Hi, all, and happy Sunday!
I’m watching the Oscars and Mj is eager for me to be done with work, so this’ll have to be a quick intro.
The week was awful AND great stuff still happened. Please enjoy this list of all the ways the world improved, despite the fact that it took a lot of steps backwards as well.
Today let’s choose to spend some time focussing on what’s good. That is, after all, how we sustain ourselves for the long fight ahead…which we are absolutely going to win.
So much love to all of you. Enjoy!
Read This 📖
Why Minnesota Matters More Than Iran For America’s Future, by Thomas Friedman. Stunning description of the “neighboring” that happening in Minnesota when ICE attacked.
Celebrate This! 🎉
In tonight’s Oscars Conan O’Brien’s opening monologue contained the line: “for the first time in history, no British actor or actress was nominated for best actor or best actress and when asked for comment they said, hey at least we arrest our pedophiles.”
A federal judge in Rhode Island issued a preliminary injunction ordering the VA to reinstate its contract with the American Federation of Government Employees, ruling that the department’s implementation of Trump’s executive order ousting unions from most federal agencies violated both the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedures Act.
Virginia will become second state that allows balcony solar.
The State Department has slashed the fee for Americans to formally renounce their U.S. citizenship by about 80%.
Three brothers, including two who were among the country’s most prominent real estate brokers, were convicted in Manhattan on Monday of engaging in a yearslong conspiracy to traffic women and girls for sex.
More than 300,000 electric vehicles are expected to come off lease in 2026 alone, and they are about to flood the used car market with affordable EVs! The timing couldn’t be better!
For the first time in 52 years Maryland Democrats will compete for all 188 seats in the General Assembly this November!
New Mexico became the first state to bar armed federal agents from polling places.
In the span of three days, two federal judges in Oregon made separate rulings prohibiting federal agents from deploying chemical munitions and other projectiles near the Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement building unless there is an imminent threat.
Shawn Harris (D) made it to a runoff to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia’s 14th congressional district. It’s still a VERY long shot that he’d win, but the Republican candidates inability to win 50 percent of the vote means the seat will remain open for another month, hampering House Republicans’ already-slim majority. Good!
Bobbi Boudman (D) flipped a Republican-held seat in the New Hampshire state House in a special election on Tuesday night. This was a seat the GOP had previously won by 13 points
A new Navigator Research survey finds 60% of Americans feel unfavorably toward ICE.
The number of Republicans leaving the House of Representatives after this term has reached a historic high.
Kristi Noem is now persona non grata with Trump.
A long-delayed plaque honoring the police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6 was finally installed near an entrance on the west front this week.
Andy Thomson, Democratic candidate for mayor of Boca Raton, Florida, defeated two Republican opponents, flipping a seat that has not been held by Democrats for more than 30 years. His margin of victory? FIVE VOTES!
The number of new heat pump installations in the UK last year was over four times higher than in 2020.
Illinois and Cook County, which encompasses Chicago, appropriated $10 million to erase the medical debt of more than 700,000 people, or 15 percent of the county’s population. The appropriation will in total cover more than $1.5 billion in debt and more than 1 million Illinois residents.
Bettors at Polymarket now think Democrats are slightly favored to win control of the Senate in the 2026 midterm elections.
White Supremacist Jeremy Carl withdrew his candidacy for a senior diplomatic role in the State Department as Republican opposition placed his nomination in jeopardy.
A US judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending protections for 1,100 Somalis.
A federal judge in Washington threw a major roadblock into a criminal investigation of Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, quashing grand jury subpoenas issued to the central bank by federal prosecutors over renovations underway at its headquarters in Washington.
Youth climate activists are taking the Trump administration to court in three separate cases over the next few weeks, each arguing that its energy policies unlawfully expand fossil fuel development and endanger their constitutional rights and future safety.
At least 11 states are considering temporary bans and other measures to rein in data center development amid concerns about energy prices and environmental impact.
Washington state’s governor signed a law to heavily tax electricity generated by the Centralia coal plant, making it unlikely to run despite the Trump administration ordering it to stay open past its planned December 2025 retirement. Brilliant!
All five offshore wind farms under construction in the U.S. are on track to hit major milestones this month, despite Trump’s attacks.
Northwestern University researchers found that an anti-seizure drug prevents Alzheimer’s plaques from forming. The decades‑old drug, called levetiracetam, is already FDA-approved and inexpensive to buy.
Texas banned Pride crosswalks — so San Antonio painted the sidewalks rainbow instead.
A group of Democratic Attorneys General are working to keep ICE away from polling locations, including those from Colorado, Maine, New Mexico, and Rhode Island.
Two teenagers in a Texas mariachi band were released from ICE custody after their detention sparked widespread and bipartisan backlash.
Australia granted asylum to five members of the Iranian women’s soccer team after fears that an in-game protest could put them in danger.
Idaho voted down a proposal to overturn same-sex marriage—17 Republicans joined every Democrat in the state in a 44-26 vote.
A federal appeals court ruled that the U.S. federal government must keep making payments on the $16 billion New York Hudson Tunnel, rejecting the Trump administration’s bid to halt paying for the project.
Cook Political Report shifted two House seats towards Democrats. Inside Elections moved six House race ratings in Democrats’ direction.
Alabama’s governor commuted the death sentence of a man convicted of a 1991 murder in which he did not pull the trigger.
Trump DOJ official Ed Martin was formally accused of ethical violations over a letter he sent to Georgetown Law about its diversity programs.
Traffic plunged at all major right-wing news websites in February.
A judge declared the three-person leadership team of the New Jersey federal prosecutor’s office to be unlawful and said Trump’s insistence on handpicking U.S. attorneys showed that the White House cared more about personal control than public safety.
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from implementing a policy that would have let immigration authorities quickly dismiss certain appeals.
The USDA agreed to share climate risk data with farmers, and now, even if the web pages come down again, the data will remain public.
The National Capital Planning Commission postponed its planned vote on Trump’s ballroom until April 2 after receiving over 32,000 public comments opposing the project.
For the first time in history, more than 100,000 women and girls are registered to play hockey with USA Hockey, demonstrating the growing momentum for women and girls playing the sport in the U.S.
A federal appeals court agreed with a lower judge’s ruling that said the Trump administration could not end temporary protected status for roughly 350,000 Haitians living in the U.S.
Anthropic sued the Pentagon, alleging its designation as a “supply chain risk” violates the company’s First Amendment rights and exceeds the government’s authority.
Tennessee has agreed not to enforce a law criminalizing local officials for how they vote.
Former Missouri House Speaker John Diehl ®, who resigned from office a decade ago after he admitted to sending sexually explicit messages to a House intern, is now headed to federal prison for using pandemic loan money for personal expenses.
Maryland will install $50 million worth of solar panels over its Department of Transportation parking lots and brownfields this year.
The NFL delivered a net-zero Super Bowl through large-scale recycling, material reuse, and carbon offsets. Roughly 250 tons of materials were recovered during sustainability efforts — about five times more than the previous Super Bowl.
Paris Hilton just announced the Back in Business Recovery Fund, a collaboration between her social impact organization, 11:11 Media Impact, and GoFundMe’s nonprofit arm to raise and deploy over $1 million to women-owned small businesses rebuilding after natural disasters.
A Minneapolis cafe adopted a “100% free” model during immigration crackdowns, and is now making a “pay what you can” model permanent.
A conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice first elected in 2007 announced that she will not seek a third 10-year term next year, giving liberals another chance to expand their majority
in Kingston, New York, more than 100 volunteers knocked on doors alongside Representatives Pat Ryan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as part of Ground Truth, a new voter listening initiative from Swing Left.
After intense user backlash, Discord is no longer working with Persona, the AI identification verification software backed by Peter Thiel.
Air pollution in Paris has fallen dramatically since it created multiple auto free zones.
A Maryland developer has halted plans to build a 300-megawatt data center near Apex following months of resident pushback.
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