There Are Plans to Defang or Defeat Anti-Trans Ballot Measures in Blue States

On Tuesday night, as election results poured in, it became immediately clear: anti-transgender ads had failed to earn Republicans a victory in the year they relied on them the most. Despite $183 million spent on ads targeting transgender people and any Democratic politician who had ever expressed support for them, even Democrats who openly supported transgender people won in Republican strongholds.
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Activists Target What They Call a Major “Spy Center” for ICE in Rural Vermont

After setting up robust rapid-response groups to resist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abductions and stopping the buying up of warehouses to detain thousands of immigrants, activists are now focusing on other ways they can disrupt the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations. On the East Coast, some are targeting the parking spots that ICE uses for staging arrests. In Buffalo…
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Incarcerated Women Are Pushing for Decarceration, Not “Trauma-Informed” Prisons

As abolitionists across the United States push for decarceration, a backlash has emerged in the form of new prison construction, demonstrating the resiliency of mass incarceration. Several new women’s prisons are being built despite a growing chorus of voices arguing that prisons only inflict more harm on women who have already endured abuse and trauma. Last year, a new prison to hold nearly…
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Shooter of Palestinian College Students Convicted After 3 Years

On Monday, a jury convicted Jason Eaton of attempted murder for shooting three Palestinian college students in November 2023, concluding a case that highlights an increase in anti-Palestinian racism since October 7. On November 25, 2023, Eaton shot Kinnan Abdalhamid, Tahseen Ali Ahmad, and Hisham Awartani in Burlington, Vermont, after seeing them walk by his apartment. The three students…
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Vermont Hospital Workers Are Building Solidarity With Farmworkers

Health care workers fighting for a contract in Vermont have come to the table with not only their own demands for safe staffing and fair pay, but also a more unusual demand — one made in solidarity with farmworkers. They want their employer, the University of Vermont Medical Center, to join the Milk with Dignity program. “We’ve been in spaces with folks, seen them, heard their stories.
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Vermont Becomes First State to Ban Pesticide Linked to Parkinson’s Disease

Vermont on Tuesday became the first U.S. state to ban the weed-killing pesticide paraquat, backed by lawmakers who cited concerns about research showing the chemical may cause the incurable brain ailment known as Parkinson’s disease. After considering the bill for several days, Gov. Phil Scott signed the legislation May 26. It takes effect Nov. 1, though the new law contains a provision…
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