This year 41 million Gen Zers will be eligible to vote. Twice-impeached and disgraced former president Donald Trump is running again, despite currently facing 91 felony charges. The stakes are high and the foundation of our democracy is literally on the line—along with abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant rights, labor rights, and more. We need every person to be politically engaged and active to fight back against the rise of the far right, and vote to transform our government into one that truly works for all of us. As a prominent celebrity frequently featured in the media, Taylor Swift has an opportunity to reach voters on a tremendous scale. Taylor Swift has a busy schedule, with a new album coming out in April and the continuation of her viral and successful Eras Tour, assuring that she will continue to be in the media spotlight for the rest of the year. The right-wing is spreading conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift and the election because they are afraid of her—and they want to stoke fear and paranoia to dissuade her from having an impact. It's textbook fragile masculinity, and we call their bluff. Tell Taylor Swift to actually give them something to talk about. Leverage all the media attention by flashing a QR code during her fall Eras Tour to help register new voters.

The Federal Health Emergency for COVID expired in May 2023, stripping everyday people from the resources and support they needed to manage community care and health. Now private insurance companies are no longer required to cover the costs of testing, pushing the most reliable form of testing for early detection, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests, out of reach for many. And in March 2024, the government stopped the popular program that gave households access to four free at-home antigen tests per month. Over the past three years, we were able to use tools like testing, among other interventions, to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and help save lives. And it worked. We were able to drastically reduce infections and deaths. But with new variants emerging, cases are on the rise and hospitalizations are spiking. We can’t repeat past mistakes and allow COVID to once again spiral out of control. Add your name to call on our government to keep testing FREE and make it even more accessible by not only bringing back the USPS program, but also increasing the number of antigen tests each household can request. Last updated on March 14, 2024

FOR THE STUDENTS!

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.

We want to keep the toxic load to our children, pets and all residents low. Many children use this park lawn daily, often with bare feet and we want to ensure that they are not exposed to chemicals while at play.

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.

Wisconsin has a domestic violence crisis. Federally, people convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor are barred from owning a gun. However, a deadly loophole created by a 2022 ruling of the Wisconsin Supreme Court makes it impossible to enforce this in Wisconsin. This must change. We must side with victims and survivors of domestic violence – not their abusers. The same year this new loophole went into effect, Wisconsin saw an unprecedented level of domestic violence. In just one year, the number of domestic violence homicides rose by 20%. And Wisconsin already had one of the highest rates of women murdered by men in the country. That is why our legislators must act immediately. Join WAVE in creating a safer Wisconsin. Demand that our state legislators close Wisconsin’s domestic violence loophole and disarm domestic abusers.

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.

Between 2019 and 2024, the condition of the park spaces, particularly along Marine Drive between Irving Park Road and Wilson Avenue, have deteriorated significantly. Tent encampments have now overtaken public spaces; the homeless chase away concerned citizens and defecate between nearby parked cars. Large, grassy areas that were once beautiful have disappeared. Sidewalks are blocked underneath DLSD from an increased number of tents; the overall conditions have worsened and are inhumane. Photo documentation has been provided to the Alderperson’s office that shows: • Illegal drug sales and usage • Illegal propane tanks which have led to several fires underneath DLSD • Garbage and human waste in public areas • Theft; e.g. materials removed from local businesses’ property • Rodent infestation Without action from Alderperson Clay, who is directly responsible for enforcing pre-established codes with the Chicago Parks Department and for activating requests with the Streets and Sanitation Department and the Department of Family and Social Services, the condition of public park spaces will continue to deteriorate. The number of encampments will spike in the forthcoming warmer months and continue through the remainder of the year. Our public park spaces should be responsibly protected to provide access for all residents. Illegal activity should not be allowed. The homeless should be re-housed rapidly and provided access to services, instead of being allowed to linger unlawfully, which prevents area residents and the public at large from enjoying easy access during designated hours to park spaces or to the lakefront via public sidewalks.

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!!

17 Problems: How Dollar Store Chains Hurt Communities https://ilsr.org/17-problems/