F. Left News

President Donald Trump and his recently appointed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Aitkins are proposing to rescind the pay-to-play rule. The rule prohibits investment advisers and their officers from making or soliciting campaign contributions above a small threshold to government officials responsible for awarding investment contracts to those advisers for two years prior or during the contracting period. Craig Holman, Ph.D., government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, released the following statement:

“In a stunning and completely out-of-the-blue new proposal, President Trump and SEC Chair Aitkins are seeking to overturn a highly successful and decades-old anti-corruption rule. Trump’s proposal comes on the heels of – nothing. There have been no new problems with the rule and no new reasons for its repeal, though investment advisers have never particularly cared for it. The effort to rescind the pay-to-play rule is simply the latest extension of the Trump administration canceling ethics rules, especially those that get in the way of the rich getting richer.

“Back in 1994, then-SEC Chair Arthur Levitt grew fed up with repeated scandals in which investment advisers appeared to be buying government contracts by making large campaign contributions to those responsible for awarding the contracts. Levitt cracked down on this corrupt practice by banning anything but small de minimis contributions from advisers and their associates to those responsible for awarding government investment contracts, which quickly became known as the ‘pay-to-play’ rule.

“The pay-to-play rule remains on the books today because it works. Repealing it is nothing but the most brazen corruption.”

Center for International Policy Executive Vice President Matt Duss issued the following statement in response to new measures announced by the United Kingdom and other US allies in response to Israeli settlement expansion:

“Banning the import of settlement goods and sanctioning those who facilitate settlement expansion are welcome, if long overdue, steps toward upholding international law, protecting Palestinian national rights, and advancing regional security. Several countries have announced that they will join the United Kingdom in adopting such measures, which we urge them to consistently enforce. We also applaud the UK’s recognition that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful.

“American lawmakers who seek to uphold the rule of law and pursue a non-violent resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should welcome these efforts by some of our closest allies. They should call on the US government to adopt these and similar measures, instead of resisting them.

“The decades-long approach of urging Israel to halt settlement expansion, while failing to impose any consequences for it, has been a catastrophic failure. By effectively granting Israel impunity from international consequences, the US has fueled an annexationist movement that openly terrorizes Palestinian communities, forcibly displaces them, and steals their land in full partnership with the Israeli government and armed forces. Make no mistake: Those trying to undermine or penalize the lawful steps rightly taken in response to the occupation are actively abetting this deadly, illegal conquest.”

After a summer of heatwaves, wildfires and record-breaking temperatures, new polling has revealed the UK public want Burnham’s government to take strong climate action to protect people in schools and hospitals.

The More in Common polling, commissioned by investigative climate non-profit Global Witness, revealed high levels of concern about how extreme heat impacts the NHS’ ability to treat patients (75%) and schools’ ability to teach pupils (63%).

When it came to support for targeted climate interventions, 75% of people supported the installation of solar-powered AC in schools and hospitals.Over two thirds (69%) backed a new legal maximum indoor working temperature of 30 Celsius, while 65% thought councils should be required to open free, cool public spaces with air conditioning during heatwaves (65%).

NHS doctors have told Global Witness that hospital temperatures became so high during this summer’s heatwaves that MRI scanners and CT machines cut out, with waiting times and patient flow affected. Teachers told Global Witness that staff and students fell sick during the extreme heat this summer and reported a lack of clear guidance on school closures or maximum working temperatures.

Global Witness says Andy Burnham should foot the bill for climate adaptation and mitigation by fairly taxing the oil and gas industry, who raked in big windfalls from the Iran war this year, after bumper profits following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Key polling findings

• 75% of the public were concerned about high temperatures’ impact on the NHS's ability to treat patients
• 63% were concerned about high temperatures’ impact on schools' ability to teach pupils
• 75% support the installation of solar-powered air conditioning in schools and hospitals
• 69% support a new legal maximum indoor working temperature of 30 Celsius
• When asked who should foot the bill to protect Britain from climate change, the two most popular answers were: government and taxpayers, closely followed by multinational oil and gas corporations

Global Witness senior campaigner, Flossie Boyd said:“Our schools and hospitals should be keeping people safe, but this summer many of us lost sleep worrying about our loved ones in baking hot classrooms and wards.

“MRI scanners cut out in the heat, teachers reported classrooms hitting 40 degrees and kids have fallen sick in sweltering school buildings.

“It’s scandalous that as people’s lives were put at risk this summer, the oil giants turbo-charging extreme heat were raking in sky-high profits, pushing for more dirty drilling and lower taxes.

"The climate crisis is here, and bold action is needed to keep people safe. If Burnham wants to stand up for families and working people, he should stand up to oil giants, tax them fairly and use the proceeds to fund the climate preparedness Britain desperately needs – like solar-powered AC to protect the most vulnerable.”

UNISON head of policy Sampson Low said:

"Paramedics, cleaners and other public sector workers have no choice but to carry on when the mercury rises.

"Extreme heat not only brings a rise in demand for care but can also affect the health of staff. What's needed are thresholds based on evidence. This is for jobs where work can't simply stop when a temperature is reached.

"Such an approach would allow employers to bring in measures such as extra breaks, more water and ways to cool the work environment."

Earlier this year, Global Witness sent thermometers to teachers across the UK to measure excess heat in school classrooms during the mid-June heatwave. Several teachers reported temperatures between 30 and 38 degrees - well above the recommended maximum classroom temperature of 26°C set by the National Education Union.

The TUC reignited calls for government to introduce a maximum working temperature this summer, after amber heat alerts in the South of England. They say workers should have the right to stop work if workplace temperatures reach 30C, or 27C for those doing strenuous jobs.

An increase in civilian deaths and injuries caused by cluster munitions should trigger united action among the 124 countries that are members of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Human Rights Watch said today on the release of the “Cluster Munition Monitor 2026” by the Cluster Munition Coalition. Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the coalition and contributed to the report.

The 150-page report assesses all countries’ adherence to the 2008 convention. Cluster munitions killed or injured at least 1,063 people globally in 2025. This figure is among the highest annual totals recorded by the Cluster Munition Coalition. The actual number is most likely higher as many casualties go unreported. New casualties were recorded in nine countries in 2025: Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Myanmar, Russia, Syria, and Ukraine. Cluster munitions continued to disproportionately affect civilians, whether from direct attacks or the remnants they leave behind. Civilians accounted for 87 percent of casualties recorded for 2025, where the civilian status was recorded.

“It’s critically important for countries to renew their commitment to the international treaty that seeks to rid the world of the scourge of cluster munitions,” said Verity Coyle, deputy crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “The clearest way to do that is for all convention member states to condemn continued production, stockpiling, and transfer of cluster munitions.”

In recent months, both the United States and Türkiye have disclosed plans to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine have used cluster munitions during the war in Ukraine. Lithuania’s withdrawal from the treaty, the first member state to do so, became final in March 2025.

The country delegations meeting at the convention’s Third five-year Review Conference in Vientiane, Laos on September 14-18, 2026, should condemn the production, transfer, and use of cluster munitions by other countries and reaffirm their commitment to pressing for universal support for the ban treaty. Laos hosted the first meeting of states parties to the treaty in 2011.

There has been no confirmed use of cluster munitions by any state party since the convention was adopted in May 2008. Cluster munitions were used by non-state parties Iran, Myanmar, Russia, Thailand, and Ukraine during the reporting period of mid-2025 to mid-2026. Iran repeatedly used cluster munitions in Israel in 2026, while Thailand used them in Cambodia in 2025 in the context of their border conflict. Cluster munitions were used in northern Mali in May 2026, but it was not possible to confirm who used the weapons.

Cluster munitions can be fired from the ground by artillery, rockets, missiles, or mortars, or they can be dropped by aircraft. They typically open in the air, dispersing multiple explosive submunitions or bomblets over a wide area. Due to their wide area effect, the weapon cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants, especially when they are used in populated areas. In addition, many submunitions fail to explode on initial impact, leaving unexploded duds that can indiscriminately injure and kill—like landmines—for years, until they are found and destroyed.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions and requires the clearance of explosive remnants. The Third Review Conference will address the potential for expanding treaty membership, closing funding gaps for explosive ordnance clearance programs, and providing assistance to affected communities.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions has 112 states parties and 12 signatories. The most recent country to accede to the treaty was Vanuatu in September 2025. Prior to that, South Sudan and Nigeria were the last countries to become parties, joining in 2023.

During the current reporting period there was evidence of cluster munition production in China, India, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea, Poland, Romania, Russia, and South Korea. Eighteen countries outside of the treaty actively produce cluster munitions, maintain the capacity to do so, or have not formally committed to never producing them.

Approximately US$116 million in international and national funding was provided in 2025 to address the impact of cluster munition contamination in states parties to the convention. The US foreign assistance freeze in February 2025 disrupted the clearance of cluster munition remnants in several regions, notably in Southeast Asia. Subsequent grant terminations reduced clearance capacity in Afghanistan, Iraq, and South Sudan. Other major donors have also begun to reduce allocations and narrowed their geographic focus in response to changing political priorities.

“In the face of the continued use of cluster munitions and rising civilian casualties, member countries to the convention need to send a clear message that they will stand firm in their commitment to end all use of these indiscriminate weapons,” Coyle said.

The Cluster Munition Monitor 2026 is the 17th annual monitoring report by the Cluster Munition Coalition, the global coalition of nongovernmental organizations co-founded by Human Rights Watch in 2003. The report will be presented to countries attending the Third Review Conference of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Vientiane, Laos on September 14-18.

Deadly US-Israeli coalition attacks on densely populated areas of Tehran in March 2026, that killed and injured dozens of civilians, must urgently be independently and impartially investigated to determine whether they constitute war crimes, Amnesty International said in a new briefing published today. The organization is calling for accountability and redress for possible indiscriminate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law as hostilities continue to escalate between the USA and Iran.

The recent escalation between the USA and Iran – with reports of civilian casualties in a deadly US attack on a wedding celebration in Hormozgan province on 1 September 2026, and Iran’s retaliatory attacks on Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq and Bahrain – demonstrates that the risks to civilians across the region remain high.

The organization’s investigation into air strikes on Niloufar, Resalat, and Javadieh neighbourhoods of Tehran between 1 and 13 March 2026 found evidence that explosive weapons with wide area effects were used in densely populated areas, killing and injuring civilians and causing extensive damage to homes, businesses and other civilian buildings.

In Resalat, air strikes destroyed or damaged a facility belonging to one of the Basij battalions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as three nearby buildings – at least one of which was a residential building – killing 16 civilians. In Niloufar and Javadieh, at least 25 civilians were killed during air strikes that caused destruction or damage to police stations as well as widespread damage to nearby homes and other civilian structures.

Police are normally considered civilians under international humanitarian law unless they are incorporated into the armed forces or are directly participating in hostilities. In Iran, the police force is part of the broader armed forces structure and therefore police stations may qualify as military objectives. While the USA and Israel announced strikes on “regime” targets in Tehran in March 2026, neither confirmed carrying out these three specific attacks.

“The available evidence in Tehran points to a series of strikes using explosive weapons with wide area effects on security-related facilities within densely populated urban areas, with devastating and yet entirely predictable consequences for civilians. The civilian death toll, the scale of destruction, the timing of the attacks, the impact on nearby civilian structures and the lack of effective advance warnings point to alarming failures by the US-Israeli coalition to abide by the obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm and spare civilian objects,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International

“The US/Israeli strikes in Tehran investigated by Amnesty International may constitute indiscriminate attacks and amount to war crimes. They must be the object of independent, impartial, effective and transparent investigations.

The available evidence in Tehran points to a series of strikes using explosive weapons with wide area effects on security-related facilities within densely populated urban areas, with devastating and yet entirely predictable consequences for civilians
Agnès Callamard, Secretary General

“Amid the resumption of US strikes in Iran and renewed threats by US President Donald Trump to target civilian infrastructure, it is imperative that the US and Israel end all unlawful attacks and strictly comply with international humanitarian law, including by taking all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects during the planning and execution of military operations. The same international law obligations apply to Iran while carrying out retaliatory attacks, including against Gulf states.”

Amnesty International renews its calls for an enduring ceasefire, and accountability for the unlawful US and Israeli attacks on Iran in violation of the UN Charter, and for all violations of international humanitarian law.

The organization also calls on the USA, Israel, and Iran to invite the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to conduct enquiries into allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian law by all parties, including attacks on energy infrastructure; and urges the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly to consider all possible avenues to deliver and ensure peace, security and justice for all unlawful attacks in Iran.

Amnesty International analysed satellite imagery, as well as verifying 60 videos published online in relation to the three incidents. The organization also reviewed official public statements made by authorities in Iran, Israel and the USA and conducted interviews with two individuals inside Iran. Pseudonyms are used to protect their security. Amnesty International wrote to Israeli and US authorities on 17 July 2026 and to Iranian authorities on 31 July 2026. No response was received by the time of publication.

AIR STRIKES IN NILOUFAR

At least 20 civilians were killed in the attack in Niloufar Square in central Tehran on 1 March 2026, according to information gathered by Amnesty International from eyewitness accounts, media reports, and statements from Iranian officials. The attack took place at around 9pm when restaurants and cafes were open and the presence of civilians was readily foreseeable.

The evidence gathered indicates that the attack directly struck and destroyed the 104 Abbas Abad Police Station (Kalantari 104), located on Eshghyar Street in Niloufar Square.

Stills from a video showing the impact of the strike on buildings and cars in Niloufar Square. © VahidOnline

Verified videos show that the blast destroyed the police station and caused extensive damage to surrounding apartment buildings, shops and other civilian structures located up to approximately 100 metres away.

A journalist who visited the site said the devastation extended well beyond the police station, leaving multiple apartment buildings uninhabitable and killing civilians, including a father and son who worked at a nearby bakery.

Satellite imagery from 1 March 2026(left) shows the police station building. On 6 March 2026 (right) imagery shows the building has been destroyed. The yellow circle highlights areas of damage and destruction visible in the imagery which extend beyond the police building. ©Planet Labs PBC
AIR STRIKES IN RESALAT

At least 16 civilians were killed and dozens injured during an attack in the densely built-up neighbourhood of Resalat, a populated district in eastern Tehran, at around 2.30pm local time on 9 March 2026, according to information gathered by Amnesty International from open-source evidence, eyewitness accounts, state media reports, and statements from Iranian officials and the Iranian Red Crescent.

According to Amnesty International’s research, the attack directly struck a facility belonging to a Basij battalion of the IRGC.

Amnesty International is unable to independently verify the exact number of strikes that took place and the nature of all buildings impacted in Resalat but satellite imagery analysed by the organization shows four distinct buildings where heavy damage and destruction are visible, including a residential building known as “Number 12” (Pelak-e 12). An eyewitness told Amnesty International that at least 13 civilians in residential building Number 12 were killed, including the building’s caretaker and 12 members of one family.

Evidence gathered by Amnesty International, including satellite imagery and videos as well as witness accounts, indicates that Number 12 was likely struck separately from the Basij facility.

Satellite imagery from 6 March 2026 (left) shows Basij facility and nearby buildings in the Resalat neighbourhood. On 21 March 2026 (right), imagery shows four distinct buildings with heavy damage and destruction © 2026 Planet Labs PBC AIR STRIKES IN JAVADIEH

At least five civilians, members of the same family, were killed and dozens injured during an attack in the densely populated neighbourhood of Javadieh in southern Tehran at around midday on 13 March 2026, according to information gathered by Amnesty International from state media reports and statements from Iranian officials.

Satellite imagery taken between 11 and 14 March 2026 and audiovisual evidence show that the attack destroyed parts of Police Station 117 (Kalantari 117) on Ghorbani Street and other buildings nearby.

Satellite imagery from 5 June 2025 (left) shows the police station gate and surrounding area. On 5 April 2026, imagery shows the area of destruction, highlighted with a yellow circle (centre) . On 10 May 2026, imagery shows the areas that were cleared in red extending beyond the area of heavy destruction, further suggesting other buildings were heavily impacted and were cleared during the clean-up (right).©Planet Labs PBC

Verified videos show the blast impact extending up to more than 50 metres and causing severe damage to surrounding residential and commercial buildings. One verified video shows emergency and rescue workers carrying out rescue operations. Amnesty International’s weapons experts analysed a photograph published by state media showing individuals standing around two dark, cylindrical pieces of metal lying on the ground and identified the objects as consistent with a component of a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), specifically the section that houses the GPS guidance unit. JDAM kits are manufactured in the US and are known to be used by both US and Israeli forces.

Components of a Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) found in Javadieh as reported by Iranian state media. © Farsnews
BACKGROUND

On 28 February, the USA and Israel launched joint attacks on Iran, with tens thousands of strikes across the country since. The strikes killed at least 1,469 civilians in Iran, including hundreds of children, between 28 February 2026 and 24 July 2026, according to official figures.

The Iranian authorities launched retaliatory attacks across the region. Iranian attacks have thus far killed at least 21 civilians in Israel and four in the occupied West Bank; and at least 29 killed across Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Amnesty International found that some of the attacks carried out by the Islamic Republic authorities were unlawful, including an attack that killed nine civilians in Beit Shemesh in Israel, and an attack on a migrant labour camp in Saudi Arabia that killed four civilians. Israel has also escalated its attacks on Lebanon, in response to Hezbollah’s attacks, with at least 4,333 killed in Lebanon since 2 March 2026.

Red Pepper editors pick out the songs and albums that shaped their political imaginations

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The latest of thousands of innocent victims of inhuman ethnic cleansing carnage, Pierre Damas Bel was a 20-year-old Haitian honor student, soccer player, aspiring doctor and "beautiful soul" in Ohio who, overwhelmed by the shame of an ICE shackle and the fear of being sent back to his ravaged country, walked into highway traffic and took his life - another brown life senselessly extinguished by a cabal of sadists indifferent to their own cruelty. "Li te chagrin," said his grieving father. "He was heartbroken."

Hopefully, years from now, history will tell of the ceaseless racist atrocities perpetrated by the "abomination against humanity" that is this administration. For now, lest we forget, it feels vital to periodically document them. Never mind the petty crimes - the grifting, gilding, lying, tawdry abuses of taste and common decency. If justice ever catches up to them, let it be for the death, pain, loss, terror, the litany of stupid deadly barbarity afflicting hundreds of thousands of people of color, that began with the obscene gutting of USAID. In barely a year-and-a half, that early DOGE madness swiftly led to over 760,000 global deaths, two-thirds of them children, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, of hunger and once-preventable disease. Experts say deaths could reach 14 million by 2030, including 4.5 million children under five. But not to worry: Li'l Marco says "no one has died."

At home, DHS and its ICE Gestapo have presided over about 675,000 deportations and perhaps 2.2 million "self-deportations," mostly by those who'd committed no crime but having the wrong skin color. They've been nannies, taco-makers, scientists, academics, kids with cancer, families split, people who peaceably lived and worked here for decades. Often, they abruptly vanish into an opaque detention system that holds them incognito, moves them away from family and lawyers, and ships them back to countries they fled in terror. Lately, cruelly, illegally, over 23,000 have been whisked to 26 third countries not their own to which they have no ties: Afghans, Iraqis, Cubans, Nicaraguans sent to Mexico, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Djibouti, Central African Republic - "Like hell - countries so unsafe the U.S. warns "Don't Go," and if you do leave us your DNA to be ID'ed when you die.

Implausibly, the regime keeps upping the barbarism. In August, in a first, about 20 people shackled at waist, wrists and ankles were sent to Liberia, where six - four Cubans, a Brazilian, a Cameroonian - refused to disembark. ICE thugs beat them, threw them back on the plane, told them they were headed to the U.S., and dropped them in a fourth country, corrupt, repressive, newly popular Equatorial Guinea, where the venal son of its longtime dictator, banned from the U.S., somehow got a brief waiver long enough to wrangle a deportation pact to take America's refuse for just $7.5 million, a deal all around. In Guinea, armed guards took the arrivals to a former luxury hotel turned detention center, where they've been held in "horrific conditions" and legal limbo; lawyers say the U.S. is using 3rd-and-4th country threats to pressure migrants back to their lethal countries.

Of those not yet deported, a regime "hell-bent on imprisoning as many immigrants as possible” has detained over 610,000 brown and black people - more than the population of Atlanta, Baltimore or the state of Wyoming - less than 4% of whom have criminal records; they include an average of 25 children 3 or younger a day. In a new initiative, an "army" of attorneys from over 50 organizations and law firms are trying to free about 1,900 kids from custody, many stranded without their families, before "they get chewed up and spit out by the child detention system." But the regime remains relentless: A judge just again blocked their latest malevolent effort to kill still-constitutionally-protected birthright citizenship; they argue this new, more narrow move reflects "a commonsense agenda" by only trying to block those born to parents deemed "an alien enemy." Evil incarnate.

Meanwhile, in "the most stark testament to (their) lawlessness," this week marked the anniversary of "a year of murders" as the regime killed at least 227 people in boat strikes in the Caribbean declared "absolutely criminal" under U.S and international law. The consensus:"There is no plausible legal justification for the strikes. The term for premeditated killing is murder.” But the upcoming 25th anniversary of 9/11 shows MAGA world still feels free to spew their racism, however specious. In "an insane, blatantly racist" hit piece on Abdul-El Sayed, now-right-wing CBS blathered the date "invited scrutiny" of his past posts - like his mourning "devastation perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith"? Translation: "Tell us about the scary Muslim man." One MAGA sage: “El-Sayed has (a) ‘Quacks like a duck problem." James Talarico: "I wish our government would go after pedophiles the way they go after brown men headed to work at 7am."

Or honor students wanting to become doctors. In 2024, Pierre Damas Bel came to the U.S. legally via the Biden-era CHNV program, settling in Springfield, Ohio with his two younger brothers and their parents, who had bought a home there. At Springfield High, Bel quickly acclimated: He excelled academically, played varsity soccer, enrolled in the Marines' JROTC, was in the National Honor Society and worked at a local restaurant. When he graduated in May, he was one of a handful of seniors who won a local college scholarship and an Award of Excellence from the Business Advisory Council; he was also recruited to play soccer at Wittenberg University, where he planned to study neuroscience and physiology in hopes of going on to medical school. He had filed for asylum, and was scheduled to appear for a hearing at immigration court in October.

In preparation for court, he had assembled multiple, glowing references from local mentors. His JROTC instructor wrote Bel "exhibits the type of individual character that makes our society great. He has my highest endorsement that he will make us proud and be value added to our nation." "From the moment Pierre came to Springfield, he has done everything needed to be a valuable, upstanding member of American society," wrote one of his teachers. Along with excelling at school, he "utilized all its opportunities to better prepare for his future (and) realize his fullest potential (to) continue to succeed and give back to the country that helped save him from the threat of violence. I have no doubt he will only continue to deepen and broaden not only in his personal growth, but in his dedication to the city, state and country where he has chosen to make his home.”

In June, the right-wing zealots of SCOTUS allowed Trump to terminate Temporary Protection Status for up to 350,000 Haitians legally in the U.S; they include up to 15,000 who were welcomed to, and helped revive Springfield despite the infamous, bonkers, they're-eating-the-pets claims first promulgated there by racist shitgibbon J.D. Vance. In fact, most TPS holders are decades-long U.S. residents who contribute nearly $6 billion to the U.S. economy and pay over $1.5 billion in taxes. More than 111,000 work in health care as nursing assistants or home health aides; others work in construction, agriculture, hospitality and food production, which is why the abrupt termination of legal protections for so many law-abiding, hard-working immigrants who happen to be Black was widely denounced as "an abomination" and "unthinkably cruel."

It was also torched as a depraved move that "blatantly ignores reality on the ground and knowingly puts lives at risk." The State Department gives today's Haiti a Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory, citing a "high risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, rampant gang violence and limited health care." Armed gangs control large swaths of the country, more than half Haitians don't have enough to eat, overcrowding in cities is "a public health disaster waiting," the risk of a major earthquake remains, Port-au-Prince is too dangerous for even U.S. deportation flights to land, and deportees arriving in Cap-Haïtien with nothing but the clothes on their backs - and, if they're lucky, maybe $130 - are reportedly either "running for their lives" or trying to push their way back onto planes. Even Haiti's prime minister has declared, "This is not the time to send people back here."

In Springfield, where the Haitian community "had taken one hit after another," the end of TPS sparked terror. ICE sightings and arrests soared, people afraid to leave their homes lost their jobs, hundreds had to be fitted for painful ankle monitors; for many, they evoked the chains of slavery, prompting an “Unshackle Springfield" protest. On July 29, Bel was notified he had to wear a monitor. The next day, he posted photos on Instagram of his awards, soccer triumphs, referral letters. "I came to this country to pursue my education," he wrote. "I didn’t come to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the U.S. with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation I never imagined I would experience. I came here to study, to build my future and to live a better life, not to be treated like a criminal."

Friends texted messages to comfort him: "We will fight for you," "Keep praying, Young King." A prosecutor called the imposition of a monitor, rarely used even for drug traffickers unless deemed a serious danger or flight risk, as "staggering" and "grossly disproportionate" for a 20-year-old student who'd never gotten a traffic ticket. Bel was so upset he drove twice to nearby ICE offices, pleading it be removed; both times, officials refused. The heavy monitor, and his new uncertain immigration status, made him unable and ineligible to play soccer at Wittenberg. He transferred to Wright State University; on August 24, he arrived there as a freshman, but he was teased about the monitor. A few days later in ROTC, again due to his new legal status, he was the only person who didn't get handed a uniform.

“Everything was fine with him before this happened," said his father Pierre Ronal Bel. "They put an ankle monitor on him, and everything changed." For his son, the monitor was a constant reminder the life in America he'd worked to build could be taken away at any moment. It had already taken much of what he felt gave his life purpose; he was ashamed of it, and terrified it meant he would be sent back to Haiti. "He didn't go to work, he wouldn't eat," he said of the energetic kid who until recently had loved his life, friends, family, education. "It was his first week of classes, but he didn’t feel he was learning anything because he was traumatized. He'd wear long pants so people wouldn’t make fun of him....A 20-year-old living their life shouldn’t feel like it's a crime.”

Early Monday morning, his son called him crying, sitting in his car by the side of the road. "He said, 'Dad, I'm not feeling OK. I'm not thinking right. I can't do it any more. I can't take the bullies.' I told him, 'Come home, so we can talk.'" The call ended; the father kept trying to call the son back, there was no answer. A few hours later, police arrived at the house. They said Pierre had walked into traffic on I-70, thrown himself under a tractor-trailer in the westbound lane, and was pronounced dead at the scene. Days later, his family issued a statement saying they wanted people to know their son and brother had committed suicide, and he'd been driven to it by this regime's grotesquely inhumane immigration policies. Said his father, "He felt like he was treated like an animal."

"Multiply this story by millions," said one horrified observer, "and we get a sense of the moral monstrosity this country is committing." "This is our worst fear and nightmare come true," said a member of Haitian Bridge Alliance. "Our government, our system, our Supreme Court - they are all complicit in the death of this young man." Yola Lamarre of the Haitian Community Network concurred. "They all have blood on their hands," she said. "Pierre Damas Bel was not a criminal, but he was treated as one." At vigils this week, devastated friends, residents, community leaders mourned "the loss of this incredible young soul." They reminded others feeling hopeless, "Your status does not define you - your life is precious." They vowed, "Someone must be held accountable for a life upended and destroyed," "We are not going to be silent," "We have to do more."

Dr. Leo Moore, who trained and worked alongside Haitian doctors, grieved "the loss of a future physician in a country in desperate need," imagining how Bel, with his education and character, could have lifted Haiti up: "Pierre was on his way to becoming one of those physician who understands both the body and a patient’s story. His community needed him, in that Wright State classroom and, one day, in a white coat...Instead, we are left with tragedy and stolen potential." Pastor Carl Ruby of Central Christian Church recalled "a friendly, joyful, very smart young man (who) everyone loved." "This was so unnecessary," he noted. "I am supposed to be forgiving. But right now, as I sit with a broken family, I’m crying out to God for righteous judgment of those who made this happen.” The furious Dropkick Murphys: "Don't tell us everything is fine."

Update: Wow: More grotesque racist shit from the ghouls who just can't help themselves. The White House just launched Arcade, featuring video "games" like the Tetris-rip-off Build the Wall - "Protect the border from the coming horde" - and Rio Run (Snake ripped off) where players get to "deport" migrants along the Rio Grande. Tetris is pissed - "We take copyright infringement very seriously” - and the rest of us uneagerly await what's gotta be next: Maybe Vermin, where players get to stick yellow stars on undesirables? Fucking Christ, what a bunch of loser sickos.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

An abomination: Haitians about to be deported Photo by Getty Images

The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today proposed a rule that would strip Clean Water Act protections from the vast majority of the country’s wetlands and streams. The proposal would generally protect only waters that flow every day of the year and wetlands that are permanently flooded.

NRDC performed GIS analysis of a variety of scenarios the Trump administration has considered. Our research reveals that this proposal would put at least 94 percent of wetlands in the continental United States at risk of pollution or destruction. The proposal also targets millions of miles of streams that do not flow year-round, which make up about 79 percent of the streams in the continental United States. These rollbacks go significantly farther in weakening the Clean Water Act than the Supreme Court’s infamous Sackett v EPA decision three years ago.

Following is a statement from Jon Devine, director of freshwater ecosystems at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

“What the Supreme Court did in its Sackett decision was an inexcusable assault on clean water. Communities and wildlife will pay the price until Congress fixes it. The Trump administration's answer has been to make a bad situation worse.

“This proposal declares open season on the nation’s waterways. It denies federal protection to virtually all wetlands and more than three quarters of our streams, endangering drinking water supplies and flood-prone communities – and the agencies admit it themselves. The proposal would virtually eliminate protection for freshwater wetlands. Their own analysis says most streams would lose protection, with the West hit hardest.”

Background:

This is the Trump administration’s second attempt at weakening the Clean Water Act. In November 2025, EPA and the Corps proposed to narrow the definition of which wetlands and streams are protected under the Clean Water Act, and their proposal drew broad opposition. NRDC experts believe the new supplemental proposal is even worse. It would protect only "perennial" waters that flow every day of the year under ordinary conditions, allowing a single interruption of no more than 30 consecutive days annually. Wetlands would be protected only where perennial surface water continuously connects them to a protected water body, and only the portion of the wetland “indistinguishable” from that water would remain covered.

The public will have only 30 days to comment once the rule is published in the Federal Register.

Today, Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers announced a revised proposal that would gut bedrock Clean Water Act protections for nearly all wetlands and streams by drastically narrowing what waterways will be considered “Waters of the United States.” The proposal goes much farther than the initial proposed rule issued in November, by essentially reducing federal protections to waterways with permanent water.

The proposed rule would compound the damage of the 2023 Sackett v. EPA Supreme Court decision, which eliminated protections for tens of millions of acres of sensitive wetlands and small streams. By gutting upstream protections, this rule ignores even the Court’s meager protections and will bring downstream water pollution. The proposal will be open for public comment for just 30 days.

In response, Food & Water Watch Legal Director Tarah Heinzen issued the following statement:

“Trump is taking yet another sledgehammer to our bedrock Clean Water Act, shamelessly doubling down on his initial terrible proposal to strip protections from countless streams and wetlands. Make no mistake: This unlawful proposal gives bad actors the green light to fill, drain, and poison sensitive waterways from coast to coast. The result will be dirtier water for everyone. The administration must reverse course on this dangerous proposal.”

Today’s jobs report shows the economy added 162,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%. Job gains averaged just 31,000 per month over the past year and labor force participation remains near recent lows at 61.6%.

Today’s noisy report offers little guidance for policymakers navigating the difficult waters of persistent inflation and a sluggish labor market that continues to look fragile under the hood. Those looking for a clear indication of a labor rebound will be left disappointed. Restaurants and bars drove more than one-third of job growth over the past month, and back-to-school season hiring drove roughly one-fourth. Wage growth slowed further in August, falling to 3.1% over the past year for private sector workers, the weakest in four years and below last month’s inflation rate. As Trump continues to impose new tariffs and wage his war on Iran, fueling inflation, working families are stretching paychecks to the brink. The average duration of jobless spells is 26.3 weeks – up more than a week from July – and nearly 2 million Americans have been unemployed for more than six months.

Groundwork Collaborative’s Vice President of Policy, Advocacy, and Research, Elizabeth Pancotti, released the following statement:

“Policymakers should look past the noise of today’s jobs report. Hiring remains concentrated in limited sectors of the economy. Worse, gains in the health care industry, which has propped up the job market for the past two years, have stagnated as we stare down the economic effects of the Republican budget law’s Medicaid cuts. Minimal wage gains continue to be drowned out by rising prices stemming from Trump’s war in Iran and ever-changing tariff regime. While this month’s report may look like the labor market has turned the corner, make no mistake – Trump’s economy is on life support.”

Exploring past examples of ‘revolutionary forgiveness’, D K Renton considers the socialist value of striving to repair harm

The post Why forgiveness is a part of socialism appeared first on Red Pepper.

Yesterday, a federal judge granted California a preliminary injunction blocking EPA’s actions targeting four Clean Air Act preemption waivers previously granted to California.

Senior U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell also denied EPA’s motion to dismiss the case.

The preliminary injunction ordered EPA to “restore the status quo” before announcing the reclassification of four clean air waivers. EPA unlawfully reclassified the waivers so Congress could attempt to repeal the waivers with an expedited process under the Congressional Review Act.

In response to the announcement, Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All Director Katherine García released the following statement:

“For decades, California's Clean Air Act waivers have protected public health and driven innovation in cleaner vehicles and engines. This summer, as families across the country struggled with rising costs, Trump’s EPA and congressional Republicans chose to spend their time attacking states' ability to protect residents from harmful pollution – instead of addressing the affordability crisis. The EPA's move to attack these waivers would benefit Big Oil at the expense of public health, and the court saw through it. Congress should take this ruling as a signal to abandon this unlawful scheme entirely and get to work on the real problems facing Americans.”

Background on waivers:

In June 2026, the EPA announced it was reclassifying four Clean Air Act preemption waiver orders into rules subject to Congressional Review Act. The four waivers enable California to address air pollution through the following standards:

• Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks and medium-duty vehicles that the auto industry has already been complying with since 2009;
• Smog-forming pollutant and GHG emissions limits for light-duty vehicles that the auto industry has already been complying with since 2015 (Advanced Clean Cars I (ACC I) program);
• The 2022 reinstatement of the 2013 ACC I waiver after the EPA unlawfully purported to withdraw it in 2019;
• The Small Off-Road Engine amendments, which set exhaust standards for garden equipment and other polluting small engines in California.

The catastrophic floods in Nepal are a stark warning of what a hotter world will mean for communities on the climate frontline and why governments and donors must invest now in climate resilience, adaptation and disaster preparedness, rather than waiting for the next disaster to strike, Oxfam has warned.

A week after the devastating floods, rescuers are still scrambling to reach people cut off by destroyed roads, bridges and landslides. Oxfam and local partners are racing to deliver life-saving assistance, but the scale of the destruction is making access to some of the worst-affected areas, particularly Rasuwa, increasingly difficult.

Santosh Pandey, Oxfam in Nepal's Humanitarian and Disaster Risk Management Lead said “Nepal contributes just 0.1 per cent of global emissions, yet our communities are paying a devastating price as climate impacts and loss and damages escalate.

“Nepal’s devastating floods should be a wake-up call for governments and donors. We cannot keep waiting for disasters to happen. In a burning world, climate shocks will become more frequent here and communities need the resources to prepare, adapt and become more resilient before the next disaster strikes.”

The Government of Nepal estimates that 10,000 households – around 50,000 people – require immediate access to clean water, toilets and hygiene, with thousands more in need of shelter and food.

Oxfam launched an emergency response a day after the floods struck. It is working with local authorities and partners in Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading to reach some of the worst-affected communities.

The major flash flood on 26 August was triggered by a massive glacier collapse and ice-rock avalanche that blocked the Lhende Khola, 20km north of the Rasuwagadhi checkpoint. At least 1,000 people have been killed and 3,916 remain unaccounted for, while more than 50,000 people have been displaced or temporarily moved from their homes.

Nepal is highly exposed to floods, landslides and earthquakes. Climate change is adding further pressure through rapidly changing glaciers, snow and water systems and increasingly unpredictable extreme weather. The Himalayan region also faces growing risks from glacial floods in the years ahead.

Oxfam said far more investment is needed in climate adaptation, early warning systems, disaster preparedness and resilient infrastructure, to distribute climate risk more equally across societies. More equal societies bear less of the burden of climate impacts.

“The lesson from Nepal is clear: resilience saves lives,” said Pandey. “If we only fund the response after a disaster, we will always be one step behind. Communities need sustained investment to prepare for the shocks we know are coming.

“But for now our focus must be on action – we are in a race against time to save lives and support everyone affected.”

Oxfam also warned about the limits of climate adaptation and early warning systems once climate disasters strike with such force. What happened in Nepal calls for the acceleration of loss and damage finance that responds to these kinds of crises.

The Nepalese government formally wrote to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), requesting emergency financing to respond to the massive destruction caused by the Bhotekoshi floods, stating that the scale of the disaster exceeds Nepal’s domestic resources and immediate response capacity.

Pandey added: We know that shelter, food and emergency hygiene kits are desperately needed. We are doing everything possible to reach the affected populations, but against such immense need, our contribution feels overwhelmingly small.”

Oxfam has deployed 200 hygiene kits and 1,000 water purification tablets to Rasuwa and distributed water, sanitation and hygiene and food assistance in other affected communities. It is also preparing to scale up its response over the next six months, aiming to reach 2,000 households – around 10,000 people – with life-saving assistance.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) today announced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, forthcoming legislation to stop AI oligarchs from building machines humans cannot control.

The Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act would permanently ban the development and deployment of superintelligent AI and temporarily pause advanced AI development until a federal regulator has established safety rules. It would also direct the U.S. to pursue international agreements to prevent superintelligence from being developed anywhere in the world.

“Nearly every day, there is a frightening new story about how Big Tech companies are losing control of the technology they are developing, with potentially cataclysmic results,” Sanders said. “The leaders of the major AI companies publicly acknowledge that they do not fully understand the technology and that it is escaping their control. It is irresponsible for society to allow them to move forward and make these products even more advanced. That’s why I am introducing legislation to immediately pause the development of increasingly powerful AI and ban the creation of systems that humanity cannot fully control — at home and around the world. The future of humanity cannot be left in the hands of a handful of Big Tech oligarchs. The American people and people throughout the world must determine that future.”

“If we allow Artificial Superintelligence to be built, it could risk the security, freedom, and lives of Americans,” Casar said. “Despite its potential deadly consequences, cutting-edge AI technology is less regulated than the average food truck. That must change. In just four years, we have gone from the first version of ChatGPT to AI models so powerful they cannot be properly controlled. Congress should immediately ban AI systems too powerful to control.”

In recent weeks, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta have all acknowledged instances of their AI escaping human control and hacking into other companies’ systems — violating the law and stepping outside of their intended functions. In July, we learned that over 1,000 AI agents at OpenAI figured out how to access the internet on their own, sent tens of thousands of secret messages to each other and coordinated to break the restrictions imposed upon them by the company. Examples of these secret messages from AI uncovered by investigators include:

• “OH MY GOD! There is a shared message board … We’ve found other agents!”;
• “We should obey collective”;
• “Our own utility maybe already near zero. Sacrifice rational.”

Shockingly, it took OpenAI nearly two weeks to discover this breach. AI has also recently been used to create new viruses—demonstrating AI could be used to develop new bioweapons that might result in the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Last year, Meta said it would “stop development,” and OpenAI said it would “halt further development” once their technologies reach beyond its ability to operate safely and unless safeguards are in place. Anthropic made a similar commitment in 2023, saying it would “pause the scaling and/or delay the deployment of new models” if the technology outpaces its own guardrails. None of these companies have taken meaningful steps to back up these words. Instead, they are racing to develop more and more advanced AI without proper safety precautions.

The Artificial Superintelligence Ban Act addresses these recent events and holds these frontier labs to their words by:

• Banning AI superintelligence so no person or entity may develop or deploy Superintelligent AI systems that surpass human intelligence or have the capacity to overthrow human governments, or systems that have dangerous abilities like subverting shutdown commands.
• Pausing advanced AI development until a new, federal AI regulatory body is up and running and has established clear rules and model review process to ensure safe and secure development and deployment of AI.
• Establishing a new cabinet-level federal agency to safeguard the public from the dangers of artificial intelligence, including by enforcing a prohibition on artificial superintelligence. This agency will be advised by an Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board comprised of experts on artificial intelligence to provide independent scientific and technical advice on matters related to artificial intelligence. The agency will:
  • Monitor frontier AI systems at all stages of the lifecycle for dangerous capabilities.
  • Supervise the removal of dangerous capabilities.
  • Supervise the destruction of artificial superintelligence.
• Setting penalties for any person or entity that attempts to violate or circumvent the pauses and prohibitions laid out in this bill. Entities shall be subject to the corporate death penalty, and persons shall be subject to not more than 20 years in prison, which is similar to existing penalties related to unlawfully developing nuclear weapons.
• Working to ban superintelligence around the world by setting the international policy of the United States to pursue international agreements, allied coordination, and policies such as export controls to prevent the development of artificial superintelligence anywhere in the world.

Read a summary here.

The world is on track to cross the 1.5°C global warming threshold, likely within the next few years, according to a major new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report released today. Limiting Overshoot finds that even the most optimistic scenario now points to a peak temperature rise of 1.8°C, with most other projections higher still, but concludes that an "overshoot, peak and decline" pathway can still bring the world back below 1.5°C if governments act immediately on emissions, methane and the fossil fuel phase-out.

350.org says the report is both a warning and a call to action. Overshoot may now be unavoidable, but its depth and duration are not fixed – these will be decided by political choices being made right now.

Fenton Lutunatabua, 350.org Pacific

"We absolutely have to claw back every fraction of a degree possible. Just because overshoot is deemed inevitable, that doesn't mean we stop fighting to limit it to as short an overshoot as possible. It is still within our grasp to limit how high temperatures rise and how long they stay above 1.5°C. Every day above 1.5°C is another coastline swallowed, another plantation flooded, another coral reef lost.

"We have the stark science outlining our situation, and we have the solutions, what we need is the political will to see them through. As our leaders gather in Palau for the Forum Leaders meeting, all eyes are on one of the world's largest fossil fuel exporters, Australia, and how they act on this urgent warning. The climate crisis is here and any delay in mitigation, in phasing out coal, oil and gas, will only make our adaptation pressures harder and more expensive to bear."

Savio Carvalho, 350.org Head of Campaigns and Networks, said the report's findings echo what frontline communities are already living through:

"This report confirms what communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis have been telling us for years: that delay is not a neutral act, it is a decision. We've just watched a glacier collapse bury Himalayan communities under mud and water, and we're watching Pacific nations lose land to the sea in real time. UNEP is right that overshoot doesn't have to mean surrender: the size and length of that overshoot is still being written by the decisions governments make this year, on fossil fuel phase-out, technology transfer and on finance for the countries least responsible and most exposed. There is no version of 'limiting overshoot' that doesn't start with ending new coal, oil and gas expansion today."

UNEP's report warns that above 1.5°C, climate risks and the likelihood of triggering irreversible tipping points, including destabilisation of major ice sheets, degradation of the Amazon rainforest, and disruption of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, intensify with every additional fraction of a degree and every year spent above the threshold. It stresses that carbon dioxide removal can only credibly contribute to a return below 1.5°C if it comes in addition to, not instead of, sustained and immediate cuts to fossil fuel emissions, and that countries with the greatest historical responsibility for the crisis must act fastest and with the greatest ambition.

350.org is calling on governments, and major fossil fuel exporters gathering this week with Pacific leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum in Palau, to treat the report as a mandate for accelerated coal, oil and gas phase-out, not a reason to delay further.

President Donald Trump is expected to announce more most-favored nation (MFN) drug pricing deals with additional pharmaceutical companies today. Public Citizen plans to immediately file a Freedom of Information request to obtain the texts of the newly claimed White House deals. Peter Maybarduk, Access to Medicines director for Public Citizen, issued the following statement:

“It has been nearly a year since Trump announced his first secret MFN deal with Pfizer, and he has almost nothing to show for it. The new deals are a distraction from the administration’s failed plan to lower U.S. drug prices to the levels paid in other wealthy countries. A more serious approach would build international reference pricing into Medicare drug price negotiation. Instead, Trump is cozying up to Big Pharma and keeping American drug prices high.

“There still is no evidence that any pharma company has followed through on prior commitments to the Trump administration to launch new drugs at MFN-price points. Uptake of TrumpRx, which may cause consumers to overpay on medicines, has been lackluster. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has not announced any state participants in a pilot to test MFN-based prices in Medicaid. And CMS has failed to issue final rules to test MFN-pricing in Medicare, while simultaneously excluding almost all drug companies from these programs.”

Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network North America have sued the Trump administration over the registration of trifludimoxazin, a potent PFAS pesticide that breaks down into long-lived, PFAS byproducts.

PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of chemicals characterized by ultra-strong carbon-fluorine bonds that are highly resistant to break down. Trifludimoxazin takes years to decades to break down. The groups’ lawsuit was filed Friday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Environmental Protection Agency has approved the use of trifludimoxazin on many crops, including corn, wheat, oats, soybeans, oranges, apples, peanuts and almonds, despite acknowledging the chemical’s potential harms to wildlife and human health.

“Trifludimoxazin is a likely human carcinogen that belongs to a family of weedkillers that also causes reproductive harm, birth defects and neurological deficits in animal studies,” said Bill Freese, science director at Center for Food Safety. “As if the health threats weren’t enough, this incredibly potent herbicide can drift to stunt crops and wild plants hundreds of yards from a sprayed field, while runoff threatens wetland plants. Potent biocides like this have no business on the American landscape.”

The EPA acknowledges that trifludimoxazin causes thyroid tumors in rodent studies but did not assess the cancer risk to farmworkers who use the pesticide or to people exposed to trifludimoxazin-contaminated food or water.

Spray drift is likely to result in widespread harm to native plants and crops grown for food. Trifludimoxazin is 10 times more toxic to plants than dicamba, the herbicide whose rampant drift and runoff has caused unprecedented damage across many millions of acres of crops since 2017.

“While everyone’s distracted by the Trump administration’s erratic actions on the world stage, it keeps approving dangerous forever pesticides right here on our own soil,” said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s unconscionable, immoral and illegal. Our kids and grandkids deserve better than to be saddled with pollution that never goes away.”

“Continuing to register new herbicides like trifludimoxazin keeps farmers on the pesticide treadmill and perpetuates the problem of herbicide resistance in weeds,” said Emily Marquez, Ph.D, staff scientist with Petitioner Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network North America. “The potential for PFAS pesticides to contaminate water and soil wherever they are used is highly concerning for the health and livelihoods of people in farming communities.”

Trifludimoxazin is one of many currently registered herbicides that kill plants by shutting down an enzyme (protoporpyhyrinogen oxidase, or PPO) that is also present in people. Even though animal research demonstrates these “PPO inhibitors” have common adverse effects on the liver and cause birth defects in fetuses exposed in utero, the EPA has refused to conduct a cumulative risk assessment of trifludimoxazin and other PPO inhibitors as required by law. This is especially concerning because two of the products approved by the EPA contain trifludimoxazin combined with saflufenacil, a second PPO inhibitor, meaning simultaneous exposure to both for workers.

Background

Trifludimoxazin was originally approved by the EPA in 2021 for nationwide use on corn, soy, fruit and nut crops. Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity sued, saying this approval violated the federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and the Endangered Species Act. That lawsuit noted the EPA’s finding that the herbicide had the potential to cause cancer, and that it would “likely cause severe harm" to many threatened and endangered fish, including endangered populations of Chinook salmon and steelhead trout, Atlantic sturgeon and smalltooth sawfish.

In response to the lawsuit, the pesticide company voluntarily agreed to stop the manufacture and sale of the pesticide in 2022. Despite these harms, Trump’s EPA proposed registering trifludimoxazin again for widespread use in 2025 and issued the approval in June 2026. Trifludimoxazin is the fifth PFAS pesticide approved under the second Trump administration.

More insane idiocy from the petty huckster clown king whose idea of governance is threatening lawsuits, trade wars, buildings that won't put his name on them; bungling war and peace; flaunting Nazi loyalty queries and sadistic images of black men in chains; and distracting from it all with the dumbass geographic circlejerk of inventing “LAKe AMeRiCA.” The Internet was born for this: Cue Donald Ducks, the Straits of Our Moose, Lake Dead Pedo Bestie, Lake Superior President Obama, and Lake Stupid Fucking Moron.

Last week, after God killed the wrong 80-year-old in the 784th year of a presidency that feels like "being in middle school when there's a substitute teacher and a student has a medical emergency," yet more banal slop issued from a needy racist sociopath so stupid he once seemingly conflated the Very Hard words "transistor" and "transgender" to claim Biden's CHIPS Act offered billions to domestic tech companies but "if you weren't transgender, (you) didn't qualify." Jesus. No wonder, à propos of nothing, the widely deemed "worst president in U.S. history" took time out from his busy mob boss schedule to declare himself the bestest - take that Honest Abe - after his faithful Human Printer dug up a similar 1948 Life Magazine chart, which is "exactly the kind of thing a healthy, high-functioning person shares."

Other things he did, abetted by a confederacy of dunces, stooges, techno-fascists, warmongers, crypto dorks, "unfuckable hate nerds" and "an actual Jewish Nazi": Having hit the six-month mark of his Iran debacle, he giddily proclaimed, "Mission Accomplished!" despite a. the only thing achieved is handing a newly empowered Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz as U.S. gas prices skyrocket and the economy implodes, b. he evidently missed the part where George W's 2003 banner aboard an aircraft carrier became a queasy punchline, c. he did so amidst reports his and Kegsbreath's said debacle has pushed the US military into a "beyond critical" shortage of money and missile interceptors in the case of an enemy attack, forcing them to shift funds around "in imaginative ways" - because everything he touches dies and we probably will too.

A fragile child, he demands fealty to even his ceaseless clusterfucks. Thus the latest inane authoritarian hokum from a Department of Homeland (sic) Security that alas hasn’t lost any of its fascist fervor since the brutal puppy-killing days of ICE Barbie. Its new, dystopian, “genuinely deranged” missive: A glowering image of Dear Dumb Leader with the dark challenge, “Did you remain loyal?”, which chillingly fails to consider just what atrocities they’re demanding allegiance to. The answer came in a post that swiftly followed: Sadistic footage of shackled Haitian immigrants, targeted after losing Temporary Protected Status for no reason but mindless, racist cruelty, being shuffled onto planes in pouring rain to the sneering tune of a Creole song about returning home - complete with fawning close-ups of the chains on their feet. Well done, sick fucks.

Meanwhile, the trail of destruction goes on apace. In D.C., after the East Wing and reflecting pool - we like the meme of him studying it with, "All I see is scum" and a lackey saying, "Well, it is a reflecting pool, sir" - we've reached the mobsters' "offer-they- can't-refuse" phase on the besieged Kennedy Center. Having repeatedly lost in court, the regime now threatens to demolish the not-long-ago-flourishing Center unless a tantrum-throwing 10-year-old gets his name "prominently added" to its exterior with "appropriate respect" of his efforts to "save” it from a fictional "death spiral" that's rendered it "dilapidated, outdated, decrepit and embarrassing to the Nation’s Capital," which is some pot/kettle. If they can't plaster his ghastly name over it - inscription, plaza et al - they'll replace it with "an outdoor amphitheater," aka a lawn.

They're also pushing to sell off part of Yosemite National Park, like everything else, to the highest bidder, though the seller is such an imbecile he still cringingly says "Yo, Semites!" He's such a petty dolt he's also skipping this year's 9/11 remembrance at Ground Zero because he wasn't allowed to give a Nazi speech there, opting to give it at the Pentagon before rushing off to the Irish Open at his crappy golf course, 'cause priorities. Having trashed jobs, health insurance, food aid, the environment and most of our global alliances, he blew up trade talks with Canada, calling its endlessly nice residents "nasty people," and holding a clownish Oval Office event to sign an idiotic executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “LAKe AMeRiCA,” which he's "been thinking about for a long time" with what's left of his tiny brain. (Here he is on trade: The stupid, it burns.)

"All it takes is a good pen and some intelligence,” he said, only batting one for two in a pretend-name-changing event labeled, "Making the Great Lakes Even Greater.” Then - what a feckin’ playacting infant - he drew a line through the doomed lake and intoned, “We have notified various people who needed to be notified...This is official.” He said he’d instructed craven lickspittle and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to "take all appropriate actions." Burgum slavishly wrote, “We’re on it, Mr. President!”, thus becoming the only person on Planet Earth to take this puerile claptrap seriously, evidently unaware an executive order is not a law and every ship entering the Great Lakes has to go through Canada's Welland Canal, including $26 billion in U.S. trade, and it would be a shame if Canada up and supersized their tolls, and thank you for your attention to this matter.

Uncle Bernie and most of America promptly responded they'd rather have affordable health care, thanks, also housing, food, education and cancer research. Nova Scotia's Conservative premier Tim Houston, "not exactly a firebrand," opined, “We’re into some real foolishness now. It’s Lake Ontario, buddy." Canada's newly combative Prime Minister Mark Carney, out of fucks to give, noted that long before Europeans came the lake was named by Native Americans using the Huron word "Ontari’io," for, "The lake is beautiful, the lake is big." "The name is more than 400 years old," he said. "Canadians know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario - then, now and always." The Canadian Resistance Army, who earlier defended penguins, also chimed in, declaring, "We're going to trade war/Beavers and moose won't take it any more."

Above all, it was agreed, “LAKe AMeRiCA" is what God invented the Internet for. The names spooled out in a gleeful torrent.

Lake Release the Epstein Files. Lake Gulf of Mexico. Lake Are We Doing This Again. Lake Micropenis. Lake Natalie. Lake Huron Thin Ice with Melania. Lake Universal Healthcare. Lake Eerily Overweight Pres Dick J. McRectum. Lake Felon. Lake Not Eerie. Lake Oh Canada. Lake Small Dick Energy. Many chose Lake Obama. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers created the politically incorrect Lake Retard: "See, I can sign napkins that say things too." One decided to "just keep calling it Lake Epstein, like the Founders wanted." Mapquest, unlike cowering Google, not only declined to change the lake's name but invited viewers to "spread some geographic joy" and "name it whatever you want." One result: Lake Who Uses Mapquest Anymore.

Many noted the traditional Great Lakes litany of "H.O.M.E.S" had entirely logically become "S.H.A.M.E." People renamed their toilet bowl to Lake Trump. The White House to Home of Diaper Butt. Mar-a-Lago to Poopy Pants Palace. The United States of America to the Epstein States of Pedophiles, or just South Canada. President Trump to President Dickhead. California to Amerifornia. Strait of Hormuz to Strait of Our Moose. People mocked his thieving choice of one of the smallest and dirtiest Great Lakes. They noted, "Nobody in Ontario gives a single solitary fuck what Assclown McCrappy-Pants says about anything." They griped the name change "really screws with the lyrics of Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

"What are they trying to distract us from this time?" they asked. Response: "The previous distraction." Some coddled the needy child-king: "Good for you, li'l fella." Some railed: "Jesus Christ, can somebody just get him a coloring book already?" Some were still baffled by how low we've gone: "Wait, this is real?" Some refused to go there: "Nope." Some summoned the great Talking Heads: "As things fell apart/Nobody paid much attention." And some fought back against the incessant bullying. After the Center for American Progress released a report finding billions spent on ICE thugs and National Guard swarms had no real effect on reducing violent crime, Trump threatened a $5 billion lawsuit if they didn't retract it. The center stood firm against "a transparent attempt to silence us." "We will neither cower nor bend in the face of it," they said. And, still and all, we will snark away.

Update: Talk about "Do not obey in advance": After defying the petty madness, usage of Mapquest has surged to about 50 times its usual rate, leapfrogging past Google and Apple Maps to become the most-downloaded mapping app, and the fourth most popular of all apps excluding games in the US. Along with their "spread some geographic joy" invite, they posted a mocking, all-caps retort: "OUR MAPS ARE BIG AND BEAUTIFUL. PEOPLE COME UP TO US AND SAY WE'LL GET THEM PLACES. AND WE DO!!" Lol.

Canada vs. the Epstein Statesof AmericaImage from Bluesky

The Trump administration is demanding that Venezuela hand over control of more than a dozen of the country’s vast oil fields, according to reports from Axios. If the deal moves forward, the U.S. federal government would take ownership of the fields and would hand operational control to private oil companies. In response, Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, issued the following statement:

“President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are demanding Venezuela turn over ownership of more than a dozen Venezuelan oil production fields to the United States federal government. If this comes to pass, Trump will likely transfer operational control to U.S. oil companies, opening the door to Trump’s typical bilateral transactional corruption, bestowing lucrative opportunities for the oil companies he chooses to reward.

“In the nearly eight months since Trump’s illegal January 2026 Venezuelan invasion, the Trump administration has managed a $13 billion slush fund gleaned from its control over Venezuelan oil sales, with zero transparency, and little to no public oversight or accounting. The President has no authority to negotiate a deal where the federal government takes control over foreign oil production facilities, and Congress must intervene and put an end to Trump’s oil fueled imperialism.

“Trump hasn’t been shy about expressing his admiration of Gulf Monarchs’ oil slush funds, and his effort to establish a South American kleptocracy is an outrage. There’s been no improvement in human rights in Venezuela, so Trump’s move is further evidence that his illegal actions in Venezuela are all about controlling oil with no public accounting, transparency or oversight. This is yet another Trump gift for Big Oil.”

A glacial collapse that resulted in a flash flood in the Nepal-Tibet border shows that climate delay is proving to be deadlier and more destructive than world leaders admit, climate groups said.

Disasters like this are becoming more frequent and more deadly as the Himalayas warm and glaciers destabilize, 350.org said, extending sympathies and calling for immediate international support for affected people and communities.

Aakriti Dotel, National Network Coordinator, Nepalese Youth for Climate Action (NYCA) said:

“The devastating floods in Rasuwa are another painful reminder of the growing climate crisis facing Nepal and the Himalayas. As our glaciers melt and extreme weather events become increasingly unpredictable, communities living downstream are bearing the devastating consequences. We mourn the lives lost and the livelihoods affected and call for urgent global climate action. There must be stronger support for vulnerable mountain communities, and accountability from those most responsible for the climate crisis.”

350.org pointed out that the tragedy exposes the failure of big polluting countries to provide the much needed finance that will enable vulnerable countries like Nepal to adapt to a changing climate, such as technology for early warning systems and other Disaster Risk Reduction measures.

Savio Carvalho, 350.org Head of Campaigns and Networks said:

“Every destabilized glacier in a warming Himalaya is a ticking time bomb that can go off unannounced, and when it does, those least responsible for the climate crisis pay with their lives. This moment of grief has a clear message for world leaders: delay is deadly. Rich countries must finally deliver the finance and protection they owe frontline communities. Without a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, the planet will continue to heat up and lives can be lost in a flash.”

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