TAKE ACTION: Support Women in Peacemaking

Women's participation in peacemaking leads to more successful and longer-lasting peace processes, but are traditionally woefully underrepresented negotiations. When women are excluded from peacemaking, they are often at greater risk of gender-based violence, conflict-related sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and forced or early marriage. Mercy Corps invites us to tell Congress to support the Women, Peace, and Security agenda to advance gender equality in peacemaking and create a safer world for us all. TAKE ACTION

Veterans Are More Likely Than Most to Kill Themselves with Guns. Families Want to Keep Them Safe.

Three-quarters of veterans who take their own lives die by gunshot, yet for decades, discussions about suicide prevention skirted questions about firearms. Amid a steady rise in gun suicides over the past few years, researchers and the Department of Veterans Affairs have begun to seriously evaluate the role of guns in the veteran suicide epidemic — and how to protect veterans on their darkest days. MORE

Calling for a ‘Pause’ in Israel’s Assault on Gaza Isn’t Enough

Peace activist Kathy Kelly says calling for a “pause” in the bombing of Gaza rather than a full ceasefire is hideously cruel and unmistakably futile. "Do they expect," she writes, "that allowing some relief to go in, and a few of the maimed and wounded to go out, will solve anything once the bombing and the starvation blockade resume?" She continues, "I’m mindful of young Afghans who repeatedly told us on multiple solidarity trips over the past decade, that ‘blood doesn’t wash away blood.’” MORE

Nuclear Weapons Sharing

Collectively, the world’s estimated 12,512 nuclear warheads belong to just nine countries. However, there are more than two dozen additional countries that participate in nuclear mission-related arrangements. While these countries do not have direct launch authority over any nuclear warheads, they play an important role in their storage, planning, delivery, and safety and use-control, and therefore merit a degree of scrutiny alongside their nuclear-armed peers. MORE

‘Buying Influence’: Top U.S. Nuclear Board Advisers Are Tied to Arms Business

Nine of the 12 members of a high-level congressional commission charged with advising on the U.S.’s nuclear weapons strategy have direct financial ties to contractors that would benefit from the report’s recommendations or are employed at think tanks that receive considerable funding from weapons manufacturers. While the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States purports to recommend steps to avoid nuclear conflict, it does nothing to disclose its own potential conflicts of interest with the weapons industry. MORE

Israel's Nuclear Weapons Stockpile: What We Know, What We Don't

Numerous countries including Russia, Iran, and Turkey have questioned Israel's nuclear weapons inventory in response to the war that has enveloped Gaza the past five weeks. Aside from global debate about ceasefires and further preventing Palestinian civilian casualties among the thousands caught in the warzone, the ongoing conflict has ignited renewed concerns about nuclear weapons provoked by statements made by Israeli public figures. MORE

Advocates Say Most Migrants Are Not Prepared to Make a Case for Asylum in Court

About one-third of asylum seekers currently crossing the U.S.-Mexico border will get asylum, said a Mexican migrant official, as they are ill-prepared to make a case to an immigration judge. U.S. migrant advocates say that getting asylum is more complicated now and that coming from a strife-torn region often is not reason enough. MORE

100 New Immigration Judges Added Nationwide, Report Finds

123 immigration judges were added in fiscal year 2023 to help with the backlog of almost 2.8 million cases, according to a new report. Of those newly commissioned immigration judges, only 21 handled at least 100 asylum cases in their first year. Several of the new immigration judges were added to courts in towns along the Southwest border, but the highest number — 11 judges — were added in New York City. There were over 1.4 million new cases added in Fiscal 2023. MORE

TAKE ACTION: Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline 

The Dakota Access Pipeline, violating the sovereignty of the Oceti Sakowin and Standing Rock Sioux, continues operating despite a revoked permit. Now, with the release of the new -- and deeply flawed -- Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which was written by a member of the American Petroleum Institute in a clear conflict of interest, the Army Corps of Engineers has finally opened a process for public comment. The Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund urges us to tell the Army Corps of Engineers to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline. TAKE ACTION

Learn About the Plastic in Your Clothes

As clothes tumble around in the washing machine, water washes away dirt, smells, and tiny pieces of microplastics. Microplastics, plastics less than 5 millimeters long, can be shed off clothes in the form of microfibers of non-biodegradable material such as polyester, nylon, acrylic, or spandex. When water goes down the drain, microplastics head toward rivers and oceans. Green America outlines steps to reduce opportunities for plastics to travel toward our oceans and harm marine ecosystems and human life. MORE

How Tiny Wetlands in the Midwest Are Combating the Gulf of Mexico’s ‘Dead Zone’

Iowa is the most environmentally altered state in the country. Once, more than a tenth of the state’s area was wetland. Today, almost 95 percent of that has been drained. Beyond improving water quality, constructed wetlands can bring back the habitat that has become very rare, and support wildlife like birds and bees. Small, constructed wetlands on farms keep excess nutrients out of waterways — and the impacts can go a long way. MORE

U.S. Prosecutors Say Prostitution Ring Counted Politicians, Tech Execs, Lawyers as Clients

U.S. prosecutors have charged three people with running a high-end brothel network out of apartment complexes in greater Boston and northern Virginia whose customers included elected officials, tech and pharmaceutical executives, lawyers, professors, and military officers. Federal prosecutors in Boston did not identify any of the "wealthy and well-connected clientele" that they say paid up to $600 per hour for sexual encounters with predominantly Asian women who were being exploited through sex trafficking. MORE

Sex Trafficking Plagues Filipino City Where Typhoon Wrought Havoc

Sex trafficking and prostitution have spiked in the Filipino city of Tacloban in the 10 years since a deadly storm killed over 6,000 people in the region and washed away court documents and evidence law enforcement officers needed to identify and prosecute traffickers. Foreign aid that came in following the storm has long since dried up, while the internet has increased the likelihood of children being exploited or trafficked for sex, advocates say. MORE

American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States 

The majority of murder-suicide victims are women shot and killed by their male intimate partner, according to the latest edition of American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States, an annual publication of the Violence Policy Center. Murder-suicides are almost always committed by a man with a firearm. Yet outside of high-profile mass shootings, the phenomenon of murder-suicide usually garners little public attention as a significant contributor to gun-related death and injury. MORE

FCC OKs New Phone Company Rules to Help Domestic Violence Survivors

Domestic violence survivors will get help from cell phone companies under new rules the Federal Communications Commission approved this week. The rules require cell phone companies to remove a person from family billing plans within two days of requesting it. They also require companies to offer low-cost emergency phone replacements for victims and require the cloaking of call and text logs to domestic violence shelters and hotlines. MORE

TAKE ACTION: No Federal Contracts for Companies with Excessive CEO Pay

The CEOs of the Big 3 automakers each made more than $20 million last year – hundreds of times more than typical auto workers. They’ve also spent billions of dollars on stock buybacks, a maneuver that artificially inflates their own paychecks. Even while the strike goes on, President Biden can support workers at the Big 3, as well as other large corporations, by pressuring all federal contractors to reduce the gap between worker and CEO pay. Inequality .org urges us to tell President Biden: no federal contracts for companies with excessive CEO pay. TAKE ACTION

Congress on Track to Avoid a Shutdown as House Passes Two-Tier Spending Bill

The House voted 336 to 95 in favor of an unconventional two-tier spending bill, allowing some government offices to remain open until mid-January and others until early February. Democrats initially criticized the bill for creating two shutdown possibilities, but later supported it, emphasizing its maintenance of current funding levels without detrimental cuts or extreme right-wing policy riders. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure later in the week, with Senate Democrats expressing similar support. MORE

The Supreme Court Says It Is Adopting a Code of Ethics, but It Has No Means of Enforcement

The Supreme Court this week adopted its first code of ethics, in the face of sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices, but the code lacks a means of enforcement. The policy, agreed to by all nine justices, does not appear to impose any significant new requirements and leaves compliance entirely to each justice. MORE

David Renteria is scheduled to be executed on November 16 by the state of Texas for the murder of Alexandra Flores. Please hold David, Alexandra, their families, and the people of Texas in prayer. TAKE ACTION

Casey McWhorter is scheduled to be executed on November 16 by the state of Alabama for the murder of Edward Williams. Please hold Casey, Edward, their families, and the people of Alabama in prayer. TAKE ACTION

Phillip Hancock is scheduled to be executed on November 30 by the state of Oklahoma for the murders of Robert Jett and James Lynch. Please hold Phillip, Robert, James, their families, and the people of Oklahoma in prayer. TAKE ACTION