Feb. 9: What Really Happened Last Week

Stop the doomscroll! #3 in a weekly series of news roundups, bright spots, action steps & advice

Trans rights protest, NYC, Monday Feb. 3, 2025

Hello friends!
I’m introducing a regular beginning-of-the-week paywalled post! Copy this and send it to a friend who says they are “tuning out the news.”

For at least the first 100 days of this Trump term, this will be a weekly list of relevant news, bright spots, and action steps, focusing on the topics of this newsletter: caregiving, youth, climate change, human rights, mental health.

I’m also going to be answering your questions, so please let me know if you have any!

Don’t worry and please don‘t hit unsubscribe: my Friday essays will remain free for all. And if you want a paid subscription but can’t afford it, just hit reply and ask !

Here’s my criteria for this news roundup:

• Real events that have real consequences for real people now.

• I’m trying to avoid pseudo-events, purely symbolic gestures and speculation. That means I’m leaving out some stuff you’ve probably seen elsewhere.

• I am presenting impacts alongside responses and solutions.

• I want to model healthy, balanced news consumption. I don’t know that I can become the only news you read, but I can at least point the way to a better news habit. I believe this is going to be crucial to our mental health and our ability to show up for others, including our kids, in this accelerating polycrisis.

In this week’s edition:

1. The coup and responses

2. Databases of resistance

3. An American gulag? Or mirage?

4. Updates from Gaza and Syria

5. Wild card! and Good news!