When Schools Are Scary
  September 2, 2025 Fair Monduesday, Meteor readers, Ya girl is back and revitalized! Not from being in nature, which was a delight, but from playing the Beautiful Chaos EP in an endless loop over the speakers in my house when no one was around. And yes, be assured, I was doing the choreography (incorrectly).  In today’s newsletter, I’m channeling the anxiety over back-to-school season and suggesting what we can do to help each other out. Plus, the yarn breaking the camel’s back and a basketball/Black Panther crossover. Gnarly, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONBack to scared: This morning, everything from my family group text to my Instagram feed was swimming with photos of kids heading back to school. Even my two-year-old, who recently got moved up to the big kids’ group at her daycare, got in on the fun, holding her moving-up certificate with a big, toothy grin. But for many of us, the day now has a darkly predictable anxiety to it as well. After all, parents, teachers, and students have, in the last five years alone, survived more than 1,000 gun violence events in K-12 schools in America. As if it isn’t bad enough to wonder will there be a gun in my child’s school today?, parents and teachers are facing additional threats: cuts to the education department, the elimination of DEI programs, Title IX challenges, the specter of AI in the classroom, and the incursion of ICE agents, who have detained families traveling to and from school. All that doesn’t even touch on the basic fears we’ve now normalized, like bullying or sexual harassment. Not to age myself here, but back in my day 👵🏼, active shooter drills were not a monthly occurrence. Now, as a parent, I receive emails about them regularly from my toddler’s daycare center. I will never forgive this country for being so nonchalant about gun violence that caregivers must now learn to protect literal infants from an active shooter. So aside from deep breaths to help us quell our fears, what can we do? Support a teacher: Most of us know at least one teacher, so make a difference by simply asking them what they need. Help with supplies? A shoulder to cry on? Cash for therapy? If you’re feeling super generous, check out Funds for Teachers. Be loud about gun safety: Every. Single. Day. Talk about the anti-violence measures we need so much that your friends get tired of hearing from you. Then make new friends and repeat. Report icy conditions: There are a number of ways to quickly let people know if ICE is lurking by a school. There’s an app to report any sightings while you’re out and about, and remember that it is still illegal for ICE agents to enter a school without a warrant, so if you are a school employee, know that you are not obligated to open the door until a warrant is provided. Be honest with your kids: We can’t anticipate every danger our children will face, but we can be open about what they can expect. Have a conversation with your kids about their rights and equip them with the knowledge to stand up for themselves and each other, even if adults in power won’t. Join the PTA: This will be my least popular bit of advice, but if Moms for Liberty can sway elections, then the least the rest of us can do is weigh in on what’s happening in the school library. What’s at the top of your mind for this back-to-school season? Drop us an email at [email protected], and we might answer it in our next newsletter! AND:
 ACTIVISTS DEPARTING A PORT IN BARCELONA MONDAY EVENING, FOR MANY IT IS THEIR SECOND TRIP (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
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It's a Love Story
  August 26, 2025 Good evening to Swifties and the people who love them, Today marks 0 days since Taylor Swift announced her engagement and 105 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which secured the vote for (some) women in the United States. Huge day. To sort out our feelings about that (the unfinished work of suffrage, not Taylor, for whom we’re uncomplicatedly happy), we called up Rep. LaMonica McIver. The congresswoman has been in the news since May, when she was charged with assault after attempting to conduct an entirely legal congressional oversight visit at an immigration facility in Newark, New Jersey. She has pleaded not guilty. In today’s newsletter, Rep. McIver shares her own personal call for action. Plus, something good is happening in Illinois. Fearlessly, Cindi, Mattie, and the team  WHAT'S GOING ONVoting like our lives depend on it: Over a century ago, the 19th Amendment became law and millions of women in the United States were granted access to the ballot box. Sounds great, and it was. But not for everyone. It’s never simple to mark these kinds of dates on the calendar, and the 19th Amendment—a rad thing, to be clear—did not in fact do what it promised for large chunks of the population. Poll taxes kept some poor women from voting. It wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that Black women in the Jim Crow South (and some Native American women, for that matter) were able to cast their ballots. Voting can feel like the bare minimum, but August 26 is a reminder that people fought hard for even this basic right. We vote so we can exercise one of our most essential liberties, but we also vote so that we can elect qualified, inspiring candidates, who can represent our interests. When democracies are working as they are supposed to, this is in fact a wildly beautiful and cool process.  REP. LAMONICA MCIVER, AT A NEWS CONFERENCE IN FEBRUARY 2025. VIA GETTYIMAGESIn honor of Women’s Equality Day, we called Rep. LaMonica McIver—one such legislator. Below, the 39-year-old U.S. congresswoman from New Jersey shares her thoughts on suffrage, activism, and where we go from here. When I think about suffrage, I think about how women are leading the fight for representation across this country. Women have always been leaders on voting rights, immigration, and justice, and they’ve shown how these issues are tied together. Now more than ever, women are doing that work. Our freedom is under attack each and every second of the day under this administration, and that makes this anniversary so much more important. It’s a day that reminds us why we have to keep leading. We have an administration that is trying to take us backward, rolling back civil rights, women’s rights, and the protections our ancestors fought for. We’re seeing them do it with the stroke of a Sharpie pen. I know people feel defeated, but I want people to focus on what they can do. As a member of Congress, I’m always asking myself, “Why am I doing this?” The “why” for me is the people I represent, who are counting on me to raise their stories and to advocate for them, to make sacrifices for them, to give a voice to the people who are voiceless. They give me strength. We all have a “why,” and we all need to find it to keep pushing for the country that we know. We can’t always predict where our fight will take us. I tell people all the time: I did not come into office with a robust immigration plan. That is the honest truth. But I knew I wanted to protect the people in this district—documented, undocumented, women, children. And that is exactly what I am doing. I am showing up to do the job I was hired to do. There’s something for everyone to do. Voting is something. Exercising the right that suffrage gave us is something. Keeping your circle informed is something. The work that folks in the media are doing is something, because you are being attacked as well. You don’t have to be the next Martin Luther King, Jr., but you have to find something to do. You have to stay engaged. — Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), as told to The Meteor A few “somethings” you can do on this anniversary:
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What Idaho Did When You Weren't Looking
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  February 12, 2025 Hey there, Meteor readers, The U.S. has now officially changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Given everything else going on, this may seem like a small and petty thing. But, for me at least, the stench of colonialism on this move is so strong it’s smothering. Erasure is erasure is erasure, no matter how big or small. In today’s newsletter, we look at what states have been doing on abortion while we’ve all been distracted with the White House. Plus, mark your calendars: There’s a mass boycott coming this month. Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONLook over there: The new administration has been generating record levels of news and destruction on the federal level. But while we’ve all been untangling the mess that the president is making of our lives, some states have been rolling out extreme anti-abortion measures—with less media attention than you might expect in more normal times. Luckily, Abortion Every Day founder Jessica Valenti has been neatly gathering all of these legislative measures in one place. So what are states up to? South Carolina is trying to criminalize everything: Valenti describes the state’s latest anti-abortion bill, The Unborn Child Protection Act (SB 323), as a blueprint for “the future [Republicans] want for American women.” SB 323 is aggressive in its cruelty: It removes exceptions (including for incest) from the state’s existing abortion ban; it makes IUDs and morning-after pills illegal; and it proposes criminal charges against anyone who receives an abortion. Missouri is trying to wish away its abortion-rights vote: Last fall, a majority of voters moved to enshrine abortion rights in Missouri’s constitution. But now, a state House committee is blatantly seeking a do-over by putting the issue back on the ballot, but with much stricter terms: The next ballot initiative would ban abortion after 12 weeks, and limit it severely before that. The people of Missouri haven’t changed their minds: The proposal was met with fierce opposition. Still, the new amendment only has to be approved by lawmakers; it doesn’t need petition signatures to get on the ballot. And Idaho is trying to charge people who have abortions with murder: First, the state introduced a bill that would add mifepristone and misoprostol to the state’s controlled substance list, making it a felony to possess or distribute these common, safe methods. (This move mirrors what’s already happening in Louisiana, Texas, and Indiana.) And then, last week, a state senator introduced a separate bill that would re-classify abortion as homicide—making Idaho the sixth state to consider such a bill. The fact that six states have introduced legislation that would classify one in four American women as a murderer is, it’s safe to say, big news. Let’s keep treating it that way. And stay vigilant: What is your state doing—or not doing—to protect abortion rights? AND:
 (PHOTO BY EMILEE CHINN/GETTY IMAGES)
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It's Mt. Denali If You're Nasty
  January 21, 2025 Fair Monduesday, Meteor readers, I spent most of my day yesterday guiding my child around the Liberty Science Center along with what felt like every other kid in New Jersey. What did I miss? If you, too, pulled a Michelle Obama and sat out the day’s events, we’ll catch you up: In today’s newsletter, we wrap our heads around the sweeping pardons granted to January 6 insurrectionists. Plus: what Cecile Richards would want us to do. ♥️ ✊🏼, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONThe longest Day One ever: Yesterday, shortly after he was sworn into office (with his hand not on the Bible), Donald Trump grabbed his favorite sharpie and started signing a flurry of executive orders, including reinstating the death penalty, declaring that there are only “two sexes,” laying the groundwork for more oil drilling in Alaska, and mass pardoning nearly every January 6 rioter. (Even this guy). And we haven’t even gotten to his attempt to rewrite the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship. (States are already suing over this.) While you can point to nearly every order signed and find something frightening, let’s focus for a moment on the January 6 move—which wipes out more than 1200 convictions, dismisses over 300 pending cases, and commutes the sentences of 14 violent, racist, and seditious rioters who sought to overturn an election with which they disagreed. That means that every person currently serving a prison sentence will be released, including the leader of a self-described anti-government militia. The pardons and commutations also mean that anyone convicted of a felony will have their full legal rights restored. Do you know what felons can’t do after a conviction? Legally purchase guns. But these people now can do that, and they are thrilled. This isn’t just an incidental ripple effect of the pardons. Rather, with the stroke of a marker, Trump has signaled, as several counterterrorism experts voiced to reporters at NPR, an “endorsement of political violence…as long as that violence is against Trump's opponents.” For followers of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, this is very good news: Their ally in the White House has greenlit whatever they might do and the guns with which to do it. But for the rest of us, it raises real, unsettling questions: What does the future of political protest look like when the opposition has become so emboldened? For me personally—a Puerto Rican Muslim—the prospect of a rejuvenated and protected modern-day KKK fills me with dread and fuels a deep-rooted mistrust I’ve had for years. There’s a pit in my stomach any time I go to the “good” grocery store and see white men walking the aisles. Is he one of them? Am I safe here? I have renewed doubts about the white people in my life. Would they stand up for me? Would they even know they needed to? With Trump rolling out all of the horrible things he’s promised, I am mentally exhausted and emotionally drained—and it’s only been a day and a half. But all of that is the point. Fear is paralytic. It is divisive. It is distracting. It is the master’s tool. And when we think about what it will take to live through a second Trump presidency, the first unavoidable step is learning how to operate beyond fear. I don’t say that lightly; I say this as someone who is in the pit with you. Surviving this administration will demand an enormous amount of work from every single one of us. And that work has to be based in community, or it will not survive the years ahead. Maybe that’s joining a PTA or neighborhood association, or running for school board. It could be working against gun violence. It could be running for city council or county commissioners office. It could be volunteer work or handing out supply kits to the unhoused or donating to local drives. I also suggest engaging in the simplest act of defiance there is: reading. Go to your library and learn from those who fought these rights before we even got here. Read Audre Lorde. Read James Baldwin. Read Iris Morales. Read Angela Davis. Read Grace Lee Bogs. Read bell hooks and keep reading until you read yourself out of fear and into readiness. There is no white hood, no “Roman Salute,” and no executive order stronger than what we can do together. AND:
 DIVINE. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
 CECILE RICHARDS FOREVERYesterday morning, hours before we inaugurated a president who campaigned on his disdain for women and for democracy, we lost a woman who crusaded for both those things. Cecile Richards was probably our country’s best-known abortion-rights advocate; she led Planned Parenthood for a decade, testified for 12 hours before a hostile Congress, and helped launch Supermajority, Charley, and Abortion in America. She was also funny, determined, and cheerfully relentless; she gave spot-on advice, sized people up perfectly, and adored her brand-new grandson Teddy (when I typed her name just now, her contact auto populated and a picture of him in a little red onesie popped up on my screen). She was a mentor and a hero, to those of us she knew and to plenty she didn’t; if you had lunch with her, women would approach with tears in their eyes and a story you could tell they wanted to share. And she is gone far too soon: at 67, of a brain cancer that could not stop her from speaking on behalf of Kamala Harris at the convention last summer. The daughter of Texas governor Ann Richards, Cecile understood organizing (and the strength of women) on a cellular level. Those are two things we need more than ever right now. We need Cecile, to be honest, but in her absence, we need each other. And as her family wrote yesterday, “We’ll leave you with a question she posed a lot over the last year: It’s not hard to imagine future generations one day asking: ‘When there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do?’” And she said, of course, that there was only one answer: “Everything we could.” —Cindi Leive   FOLLOW THE METEOR     Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays. |
How the LA Fires Got So Bad So Fast
  January 13, 2025 Greetings, Meteor readers, The news from California has been heartbreaking; the Palisades, Eaton, and Hollywood Hills wildfires continue to sweep through the region, destroying entire neighborhoods, displacing thousands of people, and destroying wildlife. We hope all of our LA-based readers are keeping as safe as possible. For anyone looking for a way to help those affected by the fires, please take a look at this list compiled by Mutual Aid Los Angeles Network.  In today’s newsletter, we piece together the connection between the California fires and climate change. Plus, your weekend reading list. With love, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONIn the line of fire: The Palisades and Eaton wildfires, along with a smaller fire in the Hollywood Hills, are being called “the most destructive” fires in the history of Los Angeles. So far, five people have been killed and roughly 180,000 people are under evacuation orders in the area. January isn’t peak fire season in California—so how did these particular fires get so bad so fast? The short answer is, for the most part, climate change. The longer answer is just how unseriously people in power are taking climate change. Experts have been saying for years that climate change would continue to exacerbate extreme weather events—hurricanes, fires, lightning storms, droughts, and wild weather swings. In California, those predictions have borne out: Climate change has contributed to hotter and drier weather, making for dangerous wildfire conditions. California’s famous Santa Ana winds are blowing with gusts as high as 100 mph. Add all of that to other consequences of climate change, such as recent dry weather and an “exceptionally wet climate from winter 2023 to spring 2024” (which created younger vegetation that isn’t as fire-resistant), and you have a region primed for a particularly bad fire season. There are other factors besides climate change, too: One scientist, UCLA professor Jon Keeley, told Mother Jones that power line failures, rapid population growth, and loss of fire-blocking vegetation in California have also played a large role in the fast spread of these fires. Finally, there’s California’s under-preparedness in the face of our new “pyrocene” era: There’s been a yearslong firefighter shortage in the state. As the blazes broke out this week, every single LAFD firefighter was asked to call in with their availability, a first in almost 20 years. (That includes those fire brigades composed of incarcerated people who get paid about 74 cents an hour for their labor.) All these factors have contributed to this week’s devastation in LA. What has not played a role are the city’s DEI initiatives—although that didn’t stop some right-wing pundits from claiming otherwise.The right is also placing blame on LAFD Fire Chief Kristin Crowley for prioritizing diverse hiring practices over “filling the fire hydrants properly.” (Just because it’s going to drive me crazy, I need to emphasize that it is not the fire chief’s job to fill the goddamn fire hydrants.) Activists often remind us that all of our struggles are interconnected. A fire in California does not exist in a vacuum; it lives in concert with a number of other political issues—none more so than climate change and how our leaders respond to it…or fail to do so. AND:
 PRESIDENTS CLINTON, BUSH, OBAMA, TRUMP, AND BIDEN, ALONG WITH THEIR SPOUSES AND VICE PRESIDENTS GORE, PENCE, AND HARRIS AT THE FUNERAL SERVICE FOR PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
 WEEKEND READING 📚On being the “other” mother: A woman who chose surrogacy reflects on the thorny relationship it created—and where it left them when tragedy struck. (Electric Literature) On justice deferred: A “horrendous” sexual assault trial in Alaska has been delayed more than 70 times in the last 10 years. Here’s how similar slowdowns have become routine in the state. (ProPublica) On “Mas Fotos”: Bad Bunny’s sixth album has become more than just an album. Julianne Escobedo Shepherd dives into the deeper meanings of the artist’s “textured love letter to Puerto Rico’s Indigenous and homegrown musical styles.” (Hearing Things)  FOLLOW THE METEOR     Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend? Subscribe using their share code or sign up for your own copy, sent Tuesdays and Thursdays. |
