u/AUstinKF2000

Repost from Center for Biological Diversity:

INCREDIBLE NEWS FOR BIG BEND A federal judge just froze all destruction throughout the ENTIRE Big Bend region until the border project’s legality can be decided in a court of law.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us and stood up against this illegal project. We're in this fight together.

“This is a historic victory for Big Bend and everyone who loves this wild corner of Texas,” said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center. “No administration has the right to destroy a crown-jewel national park for political theatre. With a federal court ordering the bulldozers to stop, Big Bend gets to breathe. But this fight is far from over. We won’t rest until Big Bend’s environmental protections are fully restored and the illegal waiver that allowed so much destruction is gone for good.”

We still have a big fight ahead of us, but for now, the endangered species that live in this crucial and priceless ecosystem can rest easy. This is a wonderful reminder that we can fight this administration, and WE CAN WIN.

This is a wonderful day for all of us, especially for the wildlife that call Big Bend home.

We now look ahead to our lawsuit that aims to shut down this project permanently.

A year ago I posted the first version of my App CivicBeacon in r/civictech asking what would make people actually use a civic app. The answers were: show me real impact, make it more local, and don't be partisan.

A lot has changed since then. CivicBeacon is now live on iOS and Android, still free, still non-partisan, all data from official gov sources like GovInfo/Congress.gov.

Some numbers from the database this week:

- 71 bills moved in Congress in the last 7 days alone, and almost nobody hears about any of them

- Health is the single biggest policy area this Congress (289 bills), followed by Government Operations (224) and Public Lands (151)

- Your rep probably voted 15+ times last week. Mine did. I couldn't have named a single one before building this.

The app lets you track bills by topic, see your specific reps' actual votes (not what they said on social media), and get a weekly digest of what Congress did.

Full transparency on the "more local" ask: it's federal-only right now. State and city level is the most requested feature and the hardest data problem, so I want to hear whether it's worth it before I sink months into it.

It's free with no ads. Genuinely want feedback on what's missing.

Happy to answer questions about the data pipeline too.