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Why actor Jane Fonda is going door-to-door to support local candidates in 2024
Imagine hearing a knock on your door and opening it to find actor Jane Fonda campaigning for a local election candidate.
That’s how the 86-year-old actor and activist is spending her time this election season. She’s campaigning around the country for local candidates who support action on climate change, building on her years of climate-related protests.
Fonda told CBS News that the campaigning work felt so necessary that she told her agent she wouldn’t be taking any acting jobs this year, to make sure she had time to canvass.
“This year I said to my agent ‘I’m sorry, I can’t work.’ When the election is happening that’s going to determine the future, I couldn’t do it,” Fonda, a two-time Academy Award winner, explained. “I couldn’t do it. Next year I’ll do it.”
Fonda has hand-picked over 130 lower-level candidates who will stand up to the fossil fuel industry using her political action committee, JanePAC.
“This is the last election that can have a major effect on climate,” Fonda said.
CBS Saturday Morning
Supporting “climate champions”
Many of the candidates Fonda is supporting are running for under-the-radar offices like Portland City Council or a school board seat in Virginia. She’s already raised $4 million to help those candidates get elected.
“That low-level candidate could, first of all, could rise up and become governor of the state. You want to groom them to rise into leadership positions as climate champions,” Fonda said. “If we have the right people elected to office, we can do it.”
It’s far from the first time Fonda has stepped into the world of activism. In 1972, she made a controversial visit to Vietnam opposing the war, and in the 1990s, she marched to support women’s reproductive rights.
In 2019, she launched her Fire Drill Fridays, a protest series inspired by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, to draw attention to global warming. She was arrested five times during those protests, even spending her 82nd birthday behind bars.
“It was aimed not at the government. It was aimed at the great unasked,” Fonda said of that protest series. “There’s like 70% of Americans that are really concerned about the climate crisis, and when they’re asked why they don’t take action, they say, ‘Well, nobody asked.'”
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“You need people in the halls of power”
Now, Fonda has made the move from protest to politics. 62% of Americans think that politicians should do more to fight climate change, according to the Pew Research Center, many politicians on both sides of the aisle vote against legislative solutions. Her hope is that helping elect people who think differently will make a difference.
“Nonviolent civil disobedience and protests historically have changed history, but you need people in the halls of power with ears and a heart to hear the protests, to hear the demands,” Fonda said.
Going door-to-door and working to raise money for the local candidates she supports has been “so fun,” she said.
“It’s a lot of work. Oh, it’s so much fun. Ever since I’m doing 100% of what I’m capable (of) in confronting the climate crisis, I don’t get depressed anymore,” Fonda said. “I get angry, but I’m not depressed. Hope is a muscle. It’s like the heart. It’s a muscle, and you have to activate it to feel it.”
Fonda said that the work of campaigning has helped her feel hopeful and fulfilled.
“I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t hopeful,” Fonda said. “Everybody needs meaning in their life. I’m old, so I think a lot about being on my deathbed and I know that when you’re on your deathbed, you want to feel that it’s been worthwhile.”
A new Barbie has joined Mattel’s lineup of inclusive dolls. The first “Diwali doll” was announced by the toymaker on Friday, a few weeks shy of the Hindu holiday of Diwali, also known as the festival of lights.
The festival, which lasts for five days, is marked on Western calendars to begin on Nov. 1, but some celebrations start on Oct. 31.
The doll, created in collaboration with fashion designer Anita Dongre, features traditional elements including the lehenga skirt, floral print and golden shoes, according to Mattel’s website. The doll is available at major retailers for $40.
“The look is infused with beauty and symbolism to rejoice in victory of light over darkness with contemporary silhouettes,” the description reads for the Diwali doll.
Lalit Agarwal, country manager for Mattel India, said in a news release that through the Diwali doll, the brand is hoping to showcase “India’s vibrant cultural heritage on a global stage while continuing to celebrate the power and beauty of diversity.”
Earlier this year, Mattel announced the first-ever blind Barbie doll and a Black Barbie with Down syndrome.
In addition, to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8 and Barbie’s 65th birthday on March 9, the doll brand announced it was adding new dolls to its Role Models collection, based on real-life singers and actresses from around the world. They’re not for sale – a one-of-a-kind doll was made for each of the honored women.
The dolls are meant to introduce “girls to remarkable women’s stories to show them you can be anything,” according to Mattel.
Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves made his professional auto racing debut on Saturday at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“The Matrix” star, who qualified 31st out of 35 cars, ran as high as 21st before a single-car crash a little more than halfway through the 45-minute race briefly stopped him in his tracks.
Darron Cummings / AP
The 60-year-old spun into the grass without a collision on the exit of Turn 9 when he had about 21 minutes of racing left. He re-entered the course and continued driving, signaling he was uninjured.
Reeves finished 25th.
The actor is competing at Indianapolis in the Toyota GR Cup, a Toyota spec-racing series and a support series for this weekend’s Indy 8 Hour sports car event. He has a second race on Sunday.
Darron Cummings / AP
He is driving the No. 92 BRZRKR car, which is promoting his graphic novel “The Book of Elsewhere.” He is teammates with Cody Jones from “Dude Perfect.”
Reeves has previous racing experience as a former participant in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach in the celebrity race. Reeves won the event in 2009.
A passenger successfully landed a small plane on Friday after the pilot had a medical emergency, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The twin-engine Beechcraft King Air 90 was traveling from Henderson Executive Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada to Monterey Regional Airport in California, with a pilot and one other person on board, the FAA said.
The pilot suffered an unspecified medical emergency while flying, the FAA said, forcing the passenger to take the controls and make an emergency landing at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, California.
The Kern Fire Department told CBS News affiliate KBAX that firefighters were called to a report of a medical emergency on the plane. The pilot was reported to be “incapacitated,” the fire department said. Firefighters saw the plane approach and land safely, then “chased” the plane down the runway in emergency vehicles to meet it.
The FAA did not release the passenger or pilot’s identities nor give an update on the pilot’s condition. The pilot was taken to an area hospital by ambulance. The passenger did not report any injuries.
The FAA and the National Transportation Security Board will investigate the incident, the FAA said.
