“There are already a dozen cases piling up against me,” she said. “I’m a journalist. One murder case is enough to frame me.”

Rupa, a former chief correspondent at privately owned broadcaster Ekattor TV, now faces nine murder cases. Her husband, Shakil Ahmed, the channel’s former head of news, is named in eight.  

A year ago, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus took charge of Bangladesh’s interim government after Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country following weeks of student-led protests, during which two journalists were killed.

Yunus promised media reform and repealed the Cyber Security Act, a law used to target journalists under Hasina. But in a November 2024 interview with newspaper The Daily Star, Yunus said that murder accusations against journalists were being made hastily. He said the government had since halted such actions and that a committee had been formed to review the cases.

Still, nearly a year later, Rupa, Ahmed, Shyamal Dutta and Mozammel Haque Babu, arrested on accusations of instigating murders in separate cases, remain behind bars. The repeated use of such charges against journalists who are widely seen as sympathetic to the former regime appear to be politically motivated censorship.

In addition to such legal charges, CPJ has documented physical attacks against journalists, threats from political activists, and exile. At least 25 journalists are under investigation for genocide by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal – a charge that has been used to target figures linked to the former Hasina government. 

“Keeping four journalists behind bars without credible evidence a year on undermines the interim government’s stated commitment to protect press freedom,” said CPJ Regional Director Beh Lih Yi. “Real reform means breaking from the past, not replicating its abuses. All political parties must respect journalists’ right to report as the country is set for polls in coming months.”

A CPJ review of legal documents and reports found that journalists are often added to First Information Reports (FIRs) – documents that open an investigation – long after they are filed. In May, UN experts raised concern that over 140 journalists had been charged with murder following last year’s protests.

Shyamal Dutta’s daughter, Shashi, told CPJ the family has lost track of how many cases he now faces. They are aware of at least six murder cases in which he is named, while Babu’s family is aware of 10. Rupa and Ahmed’s family told CPJ that they haven’t received FIRs for five cases in which one or the other journalist has been named, which means that neither can apply for bail.

Shafiqul Alam, Yunus’s press secretary, and police spokesperson Enamul Haque Sagor did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment. 

Violence and threats

In 2025, reporters across Bangladesh have faced violence and harassment while covering political events, with CPJ documenting at least 10 such incidents, most of which were carried out by members or affiliates of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its student wing, Chhatra Dal. In several instances, journalists sustained serious injuries or were prevented from reporting after footage was deleted or phones seized, including Bahar Raihan, Abdullah Al Mahmud, and Rocky Hossain.

Responding to the allegations, Mahdi Amin, adviser to Acting BNP Chair Tarique Rahman, told CPJ that while isolated misconduct may occur in a party of BNP’s size, the party does not protect wrongdoers. 

Others have faced threats from supporters of different political parties and the student groups that led the protests against Hasina. Reporters covering opposition groups like Jamaat-e-Islami or its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, have come under particular pressure. On June 9, Hasanat Kamal, editor of EyeNews.news, told CPJ he’d fled to the United Kingdom after being falsely accused by Islami Chhatra Shibir of participating in a violent student protest. Anwar Hossain, a journalist for the local daily Dabanol, told CPJ he’d been threatened by Jamaat supporters after publishing negative reports about a local party leader. 

CPJ reached out via messaging app to Abdus Sattar Sumon, a spokesperson for Jamaat-e-Islami, but received no response.

Since Hasina’s ouster, student protesters from the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement (ADSM) have increasinglytargeted journalists they accuse of supporting the former regime, which in one case led to the firing of five journalists. Student-led mobs have also besieged outlets like Prothom Alo and The Daily Star. 

CPJ reached out via messaging app to ADSM leader Rifat Rashid but received no response.

On July 14, exiled investigative journalist Zulkarnain Saer Khan, who fled Bangladesh after exposing alleged high-level corruption under Hasina and receiving threats from Awami League officials, posted on X about the repression of the media: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Kunal Majumder/CPJ India Representative.

A former New Caledonia Congress president says there are “not enough” benefits for Kanaks in a new “draft” agreement he signed alongside pro and anti-independence stakeholders in France last month.

Roch Wamytan said that, after 10 days of deadlock discussions in Paris, he failed to secure the pro-independence mandate.

He told RNZ Pacific that he refused to sign a “final agreement”.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia’s oldest party for independence rejects ‘Bougival’ deal
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia politics

Instead, he said, he opted for a “draft” agreement, which is what he signed. It has been hailed as “historic” by all parties involved.

While France maintains its “neutrality”, Wamytan said that at the negotiating table it was two (France and New Caledonia’s pro-France bloc) against one (pro-Kanaky).

A main point of tension was the electoral law changes, which sparked last year’s civil unrest.

“We call on France to respect the provisions of international law, which remains our main protective shield until the process of decolonisation and emancipation is completed. Hence, our incessant interventions during negotiations on this subject [electoral law changes],” Wamytan told RNZ Pacific.

He said it was difficult to understand whether France wanted to decolonise New Caledonia or not.

Concrete measures
“We have a lot of concrete measures in this proposed agreement, but the main question is a political question. Where are you [France] going with this? Independence or integration with France?”

The document, signed in the city of Bougival, involves a series of measures and recognition by France of New Caledonia as a “State” as well as dual citizenship — French and New Caledonian — provided future New Caledonian citizens are French nationals in the first place.

But this week, New Caledonia’s oldest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), officially rejected the political agreement signed in Paris.

Wamytan maintains New Caledonia is not France. But the French ambassador to the Pacific has previously told RNZ Pacific New Caledonia is France.

However, Sonia Backès, the leader of the Caledonian Republicans Party and the president of the Provincial Assembly of Southern Province, says the agreement signed in France is “final”.

“Roch Wamytan and the pro-independence delegation signed an agreement in Bougival. Since their return to New Caledonia, their political supports have been fiercely critical of the agreement,” her office said via a statement.

“As a result, radical pro-independence leaders like Roch Wamytan have chosen to renege on their commitment and withdraw their signature. This agreement is final; there is no other viable political balance outside of it.”

“We told them that we [didn’t have] the mandate of our parties to sign an agreement, but only a ‘project’ or ‘draft’.

“It was important for us to return with a paper and to show, to explain, to present, to debate, for the debate of our political party. This is the stage where we are at now, but for the moment, we do not agree with that.

“We [tried] to explain to [France and pro-France bloc] that we have a problem [with electoral law change being included].

“This is our problem. So we signed only for one reason . . . that we have to return back home and to explain where we are now, after 10 days of negotiation. [Did we] achieve the objectives, the mandate given by our political parties?”

He said one thing he wanted to make clear was that what he had signed was not definitive and was now up for negotiation.

An FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) Congress meeting is set down for this weekend with the Union Calédonienne Congress meeting held a weekend prior.

Wamytan said that it was now up to the FLNKS members to have their say and decide where to next.

“They will decide if we accept this draft agreement or we reject,” he said.

“We have two options: we accept with certain conditions, for example, on the question of the right to vote on the electoral rule. Or for the question of the trajectory from here to independence, through a referendum or the framework proposed by President Macron.”

“This is an important element to discuss with France, but after this round of discussions.”

He expected further meetings with France after community consultations.

He said after signing the document, President Macron and the pro-France signatories were quick to communicate to the media and their supporters — and the messages filtered to his supporters resulting in anger and frustrations.

He said the anger has mostly been around the signing itself, with people mistaking the draft proposal as final.

“The political, pro-Kanaky party were very, very, very angry against us. We did not communicate and this I think is our problem.”

Bribery allegations
Wamytan has also dismissed unconfirmed reports that negotiators were bribed to sign a historic deal in Paris.

He said he was aware of people “chucking accusations of bribery” around, but said they were false.

“It has never been in the minds of Kanak independence leaders doing such practices,” he said.

“After the signature of the Matignon Accord 37 years ago, with [FLNKS leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou] and with us after the signature of Nouméa accord in 1998, we heard about the same allegation and some rumours like this.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

New Caledonia’s oldest pro-independence party, the Union Calédonienne (UC), has officially rejected a political agreement on the Pacific territory’s political future signed in Paris last month.

The text, bearing the signatures of all of New Caledonia’s political parties represented in the local Congress — a total of 18 leaders, both pro-France and pro-independence — is described as a “project” for an agreement that would shape politics.

Since it was signed in the city of Bougival, west of Paris, on July 12, after 10 days of intense negotiations, it has been dubbed a “bet on trust” and has been described by French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls as a commitment from all signing parties to report to their respective bases and explain its contents.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia politics

The Bougival document involves a series of measures and recognition by France of New Caledonia as a “State” which could become empowered with its own international relations and foreign affairs, provided they do not contradict France’s key interests.

It also envisages dual citizenship — French and New Caledonian — provided future New Caledonian citizens are French nationals in the first place.

It also describes a future devolution of stronger powers for each of the three provinces (North, South and Loyalty Islands), especially in terms of tax collection.

Since it was published, the document, bearing a commitment to defend the text “as is”, was hailed as “innovative” and “historic”.

New Caledonia’s leaders have started to hold regular meetings — sometimes daily — and sessions with their respective supporters and militants, mostly to explain the contents of what they have signed.

The meetings were held by most pro-France parties and within the pro-independence camp, the two main moderate parties, UPM (Union Progressiste en Mélanésie) and PALIKA (Kanak Liberation Party).

Over the past two weeks, all of these parties have strived to defend the agreement, which is sometimes described as a Memorandum of Agreement or a roadmap for future changes in New Caledonia.

Most of the leaders who have inked the text have also held lengthy interviews with local media.

Parties who have unreservedly pledged their support to and signed the Bougival document are:

Pro-France side: Les Loyalistes, Rassemblement-LR, Wallisian-based Eveil Océanien and Calédonie Ensemble

Pro-independence: UNI-FLNKS (which comprises UPM and PALIKA).

But one of the main components of the pro-independence movement, the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) — as its main pillar — the Union Calédonienne, has held a series of meetings indicating their resentment at their negotiators for having signed the contested document.

UC held its executive committee on July 21, its steering committee on July 26, and FLNKS convened its political bureau on July 23.

A ‘lure of sovereignty’
All of these meetings concluded with an increasingly clear rejection of the Bougival document.

Speaking at a news conference in Nouméa yesterday, UC leaders made it clear that they “formally reject” the agreement because they regard it as a “lure of sovereignty” and does not guarantee either real sovereignty or political balance.

FLNKS chief negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou, who is also UC’s chair, told local reporters he understood his signature on the document meant a commitment to return to New Caledonia, explain the text and obtain the approval of the political base.

“I didn’t have a mandate to sign a political agreement, my mandate was to register the talks and bring them back to our people so that a decision can be made . . . it didn’t mean an acceptance on our part,” he said, mentioning it was a “temporary” document subject to further discussions.

Tjibaou said some amendments his delegation had put on the table in Bougival “went missing” in the final text.

‘Bougival, it’s over’
“As far as we’re concerned, Bougival, it’s over”, UC vice-president Mickaël Forrest said.

He said it was now time to move onto a “post-Bougival phase”.

Meanwhile, the FLNKS also consulted its own “constitutionalists” to obtain legal advice and interpretation of the document.

In a release about yesterday’s media conference, UC stated that the Bougival text could not be regarded as a balance between two “visions” for Kanaky New Caledonia, but rather a way of “maintaining New Caledonia as French”.

The text, UC said, had led the political dialogue into a “new impasse” and it left several questions unanswered.

“With the denomination of a ‘State’, a fundamental law (a de facto Constitution), the capacity to self-organise, and international recognition, this document is perceived as a project for an agreement to integrate (New Caledonia) into France under the guise of a decolonisation”.

“The FLNKS has never accepted a status of autonomy within France, but an external decolonisation by means of accession to full sovereignty [which] grants us the right to choose our inter-dependencies,” the media release stated.

The pro-independence party also criticised plans to enlarge the list of people entitled to vote at New Caledonia’s local elections — the very issue that triggered deadly and destructive riots in May 2024.

It is also critical of a proposed mechanism that would require a vote at the Congress with a minimum majority of 64 percent (two thirds) before any future powers can be requested for transfer from France to New Caledonia.

Assuming that current population trends and a fresh system of representation at the Congress will allow more representatives from the Southern province (about three quarters of New Caledonia’s population), UC said “in other words, it would be the non-independence [camp] who will have the power to authorise us — or not — to ask for our sovereignty”.

They party confirmed that it had “formally rejected the Bougival project of agreement as it stands” following a decision made by its steering committee on July 26 “since the fundamentals of our struggle and the principles of decolonisation are not there”.

Negotiators no longer mandated
The decision also means that every member of its negotiating team who signed the document on July 12 is now de facto demoted and no longer mandated by the party until a new negotiating team is appointed, if required.

“Union Calédonienne remains mobilised to arrive at a political agreement that takes into account the achievement of a trajectory towards full sovereignty”.

On Tuesday, FLNKS president Christian Téin, as an invited guest of Corsica’s “Nazione” pro-independence movement, told French media he declared himself “individually against” the Bougival document, adding this was “far from being akin to full sovereignty”.

Téin said that during the days that led to the signing of the document in Bougival “the pressure” exerted on negotiators was “terrible”.

He said the result was that due to “excessive force” applied by “France’s representatives”, the final text’s content “looks like it is the French State and right-wing people who will decide the (indigenous) Kanak people’s future”.

Facing crime-related charges, Téin is awaiting his trial, but was released from jail, under the condition that he does not return to New Caledonia.

The leader of a CCAT (field action coordinating cell) created by Union Calédonienne late in 2023 to protest against a proposed French Constitutional amendment to alter voters’ rules of eligibility at local elections, was jailed for one year in mainland France. However, he was elected president of FLNKS in absentia in late August 2024.

CCAT, meanwhile, was admitted as one of the new components of FLNKS.

In a de facto split, the two main moderate pillars of FLNKS, UPM and PALIKA, at the same time, distanced themselves from the pro-independence UC-dominated platform, opening a rift within the pro-independence umbrella.

The FLNKS is scheduled to hold an extraordinary meeting on August 9 (it was initially scheduled to be held on August 2), to “highlight the prospects of the pursuit of dialogue through a repositioning of the pro-independence movement’s political orientations”.

Valls: ‘I’m not giving up’
Reacting to the latest UC statements, Valls told French media he called on UC to have “a great sense of responsibility”.

“If tomorrow there was to be no agreement, it would mean the future, hope, would be put into question. Investment, including for the nickel mining industry, would no longer be possible.”

“I’m not giving up. Union Calédonienne has chosen to reject, as it stands, the Bougival accord project. I take note of this, but I profoundly regret this position.

“An institutional void would be a disaster for [New Caledonia]. It would be a prolonged uncertainty, the risk of further instability, the return of violence,” he said.

“But my door is not closed and I remain available for dialogue at all times. Impasse is not an option.”

Valls said the Bougival document was “‘neither someone’s victory on another one, nor an imposed text: it was built day after day with partners around the table following months of long discussions.”

In a recent letter specifically sent to Union Calédonienne, the French former Prime Minister suggested the creation of an editorial committee to start drafting future-shaping documents for New Caledonia, such as its “fundamental law”, akin to a Constitution for New Caledonia.

Valls also stressed France’s financial assistance to New Caledonia, which last year totalled around 3 billion euros because of the costs associated to the May 2024 riots.

The riots caused 14 dead, hundreds of injured and an estimated financial cost of more than 2 billion euros (NZ$5.8 billion) in damage.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Today’s vote follows the New Zealand government’s June exit from the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, an international coalition working together for a managed phaseout of oil and gas production

David Tong, Global Industry Campaign Manager at Oil Change International said:

“Just days ago, the highest court in the world affirmed that every country has a legal duty to act in line with the 1.5ºC survival limit - a threshold that demands, at minimum, an immediate end to new oil, gas, and coal expansion. Yet today, the New Zealand government has raced in the opposite direction, recklessly overturning the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration, after conducting an underhanded process that blocked public participation.

“The current retrograde government has once again exposed its loyalty to fossil fuel companies, but the reality is that no matter how deep Minister Shane Jones tries to dig, the oil and gas industry has no future in New Zealand.

“Next year’s election must deliver a government that not only restores the ban, but goes further to end all new fossil fuel extraction, onshore and offshore, once and for all.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A state of emergency that was due to expire Thursday after seven extensions was lifted, Zaw Min Tun, a government spokesman, told state media. The decree had given legislative, judicial, and executive powers to Min Aung Hlang as head of the ruling military council.

But state media reported late Thursday that martial law and a state of emergency would be imposed in more than 60 townships across nine regions and states due to the threat of violence and insurgency.

Despite the moves, the junta remains in power. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, leader of the February 2021 coup that toppled Myanmar’s democratically elected government helmed by Aung San Suu Kyi, holds the title of interim president in the new structure and retains his role of chief of the armed forces. He was also named the head of an 11-member commission in charge of elections.

Min Aung Hlaing said the election would take place in phases during December and January due to security concerns, state television reported Thursday.

(AP)

David Mathieson, an independent analyst, framed Thursday’s moves as a cosmetic change.

“They are just rearranging the same pieces and calling the regime a new name,” he told Reuters. “Nothing will change in the near term, but this is part of preparations for an election which we don’t know much about.”

Analysts say the planned election could also have little practical impact.

“It’s the same people still in charge of everything,” Morgan Michaels, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Agence France-Presse. “These guys are not planning to just hand over power back to the civilians.”

The 2021 coup touched off a brutal civil war that has raged across Myanmar. Established ethnic minority armies and new armed groups have mounted a persistent resistance and have gained control of significant territory.

Since the coup, the military has killed more than 6,000 people and arbitrarily detained more than 20,000, according to Amnesty International.

The war has been devastating for the military, too. As of earlier this year, the junta controlled less than half of the country. More than 24,000 junta troops have been killed and more than 12,000 wounded, according to an RFA analysis in February. Over the past year, the military has been conscripting men under age 35, sometimes snatching people off the street to fill the military’s depleted ranks.

Includes reporting from Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press, and Reuters.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

New Caledonia’s population has shrunk to 264,596 over the past six years, the latest census, conducted in April and May 2025, has revealed.

This compares to the previous census, conducted in 2019, which recorded a population of 271,400 in the French Pacific territory.

To explain the population drop of almost seven thousand (6811), Jean Philippe Grouthier, Census Chef de Mission at the French national statistical institute INSEE, said that even though the population natural balance (the difference between births and deaths during the period) was more than 11,000, the net migration balance showed a deficit of 18,000.

READ MORE

In terms of permanent departures and arrivals, earlier informal studies (based on the international Nouméa-La Tontouta airport traffic figures) already hinted at a sharp increase in residents leaving New Caledonia for good, after the destructive and deadly riots that erupted in May 2014, causing 14 dead and over 2 billion euros (NZ$3.8 billion) in damages.

The census was originally scheduled to take place in 2024, but had to be postponed due to the civil unrest.

“New Caledonia is probably less attractive than it could have been in the 2000s and 2010s years,” Grouthier told local media yesterday.

However, he stressed that the downward trend was already there at the previous 2019 census.

‘Not entirely due to riots’
During the 2014-2019 period, a net balance of around then 1000 residents had already left New Caledonia.

“It’s not as if it was something that would be entirely due to the May 2024 riots,” he said.

At the provincial level, New Caledonia’s most populated region (194,978), the Southern Province, which makes up three quarters of the population, has registered the sharpest drop (about four percent).

Meanwhile, the other two provinces (North, Loyalty Islands) have slightly gained in population over the same period, respectively +2.1 (50,947) and +1.7 percent (18,671).

The preliminary figures released yesterday are now to be processed and analysed in detail, before public release, ISEE said.

The latest population statistics are regarded as essential in order to serve as the basis for further calculation for the three provinces’ share in public aid as well as planning for upgrades or building of public infrastructure.

The latest count will also be used to organise upcoming elections, starting with municipal elections (March 2026) and provincial elections later that year.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

HISTORY: By Scott Hamilton

The man in the photo walks down the deserted street, over rubble. On both sides of the street buildings have lost their roofs and walls. A pockmarked minaret totters over the wrecked townscape. The photo is captioned “Ruins of Gaza at the Time of the Great Attack”.

The photo I’m describing wasn’t taken in 2025, but in 1917. Today Gaza is being destroyed by the armies of Israel and Hamas. In 1917 the British and Ottoman empires wrecked the city. New Zealanders played an important role in the destruction.

In 1917 most Gazans lived in village-suburbs interspersed with gardens and orchards. Their houses were made with mud bricks. The highest building in their town was the Great Mosque, whose foundations dated from the 7th century.

• READ MORE: Death toll in Israel’s war on Gaza surpasses 60,000
• Fiji ‘failing’ the Gaza genocide and humanity test, says rights group
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

The Ottomans had made Gaza into a fortress, and had connected it by rail and road to a series of redoubts further east. These guarded the southern border of the province of Palestine, and were manned by German and Austrian as well as Ottoman troops.

Britain’s new prime minister David Lloyd George was desperate to capture Palestine, in the hope a victory there would shift public attention from the disaster on the western front, where tens of thousands of Britons had died fighting over mud.

The Egyptian Expeditionary Force, which crossed the Sinai desert to attack Gaza and Palestine, was made up of British, Anzacs, South Africans, West Indians, a volunteer Jewish Legion and Indians.

The Anzac Mounted Division was an essential part of the EEF. Its men rode to battles but fought on foot. Many of them had learned to ride on the farms of their homelands. Some were survivors of Gallipoli, where they had battled without their horses; others had arrived in Egypt after that catastrophe.

Farmland confiscated
Gaza’s suffering began before the British attack. Its defenders confiscated farmland for trenches, and demolished houses to give artillerymen better sight lines. The Great Mosque was seized and turned into an ammunition dump.

It took the British empire three battles to capture Gaza. A photo taken before the second assault shows New Zealanders trying on gas masks. It is captioned “Gaza Beauty Show”. The attackers fired 4000 canisters of asphyxiating gas towards the city. No Gazan had a gas mask.

Before the final assault the city was bombarded for four days by naval guns, artillery and planes. When they finally captured Gaza, the New Zealanders found it empty. Almost the entire population had fled the bombardment; the Ottomans had followed them.

On the day its troops entered Gaza the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, which committed it to establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1917, though, Jews made up less than a tenth of Palestine’s population.

And Britain had made contradictory promises to Arabs, promising them independence if they rose up against Ottoman rule, and funding an Arab army that had advanced to the edge of Palestine.

There was still another group that wanted Palestine. When the Auckland Mounted Rifles had passed the stone pillar that marked the border between Sinai and Palestine, Henry Mackesy had stopped his men, and prayed to thank god for delivering the “Holy Land” to Britain.

Like New Zealand’s wartime prime minister William Massey, Mackesy was a British Israelite, who believed that Anglo-Saxons were a lost tribe of Israel, and that the British empire was god’s kingdom on earth. For Mackesy and many other Anzacs, Palestine belonged rightfully to Britons, not Jews or Arabs.

Conquerors warned
So many Anzacs wanted to settle in Palestine that Kia ora Coo-ee, their official magazine, had to run an article warning them that conquerors could not legally take locals’ land.

For most Anzacs, the inhabitants of Palestine — the Arabs of the villages and towns, the nomadic Bedouin of the deserts, the small and ancient Jewish communities in towns like Jerusalem — were at best an inconvenience, and at worst a reminder of the decadence and evil condemned in the Old Testament.

New Zealander Alexander McNeur summed up a widespread feeling when he wrote “no wonder the old inhabitants of Palestine had to be destroyed . . .  many a chap is disgusted by the people”. (The only Palestinians the Anzacs really liked were the settlers in Zionist colonies, who looked, spoke and acted like Europeans.)

The Anzacs complained about the dirtiness and dishonesty of Palestinians. Many complained they had been cheated by Arab or Jewish traders; others said that Bedouins dug up soldiers’ graves and plundered them.

But the Anzacs themselves had a reputation for taking whatever they could from Palestinians, as well as from Ottoman soldiers. In 1988, Australian veteran Ted O’Brien gave an interview in which he confessed to killing a wounded Ottoman so that he could steal the man’s possessions. Robbing the dead was routine, O’Brien said.

O’Brien added that he and his comrades would immediately kill any Bedouins they found in the desert. Edwin McKay, a member of the Otago section of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, said that theft was a “two-way thing”, with Anzacs and Palestinians preying on each other.

After its defeat of Gaza the Ottoman army began to disintegrate, but as the EEF advanced through Palestine and into Jordan and Syria, it did not always bring peace. Arabs who fought alongside the British imperial forces, hoping for independence, became possessive about the areas they had captured.

Pushed off land
Ottoman deserters became bandits. Bedouins who had been pushed off their land by war raided EEF camps in search of loot. The Jewish Legion clashed with Arabs so often that the EEF commander General Allenby asked the War Office not to send him any more Jews.

The Anzacs’ contempt towards Arabs grew even greater after a calamitous attempt to capture Amman near the end of the war. Rain, cold and tougher-than-expected Ottoman resistance sent the mounted riflemen away with heavy losses.

As they rode towards safety, the Wellington Mounted Rifles entered Ain es Sir, a small village set amid hills and ravines. Villagers opened fire from houses and from nearby ledges, and seven Wellingtonians died. The Anzacs counterattacked Ain es Sir ferociously, shelling the village and killing 38 of its inhabitants. They took no prisoners.

The attack on Amman had made been made in partnership with an Arab force, and the Anzacs seem to have believed that the ambush at Ain es Sir was an act of treachery by their supposed allies.

They do not seem to have known, or cared, that Ain es Sir was not an Arab village. Its inhabitants were Circassians, a Caucasian group that migrated to the Middle East centuries ago.

On the night of December 10, more than a month after the end of the war, the Anzacs’ hatred of Arabs erupted. Hundreds of them were camped outside a village named Surafend, waiting impatiently for a ship to take them home. On the night of December 9 a man entered the tent of a New Zealand soldier named Leslie Lowry. Lowry had been using his kitbag as a pillow. The intruder grabbed it and fled.

Lowry chased the thief across the dunes that separated the Anzac camp from Surafend. The thief turned and fired a pistol. Lowry died three hours later. The next morning Anzacs found Lowry’s blood in the sand. Footprints led from the stain towards Surafend.

Surafend attacked
On December 10, up to 200 Anzacs and a few Scots smashed through the fence that surrounded Surafend. They beat and stabbed scores of male inhabitants of the village, leaving between 40 and 120 dead and many more wounded, then set fire to the Arabs’ homes.

A nearby Bedouin encampment was also set ablaze. Ted O’Brien was one of the raiders. He and his comrades had “done their blocks”. They “all went for” the Arabs with “the bayonet”. “It was a godawful thing,” O’Brien remembered.

New Zealander Ted Andrews explained that the massacre was not just about Lowry’s murder. “The treacherous ambush at Ain es Sir was still fresh in the minds of New Zealand troops,” he wrote, ignoring the fact that the men of Surafend had nothing to do with that village.

Andrews said that victims at Surafend were castrated. Some historians have dismissed this claim, but American scholar Edward Woodfin has shown that castration and humiliation of the dead were being practised in 1918 by the Indian members of the Egypt Expeditionary Force, with whom the Anzacs were friendly.

Most historians say that children, women and old men were removed from Surafend before the slaughter, but they ignore the testimony of Australian John Doran, who was at the Anzacs’ medical station the night of the massacre. Doran said that women and children appeared there with burns and bullet wounds.

The Jewish soldier Roman Freulich said that Australians had fired a machine gun at the Bedouin encampment on the night of December 10. Freulich also reported that the members of the Jewish Legion were excited by the massacre — they hated Arabs even more than the Anzacs — and that they used what he called “the Australian method” on a group of Bedouin civilians shortly after. Freulich said that he and his comrades sealed off a Bedouin camp and stabbed the men with bayonets.

No one prosecuted
Although the Anzacs’ commander General Allenby condemned the attackers, calling them “cowards and murderers”, no one was ever prosecuted for the massacre at Surafend. In 2009, the New Zealand television programme Sunday ran a story on the massacre.

Sunday’s team visited the site of Surafend, which has now been covered by an Israeli town, interviewed an old man who remembered the massacre, and asked why New Zealand had never apologised for the crime. The question is just as pertinent now.

When we look back from 2025 to the destruction of Gaza and the rest of the Palestine campaign, we can see that New Zealand troops played a part in setting in motion the cycle of violence that continues today in Palestine and Israel.

Scott Hamilton is the author of two great modern works of sociology and place, Ghost South Road (Titus Books, 2018), and Searching for Ata’a (Bridget Williams, 2017). He writes the blog Reading the Maps and is currently working on a book about sorcery and sorcery-related violence in Melanesia as part of his ongoing exploration of Pasifika arts and colonial Pākehā histories. This article was first published by The Spinoff and is republished with the author’s permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Tapajós River: Legal Analysis of the Brazilian Environmental Legislation (Rio Tapajós Análise Jurídico da Legislação Ambiental Brasileira) and its accompanying executive summary, Tapajós River: Prospects for Permanent Protection, shows how the combined effects of climate change, dams, unregulated mining, and other large-scale infrastructure harm Indigenous and frontline communities, and undermine the environment and biodiversity. It highlights measures that affected peoples can take to protect the Tapajós River Basin, including securing permanent legal protections.

Encompassing over 493,000 square kilometers across the Pará, Mato Grosso, and Amazonas states, the Tapajós is one of the Amazon’s most biodiverse river systems, home to over 300 fish species, including giant piraíba catfish and colorful tucunaré, and endangered river turtles like the tracajá and the giant Amazon turtle. Seasonal flood cycles shape a dynamic landscape of várzea, igarapés, igapó forests, and wetlands — vital nurseries for fish, nesting sites for turtles, and feeding grounds for migratory birds. This vast watershed regulates the hydrological cycle across a significant portion of the Amazon, supports food and water security for riverine and Indigenous populations, and contributes to climate regulation at regional and global scales. For local Indigenous communities, its waters are sacred—tied to origin stories, traditional knowledge, and survival.

Hydroelectric development threatens the Tapajós River system. As of January 2024, 180 hydroelectric projects have been planned on the Juruena River alone. Four major dams—the Teles Pires, Colíder, São Manoel, and Sinop—have fundamentally altered the river basin's hydrology and ecology. Brazil’s piecemeal regulatory system means that each new project is not considered in conjunction with existing ones, so their long-term cumulative effects are often underestimated.

Furthermore, 2,000 illegal mines operate with virtual impunity throughout the river system, representing an estimated 75% of all mining activity in the region. This has left a scar on Indigenous communities. Studies by the Fiocruz Foundation reveal that more than 60% of Munduruku Indigenous community members tested in certain areas exhibit elevated mercury levels, with more than half of the Munduruku people—including children—showing unsafe mercury concentrations in their bodies.

“Although Brazil’s current regulatory framework fails to account for the ecological and human rights violations imposed by large-scale infrastructure, our new research identifies innovative new pathways for frontline communities to reclaim their rivers and their rights,” said Flávio Montiel of International Rivers. “With the upcoming COP30 in Belem, all eyes will be on Brazil. Now is the time for Brazil to be a world leader in the management and protection of nature and human rights by legally recognizing the rights of rivers in the Tapajós Basin.”

Brazil currently has the legal tools to protect communities and their resources from the climate crisis. The country’s Constitutional Article 225 establishes environmental protection as both a governmental obligation and a fundamental human right. Working in tandem with this provision, Article 231 recognizes Indigenous Peoples' original rights to their lands, including their customs, languages, beliefs, and traditions, mandating that public authorities demarcate, protect, and respect all their assets. Further protections also include a review of the State System of Nature Conservation Units (SEUC). This legislation introduced an innovative conservation category called “Rivers of Special Protection” – specifically designed to protect waterways of exceptional value. The Law also provides provisions for the restoration of freshwater ecosystems, making the Rivers of Special Protection designation a promising model for river conservation that could be replicated across Brazil’s river systems.

Ultimately, protecting the Tapajós River system demands a multi-level strategy that leverages Brazil’s existing legal frameworks while addressing structural weaknesses in implementation and enforcement. Moving beyond traditional environmental regulation, the report offers a framework that aligns with Indigenous worldviews and suggests enforceable protections grounded in legal innovations.

It calls on policymakers in Brazil to:

-Adopt a Rights of Rivers legal framework to support communities that rely on the Tapajós River Basin for cultural, physical, and economic sustenance;

-Coordinate action among Federal and State Public Agencies to ensure jurisdictional alignment and robust legal enforcement across federal, state, and municipal levels;

-Implement real-time channels for communities to report violations;

-Establish Popular Committees in the Tapajos River Basin and build capacity for representatives of local social organizations, to ensure effective participation of civil society, for the future creation of the Tapajos River Basin Committee;

-Close legal and institutional loopholes by implementing a Strategic Environmental Assessment for the entire Tapajós basin that includes cumulative and synergic impacts, to ensure that the long-term consequences of development are considered.

The report calls on frontline and Indigenous communities to exercise their rights to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent by:

-Pursuing strategic litigation to challenge harmful projects and regulatory failures;

Serving as co-litigants in precedent-setting cases defending rivers’ rights and ecological limits.

“Ultimately, a nation's environmental conscience can be measured not by the depth of its laws, but by the quality of its waters—and both can run muddy despite the best of intentions written on paper,” said Monti Aguirre of International Rivers.

Read the report.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

For the past few years, governments across the world have paid close attention to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. There, it is said, we see the first glimpses of what warfare of the future will look like, not just in terms of weaponry, but also in terms of new technologies and tactics.

Most recently, the United States-Israeli attacks on Iran demonstrated not just new strategies of drone deployment and infiltration but also new vulnerabilities. During the 12-day conflict, Iran and vessels in the waters of the Gulf experienced repeated disruptions of GPS signal.

This clearly worried the Iranian authorities who, after the end of the war, began to look for alternatives.

• READ MORE: Aid Israel allowing into Gaza still a ‘drop in the ocean’, says UN
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

“At times, disruptions are created on this [GPS] system by internal systems, and this very issue has pushed us toward alternative options like BeiDou,” Ehsan Chitsaz, deputy communications minister, told Iranian media in mid-July. He added that the government was developing a plan to switch transportation, agriculture and the internet from GPS to BeiDou.

Iran’s decision to explore adopting China’s navigation satellite system may appear at first glance to be merely a tactical manoeuvre. Yet, its implications are far more profound. This move is yet another indication of a major global realignment.

For decades, the West, and the US in particular, have dominated the world’s technological infrastructure from computer operating systems and the internet to telecommunications and satellite networks.

This has left much of the world dependent on an infrastructure it cannot match or challenge. This dependency can easily become vulnerability. Since 2013, whistleblowers and media investigations have revealed how various Western technologies and schemes have enabled illicit surveillance and data gathering on a global scale — something that has worried governments around the world.

Clear message
Iran’s possible shift to BeiDou sends a clear message to other nations grappling with the delicate balance between technological convenience and strategic self-defence: The era of blind, naive dependence on US-controlled infrastructure is rapidly coming to an end. Nations can no longer afford to have their military capabilities and vital digital sovereignty tied to the satellite grid of a superpower they cannot trust.

This sentiment is one of the driving forces behind the creation of national or regional satellite navigation systems, from Europe’s Galileo to Russia’s GLONASS, each vying for a share of the global positioning market and offering a perceived guarantee of sovereign control.

GPS was not the only vulnerability Iran encountered during the US-Israeli attacks. The Israeli army was able to assassinate a number of nuclear scientists and senior commanders in the Iranian security and military forces. The fact that Israel was able to obtain their exact locations raised fears that it was able to infiltrate telecommunications and trace people via their phones.

On June 17 as the conflict was still raging, the Iranian authorities urged the Iranian people to stop using the messaging app WhatsApp and delete it from their phones, saying it was gathering user information to send to Israel.

Whether this appeal was linked to the assassinations of the senior officials is unclear, but Iranian mistrust of the app run by US-based corporation Meta is not without merit.

Cybersecurity experts have long been sceptical about the security of the app. Recently, media reports have revealed that the artificial intelligence software Israel uses to target Palestinians in Gaza is reportedly fed data from social media.

Furthermore, shortly after the end of the attacks on Iran, the US House of Representatives moved to ban WhatsApp from official devices.

Western platforms not trusted
For Iran and other countries around the world, the implications are clear: Western platforms can no longer be trusted as mere conduits for communication; they are now seen as tools in a broader digital intelligence war.

Tehran has already been developing its own intranet system, the National Information Network, which gives more control over internet use to state authorities. Moving forward, Iran will likely expand this process and possibly try to emulate China’s Great Firewall.

By seeking to break with Western-dominated infrastructure, Tehran is definitively aligning itself with a growing sphere of influence that fundamentally challenges Western dominance. This partnership transcends simple transactional exchanges as China offers Iran tools essential for genuine digital and strategic independence.

The broader context for this is China’s colossal Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While often framed as an infrastructure and trade project, BRI has always been about much more than roads and ports. It is an ambitious blueprint for building an alternative global order.

Iran — strategically positioned and a key energy supplier — is becoming an increasingly important partner in this expansive vision.

What we are witnessing is the emergence of a new powerful tech bloc — one that inextricably unites digital infrastructure with a shared sense of political defiance. Countries weary of the West’s double standards, unilateral sanctions and overwhelming digital hegemony will increasingly find both comfort and significant leverage in Beijing’s expanding clout.

This accelerating shift heralds the dawn of a new “tech cold war”, a low-temperature confrontation in which nations will increasingly choose their critical infrastructure, from navigation and communications to data flows and financial payment systems, not primarily based on technological superiority or comprehensive global coverage but increasingly on political allegiance and perceived security.

As more and more countries follow suit, the Western technological advantage will begin to shrink in real time, resulting in redesigned international power dynamics.

Jasim Al-Azzawi is an analyst, news anchor, programme presenter and media instructor. He has presented a weekly show called Inside Iraq.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

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The continents are rapidly drying out and the earth’s vast freshwater resources are under threat, according to a recently released study based on more than 20 years of NASA satellite data. Here are the report’s key findings and what they portend for humankind:

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, examined changes to Earth’s total supply of fresh water and found that nearly 6 billion people live in the 101 countries facing a net decline in water supply, posing a “critical, emerging threat to humanity.”

According to the study, the uninhibited pumping of groundwater by farmers, cities and corporations around the world now accounts for 68% of the total loss of fresh water at the latitudes where most people live.

Mined groundwater rarely seeps back into the aquifers from which it was pumped. Rather, a large portion runs off into streams, then rivers and ultimately the oceans. According to the researchers, moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans.

Most of the water lost from drying regions is from groundwater pumping, which ultimately shifts fresh water from aquifers into the oceans.

Worldwide, 70% of fresh water is used for growing crops, with more of it coming from groundwater as droughts grow more extreme. Only a small amount of that water seeps back into aquifers. Research has long established that people take more water from underground when climate-driven heat and drought are at their worst.

The parts of the world drying most acutely are becoming interconnected, forming what the study’s authors describe as “mega” regions. One such region covers almost the whole of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.

The study examines 22 years of observational data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites, which measure changes in the mass of the earth and have been applied to estimate its water content. Since 2002, the sensors have detected a rapid shift in water loss across the planet. Around 2014, the study found the pace of drying appears to have accelerated. It is now growing by an area twice the size of California each year.

The dramatic depletion of groundwater and surface water plus the melting of glaciers between 2014-24 has connected once-separate arid places, forming “mega-drying” regions that stretch across whole continents.

Watch video ➜

Major groundwater basins underlie roughly one-third of the planet, including about half of Africa, Europe and South America. Many of those aquifers took millions of years to form and might take thousands of years to refill. The researchers warn that it is now nearly impossible to reverse the loss of water “on human timescales.”

The accelerated drying, combined with the flooding of coastal cities and food-producing lowlands, heralds “potentially staggering” and cascading risks for global order, the researchers warn. Their findings all point to the likelihood of widespread famine, the migration of large numbers of people seeking a more stable environment and the carry-on impact of geopolitical disorder.

Data Source: Hrishikesh. A. Chandanpurkar, James S. Famiglietti, Kaushik Gopalan, David N. Wiese, Yoshihide Wada, Kaoru Kakinuma, John T. Reager, Fan Zhang (2025). Unprecedented Continental Drying, Shrinking Freshwater Availability, and Increasing Land Contributions to Sea Level Rise. Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0298

Graphics by Lucas Waldron

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by ProPublica.

INTERVIEW: By Sebastian Shehadi

The Handala, a 1968 Norwegian trawler repurposed by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), set sail for Gaza from southern Italy on July 20, carrying around 21 people and a cargo of food, medical kits, baby formula, water desalination units and more.

The ship is named after the iconic Palestinian cartoon figure, Handala, who symbolises Palestinian identity, resilience and the ongoing struggle against displacement and occupation.

Just hours before departure, the crew uncovered deliberate sabotage: a rope tightly bound around the propeller and a sulfuric acid swap mistaken for water, leading to chemical burns in two people.

• READ MORE: Israeli forces storm Gaza-bound aid ship Handala in international waters
• Gaza condemns Israeli ‘piracy’ over storming of Handala aid ship
• Other reports on New Zealand participation on past Gaza Freedom Flotilla missions at Kia Ora Gaza

Despite this alarming start, the mission continued, echoing the defiance of past flotilla efforts such as the interception of the Madleen in June and the Israeli drone strike on the Conscience in May.

However, contact with the vessel was reported lost on July 24, with coalition officials warning that communications have been jammed and drones have been seen near the ship, raising concerns about interception or further hostile action.

The mission resumed following the brief two-hour communications blackout. “Connection has now been re-established. ‘Handala’ is continuing its mission and is currently less than 349 nautical miles from Gaza,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) announced on Telegram on July 25.

Then on Saturday, the Israeli military attacked the ship and violently detained and “abducted” the entire crew and issued a statement saying they were “safe” and on their way to Israel.

‘Handala’ was illegally boarded by Israel military in international waters, around 40 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza.

Before interception the 21 crew made this statement: if attacked they will join the global hunger strike for Gaza.

Call your governments now and hold them… pic.twitter.com/QbqUaduXG1

— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) July 27, 2025

The New Arab spoke to one of Handala’s crew, Lebanese-Australian filmmaker, human rights activist and journalist Tan Safi, before the arrest to find out more about the mission and why she chose to be on board this mission:

The New Arab: How’s the mood on the ship at the moment?
Tan Safi: The morale of everyone at the moment is high, as everyone is happy to be here. Of course, different emotions come up, and we talk them out, but as a collective, we’re all looking out for one another. Everyone is very caring and kind.

We are a group of 21 people from 10 different countries. We have a very proud grandmother, as well as MPs, nurses, a human rights lawyer, a comedian, an actor, human rights activists and more. We’re from many different walks of life, and we pose absolutely no threat to anyone.

We’re simply trying to challenge something illegal. Like previous Freedom Flotilla actions, we will be sailing through international waters into Palestinian territorial waters.

How are you preparing for the very real threat of Israeli violence?
Back in 2010, we sent a flotilla that was caught in a deadly raid. The Israelis came in a helicopter, boarded the ship and killed nine people instantaneously, while another person died from a coma years later.

So we know very well that Israel poses a real threat.

More importantly, we’ve seen what they’re capable of over the last two years. The most horrific things imaginable. Israeli soldiers are committing endless crimes against Gazan children, and then going into the homes of the Palestinians they’ve murdered and taking selfies in women’s lingerie. We know what they’re capable of.

Any interception of our vessel would violate international maritime law. The ICJ [International Court of Justice] itself ordered Israel not to interfere with any delivery of international aid. Of course, we know that Israel gets to exist in this world by hopping over international law, without any accountability, without any real sanctions.

In terms of processing, what might happen to me? I’ve had to do it time and time again whenever I’ve joined FFC missions over the last two years. I’ve had to say goodbye to my friends and family, but also try to keep them reassured.

Sometimes I feel like I’m lying, to be honest. I tell them that “everything will be okay”. But it’s psychologically impossible to explain.

Are you worried that Handala is less protected than the last ship, Madleen, which had the global media attention (and protection) of having Greta Thunberg on board?

No matter how many Instagram followers you have, your life is just as important as the next person’s. We have people on this boat who have Instagram. We have people who do.

The lives of all these people are as valuable as everyone else’s. I would just try to focus on the fact that we’re all human beings, just as every Palestinian in Gaza is. I’m more worried that Israel’s violence will expand until it’s too late, and people wish that they had done more. The time is now.

What is your message to global or Australian leaders?
I’m Lebanese, but I grew up in so-called Australia, a country that has such a dark history. What our politicians forget is that so-called Australia was not theirs to begin with. Australia was, and will always be, Aboriginal land. They can try to hide their dark truths, just like Israel used to as well. But the truth will become exposed in time.

To this day, Aboriginal people are abused and discriminated against by the state. My message to Australia’s leadership is: how can you watch tens of thousands of men, women and children being slaughtered and still be enabling Israel’s siege and genocide?

The Australian embassy in Israel sent me a message urging me to “please reconsider your decision to join a humanitarian aid trip to Gaza”. If they’re so concerned about the two Australians on this boat, I would urge them to be more concerned with the millions of Palestinians who are suffering daily.

Can you tell us more about daily life and organisation on the ship?
We all put our hands up to volunteer for various tasks throughout the day. Some of us are more skilled in certain areas than others. For example, we have someone here from France who is a nurse, and they’re helping anyone who is feeling sick.

We have the proud grandmother, Vigdis from Norway, who loves to cook. And then someone will put their hand up to do the dishes. No one is too good to clean the toilets.

We’re all helping out to keep this ship organised. We also do shifts, helping out with the crew when needed. No one is sitting around. And if someone is, it’s because it’s really hot or the seas are rough.

What do you hope Handala will achieve, beyond potentially breaking the siege?
I hope this action will encourage all forms of solidarity and, more importantly, inspire direct action. I know that protests and non-direct actions serve a purpose, but we have talked and talked and talked at length. I don’t know how people are finding the strength.

Sometimes when I’m asked to talk at events, I just don’t know what to say, because if you need me to explain this, maybe you will never understand.

But what we clearly need to do is disrupt the financial flow that enables and fuels this genocide. The BDS movement is huge. People used to look down on it and question its efficacy. But now we’re able to quantify that it’s actually affecting real, big business.

I’ve always been advocating for that and asking people to be aware of the companies they consume from, such as Unilever, Nestle and Coke. This is having a real impact on these companies that are profiteering from unethical practices to begin with, that extends far beyond the genocide in Gaza.

Direct action could also involve blockading shipments of weapons from ports and docks, as seen in Greece. It’s amazing to see more countries step up. However, we often see a lot of lip service as well. It takes everyday people to actually stand up and say: “I’m able-bodied. I’m sick to my stomach. I’m gonna listen to my instinct and explore other options”.

If protesting is not working, explore other options. If there is no direct action group, create one. All it takes is one person to begin.

Are there any final or other messages you’d like to convey?
The Handala ship is the 37th boat from the FFC to travel to Gaza. There are thousands of people behind each of these journeys who make these voyages happen.

The FFC has existed for as many years as Israel’s siege on Gaza has. The FFC exists only because of Israel’s illegal siege.

We are people from around the world who are united in our shared consciousness and care for Palestine. We pose no threat. I’m looking at a bunch of toys and baby formula. We have as much food as we can carry, but our main goal is to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza because you need to fix a problem at the root of the cause.

• Track the Handala’s journey here

Sebastian Shehadi is a freelance journalist and a contributing writer at the New Statesman. This article was first published by The New Arab. Follow Shehadi on X: @seblebanon

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Last year, then President Joe Biden’s administration finalized new emissions limits for plants that use ethylene oxide, also known as EtO.

The rules require facilities install new controls to limit releases of the gas, monitor continuously for leaks, and meet other requirements. The standards were set to phase in starting in 2026, with the largest EtO users given an extra year to comply. Under Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency said the stiffer regulations would reduce emissions from EtO facilities by 90 percent and protect residents living near them.

But in a Thursday proclamation, Trump said he would extend the deadline for a slew of facilities across the country to meet the requirements, claiming the technology is not “commercially viable” to meet the timelines. Now, sterilizers will have two more years to make upgrades.

Trump argued the current rules would “likely force existing sterilization facilities to close down, seriously disrupting the supply of medical equipment.”

“In short, the current compliance timeline would undermine our national security,” Trump’s proclamation says.

Read Next

How medical supply warehouses poison workers with ethylene oxide

Naveena Sadasivam & Lylla Younes

The extension applies to several Georgia facilities, including: Becton Dickinson, or BD, facilities in Covington and Madison; the Sterigenics plant in Cobb County; Kendall Patient Recovery, or KPR, near Augusta; and Sterilization Services of Georgia’s facility 15 miles from downtown Atlanta.

EtO plays a critical role maintaining safety in medical and dental settings by killing dangerous bacteria that can’t be eliminated by other methods, like steam or radiation. About half the medical devices used in the United States — approximately 20 billion devices each year — are sterilized with EtO, according to the EPA. It is also used to kill potentially harmful microbes lurking in spices, dried vegetables, walnuts and other food products.

But the gas has been known for years to be dangerous to humans.

In 2016, the EPA reclassified ethylene oxide as a human carcinogen and the gas has been linked to breast, lymphoid, leukemia and other types of cancers. That same year, the EPA determined ethylene oxide is dangerous at much lower levels than previously thought.

Based on its new threshold, EPA air modeling flagged several census tracts in Georgia for potential elevated cancer risks from exposure to ethylene oxide in 2018. But neither the agency nor the state Environmental Protection Division alerted the public. A year later, media reports revealed the potential for increased cancer risk based on the modeling faced by residents in neighborhoods surrounding Sterigenics’ Cobb County plant.

Read Next

The unregulated link in a toxic supply chain

Naveena Sadasivam & Lylla Younes

The situation spawned a slew of lawsuits and in 2023, Sterigenics agreed to pay $35 million to settle dozens of claims by people who alleged their exposure to EtO from the plant caused cancer and other injuries. Sterigenics did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s proclamation.

Hundreds of lawsuits are still pending in Georgia against BD, Sterigenics, and KPR. In May, the first of those to reach trial resulted in a $20 million verdict for a retired Covington-area truck driver, Gary Walker, who claimed decades of exposure to EtO from BD and its predecessor, C.R. Bard, was to blame for his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Michael Geoffroy, an attorney who’s part of Walker’s legal team and involved in many other EtO cases, said the Trump administration’s move “is only going to make things worse.”

“Loosening rules or delaying implementation of safety standards that are there to keep communities safe and make it to where fewer people get sick with cancer is just a step in the wrong direction,” Geoffroy said.

In a statement, BD spokeswoman Fallon McLoughlin said the company is “committed to the safe and responsible operation of our medical sterilization facilities and has a long history of compliance with local, state and federal regulations related to EtO emissions.”

She added BD has already installed new emissions controls at many facilities and is committed to meeting the new standards. But she said doing so could require new equipment that may not be available in time to meet the deadline.

“The recently announced exemption will ensure there is a more realistic time frame to comply with the new requirements,” McLoughlin said.

A representative for Sterilization Services declined to comment. KPR did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mindy Goldstein, director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University, said the federal Clean Air Act allows presidents to exempt certain facilities from compliance for up to two years. But to do so, they must prove that the technology to meet the requirement is not available and the extension serves a national security interest.

Trump used both rationales in his proclamation. But Goldstein said he included little evidence to support the claims, which could give opponents an opening to challenge the move.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has already said it’s reevaluating the Biden-era EtO rules, but it’s unclear whether they’ll seek to change the standard. Trump’s EPA has already unwound much of his predecessors’ environmental legacy, announcing plans to reconsider drinking water standards for certain toxic “forever chemicals,” roll back limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and much more.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Georgia sterilization plants using toxic gas among those exempt from new rules on Jul 26, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Drew Kann, The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Last year, then President Joe Biden’s administration finalized new emissions limits for plants that use ethylene oxide, also known as EtO.

The rules require facilities install new controls to limit releases of the gas, monitor continuously for leaks, and meet other requirements. The standards were set to phase in starting in 2026, with the largest EtO users given an extra year to comply. Under Biden, the Environmental Protection Agency said the stiffer regulations would reduce emissions from EtO facilities by 90 percent and protect residents living near them.

But in a Thursday proclamation, Trump said he would extend the deadline for a slew of facilities across the country to meet the requirements, claiming the technology is not “commercially viable” to meet the timelines. Now, sterilizers will have two more years to make upgrades.

Trump argued the current rules would “likely force existing sterilization facilities to close down, seriously disrupting the supply of medical equipment.”

“In short, the current compliance timeline would undermine our national security,” Trump’s proclamation says.

Read Next

How medical supply warehouses poison workers with ethylene oxide

Naveena Sadasivam & Lylla Younes

The extension applies to several Georgia facilities, including: Becton Dickinson, or BD, facilities in Covington and Madison; the Sterigenics plant in Cobb County; Kendall Patient Recovery, or KPR, near Augusta; and Sterilization Services of Georgia’s facility 15 miles from downtown Atlanta.

EtO plays a critical role maintaining safety in medical and dental settings by killing dangerous bacteria that can’t be eliminated by other methods, like steam or radiation. About half the medical devices used in the United States — approximately 20 billion devices each year — are sterilized with EtO, according to the EPA. It is also used to kill potentially harmful microbes lurking in spices, dried vegetables, walnuts and other food products.

But the gas has been known for years to be dangerous to humans.

In 2016, the EPA reclassified ethylene oxide as a human carcinogen and the gas has been linked to breast, lymphoid, leukemia and other types of cancers. That same year, the EPA determined ethylene oxide is dangerous at much lower levels than previously thought.

Based on its new threshold, EPA air modeling flagged several census tracts in Georgia for potential elevated cancer risks from exposure to ethylene oxide in 2018. But neither the agency nor the state Environmental Protection Division alerted the public. A year later, media reports revealed the potential for increased cancer risk based on the modeling faced by residents in neighborhoods surrounding Sterigenics’ Cobb County plant.

Read Next

The unregulated link in a toxic supply chain

Naveena Sadasivam & Lylla Younes

The situation spawned a slew of lawsuits and in 2023, Sterigenics agreed to pay $35 million to settle dozens of claims by people who alleged their exposure to EtO from the plant caused cancer and other injuries. Sterigenics did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s proclamation.

Hundreds of lawsuits are still pending in Georgia against BD, Sterigenics, and KPR. In May, the first of those to reach trial resulted in a $20 million verdict for a retired Covington-area truck driver, Gary Walker, who claimed decades of exposure to EtO from BD and its predecessor, C.R. Bard, was to blame for his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Michael Geoffroy, an attorney who’s part of Walker’s legal team and involved in many other EtO cases, said the Trump administration’s move “is only going to make things worse.”

“Loosening rules or delaying implementation of safety standards that are there to keep communities safe and make it to where fewer people get sick with cancer is just a step in the wrong direction,” Geoffroy said.

In a statement, BD spokeswoman Fallon McLoughlin said the company is “committed to the safe and responsible operation of our medical sterilization facilities and has a long history of compliance with local, state and federal regulations related to EtO emissions.”

She added BD has already installed new emissions controls at many facilities and is committed to meeting the new standards. But she said doing so could require new equipment that may not be available in time to meet the deadline.

“The recently announced exemption will ensure there is a more realistic time frame to comply with the new requirements,” McLoughlin said.

A representative for Sterilization Services declined to comment. KPR did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mindy Goldstein, director of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University, said the federal Clean Air Act allows presidents to exempt certain facilities from compliance for up to two years. But to do so, they must prove that the technology to meet the requirement is not available and the extension serves a national security interest.

Trump used both rationales in his proclamation. But Goldstein said he included little evidence to support the claims, which could give opponents an opening to challenge the move.
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has already said it’s reevaluating the Biden-era EtO rules, but it’s unclear whether they’ll seek to change the standard. Trump’s EPA has already unwound much of his predecessors’ environmental legacy, announcing plans to reconsider drinking water standards for certain toxic “forever chemicals,” roll back limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and much more.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Georgia sterilization plants using toxic gas among those exempt from new rules on Jul 26, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Drew Kann, The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

With support from over 175 groups, this comprehensive legislative proposal would close tax loopholes and eliminate corporate handouts to the oil, gas, and coal industry by:
Eliminating all of the fossil fuel giveaways in Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill’ including a $1.5 billion last-minute giveaway for coal used to produce steel and restoring a fee for methane pollution.

• Abolishing dozens of tax loopholes and subsidies throughout the federal tax code that benefit oil, gas, and coal special interests.
• Updating below-market royalty rates for oil and gas production on federal lands, recouping royalties from offshore drilling in public waters, and ensuring competitive bidding and leasing practices for coal development on federal lands.
• Prohibiting taxpayer-funded fossil fuel research and development.
• Ending federal support for international oil, gas, and coal projects and supporting the global community’s fight to move away from dirty fossil fuels.

You can read the bill text and section by section here.

Quotes:

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders said: “Donald Trump has sold out the young people of America and future generations. Big Oil spent $450 million to elected Donald Trump and Republicans during the last election cycle. In return, the president has directed the full regulatory, legal and financial weight of the federal government toward helping his fossil fuel executive friends get rich at the expense of a healthy and habitable planet for our kids and grandkids. The fossil fuel industry, with the support of Trump, is more concerned about their short-term profits than the wellbeing of the planet. No more polluter welfare for an industry that is making billions every year destroying the planet.”

U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar said: “We are done letting fossil fuel executives write the rules while our communities pay the price. For decades, Big Oil has raked in billions in taxpayer handouts while destabilizing our climate. The End Polluter Welfare Act will finally hold polluters accountable and eliminate these harmful subsidies once and for all. I'm proud to reintroduce this legislation with Senator Sanders because our planet can’t wait, and neither can we.”

Meghan Pazik, senior policy advocate with Public Citizen’s Climate Program said: “For too long, billions of American tax dollars have propped up the corrupt and polluting fossil fuel industry while ordinary people struggle with rising energy bills and climate disasters. The End Polluter Welfare Act would rein in the corporate power of fossil fuel interests. Ending these subsidies isn’t just good policy and responsible government tax reform—it’s climate justice. There is no place for the government to enrich an unchecked industry causing unfathomable environmental and health damage in our backyards and around the world.”

Lukas Shankar-Ross, deputy director for climate and energy justice at Friends of the Earth said: “Trump and the GOP just sent polluters another $20 billion in corporate welfare. Ending fossil fuel subsidies once and for all has never been more urgent.”

Mahyar Sorour, director of Beyond Fossil Fuels Policy at Sierra Club: “Fossil fuel companies have known for decades that their product harms the climate, but have made obscene profits while communities are left to clean up the mess. Taxpayers can not afford to write a blank check to Big Oil and Gas companies through subsidies, corporate giveaways, and sweetheart deals. We must end the billions of dollars in giveaways to the oil and gas industry.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“We believe we’re going to get 90-plus percent of all future projects terminated,” U.S. Representative Chip Roy of Texas told Politico after the bill passed. “And we talked to lawyers in the administration.”

Last week, Trump’s Department of the Interior announced what appeared to be a fulfillment of the president’s promise to his party’s right wing. The department’s new guidelines for wind and solar developers now require all federal approvals for clean energy projects to undergo “elevated review” by Interior Secretary Doug Bergum, who was appointed by President Trump in January.

The new guidelines include a granular outline of steps that will now require personal approval from Bergum’s office, rather than being delegated to department bureaucrats as had previously been customary. Experts who spoke to Grist say that this could create an unmanageable slowdown for developers and allow the administration to quietly kill wind and solar projects on public land. Some are even worried that the effect of the updated regulations will spill over into private projects, which sometimes have to consult with the Interior Department when their work bleeds into federal lands or a habitat for endangered species.

Since only 4 percent of existing renewable energy projects are on public land, clean industry insiders who have interpreted the new policy narrowly are not yet panicking. But those with a broader interpretation of the text — or those who suspect that the administration will take a broad interpretation — wonder if the new rules will amount to a de facto gag order on the industry. For now, only time will tell just how many of their fears come to pass.  

Much of the memo’s power to wreak havoc for renewables depends on how strictly it’s enforced. The Interior Department maintains a website called Information for Planning and Consultation, or IPaC, which developers often use to plan large-scale projects. You type in the name of a locale, draw a border around the general area of your proposed project, and IPaC will tell you what kind of federal permitting you might need to move forward. (For example, it would flag if there are any protected wetlands or endangered species that would be affected by your development.) As of last week, the website now displays a pop-up warning users that “solar and wind projects are currently not eligible to utilize the Information for Planning and Consultation website.” This kind of opacity could make it especially hard for developers to plan for an endless bureaucratic battle with Interior. 

“It’s one thing to take away our [tax] credits, but it’s another to basically just put impediments so projects can’t get built,” a source who works for a renewables developer told E&E News. (He was granted anonymity due to his ongoing professional engagement with the federal government.) “The level of review here is so ridiculous.”

Others say that, while the outlook for wind and solar has become much dimmer, the new Interior rules aren’t necessarily a kill shot. “I was personally very worried when I saw it come out,” said Jason Kaminsky, CEO of kWh Analytics, a solar risk management firm. “But after doing more reading, it does seem like it affects, hopefully, a minority of assets.” 

An internal report from the investment bank and research firm Roth Capital Partners, which was obtained by Grist, estimated that only 5 percent of projects on private land — specifically, those that require an easement or need to cross public land to connect a transmission line to the main electrical grid — would be affected by the new regulations. 

“If [projects are on] a private piece of land, that’s a totally different story that would not be impacted by this,” said Doug Vine, director of energy analysis at the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “There’s plenty of projects that are going to go ahead.” 

Others warn that it will be hard to know anything for certain until the dust clears and the permitting process begins to play out. “Just how broad and wide-scoped the activities listed in the memo were, points towards an attempt to quash [private] projects, not just the ones on federal land,” said Dan O’Brien, a senior modeling analyst at the clean energy think tank Energy Innovations, noting that developers often end up consulting the Interior Department on issues like wildlife protection.

Regardless of the scope of the memo, any move with the potential to slow the deployment of renewables is almost certainly bad news for American energy, since most other sources of new electricity simply aren’t being built: 93 percent of new energy that came online in 2024 was renewable. But upon taking office, President Trump warned that the United States was reliant on a “precariously inadequate and intermittent energy supply” and immediately set about revoking previously approved federal funding from green energy projects, trying to cancel offshore wind leases, and rescinding clean energy tax credits that had been expanded by his predecessor. How this will lead the nation toward the current administration’s promise of “energy dominance” is unclear. 

“You don’t have enough [electricity] supply to meet new demand,” said O’Brien. “Instead of new capacity coming online — cheap renewables — you have existing gas plants running longer, and so gas demand goes up and prices go up, both for power plants and for household consumers. … All signs point toward this being a bad, bad scenario.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Will new Interior Department rules shackle wind and solar? Insiders are divided. on Jul 25, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Rebecca Egan McCarthy.

A new analysis from government watchdog Accountable.US finds that Lutnick’s family business empire, Cantor Fitzgerald, reported over $886 million in Nvidia positions in Q1 2025, while Lutnick played a prominent role in lifting the administration’s trade restrictions -- even arranging a meeting between Trump and Nvidia’s CEO. Additionally, Lutnick’s family business reported positions of over $230 million in AMD, which said Lutnick’s Commerce Dept. would likely lift China trade restrictions on one of its own advanced chips.

Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk: “Trump’s billionaire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick once again played a central role in administration trade policy that just so happened to set up his family business for a massive pay day. Alarmingly, it has become the norm for the President and his cabinet to use their positions of power to drive more money into their own pockets while defending Trump’s brutal budget cuts, robbing millions of working Americans and seniors of basic health care and food security.”

The Trump Commerce Department’s 180 on Chinese export controls for AI is just the latest case of the heavily conflicted Secretary Lutnick playing a central role in Trump administration policy that coincidentally benefits his family business empire. In March, Lutnick told a national TV audience to buy Tesla stock, as his family business reportedly held approximately $840 million in the company. In May, Lutnick’s family increased its stake in the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, to a total of $1.3 billion, as Lutnick helped establish President Trump’s Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

By temporarily divesting from Cantor Fitzgerald while he serves the Trump White House, Secretary Lutnick would have the public believe that the arrangement grants him plausible deniability regarding how administration policy could benefit his family's business empire. Beyond the implausibility of Lutnick never comparing notes with his 20-something-year-old sons in ‘control’ of the company, “nearly two dozen current and former employees and associates” of Lutnick’s have stated that the billionaire’s “grip on his various businesses is bolted tight.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Call it the “new cold war,” the “beginning of World War III,” or – in Trump’s words – “endless war,” this is the era that the world has entered. The US/Zionist war against Iran has paused, but no one has any illusions that it is over. And it won’t likely be resolved until one side decisively and totally prevails. Ditto for the proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Likely the same with Palestine, where the barbarity of war worsened to genocide. Meanwhile, since Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” the empire is building up for war with China.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the empire’s war on the world assumes a hybrid form. The carnage is less apparent because the weapons take the form of “soft power” – sanctions, tariffs, and deportations. These can have the same lethal consequences as bombs, only less overt.

Making the world unsafe for socialism

Some Western leftists vilify the defensive measures that Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua must take to protect themselves from the empire’s regime-change schemes. In contrast, Washington clearly understands that these countries pose “threats of a good example” to the empire. Each subsequent US president, from Obama on, has certified them as “extraordinary threats to US national security.” Accordingly, they are targeted with the harshest coercive measures.

In this war of attrition, historian Isaac Saney uses the example of Cuba to show how any misstep by the revolutionary government or societal deficiency is exaggerated and weaponized. The empire’s siege, he explains, is not merely an attempt to destabilize the economy but is a deliberate strategy of suffocation. The empire aims to instigate internal discontent, distort people’s perception of the government, and ultimately erode social gains.

While Cuba is affected the worst by the hybrid war, both Venezuela and Nicaragua have also been damaged. All three countries have seen the “humanitarian parole” for their migrants in the US come to an end. Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was also withdrawn for Venezuelans and Nicaraguans. The strain of returning migrants, along with cuts in the remittances they had sent (amounting to a quarter of Nicaragua’s GDP), further impacts their respective economies.

Higher-than-average tariffs are threatened on Venezuelan and Nicaraguan exports to the US, together with severe restrictions on Caracas’s oil exports. Meanwhile, the screws have been tightened on the six-decade US blockade of Cuba with disastrous humanitarian consequences.

However, all three countries are fighting back. They are forming new trade alliances with China and elsewhere. Providing relief to Cuba, Mexico has supplied oil, and China is installing solar panel farms to address the now-daily power outages. High levels of food security in Venezuela and Nicaragua have strengthened their ability to resist US sanctions, while Caracas successfully defeated one of Washington’s harshest migration measures by securing the release of 252 of its citizens who had been incarcerated in El Salvador’s torturous CECOT prison.

Venezuela’s US-backed far-right opposition is in disarray. The first Trump administration had recognized the “interim presidency” of Juan Guaidó, followed by the Biden administration declaring Edmundo González the winner of Venezuela’s last presidential election. But the current Trump administration has yet to back González, de facto recognizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Nicaragua’s right-wing opposition is also reeling from a side-effect of Trump’s harsh treatment of migrants – many are returning voluntarily to a country claimed by the opposition to be “unsafe,” while US Homeland Security has even extolled their home country’s recent achievements. And some of Trump’s prominent Cuban-American supporters are now questioning his “maximum pressure” campaign for going too far.

Troubled waters for the Pink Tide

The current progressive wave, the so-called Pink Tide, was initiated by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s landslide victory in 2018. His MORENA Party successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, won by an even greater margin in 2024. Mexico’s first woman president has proven to be perhaps the world’s most dignified and capable sparring partner with the buffoon in the White House, who has threatened tariffs, deportations, military interdictions, and more on his southern neighbor.

Left-leaning presidents Gabriel Boric in Chile and Gustavo Petro in Colombia are limited to a single term. Both have faced opposition-aligned legislatures and deep-rooted reactionary power blocs. Chilean Communist Party candidate Jeanette Jara is favored to advance to the second-round presidential election in November 2025, but will face a challenging final round if the right unifies, as is likely, around an extremist candidate.

As the first non-rightist in Colombia’s history, Petro has had a tumultuous presidential tenure. He credibly accuses his former foreign minister of colluding with the US to overthrow him. However, the presidency could well revert to the right in the May 2026 elections.

Boric, Petro, Uruguay’s Yamandú Orsi, and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met in July as the region’s center-left presidents, with an agenda of dealing with Trump, promoting multilateralism, and (we can assume) keeping their distance from the region’s more left-wing governments.

With shaky popularity ratings, Lula will likely run for reelection in October 2026. As head of the region’s largest economy, Lula plays a world leadership role, chairing three global summits in a year. Yet, with less than a majority legislative backing, Lula has triangulated between Washington and the Global South, often capitulating to US interests (as in his veto of BRICS membership for Nicaragua and Venezuela). Regardless, Trump is threatening Brazil with a crippling 50% export tariff and is blatantly interfering in the trial of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, accused of insurrection. So far, Trump’s actions have backfired, arousing anger among Brazilians. Lula commented that Trump was “not elected to be emperor of the world.”

In 2021, Honduran President Xiomara Castro took over a narcostate subservient to Washington and has tried to push the envelope to the left. Being constitutionally restricted to one term, Castro hands the Libre party candidacy in November’s election to former defense minister Rixi Moncada, who faces a tough contest with persistent US interference.

Bolivia’s ruling Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) Party is embroiled in a self-destructive internal conflict between former President Evo Morales and his former protégé and current President, Luis Arce. The energized Bolivian right wing is spoiling for the August 17^th presidential election.

Israeli infiltration accompanies US military penetration

Analyst Joe Emersberger notes: “Today, all geopolitics relates back to Gaza where the imperial order has been unmasked like never before.” Defying Washington, the Hague Group met in Colombia for an emergency summit on Gaza to “take collective action grounded in international law.” On July 16, regional states – Bolivia, Cuba, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – endorsed the pledge to take measures in support of Palestine, with others likely to follow. Brazil will join South Africa’s ICJ complaint against Israel.

At the other end of the political spectrum are self-described “world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and confederates Javier Milei of Argentina and Daniel Noboa of Ecuador. As well as cozying up to Trump, they devotedly support Israel, which has been instrumental in enabling the most brutal reactionaries in the region. Noboa duly tells Israel’s Netanyahu that they “share the same enemies.”

In February, the US Southern Command warned: “Time is not on our side.” The perceived danger is “methodical incursion” into our “neighborhood” by both Russia and China. Indeed, China has become the region’s second-largest trading partner after the US, and even right-wing governments are reluctant to jeopardize their relations with Beijing. The empire’s solution is to “redouble our efforts to nest military engagement,” using humanitarian assistance as “an essential soft power tool.”

Picking up where Biden left off, Trump has furthered US military penetration, notably in Ecuador, Guyana, Brazil, Panama, and Argentina. The pandemic of narcotics trafficking, itself a product of US-induced demand, has been a Trojan Horse for militarist US intervention in Haiti, Ecuador, Peru, and threatened in Mexico.

In Panama, President José Mulino’s obeisance to Trump’s ambitions to control the Panama Canal and reduce China’s influence provoked massive protests. Trump’s collaboration in the genocide of Palestinians motivated Petro to declare that Colombia must leave the NATO alliance and keep its distance from “militaries that drop bombs on children.” Colombia had been collaborating with NATO since 2013 and became the only Latin American global partner in 2017.

Despite Trump’s bluster – what the Financial Times calls “imperial incontinence” – his administration has produced mixed results. While rightist political movements have basked in Trump’s fitful praise, his escalating coercion provokes resentment against Yankee influence. Resistance is growing, with new alliances bypassing Washington. As the empire’s grip tightens, so too does the resolve of those determined to break free from it.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Perry and Roger D. Harris.

A longtime Bougainville politician, Joe Lera, wants to see widespread changes in the way the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) is run.

The Papua New Guinea region, which is seeking independence from Port Moresby, is holding elections in the first week of September.

Seven candidates are running for president, including Lera.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville independence reports

He held the regional seat in the PNG national Parliament for 10 years before resigning to contest the presidency in the 2020 election.

This time around, Lera is campaigning on what he sees as faults in the approach of the Ishmael Toroama administration and told RNZ Pacific he is offering a different tack.

JOE LERA: This time, people have seen that the current government is the most corrupt. They have addressed only one side of independence, which is the political side, the other two sides, They have not done it very well.

DON WISEMAN: What do we mean by that? We can’t bandy around words like corruption. What do you mean by corruption?

JL: What they have done is huge. They are putting public funds into personal members’ accounts, like the constituency grant – 360,000 kina a year.

DW: As someone who has operated in the national parliament, you know that that is done there as well. So it’s not corrupt necessarily, is it?

JL:Well, when they go into their personal account, they use it for their own family goods, and that development, it should be development funds. The people are not seeing the tangible outcomes in the number two side, which is the development side.

All the roads are bad. The hospitals are now running out of drugs. Doctors are checking the patients, sending them to pharmaceutical shops to buy the medicine, because the hospitals have run out.

DW: These are problems that are affecting the entire country, aren’t they, and there’s a shortage of money. So how would you solve it? What would you do differently?

JL: We will try to make big changes in addressing sustainable development, in agriculture, fishing, forestry, so we can create jobs for the small people.

Instead of talking about big, billion dollar mining projects, which will take a long time, we should start with what we already have, and develop and create opportunities for the people to be engaged in nation building through sustainable development first, then we progress into the higher billion dollar projects.

Now we are going talking about mining when the people don’t have opportunity and they are getting poorer and poorer. That’s one area, the other area, to create change we will try to fix the government structure, from ABG to community governments to village assemblies, down to the chiefs.

At the moment, the policies they have have fragmented the conduit of getting the services from the top government down to to the village people.

DW: In the past, you’ve spoken out against the push for independence, suggesting I think, that Bougainville is not ready yet, and it should take its time. Where do you stand at the moment on the independence question?

JL: The independence question? We are all for it. I’m not against it, but I’m against the process. How they are going about it. I think the answer has been already given in the Bougainville Peace Agreement, which is a joint creation between the PNG and ABG government, and the process is very clear.

Now, what the current government is doing is they are going outside of the Peace Agreement, and they are trying to shortcut based on the [referendum] result.

But the Peace Agreement doe not say independence will be given to us based on the result. What it says is, after we know the result, the two governments must continue to dialogue, consult each other and find ways of how to improve the economy, the law and order issues, the development issues.

When we fix those, the nation building pillars, we can then apply for the ratification to take place.

DW: So you’re talking about something that would be quite a way further down the line than what this current government is talking about?

JL: The issue is timing. They are putting deadlines themselves, and they are trying to push the PNG government to swallow it. The PNG government is a sovereign nation already.

We should respect and honestly, in a family room situation, negotiate, talk with them, as the Peace Agreement says, and reach understanding on the timing and other related issues, but not to even take a confrontational approach, which is what they are doing now, but take a family room approach, where we sit and negotiate in the spirit of the Peace Agreement.

This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. Don Wiseman is a senior journalist with RNZ Pacific. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Graham Forbes, Global Plastics Campaign Lead for Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace Head of Delegation for the Global Plastics Treaty negotiation said: “What this report shows is that the plastics crisis is a public health emergency. The Global Plastics Treaty must deliver a 75% cut in plastic production by 2040 to reduce escalating threats to human and planetary health. People are being poisoned so fossil fuel and petrochemical companies can churn out more unnecessary plastic. Without a treaty that cuts production, the plastic crisis will only grow worse.”

The report, Every breath you take: air pollution risks from petrochemicals production for the plastics supply chain, shifts the lens to midstream level plastic production—to the petrochemical plants that produce precursors to plastic and expose frontline communities living near to these facilities who are potentially facing exposure to dangerous air pollutants.

During the production of feedstock, petrochemical facilities emit a suite of harmful airborne substances typically including Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), nitrogen oxides (NOₓ), and sulfur oxides (SOₓ) and particulate matter (PM). Studies report higher concentrations of these pollutants near petrochemical facilities, with proximity linked to increased illness—raising a serious cause for concern.

Key findings from the report include:

• Over 51 million people in the 11 countries studied live within 10 km of plastics-linked petrochemical facilities; 16 million live within 5 km. In every country studied, residential areas lie within 10 km of plastic-linked petrochemical plants.
• The United States has the highest number of people living at a distance that is linked to elevated risk—13 million, especially in Texas and Louisiana.
• One in four people in the Netherlands live at a distance that is linked to elevated risk of exposure to air pollution emissions, including toxic emissions, from petrochemical plants. It has the highest proportion of its population at risk with 4.5 million people or 25.6% of the entire population within the exposure zones assessed in the analysis. The country with the second highest proportion is Switzerland at 10.9% of the population.
• The pollution created by some petrochemical plants in the regions reviewed for the report is transboundary. Several plants are located in border zones, affecting communities in Austria, Poland, Singapore, Belgium, France and Germany.[2]
• In documented case studies, communities near petrochemical facilities suffer disproportionately from cancer, respiratory disease, and premature death. The UN has labeled some of these areas "sacrifice zones."

The report also warns of industry plans to expand global plastic production through 2050, which would create more sacrifice zones, more waste exported to low-income countries, and more short-lived products driving the climate, health and waste crisis.

The global Greenpeace network is demanding that the Global Plastics Treaty must reduce plastic production by at least 75% by 2040 to protect people’s health, the climate and the environment. The next round of negotiations will happen on August 5 to 14, 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Full report can be found here.

Photos and videos can be accessed in the Greenpeace Media Library.

Interactive maps of petrochemical production zones can be found here.

Notes:

[1] The report, Every breath you take: air pollution risks from petrochemicals production for the plastics supply chain, identified the locations of petrochemical facilities linked to plastics in 11 countries: Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, Canada, USA, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The countries were selected because of their significant petrochemical presence or association with major plastic-related concerns.

[2] The transboundary zones include populations in Austria and Poland (from German facilities), Singapore (from Malaysian facilities) Belgium and Germany (from Dutch facilities) France and Germany (from Swiss facilities).

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Golden Visa programme was launched in 2019 and allows foreigners the right to live and work in the UAE for long periods (five or 10 years) with renewal options. Designed for investors, entrepreneurs, and highly skilled individuals, this visa requires sizeable investments into the country. In 2022, the UAE reduced the minimum property investment requirement to AED 2 million, broadening access to more applicants.

On July 7, 2025, multiple media outlets, including PTI, Indian Express, The Hindu, Times of India, Republic, India Today, Business Standard, Hindustan Times, Outlook Business, Moneycontrol, Zee Business, Times of Oman, CNBCTV18, Moneylife, Mint, India TV News, Gulf News and others, published reports on this new policy. The reports claimed the UAE government launched a new nomination-based Golden Visa and India and Bangladesh were selected for the first phase of ‘testing’ this visa. The report alleged that a UAE-based consultancy, the Rayad group, was “chosen to test the initial nomination-based golden visa in India”.

What unfolded the next day was embarrassing.

On July 8, 2025, the UAE government’s federal authority for identity, citizenship, customs, and port security (ICP) refuted these media reports. Calling it a “rumour,” the ICP clarified that there is no new policy that confers citizenship upon paying a fee. The government also urged “individuals wishing to visit, live, or invest in the UAE not to respond to inaccurate rumours and false news” and advised referring only to “official sources” for such procedures.

UAE’s ambassador to India, Dr Abdulnasser Jamal Hussain Mohammed Alshaali, also shared this clarification on his Instagram account on July 8.

So how did so many media outlets get it wrong? Where did this “rumour” originate from, and could it have been avoided?

Tracing the Trail

The first report on this was by news wire agency Press Trust of India (PTI) on July 6, subsequently republished by other outlets. While the report claimed that the UAE government had launched the new visa, it attributed much of the information in it to a single source—Rayad Kamal Ayub, the managing director (MD) of Rayad Group, a consultancy firm that also handles immigration applications. The visa allows family sponsorship, domestic staff, and business freedom, and, unlike property-based visas, it remains valid permanently, Rayad Kamal Ayub was quoted as saying.

These reports, citing the Rayad group’s MD, said that applicants for the nomination-based Golden Visa would undergo thorough background checks, including for money laundering and criminal history. They would also undergo social media screening carried out by the Rayad group. The ‘assessment’ would evaluate the applicants’ potential contributions to sectors such as culture, trade, or startups. However, it said, after these thorough screenings, the UAE government would take the final call.

Citing “beneficiaries and people involved in the process”, PTI reported that the new nomination-based visa policy would allow some Indians to enjoy the UAE’s Golden Visa for life by paying a fee of AED 1,00,000 (roughly Rs 23.3 lakh).

However, it wasn’t clear who the people involved in the process were. While these reports all hinted that the UAE government was introducing the new policy, there was no mention of an official statement by the concerned UAE ministry, nor were any government officials quoted. It seemed like the report was published based on the Rayad group’s claims without any verification from official authorities.

A quick keyword search on Google confirmed this. We located a press release that likely sparked the ‘news’ reports.

However, this release, issued by VFS Global—an agency that handles passport and visa applications—was deleted. We found an archived version of this. The PDF can be accessed here.

Several points from this release have been mentioned in the PTI report. PTI’s report, however, went into more detail but quoted unnamed beneficiaries and the Rayad group’s MD. Conversations with a Dubai-based journalist revealed that while VFS Global is a well-known visa and passport agency, the Rayad group isn’t. Their website too does not give much detail about the company, its founders or others in the leadership besides the MD. The copyright on the website indicates that it was made recently, and we also found some language-related issues and typos in it. All in all, besides its tie-up with VFS Global, there’s little on the Rayad group that makes it a credible source of information.

On July 9, the group took “full responsibility” for the confusion and told the Khaleej Times that “the initiative in question was part of an exploratory collaboration between the Rayad group and licensed partners specialising in immigration services.” It also said that the effort was aimed at assessing the feasibility of providing advisory support for Golden Visa applications to eligible individuals.

“We take full responsibility and remain committed to ensuring that all future communications are clear, accurate, and fully aligned with the UAE’s stringent regulatory framework,” it added

Further, it said that public comments made by Rayad group’s MD “were misplaced and have contributed to the misinterpretation of our role and the nature of the initiative in question. These statements did not accurately reflect our intent, our scope of services, or the limitations of our authority in relation to the UAE Golden Visa programme. To reiterate with full clarity: no guaranteed visa, fixed-price programme, or lifetime UAE residency product currently exists, and the Rayad group does not offer, support, participate, or endorse any such arrangement.”

“Due to the confusion caused, the Rayad group is discontinuing private advisory services for Golden Visas,” the publication reported citing the the group’s statement.

Meanwhile, VFS Global group released a separate statement to Khaleej Times on Wednesday, clarifying that its role was “strictly limited to informing interested individuals about the services.”

The company explained that it had entered into a non-exclusive referral agreement with Rayad group, under which it was authorised solely to receive enquiries from individuals interested in the UAE Golden Visa scheme.

“Our involvement was limited to sharing information about Rayad group’s services and referring interested individuals to them,” the statement read. “It was solely Rayad group’s responsibility to assess these profiles and forward them to the relevant UAE authorities for eligibility determination.”

Could This Have Been Avoided?

Yes. By simply verifying or cross-checking with official authorities or waiting for a government statement on it. A press release of an initiative by a not-so-credible business entity about whom little is known was published by credible Indian news agencies without making additional checks. Worse, even those who did not publish this initially republished based on other outlets’ reports.

Also, at first glance or mention, the visa policy should have set some alarm bells ringing because with the growing influx of Indians migrating to UAE, the offer sounded too good to be true. It does not pass a basic logical evaluation test.

The widespread misreporting shows a striking lack of due diligence by media outlets, many of which have still not corrected these stories or issued clarifications.

The post UAE’s ‘new policy’ for Golden Visas leaves Indian media red-faced: How it all started appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

AGAINST THE CURRENT: By Steven Cowan

The New Zealand government has joined 27 other countries calling for an “immediate end” to the war in Gaza. The joint statement says  “the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths”.

It goes on to say that the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food.

But many of the countries that have signed this statement stand condemned for actively enabling Israel to pursue its genocidal assault on Gaza. Countries like Britain, Canada and Australia, continue to supply Israel with arms, have continued to trade with Israel, and have turned a blind eye to the atrocities and war crimes Israel continues to commit in Gaza.

• READ MORE: NZ and allies condemn ‘inhumane’, ‘horrifying’ killings in Gaza and ‘drip feeding’ of aid
• At least 65 killed in Gaza attacks as Israel sends tanks into Deir el-Balah
• UK, France and 23 other nations demand Israel’s war on Gaza ‘must end now’
• PSNA calls on NZ to urgently condemn Israeli weaponisation of starvation
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

It’s more than ironic that while Western countries like Britain and New Zealand are calling for an end to the war in Gaza, they continue to be hostile toward the anti-war protest movements in their own countries.

The British government recently classified the protest group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” group.

In New Zealand, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, has denounced pro-Palestine protesters as “left wing fascists” and “communist, fascist and anti-democratic losers”. He has pushed back against the growing demands that the New Zealand government take direct action against Israel, including the cutting of all diplomatic ties.

The New Zealand government, which contains a number of Zionists within its cabinet, including Act leader David Seymour and co-leader Brooke van Velden, will be more than comfortable with a statement that proposes to do nothing.

‘Statement lacks leadership’
Its call for an end to the war is empty rhetoric, and which Israel will duly ignore — as it has ignored other calls for its genocidal war to end.  As Amnesty International has said, ‘the statement lacks any resolve, leadership, or action to help end the genocide in Gaza.’

New Zealand has declined to join The Hague Group alliance of countries that recently met in Colombia.

It announced six immediate steps it would be taking against Israel. But since The Hague Group has already been attacked by the United States, it’s never been likely that New Zealand would join it.

The National-led coalition government has surrendered New Zealand’s independent foreign policy in favour of supporting the interests of a declining American Empire.

Republished from Steven Cowan’s blog Against The Current with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Beth Miller, Political Director, JVP Action:

“In a shocking turn of events, Andrew Cuomo got one thing right: young Jewish voters overwhelmingly supported Zohran Mamdani for mayor. And they did this not in spite of, but because of, his support for Palestinian rights. Jewish New Yorkers want elected officials with consistent values, whose progressive politics do not stop at our city’s borders.

“Mamdani’s unapologetic support for freedom, justice, and equality for all people — including Palestinians — was a political boon to his campaign, and was one of the primary motivators for many Jews in his historic canvassing operation. Meanwhile, Cuomo decided his path back to political power was through Islamophobic fearmongering about antisemitism, and doubling down on support for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, even going so far as to join Netanyahu’s legal team after the International Court charged him with war crimes. The pro-Cuomo Super PAC spent over $25 million, relying on Islamophobic smears to attack Mamdani. It failed spectacularly.

“Corrupt and cynical politicians like Cuomo and Eric Adams will continue to fail because they are offering nothing more than hate and division. New York Jews see that Mamdani is putting forward a vision rooted in humanity and dignity. He’s working for a better life for all. And that’s what we are fighting for.”

JVP Action endorsed Mamdani on October 23, the day he launched his campaign. The organization mobilized over 2,500 volunteers and led canvasses across Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island that knocked an estimated 80,000 doors.

While Cuomo holds closed-door fundraisers in the Hamptons, JVP Action members will continue knocking doors across the city to elect a mayor who supports humanity for everyone, from NYC to Palestine.

Beth Miller is available to speak with the media.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In the end, the industry breathed a small sigh of relief after the Senate reached a compromise that would, at least in principle, give new projects a slim window to go ahead. Under the final law, wind and solar projects that begin construction by July 4 of next year are eligible for the full federal tax credits. Halfway through that window, a new requirement kicks in: Projects that begin construction after January 1, 2026, can only keep the tax credits if they follow restrictions on the use of Chinese materials.

That could still upend New York’s renewable energy transition.

Federal tax credits have typically covered almost a third of the cost of building a solar or wind farm. That’s made them “critical to financing and ultimately building renewable energy projects,” said Carl Weatherley-White, interim chief financial officer at the development firm Greenbacker, which is currently building New York’s largest solar farm and has several smaller projects in the works. “It’s been a core part of the business for 20 years.”

The bill will also impact New York’s public power authority, NYPA, which this year issued a plan to put up more than three gigawatts’ worth of solar and batteries, and has been counting on federal tax credits to deliver.

Read Next

Congress is killing clean energy tax credits. Here’s how to use them before they disappear.

Tik Root

Developers now have less than a year to start digging if they want the subsidies. The impending deadline is lighting a fire under the industry — and, developers hope, under New York’s leaders, too.

“Now, the game is in the states,” said Marguerite Wells, executive director of the renewable energy lobbying group Alliance for Clean Energy New York. “I would say there’s many thousands of megawatts’ worth of wind and solar in upstate that would be eligible to fall into that start of construction if we played the cards right.”

For a start, there are 26 permitted but unbuilt wind and solar projects in the state, which in total could unlock about 3,000 megawatts’ worth of energy — enough to power some half a million homes. Only two of the large projects the state has approved in the last four years have even started construction; one of them was completed in late 2024, more than six years after filing its first paperwork. (The most recent permit was issued last week, but most of the permits date back to 2023 or earlier.)

The problem? The state doesn’t make it easy to move quickly. It normally takes years for wind and solar projects just to get permits to begin construction in New York, despite reforms intended to speed up the process. The rest of the approval process can take years, too. More environmental reviews are required even after the main permit is approved. And it’s just as complicated getting approval to connect to the grid.

All told, at least three different sets of regulators have to weigh in before a company can put shovels in the ground. That makes New York far more restrictive than other states in allowing developers to start building.

There are things the state could do to speed things up, like allowing developers to start construction even while they finalize certain details of their projects, but it’s largely in Governor Kathy Hochul’s hands.

Jolting the process forward would require a concerted push across her agencies. Besides permits, building a wind or solar farm in New York requires a contract with the state’s energy research and development arm, NYSERDA, guaranteeing that the developer will get paid for the energy the facility produces. Sometimes it requires the state Department of Environmental Conservation to weigh in on water quality plans, with additional input from the US Army Corps of Engineers. And it requires the state’s grid operator — which acts independently — to assess the impact and cost of connecting the facility to the grid.

Developers need answers from all of those entities before they can break ground, Wells said: “Every last whisper of detail of the project has to be finalized before they generally let you start construction.”

In her eyes, improving coordination between all of New York’s energy regulators is the single biggest thing the state could do to help move construction forward.

It’s not yet clear how committed Hochul is to the effort.

“The Governor has directed the state’s energy agencies to conduct a high-level review of the federal legislation and specific impacts to New Yorkers,” spokesperson Ken Lovett told New York Focus, when asked whether the Hochul administration shared developers’ goal of accelerating construction.

Before most developers even had a chance to fully digest the changes coming down from Congress, Trump threw in another gut punch. Last week, he issued an executive order directing the Treasury Department, which enforces tax credit rules, to revisit how it defines a project’s “start of construction.”

That throws even the megabill’s one-year deadline into doubt. Historically, developers have been allowed to qualify for tax credits by proving either that they’ve started physical construction or spent a certain amount of money. Now, Trump has given federal regulators 45 days to revise those definitions.

The specific definitions that the Treasury adopts could prove decisive in some cases. But whatever exact language the administration lands on, the bottom line is that Trump still has significant leeway to kill wind and solar projects if he’s committed to it, said Advait Arun, senior associate for energy finance at the think tank Center for Public Enterprise.

“Simply, I think Trump is trying to use control over the IRS to exercise his judgment about what projects should proceed and what shouldn’t,” he said.

Trump will have even more sway after the end of this calendar year, when additional requirements kick in. Starting in January 2026, developers hoping to claim tax credits will have to abide by restrictions on sourcing from “Foreign Entities of Concern,” including those connected to the Chinese government. The megabill tasks the Treasury with updating those rules, giving Trump another opportunity to crack down on what he’s called the “Green New Scam.”

Read Next

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Clare Fieseler, Canary Media

It all adds up to shaky terrain for renewable developers, even those who stand a chance of getting shovels in the ground within a year.

“The big concern … is that no matter what we do, someone in the Treasury is going to just say no,” said Weatherley-White, of Greenbacker, speaking to New York Focus a few hours before Trump issued his executive order last week. (Reporting earlier this month had already suggested that the construction rules could be in the crosshairs.)

Neither Weatherley-White nor Wells, of ACE NY, responded to follow-up inquiries about the order.

Unless the Trump administration completely upends what counts as the “start of construction,” there’s still a lot New York could do to help more projects get in under the one-year bar.

For example, in many states, wind and solar developers can begin construction on projects that don’t have all of their final approvals, but have the main elements of their design — like the location of roads and buildings — agreed upon, Wells said. But in New York, that initial green light is hard to get. It would make a big difference if the state were to adopt the practice more readily, she said.

New York could also jumpstart the contracting process for wind and solar projects. Close to half of the state’s permitted but unbuilt projects had contracts that were canceled after post-pandemic inflation upended their finances. Over the last year, the state has announced new contracts for dozens of projects in this situation, but others remain in limbo.

NYSERDA had plans to kick off a fresh round of wind and solar contracting by the end of June, but it’s behind schedule. A spokesperson said the agency would begin the process by the end of September.

Read Next

Clean energy projects on tribal lands were booming. Then came Trump’s tax bill.

Miacel Spotted Elk

Those nitty-gritty steps are unlikely to change, though, unless Hochul makes it a priority. The governor could direct agencies to fast track permitting or contracts, as she did with offshore wind a couple of years ago. She has lately shown a keen interest in cutting red tape for other forms of energy — specifically, a nuclear plant that she has tasked NYPA to build by 2040. (There, though, the key approvals need to come from the Trump administration rather than her own.)

Her Department of Environmental Conservation also appears to be speeding along a revived pipeline project that would bring gas into New York City and Long Island. The agency said earlier this month that it had received a complete application from the pipeline company and opened a 30-day comment period with no public hearing. The notice came just five weeks after it was revealed that the state would reconsider the previously abandoned project — reportedly as part of a deal with the Trump administration to allow a major offshore wind project to move ahead, though Hochul’s office has denied a quid pro quo.

Renewable developers, by contrast, can spend years applying and reapplying for permits before they’re allowed to proceed to a mandatory, 60-day public comment period.

“If we’re cutting red tape for other forms of energy, we should cut red tape for renewable energy, too,” Wells said.

Read Next

‘A self-inflicted tragedy’: Congress approves reversal of US climate policy

Joseph Winters

Whether any wind or solar projects remain viable in New York after the federal tax credits expire remains an open question. Although Trump has framed his efforts as rolling back Biden-era policies, solar and wind tax credits date as far back as the 1970s, and have remained largely steady since 2005.

Some, like Weatherley-White, remain optimistic that the renewable industry can learn to live without them.

“The renewable energy industry has adapted to lots of changes over time,” he said, suggesting that developers could find ways to cut costs to cushion the blow from losing the tax credits.

“Unfortunately, there will be losers and winners,” Weatherley-White continued. “I think we’re going to see some short-term pain. But in the long run or medium term, let’s say, I think people will adapt and succeed.”

The labor coalition Climate Jobs NY struck a similarly bullish tone in a statement earlier this month. “With or without the support from our federal lawmakers, union workers in New York will find ways to build the pro-worker clean energy economy we need,” the group wrote.

Others see the glass half empty. Arun said that a key part of how the industry hoped to bring down costs was by using tax credits to build momentum and standardize the development process.

“If you can’t build, there’s no standardization or lowering costs through economies of scale,” he said. “And that’s what I’m really worried about.”

Hochul’s office, too, is striking a sober note.

“The federal budget bill slashes the very tools states need to achieve energy independence and economic growth,” Lovett said, “and no state will be able to backfill the massive cuts they face across so many key areas.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The race to build solar and wind in New York before Trump’s tax credit deadline on Jul 19, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Colin Kinniburgh.

It’s happening more frequently with more ferocity than ever before, for example, massive LA Fires (Jan. 2025); village of Blatten, Switzerland buried by collapsing glacier (May 2025); flash floods slam Vermont third year in a row (July 2025); Texas river rises 30 feet in one hour (July 2025), China real-life apocalypse 11-level winds, 4-story high flood, 150°F heat (July 2025); fatal storms flood south France (May 2025); glacial lake outburst washes away five villages, Afghanistan (June 2025); Queensland, one of worst floods of all time (2025); Kentucky flood kills eleven (Feb. 2025); glacial lake outburst kills 28, Nepal (July 2025); deadly flash floods kill 32 Pakistan (June 2025); northeastern India States devastated by massive flooding, landslides, buildings collapse, 34 dead (June 2025); Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, 49 dead flash flood (May 2025); villages washed away in seconds, Nigeria flash flood, killing 151 (May 2025); East Africa massive flood kills hundreds (March 2025) Balkans pounded by thunderous storms as wildfires break out in Türkiye, Greece, Spain, and France (July 2025); Massive flood, northeastern Spain (July 2025); severe drought, northern and western Europe, river transport and agriculture threatened under emergency drought alert (June 2025).

“We have long known, for example, that there will be more heat waves, forest fires and severe droughts in many regions—that in itself is no surprise. What surprised us is that the increase is so large that we see a clear paradigm shift with multiple coinciding extreme events becoming the new normal,” according to Professor Gabriele Messori, the study’s lead author.” (“Heat Waves, Droughts, and Fires May Soon Hit Together as ‘New Normal’ Study Finds,” Topics, Uppsala University, June 5, 2025).

As of July 15, 2025: Dangerous flooding has hit several locations in the United States. Water gushed into subways, New York City, roads flooded, New Jersey in a series of pounding thunderstorms. Flash floods hit a mountainous region, New Mexico. Massive downpour clobbered roads and homes, North Carolina. In every case, the flooding was caused by sudden extremely heavy pounding rainstorms. Global warming has turned into a monster of mass destruction on a biblical scale. It has hatched ‘Weather Whiplash’, a vicious cycle of sudden sizeable wet periods bringing on rapid vegetation growth followed by extreme dry hotness followed by ferocious wildfires as weather cocktails of catastrophic scale hit in quick succession.

The Messori study clearly identified this new phenomenon:

By analyzing postprocessed data from the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project, we provide a global mapping of future changes in the compound occurrence of six categories of hazards or impacts related to climate extremes. These are: river floods, droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, tropical cyclone-induced winds and crop failures…  A striking change is projected for the future recurrence of compound hazards or impacts, with many locations experiencing specific compound occurrences at least once a year for several years, or even decades, in a row. In the absence of effective global climate mitigation actions, we may thus witness a qualitative regime shift from a world dominated by individual climate-related hazards and impacts to one where compound occurrences become the norm. (Source: Earth’s Future)

Climate change has broadened its reach via temperatures climbing globally, which feeds into a series of increasingly powerful events. Insurance companies worldwide have been caught flat-footed, unable to turn left or right politically, as neither offers serious solutions. According to Gallagher Re, a major reinsurance company: “World on Fire 2025: Impacts of an Expanding Wildfire Season”: “As events during the past 12 months have demonstrated, every season is now wildfire season, and fires in urban areas are an increasingly growing concern.”

Out of control wildfires as well as flooding from sudden ‘atmospheric rivers’ are hitting cities, towns, and villages worldwide on a scale never seen before. This is climate change strutting its stuff on TV, nightly somewhere in the world. This new TV stardom brings to light, in every living room, the brutal truth of an obscenely crazed human-induced climate system flailing wildly on its own power that humans ignited. Now, nobody can turn it off.

Consequently, governments of the world are massively beefing up relief agencies to help their citizens. “Trump is Gutting Weather Science and Reducing Disaster Relief,” New York Times, July 12, 2025, as he gooses up the wallets of billionaires via obscene tax cuts that will blow up America’s deficit like a hot air balloon. Watch for it to burst. This is presidential?

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Robert Hunziker.

But there’s going to be a new mine in East Tennessee — one of a few slated across the country, their permits expedited by President Donald Trump’s declaration of an “energy emergency” and his designating coal a critical mineral.

Trump was only hours into his second term when he signed an executive order declaring a national energy emergency that directed federal agencies to “identify and exercise any lawful emergency authorities available to them” to identify and exploit domestic energy resources. The administration also has scrapped Biden-era rules that made it easier to bring mining-related complaints to the federal government.

The emergency designation compresses the typically years-long environmental review required for a new mine to just weeks. These assessments are to be compiled within 14 days of receiving a permit application, limiting comment periods to 10 days. The process of compiling an environmental impact statement – a time-intensive procedure involving scientists from many disciplines and assessments of wildlife populations, water quality, and other factors –  is reduced to less than a month. The government insists this eliminates burdensome red tape.

“We’re not just issuing permits — we’re supporting communities, securing supply chains for critical industries, and making sure the U.S. stays competitive in a changing global energy landscape,” Adam Suess,  the acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Interior Department, said in a statement. A representative of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement told Grist that community safety is top of mind, pointing to the administration’s $725 million investment in abandoned mineland reclamation.

The Department of Interior ruled that the Hurricane Creek Mine slated for Claiborne County, Tennessee, would have “no significant impact” and approved it. It will provide about two dozen jobs. The strip mine will cover 635 acres of previously mined land that has reverted to forest. Hurricane Creek Mining, LLC plans to pry 1.8 million tons of coal from the earth over 10 years.

The Clearfork Valley, which straddles two rural counties and has long struggled economically, bears the scars of more than a century’s underground and surface mining. Local residents and scientists regularly test the creeks for signs of bright-orange mine drainage and other toxins.

The land is part of a tract the Nature Conservancy bought in 2019 for conservation purposes, but because of ownership structures in the coalfields, it owns only the land, not the minerals within it. “We have concerns about the potential environmental impacts of the operation,” the organization said in a statement. “We seek assurance that there will be adequate bonding, consistent and transparent environmental monitoring, and good reclamation practices.”

Matt Hepler, an environmental scientist with environmental advocacy group Appalachian Voices, has been following the mine’s public review process since the company applied for a permit in 2023. He remains skeptical that things will work out well for Hurricane Creek. Despite Trump’s promise that he is “bringing back an industry that’s been abandoned,” coal has seen a steady decline, driven in no small part by the plummeting price of natural gas. The number of people working the nation’s coal mines has steadily declined from 89,000 or so in 2012 to about 41,300 today. Production fell 31 percent during Trump’s first term, and has continued that slide. 

“What is this company doing differently that’s going to allow them to profitably succeed while so many other mines have not been able to make that work?” he said. “All the time I’ve been working in Tennessee there’s only been a couple of mines permitted to begin with because production has been on the downswing there,” Hepler added. 

Economists say opening more mines may not reverse the global downward trend. Plentiful, cheap natural gas, along with increasingly affordable wind and solar, are displacing coal as an energy source. The situation is so dire that one Stanford University study argued that the gas would continue its climb even with the elimination of coal-related regulations. Metallurgical coal, used to make steel — and which Hurricane Creek hopes  to excavate — fares no better. It has seen flat or declining demand amid innovation in steel production.

Expedited permits are leading to new mines in the West as well. The Department of Interior just approved a land lease for Wyoming’s first new coal mine in 50 years. Ramaco Resources will extract and process the material in order to retrieve the rare earth and other critical minerals found alongside it. The Trump administration also is selling coal leases on previously protected federal land. Shiloh Hernandez, a senior attorney at the Northern Rockies office of the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice, thinks it is a fool’s errand.

“I don’t see them changing the fundamental dynamics of coal,” he said. “That’s not to say that the Trump administration won’t cause lots of harm in the process by both making the public pay more money for energy than they should and by keeping some of these coal plants and coal mines that really are zombies.”

Still, Hernandez said he isn’t seeing many new permits, just quicker approval of those already in the pipeline. That said, the Trump administration’s moves to streamline environmental review will reduce oversight and the time the public has to scrutinize coal projects.

“The result is there’s just going to be it’s going to be more difficult for the public to participate, and more harm is going to occur,” Hernandez said. “There’s going to be less attention to the harm that’s caused by these operations.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Trump is fast-tracking new coal mines – even when they don’t make economic sense on Jul 18, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Katie Myers.

New Caledonian politicians who inked their commitment to a deal with France last weekend will be offered special police protection following threats, especially made on social media networks.

The group includes almost 20 members of New Caledonia’s parties — both pro-France and pro-independence — who took part in deal-breaking negotiations with the French State that ended on 12 July 2025, and a joint commitment regarding New Caledonia’s political future.

The endorsed document envisages a roadmap in the coming months to turn New Caledonia into a “state” within the French realm.

• READ MORE: New Caledonia’s political parties commit to ‘historic’ statehood deal
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

It is what some legal experts have sometimes referred to as “a state within the state”, while others say this was tantamount to pushing the French Constitution to its very limits.

The document is a commitment by all signatories that they will stick to their respective positions from now on.

The tense but conclusive negotiations took place behind closed doors in a hotel in the small city of Bougival, near Paris, under talks driven by French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls and a team of high-level French government representatives and advisers.

It followed Valls’ several unsuccessful attempts earlier this year to reach a consensus between parties who want New Caledonia to remain part of France and others representing the pro-independence movement.

The pro-French parties, for instance, have had to endorse the notion of a State of New Caledonia or that of a double French-New Caledonian nationality.

Pro-independence parties have had to accept the plan to modify the rules of eligibility to vote at local elections so as to allow more non-native French nationals to join the local electoral roll.

They also had to postpone or even give up on the hard-line full sovereignty demand for now.

Over the past five years and after a series of three referendums (held between 2018 and 2021) on self-determination, both camps have increasingly radicalised.

This resulted in destructive and deadly riots that broke out in May 2024, resulting in 14 deaths, more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.9 billion) in damage, thousands of jobless and the destruction of hundreds of businesses.

Over one year later, the atmosphere in New Caledonia remains marked by a sense of tension, fear and uncertainty on both sides of the political chessboard.

Since the deal was signed and made public, on July 12, and even before flying back to New Caledonia, all parties have been targeted by a wide range of reactions from their militant bases, especially on social media.

Some of the reactions have included thinly-veiled death threats in response to a perception that, on one side or another, the deal was not up to the militants’ expectations and that the parties’ negotiators are now regarded as “traitors”.

Since signing the Paris agreement, all parties have also recognised the need to “sell” and “explain” the new agreement to their respective militants.

Most of the political parties represented during the talks have already announced they will hold meetings in the coming days, in what is described as “an exercise in pedagogy”.

“In a certain number of countries, when you sign compromises after hundreds of hours of discussions and when it’s not accepted [by your militants], you lose your reputation. In our country . . . you can risk your life,” said moderate pro-France Calédonie Ensemble leader Philippe Gomès told public broadcaster NC La Première on Wednesday.

Pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) chief negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou was the first to face negative repercussions back in New Caledonia.

Tjibaou’s fateful precedent
“To choose this difficult and new path also means we’ll be subject to criticism. We’re going to get insulted, threatened, precisely because we have chosen a different path,” he told a debriefing meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.

In 1988, Tjibaou’s father, pro-independence leader Jean-Marie Tjibaou, also signed a historic deal (known as the Matignon-Oudinot accords) with pro-France’s Jacques Lafleur, under the auspices of then Prime Minister Michel Rocard.

The deal largely contributed to restoring peace in New Caledonia, after a quasi-civil war during the second half of the 1980s.

The following year, he and his deputy, Yeiwéné Yeiwéné, were both shot dead by Djubelly Wéa, a hard-line member of the pro-independence movement, who believed the signing of the 1988 deal had been a “betrayal” of the indigenous Kanak people’s struggle for sovereignty and independence.

‘Nobody has betrayed anybody’
“Nobody has betrayed anybody, whichever party he belongs to. All of us, on both sides, have defended and remained faithful to their beliefs. We had to work and together find a common ground for the years to come, for Caledonians. Now that’s what we need to explain,” said pro-France Rassemblement-LR leader Virginie Ruffenach.

In an interview earlier this week, Valls said he was very aware of the local tensions.

“I’m aware there are risks, even serious ones. And not only political. There are threats on elections, on politicians, on the delegations. What I’m calling for is debate, confrontation of ideas and calm.

“I’m aware that there are extremists out there, who may want to provoke a civil war . . . a tragedy is always possible.

“The risk is always there. Since the accord was signed, there have been direct threats on New Caledonian leaders, pro-independence or anti-independence.

“We’re going to act to prevent this. There cannot be death threats on social networks against pro-independence or anti-independence leaders,” Valls said.

Over the past few days, special protection French police officers have already been deployed to New Caledonia to take care of politicians who took part in the Bougival talks and wish to be placed under special scrutiny.

“They will be more protected than (French cabinet) ministers,” French national public broadcaster France Inter reported on Tuesday.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

It’s an admission that may as well have come from The New York Times itself.

In an article titled “I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.”, a Brown University professor of Holocaust and genocide studies named Omer Bartov argues that “Israel is literally trying to wipe out Palestinian existence in Gaza,” and denounces his fellow Holocaust scholars for failing to acknowledge reality.

“My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” Bartov writes. “Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer, and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one.”

And resist he did. In November 2023, Bartov wrote another op-ed for The New York Times saying, “As a historian of genocide, I believe that there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza, although it is very likely that war crimes, and even crimes against humanity, are happening.”

Apparently, he is seeing the proof now and has stopped resisting what has been clear from the very beginning. And it would seem the editors of the Gray Lady have ceased resisting as well.

The New York Times, which has an extensively documented pro-Israel bias, has frenetically avoided the use of the g-word on its pages from the very beginning of the Gaza onslaught. Even in its opinion and analysis pieces the NYT Overton window has cut off at framing the issue as a complex matter of rigorous debate, with headlines like “Accused of Genocide, Israelis See Reversal of Reality. Palestinians See Justice.” and “The Bitter Fight Over the Meaning of ‘Genocide’” representing the closest thing to the pro-Palestinian side of the debate you’d see. During the same time, we’ve seen headlines like “From the Embers of an Old Genocide, a New One May Be Emerging” used in reference to Sudan.

In an internal memo obtained by The Intercept last year, New York Times reporters were explicitly told to avoid the use of the word “genocide”, as well as terms like “ethnic cleansing” and “occupied territory”.

“‘Genocide’ has a specific definition in international law,” the memo reads. “In our own voice, we should generally use it only in the context of those legal parameters. We should also set a high bar for allowing others to use it as an accusation, whether in quotations or not, unless they are making a substantive argument based on the legal definition.”

Earlier this year, the American Friends Service Committee cancelled its paid advertisement in The New York Times calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza, saying the outlet had wanted them to change the word “genocide” to “war” in order for their ad to be published.

So there has been a significant change.

To be clear, this analysis by Omer Bartov is not significant in and of itself. He is only joining the chorus of what has already been said by human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, United Nations human rights experts, and the overwhelming majority of leading authorities on the subject of genocide.

What is significant is that even experts who’ve been resisting acknowledging the reality of the genocide in Gaza because of their bias toward Israel have stopped doing so, and that even the imperial media outlets most fiendishly devoted to running propaganda cover for that genocide have run out of room to hide.

The Israel apologists have lost the argument. They might not know it yet, but they have. Public sentiment has turned irreversibly against them as people’s eyes are opened to the truth of what’s happening in Gaza, and more and more propagandists are choosing to rescue what’s left of their tattered credibility instead of going down with the sinking ship.

Truth is slowly beginning to get a word in edgewise.

Keep pushing. Keep fighting. Keep resisting.

It’s working.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Caitlin Johnstone.

These four Task Forces—focused on lowering costs, ending corporate greed, fighting corruption, and securing better pay and benefits—are part of a broader effort by the CPC to define a Democratic governing agenda that is clear, popular, easy to understand, and quickly delivers material benefits to working people.

Among other work, the Task Forces will be focused on advancing a slate of policy proposals members have been working on internally for several months that are not only progressive, but also enjoy support from voters across the ideological and demographic spectrum—from suburban voters to non-college-educated to independents—and could be passed by a Democratic House after the midterms. New polling from Data for Progress finds these policies enjoy a supermajority and give a 9-point advantage for Democrats who lead with these themes compared to a generic Democratic message against a Republican opponent.

The four new Task Forces are:

• Lowering Costs

Chair: Rep. Yassamin Ansari

• Fighting Corruption

Chair: Rep. Dave Min

Vice Chair: Rep. Hank Johnson

• Ending Corporate Greed

Chair: Rep. Becca Balint

• Better Pay and Benefits

Chair: Rep. Emily Randall

Vice Chair: Rep. Mark DeSaulnier

In addition, CPC Deputy Chair Rep. Ilhan Omar will help lead the coordination of Task Force work and take over as Chair of the Caucus’s longstanding Peace & Security Task Force this Congress.

"Working people in America are getting screwed by corrupt politicians and big corporations that are driving costs up and keeping pay and benefits down,” said Rep. Greg Casar (TX-35). “Our four new task forces go directly at those big problems facing Americans: fighting corruption and corporate greed in order to lower costs and win better pay and benefits."

“In my home state of Arizona, families have been crushed by rising costs brought on by Trump and Republicans—whether it’s skyrocketing healthcare premiums, unaffordable housing, or the soaring costs of education, childcare, long-term care, and even just commuting to work,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03). “I’m honored to lead the Lowering Costs Task Force as one of the ways we’re fighting back to deliver bold policies that will help working families.”

“Whether it was prosecuting fraud at the SEC or teaching the next generation of advocates as a law professor at UC Irvine, I’ve spent my career fighting to uphold the rule of law and root out corruption,” said Rep. Dave Min (CA-47). “Americans are fed up with an economy and a government that are rigged in favor of the powerful and well connected while failing to serve working people. I’m proud to continue the anti-corruption fight in Congress and look forward to working with my colleagues in the Progressive Caucus to fight for transparency and fairness.”

“I came to Congress to unrig a system that makes it so hard for so many Americans to get a fair shot,” said Rep. Becca Balint (VT-AL). “And today, I’m fired up to launch the Ending Corporate Greed Task Force alongside my progressive colleagues to do the real work necessary to build an America that gives people a real chance at an easier life. Corporate greed is at the root of so many of the struggles working people face. And it’s time we take back power over our rigged economy and fight back against the greed that makes everything harder for the rest of us. Because we have a vision for a reality where we can all afford to make rent, have affordable health care, get paid fair wages, and get an education without crippling debt. ”

“In my family and in my community, I’ve seen firsthand how good Union wages and pensions open doors to stability, to opportunity, to economic security. I’ve seen my grandparents, my teachers, my neighbors afford homes and vacations and childcare because they had good jobs. But over the years, affording a good life has gotten harder and harder,” said Rep. Emily Randall (WA-06). “Our neighbors deserve leaders who put people before profits and stand up for what’s right. They deserve leaders who understand that an economy that is centered on working people is a stronger economy for everyone. As Chair of the Better Pay and Benefits Task Force, I’m committed to fighting for fairer wages, stronger benefits, safer workplaces, and an economy that puts working people first – right at the center of our policies.”

“In a time of record-breaking income inequality and rampant corporate greed, it is more important than ever that we as Democrats reassert and reinforce our commitment to working people,” said Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10). “As both a former union member and small business owner, I have seen firsthand how American workers have for too long been taken advantage of by big corporations and greedy CEOs. I am proud to help lead the Task Force for Better Pay and Benefits as Vice Chair to restore power to working people, the engine of our economy, so they can continue to be the best, most productive labor force in the world while living with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

“I am thrilled to take over as Chair of the Promoting Peace and Security Task Force and follow in the footsteps of my mentor, the incredible Barbara Lee,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05). “This task force is needed now more than ever to hold this corrupt administration accountable. Our task force will focus on limiting our global armed presence and instead investing in diplomacy that will allow us to reorient our engagement with the world.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

On July 16, 1945, the United States carried out the Trinity test, the world’s first nuclear detonation. Today, 80 years later, the University of Chicago — the site of the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction — is host to the Nobel Laureate Assembly for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an event that brings Nobel laureates and nuclear experts together to confront the growing global risk of nuclear war. The event features a performance by the award-winning string ensemble Kronos Quartet, who have spearheaded two new renditions of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” featuring nearly 50 more artists from around the world. Titled “Hard Rain” and “Hard Rain (Drone),” the new pieces aim to raise awareness of the ongoing threat of nuclear war.

As the global political situation becomes increasingly unstable, says professor Daniel Holz, chair of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and one of the organizers of the assembly, “the likelihood that we’ll sort of stumble into a nuclear war and the end of civilization … has gone way up.” Holz joins Democracy Now! alongside violinist, artistic director and founder of the Kronos Quartet, David Harrington, to share what inspired them to commission and create “Hard Rain,” which debuts today. “We need everyone in the world to know how dangerous and how awful this is for all of us. And if music and musicians can step up and project those kinds of concerns about all of our futures, then music is doing its job,” says Harrington.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The New Zealand government needs to do more for its Pacific Island neighbours and stand up to nuclear powers, a distinguished journalist, media educator and author says.

Professor David Robie, a recipient of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM), released the latest edition of his book Eyes of Fire: The last voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior (Little Island Press), which highlights the nuclear legacies of the United States and France.

Dr Robie, who has worked in Pacific journalism and academia for more than 50 years, recounts the crew’s experiences aboard the Greenpeace flagship the Rainbow Warrior in 1985, before it was bombed in Auckland Harbour.

• LISTEN: Dr David Robie talks to RNZ Pacific last week
• Crimes NZ: David Robie on the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior — RNZ Afternoons
• Other Eyes of Fire reports

At the time, New Zealand stood up to nuclear powers, he said.

“It was pretty callous [of] the US and French authorities to think they could just carry on nuclear tests in the Pacific, far away from the metropolitan countries, out of the range of most media, and just do what they like,” Dr Robie told RNZ Pacific. “It is shocking, really.”

Speaking to Pacific Waves, Dr Robie said that Aotearoa had “forgotten” how to stand up for the region.

“The real issue in the Pacific is about climate crisis and climate justice. And we’re being pushed this way and that by the US [and] by the French. The French want to make a stake in their Indo-Pacific policies as well,” he said.

‘We need to stand up’
“We need to stand up for smaller Pacific countries.”

Dr Robie believes that New Zealand is failing with its diplomacy in the region.

He accused the coalition government of being “too timid” and “afraid of offending President Donald Trump” to make a stand on the nuclear issue.

However, a spokesperson for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters told RNZ Pacific that New Zealand’s “overarching priority . . . is to work with Pacific partners to achieve a secure, stable, and prosperous region that preserves Pacific sovereignty and agency”.

The spokesperson said that through its foreign policy “reset”, New Zealand was committed to “comprehensive relationships” with Pacific Island countries.

“New Zealand’s identity, prosperity and security are intertwined with the Pacific through deep cultural, people, historical, security, and economic linkages.”

The New Zealand government commits almost 60 percent of its development funding to the region.

Pacific ‘increasingly contested’
The spokesperson said that the Pacific was becoming increasingly contested and complex.

“New Zealand has been clear with all of our partners that it is important that engagement in the Pacific takes place in a manner which advances Pacific priorities, is consistent with established regional practices, and supportive of Pacific regional institutions.”

They added that New Zealand’s main focus remained on the Pacific, “where we will be working with partners including the United States, Australia, Japan and in Europe to more intensively leverage greater support for the region.

“We will maintain the high tempo of political engagement across the Pacific to ensure alignment between our programme and New Zealand and partner priorities. And we will work more strategically with Pacific Governments to strengthen their systems, so they can better deliver the services their people need,” the spokesperson said.

However, former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, writing in the prologue of Dr Robie’s book, said: “New Zealand needs to re-emphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.”

Dr Robie added that looking back 40 years to the 1980s, there was a strong sense of pride in being from Aotearoa, the small country which set an example around the world.

“We took on . . . the nuclear powers,” Dr Robie said.

“And the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior was symbolic of that struggle, in a way, but it was a struggle that most New Zealanders felt a part of, and we were very proud of that [anti-nuclear] role that we took.

“Over the years, it has sort of been forgotten”.

‘Look at history’
France conducted 193 nuclear tests over three decades until 1996 in French Polynesia.

Until 2009, France claimed that its tests were “clean” and caused no harm, but in 2010, under the stewardship of Defence Minister Herve Morin, a compensation law was passed.

From 1946 to 1962, 67 nuclear bombs were detonated in the Marshall Islands by the US.

In 2024, then-US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell, while responding to a question from RNZ Pacific about America’s nuclear legacy, said: “Washington has attempted to address it constructively with massive resources and a sustained commitment.”

However, Dr Robie said that was not good enough and labelled the destruction left behind by the US, and France, as “outrageous”.

“It is political speak; politicians trying to cover their backs and so on. If you look at history, [the response] is nowhere near good enough, both by the US and the French.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The new regulations establish fines of 20,000 soms (US$230) for individuals, and 65,000 soms (US$740) against outlets found to have violated the law.

“The new law on so-called fake news is just one element of a broader legislative campaign under President Japarov aimed at restricting media, civil society, and public discourse in Kyrgyzstan,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Kyrgyz authorities should repeal the law and reverse their escalating legal assault on the independent press.”

The new false news legislation follows similar amendments that went into force in February. These introduced identical administrative fines for defamation and insult. In both cases, complaints are handled by the police and adjudicated in brief administrative court hearings, which journalists fear will allow authorities to swiftly fine media and avoid a thorough judicial review.

Since Japarov came to power in 2020, Kyrgyz authorities have dramatically expanded their arsenal of laws targeting the press while shuttering critical outlets and jailing journalists. A 2021 law empowers the government to extrajudicially block news websites for what it deems false news, and in 2024, Japarov enacted a Russian-style foreign agent law.

On June 25, parliament passed a controversial mass media that allows the government to determine which individuals and organizations are permitted to publish news. The law has sparked criticism from journalists and international organizations such as CPJ, which urged Japarov to veto the bill. 

The president stated earlier this month that he has not yet reviewed the mass media law and will decide whether to sign or return it after careful consideration.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Lauren Wolfe.

Adhikari said, “Koi Bangali Kashmir nahi jayega. Jahan Musalman abaadi zyada hai, main party affiliation mein nahi bolta hu, mai BJP ke MLA (hokar) nahi (bolta hu)… main jiss tareekein se Bitan Adhikary ji ka wife, Samir Guha ji ka wife ka aasun dekha na… mai unko sujhaav de diya. Bhai jahaan musalmaan abaadi hai, usmein mat jao… Kashmir jana hai toh Jammu jao. Kashmir jaana hai toh Jammu mein jao, jahaan musalmaan abaadi zyada hai, mat jao. Mat jao. Apne kapda khulke, aur sindoor dekh ke chunchun ke maara hai. Humara Himachal Pradesh hai jaiye na, Devbhoomi hai. Uttarakhand jaiyena, Jaiye Orissa jaiye…Pura desh ghumna chahiye humlogo ko… lekin Bangal mein mai personal mera mai ek sensible citizen hu, mai airport mein Bitan Adhikari ji ka wife aur Sameer Guha ji ka wife jo mujhe bataya aplogo ka saamne, aur unka jitna bhi aansu dekha hai na… Main Bangali logon (ko) bata raha hu, aap musalmaan jahaan hai zyada, mat jaiye. Jaan pehle. Apne jaan ko raksha kijiye, chhota chhota bachha ko rakhsa kijiye. Didi behen ko raksha (kijiye)…”

(Translation: No Bengali will go to Kashmir. I am not saying this from my party affiliation or as a BJP MLA… The way I saw the tears of Bitan Adhikari’s wife, Samir Guha’s wife… I suggested to them. Don’t go where there is a majority Muslim population… If you want to go to Kashmir, go to Jammu… If you want to go to Kashmir, go to Jammu, but don’t go to a place where there is a majority of Muslims. Don’t go. (They) took off clothes, and checked the vermilion (on the women’s foreheads), and killed selectively. We have Himachal Pradesh, go there, it is our Devbhoomi. Go to Uttarakhand, go to Odisha… We should travel the whole country.. I am a sensible citizen… I saw Bitan Adhikari’s wife and Sameer Guha’s wife at the airport, whatever they told me in front of you people… I have seen their tears. I am telling the Bengali people — do not go to a place which has a majority Muslim population. Life first. Protect your life, protect your children. Protect your sisters.)

#WATCH | Kolkata | On J&K CM Omar Abdullah inviting people of West Bengal to visit J&K, WB LoP and BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari says, “… No Bengali will visit Kashmir. I am saying this out of party affiliation, don’t visit places where Muslims are in the majority. Go to Jammu if… pic.twitter.com/Fn0IZ3KEQK

— ANI (@ANI) July 10, 2025

Hours before Adhikari’s comments, Abdullah had assured potential tourists from West Bengal that the J&K government had taken sufficient security-related steps after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam. He also urged people to trust those who had been to Kashmir after the attack rather than believing “those sitting outside and making judgments without even knowing the place.” It is worth noting that on an average, 25-30% of Kashmir tourists are reportedly from Bengal.

In his remarks, Adhikari used the attack in Pahalgam to ‘warn’ Bengalis against visiting Muslim majority areas. Adhikari had met the families of two victims of the attack, Bitan Adhikari and Sameer Guha — both of whom were Bengali. The implications of Adhikari’s remarks are layered. In a statement after India’s retaliatory Operation Sindoor, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri had said that the terrorists “didn’t just want to traumatise victims and families to ‘send a message’, but targeted the economy in Jammu Kashmir, and attempted to provoke ‘communal discord’ in India, which failed.”

However, when the Leader of Opposition of West Bengal, a state that provides a significant fraction of tourism to Kashmir, urges the residents of his state to refrain from visiting due to the majority of Muslims, it furthers the communal narrative while also implicitly calling for an economic boycott of Muslims. This clearly amounts to religious discrimination and hate speech.

New Bengal BJP Chief’s ‘Muslim Outreach’

Interestingly, Adhikari’s comments come days after newly elected Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya spoke about the BJP’s outreach to the minority community in West Bengal. “Even if the Muslims do not vote for us, our development must and will reach their homes,” Bhattacharya said in an interview with India Today’s Insight. Before this, in a seeming departure from the party’s erstwhile political stance, Bhattacharya stated that his party was not against Muslims, and envisaged a West Bengal where Muharram and Durga puja immersion could be held side by side without communal clashes. This remark came at the very event where he was formally introduced as the state unit chief and in the presence of Adhikari.

In stark contrast to this, Adhikari has clearly said in the past the Bengal BJP MLAs had been elected by Hindus, while the Mamata Banerjee government was “a govt of Mollahs”. Addressing media persons outside the state assembly on February 17, 2025, Adhikari had said, “I, along with Agnimitra Pal, Biswanath Karak, and Bankim Ghosh, take pride in the fact that we won with Hindu votes — not with Muslim votes. BJP MLAs and MPs hold their positions today because of Hindu and ST votes… this government — a government of Mollahs, a government for Muslims… has targeted me. The chief minister is an appeaser of Muslims, an enemy of Hindus, leading a government that is nothing less than Muslim League 2.0…”

Again, in July 2024, while claiming that Muslims of West Bengal had not voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha election, Adhikari called for putting an end to the party’s slogan of ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikaas’. Speaking to journalists after the party’s first working committee meeting following the poll results, he also called for doing away with BJP’s ‘minority morchas’.

When asked to comment on Suvendu’s remarks on Kashmir, Bhattacharya said, “I don’t know in what context our Leader of Opposition is saying this. The stone pelting in Kashmir has stopped, and after the Pahalgam incident, there is panic in the minds of the people. I don’t know under what situation he (Adhikari) has said this now, and I haven’t heard (what he said). Maybe he said it because he thinks Himachal Pradesh is more beautiful. There is no dispute in the party about this (the remarks).”

Bhattacharya has also called Adhikari’s controversial remarks on Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas a ‘personal stance’. One wonders whether it is the new state unit chief’s minority outreach agenda that made Suvendu sound the disclaimer on July 10 that he was not speaking from party affiliation.

Adhikari, once Mamata Banerjee’s protege, beat Banerjee from the Nandigram seat in the 2021 assembly polls by a margin of 1,956 votes. According to the 2011 census, Nandigram has a Muslim population of 40.32%, second to the Hindu population of 59.37%.

The post Don’t go to Kashmir & Muslim majority areas, says Bengal LoP Suvendu amid new state BJP chief’s minority outreach appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

“Local solar, energy efficiency, and other clean energy resources helped make the power grid more reliable and more affordable for consumers,” said Jamie Dickerson, senior director of clean energy and climate programs at the Acadia Center, a regional nonprofit that analyzed clean energy’s financial benefits during the recent heat wave.

On June 24, as temperatures in the Northeast hit their highest levels so far this year, demand on the New England grid approached maximum capacity, climbing even higher than forecast. Then, unexpected outages at power plants reduced available generation by more than 1 gigawatt. As pressure increased, grid operator ISO New England made sure the power kept flowing by reducing exports to other regions, arranging for imports from neighboring areas, and tapping into reserve resources.

At the same time, rooftop and other ​“behind-the-meter” solar panels throughout the region, plus Vermont’s network of thousands of batteries, supplied several gigawatts of needed power, reducing demand on an already-strained system and saving customers millions of dollars. It was a demonstration, supporters say, of the way clean energy and battery storage can make the grid less carbon-intensive and more resilient, adaptable, and affordable as climate change drives increased extreme weather events.

“As we see more extremes, the region still will need to pursue an even more robust and diverse fleet of clean energy resources,” Dickerson said. ​“The power grid was not built for climate change.”

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On June 24, behind-the-meter solar made up as much as 22 percent of the power being used in New England at any given time, according to the Acadia Center. At 3:40 p.m., total demand peaked at 28.5 GW, of which 4.4 GW was met by solar installed by homeowners, businesses, and other institutions.

As wholesale power prices surpassed $1,000 per megawatt-hour, this avoided consumption from the grid saved consumers at least $8.2 million, according to the Acadia Center.

This estimate, however, is conservative, Dickerson said. He and his colleagues also did a more rigorous analysis accounting for the fact that solar suppresses wholesale energy prices by reducing overall demand on the system. By these calculations, the true savings for consumers actually topped $19 million, and even that seems low, Dickerson said.

In Vermont, the state’s largest utility also relieved some of the pressure on the grid by deploying its widespread network of residential and EV batteries. That could save its customers some $3 million by eliminating the utility’s need to buy expensive power from the grid and reducing fees tied to peak demand.

“Green Mountain Power has proven that by making these upfront investments in batteries, you can save ratepayers money,” said Peter Sterling, executive director of trade association Renewable Energy Vermont. ​“It’s something I think is replicable by other utilities in the country.”

Green Mountain Power’s system of thousands of batteries is what is often called a ​“virtual power plant” — a collection of geographically distributed resources like residential batteries, electric vehicles, solar panels, and wind turbines that can work together to supply power to the grid and or reduce demand. In Vermont, Green Mountain Power’s virtual power plant is its largest dispatchable resource, spokesperson Kristin Carlson said. The 72-MW system includes batteries from 5,000 customers, electric school bus batteries, and a mobile, utility-scale battery on wheels.

The network began in 2015 with the construction of a 3.4-megawatt-hour storage facility at a solar field in Rutland, Vermont. Two years later, the utility launched a modest pilot program offering Tesla’s Powerwall batteries to 20 customers, followed in 2018 by a pilot that paid customers to share their battery capacity during high-demand times. In 2022, a partnership with South Burlington’s school district linked electric school buses to the system, and in 2023, state regulators lifted an annual cap on new enrollments it had imposed on a Green Mountain Power program that leases batteries to households. The number of customers with home batteries has since grown by 72%.

“We’ve had a really dramatic expansion,” Carlson said. ​“It is growing by leaps and bounds.”

The network saved consumers money during the heat wave by avoiding the need to buy power at the high prices the market reached that day, but also by helping to lower the ​“capacity fees” charged by ISO New England. These charges are determined by the one hour of highest demand on the grid all year, and then allocated to each utility based on their contributions to that peak. By pulling power from batteries rather than just the grid, Green Mountain Power lowered its part of the peak.

If the afternoon of June 24 remains the time of peak demand for 2025, Green Mountain Power’s 275,000 customers will save about $3 million in total and avoided power purchases, the utility calculated. Looking ahead, more hot weather and further expansion of the utility’s virtual power plant will likely continue to put money back in customers’ pockets, Sterling said: ​“When you play that out over many years, that’s real savings to ratepayers.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A heat wave hit New England’s grid. Clean energy saved the day. on Jul 13, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Sarah Shemkus, Canary Media.

New Caledonia’s pro-and-anti-independence parties have committed to an “historic” deal over the future political status of the French Pacific territory, which is set to become — for the first time — a “state” within the French realm.

The 13-page agreement yesterday, officially entitled “Agreement Project of the Future of New Caledonia”, is the result of a solid 10 days of difficult negotiations between both pro and anti-independence parties.

They have stayed under closed doors at a hotel in the small city of Bougival, in the outskirts of Paris.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

The talks were convened by French President Emmanuel Macron after an earlier series of talks held between February and May 2025 failed to yield an agreement.

After opening the talks on July 2, Macron handed over them to his Minister for Overseas, Manuel Valls, to oversee. Valls managed to bring together all parties around the same table earlier this year.

In his opening speech earlier this month, Macron insisted on the need to restore New Caledonia’s economy, which was brought to its knees following destructive and deadly riots that erupted in May 2024.

He said France was ready to study any solution, including an “associated state” for New Caledonia.

During the following days, all political players exchanged views under the seal of strict confidentiality.

While the pro-independence movement, and its Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), remained adamant they would settle for no less than “full sovereignty”, the pro-France parties were mostly arguing that three referendums — held between 2018 and 2021 — had already concluded that most New Caledonians wanted New Caledonia to remain part of France.

Those results, they said, dictated that the democratic result of the three consultations be respected.

With this confrontational context, which resulted in an increasingly radicalised background in New Caledonia, that eventually led to the 2024 riots, the Bougival summit was dubbed the “last chance summit”.

In the early hours of Saturday, just before 7 am (Paris time, 5 pm NZ time), after a sleepless night, the secrecy surrounding the Bougival talks finally ended with an announcement from Valls.

He wrote in a release that all partners taking part in the talks had signed and “committed to present and defend the agreement’s text on New Caledonia’s future.”

Valls said this was a “major commitment resulting from a long work of negotiations during which New Caledonia’s partners made the choice of courage and responsibility”.

The released document, signed by almost 20 politicians, details what the deal would imply for New Caledonia’s future.

In its preamble, the fresh deal underlines that New Caledonia was “once again betting on trust, dialogue and peace”, through “a new political organisation, a more widely shared sovereignty and an economic and social refoundation” for a “reinvented common destiny.”

New Caledonia’s population will be called to approve the agreement in February 2026.

If approved, the text would be the centrepiece of a “special organic law” voted by the local Congress.

It would later have to be endorsed by the French Parliament and enshrined in an article of the French Constitution.

What does the agreement contain?
One of the most notable developments in terms of future status for New Caledonia is the notion of a “State of New Caledonia”, under a regime that would maintain it as part of France, but with a dual citizenship — France/New Caledonia.

Another formulation used for the change of status is the often-used “sui generis”, which in legal Latin, describes a unique evolution, comparable to no other.

This would be formalised through a fundamental law to be endorsed by New Caledonia’s Congress by a required majority of three-fifths.

The number of MPs in the Congress would be 56.

The text also envisages a gradual transfer of key powers currently held by France (such as international relations), but would not include portfolios such as defence, currency or justice.

In diplomacy, New Caledonia would be empowered to conduct its own affairs, but “in respect of France’s international commitments and vital interests”.

On defence matters, even though this would remain under France’s powers, it is envisaged that New Caledonia would be “strongly” associated, consulted and kept informed, regarding strategy, goals and actions led by France in the Pacific region.

On police and public order matters, New Caledonia would be entitled to create its own provincial and traditional security forces, in addition to national French law enforcement agencies.

New Caledonia’s sensitive electoral roll
The sensitive issue of New Caledonia’s electoral roll and conditions of eligibility to vote at local elections (including for the three Provincial Assemblies) is also mentioned in the agreement.

It was this very issue that was perceived as the main trigger for the May 2024 riots, the pro-independence movement feared at the time that changing the conditions to vote would gradually place the indigenous Kanak community in a position of minority.

It is now agreed that the electoral roll would be partly opened to those people of New Caledonia who were born after 1998.

The roll was frozen in 2007 and restricted to people born before 1998, which is the date the previous major autonomy agreement of Nouméa was signed.

Under the new proposed conditions to access New Caledonia’s “citizenship”, those entitled would include people who already can vote at local elections, but also their children or any person who has resided in New Caledonia for an uninterrupted ten years or who has been married or lived in a civil de facto partnership with a qualified citizen for at least five years.

Provincial elections once again postponed
One of the first deadlines on the electoral calendar, the provincial elections, was to take place no later than 30 November 2025.

It will be moved once again — for the third time — to May-June 2026.

A significant part of the political deal is also dedicated to New Caledonia’s economic “refoundation”, with a high priority for the young generations, who have felt left out of the system and disenfranchised for too long.

One of the main goals was to bring New Caledonia’s public debts to a level of sustainability.

In 2024, following the riots, France granted, in the form of loans, over 1 billion euros (NZ $1.9 billion) for New Caledonia’s key institutions to remain afloat.

But some components of the political chessboard criticised the measure, saying this was placing the French territory in a state of excessive and long-term debt.

Strategic nickel
A major topic, on the macro-economic side, concerns New Caledonia’s nickel mining industry, after years of decline that has left it (even before 2024) in a state of near-collapse.

Nickel is regarded as the backbone of New Caledonia’s economy.

A nickel “strategic plan” would aim at re-starting New Caledonia nickel’s processing plants, especially in the Northern province, but at the same time facilitating the export of raw nickel.

There was also a will to ensure that all mining sites (many of which have been blocked and its installations damaged since the May 2024 riots) became accessible again.

Meanwhile, France would push the European Union to include New Caledonia’s nickel in its list of strategic resources.

New Caledonia’s nickel industry’s woes are also caused by its lack of competitiveness on the world market — especially compared to Indonesia’s recent rise in prominence in nickel production — because of the high cost of energy.

Swift reactions, mostly positive

The announcement yesterday was followed by quick reactions from all sides of New Caledonia’s political spectrum and also from mainland France’s political leaders.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou expressed “pride” to see an agreement “on par with history”, emerge.

“Bravo also to the work and patience of Manuel Valls” and “the decisive implication of Emmanuel Macron,” he wrote on X-Twitter.

From the ranks of New Caledonia’s political players, pro-France Nicolas Metzdorf said he perceived as one of the deal’s main benefits the fact that “we will at last be able to project ourselves in the future, in economic, social and societal reconstruction without any deadline.”

Metzdorf admitted that reaching an agreement required concessions and compromise from both sides.

“But the fact that we are no longer faced with referendums and to reinforce the powers of our provinces, this was our mandate”, he told public broadcaster NC La 1ère.

“We’ve had to accept this change from New Caledonia citizenship to New Caledonian nationality, which remains to be defined by New Caledonia’s Congress. We have also created a completely new status as part of the French Republic, a sui generis State”, he noted.

He said the innovative status kept New Caledonia within France, without going as far as an “associated state” mooted earlier.

“At least, what we have arrived at is that New Caledonians remain French”, pro-France Le Rassemblement-LR prominent leader Virginie Ruffenach commented.

“And those who want to contribute to New Caledonia’s development will be able to do so through a minimum stay of residence, the right to vote and to become citizens and later New Caledonia nationals”

“I’m aware that some could be wary of the concessions we made, but let’s face it: New Caledonia nationality does not make New Caledonia an independent State . . . It does not take away anything from us, neither of us belonging to the French Republic nor our French nationality,” Southern Province pro-France President Sonia Backès wrote on social media.

In a joint release, the two main pro-France parties, Les Loyalistes and Rassemblement-LR, said the deal was no less than “historic” and “perennial” for New Caledonia as a whole, to “offer New Caledonia a future of peace, stability and prosperity” while at the same time considering France’s Indo-Pacific strategy.

From the pro-independence side, one of the negotiators, Victor Tutugoro of UNI-UPM (Progressist Union in Melanesia) said what mattered was that “all of us have placed our bets on intelligence, beyond our respective beliefs, our positions, our postures”.

“We put all of these aside for the good of the country.”

“Of course, by definition, a compromise cannot satisfy anyone 100 percent. But it’s a balanced compromise for everyone,” he said.

“And it allows us to look ahead, to build New Caledonia together, a citizenship and this common destiny everyone’s been talking about for many years.”

Before politicians fly back to New Caledonia to present the deal to their respective bases, President Macron received all delegation members last evening to congratulate them on their achievements.

During the Presidential meeting at the Elysée Palace, FLNKS chief negotiator Emmanuel Tjibaou (whose father Jean-Marie Tjibaou also struck a historic agreement and shook hands with pro-France leader Jacques Lafleur, in 1988), stressed the agreement was one step along the path and it allows to envisage new perspectives for the Kanak people.

A sign of the changing times, but in a striking parallel — 37 years after his father’s historic handshake with Lafleur, Emmanuel Tjibaou (whose father was shot dead in 1989 by a radical pro-independence partisan who felt the independence cause had been betrayed — did not shake hands, but instead fist pumped with pro-France’s Metzdorf.

In a brief message on social networks, the French Head of State hailed the conclusive talks, which he labelled “A State of New Caledonia within the (French) Republic,” a win for a “bet on trust.”

“Now is the time for respect, for stability and for the sum of good wills to build a shared future.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

As thousands of architects and planners flocked to New Orleans in 2014 for the world’s largest sustainable design conference, the city saw a chance to prove it belonged in the green building big leagues.

City leaders announced at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo that New Orleans would join Minneapolis, Seattle and a vanguard of other cities in developing a program requiring large building owners to track and disclose their energy use.

New Orleans’ embrace of “energy benchmarking” drew praise at the conference, with one green building expert declaring that the city was “paving the way” for the rest of the country to follow. 

But New Orleans lost momentum, waiting more than a decade before finally approving its benchmarking ordinance on Thursday. In the meantime, New Orleans fell behind about 50 other cities that have approved energy tracking and disclosure requirements for most large buildings.

“The benchmarking ordinance — finally!” New Orleans City Council member Helena Moreno said. “After many, many years, we’re finally getting there.” 

Benchmarking can both shame the power hogs and extol the virtues of the frugal. The data spurs investment in older, inefficient buildings and encourages more climate-conscious design in new ones, advocates say. 

“It’s well understood that one cannot change what one does not measure,” said Christopher Johnson, a board member with the New Orleans chapter of the American Institute of Architects. By passing the ordinance, the city is “empowering owners to take matters into their own hands to improve their buildings.”  

Buildings are responsible for 40 percent of total energy use in the U.S., and about 35 percent of the country’s carbon emissions, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Compared to much of the country, buildings in New Orleans tend to be older and less energy-efficient, with high air conditioning use and little insulation. 

Under the city’s plan, owners of buildings 50,000 square feet and larger would need to report annual energy use starting in 2026. In 2027, the requirement would expand to buildings more than 20,000 square feet. Noncompliance could result in fines between $1,000 and $3,000. 

The fines aren’t for inefficiency, Council President JP Morrell said. “They’re for failing to report the data.”

Energy use will be tracked on an interactive map and published in an annual report. 

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The ordinance covers about 1,500 properties. While buildings over 20,000 square feet make up just 1 percent of all structures, they account for nearly 40 percent of the city’s total building area, said Greg Nichols, the city’s deputy chief resilience officer. 

Nearly 80 percent of the buildings covered under the ordinance are categorized as commercial, and about 20 percent are residential. Of the commercial buildings, a quarter are warehouses, 16 percent are hotels and 12 percent are offices.  

Funding for implementing the ordinance is covered with $1.5 million from a $50 million greenhouse gas reduction grant awarded to the city by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year. Much of the money for the program would support a full-time employee tasked with promoting it and helping property owners with compliance. 

While President Donald Trump has been canceling or reclaiming many climate-related grants awarded by former President Joe Biden’s administration, the EPA grant appears secure, Nichols said. 

“Climate action is under threat right now from the Trump administration,” he said. “But this is an action that the City Council can take right now to show leadership at a time when other efforts are being imperiled.” 

Benchmarking is a key component of the city’s climate action plan. Updated in 2022, the plan aims to cut the city’s greenhouse gas emissions in half before 2035 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The benchmarking ordinance was supposed to be passed by the end of last year, according to the plan. 

“We are a city that’s committed to significant climate goals,” Morrell said. “It is nigh impossible to do that without benchmarking.” 

Cities with similar ordinances have seen building energy use drop by an average of 2.4 percent annually, according to the EPA. At that rate, the agency calculates that a 500,000-square-foot office building can save about $120,000 per year. 

Utility bill envy can be a potent motivator for property owners, Morrell said.

“It encourages a person to say, ‘Wait a second, we have similarly situated buildings, and I’m paying triple the cost in utility fees,’” he said. “‘It might be worth seeing how we can reduce those costs.’”  

New Orleans can look to its city-owned buildings for further proof of benchmarking’s effectiveness. The city began tracking each building’s energy use more than a decade ago. Between 2018 and 2021, energy use fell by about 23 percent, Nichols said. 

Most cities that require energy consumption tracking are concentrated in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast. Austin, Atlanta, Orlando and Miami are the only other Southern cities with benchmarking ordinances, according to the Institute for Market Transformation. 

“I’d love (New Orleans) to be one of the leading cities in the South in this area,” Nichols said. 

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Concerns about privacy and fines hindered the ordinance’s progress, city leaders said. To ease those worries, the city will now require property owners to disclose a building’s total energy use, not that of its tenants or other occupants. The ordinance would also waive penalties during the first year and cap fines at $3,000. 

Councilmember Oliver Thomas expressed doubts about the ordinance, saying it may do little more than burnish New Orleans’ image. He cited the city’s recycling program, which diverts only about 2 percent of household waste from landfills — a rate that’s less than a tenth of the national average. 

“We have to be more cautious because we keep producing investments and more money that comes from the public to create a lot of trendy things,” he said. “I don’t want to make the same mistakes we made with recycling and some other initiatives.” 

Morrell called the comparison to recycling “inappropriate.” While recycling may be a costly solution for conserving some materials, benchmarking is a low-cost means of conserving both money and energy, he said. 

 “We’re showing that if you’re more energy efficient, you’ll see a direct reduction in costs,” said. 

Tracking the energy consumption of buildings can also spur economic growth, Nichols said. As property owners recognize the savings from energy upgrades, demand for the skilled workers who implement them will grow, he said.

Energy efficiency is projected to be Louisiana’s top clean energy job creator, with about 9,300 new roles for architects and heating, air conditioning and related tradespeople expected by 2030, according to a recent NREL report. The solar industry was expected to create up to 8,300 jobs, and wind energy would add nearly 600 positions during the same period. 

“While solar and wind have huge potential, it’s actually energy efficiency that has the most job potential,” Nichols said. “And that’s because it includes a wide range of jobs, such as HVAC (technicians), electricians and insulation contractors.” 

Benchmarking could also ease demand on the city’s outage-prone power grid, said Jesse George, the New Orleans policy director for the Alliance for Affordable Energy. A spike in power use during the sweltering Memorial Day weekend overwhelmed transmission lines and triggered rolling blackouts that cut the lights and AC for more than 100,000 households. 

“That showed we need every possible tool in our toolbox to reduce our energy load and demand,” George said. “This ordinance, in terms of the cost to implement versus the potential benefit, is a no-brainer.” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Inside New Orleans’ plan to fix its energy-hogging buildings on Jul 11, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Tristan Baurick.

These days, it doesn’t take much to antagonize MAGA, and James Gunn, the director of the new Superman film, scheduled to be released on July 11,  has set off another outrage cycle.

“I mean, Superman is the story of America,” Gunn said in an interview with the Times of London, “An immigrant that came from other places […] but for me it is mostly a story that says basic human kindness is a value and is something we have lost.”

Amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, mass deportation plans, and creation of concentration camps like Alligator Alcatraz, Gunn also noted that his film leans into the character’s well-known backstory as an otherworldly refugee, a plot point that has been explored in Superman comics over the years.

MAGA influencers jumped on Gunn speedier than longtime Superman antagonist Lex Luther, General Zod, and Mister Mxyzptlk.  Fox News host Laura Ingraham dismissed the film entirely, declaring it as “another film we won’t be seeing.”

“He’s creating a moat of woke, enlightened opinion around him. He’s got a woke shield,” Fox News host Greg Gutfeld said as an on-screen graphic blared that the “Superwoke” movie embraced “pro-immigrant themes.”

“I’m going to skip seeing Superman now. Director is an absolute moron to say this publicly the week before release,” conservative radio host and OutKick founder Clay Travis complained.

“I can’t believe that we’ve come down to that,” she complained. “We don’t go to the movie theater to be lectured to and to have somebody throw their ideology onto us. I wonder if it will be successful.” MAGA-boosting Fox News host Jesse Watters, meanwhile, followed up by joking that Superman’s cape is now emblazoned with “MS-13.”

The Daily Dot’s Anna Good reported that “Gunn’s version of Superman focuses on empathy, morality, and alienation. These themes have been embedded in the character since his 1938 debut in the first issue of Action Comics. In his interview, Gunn acknowledged that the movie might be received differently in liberal vs. conservative parts of the country.”

Gunn’s take on aligns with the character’s Jewish roots. Created in the 1930s by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, sons of Jewish immigrants who fled the European pogroms, Superman was born of a need for hope during a time of rising anti-Semitism.

“Yes, it’s about politics,” Gunn told The Times of London. “But on another level it’s about morality. Do you never kill no matter what — which is what Superman believes — or do you have some balance, as Lois believes? It’s really about their relationship and the way different opinions on basic moral beliefs can tear two people apart.”

Gunn pointed out that “I’m telling a story about a guy who is uniquely good, and that feels needed now because there is a meanness that has emerged due to cultural figures being mean online.”

“My reaction to [the backlash] is that it is exactly what the movie is about,” he declared. “We support our people, you know? We love our immigrants. Yes, Superman is an immigrant, and yes, the people that we support in this country are immigrants and if you don’t like that, you’re not American. People who say no to immigrants are against the American way.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bill Berkowitz.

As the Trump administration barrels forward with its pro-fossil fuel agenda, and European and Asian governments and financial institutions debate whether to increase investments in U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) projects, a report published today by Greenpeace USA, Earthworks, and Oil Change International highlights the climate threats and financial risks posed by five major new liquefied gas export projects proposed for the US Gulf Coast, all but one of them still awaiting a final investment decision.

“What we found was crystal clear – any further investment in LNG is not compatible with a livable climate,” says Andres Chang, Senior Research Specialist at Greenpeace USA and lead author of the report. “The massive growth in infrastructure along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast has already created significant public health and ecosystem impacts, threatening entire coastal communities. But it doesn’t stop there. This report shows that if built, these projects would put global climate goals even further out of reach.”

The report analyzes five major U.S. LNG projects – Venture Global CP2, Cameron LNG Phase II, Sabine Pass Stage V, Cheniere Corpus Christi LNG Midscale 8-9, and Freeport LNG Expansion – and finds that each and every one fails a “climate test” derived from models in the DOE’s 2024 LNG Export public interest studies. Contrary to industry claims, the report shows that decreasing methane venting and leaking during gas drilling, transportation, and liquefaction is not enough to make these projects “climate neutral.”

“Focusing the Department of Energy’s model on individual US LNG terminals that are yet to be built, we found that they all result in increased greenhouse gas emissions because they pollute the climate, displace renewable energy, and drive up gas demand,” says Lorne Stockman, Oil Change International Research Director and report co-author. “It is very clear that governments, investors, and insurers must stop supporting the reckless LNG buildout now and instead invest in a rapid and just transition to renewable energy that will protect our communities from toxic pollution and climate-fueled superstorms.”

Future administrations could revoke export authorizations that were rubber-stamped under Trump based on their failure to pass the DOE “climate test,” which introduces a new layer of uncertainty to these already-risky projects. This report adds to a rapidly growing body of evidence that financing U.S. LNG is not a sound decision for insurers, investors, or purchasers – something the EU and America’s Asian allies must keep in mind as President Trump pressures them to increase their imports of U.S. LNG under threat of sweeping tariffs. “Countries with climate commitments, such as those in the EU, should be very wary of the climate cost of importing US LNG,” says Dr. Dakota Raynes, Senior Manager of Research, Policy, and Data at Earthworks and report co-author.

“Fossil fuel dependency has long externalized its true costs, forcing communities to bear the burden of pollution, sickness, and economic instability,” says James Hiatt, founder and director of For a Better Bayou. “For decades the oil and gas industry has known about the devastating health and climate impacts of its operations, yet it continues to expand, backed by billions in private and public financing. These harms are not isolated – they’re systemic, and they threaten all of us. This report is a call to conscience. It’s time we stop propping up deadly false solutions and start investing in a transition to energy systems that sustain life, not sacrifice it.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

What is MAGA imperialism? Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster says that, despite its feints toward anti-imperialist isolationism, President Donald Trump’s foreign policy has coalesced into a “hyper-nationalist” form of populism that rejects the U.S.'s post-WWII adherence to liberal internationalism and promotes dominance over other countries via military power rather than through economic globalization. Foster explains that this “Trump doctrine is opposed to multi-ethnic empires and multi-ethnic nations,” operating under a “racial definition of foreign policy, with the notion that the United States is a white country and other ethnicities don't belong.” And while some analyses of the Trump coalition locate its base in the “white working class,” in reality this ideology is rooted in the lower middle class, which owns more property and is less opposed to the wealthy capitalist class. “If you go back to the 1930s, to Italy and Germany, it’s the same constituency that drove the fascist movement, but it’s a result of an alliance between big capital … and the lower middle class.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

So what happens if the states can’t agree before that deadline?

There’s no roadmap for exactly what would happen next, but policy experts and former officials can give us some ideas. It would likely be complicated, messy and involve big lawsuits.

“I think people are looking for a concise answer here,” said Brenda Burman, former commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. “But there isn’t a concise answer.”

While the details of that hypothetical future are fuzzy, experts generally agree on one thing: the states should do everything they can to avoid missing that deadline and heading into uncharted territory.

“It’s our job to make sure that we are setting the path for the next 20 or 30 years of stability,” said Burman, who now manages the Central Arizona Project. “And if we fail in that job, shame on us.”

Former federal officials can give some of the best insight into what might happen without a state deal, because federal agencies would likely step in to make sure reservoirs and dams stay functional. The Bureau of Reclamation, which manages water infrastructure across the West, and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior, would become major power players.

Falling back to a ‘nightmare scenario’

For more than a century, the Colorado River has been governed by a legal agreement called the Colorado River Compact. It was signed in 1922, when the river — and the West — looked a lot different. Over the years, policymakers have added a patchwork of temporary rules to adapt to modern times.

In this century, climate change has driven the need to adapt. The river has been in a megadrought that goes back to 2000. With less water in the river, states have had to cut back on demand, even though the compact promises more water to users than the river itself could ever provide naturally. Drought conditions have become the new normal over the past two decades, and temporary rules that were implemented to rein in water demand aren’t keeping up with the pace of drying.

The current rules for managing water were first implemented in 2007. They were slightly modified in 2012 and then expanded in 2019. All of those rules are set to expire in 2026. That expiration is the reason states are in a pinch to draw up new rules right now.

The absolute last-chance deadline to implement new guidelines is October 1, 2026. If the states fail to submit a plan for managing water by then, the Colorado River would fall back to management rules from the 1970s.

Experts say those rules, known as the Long Range Operating Criteria, or LROC, are “woefully insufficient” to deal with today’s drier, smaller river.

“That’s a nightmare scenario,” said Anne Castle. “And I don’t think that the states or the federal government would allow that to happen.”

Castle, a longtime water lawyer who served as assistant secretary for water and science at the Interior Department, said releasing water in accordance with those 1970s rules would quickly drain the nation’s largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. That would jeopardize hydropower generation at major dams and could make it impossible to pass water from one side of those dams to the people and businesses downstream.

Interior, which would presumably prefer to avoid failure at the dams it runs — Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam — would likely get involved to stop reservoirs from losing their water. In the absence of guidance from the states, the Secretary of Interior could use his authority as the river’s “water master,” a role that gives him some legal power to make decisions about who gets how much water.

And this administration has already made it clear that the current chief — Doug Burgum — would take advantage of that position. Scott Cameron, one of the highest ranking Colorado River officials in the Trump Administration, said as much to a conference of water experts gathered in Colorado in early June.

“Secretary Burgum is prepared to exercise his responsibility as water master,” Cameron said. “He’s not looking forward to that, but in the absence of a seven state agreement, he will do it.”

Federal action and likely lawsuits

Say the Interior Secretary becomes water master and has to pull some levers on the Colorado River. The next big question is, which levers would he pull?

His first option is the path of least resistance — sticking with those 1970s rules. They would send a lot of water from the top half of the river to the bottom. So the Upper Basin states of Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico might want to take Interior to court.

“No one could possibly come up with a set of rules that pleases everyone,” Castle said. “And [Interior will] do what they think they have the authority to do. But we all know that lawyers may disagree.”

His second option is a little more involved, but would also likely result in a lawsuit. There’s a catch with Interior’s power on the Colorado River. It is mostly able to make changes in the Lower Basin states of California, Arizona and Nevada.

If Interior wanted to act boldly and force cutbacks to water use, cuts would likely hit those states disproportionately.

“In either situation,” said Mike Connor, another former Reclamation commissioner. “Somebody is going to object and say, ‘You’re not acting consistent with the law’ and sue the Secretary to say ‘You made a bad decision.’”

Connor, who served from 2009 to 2014, said Interior’s authority has never been specifically defined, but it mostly comes from the 1928 Boulder Canyon Project Act. That legislation created Hoover Dam, which creates Lake Mead, and the All-American Canal, which supplies water to California’s Imperial Valley. That gives the federal government some control of the nation’s largest reservoir and the water supply for the Imperial Irrigation District, the river’s single largest water user.

There are a few other options besides Interior’s two paths, but they’re much harder to predict.

While states hold most of the planning power on the Colorado River, other big entities could try to go around them. For example, the water department in a major city, or a large farm group could use their big budgets and legal teams to influence lawmakers and get a form of Colorado River rules passed by the U.S. Congress.

States could also ask for an extension, kicking the can down the road by another year or two. The extended deadline could give them more time to coalesce around new rules, but policy experts say states should try to avoid that and agree on rules that are urgently needed to manage the shrinking river.

“That sort of takes the foot off the accelerator and we haven’t really done anything,” Castle said.

Will the states agree before the deadline?

There is at least some reason to believe the states will steer the Colorado River away from collapse or court. For all of their disagreements, state water negotiators do seem to be on the same page about one thing: keeping their situation out of the Supreme Court.

Amy Haas, executive director of the Colorado River Authority of Utah, told KUNC in February that it would be “folly” to take their negotiations to court.

“We are the ones who should really shape the outcome here,” she said. “We’re the experts. We’re the water managers. We understand the system. Why would we want to relinquish that control and that responsibility?”

States appear to be moving closer to implementing new Colorado River rules without any messy court battles. Early details of a proposal to distribute water cutbacks are emerging, and it appears that it could push states long mired in disagreement toward consensus.

Instead of those states leaning on old rules that don’t account for climate change, they’re proposing a new system that divides the river based on how much water is in it today.

State leaders were quick to emphasize that the plan is in its early stages, but cast it as a way to agree before the 2026 deadline.

“I was very pessimistic that we were on a path towards litigation,” said Tom Buschatzke, Arizona’s top water negotiator. “I’m more optimistic now that we can avoid that path if we can make this work.”

This story is part of ongoing coverage of the Colorado River, produced by KUNC and supported by the Walton Family Foundation.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A deadline looms for a new Colorado River plan. What happens if there isn’t one? on Jul 5, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Alex Hager, KUNC.

Greenpeace Aotearoa executive director Russel Norman today recalled New Zealand’s heyday as a Pacific nuclear free champion in the 1980s, and challenged the country to again become a leading voice for “peace and justice”, this time for the Palestinian people.

He told the weekly Palestinian solidarity rally in Auckland’s central Te Komititanga Square that it was time for New Zealand to take action and recognise the state of Palestine and impose sanctions on Israel over its Gaza atrocities.

“From 1946 to 1996, over 300 nuclear weapons were exploded across the Pacific and consistently the New Zealand government spoke out against it,” he said.

• READ MORE: Palestine protesters target NZ businesses ‘complicit’ with Israel’s Gaza genocide
• Letter to Prime Minister Luxon urging sanctions on Israel over Gaza genocide
• Images and video clips from today’s rally
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

“It took cases to the International Court of Justice, supported by Australia and Fiji, against the nuclear testing across the Pacific.

“Aotearoa New Zealand was a voice for peace, it was a voice for justice, and when the French government bombed the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior here and killed Fernando Pereira, it spoke out and took action against France.”

He said New Zealand could return to that global leadership as a small and peaceful country.

New Zealand will this week be commemorating the 40th anniversary of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior by French secret agents on 10 July 1985 and the killing of Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira.

Dawn vigil on Greenpeace III
Greenpeace plans a dawn vigil on board their current flagship Rainbow Warrior III at Halsey Wharf.

He spoke about the Gaza war crimes, saying it was time for New Zealand to take serious action to help end this 20 months of settler colonial genocide.

“There are millions of people [around the world] who are trying to end this colonial occupation of Palestinian land,” Norman said.

“And millions of people who are trying to stop people simply standing to get food who are hungry who are being shelled and killed by the Israeli military simply for the ‘crime’ of being born in the land that Israel wants to occupy.”

Norman’s message echoed an open letter that he wrote to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters earlier this week criticising the government for its “ongoing failure … to impose meaningful sanctions on Israel”.

He cited the recent UN Human Rights Office report that said the killing of hundreds of Palestinians by the Israeli military while trying to fetch food from the controversial new “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” aid hubs was a ‘likely war crime”.

“Israel’s ongoing blockade of aid to Gaza has placed over 2 million people on the precipice of famine. Malnutrition and starvation are rife,” he said.

Israel ‘weaponising aid’
“Israel is weaponising aid, using starvation as a tool of genocide and is now shooting at civilians trying to access the scraps of aid that are available.”

He said this was “catastrophic”, quoting Luxon’s own words, and the human suffering was “unacceptable”.

Labour MP for Te Atatu and disarmament spokesperson Phil Twyford also spoke at the rally and march today, saying the Labour Party was calling for sanctions and accountability.

He condemned the failure to hold “the people who have been enabling the genocide in Gaza”.

“It’s been going on for too long. Not just the last [20 months], but actually the last 77 years.

“And it is time the Western world snapped out of the spell that the Zionists have had on the Western imagination — at least on the political classes, government MPs, the policy makers in Western countries, who for so long have enabled, have stayed quiet in the face of the US who have armed and funded the genocide”

For the Palestinian solidarity movement in New Zealand it has been a big week with four politicians — including Prime Minister Luxon — and two business leaders, the chief executives of Rocket Lab and Rakon, who have been referred by the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for investigation over allegations of complicity with the Israeli war crimes.

This unprecedented legal development has been largely ignored by the mainstream media.

On Friday, protesters picketed a Rocket Lab manufacturing site in Warkworth, the head office in Mount Wellington and the Māhia peninsula where satellites are launched.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, leading international scholars and the UN Special Committee to investigate Israel’s practices have all condemned Israel’s actions as genocide.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The fragrances named “Trump Victory 45-47” — referring to his capturing the 45th and 47th presidencies — are available as cologne for men and perfume for women, and are bargain priced at only $249 for the limited edition 3.3 fl oz numbered collectors version. You can get them at the dedicated website. Hurry! They won’t last.

I recognize that there are some nasty people out there, cynics who would want to portray Trump as being a crude, obnoxious opportunist, using his prominence as the world-renowned leader of the most powerful and wealthiest country in human history, to suck money out of the wallets of Trump loyalists and other gullible chumps. This would obviously be a grotesque and insulting abuse of power.

But hey, let’s cut the man some slack.

What’s his motto? It’s not MTRGA: ‘Make Trump Resorts Great Again’. It’s MAGA! ‘Make America Great Again!’ That says it all! That tells us where his loyalties really lie.

Trump is not getting any younger. He probably hasn’t — especially considering his diet — got that many years left on this Earth. Yet he’s dedicating this final chapter in his life to service to our nation. His devotion to the United States of America limitless and beyond dispute.

Look at the reality. He’s been a super-entrepreneur all his life, wheeling, dealing, perfecting the art of the deal. He could right now be in the private sector bankrupting companies. Instead, he is selflessly committed his life to the public sector, bankrupting the country.

No, you negative nitpickers, ‘Trump Fragrances’ is not some scam. Trump Fragrances is our deeply patriotic, courageous, noble president’s bold and history-changing attack on the stench that now exhales from our bilious economy, the noxious cloud hovering over our whole putrid and stagnating society, the effluvium exuded by the political milieu of Washington DC.

And what a stinky mess our governing institutions, including the Executive Branch, have become! The swamp creatures roaming the halls of power are exclusively beholden to the ruling elite — the extreme ultra wealthy — pathologically beguiled by American exceptionalism, addicted to war, paranoid, xenophobic, ill-informed, myopic, misinformed, insular, delusional, deaf, dumb, and blind. And that’s on a good day!

But there is hope!

Trump Fragrances will displace the putrefying off-gassing of our dying democracy, the foul stench of corruption and treachery, the malodor of malfeasance and incompetence, the rank miasma of hypocrisy and betrayal, and doggedly overpower the fetid reek of failure with the SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS … of winning and winning and winning again and again.

Yes, good people, with Trump Fragrances, we are witnessing a revolution in the making!

Call it the New World Odor.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Rachel.

In our July Fourth special broadcast, we revisit our interview with longtime technology reporter Karen Hao, author of the new book Empire of AI, which unveils the accruing political and economic power of AI companies — especially Sam Altman’s OpenAI. Her reporting uncovered the exploitation of workers in Kenya, attempts to take massive amounts of freshwater from communities in Chile, along with numerous accounts of the technology’s detrimental impact on the environment. “This is an extraordinary type of AI development that is causing a lot of social, labor and environmental harms,” says Hao, in an extended interview.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Author David Robie and Little Island Press are about to publish next week a 40th anniversary edition of Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, a first-hand account of the relocation of the Rongelap people by Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior in 1985.

Dr Robie joined what turned out to be the ill-fated voyage of the Rainbow Warrior from Hawai’i across the Pacific, with its first stop in the Marshall Islands and the momentous evacuation of Rongelap Atoll.

After completing the evacuation of the 320 people of Rongelap from their unsafe nuclear test-affected home islands to Mejatto Island in Kwajalein Atoll, the Rainbow Warrior headed south via Kiribati and Vanuatu.

• READ MORE: Other Eyes of Fire reports

After a stop in New Zealand, it was scheduled to head to the French nuclear testing zone at Moruroa in French Polynesia to protest the then-ongoing atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by France for decades.

But French secret agents attached bombs to the hull of the Rainbow Warrior while it was tied up at a pier in Auckland. The bombs mortally damaged the Warrior and killed Greenpeace photographer Fernando Peirera, preventing the vessel from continuing its Pacific voyage.

The new edition of Eyes of Fire will be launched on July 10 in New Zealand.

“This edition has a small change of title, Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior, and has an extra 30 pages, with a new prologue by former Prime Minister Helen Clark,” Dr Robie said in an email to the Journal.

“The core of the book is similar to earlier editions, but bookended by a lot of new material: Helen’s Prologue, Bunny McDiarmid’s updated Preface and a long Postscript 2025 by me with a lot more photographs, some in colour.”

Dr Robie added: “I hope this edition is doing justice to our humanitarian mission and the Rongelap people that we helped.”

He said the new edition is published by a small publisher that specialises in Pacific Island books, often in Pacific languages, Little Island Press.

• For more information about the new book: https://littleisland.nz/books/eyes-fire

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

For Ahmad Primo, who was arrested by the government for reporting that the 2011 protests were a revolution and then jailed by Islamic State, the idea was tantalizing.

“If I were single, I would go back and join those fighting for the future of Syria,” said Primo, who lives in Norway with his wife and children. “But I have a family and I cannot gamble with their future.”

Primo said his Norwegian passport bars him from returning to Syria, so he will continue working as a researcher for a Norwegian news platform, in addition to running his own Arabic fact-checking platform Verify-Sy.

“It’s not about where we are, it’s about what we’re doing,” he said.

After 54 years of al-Assad family rule, renewed energy has emerged among exiled Syrian journalists to use their skills to support media development and truth-telling back home.

Complex legal and family obligations, security concerns, and sectarian tensions mean permanent return is rarely an option. Some make irregular trips to report and train other journalists, but risk burning their ticket back to Europe without European citizenship.

A few have taken the plunge.

In a Facebook video, Syrian reporter Besher Kanakri stood in front of an airport arrivals sign in Damascus and announced, “I am returning to my homeland after seven years of forced absence.”

After years working for Istanbul-based Syria TV from Germany, he was pleased to be transferred to the Syrian capital.  

“Our country needs us and we must go back to contribute to rebuilding it,” Kanakri told CPJ. “The risks are significant but I still want to return.”

Syria has long been among the world’s deadliest countries for journalists with at least 145 killed since 2011, when al-Assad began to crack down on protesters. CPJ is investigating the cases of hundreds of other missing and killed journalists.

Syria topped CPJ’s 2023 Global Impunity Index, which measures where murderers of journalists are most likely to go free.

Tired of being a refugee reporter

Others are staying put, for now.

Journalist Yahya Alaous, 52, arrived in the German capital Berlin, a renowned hub for Arab intelligentsia, a decade ago and found work reporting on refugee life for German outlets.

But he soon got tired of being stereotyped, particularly after 2017, when the anti-immigrant and far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) rose to prominence as the third-largest party in parliament.

“Every time there was a terrorist attack, I felt I had to defend myself – to explain that we’re not all the same, since many assumed that refugees were the ones coming to Europe and carrying out these attacks,” said Alaous.

“You start to lose patience. I didn’t want to spend my life constantly defending myself for something I had nothing to do with,” he said.

Despite his disillusionment with Berlin, Alaous has prioritized his children’s future and chosen to stay. He mainly writes for Arabic-language media, using contacts back home to report on Syria.

‘Afraid of what might come next’

Security concerns make relocation difficult for many journalists, especially minorities. About 70% of Syrians in the country are Sunni and the remainder are mostly Shia and Ismaili Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Alawites — the community of the al-Assad family.

The new government, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is a Sunni Islamist group with roots in al-Qaeda. HTS has said it supports “Syria for all Syrians” and pledged not to prosecute journalists, but some have reported arrests, assaults, and intimidation in areas like northwest Syria, where the rebels-turned-rulers have been in power since 2017.

Minorities, like Amloud Alamir, are cautious.

“It was an astonishing moment when I woke up and realized the Assad regime had fallen,” said Alamir, who fled to Germany from Syria with her husband after he was imprisoned for his political views.

“I was also afraid of what might come next. I thought there would be chaos, or that radical Islamist militias might take over,” Alamir told CPJ. “We were scared. But we also knew it was a moment to be acknowledged, even if it was too early to celebrate.” 

In April, Alamir visited Syria for the first time in 14 years, on a reporting trip. She found a deeply divided country.

“No one sees me as Amloud,” she said, explaining how she was labeled according to her sectarian identity, even though she doesn’t practice the faith. “It’s not easy.”

Despite her deep longing to return, Alamir believes some painful truths cannot be ignored.

“Stay in Damascus if you want to be happy,” she said. “But if you want to see the reality, you have to go elsewhere, like Latakia,” she said, referring to the coastal province where some 1,300 people were massacred in March.

In Latakia’s al-Sanawbar village, where Alawite civilians were executed in revenge killings against al-Assad’s community and buried in mass graves, she found devastation.

“All the women were in black,” she said. “Everyone had lost someone.”

She visited a church where the faithful said they regarded themselves as Syrians first, rather than Christians. While hoping the new government would treat all citizens equally, they also felt hopeless and were quietly looking for ways to leave, Alamir said.

´We didn’t choose to leave´

Divisions between exiles and those who stayed in Syria add further complications.

“We are no longer seen as Syrian journalists by those inside the country,” said Alaous in Berlin. “They believe we didn’t suffer like they did … Some even see us as traitors because we live abroad, while they endured the hardships.”

“But leaving wasn’t our choice, we were forced to flee,” he insisted.

Carola Richter, a communications professor at the Free University of Berlin, believes the development of domestic Syrian media is critical.

“People want transparency about who’s behind the information to decide whether they can trust it,” she said. “Exiled media targeting Syrians is not the ideal solution.”

The fractured nature of exiled media reflects mistrust among Syrians, divided by social and ideological backgrounds, she said, describing a mix of “hope, enthusiasm, fear, and fatigue” among those considering return.

“Many feel disillusioned with journalism in exile, yet unsure if going back would allow them to truly serve their community or put them at risk. This mix of emotions and conflicting thoughts is intense and still needs to be channeled into a clear direction,” she said.

Summer school in Syria

The online outlet Amal Berlin, staffed by a dozen Syrian exiles, plans to harness some of that energy to train young journalists in reporting and fact-checking at a summer school in Syria.

“The fall of the Assad regime created a necessity for Syrians in exile to do something in Syria,” said Julia Gerlach, a German journalist who set up the Arabic-language platform in 2016 to provide practical information to help Syrians settle in Germany.

Another Syrian journalist, who declined to be named, citing fear of reprisals, told CPJ that he went to Damascus in December to work as a fixer for international media and to run free training workshops, hosted by visiting exiles, for “a new generation of journalists.”

“The lucky Syrians were able to flee and have better life and education, and now it’s time for them to give back,” he said, describing it as his duty to improve journalism standards in Syria.

“We have been struggling with propaganda and disinformation during war and it’s always been hard to get verified news … I’m trying to transfer what I’ve learned from the last decade working with international media outlets to my people,” he said.

“I would love to travel around Syria and give workshops nonstop. It means a lot to me to give to anyone, so imagine how it feels when it’s my people who are receiving.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Lamiya Adilgizi.

"We welcome the leadership of Brazil, Spain and South Africa in calling for taxes on the super-rich. People around the world are pushing for more countries to reject the corrupting political influence of oligarchies. Taxation of the super-rich is a vital tool to secure sustainable development and fight inequalities. The wealth of the richest 1% has surged $33.9 trillion since 2015, enough to end annual poverty 22 times, yet billionaires only pay around 0.3% in real taxes.

“This extreme inequality is being driven by a financial system that puts the interests of a wealthy few above everyone else. This concentration of wealth is blocking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and keeping over three billion people living in poverty: over half of poor countries are spending more on debt repayments than on healthcare or education.

“In a tense geopolitical environment, Spain, Brazil and South Africa have taken an important step in forging an alliance here at the UN conference in Seville to show political will for taxation of the super-rich. Now other countries must follow their lead and join forces. This year, the FFD in Seville, COP30 in Brazil and G20 in South Africa are key opportunities for international cooperation to tax the super-rich and invest in a sustainable future that puts human rights and equality at its core.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“This is a bold move by Spain and Brazil to drive forward taxing the super-rich as a key solution to the lack of funds being delivered by rich countries for climate action. We want more countries to join this coalition so that billionaires and multi-millionaires help to foot the bill for the climate damage they have caused and decrease the huge gap between the rich and the poorest. We won't rest until governments like the UK, France, and Germany make the right choice to force the super rich to pay what they owe and increase their spending on climate action and public services at home and around the world.” Kate Blagojevic, 350.org Associate Director for Europe Campaigns.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with New York Focus, an investigative news outlet reporting on New York. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week, and sign up for New York Focus’ newsletter here.

Hotels have long been considered a last resort for sheltering people who’ve lost their housing. But over the past few years, they’ve become New York’s predominant response to homelessness outside New York City, a recent investigation by New York Focus and ProPublica found.

Social services agencies across the state now place nearly half of all individuals and families seeking shelter in hotels. Yet those placed in hotels often go without services that they’re supposed to receive in shelters, such as meals, help finding housing and sometimes child care so they can look for work.

The growing reliance on hotels has been driven by soaring rent, shelter closures and a spike in evictions that followed a moratorium during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has known about the problem for years and even put rules to address the issue on its regulatory agenda. But the agency has failed to formally propose the rules or come up with a way to ensure people receive services they need.

Here are five charts to explain our investigation.

The number of families and individuals placed in hotels doubled in the two years following the end of New York’s eviction moratorium in 2022. As the population in hotels shot up, so did the bill. Over that period, spending on hotels outside of New York City more than tripled to $110 million.

OTDA oversees the state’s county-run social services districts. The agency’s commissioner, Barbara Guinn, said that it prefers that counties use shelters, but that there aren’t enough beds for everyone who needs one. She said that the agency hadn’t studied the growth in hotel use.

Despite the growth in spending, families placed in hotels aren’t promised the same services as people in shelters. New York requires family shelters to provide services like child care, assistance finding housing and three meals a day. But the regulations generally exempt hotels.

There’s an exception: A hotel is supposed to be considered a shelter if it “primarily” serves temporary housing recipients. OTDA spokesperson Anthony Farmer said that the agency interprets “primarily” to mean “exclusively, or almost exclusively,” and that no hotels currently meet that standard. An analysis of the agency’s data by New York Focus and ProPublica found that welfare recipients made up over half of the capacity for at least 16 hotels during fiscal year 2024.

Guinn said that social services offices have to work within the confines of what hotel owners will allow, and that counties try to provide services off-site.

Not only are more people being placed in the hotels, but they are staying for much longer periods. The number of families and individuals spending at least six months out of the year in hotels nearly tripled from 2022 to 2024.

The lack of services leads to people getting stuck in the system, creating a snowball effect, said Steve Berg, chief policy officer for the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

“It’s this expanding problem,” he said. “A good shelter should be housing-focused. If they don’t have a pretty substantial effort to move people quickly back into housing and provide the services that are necessary to do that, the shelters quickly fill up, and then they just need more shelters.”

Farmer said via email that a lack of affordable housing contributes to the longer stays, and that counties can use other funding to help people move back into permanent housing.

Nearly half of all payments to hotels were for more than twice the counties’ FMR.

Many hotels are charging rates higher than rent for permanent housing.

The news organizations found that the overwhelming majority of hotel payments exceeded fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the same county. (Fair market rent is defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as the 40th percentile of rent plus utilities in the local housing market.) The rates charged were often more than twice that.

“We’re forced to rent hotel rooms across the state, and the operators of these places understand that,” said state Sen. Roxanne Persaud, a Democrat and chair of the chamber’s Social Services Committee. “The municipalities’ backs are against the wall. And so they must place the unhoused person or persons somewhere. And so that’s why you see the cost is skyrocketing, because people understand that it’s an easy way to make money off the government.”

New York Focus and ProPublica found numerous examples of families with children living in sordid and dangerous conditions. Roaches, mold, broken windows and filthy linens were common. Some hotels were subject to over a hundred emergency calls a year for assaults, robberies, mental health crises, overdoses and other incidents.

Hotels sheltering homeless families are supposed to be inspected every six months by their county’s social services office. Yet data obtained from OTDA shows that many wind up behind schedule. As of October, about 40% of hotels were either out of date on their inspection or didn’t have one listed.

Farmer, the OTDA spokesperson, said that nearly all hotels were inspected within a year, and that some had stopped accepting welfare recipients.

Guinn, the commissioner, said that OTDA will formally propose rules this year clarifying that people in hotels must receive the same services as they would receive in shelters. She also said her agency will increase oversight of how social services offices are delivering those services.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by .

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji (NGOCHR) has called on Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka as the new chair of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) to “uphold justice, stability and security” for Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua.

In a statement today after last week’s MSG leaders’ summit in Suva, the coalition also warned over Indonesia’s “chequebook diplomacy” as an obstacle for the self-determination aspirations of Melanesian peoples not yet independent.

Indonesia is a controversial associate member of the MSG in what is widely seen in the region as a “complication” for the regional Melanesian body.

• READ MORE: ‘Don’t surrender’ to Indonesian pressure over West Papua, Bomanak warns MSG
• Other MSG reports

The statement said that with Rabuka’s “extensive experience as a seasoned statesman in the Pacific, we hope that this second chapter will chart a different course, one rooted in genuine commitment to uphold justice, stability and security for all our Melanesian brothers and sisters in Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua”.

The coalition said the summit’s theme, “A peaceful and prosperous Melanesia”, served as a reminder that even after several decades of regional bilaterals, “our Melanesian leaders have made little to no progress in fulfilling its purpose in the region — to support the independence and sovereignty of all Melanesians”.

“Fiji, as incoming chair, inherits the unfinished work of the MSG. As rightly stated by the late great Father Walter Lini, ‘We will not be free until all of Melanesia is free”, the statement said.

“The challenges for Fiji’s chair to meet the goals of the MSG are complex and made more complicated by the inclusion of Indonesia as an associate member in 2015.

‘Indonesia active repression’
“Indonesia plays an active role in the ongoing repression of West Papuans in their desire for independence. Their associate member status provides a particular obstacle for Fiji as chair in furthering the self-determination goals of the MSG.”

Complicating matters further was the asymmetry in the relationship between Indonesia and the rest of the MSG members, the statement said.

“As a donor government and emerging economic power, Indonesia’s ‘chequebook and cultural diplomacy’ continues to wield significant influence across the region.

“Its status as an associate member of the MSG raises serious concerns about whether it is appropriate, as this pathway risks further marginalising the voices of our West Papuan sisters and brothers.”

This defeated the “whole purpose of the MSG: ‘Excelling together towards a progressive and prosperous Melanesia’.”

The coalition acknowledged Rabuka’s longstanding commitment to the people of Kanaky New Caledonia. A relationship and shared journey that had been forged since 1989.

‘Stark reminder’
The pro-independence riots of May 2024 served as a “stark reminder that much work remains to be done to realise the full aspirations of the Kanak people”.

As the Pacific awaited a “hopeful and favourable outcome” from the Troika Plus mission to Kanaky New Caledonia, the coalition said that it trusted Rabuka to “carry forward the voices, struggles, dreams and enduring aspirations of the people of Kanaky New Caledonia”.

The statement called on Rabuka as the new chair of MSG to:

• Ensure the core founding values, and mission of the MSG are upheld;
• Re-evaluate Indonesia’s appropriateness as an associate member of the MSG; and
• Elevate discussions on West Papua and Kanaky New Caledonia at the MSG level and through discussions at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders.

The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) represents the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Program, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji. Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji (NGOCHR) has called on Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka as the new chair of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) to “uphold justice, stability and security” for Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua.

In a statement today after last week’s MSG leaders’ summit in Suva, the coalition also warned over Indonesia’s “chequebook diplomacy” as an obstacle for the self-determination aspirations of Melanesian peoples not yet independent.

Indonesia is a controversial associate member of the MSG in what is widely seen in the region as a “complication” for the regional Melanesian body.

• READ MORE: ‘Don’t surrender’ to Indonesian pressure over West Papua, Bomanak warns MSG
• Other MSG reports

The statement said that with Rabuka’s “extensive experience as a seasoned statesman in the Pacific, we hope that this second chapter will chart a different course, one rooted in genuine commitment to uphold justice, stability and security for all our Melanesian brothers and sisters in Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua”.

The coalition said the summit’s theme, “A peaceful and prosperous Melanesia”, served as a reminder that even after several decades of regional bilaterals, “our Melanesian leaders have made little to no progress in fulfilling its purpose in the region — to support the independence and sovereignty of all Melanesians”.

“Fiji, as incoming chair, inherits the unfinished work of the MSG. As rightly stated by the late great Father Walter Lini, ‘We will not be free until all of Melanesia is free”, the statement said.

“The challenges for Fiji’s chair to meet the goals of the MSG are complex and made more complicated by the inclusion of Indonesia as an associate member in 2015.

‘Indonesia active repression’
“Indonesia plays an active role in the ongoing repression of West Papuans in their desire for independence. Their associate member status provides a particular obstacle for Fiji as chair in furthering the self-determination goals of the MSG.”

Complicating matters further was the asymmetry in the relationship between Indonesia and the rest of the MSG members, the statement said.

“As a donor government and emerging economic power, Indonesia’s ‘chequebook and cultural diplomacy’ continues to wield significant influence across the region.

“Its status as an associate member of the MSG raises serious concerns about whether it is appropriate, as this pathway risks further marginalising the voices of our West Papuan sisters and brothers.”

This defeated the “whole purpose of the MSG: ‘Excelling together towards a progressive and prosperous Melanesia’.”

The coalition acknowledged Rabuka’s longstanding commitment to the people of Kanaky New Caledonia. A relationship and shared journey that had been forged since 1989.

‘Stark reminder’
The pro-independence riots of May 2024 served as a “stark reminder that much work remains to be done to realise the full aspirations of the Kanak people”.

As the Pacific awaited a “hopeful and favourable outcome” from the Troika Plus mission to Kanaky New Caledonia, the coalition said that it trusted Rabuka to “carry forward the voices, struggles, dreams and enduring aspirations of the people of Kanaky New Caledonia”.

The statement called on Rabuka as the new chair of MSG to:

• Ensure the core founding values, and mission of the MSG are upheld;
• Re-evaluate Indonesia’s appropriateness as an associate member of the MSG; and
• Elevate discussions on West Papua and Kanaky New Caledonia at the MSG level and through discussions at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders.

The Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) represents the Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Program, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji. Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Connecticut Mirror. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

A Hartford woman never saw her car again after it was towed while she sat in housing court fighting an eviction.

A home care worker had her car towed while she hurried to assist a patient down the stairs.

A young man lost his car and slipped into financial instability after he mistakenly put his apartment’s parking sticker in the wrong spot.

Late last month, Connecticut lawmakers, following a series of stories by The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica, passed sweeping reforms to the state’s towing laws that will address many of the issues drivers have complained about. The stories highlighted how towing companies can begin the process to sell people’s cars after 15 days, one of the shortest windows in the country.

Reporters heard from dozens of drivers across Connecticut who had to pay exorbitant fees or had their vehicles sold when they couldn’t afford the charges. Many told reporters about the severe consequences they experienced after their cars were towed or sold, including the loss of jobs, personal mementos and housing.

While some people’s cars might not have been towed under the new law, which takes effect Oct. 1, it doesn’t solve all the problems that vehicle owners raised.

Here are some of their stories, as well as whether the changes in the new law would have helped them.

Not fixed: The bill does not address this issue.

Home care worker Maria Jiménez circled the Hartford apartment complex for low-income seniors, looking for a place to park. Jiménez drives patients to and from errands like doctor’s appointments and grocery shopping. Her patient that day last November used a cane, and Jiménez planned to park close so that her patient wouldn’t have to walk too far.

Unsuccessful, Jiménez stopped in front of the building’s entrance.

“I turned on the hazard lights and left the car on, just long enough to let her know I had arrived, since I didn’t have her phone number,” she said. Jiménez said she told a few bystanders she would be right back and asked them to keep an eye on her car.

She said she went inside only briefly, and when she returned, the car was gone. Bystanders told Jiménez the car had been towed and that they’d pleaded with the truck’s driver, to no avail.

Tracy Wodatch, president and CEO at Connecticut Association for Healthcare at Home, said many of her members complain about getting ticketed or towed when they’re doing their jobs helping people.

When it happens frequently enough at a particular complex, she said, an agency might speak with the landlord to ask for a designated spot. But there isn’t a statewide mandate.

New Jersey passed a law in 2018 allowing home health care workers, visiting nurses and others to apply for a placard similar to an accessible parking tag to place in their cars.

“Maybe we can talk to the legislators off session to see if there’s anything we can do,” Wodatch said.

The company that towed Jiménez, MyHoopty.com, was in Watertown, and Jiménez was stranded over 30 miles away in Hartford. “How will I get there if I don’t have a car?” she recalled thinking.

MyHoopty owner Michael Festa said the vehicle was parked in the fire lane without its hazard lights on for 17 minutes before it was towed and that the apartment complex had hired MyHoopty to prevent such parking violations.

“This is a critical safety issue, particularly at an elderly housing complex where the emergency access can be a matter of life and death,” Festa said. (MyHoopty has appeared in other stories in our series.)

If you have information about health workers and caregivers being towed while on the job, email Dave Altimari at daltimari@ctmirror.org or Ginny Monk at gmonk@ctmirror.org, or call 203-626-4705.

The apartment complex owners didn’t respond to calls and emails for comment.

Jiménez said she makes about $290 a week. By the time she got to MyHoopty, the company told her the bill was more than $400.

Her husband footed the bill. But it wasn’t easy: “The only reason I could afford it is because I work mornings, I work nights,” he said.

Not fixed: The bill does not address this issue.

Marie Franklin paid the parking meter and dashed into Hartford housing court for a December 2023 hearing that would determine if she would get evicted from her apartment. She worried about the parking. People can wait for hours for the judge to call their cases, but the Hartford Parking Authority limits nearby meters to two hours.

So people facing eviction sometimes run the risk of getting a parking violation, getting their cars towed or missing their names being called for hearings, which can cause them to lose their housing in a default judgement for not showing up to court.

Joshua Michtom, a Hartford City Council member and an attorney who has represented children and parents in juvenile court, said although there’s a nearby parking garage, it’s more expensive and it fills up.

“You have to be there, but then you don’t know how long you’re going to have to wait,” Michtom said. “And the courts are not particularly forgiving if you’re not there the moment your case gets called.”

When Franklin’s name was finally called, a judge rejected her plea to stave off eviction. Dejected and stressed about losing her home, she walked out of court only to discover her 2015 Volvo was gone. Franklin had more than a dozen unpaid parking tickets, some of which were nearly 20 years old. She’d forgotten about some, and others were for vehicles she no longer owned. About half of the tickets were for exceeding the meter limit or parking over the line near the courthouse.

“I had paid for the parking meter and everything,” Franklin said. “They drive around, and they look for people’s cars.”

Jill Turlo, CEO of the Hartford Parking Authority, said the agency’s officers use license plate scanners to find people with outstanding tickets. Turlo said “high-traffic metered areas,” like the street the courthouse is on, are “regularly patrolled by parking enforcement.” Turlo said that the parking authority has not received any requests to extend the time for metered parking near the courthouses.

While towing cars for unpaid parking tickets is a common practice for cities, Minnesota passed a law last year barring such tows, seeing them as an unfair burden on low-income families. Several cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, have also stopped such tows after a California appeals court ruled that towing cars for unpaid parking tickets violated people’s rights against warrantless seizures, said Rebecca Miller, an attorney with the Western Center on Law & Poverty.

Hartford has one of the strictest policies in Connecticut. A city ordinance allows tows after two or more unpaid tickets that date back to September 2012. Other cities including Danbury and New Britain don’t tow for unpaid tickets. Norwalk and Waterbury will tow if there are four unpaid tickets; Stamford tows for three unpaid tickets or more than $250 owed, officials in those cities said. The limit in Bridgeport is $100, and New Haven’s is $200.

“We do have an ordinance where we can boot a car for unpaid tickets, but we haven’t used it in years,” said Deborah Pacific, director of the Danbury Parking Authority.

When Franklin went to eviction court, she had been trying to hold onto the place she and her daughter lived while she looked for a new job. Between unpaid fines, late fees, and towing and storage charges, it would have cost almost $3,000 to get her car back, she said.

If you have information about towing near courthouses, email Dave Altimari at daltimari@ctmirror.org or Ginny Monk at gmonk@ctmirror.org, or call 203-626-4705.

“I would have chose to pay whatever I owed to my housing. So my car, there was nothing I could do,” Franklin said.

The vehicle was towed by Metro Auto Body & Towing, which did not return calls and emails for comment. It was later sold by the lender.

After losing her car and housing, Franklin moved to Florida to stay with her son.

Fixed: Apartment residents now have 72 hours if caught without a parking permit or with an expired one.

It’s often little discrepancies that lead to big consequences. When Tishawn Tillman moved into his Hartford apartment in September, he got a parking sticker that allowed him to park in the building’s private lot. He said he wasn’t sure where to put it, so he stuck it on the driver’s side window.

But less than a month later, his car was towed by Cross Country Automotive in Hartford.

“There is absolutely no legal documentation in my lease that says that this has to be strictly on the windshield,” Tillman said.

Minor rule violations such as parking crooked or not backing into a space have caused people’s cars to be towed and then sold when they couldn’t afford the fees. Stories like Tillman’s drove legislators to act. Under the new law, the towing company would have had to warn Tillman, giving him 72 hours to get a new sticker and place it in the right spot. The law also says towers have to get permission from the apartment complex to tow a vehicle unless it’s blocking traffic or parked in a fire lane.

Tillman said he assumed his car had been stolen. But the police told him it had been towed.

Tillman contacted Cross Country: “I asked them, ‘Did you see my sticker?’ And they said, ‘We didn’t see the sticker.’” He said he called the apartment manager, but he wouldn’t help.

“When I realized that neither of the parties were going to budge on the matter, I told them that I wasn’t going to pay the fine, even if I had the money, which I didn’t at the time,” Tillman said.

Tillman said his bill was “$200 but growing every day.”

He filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office, which said it unsuccessfully tried to resolve the issue through its voluntary mediation program and recommended he complain to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Sal Sena, Cross Country’s owner, submitted a letter to the attorney general saying there are signs all over the parking lot explaining the rules. The apartment manager, Jack Matos, wrote to the attorney general that he talked with Sena about giving TIllman a discount on the towing fees.

“I reiterated Tishawn needs to make sure that it’s placed on the windshield,” Matos wrote.

Frustrated, Tillman eventually gave up trying to get his car back.

“I went from being a self-made young man with his own apartment and car to having to burn a hole in my pocket just to get to and from work on ride-share services like Uber and Lyft,” he said.

Fixed: The law allows vehicle owners to reclaim their cars with other documents besides DMV registration.

Shaleah Carr needed two more weeks until her DMV appointment in April to register the Chevrolet Malibu she had just bought from her mom. It was the earliest appointment she could get.

Her boyfriend had taken the car to his brother’s house to work on it when they decided to take it for a test drive. But the car broke down on U.S. Route 5 in South Windsor, and police called for a tow.

Her boyfriend told the tow truck driver that the car was registered to Carr’s mother and that Carr had the title and proof of insurance. But the towing company, Tolland Automotive, wouldn’t release the vehicle to Carr because she wasn’t the registered owner, said the company’s owner, George Fellows. The vehicle was towed on a Friday afternoon, and by the time Carr was able to get to the lot on Monday morning, she owed more than $300.

“I told them I’m on one income and I can’t afford it,” Carr said. “I just paid my rent for that month, and I even asked, ‘Do you guys do payments?’”

Since then, her Malibu has been sitting in the company’s lot.

Carr’s dilemma has happened to people whose cars have been towed across Connecticut — they’ve been unable to quickly register their cars and then blocked from reclaiming them because they’re not registered in their names yet. By the time they can register their cars, so much time has passed that the tow bill is too expensive or the company has sold their car.

The new law gives consumers time to register their car before it can be towed and requires towers to release vehicles if presented with the title or a bill of sale as proof of ownership. The law also requires towers to accept other forms of payment besides cash and demands towers have business hours on weekends so fees don’t accrue while they’re closed.

Fellows said police called them to the scene. “Then we found out that this guy didn’t own the car at all,” Fellows said. Without the owner there, “it had to come back to our shop.”

Carr called her mother. “I was like, ‘You’re going to have to come up here,’ but even if she does, she can’t really do much,” Carr said. “She didn’t have the money to get it back either.”

Carr said the last time she called Tolland Automotive, the bill was $800. Given that she paid her mother only $500 for the car, she said, it almost wasn’t worth trying to get it back anymore.

Fellows said Carr’s mother did come into the office earlier this month with proof of registration, and he is willing to release the vehicle if she pays what is owed.

“It’s all on them,” he said. “I mean they knew what the issue was back then. Why haven’t they come back?”

Asia Fields contributed reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Dave Altimari, Ginny Monk and Shahrzad Rasekh, The Connecticut Mirror.

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark has warned the country needs to maintain its nuclear-free policy as a “fundamental tenet” of its independent foreign policy in the face of gathering global storm clouds.

Writing in a new book being published next week, she says “nuclear war is an existential threat to humanity. Far from receding, the threat of use of nuclear weapons is ever present.

“The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists now sits at 89 seconds to midnight,” she says in the prologue to journalist and media academic David Robie’s book Eyes of Fire: The Last Voyage and Legacy of the Rainbow Warrior.

• READ MORE: 40 years on: Reflecting on Rainbow Warrior’s legacy, fight against nuclear colonialism
• Other Eyes of Fire reports

Writing before the US surprise attack with B-2 stealth bombers and “bunker-buster” bombs on three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22, Clark says “the Middle East is a tinder box with the failure of the Iran nuclear deal and with Israel widely believed to possess nuclear weapons”.

The Doomsday Clock references the Ukraine war theatre where “use of nuclear weapons has been floated by Russia”.

Also, the arms control architecture for Europe is unravelling, leaving the continent much less secure. India and Pakistan both have nuclear arsenals, she says.

“North Korea continues to develop its nuclear weapons capacity.”

‘Serious ramifications’
Clark, who was also United Nations Development Programme administrator from 2009 to 2017, a member of The Elders group of global leaders founded by Nelson Mandela in 2007, and is an advocate for multilateralism and nuclear disarmament, says an outright military conflict between China and the United States “would be one between two nuclear powers with serious ramifications for East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and far beyond.”

She advises New Zealand to be wary of Australia’s decision to enter a nuclear submarine purchase programme with the United States.

“There has been much speculation about a potential Pillar Two of the AUKUS agreement which would see others in the region become partners in the development of advanced weaponry,” Clark says.

“This is occurring in the context of rising tensions between the United States and China.

“Many of us share the view that New Zealand should be a voice for de-escalation, not for enthusiastic expansion of nuclear submarine fleets in the Pacific and the development
of more lethal weaponry.”

In the face of the “current global turbulence, New Zealand needs to reemphasise the principles and values which drove its nuclear-free legislation and its advocacy for a nuclear-free South Pacific and global nuclear disarmament.

Clark says that the years 1985 – the Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French secret agents on 10 July 1985 — and 1986 were critical years in the lead up to New Zealand’s nuclear-free legislation in 1987.

“New Zealanders were clear – we did not want to be defended by nuclear weapons. We wanted our country to be a force for diplomacy and for dialogue, not for warmongering.”

Chronicles humanitarian voyage
The book Eyes of Fire chronicles the humanitarian voyage by the Greenpeace flagship to the Marshall Islands to relocate 320 Rongelap Islanders who were suffering serious community health consequences from the US nuclear tests in the 1950s.

The author, Dr David Robie, founder of the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology, was the only journalist on board the Rainbow Warrior in the weeks leading up to the bombing.

His book recounts the voyage and nuclear colonialism, and the transition to climate justice as the major challenge facing the Pacific, although the “Indo-Pacific” rivalries between the US, France and China mean that geopolitical tensions are recalling the Cold War era in the Pacific.

Dr Robie is also critical of Indonesian colonialism in the Melanesian region of the Pacific, arguing that a just-outcome for Jakarta-ruled West Papua and also the French territories of Kanaky New Caledonia and “French” Polynesia are vital for peace and stability in the region.

Eyes of Fire is being published by Little Island Press, which also produced one of his earlier books, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific.

• Greenpeace executive director Dr Russel Norman is launching Eyes of Fire at the Ellen Melville Centre Pioneer Women’s Hall at 6pm on the bombing anniversary day, July 10, following a memorial vigil in the morning on board the current flagship Rainbow Warrior III.
• Eyes of Fire microsite (Little island Press)

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Ellis, bubbly and blonde and smiling behind an enormous pair of shades, is overjoyed to be back on the water after an uncertain winter. It has been nine months since Hurricane Helene ravaged central Appalachia, crumbling highways and roads, leveling forests, and reshaping rivers.

The Pigeon runs through Western North Carolina into the eastern end of Tennessee, roughly parallel to Interstate 40. When the river flooded after Helene, it took huge bites out of the highway, closing it for months and isolating small communities. Debris tumbled into the river, and the crews scrambling to make repairs have replaced sections of riverbank with concrete. Their efforts have been complicated by ongoing flooding and mudslide, creating new scars alongside the old.  

 “The whole thing basically changed,” Ellis said. “It moved major boulders and mountains.”

Ellis possesses an infectiously sunny outlook, even though things have been hard. She lost her home and most of her belongings to Helene and lives in a camper parked in the lot at work. She shares her uncertainty with many thousands of people, especially those who are paid to lead visitors into the beautiful places that make the Great Smoky Mountains so popular. 

As many as 149,000 people in North Carolina alone draw a paycheck related in some way to outdoor recreation, and by one count the seven rivers of the southern Blue Ridge help sustain 68,000 jobs. The Pigeon River provides about $6 million in revenue annually to the rural counties along its banks, and some seven million people visit the French Broad, which flows through Asheville, each year. Rafting is second only to property taxes in the amount of money it brings to Cocke County, Tennessee.

Helene’s disruption of the rafting industry underscores how climate change — and the extreme weather it brings — threatens tourism-dependent economies. A dozen outfitters on the Pigeon, French Broad, and other rivers shut down after the storm and haven’t reopened. Many guides moved on. Those who remain grapple with what Helene wrought, trying to work during a season that, while active, remains well short of its usual vigor.

Those crammed into Ellis’ boat shouted joyfully over the din of roaring rapids, and when the water calmed, guides playfully pushed each other in. Yet everyone was keenly aware of what’s been lost. The patterns of the most popular rapids have shifted. Some vanished, others grew bigger and wilder. In some ways, the Pigeon is a different river. “Stuff will come back eventually but, you know … it’ll probably be a bit,” Ellis said as the boat approached a construction zone.

The bustling work on shore highlighted the dissonance of life on the Pigeon. To the left, the riverbank met a dense and dark mountain forest. To the right, it rose sharply into concrete and gravel shoring up the storm-damaged highway. The sound of singing birds and running water mingled with the rumble of heavy equipment and traffic on Interstate 40. As Ellis’s raft passed the site, she waved. A man in a bulldozer honked a friendly response.

Hurricane Helene made a mess of the Pigeon. Much of the debris the storm knocked loose and the flood carried away choked the waterway, which meanders 70 miles through Pisgah National Forest and drains a watershed of some 700 square miles. Downed trees, vast tangles of brush, even the remains of buildings that once stood along its banks clogged it for months. Although an intrepid rafter or kayaker could run its full length, some of the most popular spots for putting in remain inaccessible.

Other rivers that course through the Smokies saw similar devastation, and uneven recoveries. Some are running clear and strong enough to host rafters, others lag behind. “It’s a story of haves and have nots,” said Kevin Colbourn, executive director of American Whitewater and a river enthusiast himself.

The Pigeon is among those that are open for business but marred by quarrying, riverbank stabilization, and construction. Others, like the French Broad, are ready to ride but businesses along their shores have been washed out. The Nolichucky, which runs 115 miles through North Carolina into Tennessee, is, to Colbourn’s mind, the most tragic. Rafting season is on hold as CSX Transportation rebuilds its rail line through the gorge. A lot of people aren’t happy about that. Guides have watched, aghast, as the company dug rock from the riverbed to shore up the tracks. “‘The river will be there,’ is what people say,” Colbourn said. “What the storm taught us is that’s not always true.”

When the flood swept dozens of businesses away, many guides were left without a reason to return. Others have been hindered by the lugubrious pace of recovery and reconstruction. With nothing else to do, Trey Moore, a kayak instructor and guide in Erwin, Tennessee, turned to activism to get the Nolichucky open again. The river has long kept towns like his alive even as other industries moved on by attracting a steady stream of people who fall in love with the area and settle there to raise families. “We’re a small, tight-knit community,” he said of those who work the rivers.

Moore, a guide for more than 20 years, said many feel a responsibility to their neighbors. During and after the storm, many used their swiftwater rescue skills, and knowledge of the rivers’ contours, to pull people from raging waters. Some hiked for miles up broken roads bringing supplies to isolated elders. Others administered first aid and guided helicopters and first responders to those needing help. They saved lives.

That overwhelming feeling of purpose has since given way to worry. Guiding people down a river is by most accounts incredibly fun for people who love it, but it can also be an unstable way to earn a living. It’s a dangerous seasonal gig, it doesn’t pay all that well, and it rarely comes with benefits. Many who do it live in communal housing or mobile homes. So when the jobs vanished, a lot of them left. “We’ve lost so many guides to so many other rivers,” Moore said. “The guides that are sticking around are struggling.”

Moore is outraged by how CSX is handling reconstruction of the railroad and feels agencies like the U.S. Forest Service have backburnered people like him. As someone who loves the river, and as chairman of the Nolichucky River Outdoor Association, he feels a responsibility to help restore the paddling community to glory. In the meantime, a lot of guides are working on debris removal crews clearing the rivers and surrounding areas. Leslie Beninato is among them. She worked as a guide and owned a small boat rental business before Helene. “Both places do not exist anymore,” she said. “It was just, ‘Oh God, what am I going to do now?’” 

These days she leads crews picking trash off the banks of the French Broad. The only requirement is that anyone joining her must have lost their job to Helene. Most worked in rafting or other river-related industries. Some of them have cleared away remnants of their own workplaces.

Beninato is in her late thirties, and has lived in the mountains of western North Carolina since graduating from Appalachian State University 20 years ago. Unlike some of the younger, greener guides, she’s settled enough to feel stubborn about staying. “To look at the positives of it, how our community came together, that’s one of the reasons why I love the Appalachian mountains,” she said. “I’ve chosen to make these mountains my home because they mean so much to me and they really captured my heart.”

She spoke while paddling across the river, wearing gloves, waders, and a sun hat. Her small canoe carried a pile of trash bags and some trash grabbers; the sun was hot, and mounds of silt covered the tangled riverbanks where trees and businesses once stood. “Just a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear, but then everyone else was in that same boat,” she said, jumping out of hers into waist-deep water. 

A few months after the storm, she started exploring the river and grabbing trash, keeping Excel spreadsheets detailing what she found and where, and what more needed to be removed. That work turned into the crew, and the possibility of something more permanent as destructive storms continue to wreak havoc on the mountains. Things are OK for now, she said, yanking a few pieces of twisted metal out of the brush. Besides, she’s used to improvising. All guides are. “That’s what you have to do in outdoor scenarios,” she said. “You have to think, ‘All right, well here’s plan A, how we think and we want things to go. Here’s plan B, if it doesn’t really go this way, then, oh crap, here’s plan C, if plan A and B just got thrown out the window.’”

Earlier this month, just as rafting season was getting in swing, the Pigeon’s wounds reopened. Four inches of rain doused western North Carolina, causing a rockslide on Interstate 40 and washing construction equipment into the river. All but the lowest reaches of the waterway is closed to rafting, and several put-in spots washed out.

Even before the water started to recede, raft guides once again piled into their boats to rescue neighbors, then set to work mucking out damaged houses and businesses. It was another blow to an industry, and a community, that is, in the words of one young guide, “getting some PTSD from the flood in September.”

As best as Heather Ellis can tell, no more than half the rafting companies in the Cocke County area have managed to reopen since Helene,, and some may not come back at all. She feels like one of the lucky ones, even if she is living in a camper until her new home is built.

After that May day on the Pigeon, she and two guide friends relaxed in front of her RV, watching the next group of lifejacket-clad tourists prepare to set out. Ellis started working here eight years ago, when she was 20, long enough that it started feeling like home. She recalled the moment her boyfriend called her to say Helene had taken their house. “It was heartbreaking,” she said.

In the months since, Ellis has found solace in growing more connected to the community, helping people rebuild, and getting to know the Pigeon River in its new form — exciting and frightening in equal measure. For Ellis and other guides, the only constant is the way these rivers change. 

“It kind of made me feel like a rookie again, cause I had to read water,” Ellis said. “That’s what we say when we’re just kind of seeing where the path needs to be, how we’re going to navigate down the river.”

Gerard Albert III contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A year after Helene, river guides in Appalachia are navigating a new world on Jun 27, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Katie Myers.

Ellis, bubbly and blonde and smiling behind an enormous pair of shades, is overjoyed to be back on the water after an uncertain winter. It has been nine months since Hurricane Helene ravaged central Appalachia, crumbling highways and roads, leveling forests, and reshaping rivers.

The Pigeon runs through Western North Carolina into the eastern end of Tennessee, roughly parallel to Interstate 40. When the river flooded after Helene, it took huge bites out of the highway, closing it for months and isolating small communities. Debris tumbled into the river, and the crews scrambling to make repairs have replaced sections of riverbank with concrete. Their efforts have been complicated by ongoing flooding and mudslide, creating new scars alongside the old.  

 “The whole thing basically changed,” Ellis said. “It moved major boulders and mountains.”

Ellis possesses an infectiously sunny outlook, even though things have been hard. She lost her home and most of her belongings to Helene and lives in a camper parked in the lot at work. She shares her uncertainty with many thousands of people, especially those who are paid to lead visitors into the beautiful places that make the Great Smoky Mountains so popular. 

As many as 149,000 people in North Carolina alone draw a paycheck related in some way to outdoor recreation, and by one count the seven rivers of the southern Blue Ridge help sustain 68,000 jobs. The Pigeon River provides about $6 million in revenue annually to the rural counties along its banks, and some seven million people visit the French Broad, which flows through Asheville, each year. Rafting is second only to property taxes in the amount of money it brings to Cocke County, Tennessee.

Helene’s disruption of the rafting industry underscores how climate change — and the extreme weather it brings — threatens tourism-dependent economies. A dozen outfitters on the Pigeon, French Broad, and other rivers shut down after the storm and haven’t reopened. Many guides moved on. Those who remain grapple with what Helene wrought, trying to work during a season that, while active, remains well short of its usual vigor.

Those crammed into Ellis’ boat shouted joyfully over the din of roaring rapids, and when the water calmed, guides playfully pushed each other in. Yet everyone was keenly aware of what’s been lost. The patterns of the most popular rapids have shifted. Some vanished, others grew bigger and wilder. In some ways, the Pigeon is a different river. “Stuff will come back eventually but, you know … it’ll probably be a bit,” Ellis said as the boat approached a construction zone.

The bustling work on shore highlighted the dissonance of life on the Pigeon. To the left, the riverbank met a dense and dark mountain forest. To the right, it rose sharply into concrete and gravel shoring up the storm-damaged highway. The sound of singing birds and running water mingled with the rumble of heavy equipment and traffic on Interstate 40. As Ellis’s raft passed the site, she waved. A man in a bulldozer honked a friendly response.

Hurricane Helene made a mess of the Pigeon. Much of the debris the storm knocked loose and the flood carried away choked the waterway, which meanders 70 miles through Pisgah National Forest and drains a watershed of some 700 square miles. Downed trees, vast tangles of brush, even the remains of buildings that once stood along its banks clogged it for months. Although an intrepid rafter or kayaker could run its full length, some of the most popular spots for putting in remain inaccessible.

Other rivers that course through the Smokies saw similar devastation, and uneven recoveries. Some are running clear and strong enough to host rafters, others lag behind. “It’s a story of haves and have nots,” said Kevin Colbourn, executive director of American Whitewater and a river enthusiast himself.

The Pigeon is among those that are open for business but marred by quarrying, riverbank stabilization, and construction. Others, like the French Broad, are ready to ride but businesses along their shores have been washed out. The Nolichucky, which runs 115 miles through North Carolina into Tennessee, is, to Colbourn’s mind, the most tragic. Rafting season is on hold as CSX Transportation rebuilds its rail line through the gorge. A lot of people aren’t happy about that. Guides have watched, aghast, as the company dug rock from the riverbed to shore up the tracks. “‘The river will be there,’ is what people say,” Colbourn said. “What the storm taught us is that’s not always true.”

When the flood swept dozens of businesses away, many guides were left without a reason to return. Others have been hindered by the lugubrious pace of recovery and reconstruction. With nothing else to do, Trey Moore, a kayak instructor and guide in Erwin, Tennessee, turned to activism to get the Nolichucky open again. The river has long kept towns like his alive even as other industries moved on by attracting a steady stream of people who fall in love with the area and settle there to raise families. “We’re a small, tight-knit community,” he said of those who work the rivers.

Moore, a guide for more than 20 years, said many feel a responsibility to their neighbors. During and after the storm, many used their swiftwater rescue skills, and knowledge of the rivers’ contours, to pull people from raging waters. Some hiked for miles up broken roads bringing supplies to isolated elders. Others administered first aid and guided helicopters and first responders to those needing help. They saved lives.

That overwhelming feeling of purpose has since given way to worry. Guiding people down a river is by most accounts incredibly fun for people who love it, but it can also be an unstable way to earn a living. It’s a dangerous seasonal gig, it doesn’t pay all that well, and it rarely comes with benefits. Many who do it live in communal housing or mobile homes. So when the jobs vanished, a lot of them left. “We’ve lost so many guides to so many other rivers,” Moore said. “The guides that are sticking around are struggling.”

Moore is outraged by how CSX is handling reconstruction of the railroad and feels agencies like the U.S. Forest Service have backburnered people like him. As someone who loves the river, and as chairman of the Nolichucky River Outdoor Association, he feels a responsibility to help restore the paddling community to glory. In the meantime, a lot of guides are working on debris removal crews clearing the rivers and surrounding areas. Leslie Beninato is among them. She worked as a guide and owned a small boat rental business before Helene. “Both places do not exist anymore,” she said. “It was just, ‘Oh God, what am I going to do now?’” 

These days she leads crews picking trash off the banks of the French Broad. The only requirement is that anyone joining her must have lost their job to Helene. Most worked in rafting or other river-related industries. Some of them have cleared away remnants of their own workplaces.

Beninato is in her late thirties, and has lived in the mountains of western North Carolina since graduating from Appalachian State University 20 years ago. Unlike some of the younger, greener guides, she’s settled enough to feel stubborn about staying. “To look at the positives of it, how our community came together, that’s one of the reasons why I love the Appalachian mountains,” she said. “I’ve chosen to make these mountains my home because they mean so much to me and they really captured my heart.”

She spoke while paddling across the river, wearing gloves, waders, and a sun hat. Her small canoe carried a pile of trash bags and some trash grabbers; the sun was hot, and mounds of silt covered the tangled riverbanks where trees and businesses once stood. “Just a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear, but then everyone else was in that same boat,” she said, jumping out of hers into waist-deep water. 

A few months after the storm, she started exploring the river and grabbing trash, keeping Excel spreadsheets detailing what she found and where, and what more needed to be removed. That work turned into the crew, and the possibility of something more permanent as destructive storms continue to wreak havoc on the mountains. Things are OK for now, she said, yanking a few pieces of twisted metal out of the brush. Besides, she’s used to improvising. All guides are. “That’s what you have to do in outdoor scenarios,” she said. “You have to think, ‘All right, well here’s plan A, how we think and we want things to go. Here’s plan B, if it doesn’t really go this way, then, oh crap, here’s plan C, if plan A and B just got thrown out the window.’”

Earlier this month, just as rafting season was getting in swing, the Pigeon’s wounds reopened. Four inches of rain doused western North Carolina, causing a rockslide on Interstate 40 and washing construction equipment into the river. All but the lowest reaches of the waterway is closed to rafting, and several put-in spots washed out.

Even before the water started to recede, raft guides once again piled into their boats to rescue neighbors, then set to work mucking out damaged houses and businesses. It was another blow to an industry, and a community, that is, in the words of one young guide, “getting some PTSD from the flood in September.”

As best as Heather Ellis can tell, no more than half the rafting companies in the Cocke County area have managed to reopen since Helene,, and some may not come back at all. She feels like one of the lucky ones, even if she is living in a camper until her new home is built.

After that May day on the Pigeon, she and two guide friends relaxed in front of her RV, watching the next group of lifejacket-clad tourists prepare to set out. Ellis started working here eight years ago, when she was 20, long enough that it started feeling like home. She recalled the moment her boyfriend called her to say Helene had taken their house. “It was heartbreaking,” she said.

In the months since, Ellis has found solace in growing more connected to the community, helping people rebuild, and getting to know the Pigeon River in its new form — exciting and frightening in equal measure. For Ellis and other guides, the only constant is the way these rivers change. 

“It kind of made me feel like a rookie again, cause I had to read water,” Ellis said. “That’s what we say when we’re just kind of seeing where the path needs to be, how we’re going to navigate down the river.”

Gerard Albert III contributed reporting to this story.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A year after Helene, river guides in Appalachia are navigating a new world on Jun 27, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Katie Myers.

But the first large-scale study of post-wildfire water quality has found that pollution created by such a blaze can threaten water supplies for eight years — far longer than previous studies indicated. Researchers at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science, or CIRES, at the University of Colorado Boulder analyzed 100,000 samples from 500 watersheds across the western United States. They found “contaminants like organic carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment” throughout those that had burned. At their peak, those pollutants can be found at levels up to 103 times higher than before the fire. There also can be 9 to 286 times as much sediment in water after a fire. 

The findings have great implications for water systems as they prepare for a world in which fires like those that burned in Los Angeles and, more recently, North Carolina and a great swath of Canada, grow more common. One in six people in the United States lives in a wildfire risk zone, and forested watersheds provide water to almost two-thirds of municipalities in the U.S., making water systems everywhere vulnerable. 

“I’ve had a lot of conversations with different utilities and water managers in the West, and every single one of them are concerned about wildfire impacts,” said Carli Brucker, lead author of the study, published Tuesday. But, she added, what they don’t have is longer-term data. “I’m hoping that this research provides these concrete numbers that can really back up water managers’ concerns, and turn those concerns into real funding that they can start putting towards climate resilience. Strong evidence can be really helpful in securing funding.”

Water utilities in the LA area addressed the threat posed by the fires that burned in January in the short term by flushing water mains and pipes. Officials with the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power said they are conducting ongoing water testing in the Palisades area, and are offering free water quality testing to any resident that wants it.

“These urban fires are creating these unprecedented challenges that treatment plants can’t really deal with,” Brucker said. “Burning buildings and businesses and roads and cars, it creates all these contaminants that are just way more dangerous and way more difficult to deal with.”

Across the locations the researchers analyzed, contamination levels varied widely. In general, post-fire pollution was worse in heavily forested or heavily urbanized areas. The “most dramatic spikes” in pollutants like phosphorus, nitrate, organic carbon and sediment generally occurred in the first few years after a fire, according to researcher Ben Livneh. 

“We found the impacts to be really persistent,” Livneh wrote in The Conversation. “We saw significantly elevated levels of nitrogen and sediment for up to eight years following a fire.” Even years after a fire, a major rainfall can trigger a mudslide, unearthing contaminants. Beyond polluting groundwater, that can cause unexpected environmental issues. “Nitrogen and phosphorus act like fertilizer for algae. A surge of these nutrients can trigger algal blooms in reservoirs, which can produce toxins and create foul odors,” Livneh said. 

There are several ways to fight these threats to water supply.

“The first line of defense is just diversifying water sources,” Brucker said. Ideally, a utility would draw from several watersheds, so it has a backup in the event one of them is impacted by a fire, she said. They also can build additional sedimentation basins to increase their capacity for sediment handling. 

“But all of these things cost a lot more,” Brucker said. And it’s difficult to convince strained utilities in Western states – already dealing with things like water shortages – to spend money on wildfire mitigation without numbers. Rural communities, in particular, often rely on single-source water systems and limited funding, which makes responding to emergencies much more challenging. 

“Utilities don’t usually have these sorts of process improvements in place, unless they have a good reason,” she said. “I’m hoping this research can point to – this is a pretty good reason to start planning for and trying to budget for those resilience improvements.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Pollution from wildfires can contaminate our water for up to eight years, new study finds on Jun 27, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Sophie Hurwitz.

Immigration reporter Mario Guevara, currently in federal custody and facing possible deportation, was charged June 17 with three additional misdemeanors for traffic violations that allegedly occurred more than a month before his mid-June arrest at a protest near Atlanta.

Guevara, a Salvadoran journalist who has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, was arrested during a “No Kings” protest against President Donald Trump in Chamblee, Georgia. The demonstration coincided with a military parade attended by Trump in Washington, D.C., marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army.

Guevara was livestreaming the protest to over a million followers when Doraville police arrested him. At the time, he was wearing a press vest and helmet and repeatedly identified himself as a journalist. He was later charged with obstruction, unlawful assembly and walking on a roadway.

On June 18, Guevara was transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody after federal immigration officials placed a detainer on him. Guevara, who lacks permanent legal status, has work authorization and a potential path to a green card through his U.S.-citizen son.

The Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office then filed three new misdemeanor charges — distracted driving, reckless driving and failure to obey a traffic control device — against Guevara. The new charges appear to stem from an incident 31 days earlier, when he was reportedly livestreaming immigration enforcement activity while driving.

The incidents listed in the warrants happened on May 13 and May 20, but the warrants weren’t taken out against Guevara until June 17, his attorney Giovanni Diaz said in a video news update posted to the social platform Facebook.

“We’ve only been able to see the warrants. We’re trying to get a little more information,” Diaz said in Spanish. “I think the timing, to a lot of people, is a bit concerning. I’ll allow other folks to speculate about that.”

Diaz did not return U.S. Press Freedom Tracker requests for comment.

In a statement provided to the Gwinnett Daily Post, the sheriff’s office claimed Guevara “compromised operational integrity” and “jeopardized the safety of victims of the case, investigators, and Gwinnett County residents” during an unrelated investigation.

A spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office denied a Tracker request for the arrest warrants, stating that they are still active and an investigation is ongoing.

In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this spring, Guevara reflected on the risks of his reporting: “My lawyers are asking me to tone it down, to not be so aggressive,” he said. “I’m acting as if I were a citizen … but I’m not scared.”

In response to mounting public scrutiny, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement on social media June 20 denying that Guevara’s detention was related to his journalism.

“This El Salvador national is in ICE custody because he entered the country illegally in 2004,” the agency said. “He was arrested for willful obstruction after refusing lawful orders.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Police in Papua New Guinea say the country’s overrun courts and prisons are behind mass breakouts from police custody.

Chief Superintendent Clement Dala made the comment after 13 detainees escaped on Tuesday in Simbu Province, including eight who were facing murder charges.

Dala said an auxiliary policeman who had the keys to a holding cell at Kundiawa Police Station is also on the run.

• READ MORE: Other PNG prison reports

Police are investigating a claim by local media that he is the partner of a female escapee who was facing trial for murder.

Six police officers on duty at the time have been suspended for 21 days while investigations continue.

“The auxiliary officer is not a recognised police officer and should not have had the key, but it appears he was helping the sole police officer on cell duties,” said Dala, who is the acting assistant commissioner for three Highlands provinces.

Dala said it appeared the auxiliary officer wandered off for a meal and left the cell door open at the entrance to the police station.

“He may have played a role in assisting the escapees, but we are still trying to find out exactly what happened.”

‘Probably hiding somewhere’
“If we find it was deliberate then he will definitely be arrested. He is probably hiding somewhere nearby and we’ll get to him as soon as we can,” he said.

As of yesterday, none of the escapees had been caught. Police are relying on community leaders to encourage them to surrender.

But this could take a month or longer and police fear some could reoffend.

He said the police have previously been told not to use auxiliary officers in any official capacity as they were community liaison officers.

“This is a symptom of our severe staff shortages, but I have reissued an instruction banning them from frontline duties,” he said.

Dala said PNG’s courts and prisons were completely overrun, and this was the main reason detainees in police custody escape.

Up to 200 people on remand
He said on any given day there could be up to 200 people on remand in police cells under his command and many brought in weapons and drugs.

“We have different cells for different remandees, but if we are overcrowded we have to keep prisoners in the main corridor, especially those who have committed minor crimes,” he said.

Dala said some remand prisoners were being kept in police holding cells for more than a month.

He said the police had faced a lack of political will to deal with severe staff shortages, a lack of training across the force and outdated infrastructure.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Police in Papua New Guinea say the country’s overrun courts and prisons are behind mass breakouts from police custody.

Chief Superintendent Clement Dala made the comment after 13 detainees escaped on Tuesday in Simbu Province, including eight who were facing murder charges.

Dala said an auxiliary policeman who had the keys to a holding cell at Kundiawa Police Station is also on the run.

• READ MORE: Other PNG prison reports

Police are investigating a claim by local media that he is the partner of a female escapee who was facing trial for murder.

Six police officers on duty at the time have been suspended for 21 days while investigations continue.

“The auxiliary officer is not a recognised police officer and should not have had the key, but it appears he was helping the sole police officer on cell duties,” said Dala, who is the acting assistant commissioner for three Highlands provinces.

Dala said it appeared the auxiliary officer wandered off for a meal and left the cell door open at the entrance to the police station.

“He may have played a role in assisting the escapees, but we are still trying to find out exactly what happened.”

‘Probably hiding somewhere’
“If we find it was deliberate then he will definitely be arrested. He is probably hiding somewhere nearby and we’ll get to him as soon as we can,” he said.

As of yesterday, none of the escapees had been caught. Police are relying on community leaders to encourage them to surrender.

But this could take a month or longer and police fear some could reoffend.

He said the police have previously been told not to use auxiliary officers in any official capacity as they were community liaison officers.

“This is a symptom of our severe staff shortages, but I have reissued an instruction banning them from frontline duties,” he said.

Dala said PNG’s courts and prisons were completely overrun, and this was the main reason detainees in police custody escape.

Up to 200 people on remand
He said on any given day there could be up to 200 people on remand in police cells under his command and many brought in weapons and drugs.

“We have different cells for different remandees, but if we are overcrowded we have to keep prisoners in the main corridor, especially those who have committed minor crimes,” he said.

Dala said some remand prisoners were being kept in police holding cells for more than a month.

He said the police had faced a lack of political will to deal with severe staff shortages, a lack of training across the force and outdated infrastructure.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The spotlight

During the COVID lockdowns of 2020, people in cities all over the world were desperate to get outside. As everything slowed down, residents and city governments organized to block off sections of some streets to cars, instead giving them over to pedestrians and leisure activities — a global phenomenon of “open,” “slow,” or “shared” streets, depending on the local parlance.

One of the most lauded examples of a successful open street was 34th Avenue in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York, described by many as the gold standard of what open, human-first streets can look like.

Jackson Heights is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in one of the most diverse boroughs of New York City. More than 60 percent of its population is made up of people who were born outside the U.S. And like many working-class neighborhoods where a majority of the residents are people of color, it suffers from a lack of green space.

“Jackson Heights ranks last in per capita park space in all of New York City,” said Dawn Siff, executive director of the Alliance for Paseo Park, a community-led nonprofit organization that emerged to advocate for the 34th Avenue park. “There’s nowhere for your children to learn to ride bikes,” she said. “My children and my nieces attended, and still attend, two of the seven public schools that are basically right up and down 34th Avenue — and they don’t have room for recess.”

The open street initiative has started to change that. For the past five years, a 1.3-mile stretch of 34th Avenue, now known as Paseo Park, has been closed to cars during daytime hours. The park has become such a beloved fixture of the neighborhood that there are now plans to make it permanent. New York City Council Member Shekar Krishnan, who represents the district that includes Jackson Heights and also chairs the Committee on Parks and Recreation, called it “a lifeline” for the community. “What started out as a necessity during the pandemic has really evolved into an incredible place that brings people together — families, children, seniors,” said Krishnan.

This month, following more than a year of planning and visioning sessions, a group of community members released a report offering an ambitious vision for what the space could look like — and a roadmap for how to transform a temporary structure that has grown organically into an organized way to meet a variety of community needs.

A rendering showing what an improved residential block could look like. Courtesy of Alliance for Paseo Park / WXY

Luz Maria Mercado, the board chair of Alliance for Paseo Park, moved to Jackson Heights with her mother when she was around 9 years old, after her parents divorced. “When my parents were together, they had a house. I had a backyard,” she said. “I came to an apartment with absolutely no green space.” What she noticed, from a young age, was that Jackson Heights did have lovely gardens — in the courtyards of private, gated residences in some of the more upscale corners of the neighborhood. Mercado remembered peering through those gates with a degree of envy. “I would think, ‘Wow, this is so nice,’” she said. “‘It would be so nice if we could have this. But this is not meant for people like me and my mom.’”

Mercado now lives on 34th Avenue with her husband and her own children. It’s a nice building — they even have a little terrace. “But what would I see outside? Cars zooming by,” she said. “It was loud. The air was stagnant.”

The pandemic, and the citywide open streets initiative, created an opportunity to reimagine what the neighborhood could look like. When then-mayor Bill de Blasio opened up an application portal for communities to request an open street in their area, several Jackson Heights residents submitted 34th Avenue, Siff recalled. Initially, the city designated just a few blocks in front of Travers Park. But the community wanted more than that — and they began holding rallies to advocate for it.

“As our rallies grew, so did our open street,” Siff said, and eventually 34th Avenue became the longest open street in New York City: 26 whole blocks. “And as soon as we got that space, something magical happened” — even in the midst of an incredibly dark and scary time, Siff said. “Suddenly, we had this 1.3-mile park space, and people started to make it their own.”

Neighbors organized and volunteered to put the barricades up in the morning and take them down in the evening, allowing cars to pass through at night. People began gardening in the median. They took up running for the first time. They taught Zumba classes and English lessons, and set up food pantries. Kids learned to ride bikes.

“Now that we have Paseo Park, the noise level is down, the air quality is better,” Mercado said. Instead of cars honking, “we hear children outside leaving school, enjoying the space, playing soccer.”

As the pandemic eased and things began to reopen, Paseo Park persisted. In 2021, Alliance for Paseo Park (formerly known as Friends of 34th Avenue Linear Park) began advocating for more permanent infrastructure, circulating a petition that more than 2,600 neighbors signed. As wonderful as the newfound space was, it was still a street — and the daily conversion to a park was being managed by volunteers running on fumes.

The city made some improvements, for instance designating “plaza blocks” in front of schools with markings that indicate the space is for pedestrians. But residents still have a bigger vision — and the city has allocated nearly $90 million in capital funding to make the linear park permanent. Last summer, the alliance, wanting to ensure that money would go toward accomplishing the things that residents most cared about, launched a yearlong process of community engagement.

Over the past year, the organization has run surveys online and on paper, conducted visioning sessions and pop-up tabling sessions, appointed outreach ambassadors to host conversations, and even helped facilitate a survey specifically for kids. A number of core priorities emerged, including safety, uninterrupted space for pedestrians, and climate resilience.

The project is not without its detractors — residents who object to the banishment of cars from the avenue, citing a lack of parking, increased traffic on neighboring streets, and for some, a simple desire to live on a street rather than within a park. But this contingent is a vocal minority, Council Member Krishnan said. “It’s very clear this is a project that is beloved by this community,” he said. “I have run multiple times on a platform where Paseo Park is a central part of my work for our community.”

A rendering shows what a school block might look like with additional improvements. Courtesy of Alliance for Paseo Park / WXY

The Alliance for Paseo Park worked with an architecture firm, WXY, to bring the community’s dreams to life in a design — showing what the space could actually look like, and what sorts of infrastructural improvements could accomplish the goals that residents expressed.

The resulting report presents two possible designs: one prioritizing an expanded “super sidewalk” to give ample room for pedestrians, and another prioritizing a “super median” that would offer more green space in between pedestrian lanes. Different blocks would center different needs, like recreation, rest, and play areas specifically for school kids. Stormwater gardens and other features like permeable pavers would reduce flooding in the area. Retractable bollards would allow essential vehicles to enter when needed — like ambulances, sanitation trucks, and Access-A-Ride, the city’s transportation service for residents with disabilities — another thing community members said was important to them.

Yet another priority residents emphasized was clarity about the use of the space. The report notes that currently, Paseo Park is straining under the need to be everything to the community. This is perhaps most embodied by the competition between pedestrians and riders of two-wheeled vehicles. To ease some of this tension, the report proposes making improvements to a parallel street, Northern Boulevard, to create a protected corridor for bikes, mopeds, and scooters.

While it is detailed, the report is not meant to be prescriptive. “We’re not calling specifically for any measures, but one of the things that we are communicating in this report is that this is possible,” Siff said. Their hope is that the city — and the community — will think big about how the space could be transformed, and how clever designs could meet a variety of needs.

“We’re showing the community, we’re showing the city, we’re showing the state, we’re showing the world that it can be done,” Mercado said. “We just have to have the vision and the resources to implement it.”

As far as that implementation goes, infrastructure projects often move slowly in New York, Siff said. Not to mention, the city is currently gearing up for a mayoral election, with the Democratic primary taking place yesterday. “We need really strong leadership in the city to get this done,” said Siff. But she is hopeful that the next mayor will see the opportunity for impact in this project, and “for New York City to take its place among great cities around the world that are repurposing street space to park space, and giving it back to communities.”

— Claire Elise Thompson

More exposure

• Read: more about the evolution of 34th Avenue’s open street (The New York Times)
• Read: about the data showing just how much the open street has reduced danger to pedestrians and cyclists from passing vehicles (Streetsblog NYC)
• Read: a previous newsletter covering a park project in Atlanta that was designed to reduce flooding in the surrounding area
• Read: another newsletter in which we explored the potential for schoolyards to double as parks, benefitting both students and the whole community
• Read: one more newsletter about a project inviting groups of students in and around Washington, D.C., to design their own pollinator gardens

A parting shot

In December 2022, New York City experimented with a temporary open street on Sundays on the iconic Fifth Avenue, to make more room for holiday shoppers. It marked the first time in half a century that the thoroughfare was closed to cars. The city has repeated the initiative every December since, although last year Mayor Eric Adams scaled it down to just a single day.

IMAGE CREDITS

Vision: Mia Torres / Grist

Spotlight: Courtesy of Alliance for Paseo Park / WXY

Parting shot: Ryan Rahman / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How a 1.3-mile stretch of street became a much-needed park space in Queens, New York on Jun 25, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Claire Elise Thompson.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The Trump administration has launched a major reorganization of the U.S. fight against drug traffickers and other transnational criminal groups, setting out a strategy that would give new authority to the Department of Homeland Security and deepen the influence of the White House.

The administration’s plans, described in internal documents and by government officials, would reduce federal prosecutors’ control over investigations, shifting key decisions to a network of task forces jointly led by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, the primary investigative arm of DHS.

Officials said the plan to bring law enforcement agencies together in the new Homeland Security Task Forces has been driven primarily by President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, who is closely overseeing the project’s implementation.

Current and former officials said the proposed reorganization would make it easier for senior officials like Miller to disregard norms that have long walled off the White House from active criminal investigations.

“To the administration’s credit, they are trying to break down barriers that are hard to break down,” said Adam W. Cohen, a career Justice Department attorney who was fired in March as head of the office that coordinates organized crime investigations involving often-competing federal agencies. “But you won’t have neutral prosecutors weighing the facts and making decisions about who to investigate,” he added of the task force plan. “The White House will be able to decide.”

The proposed reorganization would elevate the stature and influence of Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement among law enforcement agencies, while continuing to push other agencies to pursue immigration-related crimes.

The task forces would at least formally subordinate the Drug Enforcement Administration to HSI and the FBI after half a century in which the DEA has been the government’s lead agency for narcotics enforcement.

Trump’s directive to establish the new task forces was included in an Inauguration Day executive order, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which focused on immigration.

The new task forces will seek “to end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States,” the order states. They will also aim to “end the scourge of human smuggling and trafficking, with a particular focus on such offenses involving children.”

Since that order was issued, the administration has proceeded with considerable secrecy. Some Justice Department officials who work on organized crime have been excluded from planning meetings, as have leaders of the DEA, people familiar with the process said.

A White House spokesperson, Abigail Jackson, did not comment on Miller’s role in directing the task force project or the secrecy of the process. “While the Biden Administration opened the border and looked the other way while Americans were put at risk,” she said, “the Trump Administration is taking action to dismantle cross-border human smuggling and trafficking and ensure the use of all available law enforcement tools to faithfully execute immigration laws and to Make America Safe Again.”

The task force project was described in interviews with current and former officials who have been briefed on it. ProPublica also reviewed documents about the implementation of the task forces, including a briefing paper prepared for Cabinet-level officials on the president’s Homeland Security Council.

The Homeland Security Task Forces will take a “coordinated, whole-of-government approach” to combatting transnational criminal groups, the paper states. They will also draw support from state and local police forces and U.S. intelligence agencies.

Until now, the government has coordinated that same work through a Justice Department program established by President Ronald Reagan, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces — which the Trump administration is shutting down.

Known by the ungainly acronym OCDETF (pronounced “oh-suh-def”), the $550-million program is above all an incentive system: To receive funding, different agencies (including the DEA, the FBI and HSI) must come together to propose investigations, which are then vetted and approved by prosecutor-led OCDETF teams.

The agents are required to include a financial investigation of the criminal activity, typically with help from the Treasury Department, and they often recruit support from state and local police. The OCDETF intelligence center, located in the northern Virginia suburbs, manages the only federal database in which different law-enforcement agencies share their raw investigative files.

While officials describe OCDETF as an imperfect structure, they also say it has become a crucial means of law enforcement cooperation. Its mandate was expanded under the Biden and first Trump administrations to encompass all types of organized crime, not just drug trafficking.

As recently as a few months ago, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, declared that OCDETF would play a central role in stopping illegal immigration, drug trafficking and street gangs. He even suggested that it investigate the governments of so-called sanctuary cities for obstructing immigration enforcement.

But just weeks after Blanche’s announcement, the administration informed OCDETF officials their operations would be shut down by the end of the fiscal year in September. In a letter to Democratic senators on June 23, the Justice Department confirmed that the Homeland Security Task Forces would absorb OCDETF’s “mission and resources” but did not explain how the new structure would take charge of the roughly 5,000 investigations OCDETF now oversees.

“These were not broken programs,” said a former Homeland Security official who, like others, would only discuss the administration’s plans on condition of anonymity. “If you wanted to build them out and make sure that the immigration side of things got more importance, you could have done that. You did not have to build a new wheel.”

Officials also cited other concerns about the administration’s plan, including whether the new task force system will incorporate some version of the elaborate safeguards OCDETF has used to persuade law enforcement agencies to share their case files in its intelligence database. Under those rules, OCDETF analysts must obtain permission from the agency that provided the records before sharing them with others.

Many officials said they worried that the new task forces seem to be abandoning OCDETF’s incentive structure. OCDETF funds are conditioned on multiple agencies working together on important cases; officials said the monies will now be distributed to law enforcement agencies directly and without the requirement that they collaborate.

“They are taking away a lot of the organization that the government uses to attack organized crime,” a Justice Department official said. “If you want to improve something, great, but they don’t even seem to have a vision for how this is going to work. There are no specifics.”

The Homeland Security Task Forces will try to enforce interagency cooperation by a “supremacy clause,” that gives task force leaders the right to pursue the cases they want and shut down others that might overlap.

The clause will require “that any new or existing investigative and/or intelligence initiatives” targeting transnational criminal organizations “must be presented to the HSTF with a right of first refusal,” according to the briefing paper reviewed by ProPublica.

“Further,” it adds, “the supremacy clause prohibits parallel or competitive activities by member agencies, effectively eliminating duplicative structures such as stand-alone task forces or specialized units, to include narcotics, financial, or others.”

Several senior law enforcement officials said that approach would curtail the independence that investigators need to follow good leads when they see them; newer and less-visible criminal organizations would be more likely to escape scrutiny.

In recent years, those officials noted, both Democratic and Republican administrations have tried at times to short-circuit competition for big cases among law enforcement agencies and judicial districts. But that has often led to as many problems as it has solved, they said.

One notable example, several officials said, was a move by the Biden administration’s DEA administrator, Anne Milgram, to limit her agency’s cooperation with FBI and HSI investigations into fentanyl smuggling by Los Chapitos, the mafia led by sons of the Mexican drug boss Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known as “El Chapo.”

Although the DEA eventually indicted the Chapitos’ leaders in New York, officials from other agencies complained that Milgram’s approach wasted months of work and delayed the indictments of some traffickers. Later, when the FBI secretly arranged the surrender of one of the sons, Joaquín Guzmán López, DEA officials were not told about the operation until it was underway, officials said. (Guzmán López initially pleaded not guilty but is believed to be negotiating with the government. Milgram did not respond to messages asking for comment.)

As to the benefits of competition, prosecutors and agents cite the case of El Chapo himself. Before he was extradited to the United States in January 2017, Guzmán Loera had been indicted by seven U.S. attorneys’ offices, reflecting yearslong investigations by the DEA, the FBI and HSI, among others. In the agreement that the Obama Justice Department brokered, three offices led the prosecution, which used the best evidence gathered by the others.

Under the new structure of the Homeland Security Task Forces, several officials said, federal prosecutors will still generally decide whether to bring charges against criminal groups, but they will have less of a role in determining which criminals to investigate.

Regional and national task forces will be overseen by “executive committees” that are expected to include political appointees, officials said. The committees will guide broader decisions about which criminal groups to target, they said.

“The HSTF model unleashes the full might of our federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to deliver justice for the American people, whose plight Biden and Garland ignored for four years,” a Justice Department spokesperson said, referring to former Attorney General Merrick Garland. “Any suggestion that the Department is abandoning its mission of cracking down on violent organized crime is unequivocally false.”

During Trump’s first term, veteran officials of the FBI, DEA and HSI all complained that the administration’s overarching focus on immigration diverted agents from more urgent national security threats, including the fentanyl epidemic. Now, as hundreds more agents have been dispatched to immigration enforcement, those officials worry that the new task forces will focus on rounding up undocumented immigrants who have any sort of criminal record at the cost of more significant organized crime investigations.

The first task forces to begin operating under the new model have not assuaged such concerns. In late May, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced that the Virginia Homeland Security Task Force had arrested more than 1,000 “criminal illegal aliens” in just two months, but the authorities have provided almost no details connecting those suspects to transnational criminal organizations.

On June 16, the Gulf of America Homeland Security Task Force, a new unit based in Alabama and Georgia, announced the arrests of 60 people, nearly all of them undocumented immigrants, at a cockfighting event in northern Alabama. Although cockfighting is typically subject to a maximum fine of $50 in the state, a senior HSI official claimed the suspects were “tied to a broader network of serious crimes, including illegal gambling, drug trafficking and violent offenses.” Once again, however, no details were provided.

It is unclear how widely the new task force rules might be applied. While OCDETF funds the salaries of more than a thousand federal agents and hundreds of prosecutors, thousands more DEA, FBI and HSI agents work on other narcotics and organized crime cases.

In early June, five Democratic senators wrote to Bondi questioning the decision to dismantle OCDETF. That decision was first reported by Bloomberg News.

“As the Department’s website notes, OCDETF ‘is the centerpiece of the Attorney General’s strategy to combat transnational-organized crime and to reduce the availability of illicit narcotics in the nation,’” the senators wrote.

In a June 23 response, a Justice Department official, Daniel Boatright, wrote that OCDETF’s operations would be taken over by the new task forces and managed by the office of the Deputy Attorney General. But Boatright did not clarify what role federal prosecutors would play in the new system.

“A lot of good, smart people are trying to make this work,” said one former senior official. “But without having prosecutors drive the process, it is going to completely fracture how we do things.”

Veteran officials at the DEA — who appear to have had almost no say in the creation of the new task forces— are said to be even more concerned. Already the DEA has been fighting pressure to provide access to investigative files without assurances that the safeguards of the OCDETF intelligence center will remain in place, officials said.

“DEA has not even been invited to any of the task force meetings,” one former senior official said. “It is mind-boggling. They’re just getting orders saying, ‘This is what Stephen Miller wants and you’ve got to give it to us.’”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Tim Golden.

French President Emmanuel Macron has sent a formal invitation to “all New Caledonia stakeholders” for talks in Paris on the French Pacific territory’s political and economic future to be held on July 2.

The confirmation came on Thursday in the form of a letter sent individually to an undisclosed list of recipients and June 24.

The talks follow a series of roundtables fostered earlier this year by French Minister for Overseas Manuel Valls.

• READ MORE: Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

But the latest talks, held in New Caledonia under a so-called “conclave” format, stalled on  May 8.

This was mainly because several main components of the pro-France (anti-independence) parties said the draft agreement proposed by Valls was tantamount to a form of independence, which they reject.

The project implied that New Caledonia’s future political status vis-à-vis France could be an associated independence “within France” with a transfer of key powers (justice, defence, law and order, foreign affairs, currency ), a dual New Caledonia-France citizenship and an international standing.

Instead, the pro-France Rassemblement-LR and Loyalistes suggested another project of “internal federalism” which would give more powers (including on tax matters) to each of the three provinces, a notion often criticised as a de facto partition of New Caledonia.

Local elections issue
In May 2024, on the sensitive issue of eligibility at local elections, deadly riots broke out in New Caledonia, resulting in 14 deaths and more than 2 billion euros (NZ$3.8 billion) in damage.

In his letter, Macron writes that although Valls “managed to restore dialogue…this did not allow reaching an agreement on (New Caledonia’s) institutional future”.

“This is why I decided to host, under my presidency, a summit dedicated to New Caledonia and associating the whole of the territory’s stakeholders”.

Macron also wrote that “beyond institutional topics, I wish that our exchanges can also touch on (New Caledonia’s) economic and societal issues”.

Macron made earlier announcements, including on 10 June 2025, on the margins of the recent UNOC Oceans Summit in Nice (France), when he dedicated a significant part of his speech to Pacific leaders attending a “Pacific-France” summit to the situation in New Caledonia.

“Our exchanges will last as long as it takes so that the heavy topics . . . can be dealt with with all the seriousness they deserve”.

Macron also points out that after New Caledonia’s “crisis” broke out on 13 May 2024, “the tension was too high to allow for a dialogue between all the components of New Caledonia’s society”.

A new deal?
The main political objective of the talks remains to find a comprehensive agreement between all local political stakeholders, in order to arrive at a new agreement that would define the French Pacific territory’s political future and status.

This would then allow to replace the 27-year-old Nouméa Accord, signed in 1998.

That pact put a heavy focus on the notions of “living together” and “common destiny” for New Caledonia’s indigenous Kanaks and all of the other components of its ethnically and culturally diverse society.

It also envisaged an economic “rebalancing” between the Northern and Islands provinces and the more affluent Southern province, where the capital Nouméa is located.

The Nouméa Accord also contained provisions to hold three referendums on self-determination.

The three polls took place in 2018, 2020 and 2021, all of those resulting in a majority of people rejecting independence.

But the last referendum, in December 2021, was largely boycotted by the pro-independence movement.

‘Examine the situation’
According to the Nouméa Accord, after the referendums, political stakeholders were to “examine the situation thus created”, Macron recalled.

But despite several attempts, including under previous governments, to promote political talks, the situation has remained deadlocked and increasingly polarised between the pro-independence and the pro-France camps.

A few days after the May 2024 riots, Macron made a trip to New Caledonia, calling for the situation to be appeased so that talks could resume.

In his June 10 speech to Pacific leaders, Macron also mentioned a “new project” and in relation to the past referendums process, pledged “not to make the same mistakes again”.

He said he believed the referendum, as an instrument, was not necessarily adapted to Melanesian and Kanak cultures.

In practice, the Paris “summit” would also involve French minister for Overseas Manuel Valls.

The list of invited participants would include all parties, pro-independence and pro-France, represented at New Caledonia’s Congress (the local parliament).

But it would also include a number of economic stakeholders, as well as a delegation of Mayors of New Caledonia, as well as representatives of the civil society and NGOs.

Talks could also come in several formats, with the political side being treated separately.

The pro-independence platform FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) has to decide at the weekend whether it will take part in the Paris talks.

Will Christian Téin take part?
During a whirlwind visit to New Caledonia in June 2024, Macron met Christian Téin, the leader of a pro-independence CCAT (Field Action Coordination Cell), created by Union Calédonienne (UC).

Téin was arrested and jailed in mainland France.

In August 2024, while in custody in the Mulhouse prison (northeastern France), he was elected in absentia as president of a UC-dominated FLNKS.

Even though he still faces charges for allegedly being one of the masterminds of the May 2024 riots, Téin was released from jail on June 12 on condition that he does not travel to New Caledonia and reports regularly to French judges.

On the pro-France side, Téin’s release triggered mixed angry reactions.

Other pro-France hard-line components said the Kanak leader’s participation in the Paris talks was simply “unthinkable”.

Pro-independence Tjibaou said Téin’s release was “a sign of appeasement”, but that his participation was probably subject to “conditions”.

“But I’m not the one who makes the invitations,” he told public broadcaster NC la 1ère on 15 June 2025.

FLNKS spokesman Dominique Fochi said in a release Téin’s participation in the talks was earlier declared a prerequisite.

“Now our FLNKS president has been released. He’s the FLNKS boss and we are awaiting his instructions,” Fochi said.

At former roundtables earlier this year, the FLNKS delegation was headed by Union Calédonienne (UC, the main and dominating component of the FLNKS) president Emmanuel Tjibaou.

‘Concluding the decolonisation process’, says Valls
In a press conference on Tuesday in Paris, Valls elaborated some more on the upcoming Paris talks.

“Obviously there will be a sequence of political negotiations which I will lead with all of New Caledonia’s players, that is all groups represented at the Congress. But there will also be an economic and social sequence with economic, social and societal players who will be invited”, Valls said.

During question time at the French National Assembly in Paris on 3 June 2025, Valls said he remained confident that it was “still possible” to reach an agreement and to “reconcile” the “contradictory aspirations” of the pro-independence and pro-France camps.

During the same sitting, pro-France New Caledonia MP Nicolas Metzdorf decried what he termed “France’s lack of ambition” and his camp’s feeling of being “let down”.

The other MP for New Caledonia’s, pro-independence Emmanuel Tjibaou, also took the floor to call on France to “close the colonial chapter” and that France has to “take its part in the conclusion of the emancipation process” of New Caledonia.

“With the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister, and the political forces, we will make offers, while concluding the decolonisation process, the self-determination process, while respecting New Caledonians’ words and at the same time not forgetting history, and the past that have led to the disaster of the 1980s and the catastrophe of May 2024,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with New York Focus, an investigative news outlet reporting on New York. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week, and sign up for New York Focus’ newsletter here.

Jasmine Stradford sat on her porch near Binghamton, New York, with toys, furniture, garbage bags full of clothing and other possessions piled up around her. She and her partner were being evicted after falling behind on rent.

So last June, they and their children — then ages 3, 12 and 15 — turned to New York’s emergency shelter system for help. It was built to provide homeless residents not only beds, but also food, help finding permanent housing and sometimes child care so parents can find work, attend school or look for apartments.

Stradford and her family received almost none of that. Instead of placing them in a shelter, the Broome County Department of Social Services cycled them through four roadside hotels over three months, where they mostly had to fend for themselves.

“I remember staring at my kids, thinking that I’d failed them,” Stradford said. “Then I remember going to DSS and being completely dehumanized.”

Stradford’s family was part of a growing trend: In the past few years, hotels have quietly become the state’s predominant response to homelessness outside New York City. New York Focus and ProPublica found that the state’s social services agencies placed just under half the 34,000 individuals and families receiving emergency shelter outside the city in fiscal year 2024 in hotels — up from 29% in 2018. The change was most pronounced in Broome County, where hotel cases more than quintupled.

Statewide spending on hotels more than tripled over that period to $110 million, according to an analysis of state temporary housing data by the news organizations. In total, hotels outside New York City were paid about $420 million to shelter unhoused people from April 2017 to September 2024.

It’s a makeshift arrangement that provides people a roof over their head but little else. State regulations exempt hotels from providing the same services that families are supposed to receive in the shelter system.

The hotels are “less supportive, less conducive for good health outcomes, good education outcomes,” said Adam Bosch, CEO of Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress, a policy research nonprofit. “If our ultimate goal is to get people moving back toward independence, sticking them in a hotel on a hillside away from services, away from schools, away from transportation networks is not a great strategy.”

Homelessness in New York City received intense media coverage as the migrant crisis became fodder in the presidential election. But far less attention has been paid to the homeless population throughout the rest of New York, which far surpasses most other states on its own.

Few of the migrants were relocated to hotels outside the city. Instead, the spike in hotel housing stems from a combination of soaring rent, dozens of shelter closures and what housing advocates and industry representatives said was a botched response to the end of the state’s pandemic-related eviction moratorium in 2022. After the moratorium ended, landlords began evicting tenants at rates exceeding previous years. With fewer shelters and more people in need, the number of individuals and families placed in hotels shot up.

Barbara Guinn, the commissioner of the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, said in an interview that her agency hadn’t studied the growth in hotel use for emergency shelter. The trend has been scarcely mentioned at legislative hearings in Albany.

But OTDA, which supervises the county social services offices, has long known about the problems the hotels present. In early 2020, state auditors warned the agency that it wasn’t adequately overseeing shelters, including hotels used as temporary housing. OTDA acknowledged that hotels present challenges because they don’t have on-site support services or the same level of supervision as shelters.

Watch video ➜

Rules clarifying the requirement that temporary housing recipients in hotels receive shelter-like services have been on OTDA’s regulatory agenda for at least four years. But the agency, and lawmakers who oversee it, stood by as hotel housing increased. Guinn said she couldn’t “provide insight” on why the agency never formally proposed the rules, but she committed to advancing them this year. The Broome County Department of Social Services did not make its commissioner, Nancy Williams, available for an interview and did not respond to a detailed list of questions.

Reporting across the state, the news organizations found people living for months and sometimes years in hotels, doing what they can to get by. Families share beds while their belongings fill the corners of their rooms. Without kitchens and barred from using most appliances, they trek down shoulderless highways to grocery stores or scour food pantries for anything they can cook in a microwave. They squish cockroaches skittering in dressers. And hotels often force them to move out every few weeks, keeping stability out of reach.

The four hotels that Stradford’s family was placed in last summer collectively made about $10,000 sheltering it over three months — more than what the family owed in back rent. That works out to more than twice the monthly fair market rent for a four-bedroom apartment in Binghamton at the time.

Nearly half of all payments to hotels were for more than twice the counties’ FMR.

This isn’t unusual. County social services offices regularly pay the hotels rates that are worth many times fair market rent for permanent housing in their areas, according to the analysis of OTDA’s housing payment data. One motel in Rome, outside Utica, that was the scene of a shooting last fall charged the county $250 a night for a room at times, according to invoices submitted to the county’s Department of Social Services.

Over three months, Stradford’s family struggled to maintain some semblance of its old life while bouncing from hotel to hotel. The family would lose countless possessions. The kids’ educations would be disrupted, as the school bus failed to keep up with their moves. Their experiences would show the importance of the services they weren’t receiving and what happens to New York’s homeless families when they can’t access them.

Stradford and her partner, Tiberious Moses, had been evicted after she missed work at a children’s group home while recovering from surgery and Moses struggled to support the family with temporary jobs. At first, Stradford was relieved when the Department of Social Services informed her that it would place them in a hotel instead of a shelter.

“Going to the hotel, I originally thought, ‘OK, this gives a little bit more leeway, a little bit more comfort, hospitality, all of that,’ only to find out that it’s not that at all,” she said. “If you are a DSS recipient, you’re nothing. You are the bottom of the pit.”

Stradford’s family — two adults, three children and four dogs — was packed into a room with two beds at an Econo Lodge sandwiched between a gas station and another budget hotel. Stradford said she found cockroaches and had trouble getting the hotel to clean their room. She said she often saw drug use at the hotel and felt unsafe. Law enforcement and emergency services were called to the hotel 116 times in the first half of that year, dispatch logs show.

Despite those conditions, the Econo Lodge received more money to house temporary assistance recipients than any other known hotel outside New York City, according to the OTDA payments data for the 2024 fiscal year. The hotel, now called Hillside Inn & Suites, served more than 900 individuals and families placed by the Department of Social Services for at least 30,000 total nights, earning over $2.3 million.

“We’re forced to rent hotel rooms across the state, and the operators of these places understand that,” said state Sen. Roxanne Persaud, chair of the chamber’s Social Services Committee. “The municipalities’ backs are against the wall. And so they must place the unhoused person or persons somewhere. And so that’s why you see the cost is skyrocketing, because people understand that it’s an easy way to make money off the government.”

OTDA’s regulations say hotels should be considered shelters and provide services if they are used “primarily” as temporary housing for homeless welfare recipients. At least 16 hotels appear to house mostly welfare recipients, the analysis showed.

OTDA spokesperson Anthony Farmer said the agency interprets “primarily” to mean hotels that “house recipients exclusively, or almost exclusively, throughout the year.” He said that hotels aren’t required to deliver services but that county social services agencies “are responsible for some level of service provision.” The state, however, doesn’t regularly collect information on how counties provide services. Guinn said OTDA plans to create a formal process for counties to submit it under new regulations.

The Econo Lodge’s contract with Broome County doesn’t call for the services offered by shelters, like food and assistance finding housing. It requires the hotel to provide little more than a room with housekeeping, linens and toiletries. The hotel’s CEO, Paresh Patel, declined to comment.

In contrast, traditional shelters often put a significant amount of their funding toward social services. Shelter budgets obtained from OTDA show that they frequently retain at least part-time employees to prepare food and help people find jobs and housing. Local social services offices try to offset the lack of on-site services by hiring caseworkers but have struggled to retain them.

Instead, hotel residents like Stradford’s family are caught in a web of conflicts between the way those services are provided, the strings attached to benefits and the rules and limitations of living in hotels. Social services departments might provide them food stamps to buy groceries, but hotel residents usually don’t have kitchens and are often not allowed to have appliances like hot plates. To keep their lodging, they’re generally required to seek housing and to work or look for jobs, but they often don’t receive child care. They have to regularly meet with caseworkers at social services offices but must rely on spotty public transportation.

“To me, it’s like malpractice as a homeless services provider to place people without support services” in hotels, said Deborah Padgett, a professor of social work at New York University. “It’s good in the sense that they get more privacy, but for them to get a life and not be dependent on the government, they need to be close to services and not be punished for making mistakes.”

Guinn said that her agency would prefer counties use regulated shelters in housing emergencies but that there aren’t enough beds to accommodate everyone. Social services offices must rely on hotels when shelters don’t have space or don’t exist in a particular county, Farmer said in an email.

After 26 nights, Broome County relocated Stradford’s family to the Quality Inn & Suites in Vestal, a Binghamton suburb down the Susquehanna River that’s home to Binghamton University. Stradford’s car had been repossessed, so they stuffed a suitcase and the kids’ book bags with as many clothes as they could and hopped on the bus.

At the Quality Inn, the family struggled to eat. They had applied for food stamps, but Stradford said she couldn’t get wage records from her former employer proving she was eligible. Instead, the county provided them a restaurant allowance worth about $15 a day to cover all five of them. To get by, they took the bus to food pantries like Catholic Charities, which had started creating “hotel bags” stuffed with canned food, oatmeal, crackers, macaroni and cheese and snacks for the kids — anything that could be eaten cold or prepared with a microwave.

While many shelters provide food on site, contracts between the hotels and Broome County forbid emergency housing recipients from eating the hotels’ food. Stradford said her family was threatened with removal from the Quality Inn after her 12-year-old daughter, Taylor, tried to eat the continental breakfast.

“When we first started taking families on, we did allow breakfast, and unfortunately there was too much being carried away, so we chose to change that,” the hotel’s general manager, Bernadine Morris, said. The Quality Inn has since closed and could not be reached for follow-up questions.

People can get kicked out of hotels and lose their housing assistance for repeatedly violating hotels’ policies, including by using their own cooking appliances. One woman who previously lived at the Motel 6 in Binghamton said she avoided sanctions by throwing an extension cord from the window of her second-story room to use a pressure cooker on the sidewalk.

Stradford’s nonstop juggling act left her on edge. She was grieving her mother’s death, feeding five people and four dogs, apartment-hunting and hustling to culinary classes and social services appointments. She said her children started feeling the stress too: Her 3-year-old, Samir, was wetting the bed frequently, and the older kids missed classes for their summer courses.

The family began butting heads with Quality Inn managers, who accused them of being disruptive and terminated their stay, according to Stradford’s social services case file.

“I’m not totally surprised that they run into problems with the hotel supervisors and the staff just because they’re trying to find some way to get their needs attended to, and it’s not really fair to expect the hotel to do what those people are not trained to do,” Padgett said.

Shelters are required to have enough qualified staff to meet residents’ needs. The staff members generally have at least some training in how to handle populations with complex needs, said Elizabeth Bowen, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo School of Social Work.

After Stradford and her family lost their room at the Quality Inn, the county sanctioned them and declined to find them a new place to stay. Moses, who had just gotten a job at Dave & Buster’s, paid out of his own pocket for a room at the Red Roof Inn in Johnson City. When they arrived, the woman at the front desk saw their belongings and dogs and told them the motel wouldn’t honor the reservation. They had used what little money was left on Ubers and the room deposit. The motel did not return requests for comment.

As it rained, Stradford got ahold of the Department of Social Services and pleaded their case. The county decided to continue housing her family until her sanction could be appealed. It booked them at the Knights Inn, another 10 minutes down the road in a town called Endwell.

Stradford’s family became skilled at sleeping on a single bed at the Knights Inn. Stradford, Moses, Samir and 15-year-old De’Vante would sleep side by side while Taylor slept horizontally at their feet.

The rest of the facility was in chaos, Stradford said. She saw hypodermic needles and other drug paraphernalia lying in the grass and underneath the stairwell and people slumped over while standing beside the dumpster. Over about six years that the county used it for temporary housing, law enforcement and emergency services were summoned to the motel for 789 incidents, including assaults, overdoses, robberies, domestic disputes and mental health crises.

The Knights Inn had a litany of issues that prevented it from passing Broome County Social Services’ inspections from 2018 to 2021. According to inspection reports, the rooms were dimly lit due to missing light bulbs and broken lamps. The walls were stained and punched through, and the wallpaper peeled off. Some rooms’ doors didn’t lock. Windows didn’t either or were broken. Carpets were torn, and inspectors found cockroaches in dressers.

Health and safety issues plague hotels used as emergency shelters across the state. A 2020 state comptroller audit found that 60% of the hotels they reviewed outside New York City were in “unsatisfactory” condition — about the same as the percentage of shelters.

One woman, who was living with her children in a motel south of Albany, showed paint flaking off their walls and mattresses covered in black mold. Two other parents placed in the motel said they felt that if the Department of Social Services caught them in private housing that resembled their living conditions, their kid could be taken away by Child Protective Services.

OTDA requires social services agencies to inspect hotels housing families every six months. But an analysis of OTDA compliance data showed that social services districts often fail to keep up with hotel inspections: About 40% of the 351 hotels used to house homeless people outside New York City were out of date on their social services inspections as of mid-October or didn’t have an inspection date listed.

Farmer, the OTDA spokesperson, said that most hotels had been inspected within a year and that some others had stopped housing people.

Even when social services agencies do inspections, records show they sometimes fail to take action. Hotels have to correct problems within 30 days, unless it’s a safety problem. If they don’t, counties are supposed to stop placing people there, according to a directive from OTDA.

Records show that the Knights Inn fixed some of the issues as it went but continued to get written up in every inspection for two and a half years. Despite this, Broome County placed hundreds of social services cases there, earning the motel over $750,000.

A Knights Inn manager, Aizaz Siddiqui, said that the motel moved people out of rooms that needed the most work until they were renovated.

In January 2021, the county said it would stop placing people at the Knights Inn until the violations were corrected. The motel received a clean inspection in July 2022. But Stradford said the Knights Inn wouldn’t give them toilet paper or fresh sheets, which are required in shelters. A bedsheet was used as a curtain for their rear window.

The family stayed for three weeks, but tensions with management boiled over when the family failed to get rid of their dogs by the deadline set by the motel. Eventually, the Knights Inn told them to leave. After giving them a few extra days to find other accommodations, Siddiqui called the police to remove them.

Siddiqui said the families placed at the inn by the Department of Social Services deserve sympathy, but he still has to maintain order. “It’s a tough situation to be in, and we try to work with them as much as we can,” he said. “But again, we do have to fulfill our policies, and we have to stand by them.” The motel declined to respond to additional questions about the conditions.

Stradford’s family didn’t have anywhere else to go. As the State Police arrived, she planted herself on a red cooler in front of their room and refused to leave until the county found them somewhere to stay.

Some community activists she met through local charity work showed up to support her and livestreamed the incident on Facebook.

After a three-hour standoff, management relented and allowed the family to stay two more nights. One of the activists arrived with a U-Haul and drove their stuff to the Motel 6, a 15-minute drive back up the river, past the Econo Lodge on the outskirts of Binghamton.

Things were initially calm at the Motel 6. But about three weeks into their stay, the Motel 6 complained to the county that Stradford had left the children alone, which they were told violated the motel’s guest policy. Stradford said she was doing charity work at the time but complained that she couldn’t attend school or meet the state’s requirements to look for housing if she had to constantly supervise her children.

The motel gave the family the weekend to leave. When they missed their checkout time, the Sheriff’s Office came to remove them.

Moses called Stradford, who was at school, to tell her what was happening. She headed to the Department of Social Services to plead their case.

“I got into protection mode,” Stradford said. “I wasn’t going to leave there and just put myself in a seriously homeless situation. So I told them I wasn’t leaving until I knew that we had a secure spot to go to.”

But her attempts failed. The agency said it would no longer help her family due to the complaints. The clerk used a special tool to unlock the room for the deputies.

Community members once again showed up to livestream the encounter and pressure the county. The Sheriff’s Office helped the family find a motel, where it stayed for two more nights.

In the end, it wasn’t New York’s social services system that found stable housing for Stradford’s family; it was a local landlord who heard about the case and offered an apartment at a rate the family could afford on Moses’ wages and temporary assistance from the county.

Stradford’s family was placed in hotels for 89 days, about the average for a social services case. Many stay far longer. More than 1,500 individuals and families spent six months or more in hotels, according to payment data from the 2024 fiscal year.

“Some of us really get into a hard time and we really do need the help. We don’t just rely on the system,” Stradford said. “I pay my hard-earned tax dollars. I worked multiple jobs. I’m the one that tried to keep afloat and stuff like that. But things happen in life.”

Between their six moves, the family lost most of its possessions: furniture, Social Security cards, birth certificates, tax documents, family photos, laptops, coats, a painting from someone Jasmine was taking care of, Samir’s toy box, Taylor’s art projects and a blanket covered in motivational quotes that Stradford’s mom had given her before she passed. They had to give up two of their dogs.

When they arrived at their new home, they had only a couple of suitcases and garbage bags full of clothes.

To track temporary housing recipients placed in hotels, New York Focus and ProPublica used data obtained from the New York Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance through an open records request. The data contains 1.1 million payments issued from April 2017 to September 2024 for emergency shelter stays outside New York City. OTDA repeatedly delayed releasing the data for 10 months but finally did so after ProPublica’s attorneys got involved in the appeals process.

The data classified payments by type of shelter, including family shelters, transitional housing and hotels. It also included an “emergency shelter” category for temporary housing assistance provided before a case is fully approved, which can flow to both hotels and shelters.

Our analysis includes only payments explicitly classified as hotel payments. We excluded some payments that were classified as hotel payments but where the recipients appeared to be nonprofits that operated homeless shelters.

The data also included unique IDs for each assistance case that received shelter, allowing us to determine how many people stayed in hotels and for about how long. Each case represents either an individual or a family.

To find hotels that housed mostly welfare recipients, New York Focus and ProPublica relied on each hotel’s total number of rooms reported to the New York State Department of Health and checked whether shelter payments covered at least half of the hotel’s total capacity from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024.

The data listed the start and end date for each payment, but it was not always clear whether the stay was inclusive or exclusive of the final date. As a result, we chose to exclude the final night whenever counting up dates to create the most conservative estimates possible, unless the payment covered a single night. When comparing the payments against fair market rent, we included the final night, which would decrease the daily rate.

Hotels used to house homeless families outside New York City must be inspected by counties once every six months. After that, the district has 30 days to submit the report to OTDA for review.

OTDA provided a database of inspections for hotels as of Oct. 15, 2024. To determine whether a hotel was past due on inspection, we checked whether the most recent inspection was completed and submitted to OTDA in the seven months leading up to that date. In some cases, the inspection may have been conducted but was not submitted to the state on time.

This story was supported by the journalism nonprofit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

If you have been placed in a hotel or have information about the use of hotels as emergency housing in New York, contact New York Focus reporter Spencer Norris at 570-690-3469 or spencer@nysfocus.com.

Joel Jacobs contributed data reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Spencer Norris, New York Focus.

Prominent lawyers are joining opposition parties as they call for the New Zealand government to denounce the United States attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Iranian New Zealander and lawyer Arman Askarany said the New Zealand government was showing “indifference”.

It comes as acting Prime Minister David Seymour told reporters on Monday there was “no benefit” in rushing to a judgment regarding the US attack.

• READ MORE: Trump says Israel and Iran have agreed to ceasefire
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US President Trump says Israel and Iran have agreed to a ceasefire to end the “12-day war,” with the truce taking effect in stages over 24 hours, following Iran’s missile attack on a US base in Qatar.

Follow our LIVE coverage: https://t.co/f0V5nlsAMR pic.twitter.com/XC4Xld0Q7U

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) June 24, 2025

“We’re far better to keep our counsel, because it costs nothing to get more information, but going off half-cocked can be very costly for a small nation.”

Iran and Israel continued to exchange strikes over the weekend after Israel’s initial attack nearly two weeks ago.

Israeli authorities say at least 25 people have been killed, and Iran said on Sunday Israeli strikes had killed at least 224 people since June 13.

The Human Rights Activists news agency puts the death toll in Iran above 650 people.

US attacked Iran nuclear sites
The US entered the war at the weekend by attacking what it said was key nuclear sites in Iran — including Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — on Sunday.

On Monday, the Australian government signalled its support for the strike, and called for de-escalation and a return to diplomacy.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the strike was a unilateral action by its security ally the United States, and Australia was joining calls from Britain and other countries for Iran to return to the negotiating table

Not long after, Foreign Minister Winston Peters issued a statement on X, giving tacit endorsement to the decision to bomb nuclear facilities.

The statement was also released just ahead of the NATO meeting in Brussels, which Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was attending.

Peters said Iran could not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, and noted the United States’ targeted attacks aimed at “degrading Iran’s nuclear capabilities”.

He went on to acknowledge the US statement to the UN Security Council saying the attack was “acting in collective self-defence consistent with the UN Charter”.

Self-defence ‘complete joke’
Askarany told RNZ it was a “complete joke” that New Zealand had acknowledged the US statement saying it was self-defence.

“It would be funny if it wasn’t so horrific.”

He said it was a clear escalation by the US and Israel, and believed New Zealand was undermining the rules-based order it purported to support, given it refused to say Israel and the US had attacked Iran.

Askarany acknolwedged the calls for deescalation and for peace in the region, but said they were “abstract platitudes” if the aggressor was not named.

He called on people who might not know about Iran to learn more about it.

“There’s so much history and culture and beautiful things about Iran that represent my people far more than the words of Trump and Netanyahu.”

Peters told RNZ Morning Report on Monday the government wanted to know all the facts before taking a position on the US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Politicians at a crossroads
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour held his first post-cabinet media conference on Monday, in which he said nobody was calling on New Zealand to rush to a judgment on the rights and wrongs of the situation.

He echoed the Foreign Minister’s statement, saying “of course” New Zealand noted the US assertion of the legality of their actions.

He also indicated, “like just about every country in the world, that we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran.”

“That does not mean that we are rushing to form our own judgment on the rights or wrongs or legality of any action.”

He insisted New Zealand was not sitting on the fence, but said “nor are we rushing to judgement.”

“I believe the world is not sitting there waiting for New Zealand to give its position on the legality of the situation.

“What people do want to see is de escalation and dialogue, and most critically for us, the safety of New Zealanders in the region.”

When asked about the Australian government’s position, Seymour said New Zealand did not have the intelligence that other countries may have.

Hikpins says attack ‘disappointing’
Labour leader Chris Hipkins called the attack by the US on Iran “very disappointing”, “not justified” and “almost certainly” against international law.

He wanted New Zealand to take a stronger stance on the issue.

“New Zealand should take a stronger position in condemning the attacks and saying that we do not believe they are justified, and we do not believe that they are consistent with international law.”

Hipkins said the US had not made a case for the action taken, and they should step back and get back around the table with Iran.

The Green Party and Te Pāti Māori both called on the government to condemn the attack by the US.

“The actions of the United States pose a fundamental threat to world peace.

‘Dangerous escalation’
“The rest of the world, including New Zealand, must take a stand and make it clear that this dangerous escalation is unacceptable,” said Green Party coleader Marama Davidson.

“We saw this with the US war on Iraq, and we are seeing it again with this recent attack on Iran. We are at risk of a violent history repeating itself.”

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi said the government was remaining silent on Israel.

“When the US bombs Iran, Luxon calls it an ‘opportunity’. But when Cook Islanders assert their sovereignty or Chinese vessels travel through international waters, he leaps to condemnation,” said Waititi.

“Israel continues to maintain an undeclared nuclear arsenal. Yet this government won’t say a word.

“It condemns non-Western powers at every turn but remains silent when its allies act with impunity.”

International law experts weigh in
University of Waikato Professor Alexander Gillespie said it was “an illegal war” and the option of diplomacy should have been exhausted before the first strike.

As Luxon headed to NATO, Gillespie acknowledged it would be difficult for him to take a “hard line” on the issue, “because he’s going to be caught up with the members and the partners of NATO.”

He said the question would be whether NATO members accept there was a right of self-defence and whether the actions of the US and Israel were justified.

Gillespie said former prime minister Helen Clark spoke very clearly in 2003 against the invasion of Iraq, but he could not see New Zealand’s current Prime Minister saying that.

“That’s not because they don’t believe it, but because there would be a risk of a backhand from the United States.

“And we’re spending a lot of time right now trying not to offend this Trump administration.”

‘Might is right’ precedent
University of Otago Professor Robert Patman said the US strike on Iran would likely “make things worse” and set a precedent for “might is right.”

He said he had “no brief” for the repressive Iranian regime, but under international law it had been subject of “two illegal attacks in the last 10 days”, from Israel and now from the US.

Patman said New Zealand had been guarded in its comments about the attacks on Iran, and believed the country should speak out.

“We have championed non nuclear security since the mid 80s. We were a key player, a leader, of the treaty to abolish nuclear weapons, and that now has 94 signatories.”

He said New Zealand does have a voice and an expectation to contribute to an international debate that’s beginning to unfold.

“We seem to be at a fork in the road moment internationally, we can seek to reinstate the idea that international relations should be based on rules, principles and procedures, or we can simply passively accept the erosion of that architecture, which is to the detriment of the majority of countries in the world.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The Defence Force is sending a plane to the Middle East to assist any New Zealanders stranded in Iran or Israel.

The C-130J Hercules, along with government personnel, will leave Auckland on Monday.

Airspace is still closed in the region, but Defence Minister Judith Collins said the deployment was part of New Zealand’s contingency plans.

• READ MORE:  Leaders in US-affiliated Pacific react to surprise strikes on Iran
• NZ group slams Israeli ‘hoodwinking’ of US over nuclear strikes — Peters calls for talks
• US bombs Iranian nuclear sites – Iran fires missiles at Israel
• US strikes: Ignore the propaganda, 10 forces will shape the Iran-Israel war
• Other Middle East crisis reports

“Airspace in Israel and Iran remains heavily restricted, which means getting people out by aircraft is not yet possible, but by positioning an aircraft, and defence and foreign affairs personnel in the region, we may be able to do more when airspace reopens,” she said.

The government was also in discussions with commercial airlines to see what they could do to assist, although it was uncertain when airspace would reopen.

Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters said New Zealanders should do everything they could to leave now, if they could find a safe route.

“We know it will not be safe for everyone to leave Iran or Israel, and many people may not have access to transport or fuel supplies,” he said.

‘Stay in touch’
“If you are in this situation, you should shelter in place, follow appropriate advice from local authorities and stay in touch with family and friends where possible.”

Peters reiterated New Zealand’s call for diplomacy and dialogue.

“Ongoing military action in the Middle East is extremely worrying and it is critical further escalation is avoided,” he said. “New Zealand strongly supports efforts towards diplomacy.

“We urge all parties to return to talks. Diplomacy will deliver a more enduring resolution than further military action.”

It will take a few days for the Hercules to reach the region.

New Zealanders in Iran and Israel needing urgent consular assistance should call the Ministry’s Emergency Consular Call Centre on +64 99 20 20 20.

New Zealand hoped the aircraft and personnel would not be needed, and diplomatic efforts would prevail, Collins re-iterated.

The ministers would not say where exactly the plane and personnel would be based, for security reasons.

Registered number in Iran jumps
Peters told reporters the number of New Zealanders registered in Iran had jumped since the escalation of the crisis.

“We thought, at a certain time, we had them all counted out at 46,” he said. “It’s far more closer to 80 now, because they’re coming out of the woodwork, despite the fact that, for months, we said, ‘Look, this is a danger zone’, and for a number of days we’ve said, ‘Get out if you possibly can’.”

There were 101 New Zealanders registered in Israel. Again, Peters said the figure had risen recently.

He indicated people from other nations could be assisted, similar to when the NZDF assisted in repatriations from New Caledonia last year.

Labour defence spokesperson Peeni Henare supported the move.

“I acknowledge the news that the New Zealand Defence Force will soon begin a repatriation mission to the Middle East, and thank the crew and officials on this mission for their ongoing work to bring New Zealanders home safely,” he said.

While he agreed with the government that the attacks were a dangerous escalation of the conflict and supported the government’s calls for dialogue, he said the US bombing of Iran was a breach of international law and the government should be saying it.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark believes the Cook Islands, a realm of New Zealand, caused a crisis for itself by not consulting Wellington before signing a deal with China.

The New Zealand government has paused more than $18 million in development assistance to the Cook Islands after the latter failed to provide satisfactory answers to Aotearoa’s questions about its partnership agreement with Beijing.

The Cook Islands is in free association with New Zealand and governs its own affairs. But New Zealand provides assistance with foreign affairs (upon request), disaster relief, and defence.

• READ MORE: Mark Brown: Cook Islands ‘not consulted’ on NZ-China agreements
• Other Cook Islands crisis reports

The 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration signed between the two nations requires them to consult each other on defence and security, which Foreign Minister Winston Peters said had not been honoured.

Peters and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown both have a difference of opinion on the level of consultation required between the two nations on such matters.

“There is no way that the 2001 declaration envisaged that Cook Islands would enter into a strategic partnership with a great power behind New Zealand’s back,” Clark told RNZ Pacific on Thursday.

Clark was a signatory of the 2001 agreement with the Cook Islands as New Zealand prime minister at the time.

“It is the Cook Islands government’s actions which have created this crisis,” she said.

Urgent need for dialogue
“The urgent need now is for face-to-face dialogue at a high level to mend the NZ-CI relationship.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has downplayed the pause in funding to the Cook Islands during his second day of his trip to China.

Brown told Parliament on Thursday (Wednesday, Cook Islands time) that his government knew the funding cut was coming.

He also suggested a double standard, pointing out that New Zealand had also entered deals with China that the Cook Islands was not “privy to or being consulted on”.

A Pacific law expert says that, while New Zealand has every right to withhold its aid to the Cook Islands, the way it is going about it will not endear it to Pacific nations.

Auckland University of Technology senior law lecturer and a former Pacific Islands Forum advisor Sione Tekiteki told RNZ Pacific that for Aotearoa to keep highlighting that it is “a Pacific country and yet posture like the United States gives mixed messages”.

“Obviously, Pacific nations in true Pacific fashion will not say much, but they are indeed thinking it,” Tekiteki said.

Misunderstanding of agreement
Since day dot there has been a misunderstanding on what the 2001 agreement legally required New Zealand and Cook Islands to consult on, and the word consultation has become somewhat of a sticking point.

The latest statement from the Cook Islands government confirms it is still a discrepancy both sides want to hash out.

“There has been a breakdown and difference in the interpretation of the consultation requirements committed to by the two governments in the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration,” the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Immigration (MFAI) said.

“An issue that the Cook Islands is determined to address as a matter of urgency”.

Tekiteki said that, unlike a treaty, the 2001 declaration was not “legally binding” per se but serves more to express the intentions, principles and commitments of the parties to work together in “recognition of the close traditional, cultural and social ties that have existed between the two countries for many hundreds of years”.

He said the declaration made it explicitly clear that Cook Islands had full conduct of its foreign affairs, capacity to enter treaties and international agreements in its own right and full competence of its defence and security.

However, he added that there was a commitment of the parties to “consult regularly”.

This, for Clark, the New Zealand leader who signed the all-important agreement more than two decades ago, is where Brown misstepped.

Clark previously labelled the Cook Islands-China deal “clandestine” which has “damaged” its relationship with New Zealand.

RNZ Pacific contacted the Cook Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment but was advised by the MFAI secretary that they are not currently accommodating interviews.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The mayor, whose term ended in 2022, planned to achieve this through the Climate Mobilization Act, which later passed the city council and aims to cut municipal emissions 85 percent by 2050. Shortly before de Blasio was scheduled to speak, however, Trump Tower employees began blasting music to drown him out. Reporters were forced to shout questions over the vocal stylings of Tony Bennett.

Six months into the second Trump administration and the theatrics surrounding de Blasio’s 2019 announcement seem almost quaint. Although New York’s climate goals remain among the nation’s most ambitious, the city has struggled to fulfill them. 

While transportation emissions are down about 10 percent since de Blasio announced the Climate Mobilization Act, those from buildings — which account for roughly 70 percent of the city’s total, due largely to the heating and cooling needs of 8 million people — are down approximately 2 percent, nowhere near what’s needed to meet the 2050 target. Local Law 97, a key component of de Blasio’s climate plan, set emissions limits for buildings greater than 25,000 square feet and instituted fines for owners who refuse to comply. (Because the city has limited control over the subway and public utilities, so efforts to retrofit buildings, encourage public transit use are among its most meaningful ways to control emissions locally.)

With Adams’ popularity in free fall after a scandal-plagued tenure, this year’s mayoral race will likely sweep a newcomer into office — and with it a chance to realize de Blasio’s thwarted ambitions. (The general election is in November, but the city’s partisan skew means the Democratic primary probably will determine the winner.) In recent debates, however, climate change has been overshadowed by New York’s affordability and quality of life. This, activists say, elides the scale of the problems the city faces. 

“We need someone who has vision and who isn’t just giving [voters] ‘green-lite,’” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of the Brooklyn-based climate justice nonprofit Uprose. Yeampierre wants to see the next mayor “really looking deeply at the possibilities for New York City to lead when it comes to preparing such a huge population of people for disaster.” 

Nine candidates are competing in the Democratic primary, but the field has narrowed to two front-runners: Andrew Cuomo, the state’s former governor and the son of former governor Mario Cuomo, and Zohran Mamdani, a state legislator and member of the Democratic Socialists of America. 

Cuomo’s governorship ended in controversy when sexual harassment allegations, which he has denied, led to his resignation in 2021. During his tenure, he drew fire for approving gas pipelines, defunding public transportation, and supporting the Independent Democratic Caucus, or IDC. The nine Democrats of that group caucused with Republicans, giving them control of the State Senate despite having fewer seats. The IDC blocked the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a statewide commitment to decarbonization, which that later passed after an activist coalition ousted IDC members.  

“We didn’t see any major climate legislation passed until 2019,” said Keanu Arpels-Josiah, an organizer with the youth climate justice group Fridays for Future NYC.  “And that’s because of Governor Cuomo.” 

The former governor’s opponents worry Cuomo will do more of the same as mayor. Although the city is making good progress in reducing building emissions – nearly half of the city’s largest buildings already meet 2030 targets – Cuomo has shown a willingness to gut the law. He tried to undermine it as governor, his candidacy is supported by lobbyists representing landlords who oppose it, and he’s met with co-op and condo leaders to let them know he’s open to weakening the law’s requirements. 

Cuomo’s campaign disputed this characterization, and not all environmentalists oppose the former governor. The New York League of Conservation Voters argues that Cuomo’s detractors are an unavoidable byproduct of his time in office. That group endorsed Cuomo and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, and they say Cuomo’s statewide fracking ban, instituted in 2014, and offshore wind victories under the first Trump administration show he’ll be able to advance green energy in the current political environment. 

Others aren’t convinced. The Director of Policy at the American Institute of Architects warned that the changes Cuomo proposed to Local Law 97 as governor would effectively render it toothless, and Cuomo did not release a climate plan, which puts many environmentalists on edge. “Andrew Cuomo is ruled by his resentments,” said Pete Sikora, the Climate and Inequality Campaigns Director for New York Communities for Change. “He does whatever powerful lobbies want.”

New York Communities for Change, a nonprofit focused on affordability, has endorsed Mamdani. His climate plan includes free bus rides, expanding renewable energy on municipal land, and an ambitious “Green Schools” plan. The proposal calls for renovating 500 public schools to make them resilience hubs that would serve as evacuation centers during floods and cooling centers in the event of extreme heat. Mamdani has also pledged to prioritize more resilient waterfront infrastructure, oppose utility rate hikes, and direct more money toward NYC Accelerator, which helps building owners figure out how to decarbonize their energy systems. 

“The climate crisis is growing increasingly dire,” Sikora said. “The opportunity is there to create lots of good jobs and save people money through reducing pollution and moving to clean energy.”

Mandani enthusiastically supports Local Law 97, which provided a long grace period for building owners to comply. That ended this year, and the city will begin levying fines against violators in  August. “It’s a pretty good bet that if [Cuomo] became our mayor, he would be looking for ways to weaken Local Law 97,” said Laura Shindell, the New York state director at the nonprofit Food and Water Watch, which has urged voters to choose anyone but Cuomo. The Cuomo campaign insisted he had not tried to undermine the law as governor, but did not speak to his plans if elected mayor.  

Cuomo’s failure to release a climate plan also rankles activists, especially when the climate threats facing New York City are far from theoretical. For example, a report from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene identified flash flooding as the city’s most pressing problem. 

“Not enough attention is being paid to what could reduce the impacts that people are suffering now in the short term, before we figure out what makes sense to do in the long term,” said Malgosia Madajewicz. She is an economist and associate research scientist at the Columbia Climate School who has studied the effects of flooding on neighborhoods around Jamaica Bay. Some will have to relocate, like those who experienced the worst flooding wrought by Hurricane  Sandy in 2012. Others may be able to adapt, but it’s difficult for residents to make that decision without help from experts — and funding from the city.

“There’s a big information gap there that wouldn’t be very difficult to address,” said Madajewicz, explaining that small changes, such as helping individual homeowners raise their boilers and electrical systems, could have a big impact. “A little bit of public assistance would go a long way.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline New York’s mayoral race could decide the city’s climate future on Jun 20, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Rebecca Egan McCarthy.

“This latest IEA report repeats the decade-old fallacy that the LNG industry is on the cusp of cleaning up its act, even though it has consistently refused to do so. The methane reductions that are supposed to result from a suite of new technologies and a slew of industry-led voluntary initiatives have failed to materialize again and again. The IEA’s own Methane Tracker data shows that the oil and gas industry’s methane emissions are massive and growing, and “have still not reached a definitive peak.” While the IEA attempts to downplay the life-cycle GHG emissions of LNG compared to coal, The IEA’s own modelling also clearly shows that there is no room for any new LNG export projects if the world is to stave off climate disaster.

“The IEA estimates that 80.5 million metric tons of methane were emitted from the global oil and gas industry in 2024, while highlighting that “methane emissions are widely underreported.” In the short term (20-year equivalency), this equates to over 6.4 billion tons of CO2. This is like adding nearly 1,700 US coal plants.

“It is beyond time that the IEA, the oil and gas industry, and enabling governments such as Japan and the US stop spreading misinformation about gas. The only way to reduce emissions from oil and gas, and the toxic pollution they spread into communities’ air and water, is to phase out fossil fuel production and use. We have waited too long. The planet is literally burning while the oil and gas industry fiddles.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

The New York State Legislature this week passed a bill banning anonymous complaints to the state child abuse hotline. If Gov. Kathy Hochul signs the legislation, New Yorkers will now have to provide their name and contact information if they want to make an allegation that someone might be neglecting a child.

This dramatic change in the law comes a year and a half after a ProPublica investigation showed how the hotline had been weaponized by jealous exes, spiteful landlords and others who endlessly called in baseless allegations. Even if a caller didn’t leave their name or any details, and even if the same allegation had repeatedly been investigated and found to be unsubstantiated, it automatically triggered an invasive search of the accused’s home and often a strip search of the children.

We detailed the case of one Brooklyn mother whose apartment was searched dozens of times — by police officers and child protective services caseworkers who never had a warrant and often showed up at her door after midnight — all because an angry former acquaintance kept anonymously calling the hotline about her. She was never found to have mistreated her children in any way.

According to federal statistics, 96% of anonymous calls to child abuse hotlines are deemed baseless after an investigation. Among all allegations of child abuse or neglect, including non-anonymous calls, 83% are ultimately deemed unfounded.

In New York, more than 4,000 children every year had experienced child protective services investigations as a result of anonymous calls — until now.

The legislation passing is “a win-win for everybody,” said Democratic state Sen. Jabari Brisport, the bill’s sponsor. Not only will it protect victims of domestic violence who may have an abusive current or former partner who has used the anonymous reporting system to harass them or to influence a custody dispute, it will also help caseworkers themselves, Brisport said. “They are stretched so thin already,” he said. “By reducing the number of these false complaints, we can let them do their jobs better.”

“But the fact that false reports make such an effective method of harassment is a symptom of deeper issues in how CPS operates,” Brisport added, referring to how the home searches and investigations that result from these calls often turn families’ lives upside-down. Black parents especially are affected, he said, and they can feel helplessly unable to comfort their children through a terrifying and opaque process that can lead to their separation from their mom and dad.

A committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last year published a report that cited ProPublica’s journalism on these issues and called on New York to abolish anonymous reporting. ProPublica’s articles were also circulated among lawmakers and legislative staff in Albany both last year and this spring.

California and Texas, too, have passed legislation to curtail anonymous reporting. Several other states are considering similar bills.

New York’s new law will maintain the confidentiality of callers to the child abuse hotline, just not their anonymity. That means that if someone thinks that a family member, neighbor or colleague is harming a child, and they call it in, they can still be assured that the state will not reveal their identity to the alleged abuser or publicly in any way. The caller will just have to provide their name and contact information so that caseworkers can follow up, in part to make sure that they don’t have an ulterior motive for making a malicious accusation and so that caseworkers can gather more details from the caller to conduct a more informed investigation.

If they refuse to identify themselves, hotline staff will decline to pass along the tip to child protective services. But an amendment was added to the bill stating that if a caller doesn’t want to leave their name, they can still speak to a supervisor, who will then explain to them that if they provide their name it will remain confidential; that intentionally making a false report is illegal; and that issues involving children in need can also be addressed through housing, food and other services. Contact information for such services will be provided.

The new law will not affect mandated reporters of child abuse, such as teachers and police officers, who already were not anonymous.

Chris Gottlieb, director of the NYU School of Law Family Defense Clinic, helped to shepherd the legislation to its passage. She said that when she used to bring up this issue in Albany — and talk about how child protective services agents searching families’ homes without a warrant can be deeply traumatizing for both parents and children — she was often met with blank stares. But then ProPublica’s reporting “helped to change the conversation,” she said, and more importantly, parents themselves, many of them Black and Latino and led by the community organizer Joyce McMillan, started holding regular rallies on the steps of the Legislature and testifying at hearings.

In fact, parents have filed a first-of-its-kind class-action lawsuit challenging warrantless child protective services searches of their homes as unconstitutional. New York City is contesting the suit, but the city’s Administration for Children’s Services has said that it is committed to addressing child safety concerns while also respecting families’ rights.

In past statements to ProPublica, ACS has said that it is required by state law to investigate fully and to seek to conduct a home assessment whenever it receives a report of child maltreatment from the state, no matter the original source of that report. But a spokesperson said that the agency supports anonymous reporting reform with the perspective that protections for children who are in danger should also be preserved.

One of the plaintiffs in the class-action suit, Shavona Warmington, praised New York state lawmakers for abolishing anonymous reporting once and for all.

The Queens mother of six alleges that someone called in complaints about her every several months for a decade, knowing that the mere fact of a call would cause caseworkers to pound on her door; threaten that they would call the police if she didn’t let them in; search her refrigerator, cabinets, closets and bed while her kids watched; and then strip search and interrogate them. She said that the content of the reports to the hotline always sounded familiar, clearly from the same person, but that this never mattered.

In the suit, she contended that the person who made the complaints was likely the man who abused her. He could call every day and they would still send somebody out.

Her children have been traumatized by the sound of a knock on the door, she said.

“I have no contact with him otherwise, just through ACS,” Warmington said, referring to her abuser.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Eli Hager.

Decree 121, issued on June 11, shifts the authority to grant, revoke, and renew law practice licenses from the Minister of Justice to provincial chairpersons — a move seen as part of a broader agenda to restructure Vietnam’s state apparatus. Government officials have not offered a direct explanation for the decree.

However, law professionals have raised alarms over the change, warning that it not only violates existing law but also hands sweeping powers to local leaders, raising concerns the authority could be abused to intimidate lawyers involved in cases against provincial governments.

Writing on his Facebook page, Ho Chi Minh City-based attorney Trinh Dinh Dung argued that Decree 121 violates existing legislation, specifically the 2006 Law on Lawyers, which stipulates that only the Minister of Justice has the authority to issue, revoke, and renew law practicing licenses. “As a matter of principle, a legal document issued by the National Assembly can only be amended by the National Assembly itself,” he wrote.

The ongoing session of the National Assembly is scheduled to conclude on June 30, but its agenda does not include any discussion on the Law on Lawyers.

With no indication that the existing law will be amended, attorney Trinh Dinh Dung concluded that the executive branch is showing “signs of power abuse.”

The most troubling aspect of the new rule, critics say, is that it grants the power to strip lawyers of their right to practice law to provincial leaders, who frequently face public opposition over local policies.

Dang Dinh Manh, a former attorney from Ho Chi Minh City who has given up practicing law in Vietnam due to government harassment, told RFA that local governments are frequently the target of legal challenges.

“Often, when the authorities issue documents related to land or housing confiscation, even a single affected area can prompt hundreds of households to file lawsuits,” he said.

Local communities typically hire lawyers from within the same province to represent their cases. With local leaders now holding the power to end legal careers, lawyers will be “intimidated into submission,” the former attorney warned.

This concern is echoed by lawyers in other parts of the country as well.

Speaking to RFA on condition of anonymity, a Hanoi-based lawyer cited a hypothetical case involving a city chairperson. “It will be easy for favoritism and fear to take hold, as the chairperson has the power to revoke lawyers’ practicing licenses at any time,” he warned.

The new rule is set to add an additional layer of deterrence for lawyers, supplementing existing regulations. Under current law, all practicing lawyers must be registered with a bar association, which operates under the oversight of government authorities.

In 2024, authorities in the southern province of Long An launched an investigation into three lawyers over their online commentary on a local legal case. The move prompted all three to flee the country, marking a turning point in the government’s approach to legal professionals involved in sensitive matters.

Speaking to RFA, Dang Dinh Manh, one of the three lawyers who fled Vietnam fearing government retribution, said the regime’s decision to grant provincial leaders the authority to revoke lawyers’ practicing licenses shows that it views legal professionals as a “target” to be “struggled against,” rather than as partners in upholding the rule of law.

Edited by Greg Barber

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Truong Son for RFA Vietnamese.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

“Another Wasted Life.” That’s the name of a remarkable new song by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Grammy-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens. She released a video of the song on October 2 to mark International Wrongful Conviction Day. The song was inspired by Kalief Browder, a Bronx resident who died by suicide in 2015 at the age of 22 after being detained at Rikers Island jail for nearly three years, after being falsely accused at the age of 16 of stealing a backpack. He was held in solitary confinement for two years and was repeatedly assaulted by guards and other prisoners.

In the video for “Another Wasted Life,” Rhiannon Giddens features 22 people who were wrongly incarcerated. Together, they collectively served more than 500 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. The video includes two men, David Bryant and Tyrone Jones, who each spent 40 years in prison. Another seven of the men each spent over 25 years locked up after wrongful convictions. Rhiannon Giddens made the video in partnership with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

New Zealand has paused $18.2 million in development assistance funding to the Cook Islands after its government signed partnership agreements with China earlier this year.

This move is causing consternation in the realm country, with one local political leader calling it “a significant escalation” between Avarua and Wellington.

A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the Cook Islands did not consult with Aotearoa over the China deals and failed to ensure shared interests were not put at risk.

• READ MORE: Other Cook Islands and China reports

On Thursday (Wednesday local time), Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown told Parliament that his government knew the funding cut was coming.

“We have been aware that this core sector support would not be forthcoming in this budget because this had not been signed off by the New Zealand government in previous months, so it has not been included in the budget that we are debating this week,” he said.

How the diplomatic stoush started
A diplomatic row first kicked off in February between the two nations.

Prime Minister Brown went on an official visit to China, where he signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement.

The agreements focus in areas of economy, infrastructure and maritime cooperation and seabed mineral development, among others. They do not include security or defence.

However, to New Zealand’s annoyance, Brown did not discuss the details with it first.

Prior to signing, Brown said he was aware of the strong interest in the outcomes of his visit to China.

Afterwards, a spokesperson for Peters released a statement saying New Zealand would consider the agreements closely, in light of the countries’ mutual constitutional responsibilities.

The Cook Islands-New Zealand relationship
Cook Islands is in free association with New Zealand. The country governs its own affairs, but New Zealand provides assistance with foreign affairs (upon request), disaster relief and defence.

Cook Islanders also hold New Zealand passports entitling them to live and work there.

In 2001, New Zealand and the Cook Islands signed a joint centenary declaration, which required the two to “consult regularly on defence and security issues”.

The Cook Islands did not think it needed to consult with New Zealand on the China agreement.

Peters said there is an expectation that the government of the Cook Islands would not pursue policies that were “significantly at variance with New Zealand’s interests”.

Later in February, the Cooks confirmed it had struck a five-year agreement with China to cooperate in exploring and researching seabed mineral riches.

A spokesperson for Peters said at the time said the New Zealand government noted the mining agreements and would analyse them.

How New Zealand reacted
On Thursday morning, Peters said the Cook Islands had not lived up to the 2001 declaration.

Peters said the Cook Islands had failed to give satisfactory answers to New Zealand’s questions about the arrangement.

“We have made it very clear in our response to statements that were being made — which we do not think laid out the facts and truth behind this matter — of what New Zealand’s position is,” he said.

“We’ve got responsibilities ourselves here. And we wanted to make sure that we didn’t put a step wrong in our commitment and our special arrangement which goes back decades.”

Officials would be working through what the Cook Islands had to do so New Zealand was satisfied the funding could resume.

He said New Zealand’s message was conveyed to the Cook Islands government “in its finality” on June 4.

“When we made this decision, we said to them our senior officials need to work on clearing up this misunderstanding and confusion about our arrangements and about our relationship.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is in China this week.

Asked about the timing of Luxon’s visit to China, and what he thought the response from China might be, Peters said the decision to pause the funding was not connected to China.

He said he had raised the matter with his China counterpart Wang Yi, when he last visited China in February, and Wang understood New Zealand’s relationship with the Cook Islands.

Concerns in the Cook Islands
Over the past three years, New Zealand has provided nearly $194.6 million (about US$117m) to the Cook Islands through the development programme.

Cook Islands opposition leader Tina Browne said she was deeply concerned about the pause.

Browne said she was informed of the funding pause on Wednesday night, and she was worried about the indication from Peters that it might affect future funding.

She issued a “please explain” request to Mark Brown:

“The prime minister has been leading the country to think that everything with New Zealand has been repaired, hunky dory, etcetera — trust is still there,” she said.

“Wham-bam, we get this in the Cook Islands News this morning. What does that tell you?”

Will NZ’s action ‘be a very good news story’ for Beijing?
Massey University’s defence and security expert Dr Anna Powles told RNZ Pacific that aid should not be on the table in debate between New Zealand and the Cook Islands.

“That spirit of the [2001] declaration is really in question here,” she said.

“The negotiation between the two countries needs to take aid as a bargaining chip off the table for it to be able to continue — for it to be successful.”

Dr Powles said New Zealand’s moves might help China strengthen its hand in the Pacific.

She said China could contrast its position on using aid as a bargaining chip.

“By Beijing being able to tell its partners in the region, ‘we would never do that, and certainly we would never seek to leverage our relationships in this way’. This could be a very good news story for China, and it certainly puts New Zealand in a weaker position, as a consequence.”

However, a prominent Cook Islands lawyer said it was fair that New Zealand was pressing pause.

Norman George said Brown should implore New Zealand for forgiveness.

“It is absolutely a fair thing to do because our prime minister betrayed New Zealand and let the government and people of New Zealand down.”

Brown has not responded to multiple attempts by RNZ Pacific for comment.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

So when the nonprofit Earth Genome, which builds data-driven tools and resources for a more sustainable planet, approached Mehrabi to collaborate on developing his vision for a digital food supply map, he leapt at the chance. When their U.S. prototype proved successful, they went global.

The resulting app, which launched Thursday and was shared exclusively with Grist, identifies food flows through just about every major port, road, rail, and shipping lane across the world and traces goods to where they are ultimately consumed. The developers have crowned it a “digital twin of the global food system” and hope it will be used by policymakers and researchers working to better adapt to an increasingly fragile supply chain beleaguered by climate change. The model pinpoints critical global transportation chokepoints where disruptions, such as extreme weather, would have domino effects on food security and, in doing so, identifies opportunities for local and regional agricultural producers to gain a forward-thinking market foothold.

“Food is so important to us,” said Mehrabi. “There’s a need for building these systems, these digital food twins that can be used in decision-making contexts. The first step to doing that is building the data.”

The model is a “first of its kind,” according to Alla Semenova, an economist at St. Mary’s College of Maryland who was not involved with the development of the project. The tool makes the interconnected nature of the global food supply system clear and “underlines the importance of government policies aimed at supporting diversified and localized food production and distribution systems,” she said.

Food systems don’t operate independently. From seeds sprouting to life in fallow fields to the very moment a shopper buys a packaged good from a local vendor, the supply chain links producers, consumers, laborers, processors, regulators, analysts, drivers, and retailers together in a complex web. It’s a network that stretches beyond borders and bodies of water, connecting people and places across the globe. That complexity also makes our understanding of the ripple effect of climate disruptions across the planet’s food system inherently fragmented.

The map attempts to make sense of the tangled maze of food supply chains across the world. It provides a detailed view of the amount of the most common agricultural food groups — from grains and oils to dairy, eggs, and meat — exported outside states, districts, and municipalities. Other elements embedded into its data repository measure the total economic impact of the supply chain on people and food accessibility in a region, tallying the size of its agricultural sector, the average annual economic output per person, population size, and measures of human health, standard of living, and education. The tool also calculates the total mass, calories, and macronutrient content of all crop, aquatic, and livestock commodities flowing in and out of a place. It illustrates trade data, too, for nearly 3,800 regions across 240 countries. 

The model also visualizes critical choke points where disruptions, such as extreme weather, would have cascading effects on these commodity flows. In the data, the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the Turkish Straits, the Strait of Malacca, the Black Sea, and a relatively small number of ports, inland waterways and railway networks in the U.S. and Brazil all stand out as bottlenecks — key maritime passages and coastal and island choke points handling considerable portions of the world’s food trade.

It can even be proactively used to assess how a corresponding series of climate shocks on a trade route is measured in calories, protein, or critical micronutrients — all prime food insecurity benchmarks, said Mehrabi. Roughly 9 percent of the world’s supply chain routes — fewer than 350 — account for 80 percent of global caloric flows.

The U.S. is not insulated from the effects of extreme weather shocks on the food system. It imports about 128 megatonnes of food from roughly 154 countries around the world, which represents about a third of the nation’s food supply, according to an analysis by Better Planet Laboratory data scientist Ginni Braich. Some of its top imports, including bananas, coffee, olive oil, cocoa beans, and oranges, face the most imminent climate-related risks.

Similarly, if a series of simultaneous and destabilizing climate shocks hit one of the leading wheat exporters in Western Australia, India’s rice powerhouse in Uttar Pradesh, and Paraná, Brazil, which is among the planet’s biggest exporters of soybeans, it could disrupt food supplies and affect food energy requirements for tens of millions of people. These regions have already experienced severe extreme weather in recent years. In 2023, parts of the state of Western Australia confronted the lowest annual rainfall on record since 1900, above-average temperatures, and everything from severe heat waves to catastrophic fire danger conditions and significant blazes. Uttar Pradesh experienced extreme weather events on 167 days of 2024 — up from 119 days in the year before — while periods of heavy rainfall flooded swaths of Paraná and droughts dried up rivers throughout Brazil.

According to the open-source data the team released with the map, severe disruptions to food exports from these three regions could affect the calories that support more than a million people in the U.S. and Mexico and 55 million people in China for a year. The cascading effects would be most acutely felt by low-income households in these locations that are already struggling with food access.

Given the implications for food security, Mehrabi’s team has heard from several groups interested in understanding how the tool might be used to help governments prepare emergency food reserves. The initial U.S. prototype garnered interest from officials at the State Department and Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration, including former Special Envoy for Global Food Security Cary Fowler.

Fowler told Grist that when he was at the State Department, his office had “a number of interactions” with the team behind the map while they were developing it. “I thought then and think now that this approach holds much promise in helping us understand and analyze large amounts of data and complex relationships,” said Fowler. “As these tools are improved, I can imagine that they will catalyze new insights and help with program and policy development. They could potentially provide us with an ‘early warning’ of where food system problems are set to erupt into crisis.”

Despite its clear benefits, the map does have some limitations. It doesn’t display what specific agricultural goods a place may import or where residents’ food comes from. (Though the developers say that can be mined from the data.) The map shows where the food is flowing based on estimates of the cheapest route to transport the food and satellite data on known routes — and not, say, the precise numbers of trucks or rail cars, or port capacities. And unlike its U.S.-geared predecessor, the tool does not have an embedded model of what different climate shocks and extreme weather events might do to food availability in an area.

“We’re not directly competing with a very specific use case for something like ‘How much do you stock a warehouse?’” said Mehrabi of the model’s limitations. “That’s not what we’re trying to do … our aim is from a humanitarian perspective.”

And that shows up in how the tool visualizes the brittleness of the current food system, according to Earth Genome’s creative technologist, Cameron Kruse. While their initial U.S. model showed that just 5.5 percent of the nation’s total counties produce half the country’s food, this global picture is even more concentrated, he said. Just 1.2 percent of the world’s countries are responsible for half of all domestic wheat exports, exposing critical vulnerabilities in the global food supply. It also sounds the alarm about the global effects of localized transport disruptions and provides a framework for future simulations that could predict the effects of climate shocks.

“As long as these models stay siloed and isolated, they continue growing siloed and isolated,” said Kruse. “If you hear about a drought in the news, or you hear about certain hurricanes impacting a region, go to that region in Food Twin, and see where that region is producing food. And then check out the news and see if global leaders are talking about it,” he said. “Use this as almost a gut-check of like, ‘Are we focusing on the right issues?’”

Editor’s note: Cary Fowler is a former Grist donor. Funders have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A new app details where your food comes from — and just how fragile the global food system really is on Jun 19, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Ayurella Horn-Muller.

New York Daily News reporter Chris Sommerfeldt was barred by Mayor Eric Adams from attending future press conferences after Sommerfeldt called out a question to the mayor during a news briefing.

In a video posted by the mayor’s office of an announcement on housing, Adams is seen opening the floor and taking questions from other reporters.

After Sommerfeldt attempts to ask a question, Adams responds in a mocking tone, “You’re calling out a lot, Chris. Stop calling out. You must have done that in school.”

The mayor then turns gruff, saying, “You’re not going to be disruptive in our conferences. You’re going to stop at the gate. You do that again, you’re going to stop at the gate. You’re not going to come into this conference off topic, be disrespectful, and call out and think you’re going to do what you want.”

After Sommerfeldt calls out again, Adams responds, turning aside to staff and saying, “He did it again, make sure security knows he’s not allowed back into this room.”

Daily News Executive Editor Andrew Julien, in a statement issued via email to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, said, “Our reporters have the right to ask questions, and taxpayers aren’t funding the police to keep reporters out of City Hall press conferences.”

The union that represents Daily News reporters and staff later wrote the mayor demanding that he reverse the restriction. “To ban a reporter from future press conferences for doing the very thing a press conference is designed to facilitate—asking a question—shows a flagrant disregard for the role of the press and for our colleagues’ professionalism,” the union wrote.

The union’s letter also noted that Adams had not called on Sommerfeldt during press conferences for the past three months.

The mayor’s press secretary, Kayla Mamelak Altus, told The New York Times that she didn’t know Sommerfeldt hadn’t been called on for that long. But Katie Honan, a reporter at The City, said on social media, “This is a blatant lie.”

Other journalists took to social media to criticize the mayor.

Craig McCarthy, City Hall bureau chief at the New York Post, said that Sommerfeldt was not interrupting: “He injected a follow-up question during a pause, actually furthering the line of questioning from Politico.”

Joe Anuta, who covers City Hall for Politico NY, also confirmed that the mayor’s teams hadn’t called on Sommerfeldt for months. “Chris does not interrupt other reporters. Let him ask his Qs like the rest of us,” he added.

The New York Press Club responded to the ban, saying, “We are reaching the height of absurdity when the Mayor of New York City is applying a hostile tactic seen in the White House.”

The Tracker reached out to Adams’ press office for comment but did not receive a response.

“Chris was doing his job,” the union wrote the mayor. “The only person being disrespectful is you.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

The statement warned that independent media in Georgia may only have months left before they are forced to close as outlets now require government approval for foreign grants, broadcasters face arbitrary fines, and journalists can be jailed for up to five years for violating the “foreign agent” law.

The group also called for the immediate release of prominent media manager Mzia Amaghlobeli, who has been in pre-trial detention since January and faces up to seven years in prison on charges widely perceived as retaliatory.

Read the full statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

On Monday, the Senate Finance Committee released legislative text that showed just how willing Senate Republicans are to follow in the House’s footsteps. The results offer little reassurance to climate advocates.

“Senate Republicans want to get credit for their version being less extreme than House colleagues,” said Seth Nelson, deputy communications director for the climate advocacy group Evergreen Action. “The emissions goals that President Biden laid out cannot be fulfilled if this stands as is.” 

Biden’s 2022 law aimed to put the U.S. on the path to net-zero emissions primarily by doling out generous tax credits to companies who build carbon-free sources of power; the GOP majority that took control of the House of Representatives this year has aimed to phase out these credits as soon as possible. But while the Senate text is less drastic, extending existing tax credits for energy sources like nuclear, geothermal, and battery storage into the 2030s, it maintains a rapid phase-out of federal support for the two main pillars of the energy transition: wind and solar power. The Senate also showed no mercy for climate-conscious consumers, proposing to eliminate generous federal subsidies for adopting energy-efficient technologies, like heat pumps and rooftop solar panels, as well as electric vehicles.

Robbie Orvis, a senior director for modeling and analysis at the nonpartisan think tank Energy Innovation, said that while the Senate text is meaningfully different from the House version, it “may still end up very close to the same point on emissions.”

Indeed, if the Senate text is passed and signed by the president, the Finance Committee’s cuts — particularly the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in estimated tax credits for wind and solar — make it far less likely that the U.S. will get anywhere close to the emissions reductions forecasted as a result of Biden’s law. That legislation was projected to bring U.S. emissions down by close to 50 percent from their 2005 peak by 2035, putting the country within close reach of its goals under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Now, Democrats and environmentalists are facing the possibility that they were overconfident in the staying power of their biggest victory of the past decade.

“I think a lot of single-issue climate groups woefully overestimated the salience of climate and the tax credits for individual members of Congress,” said Josh Freed, senior vice president for climate and energy at the think tank Third Way.

When Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, in 2022, the theory underpinning the largest climate spending legislation in world history was that Republicans, should they wrest back control of Congress, wouldn’t vote to repeal a bill that funnels billions of dollars into the less-developed parts of the country where plans for factories like new battery manufacturing plants sprung up shortly after the law’s passage — the same parts of the country that are more likely to be represented by Republicans. That theory didn’t hold up in the House of Representatives last month, when moderate Republicans — representing districts receiving the vast majority of the clean energy benefits of the IRA — voted to effectively repeal the legislation in a massive budget reconciliation bill that aims primarily to extend and deepen the large tax cuts that President Trump pursued during his first term as president.

The theory had better success in the Senate — but not the way that Democrats were hoping. So far the Senate has preserved the parts of the bill that could lead to high-profile factory openings and permanent jobs — support for things like battery manufacturing facilities and nuclear power plants — but not the stuff that is likely to have the greatest impact on emissions: installing more and more wind and solar power to crowd out fossil fuels in the U.S. energy mix. In terms of building political support for climate action, Democrats may be learning that there is no substitute for persuading their opponents that the ends of their energy policies — bringing emissions down to net-zero — are just as desirable as the means of creating jobs and building out a more diversified and efficient energy system.

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It remains to be seen if the Senate Finance Committee’s text can secure the 50 Republican votes needed to pass the chamber. In April, before the committee’s deliberations, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, Utah’s John Curtis, Kansas’ Jerry Moran, and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis sent an open letter to Senate Majority Leader (and Finance committee member) John Thune warning him that dismantling the IRA tax credits would destabilize investments already underway in their states. 

“A wholesale repeal, or the termination of certain individual credits, would create uncertainty, jeopardizing capital allocation, long-term project planning, and job creation in the energy sector and across our broader economy,” they wrote. 

Other Republican senators — Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, president pro tempore of the Senate and the godfather of the clean energy production tax credit, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, North Dakota’s John Hoeven, and West Virginia’s Shelley Moore Capito — have signaled interest in preserving the tax credits. It’s not clear yet if the current text’s relatively stingy preservation of the credits is enough to satisfy them. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, has been the target of a pressure campaign being waged by a coalition of climate-aware labor groups in her state who want her to go to bat for the IRA. 

IRA funding has already been a boon to a range of clean energy businesses, including everything from solar, wind, and battery manufacturers to sustainable aviation fuel providers and electric vehicle component makers. A little more than half of the $321 billion in clean energy investments that have resulted from IRA’s financial incentives have landed in states represented by Republican senators — and a full 80 percent are in Republican House districts. According to the Clean Investment Monitor, a project led by the Rhodium Group and MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, the investments have created more than 26,000 jobs so far and are projected to create nearly 63,000 more. Separately, a Grist analysis of the funding that the IRA made available through federal grants and loans shows that an additional $15 billion has gone to Republican-led states.  

“The same is not true in places that are more urban, for instance, in the Northeast,” said Hannah Hess, an associate director with Rhodium Group’s energy and climate practice. “We aren’t seeing a ton of investment and a ton of jobs.”

As senators begin to consider the Finance Committee’s text, Majority Leader Thune still has his work cut out for him. The GOP has to walk two tightropes at the same time, because its ultra-conservative and moderate Senate factions have competing priorities. While moderates want to preserve federal support for (some) sources of next-generation energy, fiscal hawks like Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin want deeper spending cuts. Thune, from South Dakota, can only afford three “no” votes. Whatever bill the Senate passes has to go back to the House for its approval, and multiple House lawmakers have said they will tank the legislation if the Senate has materially changed it — which it already has. 

Despite the fact that House Republicans voted nearly unanimously to phase out the IRA clean energy credits, the lower chamber seems divided on what it wants the ultimate outcome to be: 13 House Republicans sent the Senate a letter last week urging it to undo the damage they did. 

“We remain deeply concerned by several provisions, including those which would abruptly terminate several credits just 60 days after enactment for projects that have not yet begun construction,” the letter said.  

New York’s Chuck Schumer, the Democrat who is the Senate’s Minority Leader, has assembled a team of Democrats to lobby the 16 Republican senators whom he has identified as potentially persuadable. “We want a critical mass of Republicans to go to [Majority Leader John] Thune and say, ‘You’ve got to change this, because I’ll lose thousands of jobs in my state,'” he told Axios in an interview. If that approach fails, Democrats have a few additional options. They could introduce a long list of amendments to the bill, or push House Republicans to protect the clean energy incentives when the bill is sent back to the House. But given paltry GOP support for the bulk of the IRA so far, their best hope may well be dysfunction across the aisle.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline With new Senate legislation, Congress is one step closer to gutting the Inflation Reduction Act on Jun 17, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Zoya Teirstein.

As I wrote for TRNN back in February, mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos is now completing the full ideological take over of the US’s second-most influential newspaper’s opinion section. But, like all good right-wing takeovers, it’s important for those engaging in said right-wing takeover that you not think of it as right-wing, or them as agents of right-wing ideology but, instead, above such petty, small-minded, and worldly matters. They are not only not right-wing—they really, really need you to know they exist above and outside of ideology. 

On Wednesday, the Washington Post named the Economist’s Washington correspondent Adam O’Neal as its next opinion editor. In his announcement on Twitter, O’Neal parroted his new boss’ words from last February almost verbatim, telling Post readers in a chummy front-facing camera announcement that:

[Washington Post opinion page writers and editors are] going to be stalwart advocates of free markets and personal liberties. We’ll be unapologetically patriotic too. Our philosophy will be rooted in fundamental optimism about the future of this country. What we won’t be are people who lecture you about ideology or demand you think certain ways about policy.

(This phrasing is copy and pasted from Bezos’ announcement five months ago that the Post opinion section will work in “support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.”)

To recap: Post opinion section writers will be “stalwart advocates of free markets” and be “unapologetically patriotic” but also not “lecture [us] about ideology.” The obvious flaw in this plan, of course, is that advocating for “free markets,” e.g. capitalism and patriotism, e.g. advocating for US supremacy, is very much an ideological position.. One may think they are inarguably cool and self-evidently awesome but they, nonetheless, are ideological conceits requiring ideological production and reproduction. 

Despite the second-richest person in the world and his new mercenary mouthpiece’s implied claims to the contrary, “free markets” and “patriotism” are not organic features of reality like gravity or the cosmological constant, but ideological constructs. And requiring opinion writers embrace these ideological constructs, as slippery and vague as they may be, is an ideological litmus test for writing for Bezos’ publication. The Post opinion page revamp is thus an explicitly right-wing project designed to advance the ideologies of capitalism and US hegemony.

So the question is: why is someone working for Toyota, walking around a Toyota car lot wearing a Toyota polo shirt walking up to me on the showroom floor and giving me a speech about how they don’t like cars, car companies, or driving? Why are right-wingers so concerned about not being perceived as such, but instead presenting themselves as post-ideological arbiters of “open debate” indifferent to the very thing they’ve been hired to do? 

There are many reasons—some cynical, some psychological—but before we detail these, let’s examine the long, strange history of right-wing media personalities suspiciously insisting to their audiences, over and over again, that they are, in fact, ideology-free truth-tellers. It’s a subject I’ve long been fascinated with, having done two podcast episodes on this and related topics. Since the 1990s, it’s been a consistent feature of conservatives to lay claim to post-ideology. Bill O’Relly insisted he wasn’t conservative or Republican. “I’m not a political guy in the sense that I embrace an ideology… I’m an independent thinker, I’m an independent voter, I’m a registered Independent,” he told NPR’s Terry Gross in 2003. “I basically look at the world from the point of view of let’s solve the problem, right? Whatever the problem is, let’s find the best solution to it. And if the solution is on the left, I grab it. If it’s on the right, I grab it.” 

Glenn Beck made this his whole schtick as well. “You’ve lived your whole life in a responsible way,” the former Fox News huckster told his audience in 2009 while promoting the GOP’s Tea Party rebrand. “You’ve been concerned about this country through the last administration, in this administration. If you’re like most people, both administrations, it’s not about politics, you actually believe in something, and you thought for a while there, your politicians did as well.”

It’s not about going after Democrats, it’s about going after both parties. But then Beck, like O’Rielly and dozens before them, invariably proceeded to go after Democrats 98% of the time. It’s a popular posture. Everyone from Bill Maher to Andrew Yang to Bari Weiss to Republican Senator Rand Paul—who wrote a book called “Taking a Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America,” in which he claimed to go “beyond the left-right paradigm kind of thinking,”—has embraced this branding: I don’t do ideology, they consistently remind us, I’m a political actor unmoored from your oppressive labels—a maverick, a rogue, an independent iconoclast.  

The most infamous recent example of this phenomenon is Elon Musk who—while openly promoting white nationalist bile on social media, bashing minorities, trans people and women, doing nazi salutes during Trump’s inauguration––continued to insist he wasn’t right or left wing, but instead a secret third thing. “I’m probably left of center on social issues and right of center on economic issues,” the sage-like enlightened centrist Musk claimed in late 2023, right before he dumped $250 million into successfully reelecting Donald Trump.  

Obviously, the type of right-wing of each right-winger who claims They Don’t Do Ideology varies. There are differences between Fox News MAGA nationalism, Musk’s internet-addled neonazism, Maher’s glibertarian Zionism, Yang’s Silicon Valley techno-authorianism, neoconservatism, and what will likely be Jeff Bezos’ preferred flavor of right-wing—Club for Growth Republicanism promoting low taxes and generic Bush-era patriotism. But the new Washington Post op-ed section will no doubt be welcoming to all of the above while excluding those on the left, e.g. those who think “free markets” and “patriotism” are fraught concepts worthy of critique rather than mantras to mindlessly embrace or, at the very least, empty buzzwords that are the intellectual equivalent of Gerber apple-chicken pouches. 

Interestingly, this is not, for the most part, a pathology on the left. I am a leftist, I write for left-wing outlets. I say so openly. Just the same, liberals are almost always openly liberal, openly Democrats. They wear their ideological preferences on their sleeve. Of course they’re ideological, because to do politics at all is inherently ideological. To be human is to be ideological. To deny this obvious fact, outside of being, say, a ‘neutral’ reporter who has to fake neutrality for professional reasons, isn’t just dishonest, it’s insulting to everyone’s intelligence. 

Alas, being conservative is to be on the side of the establishment, of the powerful, of the billionaire class who O’Neal is literally parroting. It’s both inherent in the American cultural self-image, but also a necessary component of media branding, to perceive one’s self and one’s media project as not on the side of power. In a country of 330 million self-perceived free-thinking rebels—including, most gratingly, all of our mega-billionaires—all ideological formations must therefore present as edgy and subversive, as speaking truth to the powerful, even those openly marionetting for the world’s second-richest person. 

It’s impossible to conceive of someone worth $250 billion taking over a publication and re-making it into his own image and telling the public, “I am a very rich person who wants to produce content that reinforces the ideology that permitted and continues to permit my obscene wealth and power.” This would be cartoonishly evil and undermine the efficiency of said ideological output. So, instead, we must continue to play this bizarre game where open promoters of right-wing ideology, of oligarchical power and control, of US global hegemony, are presented as free-thinkers allergic to ideology rather than public relations agents working on behalf of the most banal and ubiquitous of ideologies—American conservatism—in open service of their corporate and billionaire patrons. 

As monied control over our media and the platforms required for their distribution grows tighter and tighter, this post-ideological “open debate” schtick grows more and more tedious and insulting to everyone’s intelligence. Advocating for “free markets” is obviously ideological. Promoting American “patriotism” is obviously ideological. If the super-rich are going to use media and social media as their ideological play toys, to promote their preferred worldview, the least they can do is have the decency to be honest about this fact, rather than smothering their right-wing rebrands in faux neutral, above-the-fray smarm.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Adam Johnson.

• Read the report: www.bankingonclimatechaos.org
• Read the key findings here

“The retreat by U.S. banks from robust climate commitments is unacceptable, deeply irresponsible, and a clear capitulation to political pressure. Banks must shift away from risky financing and commit to reducing emissions via the companies they finance, with a genuine focus on helping to decarbonize the economy and support the urgent and necessary clean energy transition. For example, it’s indefensible that US banks reject direct project finance as too risky, only to support the same projects indirectly through corporate lending—these loopholes must be closed,” said Jessye Waxman, Campaign Advisor for the Sierra Club’s Sustainable Finance campaign.
See more quotes from report co-authors.

OVERALL TRENDS

The report shows that global banks increased their fossil fuel financing by $162 billion from 2023 to 2024. This is a new trend, since overall fossil fuel finance had been decreasing since 2021. Global banks have financed $7.9 trillion in fossil fuels since 2016, when the Paris Agreement was signed.

In 2024, loans were the top form of financing with an increase to $467 billion from $422 billion from 2023. Bonds saw the largest increase to $401 billion from $284 billion in 2023. Acquisition financing also rose to $82.9 billion from $63.7 billion in 2023.

COMPANIES EXPANDING FOSSIL FUELS

The report reveals that global banks have financed companies expanding fossil fuels with $1.6 trillion since 2021. In 2024, global banks financed these companies with $429 billion alone — a rise of $84.8 billion from 2023.

Some of the top companies that received 2024 financing to expand fossil fuels from the 65 global banks listed in the report include:

• Diamondback Energy, $20.9 billion. Its oil & gas expansion plans are located largely in the Permian Basin in Texas.
• Enbridge, $16.5 billion. Its pipeline expansion plans are located in Canada and the US. The Sierra Club is fighting Enbridge’s T15 pipeline expansion in North Carolina intended to service Duke’s planned gas-burning power plants in Person County.
• BP, $10.9 billion. Its oil & gas expansion plans are located in 30 countries and include focusing on exploration, pipeline development, LNG terminals, and gas-fired power.
• Energy Transfer, $7.8 billion. Its pipeline and LNG expansion plans are located largely in the US. The Sierra Club has opposed the Dakota Access Pipeline, arguing it poses significant risks to the climate, local communities, and Indigenous sovereignty.
• Duke Energy, $7.1 billion. It is the second largest utility burning fossil fuels in the US, and it operates in six states. Duke’s expansion plans include a heavy reliance on coal and gas, with very little renewable energy. The Sierra Club is calling on utilities across the US to prioritize powering the electric grid with renewable energy to support a healthy and sustainable future.

BANK FINANCING: BY THE NUMBERS

JP Morgan Chase is the largest fossil fuel financier in the world, committing $53.5 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2024. Four banks increased their fossil fuel financing by more than $10 billion. The top four banks with the largest absolute increase are JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Barclays.

U.S. banks committed $289 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2024, one third of the global financing for that year in the scope of the report. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo, the top four U.S. banks, alone represent 21% of total global fossil fuel financing in the scope of this report.

Japanese companies Mizuho, MUFG, and SMBC contributed 12% of this report’s overall financing for that year. Nearly half of that financing went to companies headquartered in the United States.

In Europe, the UK bank Barclay’s is the largest fossil fuel financier in 2024 with $35.4 billion. Spain’s Santander, France’s BNP Paribas, Germany’s Deutsche Bank, and the UK’s HSBC each contributed between $14 and $17.3 billion to the industry in 2024.

BACKGROUND

The Banking on Climate Chaos report is authored by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club, and Urgewald. It has been endorsed by 480 organizations in 69 countries. Learn more at www.bankingonclimatechaos.org.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Israel targeted one of the buildings of the state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) in Tehran on the fourth day of attacks on Iran, interrupting a live news broadcast, reports Press TV.

The attack, involving at least four bombs, struck the central building housing IRIB’s news department, while a live news broadcast was underway.

The transmission was briefly interrupted before Hassan Abedini, IRIB’s news director and deputy for political affairs, appeared on air to condemn the “terrorist crime”.

• READ MORE: Blasts rock Tehran, Tel Aviv; Iran warns Israel of ‘devastating’ attacks
• Other Israeli war on Iran reports

At the time of the attack, news anchor Sahar Emami was presenting the news. Despite the building trembling under the first strike, she stood her ground and continued the broadcast.

“Allah o Akbar” (God is Great), she proclaimed, drawing global attention to the war crime committed by Israel against Iran’s national broadcaster.

Moments later, another blast filled the studio with smoke and dust, forcing her to evacuate. She returned shortly after to join Abedini and share her harrowing experience.

“If I die, others will take my place and expose your crimes to the world,” she declared, looking straight into the camera with courage and composure.

Casualties unconfirmed
While the number of casualties remains unconfirmed, insiders reported that several journalists inside the building had been injured in the bombing.

Israel’s war ministry promptly claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the aggression on the state broadcaster as a “war crime” and called on the United Nations to take immediate action against the regime.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei denounced the attack and urged the international community to hold the regime accountable for its assault on the media.

“The world is watching: targeting Iran’s news agency #IRIB’s office during a live broadcast is a wicked act of war crime,” Baghaei wrote on X.

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) also condemned the bombing of the IRIB news building, labeling it an “inhuman, criminal, and a terrorist act.”

CPJ ‘appalled’ by Israeli attack
The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was “appalled by Israel’s bombing of Iran’s state TV channel while live on air.”

“Israel’s killing, with impunity, of almost 200 journalists in Gaza has emboldened it to target media elsewhere in the region,” Sara Qudah, the West Asia representative for CPJ, said in a statement after the attack on an IRIB building.

The Israeli regime has a documented history of targeting journalists globally. Since October 2023, it has killed more than 250 Palestinian journalists in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The regime launched its aggression against the Islamic Republic, including Tehran, early on Friday, leading to the assassination of several high-ranking military officials, nuclear scientists, and civilians, including women and children.

In response, Iran launched a barrage of missiles and drones late Friday night, followed by more retaliatory operations on Saturday and Sunday as part of Operation True Promise III.

In Israel, 24 people have been killed and hundreds wounded since hostilities began. In Iran, 224 people have been killed.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:

“Americans should slam down the phone in response to the latest marketing ploy from the Trump family business. Everything about this plan should tell Americans to disconnect right away.

“First, while the details of the Trump phone plan remain murky, the plan appears to be far more expensive than options available from existing competitors — suggesting it will join a long line of Trump consumer scams and ripoffs. And good luck getting a federal agency to hold the company accountable if service fails or things go off the rails.

“Second, the Trump announcement claims the physical phone will be made in the USA, but there is reason to doubt that claim. There is only one existing phone that is made in the United States — costing $2000 — so the phone is, at minimum, likely to rely heavily on imported parts, raising questions about how Trump’s chaotic tariffs will apply to any imported parts for the Trump phone.

“Third, if the phone actually takes off, how are competitors supposed to respond? Should they advertise, truthfully, that they have a cheaper, comparable product? Or will they be too frightened? Will other businesses choose to rely on the Trump phone plan as a way to curry favor with the president? Does this portend a Trump corruption of the economy to parallel the Trump corruption of politics?