Anyone need a little Good News?
May. 4th, 2025 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatI feel battered by the news. To date, I've sent cards, subscribed to The Atlantic, New York Magazine, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair (Vanity Fair is by the way the cheapest at $18 a year (it's a special deal), after that it is $30 dollars a year, includes unlimited digital, print, and a tote bag. Everybody gives out tote bags. I now have more tote bags than I know what to do with. Also given to various charitable and non-profit organizations.
So finally a little good news from my sources on other social media platforms that you may not have access to.
As always, the good news may well be in the eye of the beholder, your mileage may vary on some of it.
Good news from the American Resistance and its Global Allies
1. Australia and Canada elected liberal Prime Ministers. As previously predicted, Trump's antics managed to flip both elections in the opposite direction. Canada picked Mike Carney over the Pro-Trump guy running against him, and Australia followed suit. (Anybody else want to flee to Canada? I may do that yet. I have an Enhanced ID and I live in NY, it's just a hop skip and jump away. Also it's kind of traditional for Americans to flee to Canada when the going gets rough in the US - we've only been doing it since the 1700s. Mexicans flee to the US (albeit not so much lately) and Americans flee to Canada (Canada is a bit more polite about it, albeit not so much at the moment).)
The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese secured a second term as voters chose stability against the backdrop of global turmoil inflicted by Trump. Australia's return of a left-leaning government follows Canadas similar sharp swing towards Mark Carneys liberal party, another governing party whose fortunes were transformed by Trump. Albany says labor party was able to demonstrate a steady hand – striking an authoritative tone in response to Trump's decision to impose tariffs in Australia.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/03/australia/australia-election-results-albanese-dutton-intl-hnk?cid=ios_app
***
Trump’s administration is facing more than 200 lawsuits over his immigration policies, his ill-advised tariffs, his revenge against law firms, his attempts to shut down government agencies, and many more actions. Trump appears to be in deep denial. [Honestly, sometimes I think the man is either a frustrated litigator or just likes to be sued? At least we are winning most of them.]
An unprecedented in history legal blitz against the Trump Administration (No President in the History of the US has faced this many lawsuits within their first 100 days.)
The below includes items like political rallies and actors speaking out against the Doofus politically. I didn't number them, because it would require renumbering and that leads to all sorts of issues.
2. A major civil rights victory: This week, a federal district court in California issued a preliminary injunction barring U.S. Border Patrol from using stop-and-arrest practices that violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution. The ruling in United Farmworkers v. Noem applies to future Border Patrol operations in the Eastern District of California, which stretches inland from Bakersfield to the Oregon border. How we got here: In January, Border Patrol agents traveled to Kern County where they indiscriminately rounded up day laborers and farm workers, transported them 300 miles south to the El Centro Border Patrol Station, denied them due process, and coerced them into voluntary departure. Now, at least 40 longtime residents remain stranded in Mexico, separated from their families and community. We jumped into action, and in February the ACLUs of California and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP sued the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and Border Patrol. The preliminary injunction prohibits Border Patrol from stopping and arresting people without legal justification. As U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston told the government's attorneys in court, agents "just can't walk up to people with brown skin and say, 'Give me your papers.'
Go HERE
3. The ACLU is taking the Trump administration to court to protect these students and more – and they're winning.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release Mohsen Mahdawi this past week – the first order mandating the release of a student arrested by the Trump administration in retaliation for their speech. Another judge ruled that Rümeysa Öztürk's case must proceed in Vermont – one step closer to her being home in Massachusetts. The fight for Dr. Badar Khan Suri's rights and freedom continued yesterday, as our Virginia affiliate argued that his case remain in Virginia and he should be released from custody while his case continues.
* Mohsen Mahdawi: https://apnews.com/article/mohsen-mahdawi-columbia-student-palestinian-release-dd95ffff78464df1b485d5912f1b3fcb
* Rumeysa Ozturk: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/g-s1-63289/tufts-student-rumeysa-ozturk-immigration-detention
* A judge in New Jersey found Mahmoud Khalil's case can move forward in federal court, getting us one step closer to bringing him home. [Took me a while to find a link supporting this and providing more insight: "https://www.eurasiareview.com/30042025-mahmoud-khalils-lawsuit-can-move-forward-in-federal-court-judge-finds-oped/"] The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey ruled Tuesday that Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and recent Columbia graduate student, can move forward with his lawsuit claiming the government is unlawfully detaining him for his political views. The court rejected the government’s attempt to shut down Mr. Khalil’s case before it could be heard.
4. When Trump started revoking thousands of other international students' visas without any word to those students' schools, ACLU affiliates went to court and won temporary restraining orders in states across the country – including New Hampshire, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and Georgia – protecting these students and their constitutional right to due process and forcing the administration to restore the visas they'd already illegally revoked.
5.Unaccompanied children will not have to navigate US immigration courts on their own after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from canceling a contract that provided lawyers for tens of thousands of children. US district judge Araceli Martinez–Olguin issued a nationwide injunction that required the Trump administration to continue funding lawyers to represent children who are going through immigration proceedings without their parents or guardians.
GO HERE
* Unaccompanied children will not have to navigate U.S. immigration courts on their own after a federal judge Tuesday evening blocked the Trump administration from canceling a contract that provided lawyers for tens of thousands of children. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a nationwide injunction that required the Trump administration to continue funding lawyers to represent children who are going through immigration proceedings without their parents or guardians.
6. California has refused to follow a Trump order to certify that school districts have eliminated all diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
State education officials said “there is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws DEI." Under Trump, the (new) U.S.Department of Education said DEI programs are a form of race-based discrimination.
California defies Trump order to certify that all school districts have eliminated DEI: California on Friday defied a Trump administration order to certify that the state’s 1,000 school districts have ended all diversity, equity and inclusion programs despite federal threats to cut billions of dollars in education funding if the state does not comply. The U.S. Department of Education has given states until April 24 to collect certifications from every school district in the nation — confirming that all DEI efforts have been eliminated, as it contends such programs are a form of race-based discrimination and violate civil rights laws. In a letter to school district superintendents Friday, the California Department of Education, or CDE, defended the legality of DEI efforts.
Go Here
7. Judge rules Trump exceeded authority and cannot deport migrants under wartime act. A Trump-appointed federal judge ruled that the president exceeded his authority by invoking the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants. Go HERE
8.Federal judge appointed by Trump rules that Trump's AEA proclamation is "unlawful". The final judgment blocks Trump's March 14 Alien Enemies Act proclamation from being used to deport anyone from southern Texas.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/05/01/south-texas-judge-blocks-deportations-venezuelans-trump-alien-enemies-/
A federal court in southern Texas ruled the Trump administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to conduct mass deportations of immigrants without due process is unlawful. The court blocked the administration from using it to deport anyone being held in the Southern District of Texas, which will prevent more people from being sent to CECOT, a prison in El Salvador notorious for torture. Immigrants are, and always have been, an integral part of our country. And they, too, are protected by U.S. laws and the Constitution.
9. Deeply respected conservative Judge orders Trump administration to restore $12 million for ProDemocracy RadioFree Europe. That money was already allocated to them and Trump withheld it. Court says he has to release the money. Associated Press
10. Unions Cheer After Judge Halts Trump Order on Federal Workers' Collective Bargaining Rights Labor unions representing federal workers celebrated on Friday after a U.S. district judge blocked Donald Trump's March executive order intended to strip the collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of government employees. The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) swiftly took action over what union national president Doreen Greenwald called "an attempt to silence the voices of our nation's public servants," filing a lawsuit in in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. Judge Paul Friedman, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, granted a preliminary injunction on Friday, blocking implementation of the executive order (EO), which aimed to restrict workers' rights under the guise of protecting national security.
Go HERE
Also Actors/Writers speaking out politically...
* During a recent ceremony for the Breakthrough Prize, which rewards innovations in science, actor Seth Rogen called out Silicon Valley for its support of Trump and Elon Musk.
* Larry David ruthlessly mocked Bill Maher in an Op-Ed article in the NY Times entitled "My Dinner with Adolph".
Rallies..
* Hundreds Rally in Milwaukee Against Trump Admin's 'Unprecedented' Arrest of Judge. "We reject this lawless escalation against an immigration judge who appears to be showing a commonsense and humane approach to immigrants, and stands for due process for all," said one campaigner.
Other forms of resistance:
* A reporter flew an aerial drone over a Texas detention center to catch an image of Venezuelan detainees spelling out SOS with their bodies.
* A shrine was set up where Rumeysa Ozturk was snatched off the streets by ICE.
* Resistance to deportations continues to target not only ICE agents, but also services they require – like airplanes and prisons. Protesters are opposing Avelo Airlines with coast-to-coast demonstrations to pressure the company to stop their deportation flights to El Salvador. Protests also cropped up outside a detention center in Portland, Oregon, and against a proposed detention center in Quincy, Florida.
Political news...
* Trumps foreign policy is in shambles. He was unsuccessful so far, to get a cease-fire in place between Russia and Ukraine. He wants a new nuclear agreement with Iran, but his defense secretary is openly threatening an attack on that country. Trump desperately wants to restart tariff talks with China after launching a preemptive, punitive trade war. China is not reaching out to him. If Trump wants to negotiate with China, he will have to grovel.
- Defense Secretary Pete Kegsbreath has lost three of his front office top aids, his chief of staff has also gone to another department in the Pentagon. After his colossal screwup on Signal gate, he did it again, sharing detailed war actions with his wife and brother and Lawyer and God knows who else on Signal again. Trump is trying not to fire him because to do so would be to admit what a disaster his choice he was to begin with.
-Elise Stefanik, once the third most powerful republican in the house, was nominated to be UN ambassador and went on a farewell tour of her district saying goodbye. But the nomination was yanked because they needed that extra Republican vote in Congress to pass critical budget legislation in the house. Now Trump has taken the position he took away from her, and is giving it to the person at the heart of Signalgate who screwed up.
Instead of firing Waltz, Trump nominated him for Ambassador to the UN. The Senate must confirm the position by a vote. That means the Democratic senators will get to ask questions of waltz, including those the touch on his competency and ability to handle confidential matters. Signal date will be back in the news as he is pressed for details of exactly how Atlantics editor Goldberg wound up in his contacts and why he was using a signal trap signal group chat in the first place.
Non-Court and Non-Political Related Good News
11. The Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony honored the “Six Triple Eight,” an all-Black, predominantly female unit of the Women's Army Corps (WAC) during World War II.
The Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony recognized the extraordinary service of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Known as the “Six Triple Eight,” these selfless WWII Women’s Army Corps Soldiers worked around the clock to ensure millions of letters and packages reached U.S. troops across Europe. Faced with mountains of undelivered mail, they were given six months to clear the backlog. They did it in three.
The U.S. Government Publishing Office produced materials for this and soldiers from The U.S. Army Brass Quintet and Chorus proudly supported the ceremony. The Veterans History Project had the profound honor of welcoming the families of the courageous women of the 6888th Central Postal Battalion, just after the long-overdue Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony in their honor. Meeting those who carry forward their legacy was deeply moving and we all need to be especially grateful to the families who entrusted them with original photos, letters, poems, artwork and other treasures. These personal items enrich the archive and help ensure that the voices and stories of these extraordinary trailblazers will continue to inspire future generations.
Learn More About the 6-Triple 8 Here
12.In the “groundbreaking” results of an immunotherapy clinical trial, most cancer patients saw their tumors disappear.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/health/cancer-immunotherapy-solid-tumors.html?unlocked_article_code=1.C08.XEHY.yLYIErw8VKKE&smid=url-share&ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
13. Dozens of miniature horses galloped for a good cause in New Zealand - their own.
Dozens of miniature horses and their human running mates have taken part in the Great Northern Gallop, an adventure race through dense forests and across rugged beaches in New Zealand’s Far North. Participants run or walk 100km over four days for the event, which raises money for the welfare of miniature horses
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2025/apr/23/great-northern-gallop-new-zealand-miniature-horses-race-in-pictures?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
14.“A City in a Park”: Chattanooga, Tennessee, Is North America’s First National Park City.
Earlier this month, Chattanooga, Tennessee, became the first on the continent to be named as such by the U.K. nonprofit National Park City Foundation. The third in the world, it follows London and Adelaide, Australia, which nabbed the designations in 2019 and 2021, respectively.
Chattanooga’s recognition was hard-earned: The journey toward it began two years ago, and after rallying residents’ support, the city council passed a resolution in 2024 establishing an official campaign to go after the status. With a population of around 190,000, the city undertook “a community-driven effort to celebrate, elevate, and conserve” the culture, people, and places that make it unique, per the interactive portfolio it submitted for consideration.
https://nicenews.com/environment/chattanooga-tennessee-first-national-park-city-north-america/
15. Heart disease is the top cause of death globally, but the frontline defense against it is the ECG, a 100-year-old technology.
That’s why a company called HeartSciences built the first-ever AI-powered ECG device. Developed with names like the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the first-of-its-kind technology providing AI-enhanced ECGs has the potential to save lives on a global scale.
https://invest.heartsciences.com/?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
16. Barbara Papitto has been busy giving back over the last six years — she’s donated $100 million to 350 nonprofits in Rhode Island in that time period, every dollar in honor of her late husband, Ralph Papitto, who died in 2019. Ralph, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, told Barbara to enjoy the money when he died. And for her, that meant giving it away to those in need. In 2020, she founded Papitto Opportunity Connection to support organizations committed to serving local communities via skills training programs, literacy initiatives, entrepreneurship efforts, and more. Last year, the foundation helped create the first transitional housing program for women and children in Central Falls, Rhode Island. And most recently, she donated $1 million to fund a health clinic at Amos House, a recovery-based shelter service for unhoused people. “We need to be in the community like we have been to be responsive to any kind of need that comes forward,” Barbara told The Boston Globe last month, adding: “You can’t help someone get a better job if they’re not being fed.”
https://turnto10.com/news/local/turning-grief-into-generosity-philanthropist-donates-over-100m-to-non-profits-rhode-island-charitable-woman-books-education-april-23-2025
17. The largest powwow in North America took place over the weekend, with attendees wearing colorful regalia.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/smart-living/thousands-gather-in-new-mexico-for-the-largest-powwow-in-north-america/ar-AA1DAb9s?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
18.Rescued turtle Rockalina is getting to experience the outdoors after being cooped up for nearly 50 years
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/24/nx-s1-5369562/rockalina-eastern-box-turtle-new-jersey?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
19. This massive sunflower-like sunspot was captured by the world’s largest solar telescope.
https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/worlds-largest-solar-telescope-turns-on-powerful-new-camera-revealing-breathtaking-image-of-a-continent-size-sunspot?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
20. Learned at church today - that they are planting more than 30 trees around the community and have obtained volunteers to care for the trees and protect them - in Brooklyn, New York. Church also has a Tree Committee.
https://www.brooklyngreenway.org/stewardship/
21.These Welsh puppies are being trained to sniff out wildlife poachers in southern Africa. “We’ve had a drastic reduction in poaching,” said Reilly Travers, head of anti-poaching operations at a Zimbabwe conservancy. “And the K-9 unit has a massive role to play in that.”
https://www.cnn.com/world/africa/dog-training-poaching-africa-wales-spc/index.html?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
22."Juliard is going tuition free: If you know anything about the Juilliard School, it’s probably that it is where some of our greatest artists learned to be great. But that, of course, came at a cost—an exorbitant one. In light of the news that the prestigious institution intends to go entirely tuition-free, we gathered some august alumni for a portrait backstage at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater.
How do the alums feel about future students getting a free ride? Academy Award–winner Jessica Chastain says that removing the barrier of paying tuition is a “great equalizer” for aspiring artists. As the first from her family to attend college, Chastain struggled to afford tuition on top of the hair-raising cost of living in New York City. “I was so stressed out about money,” she says. She worked part-time in the library and the student affairs office on her lunch breaks and took out loans—“a lot” of them—to get by. After Chastain received the Robin Williams Scholarship, which covered the last two years of her four-year degree, she could breathe more freely. “Having that cushion was like, Okay, I can finish,” she says. If children of wealthy families have a built-in advantage, “then the whole industry is populated with privilege.” In her opinion, that doesn’t always make for the most vital art: “Those aren’t the stories that I necessarily think we should focus on and tell.”"
https://www.juilliard.edu/campaign
And Vanity Fair
23. Ethiopian runner Tigst Assefa set a new women-only world record at Sunday’s London Marathon — and she wasn’t the only one to make history. Assefa, who won the women’s elite race in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds, was among 42 world record breakers, including a DJ hoping to inspire people with cancer and a woman dressed in a penguin costume.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/fitness/more-than-40-world-records-broken-by-london-marathon-finishers/ar-AA1DIFH2?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
24. Quebec: Late last year, following the introduction of green building policies in municipalities across Quebec, the province made a commitment to phase out “natural” gas from new and existing buildings by 2040. This is the power of bottom-up climate action!
https://www.ecohome.net/news/1626/quebec-to-end-fossil-fuel-heating-in-homes-by-2040/
25. New York: In 2021, SAFE Cities supported the work of local partners on a policy to limit emissions from new buildings in New York City. Opponents of the new law sued, using a similar legal argument to the one that got Berkeley’s policy struck down. The US District Court for the Southern District upheld NYC’s law. An appeal is likely, but this is good news for New York and beyond. And the Stand community and local government leaders are speaking up for NY HEAT.
26. U.S. grid-scale battery storage is on track to nearly double this year compared to 2024.
https://archive.ph/IdMjD
27.Berkeley, California, just passed a first-of-its-kind policy to cut air and climate pollution from existing homes. Berkeley’s policy approach, which many cities can use, is part of a heroic rebound for the building electrification movement in the US after facing a legal setback that appeared to be funded by a gas utility.
28. British Columbia
Despite a loud minority on the Metro Vancouver Regional District board (responsible for more than half of B.C.’s population!) calling for climate action cuts, thousands of Metro Vancouver residents and more than 100 business leaders showed up last month and cut through the noise to successfully defend climate action funding and climate regional coordination. It was a great reminder that when our communities show up to protect and care for the places we love, we are incredibly powerful!
And thanks to a wave of public support, along with bold leadership from city councils and important groundwork from local government staff, 33 local governments – representing 45% of B.C.’s population – have passed ambitious policies requiring low or zero carbon new construction. And crucially, a wave of community, grassroots and expert support successfully defended these policies against industry-led challenges in two key cities: Richmond and Vancouver. This momentum proves that when people organize, show up, and speak out, we can drive real climate action – and stop powerful gas interests in their tracks.
29.Ontario
Momentum is growing in Ontario, with over a dozen municipalities adopting Green Development Standards (GDS), some of which would soon limit the use of gas in new buildings. A legal challenge by a developer lobby is threatening this progress, so SAFE Cities is defending the legitimate power of Ontario municipalities to pass local green building policies. Alongside this, there’s also an exciting opportunity in Toronto to adopt a green buildings policy for existing buildings, which we’re working with local advocates and government leaders to get passed.
30. Okay this is political, but I don't feel like doing a recount. So bear with me?
A website listing MAGA-friendly businesses (it’s called Public Square, in case you’re wondering) is backfiring as people are using it to find out who to boycott.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/publicsquare-trump-critics-boycott-businesses_n_680900d2e4b00850c6839b0b
Apparently someone posted the website to multiple social media platforms for folks looking for ways to boycott Trump associated businesses.
31. Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is Quietly Revolutionizing the Energy System: This energy storage technology is harnessing the potential of solar and wind power—and its deployment is growing exponentially.
https://www.wired.com/story/grid-scale-battery-storage-is-quietly-revolutionizing-the-energy-system/
32. Staten Island, New York: They’re turning the Freshkills landfill in Staten Island into a haven for pollinators! The Freshkills Park Alliance launched its 50,000 Violets Project, which aims to attract bees, monarch butterflies, and other pollinators to the purple fields, this week.
https://secure.qgiv.com/for/freshkillsparkalliance50kvioletsproject?ck_subscriber_id=2496857656
33. Oregon and Washington: Great news from the Pacific Northwest! Initiative 2066 in Washington State, which would hinder moving buildings to high-efficiency electric appliances, was ruled unconstitutional, and Ashland, Oregon, passed a carbon pollution impact fee for new homes, incentivizing all-electric construction.
34. Earlier this month, climate leaders secured a milestone victory in Santa Rosa, California. After helping numerous cities in Sonoma County and the County itself prohibit new gas stations, the Coalition Opposing New Gas Station (CONGAS) organized the community to stop the last in-process permit application for a gas station in Santa Rosa.
36.Chicago’s public school teachers approved a four-year contract with the nation’s fourth-biggest school district on April 14 after almost a year of tough negotiations.
https://www.ctulocal1.org/posts/ctu-approves-transformative-contract/
37.Skateboarding icon Tony Hawk recently hit this San Francisco skate park and announced the city will be a star in his upcoming video game.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/tony-hawk-skateboard-video-game-20303493.php?sid=67076f86e27961aa670d85e0&ss=P&st_rid=null
38.After a year under interim leadership and a nationwide search, SFJazz has appointed Gabrielle Armand as its new chief executive officer.
A seasoned arts executive and longtime leader at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, Armand will officially assume the position on July 1, guiding the Bay Area’s premier nonprofit jazz institution through a pivotal moment of both challenge and opportunity.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/sfjazz-new-ceo-leadership-20302937.php?sid=67076f86e27961aa670d85e0&ss=P&st_rid=null
39.The FDA announced plans to phase out animal testing requirements.
"Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking a groundbreaking step to advance public health by replacing animal testing in the development of monoclonal antibody therapies and other drugs with more effective, human-relevant methods. The new approach is designed to improve drug safety and accelerate the evaluation process, while reducing animal experimentation, lowering research and development (R&D) costs, and ultimately, drug prices. The FDA’s animal testing requirement will be reduced, refined, or potentially replaced using a range of approaches, including AI-based computational models of toxicity and cell lines and organoid toxicity testing in a laboratory setting (so-called New Approach Methodologies or NAMs data). Implementation of the regimen will begin immediately for investigational new drug (IND) applications, where inclusion of NAMs data is encouraged, and is outlined in a roadmap also being released today. To make determinations of efficacy, the agency will also begin use pre-existing, real-world safety data from other countries, with comparable regulatory standards, where the drug has already been studied in humans."
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-announces-plan-phase-out-animal-testing-requirement-monoclonal-antibodies-and-other-drugs?ck_subscriber_id=2496857656
40.The 2025 Tony Award nominations: Hollywood stars made a strong showing, beginning with George Clooney, who drew a nod for best performance by a leading actor in a play for a well-timed stage adaptation of his 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck, about CBS’s pushback against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vicious hunt for alleged Communists. Sarah Snook, Mia Farrow, and Sadie Sink were among those nominated for best lead actress in a play, and of course a wide swath of beloved theater actors were honored as well, among them Audra McDonald, Megan Hilty, Jeremy Jordan, Cole Escola, Jennifer Simard, and LaTanya Richardson Jackson.
41. Mexico’s President Claudia Scheinbaum declined an offer of “military assistance” from the US executive branch.
42. Elon Musk isn’t happy about a report that his own company is looking to replace him. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Tesla’s board of directors had begun the process of finding a new CEO to replace the billionaire bureaucrat who was galavanting around Washington with a chain saw, people familiar with the discussions told the paper. The board reached out to several executive search firms, and was ultimately able to narrow its efforts to one major firm, the outlet reported. It’s unclear whether Musk, who stepped down as the chairman of the board of directors in 2018, was aware that the company was beginning to look for new leadership. As the board of directors first embarked on their search about a month ago, they warned the CEO that he needed to spend more time at the company, and Musk didn’t argue. In a furious post on X Thursday, Musk claimed that the report was a complete fiction. The Board put out a statement denying the search. The WSJ stands by its reporting.
https://newrepublic.com/post/194659/melon-musk-report-tesla-looking-new-ceo
Last week, in a humiliating first-quarter earnings report, Tesla said that profits had crashed by a whopping 71 percent, falling to a mere $409 million, compared with $1.39 billion from the same quarter last year. The drop was a direct result of Musk’s entanglement with Trump’s administration. Tesla has become a symbol of the Department of Government Efficiency’s likely unconstitutional government overhaul and extreme cost-cutting measures that have led to sweeping layoffs and essential services being gutted. Teslas have quickly become the target of widespread protests against the administration.
Trump’s embrace of a sweeping “reciprocal tariff” policy, and steep tariffs on imported cars and auto parts, also rocked the industry, hurting Musk’s value personally. In Trump’s first 100 days in office, Musk lost a whopping 25 percent of his total personal wealth.
43. The Path of Moses - a natural phenomenon in Brazil, where the sea splits in two, and you can walk into the ocean and look at both sides.
https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-travel/moses-path-the-beach-in-brazil-where-the-sea-splits-in-two-so-that-you-can-walk-on-it/
44. May Day (May 1 and 2) is the International Labor Day and people across the world took action. In addition to labor justice and immigrant rights, protesters also opposed far right policies (Germany), authoritarian crackdowns (Turkey), power outages (Spain), and fascism and war (Switzerland). People in France, Spain, the Philippines, and Taiwan also opposed the ‘Trumpization‘ of global politics. For once, the United States also made international news on May Day by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people to honor the Labor Day that commemorates our historic Haymarket Riot. With big marches in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Phoenix, and around 1300 other actions happening nationwide in honor of May Day, people showed up for immigrant rights, labor justice, economic justice, and to oppose the Trump administration’s policies.
* https://apnews.com/article/may-day-workers-labor-unions-rallies-marches-trump-46de8196d7f01d7458c3d77ccd5e0e54
Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. and around the world rallied Thursday in May Day protests that united many in anger over President Donald Trump’s agenda from aggressive tariffs that are stoking fears of global economic turmoil to his administration’s immigration crackdowns.
In the United States, organizers framed this year’s International Workers’ Day protests as a pushback against what they see as the administration’s sweeping assault on labor protections, diversity initiatives and federal employees. Protesters lined streets in many cities from New York to Philadelphia to Los Angeles and held a boisterous rally outside the White House in Washington.
* https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/05/01/may-day-protests-trump-musk-billionaires/83362729007/
Over 1,000 demonstrations and rallies were scheduled in every state and abroad, most being held May 1 – historically known as May Day or International Workers' Day. The volunteer-led 50501 movement, which spurred other nationwide protests this year, helped organize the demonstrations along with labor unions, student groups and other grassroots organizations.
One of the larger protests kicked off in Washington, D.C., with a "May Day Movement USA" rally on the National Mall. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke to demonstrators in New York City. In Philadelphia, Sen. Bernie Sanders joined the "Workers over Billionaires" rally hosted by the city's AFL-CIO chapter.
45. At 100 days into his second term, the blowback to Trump’s unpopular policies is showing. Polls revealed that the majority of the country now opposes all of his major policies – and protests are unrelenting.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-lowest-100-day-approval-rating-80-years/story?id=121165473
46. The Courage Not Compliance march in DC unfurled a giant constitution and blocked rush hour traffic, leading to arrests.
https://thenationaldesk.com/news/americas-news-now/shut-down-dc-rush-hour-protest-trump-100-days-in-office-second-term-courage-not-compliance-morning-rushhour-washington-president-donald-elon-musk-billionaire-samuel-gompers-memorial-park-10th-st-massachusetts-ave-advocacy-organizations-protest-rally
47. Coca-Cola and Levi Strauss rejected anti-DEI proposals.
48. Major European institutions have joined in the effort to archive and back up the United States’ scientific data on climate and other research so Trump can’t destroy it. [Thank you, Germany.] "Several research institutes in Germany are joining a worldwide grass-roots effort to save science data sets that researchers fear could be deleted or decommissioned on the orders of US President Donald Trump’s administration. An official with Pangaea, a massive environmental data repository run by the University of Bremen and the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, says that the organization is formally working with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to back up at-risk databases. Pangaea’s decision to join the cause followed distress calls from members of the science community and from staff members inside NOAA — an agency that monitors Earth’s atmosphere and climate and provides weather-forecasting services. "
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01309-3
49. A congressman - US Democrat House Rep from Michigan - filed 7 articles of impeachment against Trump, including unconstitutional acts.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/impeachment-trump-2025
50. Spain hit 100% renewable power at peak working hours.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/04/22/spain-hits-first-weekday-of-100-renewable-power-on-national-grid/
51. Poland repealed the last of the hateful LGBTQ+ Free Zones.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/04/poland-finally-repealed-the-countrys-last-lgbt-free-zone/
52. In Panama, an indefinite national strike has launched against pension reform, Trump’s attempts to take control of the canal, and a proposal to establish US military bases in the country.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/29/indefinite-national-strike-continues-in-panama-defying-arrests-and-repression/
53. Over 6,000 people marched for Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
"Over 6,000 people marched through the streets of Barry on Saturday 26 April, calling for Welsh independence. The March for Independence, organised by YesCymru and AUOBCymru, brought people together from across the country in a powerful show of unity and hope for a better future"
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2025/04/27/welsh-independence-march-barry/
54. In Belgium, people are protesting austerity and militarization by saying: We Won’t Sacrifice Pensions For Warplanes.
https://popularresistance.org/belgians-to-government-we-wont-sacrifice-pensions-for-warplanes/
55. In Brazil, Starbucks workers are suing the company over ‘morally repugnant’, slavery-like conditions.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/24/starbucks-brazil-coffee-forced-labour
56. Lakenheath Peace Camp in the United Kingdom opposed US-nuclear weapons in their country with two weeks of sit-ins, street theater, protests, and other actions by 250 protesters, and concluded with a topless blockade of the air base.
https://popularresistance.org/rousing-finish-to-the-raf-lakenheath-peace-camp/
57. Australian demonstrators are calling for a vote over Palestine, hoping to place an arms embargo on Israel.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/protesters-call-vote-palestine-stop-arming-israel
58. Protesters in the United States forced Israel’s Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to cancel his speech. In DC, striking demonstrators with white masks and blood red tears called for an arms embargo. A second protest in front of the Smithsonian Museum played a haunting soundtrack of mothers’ screams to render the pain of the genocide audible to US decision-makers.
https://nypost.com/2025/04/27/us-news/cops-clash-with-anti-israel-protesters-outside-nyc-synagogue-where-israeli-minister-was-set-to-speak-before-event-canceled/
59. On the eve of the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israeli citizens held up photos of Palestinians who have been killed in the genocide in Gaza, holding their action outside the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.
60. Swedish activists with the group Wear the Peace set up a tent encampment outside the parliament building in Stockholm in solidarity with Palestinians.
61. Community members in Chico, California, threw an Endangered Species Faire with giant puppets and hand-painted tributes to animals.
https://chicosol.org/2025/04/26/endangered-species-faire-celebration-call-action/
62. March of life-sized animal puppets made from cardboard is arriving Morocco after visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, and Nigeria.
https://www.ecowatch.com/herds-animal-puppets-climate-awareness-journey.html
63.The Earth Day 2025: Everyone Can Do Something campaign brought 85+ groups out to hold performance art, protests, tree plantings, kite parades, and dances for climate action and environmental protections.
https://paceebene.org/blog/2025/5/1/earth-day-2025-85-actions-worldwide-say-everyone-can-do-something
64.Days before the Canadian election, Greenpeace threw a light projection onto the side of Niagara Falls that said: Don’t Trump Canada. (And Canada did indeed vote down the Trump-supporting Poilievre – even in his own district – putting the liberal Mark Carney into power as prime minister.)
65. What is 5051? And how did it start?
t started with a Reddit post.
“50 PROTESTS – 50 STATES – 1 DAY,” the user who goes by Evolved Fungi wrote, kicking off a movement that has since drawn hundreds of thousands to the streets in protests against Donald Trump across the country.
The movement – pronounced “fifty-fifty-one”, meaning 50 protests, 50 states, one movement – first called for a day of action on 5 February, a date chosen seemingly at random. Local organizers would lead protests in their cities and towns, but the movement would not have a leader, and it would not be centralized.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/trump-protest-movement-50501
I hope you found something in there to smile about? If not, here's a pretty tree?
So finally a little good news from my sources on other social media platforms that you may not have access to.
As always, the good news may well be in the eye of the beholder, your mileage may vary on some of it.
Good news from the American Resistance and its Global Allies
1. Australia and Canada elected liberal Prime Ministers. As previously predicted, Trump's antics managed to flip both elections in the opposite direction. Canada picked Mike Carney over the Pro-Trump guy running against him, and Australia followed suit. (Anybody else want to flee to Canada? I may do that yet. I have an Enhanced ID and I live in NY, it's just a hop skip and jump away. Also it's kind of traditional for Americans to flee to Canada when the going gets rough in the US - we've only been doing it since the 1700s. Mexicans flee to the US (albeit not so much lately) and Americans flee to Canada (Canada is a bit more polite about it, albeit not so much at the moment).)
The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese secured a second term as voters chose stability against the backdrop of global turmoil inflicted by Trump. Australia's return of a left-leaning government follows Canadas similar sharp swing towards Mark Carneys liberal party, another governing party whose fortunes were transformed by Trump. Albany says labor party was able to demonstrate a steady hand – striking an authoritative tone in response to Trump's decision to impose tariffs in Australia.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/03/australia/australia-election-results-albanese-dutton-intl-hnk?cid=ios_app
***
Trump’s administration is facing more than 200 lawsuits over his immigration policies, his ill-advised tariffs, his revenge against law firms, his attempts to shut down government agencies, and many more actions. Trump appears to be in deep denial. [Honestly, sometimes I think the man is either a frustrated litigator or just likes to be sued? At least we are winning most of them.]
An unprecedented in history legal blitz against the Trump Administration (No President in the History of the US has faced this many lawsuits within their first 100 days.)
The below includes items like political rallies and actors speaking out against the Doofus politically. I didn't number them, because it would require renumbering and that leads to all sorts of issues.
2. A major civil rights victory: This week, a federal district court in California issued a preliminary injunction barring U.S. Border Patrol from using stop-and-arrest practices that violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution. The ruling in United Farmworkers v. Noem applies to future Border Patrol operations in the Eastern District of California, which stretches inland from Bakersfield to the Oregon border. How we got here: In January, Border Patrol agents traveled to Kern County where they indiscriminately rounded up day laborers and farm workers, transported them 300 miles south to the El Centro Border Patrol Station, denied them due process, and coerced them into voluntary departure. Now, at least 40 longtime residents remain stranded in Mexico, separated from their families and community. We jumped into action, and in February the ACLUs of California and Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP sued the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and Border Patrol. The preliminary injunction prohibits Border Patrol from stopping and arresting people without legal justification. As U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston told the government's attorneys in court, agents "just can't walk up to people with brown skin and say, 'Give me your papers.'
Go HERE
3. The ACLU is taking the Trump administration to court to protect these students and more – and they're winning.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release Mohsen Mahdawi this past week – the first order mandating the release of a student arrested by the Trump administration in retaliation for their speech. Another judge ruled that Rümeysa Öztürk's case must proceed in Vermont – one step closer to her being home in Massachusetts. The fight for Dr. Badar Khan Suri's rights and freedom continued yesterday, as our Virginia affiliate argued that his case remain in Virginia and he should be released from custody while his case continues.
* Mohsen Mahdawi: https://apnews.com/article/mohsen-mahdawi-columbia-student-palestinian-release-dd95ffff78464df1b485d5912f1b3fcb
* Rumeysa Ozturk: https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/g-s1-63289/tufts-student-rumeysa-ozturk-immigration-detention
* A judge in New Jersey found Mahmoud Khalil's case can move forward in federal court, getting us one step closer to bringing him home. [Took me a while to find a link supporting this and providing more insight: "https://www.eurasiareview.com/30042025-mahmoud-khalils-lawsuit-can-move-forward-in-federal-court-judge-finds-oped/"] The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey ruled Tuesday that Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident and recent Columbia graduate student, can move forward with his lawsuit claiming the government is unlawfully detaining him for his political views. The court rejected the government’s attempt to shut down Mr. Khalil’s case before it could be heard.
4. When Trump started revoking thousands of other international students' visas without any word to those students' schools, ACLU affiliates went to court and won temporary restraining orders in states across the country – including New Hampshire, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, and Georgia – protecting these students and their constitutional right to due process and forcing the administration to restore the visas they'd already illegally revoked.
5.Unaccompanied children will not have to navigate US immigration courts on their own after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from canceling a contract that provided lawyers for tens of thousands of children. US district judge Araceli Martinez–Olguin issued a nationwide injunction that required the Trump administration to continue funding lawyers to represent children who are going through immigration proceedings without their parents or guardians.
GO HERE
* Unaccompanied children will not have to navigate U.S. immigration courts on their own after a federal judge Tuesday evening blocked the Trump administration from canceling a contract that provided lawyers for tens of thousands of children. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a nationwide injunction that required the Trump administration to continue funding lawyers to represent children who are going through immigration proceedings without their parents or guardians.
6. California has refused to follow a Trump order to certify that school districts have eliminated all diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
State education officials said “there is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws DEI." Under Trump, the (new) U.S.Department of Education said DEI programs are a form of race-based discrimination.
California defies Trump order to certify that all school districts have eliminated DEI: California on Friday defied a Trump administration order to certify that the state’s 1,000 school districts have ended all diversity, equity and inclusion programs despite federal threats to cut billions of dollars in education funding if the state does not comply. The U.S. Department of Education has given states until April 24 to collect certifications from every school district in the nation — confirming that all DEI efforts have been eliminated, as it contends such programs are a form of race-based discrimination and violate civil rights laws. In a letter to school district superintendents Friday, the California Department of Education, or CDE, defended the legality of DEI efforts.
Go Here
7. Judge rules Trump exceeded authority and cannot deport migrants under wartime act. A Trump-appointed federal judge ruled that the president exceeded his authority by invoking the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants. Go HERE
8.Federal judge appointed by Trump rules that Trump's AEA proclamation is "unlawful". The final judgment blocks Trump's March 14 Alien Enemies Act proclamation from being used to deport anyone from southern Texas.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/05/01/south-texas-judge-blocks-deportations-venezuelans-trump-alien-enemies-/
A federal court in southern Texas ruled the Trump administration's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to conduct mass deportations of immigrants without due process is unlawful. The court blocked the administration from using it to deport anyone being held in the Southern District of Texas, which will prevent more people from being sent to CECOT, a prison in El Salvador notorious for torture. Immigrants are, and always have been, an integral part of our country. And they, too, are protected by U.S. laws and the Constitution.
9. Deeply respected conservative Judge orders Trump administration to restore $12 million for ProDemocracy RadioFree Europe. That money was already allocated to them and Trump withheld it. Court says he has to release the money. Associated Press
10. Unions Cheer After Judge Halts Trump Order on Federal Workers' Collective Bargaining Rights Labor unions representing federal workers celebrated on Friday after a U.S. district judge blocked Donald Trump's March executive order intended to strip the collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of government employees. The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) swiftly took action over what union national president Doreen Greenwald called "an attempt to silence the voices of our nation's public servants," filing a lawsuit in in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia. Judge Paul Friedman, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, granted a preliminary injunction on Friday, blocking implementation of the executive order (EO), which aimed to restrict workers' rights under the guise of protecting national security.
Go HERE
Also Actors/Writers speaking out politically...
* During a recent ceremony for the Breakthrough Prize, which rewards innovations in science, actor Seth Rogen called out Silicon Valley for its support of Trump and Elon Musk.
* Larry David ruthlessly mocked Bill Maher in an Op-Ed article in the NY Times entitled "My Dinner with Adolph".
Rallies..
* Hundreds Rally in Milwaukee Against Trump Admin's 'Unprecedented' Arrest of Judge. "We reject this lawless escalation against an immigration judge who appears to be showing a commonsense and humane approach to immigrants, and stands for due process for all," said one campaigner.
Other forms of resistance:
* A reporter flew an aerial drone over a Texas detention center to catch an image of Venezuelan detainees spelling out SOS with their bodies.
* A shrine was set up where Rumeysa Ozturk was snatched off the streets by ICE.
* Resistance to deportations continues to target not only ICE agents, but also services they require – like airplanes and prisons. Protesters are opposing Avelo Airlines with coast-to-coast demonstrations to pressure the company to stop their deportation flights to El Salvador. Protests also cropped up outside a detention center in Portland, Oregon, and against a proposed detention center in Quincy, Florida.
Political news...
* Trumps foreign policy is in shambles. He was unsuccessful so far, to get a cease-fire in place between Russia and Ukraine. He wants a new nuclear agreement with Iran, but his defense secretary is openly threatening an attack on that country. Trump desperately wants to restart tariff talks with China after launching a preemptive, punitive trade war. China is not reaching out to him. If Trump wants to negotiate with China, he will have to grovel.
- Defense Secretary Pete Kegsbreath has lost three of his front office top aids, his chief of staff has also gone to another department in the Pentagon. After his colossal screwup on Signal gate, he did it again, sharing detailed war actions with his wife and brother and Lawyer and God knows who else on Signal again. Trump is trying not to fire him because to do so would be to admit what a disaster his choice he was to begin with.
-Elise Stefanik, once the third most powerful republican in the house, was nominated to be UN ambassador and went on a farewell tour of her district saying goodbye. But the nomination was yanked because they needed that extra Republican vote in Congress to pass critical budget legislation in the house. Now Trump has taken the position he took away from her, and is giving it to the person at the heart of Signalgate who screwed up.
Instead of firing Waltz, Trump nominated him for Ambassador to the UN. The Senate must confirm the position by a vote. That means the Democratic senators will get to ask questions of waltz, including those the touch on his competency and ability to handle confidential matters. Signal date will be back in the news as he is pressed for details of exactly how Atlantics editor Goldberg wound up in his contacts and why he was using a signal trap signal group chat in the first place.
Non-Court and Non-Political Related Good News
11. The Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony honored the “Six Triple Eight,” an all-Black, predominantly female unit of the Women's Army Corps (WAC) during World War II.
The Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony recognized the extraordinary service of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Known as the “Six Triple Eight,” these selfless WWII Women’s Army Corps Soldiers worked around the clock to ensure millions of letters and packages reached U.S. troops across Europe. Faced with mountains of undelivered mail, they were given six months to clear the backlog. They did it in three.
The U.S. Government Publishing Office produced materials for this and soldiers from The U.S. Army Brass Quintet and Chorus proudly supported the ceremony. The Veterans History Project had the profound honor of welcoming the families of the courageous women of the 6888th Central Postal Battalion, just after the long-overdue Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony in their honor. Meeting those who carry forward their legacy was deeply moving and we all need to be especially grateful to the families who entrusted them with original photos, letters, poems, artwork and other treasures. These personal items enrich the archive and help ensure that the voices and stories of these extraordinary trailblazers will continue to inspire future generations.
Learn More About the 6-Triple 8 Here
12.In the “groundbreaking” results of an immunotherapy clinical trial, most cancer patients saw their tumors disappear.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/health/cancer-immunotherapy-solid-tumors.html?unlocked_article_code=1.C08.XEHY.yLYIErw8VKKE&smid=url-share&ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
13. Dozens of miniature horses galloped for a good cause in New Zealand - their own.
Dozens of miniature horses and their human running mates have taken part in the Great Northern Gallop, an adventure race through dense forests and across rugged beaches in New Zealand’s Far North. Participants run or walk 100km over four days for the event, which raises money for the welfare of miniature horses
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2025/apr/23/great-northern-gallop-new-zealand-miniature-horses-race-in-pictures?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
14.“A City in a Park”: Chattanooga, Tennessee, Is North America’s First National Park City.
Earlier this month, Chattanooga, Tennessee, became the first on the continent to be named as such by the U.K. nonprofit National Park City Foundation. The third in the world, it follows London and Adelaide, Australia, which nabbed the designations in 2019 and 2021, respectively.
Chattanooga’s recognition was hard-earned: The journey toward it began two years ago, and after rallying residents’ support, the city council passed a resolution in 2024 establishing an official campaign to go after the status. With a population of around 190,000, the city undertook “a community-driven effort to celebrate, elevate, and conserve” the culture, people, and places that make it unique, per the interactive portfolio it submitted for consideration.
https://nicenews.com/environment/chattanooga-tennessee-first-national-park-city-north-america/
15. Heart disease is the top cause of death globally, but the frontline defense against it is the ECG, a 100-year-old technology.
That’s why a company called HeartSciences built the first-ever AI-powered ECG device. Developed with names like the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the first-of-its-kind technology providing AI-enhanced ECGs has the potential to save lives on a global scale.
https://invest.heartsciences.com/?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
16. Barbara Papitto has been busy giving back over the last six years — she’s donated $100 million to 350 nonprofits in Rhode Island in that time period, every dollar in honor of her late husband, Ralph Papitto, who died in 2019. Ralph, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, told Barbara to enjoy the money when he died. And for her, that meant giving it away to those in need. In 2020, she founded Papitto Opportunity Connection to support organizations committed to serving local communities via skills training programs, literacy initiatives, entrepreneurship efforts, and more. Last year, the foundation helped create the first transitional housing program for women and children in Central Falls, Rhode Island. And most recently, she donated $1 million to fund a health clinic at Amos House, a recovery-based shelter service for unhoused people. “We need to be in the community like we have been to be responsive to any kind of need that comes forward,” Barbara told The Boston Globe last month, adding: “You can’t help someone get a better job if they’re not being fed.”
https://turnto10.com/news/local/turning-grief-into-generosity-philanthropist-donates-over-100m-to-non-profits-rhode-island-charitable-woman-books-education-april-23-2025
17. The largest powwow in North America took place over the weekend, with attendees wearing colorful regalia.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/smart-living/thousands-gather-in-new-mexico-for-the-largest-powwow-in-north-america/ar-AA1DAb9s?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
18.Rescued turtle Rockalina is getting to experience the outdoors after being cooped up for nearly 50 years
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/24/nx-s1-5369562/rockalina-eastern-box-turtle-new-jersey?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
19. This massive sunflower-like sunspot was captured by the world’s largest solar telescope.
https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/worlds-largest-solar-telescope-turns-on-powerful-new-camera-revealing-breathtaking-image-of-a-continent-size-sunspot?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
20. Learned at church today - that they are planting more than 30 trees around the community and have obtained volunteers to care for the trees and protect them - in Brooklyn, New York. Church also has a Tree Committee.
https://www.brooklyngreenway.org/stewardship/
21.These Welsh puppies are being trained to sniff out wildlife poachers in southern Africa. “We’ve had a drastic reduction in poaching,” said Reilly Travers, head of anti-poaching operations at a Zimbabwe conservancy. “And the K-9 unit has a massive role to play in that.”
https://www.cnn.com/world/africa/dog-training-poaching-africa-wales-spc/index.html?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
22."Juliard is going tuition free: If you know anything about the Juilliard School, it’s probably that it is where some of our greatest artists learned to be great. But that, of course, came at a cost—an exorbitant one. In light of the news that the prestigious institution intends to go entirely tuition-free, we gathered some august alumni for a portrait backstage at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater.
How do the alums feel about future students getting a free ride? Academy Award–winner Jessica Chastain says that removing the barrier of paying tuition is a “great equalizer” for aspiring artists. As the first from her family to attend college, Chastain struggled to afford tuition on top of the hair-raising cost of living in New York City. “I was so stressed out about money,” she says. She worked part-time in the library and the student affairs office on her lunch breaks and took out loans—“a lot” of them—to get by. After Chastain received the Robin Williams Scholarship, which covered the last two years of her four-year degree, she could breathe more freely. “Having that cushion was like, Okay, I can finish,” she says. If children of wealthy families have a built-in advantage, “then the whole industry is populated with privilege.” In her opinion, that doesn’t always make for the most vital art: “Those aren’t the stories that I necessarily think we should focus on and tell.”"
https://www.juilliard.edu/campaign
And Vanity Fair
23. Ethiopian runner Tigst Assefa set a new women-only world record at Sunday’s London Marathon — and she wasn’t the only one to make history. Assefa, who won the women’s elite race in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 50 seconds, was among 42 world record breakers, including a DJ hoping to inspire people with cancer and a woman dressed in a penguin costume.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/fitness/more-than-40-world-records-broken-by-london-marathon-finishers/ar-AA1DIFH2?ck_subscriber_id=2454664808
24. Quebec: Late last year, following the introduction of green building policies in municipalities across Quebec, the province made a commitment to phase out “natural” gas from new and existing buildings by 2040. This is the power of bottom-up climate action!
https://www.ecohome.net/news/1626/quebec-to-end-fossil-fuel-heating-in-homes-by-2040/
25. New York: In 2021, SAFE Cities supported the work of local partners on a policy to limit emissions from new buildings in New York City. Opponents of the new law sued, using a similar legal argument to the one that got Berkeley’s policy struck down. The US District Court for the Southern District upheld NYC’s law. An appeal is likely, but this is good news for New York and beyond. And the Stand community and local government leaders are speaking up for NY HEAT.
26. U.S. grid-scale battery storage is on track to nearly double this year compared to 2024.
https://archive.ph/IdMjD
27.Berkeley, California, just passed a first-of-its-kind policy to cut air and climate pollution from existing homes. Berkeley’s policy approach, which many cities can use, is part of a heroic rebound for the building electrification movement in the US after facing a legal setback that appeared to be funded by a gas utility.
28. British Columbia
Despite a loud minority on the Metro Vancouver Regional District board (responsible for more than half of B.C.’s population!) calling for climate action cuts, thousands of Metro Vancouver residents and more than 100 business leaders showed up last month and cut through the noise to successfully defend climate action funding and climate regional coordination. It was a great reminder that when our communities show up to protect and care for the places we love, we are incredibly powerful!
And thanks to a wave of public support, along with bold leadership from city councils and important groundwork from local government staff, 33 local governments – representing 45% of B.C.’s population – have passed ambitious policies requiring low or zero carbon new construction. And crucially, a wave of community, grassroots and expert support successfully defended these policies against industry-led challenges in two key cities: Richmond and Vancouver. This momentum proves that when people organize, show up, and speak out, we can drive real climate action – and stop powerful gas interests in their tracks.
29.Ontario
Momentum is growing in Ontario, with over a dozen municipalities adopting Green Development Standards (GDS), some of which would soon limit the use of gas in new buildings. A legal challenge by a developer lobby is threatening this progress, so SAFE Cities is defending the legitimate power of Ontario municipalities to pass local green building policies. Alongside this, there’s also an exciting opportunity in Toronto to adopt a green buildings policy for existing buildings, which we’re working with local advocates and government leaders to get passed.
30. Okay this is political, but I don't feel like doing a recount. So bear with me?
A website listing MAGA-friendly businesses (it’s called Public Square, in case you’re wondering) is backfiring as people are using it to find out who to boycott.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/publicsquare-trump-critics-boycott-businesses_n_680900d2e4b00850c6839b0b
Apparently someone posted the website to multiple social media platforms for folks looking for ways to boycott Trump associated businesses.
31. Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is Quietly Revolutionizing the Energy System: This energy storage technology is harnessing the potential of solar and wind power—and its deployment is growing exponentially.
https://www.wired.com/story/grid-scale-battery-storage-is-quietly-revolutionizing-the-energy-system/
32. Staten Island, New York: They’re turning the Freshkills landfill in Staten Island into a haven for pollinators! The Freshkills Park Alliance launched its 50,000 Violets Project, which aims to attract bees, monarch butterflies, and other pollinators to the purple fields, this week.
https://secure.qgiv.com/for/freshkillsparkalliance50kvioletsproject?ck_subscriber_id=2496857656
33. Oregon and Washington: Great news from the Pacific Northwest! Initiative 2066 in Washington State, which would hinder moving buildings to high-efficiency electric appliances, was ruled unconstitutional, and Ashland, Oregon, passed a carbon pollution impact fee for new homes, incentivizing all-electric construction.
34. Earlier this month, climate leaders secured a milestone victory in Santa Rosa, California. After helping numerous cities in Sonoma County and the County itself prohibit new gas stations, the Coalition Opposing New Gas Station (CONGAS) organized the community to stop the last in-process permit application for a gas station in Santa Rosa.
36.Chicago’s public school teachers approved a four-year contract with the nation’s fourth-biggest school district on April 14 after almost a year of tough negotiations.
https://www.ctulocal1.org/posts/ctu-approves-transformative-contract/
37.Skateboarding icon Tony Hawk recently hit this San Francisco skate park and announced the city will be a star in his upcoming video game.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/tony-hawk-skateboard-video-game-20303493.php?sid=67076f86e27961aa670d85e0&ss=P&st_rid=null
38.After a year under interim leadership and a nationwide search, SFJazz has appointed Gabrielle Armand as its new chief executive officer.
A seasoned arts executive and longtime leader at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, Armand will officially assume the position on July 1, guiding the Bay Area’s premier nonprofit jazz institution through a pivotal moment of both challenge and opportunity.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/sfjazz-new-ceo-leadership-20302937.php?sid=67076f86e27961aa670d85e0&ss=P&st_rid=null
39.The FDA announced plans to phase out animal testing requirements.
"Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking a groundbreaking step to advance public health by replacing animal testing in the development of monoclonal antibody therapies and other drugs with more effective, human-relevant methods. The new approach is designed to improve drug safety and accelerate the evaluation process, while reducing animal experimentation, lowering research and development (R&D) costs, and ultimately, drug prices. The FDA’s animal testing requirement will be reduced, refined, or potentially replaced using a range of approaches, including AI-based computational models of toxicity and cell lines and organoid toxicity testing in a laboratory setting (so-called New Approach Methodologies or NAMs data). Implementation of the regimen will begin immediately for investigational new drug (IND) applications, where inclusion of NAMs data is encouraged, and is outlined in a roadmap also being released today. To make determinations of efficacy, the agency will also begin use pre-existing, real-world safety data from other countries, with comparable regulatory standards, where the drug has already been studied in humans."
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-announces-plan-phase-out-animal-testing-requirement-monoclonal-antibodies-and-other-drugs?ck_subscriber_id=2496857656
40.The 2025 Tony Award nominations: Hollywood stars made a strong showing, beginning with George Clooney, who drew a nod for best performance by a leading actor in a play for a well-timed stage adaptation of his 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck, about CBS’s pushback against Senator Joseph McCarthy’s vicious hunt for alleged Communists. Sarah Snook, Mia Farrow, and Sadie Sink were among those nominated for best lead actress in a play, and of course a wide swath of beloved theater actors were honored as well, among them Audra McDonald, Megan Hilty, Jeremy Jordan, Cole Escola, Jennifer Simard, and LaTanya Richardson Jackson.
41. Mexico’s President Claudia Scheinbaum declined an offer of “military assistance” from the US executive branch.
42. Elon Musk isn’t happy about a report that his own company is looking to replace him. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Tesla’s board of directors had begun the process of finding a new CEO to replace the billionaire bureaucrat who was galavanting around Washington with a chain saw, people familiar with the discussions told the paper. The board reached out to several executive search firms, and was ultimately able to narrow its efforts to one major firm, the outlet reported. It’s unclear whether Musk, who stepped down as the chairman of the board of directors in 2018, was aware that the company was beginning to look for new leadership. As the board of directors first embarked on their search about a month ago, they warned the CEO that he needed to spend more time at the company, and Musk didn’t argue. In a furious post on X Thursday, Musk claimed that the report was a complete fiction. The Board put out a statement denying the search. The WSJ stands by its reporting.
https://newrepublic.com/post/194659/melon-musk-report-tesla-looking-new-ceo
Last week, in a humiliating first-quarter earnings report, Tesla said that profits had crashed by a whopping 71 percent, falling to a mere $409 million, compared with $1.39 billion from the same quarter last year. The drop was a direct result of Musk’s entanglement with Trump’s administration. Tesla has become a symbol of the Department of Government Efficiency’s likely unconstitutional government overhaul and extreme cost-cutting measures that have led to sweeping layoffs and essential services being gutted. Teslas have quickly become the target of widespread protests against the administration.
Trump’s embrace of a sweeping “reciprocal tariff” policy, and steep tariffs on imported cars and auto parts, also rocked the industry, hurting Musk’s value personally. In Trump’s first 100 days in office, Musk lost a whopping 25 percent of his total personal wealth.
43. The Path of Moses - a natural phenomenon in Brazil, where the sea splits in two, and you can walk into the ocean and look at both sides.
https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-travel/moses-path-the-beach-in-brazil-where-the-sea-splits-in-two-so-that-you-can-walk-on-it/
44. May Day (May 1 and 2) is the International Labor Day and people across the world took action. In addition to labor justice and immigrant rights, protesters also opposed far right policies (Germany), authoritarian crackdowns (Turkey), power outages (Spain), and fascism and war (Switzerland). People in France, Spain, the Philippines, and Taiwan also opposed the ‘Trumpization‘ of global politics. For once, the United States also made international news on May Day by mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people to honor the Labor Day that commemorates our historic Haymarket Riot. With big marches in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Phoenix, and around 1300 other actions happening nationwide in honor of May Day, people showed up for immigrant rights, labor justice, economic justice, and to oppose the Trump administration’s policies.
* https://apnews.com/article/may-day-workers-labor-unions-rallies-marches-trump-46de8196d7f01d7458c3d77ccd5e0e54
Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. and around the world rallied Thursday in May Day protests that united many in anger over President Donald Trump’s agenda from aggressive tariffs that are stoking fears of global economic turmoil to his administration’s immigration crackdowns.
In the United States, organizers framed this year’s International Workers’ Day protests as a pushback against what they see as the administration’s sweeping assault on labor protections, diversity initiatives and federal employees. Protesters lined streets in many cities from New York to Philadelphia to Los Angeles and held a boisterous rally outside the White House in Washington.
* https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/05/01/may-day-protests-trump-musk-billionaires/83362729007/
Over 1,000 demonstrations and rallies were scheduled in every state and abroad, most being held May 1 – historically known as May Day or International Workers' Day. The volunteer-led 50501 movement, which spurred other nationwide protests this year, helped organize the demonstrations along with labor unions, student groups and other grassroots organizations.
One of the larger protests kicked off in Washington, D.C., with a "May Day Movement USA" rally on the National Mall. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez spoke to demonstrators in New York City. In Philadelphia, Sen. Bernie Sanders joined the "Workers over Billionaires" rally hosted by the city's AFL-CIO chapter.
45. At 100 days into his second term, the blowback to Trump’s unpopular policies is showing. Polls revealed that the majority of the country now opposes all of his major policies – and protests are unrelenting.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-lowest-100-day-approval-rating-80-years/story?id=121165473
46. The Courage Not Compliance march in DC unfurled a giant constitution and blocked rush hour traffic, leading to arrests.
https://thenationaldesk.com/news/americas-news-now/shut-down-dc-rush-hour-protest-trump-100-days-in-office-second-term-courage-not-compliance-morning-rushhour-washington-president-donald-elon-musk-billionaire-samuel-gompers-memorial-park-10th-st-massachusetts-ave-advocacy-organizations-protest-rally
47. Coca-Cola and Levi Strauss rejected anti-DEI proposals.
48. Major European institutions have joined in the effort to archive and back up the United States’ scientific data on climate and other research so Trump can’t destroy it. [Thank you, Germany.] "Several research institutes in Germany are joining a worldwide grass-roots effort to save science data sets that researchers fear could be deleted or decommissioned on the orders of US President Donald Trump’s administration. An official with Pangaea, a massive environmental data repository run by the University of Bremen and the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, says that the organization is formally working with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to back up at-risk databases. Pangaea’s decision to join the cause followed distress calls from members of the science community and from staff members inside NOAA — an agency that monitors Earth’s atmosphere and climate and provides weather-forecasting services. "
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01309-3
49. A congressman - US Democrat House Rep from Michigan - filed 7 articles of impeachment against Trump, including unconstitutional acts.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/impeachment-trump-2025
50. Spain hit 100% renewable power at peak working hours.
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/04/22/spain-hits-first-weekday-of-100-renewable-power-on-national-grid/
51. Poland repealed the last of the hateful LGBTQ+ Free Zones.
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/04/poland-finally-repealed-the-countrys-last-lgbt-free-zone/
52. In Panama, an indefinite national strike has launched against pension reform, Trump’s attempts to take control of the canal, and a proposal to establish US military bases in the country.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/04/29/indefinite-national-strike-continues-in-panama-defying-arrests-and-repression/
53. Over 6,000 people marched for Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
"Over 6,000 people marched through the streets of Barry on Saturday 26 April, calling for Welsh independence. The March for Independence, organised by YesCymru and AUOBCymru, brought people together from across the country in a powerful show of unity and hope for a better future"
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2025/04/27/welsh-independence-march-barry/
54. In Belgium, people are protesting austerity and militarization by saying: We Won’t Sacrifice Pensions For Warplanes.
https://popularresistance.org/belgians-to-government-we-wont-sacrifice-pensions-for-warplanes/
55. In Brazil, Starbucks workers are suing the company over ‘morally repugnant’, slavery-like conditions.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/24/starbucks-brazil-coffee-forced-labour
56. Lakenheath Peace Camp in the United Kingdom opposed US-nuclear weapons in their country with two weeks of sit-ins, street theater, protests, and other actions by 250 protesters, and concluded with a topless blockade of the air base.
https://popularresistance.org/rousing-finish-to-the-raf-lakenheath-peace-camp/
57. Australian demonstrators are calling for a vote over Palestine, hoping to place an arms embargo on Israel.
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/protesters-call-vote-palestine-stop-arming-israel
58. Protesters in the United States forced Israel’s Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to cancel his speech. In DC, striking demonstrators with white masks and blood red tears called for an arms embargo. A second protest in front of the Smithsonian Museum played a haunting soundtrack of mothers’ screams to render the pain of the genocide audible to US decision-makers.
https://nypost.com/2025/04/27/us-news/cops-clash-with-anti-israel-protesters-outside-nyc-synagogue-where-israeli-minister-was-set-to-speak-before-event-canceled/
59. On the eve of the Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israeli citizens held up photos of Palestinians who have been killed in the genocide in Gaza, holding their action outside the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.
60. Swedish activists with the group Wear the Peace set up a tent encampment outside the parliament building in Stockholm in solidarity with Palestinians.
61. Community members in Chico, California, threw an Endangered Species Faire with giant puppets and hand-painted tributes to animals.
https://chicosol.org/2025/04/26/endangered-species-faire-celebration-call-action/
62. March of life-sized animal puppets made from cardboard is arriving Morocco after visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal, and Nigeria.
https://www.ecowatch.com/herds-animal-puppets-climate-awareness-journey.html
63.The Earth Day 2025: Everyone Can Do Something campaign brought 85+ groups out to hold performance art, protests, tree plantings, kite parades, and dances for climate action and environmental protections.
https://paceebene.org/blog/2025/5/1/earth-day-2025-85-actions-worldwide-say-everyone-can-do-something
64.Days before the Canadian election, Greenpeace threw a light projection onto the side of Niagara Falls that said: Don’t Trump Canada. (And Canada did indeed vote down the Trump-supporting Poilievre – even in his own district – putting the liberal Mark Carney into power as prime minister.)
65. What is 5051? And how did it start?
t started with a Reddit post.
“50 PROTESTS – 50 STATES – 1 DAY,” the user who goes by Evolved Fungi wrote, kicking off a movement that has since drawn hundreds of thousands to the streets in protests against Donald Trump across the country.
The movement – pronounced “fifty-fifty-one”, meaning 50 protests, 50 states, one movement – first called for a day of action on 5 February, a date chosen seemingly at random. Local organizers would lead protests in their cities and towns, but the movement would not have a leader, and it would not be centralized.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/27/trump-protest-movement-50501
I hope you found something in there to smile about? If not, here's a pretty tree?