceased its “surge” operations in Charlotte. They did a lot of damage, but the courageous and fierce response by Charlotte residents very likely shortened their stay…and saved lives. BRAVO!
After massive public pushback, the village of Palmyra, WI, announced it will no longer pursue a partnership with ICE.
Federal prosecutors will dismiss charges against a woman shot by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago. (Yes, SHE was charged. Go figure.)
Greystar, the largest landlord in the country, agreed to pay $7 million to settle a lawsuit over using software that incorporates non-public data from other landlords to set higher rents.
Pope Leo isn’t letting up about the treatment of migrants. Good!
An ICE agent is facing felony assault and child endangerment charges in Riverside County after being caught on camera detaining a 17-year-old boy at gunpoint.
Home Depot is on the defensive about their association with ICE as boycott calls grow louder.
Three years after its ‘radical ownership’ restructuring, Patagonia has given another $180 million to nature.
More than 30,000 students in Charlotte, North Carolina were absent from school on Monday in protest of ICE’s presence in the city and the deportations of their classmates.
13,000 square miles of Gabon’s Congo Basin rainforests will be protected under a recently signed landmark deal.
The House and Senate voted to force the DOJ to release the Epstein files. Finally! And the bill has been signed by the President. It means the DOJ now has 30 days to release the files.
A growing number of ‘repair cafes’ are popping up around the world to curb consumer waste.
Trump’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level since January 6.
A report found that renewables could increase developing countries’ GDP by around 10% in 25 years.
Four years after the European Union banned neonicotinoid use in fields, France’s population of insect-eating birds has increased by 2%-3%.
Iowa City made its buses free. Traffic cleared, and so did the air.
Siembra NC hosted a “Safe to Work, Safe to School” training at a church in Charlotte. Over 1000 people registered—they had to turn people away!
The House Ethics Committee is investigating Republican Rep. Mike Collins, a leading Senate candidate in Georgia, and his top aide Brandon Phillips. Not sure what for yet but it can’t be good.
Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has given millions of dollars in no-strings-attached gifts to tribal colleges. It’s apparently been a game-changer for them.
A company that sought a data center development in Kalkaska County, MI announced it is dropping the plan after clear opposition from the community.
In an announcement at COP30, Germany said it’s committed to contributing €1 billion ($1.15 billion) over the next decade to Brazil’s new global rainforest fund.
According to a new Fox News report, 76% of voters view Trump’s economy negatively.
A global survey found 41 percent of electric vehicle drivers would avoid Tesla for political reasons.
Trump is facing pushback from his own party in Indiana as he threatens Republicans who refuse to go along with his election rigging plans
A significant victory in South Carolina—SB 323 failed to advance out of the Senate Medical Affairs Subcommittee. This dangerous bill would have imposed the harshest total abortion ban in the country while further stripping South Carolinians of essential reproductive health care.
Santa Fe passed a new ordinance that will calculate minimum wage based not on the Consumer Price Index alone, but on the cost of housing, too.
A mass coral spawning event is opening a critical window for reforestation work on the Great Barrier Reef.
Students will get free tuition at Johns Hopkins University if their families make $200,000 or less.
In a clinical trial, a tiny drug-releasing implant wiped out bladder cancer in 82% of patients. The new therapy is the most effective one reported to date for the most common form of bladder cancer.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is seeking a federal trial for a charge he was hit with during an act of civil disobedience against immigration agents inside 26 Federal Plaza in September — rejecting an offer to drop the case.
Democrats reached their largest lead in decades on the generic Congressional ballot.
Target reported sales dropped during its latest quarter. In fact, CNN thinks Target “may have hit rock bottom.” (We’ll see.)
A Tennessee judge blocked Trump’s use of the National Guard in Memphis.
A US Judge upheld a New York law barring immigrations agents from courthouses.
Zelensky announced that Ukraine will acquire 100 Rafale jets made in France.
A New Orleans man who spent three decades in prison before his murder conviction was vacated was just elected as the city’s chief record keeper.
Energy and environmental groups are suing the Trump administration—again! This time, the lawsuit is a direct response to the cancellation of nearly $7.6 billion in grants for clean energy projects in blue states, which the plaintiffs assert is politically motivated and violates the First and Fifth Amendments.
California has reached 16,942 megawatts of available battery storage — about one-third of the estimated capacity needed to reach its goal of 100% clean energy by 2045.
Lula stared down Trump and scored a tariff victory for Brazil.
South Korea will shut down all of its coal power plants by 2040 as it commits to “accelerating a just and clean energy transition,” the country’s climate minister says.
After a massive public backlash over the Coast Guard’s proposal to declassify Swastikas and nooses as hate symbols, the leader of the Coast Guard announced that the changes would not be going into effect after all. Nice job, y’all!
A new American Research Group poll shows just 35% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 62% say they disapprove.
Trump met with Zohran Mamdani, and to say that it went well for Mamdani—and therefore New York City as well—is an understament. (See the photo above.)
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to halt its National Guard deployment to Washington DC while a lawsuit over the matter plays out in court.
A judge ordered the release of more than 300 people detained by the federal government as part of the ICE operations being conducted in the Chicago area.
Voters now rate the economy worse than they did under Joe Biden. (Not good news, necessarily, but bad for Trump, so sort of good).
A federal judge ordered some public school districts in Texas to remove Ten Commandment displays from their classroom walls by next month, a victory for families who had argued that the posters infringed on their religious freedom.
The House unanimously voted to claw back language in last week’s government funding bill that could award some GOP senators hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for having their phone records searched as part of the January 6 investigation.
NPR secured a legal settlement restoring a multimillion-dollar contract that was revoked under pressure from the Trump administration.
For the first time ever, American car companies will soon be required to test vehicle safety using dummies that are representative of women.
Former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison [is launching](http://former/ Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison is launching what he calls a seven-figure campaign aimed at “expanding the map” for Democrats in rural areas and small towns that tend to be friendly to Republicans.) what he calls a seven-figure campaign aimed at “expanding the map” for Democrats in rural areas and small towns that tend to be friendly to Republicans.
Oversight Committee lawmakers subpoenaed major financial institutions linked to Epstein: JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank, which have been accused of funding the sex offender’s exploits long after he was convicted in 2008.
A federal judge plans to ‘promptly’ move ahead with an effort to find out which Trump administration officials were responsible for flouting his orders in a high-stakes immigration case – and whether they will face punishment for their actions.
Members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma must pay billions of dollars to settle a flood of lawsuits over the harms of opioids, in a new deal formally approved by a federal bankruptcy judge on Tuesday.
A federal appeals court panel rejected an effort by Trump to revive a “meritless” lawsuit against CNN for the network’s use of the term “Big Lie” to describe his false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
John Oliver launched a ‘Last Week Tonight’ auction, including an original Bob Ross painting, to support public broadcasting.
In NYC, Met Museum employees have petitioned to create a union. The proposal, for a union to represent nearly 1,000 employees, would make the Met one of the largest unionized museums in the country.
The Washington Post’s editorial board blasted Trump for comments dismissing the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a Tuesday meeting with Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Watch This! 👀
Beautiful community solidarity in Charlotte.
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