March 10: What Really Happened Last Week

Court wins, Grandpa's check gets lost in the mail, people stand up for peace and science

Hello friends.

Flickr/Geoff Livingston

It’s my beginning-of-the-week paywalled post! Copy this and send it to a friend who says they are “tuning out the news.” Almost 10 of you are joining in every week!

I was grateful for the callout last week in

Courtney Martin

’s great, thoughtful post about how she’s approaching reading the news.

I’m a journalist with two decades of experience. I’ve covered technology and policy in depth, and I have a special interest in media literacy and mental health—how we experience the news, and what it does to us.

This is my weekly, highly curated list of relevant news, bright spots, and action steps, focusing on the topics of this newsletter: caregiving, youth, climate change, human rights, mental health.

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! For a limited time, when you upgrade you will also get a paid one-year subscription to The Auntie Bulletin.

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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 (Like Trump’s speech, Al Green’s protest and censure this week).

• 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 edition:

1. Supreme Court says no kings—and more court wins

2. DOGE attacks literally the most popular government program

3. Green New Donald?

4. Good news/Wild card

0. Late night add: Mahmoud Khalil, a leader of Columbia student protests against the war in Gaza, was arrested and detained by ICE agents despite being a lawful permanent resident with a green card. Currently his family does not know where he is. Civil liberties experts are raising the alarm—-this is a clear escalation toward authoritarian regime behavior.

   More than half a million emails have been sent demanding his release and you can send one here.

1. Supreme Court says no kings—and other court wins

On Wednesday, a five-justice majority of the Supreme Court said that Trump had to pay some of the USAID money that’s been withheld. This is not all the illegally frozen funds. It’s $2 billion in overdue payments for vaccines already administered, lifesaving meals already fed to people, and other work that’s already been done.

There’s no hard and fast timeline in the justices’ order for actually complying with paying this money out, but we can take it as a limited win because the Court majority did not affirm Trump’s right to do whatever he wants regardless of Congress.