While Republicans continue to fume and promise consequences for corporations that are objecting to the party’s newest voter suppression laws, the Democratic Senate got some very good procedural news that will allow new infrastructure programs to move forward despite Republican vows to block them.

The first major comprehensive study of those arrested for participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol strongly indicates that the true motivation of these rioters was not some quasi-patriotic reaction to Donald Trump’s fanciful assertions of election fraud. Rather, the root cause underlying that day of violence boils down to out-and-out racism by insecure whites, alarmed about the prevalence of darker-skinned Americans in their hometown environments.

As Americans get vaccinated in record numbers nationwide, people are taking to social media to share that they have been vaccinated. To date, over 100 million Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. While some are posting selfies or pictures of themselves getting the shot, others are posting their vaccination cards after getting one or both doses. Social media users are calling this the new “flex” or way to show off.

The number of people locked up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention is right now at its lowest in two decades. That’s a good thing. But due to very lucrative agreements, private prisons contracted by the federal government to detain immigrants are getting paid for thousands of empty beds anyway. “At the median rate of $75 per bed, the estimated daily cost to taxpayers for these empty beds is $1.34 million per day,” NPR reports.

Just a few months into 2021, we’ve already seen Republicans push dozens of anti-trans bills across the nation. Some bills, as Daily Kos has covered, center on keeping trans girls out of girls’ sports, even beginning as early as kindergarten. Other bills aim to prevent transgender and nonbinary folks from updating their birth certificates. And, in yet another area, some legislation seeks to bar transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming medical care.