Dear John,

I hope your weekend is off to a good start. If you had any favorite books, podcasts, or shows of summer, send them my way. Let's get to the news. 

Here's what we're reading, watching, and listening to this week:

1. Hennepin County Attorney

For the first time in over a decade, there’s an open seat for the state’s largest county attorney’s office. From MPR: County attorney candidates have similar goals, different ways to achieve them. (Mary Moriarty is TakeAction-endorsed.)

2. Abortion Care

Electing pro-choice Democrats is critical for reproductive rights in Minnesota and across the Midwest. The only abortion clinic in Fargo, ND is moving to Moorhead, MN.

3. Big Pharma

According to our national partners, PhRMA spent over $100 million lobbying against drug cost provisions in the IRA. From the Intercept, Pfizer CEO complains to investors about lower drug prices under inflation reduction act.

4. IRA + Rx

Checkout this overview of how the Inflation Reduction Act is lowering health care and prescription drug costs – particularly in Medicare. While this is a major step forward, now is the time to ask candidates for state office, from both parties, what their plan is to lower prescription drug costs for everybody else.

5. Nurses Strike

We stand in solidarity with Minnesota nurses who overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike to put #PatientsBeforeProfits. Listen to the Minnesota Nurses Association on MPR and change your profile picture to show your support for the nurses who care for us.

6. Trader Joe's

From the Minnesota Reformer, Minneapolis Trader Joe’s becomes country’s 2nd unionized store.

7. Solidarity + Hope

From Amazon warehouses to the Iron Range, this commentary takes us through labor history in Minnesota and leaves us with hope. Read New labor movement might save America just yet.

8. DARE

This Teen Vogue op-ed takes a critical look at DARE programs returning to public schools.

9. Chess

Forgive me, but chess news caught my eye twice this week. Minnesota is hosting its first ever international chess tournament this weekend in Bloomington and the New York Times story of Maksym Kryshtafor, an 8-year-old Ukrainian chess player and refugee taking England by storm.

10. Earth

 ICYMI: Earth has been spinning faster! What does it mean?! Enjoy these reactions from ScienceTok—“the world doesn’t care about our clocks” and normal people wondering if Earth is on the run…

That’s a wrap. Have a great weekend. 

- Kenza Hadj-Moussa