SHERO on Sunday

What Happened Was...a lightning fast comprehensive recap of the week's biggest events for April 29th-May 5th, 2024.

New York police sent dozens of officers into Hamilton Hall, this week, the occupied Columbia University building, after setting up a ramp. (Photo via screen grab from video)

Recently, I made a big decision to make all of my posts here on SHERO free and available for everyone. My goal is to grow SHERO into a place where anyone can go to check in on what they may have missed, or what they need to know. I want this newsletter to be a first stop for everyone who needs answers they can trust. We can grow now if we work together — your involvement in helping to provide independent journalism for everyone is essential.

I’d like to welcome everyone to my Sunday Recap, which was previously behind a paywall, but will now be free to everyone. This is where you can quickly check in to review the week with a minimal time commitment, and make sure you did not miss anything. I also provide several links to more detail on each issue from credible and free sources if you want to dive deeper on any issue. SHERO on Sunday is the place to get caught up with all of the major events of the week before we are on to next week. Welcome!

Quick reminder: this kind of newsletter model, which will now provide free, reliable independent journalism that connects the political and legal dots to everyone, only works if subscribers support our work with paid subscriptions. Consider upgrading your weekend by investing in SHERO today.

Gun Violence This Week

There were 15 separate mass shooting incidents in the United States this past week, where 11 people were killed and 66 were injured. Here at SHERO, we document all mass shooting incidents for the week every Sunday, so please take a moment to review them and remember to keep up the fight for sensible gun reform. 

1. Sunday, April 28, 2024: Utica, Mississippi

2. Sunday, April 28, 2024: Tucson, Arizona

3. Sunday, April 28, 2024: Kenner, Louisiana

4. Sunday, April 28, 2024: Fitzgerald, Georgia

5. Sunday, April 28, 2024: Sanford, Florida

6. Monday, April 29, 2024: Miami Gardens, Florida

7. Monday, April 29, 2024: Charlotte, North Carolina

8. Wednesday, May 1, 2024: Detroit, Michigan

9. Wednesday, May 1, 2024: Fort Worth, Texas

10. Thursday, May 2, 2024: Richmond, Virginia

11. Friday, May 3, 2024: Westbury, New York

12. Saturday, May 4, 2024: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

13. Saturday, May 4, 2024: Queens, New York

14. Saturday, May 4, 2024: Memphis, Tennessee

15. Saturday, May 4, 2024: Buffalo, New York

• This week House Republicans took aim at federal funding for universities where students have protested the Israel-Hamas war, broadening a campaign that has placed heavy scrutiny on how presidents have dealt with reports of antisemitism on campus.

• The majority of kids who have lost access to medical care since the unwinding of pandemic-era protections come from the states enacting the strictest abortion bans, and Florida is a prime example. Read more about this here:

• On Tuesday, Time Magazine published a compelling and frightening interview with Donald Trump, where he discusses what the American public can expect from him in a second term if he is re-elected as President of the United States.

• The Drug Enforcement Agency moved to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug on Tuesday, following approval by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which would have a real impact on how it is used for medical purposes.

• Manhattan prosecutors asked for $4,000 more in fines for Donald Trump, on top of the $9,000 fine Justice Merchan had already imposed on Tuesday, when Merchan held Trump in contempt of court for social media posts.

• New York City police arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators holed-up in an academic building on Columbia University campus late Tuesday night, and removed a protest encampment the Ivy League school had sought to dismantle for nearly two weeks.

• On Wednesday, United Methodist delegates repealed their longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy, by a vote of 692-51, at their General Conference, with no debate, removing a rule forbidding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as ministers.

• Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump held a rally in Michigan on Wednesday, giving his skewed opinion on a myriad of issues that included an impromptu rant against the word "folks" after suffering a teleprompter mishap during the event.

  

• Florida's six week abortion ban went into effect on Wednesday — so women and girls on the entire Southeast Coast will no longer have access to abortion services in a state which was providing health care for thousands of women. The ban also correlates with the Republican plan to illegally throw children off their healthcare plans.

• Prosecutors asked for a September retrial for Harvey Weinstein during a hearing on Wednesday in Manhattan, where the disgraced movie mogul made his first court appearance after his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week.

• Keith Davidson, an attorney who represented Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal as they were seeking payments in 2016 for their silence about alleged sexual encounters with Donald Trump, testified on Wednesday and Thursday in Trump’s criminal fraud trial, detailing the aftermath of the "hush money" payment at the center of the case.

• The law firm which has represented Trump and his election campaign for several years, filed paperwork with the court on Wednesday, to withdraw as the firm of record, saying there had been an "irreparable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship." On Thursday, a New York federal judge rejected the motion.

• Hundreds of helmeted police made their way into a central plaza of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) early on Thursday morning, to dismantle a pro-Palestinian protest camp that had been attacked the previous night by pro-Israel supporters.

• Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs’ signed off on the repeal on Friday of a Civil War-era ban on nearly all abortions, after the repeal finally won legislative approval by the Arizona Senate on Thursday, by a vote of 16-14.

  

• On Friday, The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged the accounting firm for Trump’s Truth Social platform with “massive fraud” after an investigation uncovered “deliberate and systemic failures” to comply with US audit standards.

• Donald Trump’s former Campaign Press Secretary, and White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, took the witness stand on Friday for his criminal fraud trial, and described the fallout from the “Access Hollywood” tape and the Trump White House response to stories about hush money payments, ultimately confirming that Donald Trump was aware of the payments Michael Cohen made for him.

  

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Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.

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