I thought last week was all bad. Here’s what I found when I looked for good news.
3 min readApr 17, 2017
- A federal judge ruled that the voter identification law the Texas Legislature passed in 2011 was enacted with the intent to discriminate against black and Hispanic voters, and violated the federal Voting Rights Act.
- Gov. Robert Bentley (R-AL) resigned this week after a sex scandal brought him to the brink of impeachment and prompted a series of criminal investigations.
- It’s been 18 years since India held its first Queer Pride Parade but it finally reached Lucknow, India where 300 attendees gathered from as far away as Mumbai, Jaipur and Kolkata.
- After questions were raised about the accuracy of its data, The Trump administration will temporarily stop publication of a weekly report spotlighting cities and counties that fail to cooperate with federal immigration officials.
- After the tragic shooting of Jessica Hernandez by Denver police in 2015, a settlement was reached this week that will award her family $1M, forbid police from proactively releasing criminal background information on the people officers shoot, require the police to host a community meeting focused on justice in the Latino and LGBTQ communities, and allow the Hernandez family to select a representative to serve on a new committee that will help rewrite the department’s use-of-force policy.
- A federal judge blocked Arkansas’ plans to execute seven men in rapid succession this week due to concerns with one of the drugs used in the procedure. (Not all will consider this a victory and that’s OK, we don’t have to agree on everything!)
- During a hearing on San Francisco’s lawsuit challenging the Trump’s executive order to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities, the administration lawyer admitted that it would only apply to a limited range of grants from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.
- A nine-year-old girl from Mumbai filed a legal case against the Indian government for failing to take action on climate change.
- Border patrol is losing agents faster than it can replace them and is struggling to hire enough agents to carry out the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
- Pope Francis expressed shame over the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals in his Good Friday address. It took many years for the Vatican to admit to these tragic stories and having the Pope publicly acknowledge the problem is important.
- In yet another rebuke to Donald Trump and the Republican agenda, Democrats flipped local seats in small, conservative Midwestern towns in Illinois that have not gone blue in over a century.
- James Thompson ultimately lost his race in Kansas but it was a close race. For one of the safest GOP districts, considered deep red and unwinnable, to almost go progressive is a victory!
- Thousands of people gathered over the weekend throughout the country to demand the release of Donald Trump’s tax returns. It was an incredible display of perseverance and community- we’re not going away and we’re only going to get STRONGER!
- New Mexico’s Republican governor banned conversion therapy on minors
- A statue of Jackie Robinson was unveiled at Dodger Stadium
- The city council of Portland, OR voted to remove the city’s investment from all corporations in a powerful act of progressive divestment.
- New York City claimed a victory in its fight to protect undocumented immigrants when a judge ruled that the city could destroy personal documents associated with its municipal identification program.
- The Oregon legislature is considering a bill to cut its prison population and reduce excessive sentencing in favor of treatment and transitional rehabilitation programs.
