Social media companies have turned the community power of social media into a blizzard of distraction. Instead of bringing us together, social media CEOs keep making decisions that make matters worse. Now Facebook is flooding its users with irrelevant posts that we didn't sign up for. CEO Mark Zuckerberg must reverse this decision and stop Facebook from becoming a total junkyard of useless distraction.

You can visit our website for more information, at www.4APDF.org. Please support HB 5373 to protect pain patients and their doctors. It was passed in the House, but we need your help for the Senate! Sign this petition to help get this bill passed! The CDC’s data puts the rate of substance use disorders among the chronic pain community at .23%. The DEA admitted it’s less than 1%. When compared to 88-90% of fatal “overdoses,” which are in reality, poisonings from illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF), coupled with the fact that the last 12-month period has set a record for overdose (or poisoning) deaths, it’s clear that depriving chronic pain patients of their medication only exacerbates the problem. The overdose/poisoning rate has more than doubled from 2012, when pain medicine prescriptions peaked. This crisis is not about chronic pain medicine.

Moms for Liberty's national convention will bring hundreds of dangerous extremists to Philadelphia and feature right-wing politicians who are a threat to our democracy, including Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The Museum of the American Revolution should never have agreed to host the Moms for Liberty national convention welcome reception. Employees and patrons of the museum agree and have called on the museum to cancel, with over a third of staff signing an internal petition against hosting. The rest of the convention will take place at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown hotel. And unfortunately, this isn't Marriott's first go at enabling Moms for Liberty—they also hosted their convention last year in Tampa, Florida. Our freedom to learn—and to make decisions about what our students and children can learn—is being stripped away by concerted attacks from right-wing parents like Moms for Liberty and Republican legislators dead set on politicizing our schools. It’s no surprise that Moms for Liberty targets LGBTQ+ books and books about race and racial diversity. It's the right wing's latest tactic designed to eradicate conversations students have in the classroom around genocide, white supremacy, gender, and sexuality. The Museum of the American Revolution and Marriott must do the right thing and refuse to host Moms for Liberty.

Former President Donald J. Trump is facing 37 federal charges, including 31 violations of the Espionage Act, for stealing from and refusing to return top-secret nuclear and military documents to the government. Trump believes he is above the law, and the outcome of this federal case is critical to proving to the nation that he is not. It’s imperative that an impartial, trustworthy judge oversee this high-stakes trial. Judge Cannon is not this person. Last year, Judge Cannon wrongfully intervened in the Department of Justice investigation into Trump’s withholding of classified documents, barring the DOJ from using the seized materials in the continued investigation. Her ruling was ultimately reversed by a conservative court, citing she had no authority to intervene. She claimed to be protecting his reputation as former president of the United States, but the court responded with, “To create a special exception here would defy our nation’s foundational principle that our law applies ‘to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.’” It’s clear she did not adhere to the mandate of equal justice under the law. Despite federal law requiring judges to recuse themselves when their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” or when they have “a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party,” she has yet to do so. And with the stakes this high, we can’t wait any longer for a judge with integrity to oversee this trial. Chief Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga has authority under federal law and internal court procedure to reassign a new judge to this case, one who will prioritize equal justice under the law. Photo credit: Illustrated / AP Photo / Southern District of Florida

It will help ease suffering to many families, provide more research opportunities, and give newborns / kids a chance to thrive even with a rare illness or genetic disorder

A recent State Department report details significant human rights abuses that have occurred under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s near-decade in power, including cases of extrajudicial killings, torture, unjustified arrests, and the targeting of religious minorities, dissidents, and journalists. Despite these alarming trends, the United States continues to seek to strengthen its partnership with India — and the Modi government — to the tune of BILLIONS of dollars in U.S. “security” assistance and weapons deals. We can’t let President Biden ignore India's human rights record, and that’s why we need you to speak up for peace and justice TODAY. The partnership between our two countries cannot come at the expense of turning a blind eye to India's human rights abuses. Prime Minister Modi arrived in Washington yesterday, so the time to speak up is now — and luckily, you’ll be far from alone when you do. Dozens of human rights groups, more than 70 members of Congress including Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Sen. Chris Van Hollen, and activists here in DC and around the country are already speaking out — can you join them to call on the White House to go further toward justice and accountability?

The availability of public restrooms will create a significant change in the patterns of use of our park. While public restrooms are an amenity for those that need them, they also attract a well-known range of problems from substantially increased park usage and noise, graffiti, odors and cleanliness, loitering, potential drug use, and increases in nearby homeless encampments. There are many improvements needed in Carmel Knolls Park that are eligible for the millions of dollars of funds allocated for this purpose. We need to make sure these funds are spent wisely and where they will provide the most comprehensive community benefits for our neighborhood.

It only took one complaint and one week for a school in Miami-Dade County to restrict Amanda Gorman’s book—“The Hill We Climb”—and limit access for younger students. It was one book of several that an individual parent reported, citing that it was “not educational” and contained indirect hate speech. [1] Schools should not so swiftly censor literature based on the whims of individual parents. This is part of a sweeping trend across the country to ban and restrict books, often targeting authors and content from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. And because of conservative laws being passed on the local and state level, it’s even easier in many places for a small but loud minority to challenge books—and win. In response to the incident, Amanda Gorman wrote: “The Hill We Climb is an inaugural poem for the world. Relocating it to older age group library shelves by its nature bars younger and equally deserving generations from accessing said moment in history.” [2] Amanda Gorman made history when she read “The Hill We Climb” at President Joe Biden’s inauguration—the youngest inaugural poet to date. People of all ages deserve to have access to her work and see themselves not only in the context of that moment, but also in the possibilities of the future. They, too, can make history. We refuse to allow one parent’s opinion to limit our children's freedom to read, learn, and imagine. Join us in calling on the Department of Education and State Education Departments to add “The Hill We Climb” to every associated recommended reading list in the country and to reaffirm the values of equality and access espoused in the mission of the DOE. [3] 1. “1 complaint led a Florida school to restrict access to Amanda Gorman’s famous poem,” NPR, May 25, 2023 https://www.npr.org/2023/05/24/1177877340/amanda-gorman-poem-restricted-miami-school 2. Amanda Gorman [@TheAmandaGorman], Tweet, May 24, 2023 https://twitter.com/TheAmandaGorman/status/1661590069982142465 3. "Overview and Mission Statement," U.S. Department of Education, Accessed June 20, 2023 https://www2.ed.gov/about/landing.jhtml Photo Source: Penguin Random House

Trader Joe's is a company that carefully cultivates a progressive reputation. But over the past few years, we have seen the company culture shift from a workplace with incredible pay, benefits, and atmosphere, to a company with increasing turnover, declining benefits, and stagnating wages. The pandemic put those changes into stark relief as “essential” workers everywhere were asked to risk their health in order to keep the economy going. These two factors—the company’s internal changes and the pandemic—made it clear that we needed to have a say in our workplace, and that a union was the only answer to that need. A union could also bring Trader Joe’s back into alignment with its own core values, the values that had made it a great place to work and shop in the first place. Even though we have won elections in four stores, Trader Joe’s continues to union bust and refuse to bargain in good faith. Recently, Trader Joe’s fired Steve Andrade, one of the crew members in Hadley, MA for completely frivolous reasons. In his termination paperwork, management claimed that a power tool belonged to Steve, and its presence in the store created a safety issue serious enough to warrant firing him. The catch? This tool didn’t even belong to Steve. In fact, the tool was at the store long before Steve started working in Hadley nine years ago. Since we won our first union election, we’ve heard from hundreds of crew members across the country eager to unionize their stores, and we are helping many of them organize right now. But instead of allowing the free and fair elections they promised their workers, or bargaining in good faith, Trader Joe’s has hired a union-busting law firm and is fighting us every step of the way. Trader Joe’s has fired union supporters, threatened and coerced workers, and continues to drag their feet at the bargaining table. We can only win when we stand together in solidarity. Can you take a moment to sign our petition to demand that Trader Joe’s stop union-busting and reinstate workers fired for organizing?

Israel Saldana and Michael Maldonado are two of many people who were either convicted when they were children, or who were given sentences way out of proportion to their crimes, or who are still in prison years after others with identical criminal histories have been released. They are two of the many who have grown and changed during their years in prison. Excessive sentences like theirs are part of the reason Wisconsin's prison racial disparities are, by many measures, worst in the nation.

It's our right It's our private property We should be able to have gardens and chickens to take care of our families

More than 350 executives, researchers, and engineers who work on artificial intelligence—including the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind the infamous ChatGPT—signed a statement declaring that, "Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war." The statement was drafted in such a way that a broad range of experts signed on to identify the problem, but the many potential solutions are up to Congress. We know that Big Tech companies, including Microsoft and Google, spend a lot of money—bankrolling politicians, funding lobbyists, generating propaganda, and hiring armies of lawyers—blatantly trying to weaken regulations or prevent them from being enacted in the first place. The dangers of AI being exploited for identity theft, privacy violations, and disinformation campaigns are concerning—and so are the risks of massive job losses, abuse by authoritarians, and the unknown limits of this technology's ability to evolve beyond humans' ability to implement safety protocols. The rapid pace at which AI is evolving requires appropriate action from Congress. We need safeguards now while there is still time to embrace innovative technology while protecting the public.