The FCC’s current proposed rule is the best chance we’ve had to reinstate net neutrality since the Trump administration destroyed the regulations in 2017. But telecom lobbyists and their allies are hitting DC in an all-out effort to water down or block the recently proposed net neutrality rules. They’re even placing misleading, sensationalist op-eds in local papers across the country. While these lobbyists and their Republican allies want to characterize net neutrality as a “takeover” of the internet, the fact is that these protections act to keep broadband free and open for all, and out of the hands of Big Cable. Net neutrality remains hugely popular across the country. In October, Demand Progress joined with over 30 partner organizations to relaunch Battle for the Net, so people can tell the FCC and Congress why net neutrality is important to them. At the end of the comment period in January, over 100,000 activists had filed comments in support. That’s an incredible start, but now we need to pile on the pressure as the FCC prepares to finalize the rule! This is the best chance we’ve had at reversing the Trump administration’s disastrous policy and winning a free and open internet! Add your name: The FCC must save net neutrality now!

The Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act have allocated billions of taxpayer dollars and created tax credits to support the creation of a hydrogen economy. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm first announced plans to bring down the price of hydrogen in 2021. Since then, her agency has led a process to create hydrogen hubs across the country. The idea is to use public funds to create a hydrogen industry by establishing regional hubs, or constellations of business ventures dedicated to hydrogen production, transportation, storage, and consumption. The DOE received at least 79 applications for hubs. In October, President Biden announced the seven hubs selected to receive a combined $7 billion. The hubs were selected, in part, based on the kind of hydrogen they would produce. Today, more than 95% of hydrogen is produced from methane gas using a process called steam methane reforming. It’s referred to as gray hydrogen. Because hydrogen can be produced by various methods from different feedstocks, scientists have begun assigning colors to differentiate its many forms. Black and brown are made from coal. They are all considered to be dirty forms of hydrogen. The DOE’s hubs would support forms of hydrogen the agency has put in the clean column, including pink made from nuclear energy, green made from renewable energy, and blue made from methane. Blue hydrogen is gray hydrogen with carbon capture and storage (CCS) added to the process. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as clean hydrogen. No matter the color of the rainbow it has been assigned, hydrogen has profound impacts on health and the environment and exacerbates climate change. Blue hydrogen, for instance, relies on unproven, some say disproven, CCS technology to address the CO2 emissions and locks in powerful methane emissions that come from creating the feedstock and powering the CCS process. Even green hydrogen considered to be the cleanest of the clean is anything but. Whether it’s green, pink, blue, orange, yellow, turquoise, white or any other color on the H2 rainbow, it is, after all, still hydrogen. - Hydrogen is the smallest molecule, which makes it prone to leaking. - Hydrogen is a highly flammable gas. - Hydrogen’s NOx emissions when combusted can be six times higher than methane’s. - Hydrogen is an indirect greenhouse gas whose Global Warming Potential, or GWP, is roughly 12 times that of CO2. Still other problems make hydrogen an impractical solution to the climate crisis. Producing hydrogen is extremely costly and energy-intensive. Producing green hydrogen is still prohibitively expensive and its renewable energy feedstock is still relatively scarce. Using renewable energy directly to electrify is far more efficient. Hydrogen is just one of the false climate solutions the fossil fuel industry has been promoting so it can continue to do business as usual. The resources going into creating a hydrogen economy should be going to pay for deployment of real, available, and scalable renewable energy solutions. Hydrogen is a distraction that is robbing us of time we don’t have to take real steps to address the climate crisis. Since June of 2021 when Secretary Granholm first announced the initiative to bring down the price of hydrogen, the public has been given little information about this tectonic economic shift and no voice in deciding if it is the right way forward. That is unacceptable. Tell the Department of Energy that our new economy must be built on truly clean and renewable energy solutions and that hydrogen has no place in it.

TikTok is one of the largest social media platforms right now, and taking direct, actionable steps to support artists and their labor, as well as to prevent artificial intelligence from stealing their work and likenesses, could be a model for how other platforms handle these issues moving forward. But it’s not just about being able to dance and do trends with some of our favorite music. Universal Music Group is pulling its music from TikTok after negotiations failed to extend the licensing agreement between the two companies, and those negotiations centered around prominent issues in today’s society: paying people for their labor, the effects of generative artificial intelligence more broadly, and benchmarks for online safety in a world that has become increasingly reliant on digital communications. TikTok needs to support artists and their labor.

In addition to the companies that have unleashed the technology the enables deepfakes, hosting and cloud computing providers like Amazon have continued to provide the infrastructure needed to run large websites specializing in non-consensual deepfake porn, even though the harm they;re doing has become clear. They, too, are part of the problem. Normally, when a company releases products that cause unexpected harm, they’re responsible for fixing it. Like when Toyota found it had cars on the road with faulty gas pedals that could result in crashes, or when Samsung got reports of Galaxy smartphones overheating and catching fire, they recalled their products. Tech companies releasing, distributing, and hosting content generated by cutting edge AI technology should not be an exception. Now that deepfakes have become a major media story, you have Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, saying “we have to act,” while not specifying or committing to real action—and with most other tech leaders remaining completely silent. There are good conversations in the AI safety community about what the best approaches are for reining in deepfakes, but until the tech companies at the root of the problem act, it will be meaningless. Some parts of solving the problem are harder than others, but there is plenty that can and should be done right now: - AI companies (like Microsoft) should stop releasing software that has been shown to create harmful, non-consensual deepfakes, until they can prove that it is safe. - Social media platforms (like Facebook and Twitter/X) should take much stronger steps to detect deepfakes; freeze accounts that appear to have distributed harmful, non-consensual deepfakes; and permanently ban those that have been determined to have done so. - Cloud providers (like Amazon) should drop large websites that are clearly and overtly in the business of creating and distributing non-consensual deepfakes. Congress is now working on The DEFIANCE Act of 2024, which would make it a crime to produce and distribute non-consensual deepfake images, audio, and video–an important part of what’s needed and which Sexual Violence Prevention Association has recently started a campaign to support. But Congress has yet to hold accountable the tech companies that are at the core of the problem, and that control the means of production and distribution of deepfakes. These companies have poured billions into the technology that makes deepfake creation and sharing possible. It’s time they prioritize addressing the harms they’ve created as a result, and invest in making such technology safe from causing harm. Until they can demonstrate that a baseline level of safety has been achieved, with no one in the future being subjected to what Taylor Swift and others currently are experiencing, these companies need to do all that’s in their power to stop the harm created by the spread of non-consensual deepfakes.

We need to take a stand and help those who have been assaulted. They matter and we need to help make a safer community. So many do not speak up because its painful and justice does not prevail.

We have to help Nevada State Police Trooper Christopher Garcia had his partner Nala! Nala was abruptly taken from him by the Nevada State Police without the option to adopt her. Please help us bring Nala home!!

On January 21, 2010, SCOTUS in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission expanded the constitutional doctrine that corporations are persons, widening their constitutional right to buy elections and run our government. Since that ruling, 14 states that previously banned corporate contributions had their laws overturned by the courts. And subsequent rulings, following the precedent of Citizens United, paved the way for the creation of Super PACs and unlimited corporate spending in politics, flooding our elections with dark money. Enough! Our democracy should reflect the will of the people, not greedy corporate entities. We can reverse Citizens United, end “corporate personhood,” and take our democracy back by introducing a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution: the We the People Amendment. “We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United and other related cases and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.” The majority of Americans, when asked if they believe corporations should have the same rights as people, believe the Constitution should be amended to state that corporations do not have constitutional rights. Add your name to demand that Congress pass the We the People Amendment NOW!

Why was Congressman Trone so dismissive, insulting and ignorant in his interaction with Dr. Marsha Adebayo at a recent MLK event. She asked to talk to him about the Bethesda Road Moses African Cemetery and efforts to reclaim the land to memorialize the lives of enslaved and post-emancipated African Community. Instead of engaging, he dismissed her with a wave of his hand and a turn of his back saying" who cares about that little cemetery?" I care about that "little Cemetery," and I don't care to have a person with David Trone's historical ignorance and dismissiveness towards African American struggles influencing our community. The people in the "little cemetery were human beings and they deserve respect. Most of those buried in the "little" cemetery were children who were kidnapped, raped, murdered and worked to death in Bethesda, Maryland. Why are we still debating whether Black Lives Matter? We need the community to speak out against Congressman Trone's statement. David Mott - retired union organizer, Poor People's Campaign, Montgomery County Contact: bethesdaafricancemeterycoalition.net

Out of 30 NFL teams, 14 use real grass, 14 use artificial turf, and 2 use a hybrid field of grass and artificial materials. It would only cost the NFL 12 million dollars to replace the current turf fields to grass, compared to the nearly $12 billion dollars in revenue that the NFL made in 2023. And that’s not all: Over the last 8 years alone, the NFL has made over 74 BILLION dollars in revenue. Yet, many NFL team owners (30 out of 32 of whom are billionaires and have a combined net worth of over 260 BILLION DOLLARS) would rather prioritize their corporate profits over their players’ safety. For over a decade, NFL players themselves have been very vocal about how much of a toll turf takes on their bodies, and how they dread games where they know they will be playing on turf. The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), the labor union that represents NFL players, has been advocating for grass fields despite the league’s PR attempts to defend the use of artificial turf. The NFL has a history of putting corporate profits above players: • In the 2000s, Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered a link between football and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) , a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head causing concussions. But instead of thinking of ways they could protect their players, the NFL went after Omalu and other scientists studying CTE. After nearly a decade of denial and suppressing scientific evidence, the NFL finally admitted the truth: There is a link between football and CTE. • Back in 2021, after shamefully using “race-norming” which prevented hundreds of Black football players with dementia from qualifying for awards in a $1 billion settlement of concussion clamps, the NFL agreed to end this practice. • The NFL has continued to come under fire for their lack of guaranteed contracts for players. The sham contracts offered by the NFL give so many outs for the corporation that players rarely see the full payouts from their deals. Meanwhile, every other major league in professional sports has guaranteed contracts. This is greed and exploitative, plain and simple, and it's costing players. And these are just a few examples. The NFL must do better and put player safety above corporate profits NOW. Add your name to the petition.

Ivan Cantu was convicted of killing his cousin, James Mosqueda, and Mosqueda’s fiancée, Amy Kitchen, in 2001. Prosecutors argued that Cantu killed Mosqueda, who was a drug dealer, and Kitchen while trying to steal cocaine, marijuana, and cash from Mosqueda’s home. However, Cantu has claimed that a rival drug dealer killed Mosqueda and that he was framed for the murders. Recent vigorous investigation into Ivan’s case has uncovered serious exculpatory evidence that was suppressed or manipulated at trial by state officials. Additionally, key state witnesses have recanted their testimony and, in light of these findings, three trial jurors have stated that had they known of these wrongdoings at trial, they very possibly would have rendered a different verdict. And according to a new filing just released before the TX Court of Criminal Appeals, the DA just disclosed that the state’s star witness in the original conviction case falsely testified and the lead detective knew she was lying. Ivan’s death date is fast approaching. We are calling on the Collin County District Attorney to request to withdraw the execution date. Everyone deserves a fair trial. We want the judicial system to scrutinize the new evidence in Ivan’s case that exposes fraudulent testimony and wrongdoing by state witnesses and law enforcement. The Collin County Criminal District Attorney’s office says that their mission is "not to convict, but to see that justice is done." Justice has yet to be delivered in Ivan's case. All we are asking is for the execution to be delayed and an inquiry into new evidence to be opened. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 196 former death-row prisoners have been exonerated of all charges related to the wrongful convictions that had put them on death row. To ensure that an innocent person is not executed, our legal and judicial systems must do their due diligence to examine all evidence in Ivan's case.

We, the rank-and-file nurses of California Nurses Association, National Nurses United, and National Nurses Organizing Committee, understand the power of collective action. Around the world, the Labor movement has fought for and with oppressed and marginalized communities for decades. Our Union brothers and sisters have stood hand in hand with oppressed and marginalized people in their fights for equality: from the U.S Civil Rights movement to ending Apartheid in South Africa. Since October 7th, 2023, the relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has resulted in more than 22,000 people killed and more than 52,000 are injured, in addition to thousands who are missing and feared dead under the rubble, 305,000 residential homes have been destroyed or damaged, 339 educational facilities are damaged, 197 places of worship have been damaged, and 26 out of 35 hospitals are not functioning. More than 300 healthcare workers including doctors, nurses, and civil defense rescuers, have been killed as well leaving an already fractured medical infrastructure with less resources and healthcare professionals to assist in caring for critically injured civilians. We have seen the news of Israel using Artificial Intelligence to bomb the press where over 100 journalists have been killed along with many of their family members, to bomb mosques and churches, and historical monuments–to erase any history of the Palestinian people. We are witnessing a genocide unfolding in real-time. As nurses, we follow the nursing code of ethics. The ethics we live by have four main principles: autonomy, beneficence, justice, and non-maleficence. To call for the liberation of the Palestinian people, and to demand that the Union stand beside the Palestinian people, is deeply rooted in our nursing code of ethics. Palestine deserves to live free from this endless violence and displacement from their native land. We have committed our lives to these principles, and so long as we have a collective voice, we will demand a Free Palestine. Our call for Palestinian Liberation is an extension of our commitment to justice, and if we are silent, we are complicit in the genocide. We hope that CNA/NNU/NNOC stands with us in unwaveringly supporting the liberation of the Palestinian people, because doing so is imperative to our Union’s anti-imperialist, racial justice values that we claim to uphold. Check out these actions that you can take now.. Before you sign, please consider exploring these actions that you can take now. http://tinyurl.com/unfp1 In Unity, Union Nurses For Palestine

The IDF has a pattern of targeting and killing Palestinian journalists, according to media rights groups. Add your name to call for an independent investigation into the killing of journalists in Gaza. Media reports from Gaza are one of the few ways information comes out of the strip, with restrictions on media in place by the IDF and limited or no internet and phone access in Gaza. Meanwhile, Palestinian journalists share that they are having to choose between dying with their loved ones or reporting the news from a human catastrophe unprecedented in modern history. Netanyahu’s siege of Gaza is already the deadliest period for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists began collecting data in 1992. More than 79 journalists have been killed in Gaza, 72 of whom were Palestinian. By one estimate, 1 out of every 10 journalists in Gaza has been killed, making it the single-biggest death toll for journalists in a conflict zone in years. Media and human rights organizations are calling for an independent investigation into the targeting of journalists in Gaza. Reporters without Borders has filed multiple war crimes complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) regarding the deaths of journalists in Gaza. In a CPJ report, titled "Deadly Pattern," the media rights group concluded that a "routine sequence" occurs when a journalist is killed by the IDF. Despite all evidence, the CPJ reported that “no one has ever been charged or held accountable for these deaths.” Journalists must be protected. Their coverage and reporting from inaccessible and often ignored places are one of the only ways to reveal the truth in an otherwise contentious or controlled narrative.