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By Jeremy Brecher,
Senior Strategic Advisor, LNS Co-Founder

The Democratic Party has been spectacularly ineffective in providing an opposition to Trump’s drive for authoritarian domination. Merely electing Democrats is no solution to the crisis of American democracy. But popular defense of free and fair elections, and a massive electoral repudiation of Trump and MAGA in November, can play an important role in the struggle to democratize the U.S.

With a few honorable exceptions, Democrats have done little to resist Trump’s juggernaut or to present an alternative program to meet the needs of the American people and reverse the damage Trump and his minions have done to them. Far less have they mobilized their constituents to stand up to Trump’s depredations.

In democratic theory, elections give every person equal weight in deciding political outcomes. Of course, we all know that the reality of actually existing democratic systems barely resembles this. The power of money, oligarchical control of parties, institutional skewing of the playing field, disorganization of subordinate groups, and many forms of racial, gender, and other inequality make our so-called “democracies” highly undemocratic.

That doesn’t mean that elections are meaningless. Rather, they are part of the jostling through which various dominant and subordinate groups negotiate their relationships. They are part of the process that Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci characterized as “hegemony” — the way a ruling class maintains power through the active consent of the public, rather than through military force or physical coercion alone. To exercise hegemony, ruling groups must engage in negotiation and compromise with subordinate groups. Elections and the ecological systems surrounding them are part of the way such compromise is negotiated and implemented.

MAGA’s Strategy for Unending Domination

Trump, MAGA, and their supporters want to ensure that the upcoming mid-term elections are not free and fair, but rather a vehicle to perpetuate their power. Their goal is power that is permanent and uncontested – an equivalent to Hitler’s Thousand-Year Reich.

Trump/Republican attempts to prevent free and fair elections have been going on for years and have escalated since his inauguration. Successful recent actions have included the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and extreme gerrymandering. Key methods include intimidation, confusion, induced hopelessness, physical obstruction, and legal obstruction.

A just-released report called “The American Crisis” by a group of progressive scholars lays out what we can expect going forward:

• In the months and weeks preceding Election Day, we anticipate that election administration roles and responsibilities will be seized from states and cities, or attempts will be made to disrupt, sabotage, or seize their administrative powers. That could include the seizing of voter rolls, the threatening of election officials, and the disruption of vote-by-mail systems.
• In the days leading up to Election Day, and on the day itself, we anticipate a substantial increase of voter intimidation and election disruption tactics, with new deployments of military and paramilitary forces across U.S. cities, elections offices, and polling stations. The National Guard occupation of Washington, DC and the “Memphis Safe Task Force” provide proving grounds for these tactics, including street patrols, traffic stops, warrant service, fugitive apprehension, and court-authorized searches of residences. We expect that “state of emergency” declarations by federal and state officials will increase as well, to enable immediate deployments of military and paramilitary forces, and with fewer restrictions on those deployments.We expect these military and paramilitary intimidation tactics to extend to other non-state or subnational actors, like nonprofit and community-based organizations, unions, and universities, who are involved in monitoring and maintaining free and fair elections. We also anticipate a significant increase in disinformation and misinformation campaigns about polling places, hours, and practices, as well as voter intimidation at polling locations by national, non-state, and paramilitary actors.
• On and after Election Day, we anticipate major obstacles to a democratic transition of local, state, and federal seats and offices. At the state and local level, efforts to impede the post-election transfer of power include interference with vote tabulation and election certification by state and local governments through the use of force or police force or by other means, e.g. by proxy through militias or so-called “sovereign sheriffs” groups. At the federal level, efforts to obstruct or delay the swearing-in of newly elected officials include the removal of the Clerk in the House of Representatives or the refusal of the U.S. Vice President and outgoing House Speaker to swear in newly elected Members of Congress.

Current house speaker Mike Johnson told the September Republican Convention, “We cannot and will not allow them to take the majority in Congress. We’re not gonna do it.” The midterm elections will kick off an ongoing struggle that is likely to continue indefinitely – or at least until the next presidential election.

Social Self-Defense Against Election Subversion

The struggle to defend society against Trump and MAGA is likely to be long and difficult. It will require the self-organization and action of tens of millions of people. It is likely ultimately to require forms of resistance like social strikes that make the country impossible for MAGA to govern.

The struggle around the 2026 mid-term elections is only one piece of the struggle against Trump and for democratization – but it is an important one. It is a struggle not primarily between political parties, but for the protection of society against the MAGA attack. It is part of the broad defense of society against fascism – what I have elsewhere described as “Social Self-Defense”:

The protection of that which makes our life together on earth possible. It includes the protection of the human rights of all people; protection of the conditions of our earth and its climate that make our life possible; the constitutional principle that government must be accountable to law; and global cooperation to provide a secure future for people and planet.

Ending Republican control of the House and, if possible, the Senate will put a brake on the U.S.’s wild ride into fascism – especially if the scale of the turnout and the majority are overwhelming. That will show that a post-election coup is futile. It will also be an important marker on the road to a repudiation of Trump and all he stands for – an indication to all that not only is he vulnerable, but that he is doomed.

Recent polls indicate that such a massive repudiation is within reach. In a September New York Times poll,  a majority of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of every major issue included in the poll: the economy, immigration, tariffs, the war, and the cost of living. Likely voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by close to 9 percentage points in their congressional district.

There is a wide swath of groups organized to defend a free and fair election against authoritarian subversion. They represent not one or the other political party, but rather nonpartisan social self-defense. I have described them elsewhere as a “Movement-Based Opposition.”

Many of these groups have initially been focusing on training. For example, Indivisible and the ACLU are collaborating on a series of “Hands Off Our Vote” online webinars. The Freedom Trainers network of nonviolence trainers has run in-depth trainings for thousands, and makes available an 83-page handbook presenting possible scenarios and how to deal with them. The May Day Strong coalition has held 750 “Solidarity Schools” and other actions from late August through mid-September nationwide, bringing together labor organizers and community members. The Voter Protection Advocate Network is building a nationwide cohort of trained and certified voter advocates. According to Deepak Bhargava of the Freedom Together Foundation, “Over one million people have been trained in organizing and nonviolence over the last year.”

Lines of Defense

HANDS OFF THE KENNEDY CENTER!!! Youtube short @tevindavisactor

The strategy for defending free and fair elections resembles the military strategy known as “concentric lines of defense.” That entails layered rings designed to “delay, detect, and respond to threats.” Diverse elements of the movement-based opposition are implementing such a strategy. Drawing on a review of their materials and presentations, here are the overlapping rings:

1. Make clear to people why they need to vote against Trump and MAGA. People need to understand that voting in this election is essential for their current and future self-protection and protection of their rights and wellbeing. Some Democrats are doing this quite forcefully, but much of the party is trying to sleaze by with vague promises about “affordability”; many Democrats are even advocating hyperscale data centers, despite the harm they do and their overwhelming unpopularity. Fortunately, civil society groups and the movement-based opposition can take actions that call out Trump’s depredations without waiting for Democrats to lead. Community-based actions against ICE transformed public opinion not only on ICE but on immigration as a whole; the Tesla Takedowns turned Elon Musk into a public pariah.

Such voter-education-through-action can be done locally and on short notice. For example, on September 18th thousands filled streets in Washington, DC and locked down traffic as they walked in a “Hands Around the Kennedy Center” action protesting Trump’s threats to shut or even tear down the iconic Kennedy Center. Indigenous groups have established the Thunderbird Nest resistance camp in Michigan’s Western Upper Peninsula to protest a planned copper sulfide mine which is backed by a $50 million taxpayer subsidy. May Day Strong is organizing “Corporate Campaigns to Reject Trump’s Attack on the Elections”; when an ICE agent shot a DoorDash driver making a delivery, May Day Strong among others called for people to “delete DoorDash” until the company issues a public statement against ICE targeting delivery drivers and calls for Trump’s occupation agents to leave DC.

Local demonstrations and protests can select locations like supermarkets with tariff-induced price increases; corporations supplying the Iran war and Israel; banks financing AI data centers; ICE facilities; agencies involved in voter suppression; and hospitals and clinics whose budgets have been cut. Such actions need not be large: Two dozen people with signs and leaflets at a local supermarket or Social Security office can reach voters directly and through local news coverage and social media. Such actions can connect the dots between the deprivations people are feeling, the machinations of Trump and MAGA, and the power people have to fight back through the vote.

2. Encourage an overwhelming turnout to oppose Trump and MAGA. This includes conventional get-out-the-vote methods, such as phone banking, door-to-door canvassing, registration drives, encouraging people to check that they are registered, providing transportation, and escorting voters. In the era of voter suppression, it also involves countering all kinds of misinformation that is being used to discourage people from voting, ranging from false information about when, where, and how to vote to threats of violence and arrest at polling places. The organizations listed above can provide information to counter such voter suppression.

3. Forestall interference with elections. Most direct vote suppression takes place on election day itself. To forestall this, election protection efforts are focused on encouraging people to vote early. The No Kings Coalition is organizing a massive “No Kings: Vote Early” day of action October 17. It will include block parties, rallies, and walks to the polls.

Voter suppression can include among other things openly biased poll workers, attempts to discourage or block voter registration, incorrect or unevenly applied requests for voter ID, misinformation about where, when, or how to vote, and similar abuses. The abusers may be election officials or MAGA vigilantes.

Hundreds of thousands of “Nonpartisan poll monitors” are being recruited to prevent vote stealing. These volunteers will observe the voting process on election days. They are trained to assist any voters whose votes are not being allowed or counted; to document any infractions and immediately report them to voting officials; and to immediately contact the Election Protection 866-OUR-VOTE hotline or the Election Protection website 866ourvote.org, both staffed by lawyers and law students, for help and guidance.

4. Contest intimidation through rapid response. Community based rapid response networks are a crucial part of election protection. According to the ACLU/Indivisible Election Protection Training 201:

When something happens that risks someone’s vote or risks impacting the election, the single most effective way we can counter it is by responding fast. Half a dozen people outside their local elections office with a few signs just a few hours after something happens are more powerful than a bigger protest that happens later after the news cycle has moved on. So, whether your goal is to have volunteers ready to redirect voters to a correct polling place if they have been misled, if you’re looking to speak out in support of targeted local election workers, if you’re thinking to shine a spotlight on misinformation or bad behavior, what we want to do is be ready before it’s time to actually respond.

Rapid response networks, utilizing mobile communications and trained volunteers, have been central to the protection of American cities against ICE attacks – think Minneapolis. Many immigrant justice rapid response networks are repurposing their organizations for election protection. Immigrant defenders in Wisconsin, for example, are repurposing the Signal infrastructure they built for ICE to arrange for rides to the polls.

Part of the preparation for rapid response is for local groups to reach out in advance to plan coordination with others in their area. They also need to connect in advance with regional and national networks that can provide support in a crisis.

We can assume that Trump/MAGA will attempt to covertly or overtly disrupt our election protection efforts. Community-based rapid response networks are likely to be the most powerful tool for exposing and defeating their machinations – and for publicizing them as one more example of MAGA’s attempt to destroy democracy.

Election Defense 201 training by Hands Off Our Vote

5. Foil electoral coups. We know from the January 6, 2020 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that Trump and his supporters are likely to stop at nothing to retain power even if they have met a devastating electoral defeat. In such a case, only an unprecedented national popular resistance is likely to stop them. Indivisible refers to this as a “peaceful nonviolent sustained mobilization,” aka a “national freak-out.” Others call for a general strike and other forms of resistance.

Some kind of “all in” action has been widely advocated as a response to another attempted electoral coup, though advocates have been somewhat reticent about specific plans for such action. We now have a model for such sustained mobilization in the resistance to ICE in American cities, highlighted by the “No Work, No School, No Shopping” days of action in Minneapolis. Cliff Albright of Black Voters Matter told the ACLU/Indivisible Election Protection Training 201,

What do we mean by sustained mobilization? We mean a situation where everyday people are maintaining an in-person presence at a significant or symbolic location to demand action until it is met. Like a multi-day protest at someplace like the state capital. This might be the appropriate response if Trump or his administration refuses to concede power.

This wouldn’t be just like other protest moments. It would be a rapid response thing rather than something that’s pre-planned. It can’t just be a 2-hour march on a Saturday and then everybody goes home. Building momentum over time, more and more folks gathering in whatever location, not leaving until every vote is counted and the winners of the election are seated.

Cliff Albright conceded that “there’s a lot of possible unknowns around this.” Writer Micah Sifry identified some pertinent unanswered questions about this strategy: Who will be making the decision to go “all in”? How will demands be conveyed to the relevant authorities? If the Trump administration refuses to concede, then what? I have discussed at length the possibilities, problems, and strategies for such action in my report Social Strikes: Can General Strikes, Mass Strikes, and People Power Uprisings Provide a Last Defense Against MAGA Tyranny? It addresses in detail such questions as bases of power, organization, decision-making, negotiations, strategy, and tactics for a “people power” response to an attempted Trump coup.

6. Lay the groundwork for democratization. Long before Trump and MAGA, the U.S. and its electoral system were far from fully democratic. Trump’s efforts to establish tyranny have aimed to demolish their remaining democratic elements– with considerable success. Social self-defense requires more than just reestablishing the marginally democratic system that preceded Trump’s juggernaut. It requires accountability for those who have tried to destroy our human, democratic, and environmental rights. It requires structural change that reinforces the democratic aspects of our political system and that eliminates the undemocratic and authoritarian ones. That requires a process of democratization that builds popular power from the grassroots. The election protection movement can provide a propitious starting point for that democratization from below.

Note: If you are not already connected to local election protection efforts, you can go to Ground Control to find volunteer opportunities near you.

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The post Election Protection vs MAGA Tyranny first appeared on Labor Network for Sustainability.

The first thing Brightline wants you to know about its bankruptcy is that the trains will keep running.

“BUSINESS AS USUAL,” read a message the company sent to customers after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The move followed months of discussions with bondholders, according to the Financial Times, and will give the privately operated higher-speed rail line time to borrow another $490 million as it strives to increase ridership enough to keep up with payments on $4.4 billion in debt accumulated building, expanding, and operating the railroad.

Despite the setback, trains will continue zipping between Orlando and Miami at up to 125 mph because the filing does not include Brightline Trains Florida, the division that operates the line. It also does not affect Brightline West, which is developing a run from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.

The company began offering service between Miami and West Palm Beach in 2018, then extended service to Orlando beginning in 2023. It has been held up as an example of how the private sector can bring high-speed rail to the United States, especially in regions with few transit options and little in the way of financing for them. The system saw ridership increase by 14 percent, and revenue by 17 percent, between January and August compared to the same period last year. It is also moving ahead with plans to expand service to Tampa and add a station in Cocoa.

“Brightline is a critical part of Florida’s transportation network that has changed the way people move around the state,” Patrick Goddard, CEO of Brightline Florida, said in a statement that followed Friday’s filing. “This transaction will be a catalyst for further growth in ridership and revenue.”

Brightline serves about 3.5 million people a year and generates roughly $240 million in revenue, which is less than half the ridership and one-third the income it predicted in 2024, Tim Hynes, head of Global Credit Research at Debtwire, told the Associated Press. That’s why Brightline needed to rework its debt and obtain additional financing.

Beyond its financial struggles, Brightline has faced scrutiny over its safety record. As of January, 182 people had been killed by its trains since 2018, many in collisions at crossings or involving people on the tracks. Brightline says none of the incidents were caused by train operations and points to hundreds of millions of dollars it has invested in safety improvements.

Yet Brightline’s struggles come even as it finds enthusiastic riders.

Ivan Reich enjoys rail travel and often rides Brightline for the 40-minute commute from his home in West Palm Beach to his office in Fort Lauderdale, where he practices bankruptcy law. He also uses it when he goes to Miami Heat basketball games, though he concedes that at $35 per ticket, it is too expensive for daily use. (A round-trip ride between Miami and Orlando can cost as little as $120.)

“Brightline’s literally like going to the airport and being on a plane,” he said. “It’s a luxury experience. It’s nice. It’s pleasant. It’s comfortable.” Beyond the cost of a ride, “there’s nothing to complain about.”

With Amtrak smashing ridership records and Brightline’s ridership rising, Americans appear increasingly willing to travel by rail. Brightline’s financial troubles raise a more difficult question: Who will pay to build the infrastructure needed to give more of them that option?

Brightline West is developing a 218-mile high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles suburb of Rancho Cucamonga, where passengers could connect to a commuter line for the ride into LA. The roughly $21 billion project has received a $3 billion federal grant and is seeking a $6 billion federal loan as it works to secure the financing it needs to build the line.

Read Next Next stop for California’s high-speed rail: Finding private investors Benton Graham

California’s long journey toward a high-speed rail system connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles approached the problem from the other side of the equation. It has spent nearly two decades relying on public funding and is now exploring private funding.

Jim Mathews, who leads the Rail Passengers Association, sees Chapter 11 restructuring as a beneficial move that “probably gives Brightline breathing room” to get out from under “a crushing” debt load, he told Grist in an email. Improving the company’s financial outlook will benefit passenger rail overall by ensuring more people have access to it.

That said, the government needs to play a stronger role in financing rail because the sustained investment needed to launch projects is often beyond the private sector’s means, even with public-private partnerships. “Building a railroad is very hard and very expensive,” he said. “This is a good example of why governments always have a legitimate role to play.”

Money isn’t the only challenge. Private rail operators must also integrate their systems with existing public infrastructure, said Alon Levy, a research scholar at the New York University Marron Institute. Brightline West’s decision to stop in Rancho Cucamonga rather than Los Angeles illustrates the difficulty, Levy said, because reaching the city would require greater coordination with Metrolink. Building a more integrated passenger rail network will require “top-down federal action,” they said.

Rick Harnish, who leads the High Speed Rail Alliance, argues that rail should be treated more like other forms of transportation. Airlines don’t pay to build airports, and trucking companies don’t pay to build highways. Taxpayers do, because “private capital will not invest in the kind of infrastructure you need to fund public transit,” he said.

For Harnish, rising ridership on Brightline and Amtrak suggests the demand is there. What’s missing is greater public investment in the infrastructure needed to meet it. “It’s time for both the feds and states to start investing in good, high-quality tracks,” he said.

For Brightline, the immediate challenge is keeping the trains running. The larger one — for Brightline and passenger rail in general — is figuring out who pays to build the tracks beneath them.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Brightline shows people want more trains. But who will pay for them? on Sep 28, 2026.

East Bay Cities Stand Strong Together

The momentum of East Bay cities pushing back on the proposed West Oakland coal terminal continues to grow with each passing week: No Coal in Oakland stands with Richmond, Emeryville, and Berkeley as those cities reiterate their longstanding opposition to the terminal and urge the Air District to fully exercise its permitting, regulatory, and enforcement authority to prevent PM2.5 emissions from coal transport through the planned Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT).

Richmond and Berkeley City Councils passed unanimous resolutions against the proposed coal terminal in July and September, respectively, while the City of Emeryville submitted an urgent letter to the Air District.

The letter, dated September 11, 2026 explains that:

The City of Emeryville’s Land Use Section of the General Plan shows the rail line running through High-Density Residential areas, Mixed-Use/Residential areas, Park/Open Space Areas, Office/Technology areas, and Regional/Neighborhood Retail areas…

Maps show that the entire City of Emeryville is within one mile of the rail line, except the Marina Park area at the end of Powell St. The highest density areas are within 2400 feet of the rail line. As a result, the population of Emeryville would be highly exposed to toxic dust if it were to escape from trains passing through the city.

Emeryville passed a resolution in spring 2016 opposing the shipment of coal along the city’s Union Pacific rail line, declaring that “coal burning stands in direct conflict with the City of Emeryville’s Climate Action Plan.”

A month later, Emeryville’s then-Mayor Dianne Martinez co-signed a letter with ten other neighboring cities in a powerful display of unity, reinforcing the city’s opposition to any shipment of coal through West Oakland’s Marine Terminal. (Mayors’ letter on coal, April 14, 2016)

As the fight against Big Coal and developer Phil Tagami continues, now a decade later, so too does Emeryville’s steely resolution against the project. The 2026 letter was signed by current-Mayor Sukhdeep Kaur with the backing of the entire City Council.

Their letter, like the resolutions passed by Richmond and Berkeley, outlines a set of stringent measures the Bay Area Air District should take to protect workers and residents from “exposure to dangerous coal and petcoke emissions” — including covered rail cars and a wholly enclosed facility. It soberly concludes, “Bay Area residents are counting on the District to protect our health and safety.”

 

 

Image: Emeryville Amtrak station, June 2018. This is the rail line referenced in Emeryville’s letter (see above). Image credit: Pi.1415926535, via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0.

 

Today, Groundwork Collaborative unveiled a Shoppers’ Bill of Rights, 12 basic protections aimed at reining in the hidden fees, pricing games, and corporate tactics that make everyday life more expensive.

Authors Lindsay Owens, Nia Law, and Elizabeth Pancotti argue that existing regulations to safeguard the shopper were written for a bygone era of newspaper coupon inserts, mail-order catalogs, and checkbooks. Technology is now a step ahead of shoppers every time they reach for their wallet.

Today, two shoppers can unknowingly be charged a different price for the same item at the same store. Cancelling a subscription can require clicking through dozens of screens. Even if you can look up a tutorial on YouTube to fix something when it breaks, you may be beholden to the manufacturer to get the parts you need for a repair. And with the rise of AI-powered shopping assistants like Sparky, Alexa, and Muse, consumers may be in store for high-tech pickpockets disguised as personal shoppers.

Consumer protections have been rewritten before. Women-led butcher shop boycotts in the early 20th century helped turn outrage over rising prices into an organized movement that helped win a Federal Trade Commission that answered to consumers. In 1962, President Kennedy articulated four basic consumer rights: the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, and the right to be heard. The generation he spoke for secured honest labels, upfront loan terms, and a product safety watchdog. And after the 2008 financial crisis wiped out trillions in household wealth, more than 200 consumer, labor, civil rights, and faith groups helped win the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Each time, the rules caught up with the marketplace. Now, the marketplace has changed again, and the rules have not.

According to new polling from Blue Rose Research, two-thirds of Americans support the Shopper’s Bill of Rights. Support is even higher for several individual protections it includes: nearly 75% support making it as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to sign up, nearly 7 in 10 support upfront, all-in pricing, and 65% support banning surveillance pricing.

Groundwork Collaborative President and CEO Lindsay Owens said:

“Companies are deploying a dizzying array of tricks and tactics to reinvent the ripoff and squeeze American consumers. Shoppers shouldn’t have to outsmart an algorithm, decode the fine print, or fight their way out of a subscription just to get a fair deal. Policymakers should put simple guardrails in place to protect consumers from the high-tech ways corporations are gouging us – the Shoppers’ Bill of Rights is a good place to start.”

Owens is the author of Gouged: The End of a Fair Price – and What That Means for Your Wallet (Viking Penguin 2026), providing a detailed look at how corporations use modern technology and market power to quietly raise prices across everyday goods and services – and what consumers and policymakers can do to fight back.

The Shoppers’ Bill of Rights

• Right to an All-In Price: Require companies to include all mandatory fees in the advertised price. A hotel room advertised for $149 should not become a $200 room at checkout.
• Right to a Fair Price: Prevent companies from using consumers’ browsing history, location, income, or other personal data to decide the price they pay. Uber has reportedly raised prices for riders with dwindling phone batteries and the Princeton Review has charged more for SAT prep in ZIP codes with large Asian populations.
• Right to a Predictable Price: Prohibit companies from raising the price of products in real time, even when the company’s costs to make or provide the product don’t change. As Walmart and Kroger are installing electronic shelf labels capable of adjusting prices up to six times a minute, companies shouldn’t be able to jack up the price of groceries or other essentials in real time simply because demand spikes.
• Right to Cancellation: Require companies to make cancelling a subscription as easy as signing up. Cancelling an Uber One subscription can take as many as 32 actions across 23 screens.
• Right to Repair: Require manufacturers to make the parts, tools, software, and repair manuals available so people can fix what they own. If iPhone owners use third-party repair shops when they crack their phone screens, they may find themselves unable to adjust the brightness settings.
• Right to Your Own Agent: Require AI assistants to act in the customer’s best interest, not the interests of the company behind them. A recent study found that LLMs steer users toward sponsored products over cheaper alternatives.
• Right to Resale: Consumers should be able to sell, transfer, or give away what they buy without platforms or professional scalpers rigging the resale market. For items that do not appreciate, like tickets, resale prices should be capped at the original face value. Tickets with a face value around $250 for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour resold for an average of upward of $3,800.
• Right to a Level Playing Field: Enforce and modernize the Robinson-Patman Act so suppliers charge small, independent stores the same price they charge big-box chains. A small grocer often pays more than Walmart for the same bag of chips before it ever reaches the shelf, leaving Main Street shops without a fair shot and customers who shop locally paying more.
• Right to Comparison Shop: Require stores to post the price per ounce, pound, or other standard size unit on shelf tags so the better value is clear. “Family Size” and “Party Size” Doritos bags have differed by just one ounce, making it harder to tell which is actually the better deal.
• Right to a Refund: Ban restocking and arbitrary return fees and require refunds in the original form of payment when a purchase is cancelled, never delivered, or does not work as advertised. Returning an online purchase by mail to Marshalls or TJ Maxx can cost $11.99, while Best Buy charges a 15% restocking fee on some electronics. Consumers shouldn’t have to pay another round of fees just to get their money back.
• Right to Proper Billing: Require accurate bills to arrive within a set period after a service is provided. Companies shouldn’t be able to turn their own billing mistakes into a surprise expense months later. After Duke Energy rolled out new billing software, it made more than 100,000 billing errors in a year. Thousands of customers went months without bills, and 15,000 were later hit with delayed charges.
• Right to a Competitive Price: Refresh the antitrust rulebook for the algorithmic age by closing loopholes that allow common pricing software to price-fix. Landlords’ common pricing software, RealPage, allegedly spiked rents by as much as $180 per month, while gas stations used Kalibrate which allegedly hiked gas prices by as much 30 cents per gallon.

September 28 , 2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact

Milagros R. Elia

Program Manager, Climate and Clean Energy Advocacy

Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments

milagros@envirn.org

914.455.1165

 

Nurses Strongly Oppose final 2026 NHTSA Fuel Economy Rule (CAFE Standards)

[Washington, D.C.]- On September 28, 2026, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a final rule to weaken fuel economy standards for light-duty vehicles for model years 2022-2026 and model years 2027- 2031, making this new 2031 standard less stringent than model year 2024, which automakers have already achieved.

In response to the proposal, the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments’ Executive Director Katie Huffling, DNP, RN, CNM, FAAN issued the following statement:

“Weakening fuel economy standards moves our nation in the wrong direction for public health. Less efficient vehicles mean greater fuel consumption and pollution across the transportation and fuel-production system, adding to the burden faced by communities already experiencing poor air quality and traffic-related pollution. NHTSA itself has previously stated that stronger CAFE standards reduce fuel use, transportation emissions, and air pollution and can benefit communities near heavily trafficked roadways.

“As health professionals, we are especially concerned about children, older adults, people with asthma and cardiovascular disease, and communities living near highways and other major transportation corridors, where additional pollution can compound existing health inequities. Strong fuel economy standards are more than an environmental safeguard, they are an important component of protecting health, reducing preventable illness, and limiting the economic burden that pollution-related disease places on families and our healthcare system.

“Nurses have a responsibility to advocate for policies that prevent harm before it reaches our patients, and we strongly oppose rolling back standards that help advance cleaner transportation, healthier communities, and a more sustainable future.”

###

The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments is the only national nursing organization focused solely on the intersection of health and the environment. The mission of the Alliance is to support nurses in promoting planetary health and equity globally by educating and leading the nursing profession, advancing research, incorporating planet-safe practice, and influencing policy.

http://enviRN.org

 

The post Press Release! 2026 NHTSA Fuel Economy Rule (CAFE Standards) appeared first on ANHE.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should reject the proposal, in part because it would stifle markets, the Southwest Power Pool’s market monitor said.

Australian households have installed a record number of rooftop solar systems and home batteries so far this year, well above official forecasts.

The post Consumers put squeeze on coal as Australian households install record amounts of solar and batteries appeared first on Renew Economy.

Every evening , like clockwork, Arnen Sula wraps up work at his office, collects his drums, and heads to Skanderbeg Square in the Albanian capital of Tirana.

“Eskobari i Ballkanit
O hajduti i buxhetit
Ne nuk ikim pa doreheqje
HEY RAMA, SHPORRU TI TANI!”
 
(The Escobar of the Balkans!
You budget thief!
We won’t leave until you resign!
HEY RAMA, GET OUT NOW!)

These are lyrics to one of dozens of songs and poems that Sula and fellow demonstrators have chanted every day since June as they march while carrying cutouts of large flamingos.

“It is our take on Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall,’ and we have changed the first few stanzas to make it make sense in the Albanian context,” Sula explains.

The context he’s referring to is a months-long protest against the construction of a luxury resort funded by U.S. President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner that will potentially raze 42 square kilometers (16 square miles) of wetland around the Vjosa Narta river, as well as a proposed development on the 567 hectares (1.8 square miles) of Sazan Island close by.

Skanderbeg Square has been the heart of a movement that has grown steadily and consistently. Every day peaceful demonstrators fill the streets of Tirana with chants and folk songs and march toward the prime minister’s office.

There they are joined by artists who use a projector to broadcast their messages on the facade of the building.

 

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“Initially, we started with a two-part animated video showing the machines and bulldozers working in Vjosa Narta, and the visuals of the flamingos,” says Besjana Guri, environmental activist, Goldman Environmental Prize winner, and founder of a nongovernmental organization called LUMI, which in Albanian means “river.”

 

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The flamingos represent one of hundreds of species of wildlife at risk from the Trump-Kushner development and inspired the name of the movement: the Flamingo Revolution.

Their voices, in unison, echo a collective demand: Save the last wild river of Europe.

“The protest is about opposing one of the huge touristic resorts with a severe ecological footprint that is planned to take place in the middle of one of the most important protected areas for Albania and for Europe,” explains Olsi Nika, environmental biologist and executive director of Eco Albania, an environmental protection organization.

What’s at Risk at Vjosa Narta

“Well, everything basically,” Nika tells The Revelator.

“We are not talking about just one building here, or one hotel there — although even that is not acceptable. But we are talking about the construction of a new city from scratch that will take place in the middle of a natural, pristine area,” he says.

 

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Few details are available about the project, but according to some of the project renderings briefly published by Affinity Partners, the Kusher-linked investment firm, the Zvërnec Peninsula, which sits right beside the Narta Lagoon, will be home to a 445-hectare (1.7 square miles) luxury resort.

Meanwhile Kusher told The Guardian last year that he planned to “create the ideal resort…a very high-end luxury product” on Sazan Island, an abandoned communist outpost still littered with unexploded ordnance.

Environmentalists familiar with the developments say this involves construction of at least 10,000 units.

“When you imagine this … it involves construction that could take 10-15 years, trucks, bulldozers, with thousands of people working here, excavators digging in protected land, putting concrete,” says Zydjon Vorpsi, project manager at Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania.

“And once it’s operational, it will be a city of thousands of people that will need energy infrastructure, water, asphalt, pavements, lights, waste management — all of which comes at the expense of the wildlife here. We are talking about wiping out nature; we are talking about transforming this very special area completely,” Vorpsi says.

Nearly everyone interviewed for this article echoed the sentiment and called Vjosa Narta — the last free-flowing river in Europe — “very special.”

“The uniqueness of that river is its free-flowingness,” explains Nika. “It flows to the Adriatic, shaping the features of the delta along the way, which is also the only ecologically pristine delta in the entire Mediterranean Basin.”

The delicate ecosystem created where the Vjosa meets the Adriatic Sea on the southern coast of Albania is home to 2,300 species of flora and fauna, including 200 bird species, at least 70 of which are endangered, such as Dalmatian pelicans and stone curlews.

The rare sand dune formation on the coastline, which serves as a nesting spot for sea turtles, has already faced some damage from gravel dumped by excavators, a Birdlife International report noted earlier this year.

“Construction has also blocked one of the two openings connecting the Narta Lagoon to the sea, cutting off tidal exchange with immediate, cascading consequences for fish, birds, and the entire food chain,” the report stated. “Every day the blockage continues, the damage deepens.”

Additionally, the local Indigenous communities living for generations in the region are facing land disputes in part of the project.

“The village nearby does not have drinking water in taps,” Vorpsi says. “But meanwhile, we’re about to build 10,000 more units there, which, of course, will need fresh water that will be sourced from other areas, through pipelines that will add to the damage and destroy another river to feed this area with fresh water.”

But most importantly, Nika says, “This treasure simply does not belong to us alone, but also to Europe, to the world. It’s not only protected by Albanian law, but also has recognition from international treaties and conventions,” he says. “It is recognized as a Ramsar site under the Ramsar Convention and is a candidate for an Emerald Site in accordance with the Bern Convention.” The river also has the potential to be included in Natura 2000, the European Union’s protected sites, if Albania gets membership in the EU.

Albania applied for EU membership in 2009 and was granted candidate status in 2014. However, as protests expand, the EU Commission has indicated that the environmental violations linked to the Trump-Kushner project could risk Albania’s path to join the union.

Race to Save Vjosa Narta

The history of eco-resistance in Albania is long and complex. With abundant natural resources and an economy that relies heavily on tourism, the debate over protection versus development remains a constant battle.

The race to protect the Vjosa Narta actually started more than a decade ago, Nika says. “The current government, which came to power in 2013, already announced in 2014 its vision to develop the protected areas.” Since then the government has worked to rewrite legal and administrative frameworks to accommodate development.

In 2019 the government announced a full revision of the protected areas in Albania. But this process was rushed, according to Nika.

“Their assessment reduced the areas of protected territories, and one of them was the Vjosa,” he says, adding that in some areas appeared with permissible enclaves “like holes within the protected regimes” such as the Vlora Airport being constructed in the Vjosa region.

“If you exclude a part of a protected region, it still impacts the ecological integrity of the entire area. You cannot build a factory or an airport in the middle of a protected region,” he says.

But through persistent advocacy, environmental activists were able to achieve some success. “We managed to push back on that at least, and all these holes disappeared, with the exception of the airport,” he says.

Then in 2024 the government passed its new Law on Protected Area, “but ironically, it undermined all principles of conservation,” Nika says. “All its content is about how to develop the protected areas, not how to conserve protected areas.”

The new law “said that five-star resorts are allowed even in the national parks and in all protected areas, paving the way for this project, and other ‘tourism of excellence,’ as they call it,” says Vorpsi.

“In the beginning, when this project was announced, Jared Kushner always referred to it as Sazan Island, and never attached Vjosa Narta,” he adds.

Fast forward to April 2026, when environmentalists documented unannounced excavation taking place in the protected areas. Gradually, it became clear that the ongoing construction was linked to the Trump-Kushner project.

“We began protesting the presence of bulldozers and other heavy machinery in the region, which was supposed to be protected land. However, protesters were met with private security guards who used violence to remove them,” Vorpsi says.

A video from May 31 showing a protester being beaten until he fainted and was dragged out went viral across Albanian social media, attracting strong criticism and anger from the public.

“These constructions started without a public hearing, without a permit; they were illegal and criminal,” Vorpsi says. The Albanian anti-corruption prosecutor’s office in Vlora has since opened an investigation into the legality of the project.

Within days, thousands of Albanians took to the streets to demand the end of the Trump-Kusher project. Soon, however, the demonstrations expanded into a call for larger social change, particularly on systemic corruption that allowed billionaires to take advantage of Albania’s resources.

“It started as a protest for the environment and against this project, but it has changed it into something bigger,” Sula says. “It’s about the Narta, but it is also about corruption, the political situation, the theft by the government, the education system, the health care system, and everything else.”

‘Rhythms of Resistance’

As the movement remains resilient, it’s the music and art that have provided the protesters with the expression to communicate their message to the government and those in power.

In the months since the start of the protest, Guri has brought her projector to the town square nearly every day and used it to broadcast an array of messages onto the government building, sometimes accompanied by an impromptu choir.

“Every day we prepare a combination of elements: memes, messages, graphics, sometimes funny ones, sometimes strong — it’s a daily protest, and this is one way to keep it vivid,” she explains.

Not all songs and poetry recited by the protesters are Western-inspired. Some are derived from the region’s long history of folk music.

“We have collected some 10 old Albanian songs. These are songs all about nature, so they sing about the flowers, the birds, and so on. And we created a band and organized public concerts [at the protest site] of these songs,” Sula says.

Sula works with an organization called Tek Bunkeri that collaborates with rural communities and artists to create campaigns on shared social issues.

Their songs and chants have become something of an anthem for the protests. “We use art to make activism. And in these protests, we are creating the rhythm of the resistance,” he explains.

“Ki kujdes ki kujdes nga flamingot.
Revolucion ne kete shesh dhe ti rreshket.
Nje ze flet Rama ra nga flamingot.
Lumturia e pushtoi kete vend.”

(Watch out, watch out for the flamingos.
Revolution in this square — and you’re slipping.
A voice cries out: Rama fell from the flamingos.
Happiness has taken over this land)

 

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Tek Bunkeri has created an entire playlist of songs, Çel Ensemble, that “explores exploring memory, nature and tradition through sound” to raise awareness on ecological conservation. Using diverse forms of music, from jazz to chambers, the themes run between the topics of rivers, flowers, landscapes, and collective memory.

Music has always been at the heart of Albanian conservation efforts, environmentalists shared. In 2016 a similar movement to protect the Valbona River against hydropower projects that threatened damage to surrounding regions culminated in a protest concert in Valbona valley by Albanian and Kosovan musicians.

Later in 2018 Albanian artists collaborated to produce “Lum Lumi i Lirë!” (Blessed be the free rivers), a song to raise awareness of the need for protection of the Valbona and Vjosa rivers.

One thing that Albanians unanimously told The Revelator is that they feel a strong sense of responsibility for the land they inhabit.

“We do have plenty of protected areas in Albania because simply Albania has a lot to host when it comes to biodiversity and nature. And this is our duty to protect them,” Nika says, embodying the sentiment on the streets of Tirana.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

The Two Words Giving Me Hope — Even As the Trump Administration Dismantles More Climate Regulations

The post The Flamingo Revolution and the Rhythm of Resistance: The Race to Save Europe’s Last Wild River appeared first on The Revelator.

Omnibus X is a legislative package which, under the usual pretext of simplification to streamline the pesticide approval system, weakens the precautionary principle at the heart of European pesticide regulation.

The post OMNIBUS X, a toxic proposal for health and biodiversity. MEPs should not vote for it: ECVC appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

The event brought together peasant union leaders, researchers and lawyers from five South Asian countries to discuss the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) and its implementation nearly eight years after adoption.

The post Sri Lanka: South Asian Movements Call for Policies on Agroecology, Seeds and Trade Aligned with UNDROP appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Courtney Allen, owner of Believe Fitness in London, Kentucky, is the star of this highlight. The Believe Fitness mission is to “to help women break free from the world’s unrealistic fitness standards and pursue health without comparison, shame, or pressure, focusing instead on strength, joy, and identity rooted in” their faith.  

This highlight will not be me recounting Courtney’s story, as she will be doing that herself at a virtual workshop we are hosting on Monday, October 12th at 3:30 PM (register here). Instead, I will give you the behind-the-scenes scoop of how she used more than 40 hours of business support to grow not only her business, but herself as well. 

Courtney came to Mountain Association in 2024. Because Courtney is a lending client of Mountain Association, she can participate in a business support project free of charge. This technical assistance service provides entrepreneurs and nonprofits with the resources that they need to fill the gaps their business is experiencing.  

Courtney’s first project (25 hours of support) was with S Media, a consultant whose business is also based in London. After some big changes to her fitness business, Courtney wanted to visually align her brand more with her vision and faith. The purpose of this project was to design and deliver a cohesive set of digital marketing assets that strengthened the fitness studio’s brand presence, increased visibility across digital platforms, and supported member acquisition and retention efforts.  

Jason, owner of S Media, and his team helped Courtney update her branding and develop an app that allows studio members to access a library of prerecorded workouts, anytime, anywhere.  

“I am also grateful for the tools and knowledge that Mountain Association and S Media helped me to gain through this process,” Courtney said at the end of the project. “Jason, Greg, and Maggie at S Media were always accessible and extremely helpful with any issue or question I had. Their assistance in building and navigating our new website and software was priceless and alleviated a lot of stress for me.” 

Courtney’s second project, business coaching with Misty Lakes Coaching, helped to diversify revenue streams and establish back-end systems that help to make her life easier. With business coaching, I watched Courtney’s confidence in her ability to lead not just her studio, but her employees, grow. As her point person on the Mountain Association’s Business Support team, it has been amazing to watch her grow. 

Courtney and Misty spend 29 hours together strengthening the harmony between her personal life and business responsibilities while preparing her studio for future growth. This project provides peace-centered, purpose-driven business development training to help her lead confidently, build organizational clarity, develop her team, streamline her operations, and prepare for expansion. The project included training on various topics such as “brand voice development,” “personality training and team communication development,” and “CEO mindset and delegation.”  

At the end of the project, Courtney explained, “Working with Misty was a complete joy and answer to my prayers! She shared such insightful knowledge to help grow and scale my business, as well as promote better communication within my team.” 

We’re excited to host the upcoming workshop with Courtney, S Media and Misty Lakes and hear how this support is helping not only her small businesses in London, but businesses across the region. 

Please join us for “What 40 Hours Did for My Business” on Monday, October 12 from 3:30-4:30PM in a special edition of our Learn with an Expert series.  

Register here: https://mtassociation.org/workshop  

The post What 40 Hours Did for My Business: A Client Highlight  appeared first on Mountain Association.

Lithium batteries and solar, wind and hydroelectric renewable generation were selected in the state’s first bulk energy storage procurement and its 2025 Tier 1 Renewable Energy Standard solicitation.

Mountainous, densely populated Japan has little land available for large solar farms, so developers are erecting arrays on many of the now disused golf courses that proliferated during the country's 1980s economic boom.

Read more on E360 →

Atop all the others inflicted on us came last week's sickening spectacle of two vengeful, lying, broken old men - one a longtime killer of children, one a petty useful idiot abetting him - alternately celebrating and threatening genocide before "we the peoples of the United Nations." Born of "the defiance of hope" to enable us to "live together in peace," the forum now hosts the perpetrators of unspeakable atrocities. Omar El Akkad: "One day everyone will have always been against this."

Even before war criminals spoke at the U.N., everyone was already against everything Trump's done, from his insane, drone-packed arch to the other $1.8 billion vanity projects to his latest tantrum over the media. Despite multiple court rulings against it, an ensuing press ban is still partly, messily in place, with CNN, MS NOW and Politico facing dubious access, other major media finally finding their spine and solidarity, and the havoc offering us the droll sight of a needy guy who never met a camera he didn’t like in a farcical silent movie, a “shrinking figure gesticulating wildly into the wind.” Ever the attention whore, he tried to compensate with weird, illegal PR stunts: Claiming an entire hemisphere, boasting, "Only Trump" and an ad pleading "Love Me" on the taxpayer dime in "an astonishing misuse of public resources more fitting for North Korea."

The final own goal of his attack on the press, teased by a frantic promo, was the launch of Trump TV: The Essentials Station, the White House YouTube channel recast as a 24/7 livestream of Trump's "greatest hits." Cue a July rant at Mt. Rushmore about "the communist menace," last year's speech at dinner with King Charles, a 2016 whine in Kentucky about the wet stairs he overcame. YouTube's real-time data let the "king of ratings" see it quickly crash and burn, from a paltry 8,000 viewers to half that to 1,000 to 704 (LOL) as J.D. announced stripping health care from 760,000 people - way below the 2,000-plus then watching birds snack on seeds and nuts. Many relished the flop - "Fascism is awesome!" - or suggested new slots: "Wake Up & Rage Tweet, Ketchup-Throwing, They’re Eating our Pets, The Great MAGA Crypto Scam, Wheel of Pardons" and, from 2:01 to 2:02 a.m., “Covfefe.”

Then came a clumsy, swooning welcome - "the deference was deafening" - for his strongman soulmate Chinese President Xi Jinping, the world's biggest jailer of journalists and never mind the "communist menace," with its empty pomp, cartoonish tour of a hole-in-the-ground ballroom and million-year helipad: "He has a great interest in granite." Accomplished: nada. The next day, with his approval rating "somewhere between Ebola and Ed Sheeran," he waddled into the 81st session of the UN General Assembly and threatened one of its130 participants with war crimes, musing, "Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic quickly and drive them into hell?" Iran's delegation swiftly walked out. Mehdi Hasan: "For shame. The president of the United States goes to the United Nations and threatens genocide against a member state in front of the world. This is where we’re at."

Slurring, stumbling, wandering at unhinged, racist length - details here - Trump boasted about murdering over 200 people “at war with civilization” in illegal boat strikes, celebrated (and inflated) the theft of Venezuela’s oil, charged trans people are a national security risk, inanely declaimed “to the (raping and plundering) victor belong the spoils” - the inept, terrifying vision of a "demagogue who hijacked American democracy devolving into a mad king before our eyes." The speech, a "sad and dangerous national embarrassment" with its "ridiculous braggadocio, narcissistic puffery, absurd demonstrable lies, open criminality and deranged, murderous threats" landed "with silence inside the hall and a pile of fact checks outside it, (the) death rattle of a rapist president and what’s left of America’s reputation on the world stage."

Afterwards, normal world leaders "went back to making plans that don't include the United States." Or, in the case of Denmark, trolling. Trump has created a fictional backstory for a "deal" on Greenland "long in the making - you could go back many, many decades, probably centuries" - that just repackages an existing 1951 deal; ahead of a meeting held later at the U.N., officials played the Sondheim song Send In The Clowns, with a long zoom to Rubio. At this point, writes Paul Krugman, it's "Underwear on the Outside” time, a callback to Woody Allen's 1971 film Bananas about a third-world nation's absurd strongman. Coverage of the U.N., he noted, focused on Trump's rabid rejection of global cooperation or the fact almost everything he said was a lie. The bigger story: "The leader of what used to be the world’s most powerful nation, now collapsing before our eyes, has clearly, undeniably lost his mind."

Other speakers tried to steer the conversation back to reality. Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the primacy of international law, especially in Palestine, calling the birth of the U.N. "an act of defiance (by) people who refuse to surrender the future to fear...who know our futures are bound together." But with accountability: The U.N. deems Gaza "a collective crime," a "live-streamed atrocity...sustained by the complicity of influential third states"; their complicity must be confronted for the rule of law to survive. Holding photos of Iranian children killed in U. S. strikes, Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian argued it is Trump who has defied international law, while Iran has remained committed to negotiations. “We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists." He also called for accountability on all sides, asking "why Israel kills, yet Iran is subject to sanction.”

Israel kills. And Benjamin Netanyahu offered a bellicose "potpourri of lies and incitement" to deny it. In his "furious, ugly and disgraceful" diatribe, he called universal charges of genocide "the biggest lie of the century," summoning the chutzpah to call the carnage in Gaza "the opposite of genocide." Anyone who disagreed, he raved, was "a moral coward." They include about half the Assembly, who walked out as Zionist allies chanted “Am Yisrael Chai," "the Nation of Israel lives"; hundreds of protesters outside, with about 100 arrested, among them Brooklyn Council Member Chi Ossé, who later posted a selfie in handcuffs with “Free Palestine. Netanyahu burn in hell"; and world leaders "spreading lies about my country and our brave soldiers." They are all "tyrants (in) a global anti-Jewish conspiracy (to) erase us from the face of the Earth," Bibi brayed. "Instead of collapsing, we delivered devastating blows to all of them with our great American friends."

There was much more. He brandished a pager in tribute to Israel's 2024 operation targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon that killed 12 and wounded over 3,000. He dismissed settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as the work of "juvenile delinquents." He said bombing Iran was "’one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make." Truly shameless, he claimed Israel still has "the most moral army in the world.” He denied a Haaretz report, confirmed by the New York Times, that Egypt's intel chief warned him in September 2023 that Hamas was planning "a major attack" but he declined to pass the tip on to his intelligence agencies. He assailed as "anti-Semitic" the duly elected mayor of his host city, who deems him a war criminal and wants the ICC's arrest warrant against him enacted. He claimed "many Jews no longer feel safe in New York." He evidently doesn't either; he flew into New Jersey.

He ended his speech with a Bible verse from Samuel that describes the genocide of the Amalek, enemies of Israel, after God orders King Saul, "‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people." Saul mostly does, but spares their king and “the best of the sheep and cattle." Then the prophet Samuel admonishes him: "(God) sent you on a mission, but you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you as king over Israel." Samuel's murderous gist: “Nezah Israel lo yeshaker,” or "the eternity of Israel will not falter.” The lesson Bibi draws: "We have no choice but genocide." And so they undertook it: Over 73,900 direct deaths, about half women and children. Over 175,000 wounded, often gravely. An estimated, obscene 641,000 ultimately dead, from destruction of the healthcare system, malnutrition, disease. The bodies of perhaps 10,000 more still lie under the rubble.

And the devastation goes on. Under Israel's blockade, there is widespread hunger, 90% of Gazans remain homeless, trauma and illness go untreated. More than 900 wheelchairs donated by two Australian non-profits for over 11,000 disabled children - Gaza has the most child amputees per capita in the world - are held hostage in Jordan warehouses by outlandish Israeli restrictions on anything that could "serve a military purpose." Other targets of insane "dual-use" ban: Portable toilets, sleeping bags, tarps. bandages, diapers, shampoo, tent poles. And evidently kites after Bibi declared "targeted strikes”against the launch of any kites, balloons or drones, with the IDF ordered to "act forcefully" against perps in a besieged hellhole where Palestinian children are deemed “explosives of the future." "What a childhood in Gaza teaches: Want less."

The cruelty, madness, loss continue to spark palpable rage. Actor Mandy Patinkin, a Jew aware of history, on the corrosive effect of "the revenge business": "How could it be done to you and your ancestors, and you turn around and do it to someone else?!” Omar El Akkad - born in Egypt, raised in Qatar and Canada, a US citizen - on "what it means to live under an ordering of the world that abides slaughter, and whether any ordering ever stood for anything at all." He wrote the book One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, though its full title is One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will always have been against this,” what one critic calls "a cathartic savaging" of empire, Western hypocrisy on Gaza, selective empathy in "the most privileged sliver of global society."

"When the unspeakable happens, the world should stop but it doesn't," he writes of the comforting bubble of a white nationalist world run by broken men and their accomplices. They blithely "shrug at one kind of slaughter," having developed "a terrible immunity...When it mattered, who sided with justice and who sided with power?” The time to choose is now, he adds, and hindsight will not undo or excuse their crimes: "At the time they say, 'Yes, this is tragic, but necessary'...The alternative to the countless killed and maimed and orphaned...screaming from under the rubble (is) barbarism.” "There is no way to finish the sentence, 'It is unfortunate that tens of thousands of children are dead but...'" he movingly writes. "There is no such thing as someone else’s children."

The evening after Netanyahu assailed Zohran Mamdani as anti-Semitic - he dismissed the speech as "baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide against Palestinians" - the good mayor was home at Gracie Mansion. He was hosting Palestinian families from Gaza who have lost family members there or have made their way to America as refugees to "honor their contributions to the city and acknowledge the losses they have endured." They ate a meal; a smiling Mamdani glided around the table, filling water glasses. And they planted an olive tree - for Palestinians, source of food, wood, fuel, symbol of peace, hope, resilience, a deep connection to their heritage and ancestral land. Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: ‘"Here we remain, as long as thyme and olives remain." Zohran Mamdani: "May peace be our future."

A young boy in Gaza mourns his murdered mother Getty Image

Kaveh Zahedi is Assistant Director-General and Director of the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

An exceptional El Niño is building. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says it has intensified to very strong levels and is likely to last at least through February 2027. If its current trajectory holds, it could become stronger than anything seen since WMO monitoring began four decades ago.

That is bad news for agriculture. El Niño – a naturally occurring weather phenomenon – can scramble rainfall patterns across the world, bringing drought to some regions and floods to others. And this time it is unfolding against the backdrop of a significantly hotter climate, with farmers already contending with unreliable growing seasons, extreme heat and less predictable rainfall because of global warming.

El Niño expected to bring next record-hot year as soon as 2027

We are seeing the consequences already. In Sri Lanka, drought linked to El Niño has dried wells and reservoirs and cut into crops and farmer incomes. Indonesia is experiencing its worst wildfire season in 11 years, with prolonged drought and extreme heat exacerbated by El Niño. And in Peru, authorities are preparing for the opposite extreme: intense rains, flooding and landslides which the national civil-defence agency says could affect around 1.2 million people.

These impacts will multiply as El Niño intensifies.

And yet, just as the risks to food production are rising, the money available to help farmers withstand them is shrinking.

10% funding decline in 2024

A forthcoming analysis from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows that climate-related development finance for agrifood systems is moving in the wrong direction. In 2024, the latest year for which data is available, it fell by 10 percent compared with a 2 percent overall decline. The sectors that put food on our tables — crops, livestock, forestry and fisheries — received just 5 percent.

Yet this is precisely the moment when climate investment in agriculture needs to grow, not shrink. It can help communities adapt, build resilience and protect food security, while unlocking larger flows of public and private finance. Agriculture feeds us, supports the livelihoods of well over a billion people, and is often the first sector hit by drought, floods and extreme heat. Cutting that investment now is a false economy.

One failed harvest can plant the seed for the next crisis, forcing farmers to eat the seed they have saved for planting, sell livestock or tools, or take on debt. It can also deepen food insecurity, disrupt supply chains and drive up prices, showing up months later in supermarket aisles far away.

Comment: A supercharged El Niño is coming – are we ready?

The Central American Dry Corridor, stretching through much of the region, shows both how exposed farmers are, and what investment can do. Based on an analysis of 41 years of satellite observations, FAO finds that some crop and pasture areas there face more than a 50 percent chance of agricultural drought over the coming months.

About half of Central America’s 1.9 million producers of maize, beans and other basic grains live in the Dry Corridor. Many grow food both for sale and for their own families. When a harvest fails, they lose both income and dinner.

El Salvador project conserves water and soil

In El Salvador, which lies within the Dry Corridor, more than 50,000 farmers have adopted practices to better withstand drought and increasingly unreliable rainfall through RECLIMA, a project financed by the Green Climate Fund and implemented by FAO in partnership with the government of El Salvador. It has substantial national co-financing, including from the country’s Environmental Investment Fund.

El Niño can intensify El Salvador’s annual mid-season dry spell, known as the canícula, turning it into a longer, harsher drought just as maize needs water most.

RECLIMA promoters carry out the construction of hillside ditches to optimise water infiltration and minimise the loss of fertile topsoil, thereby strengthening the climate resilience of their local livelihoods in Santiago de María, Usulután North, El Salvador, June 4, 2025. (Photo: © FAO / Mario Araujo) RECLIMA promoters carry out the construction of hillside ditches to optimise water infiltration and minimise the loss of fertile topsoil, thereby strengthening the climate resilience of their local livelihoods in Santiago de María, Usulután North, El Salvador, June 4, 2025. (Photo: © FAO / Mario Araujo)

For María Cristina Corvera de López, a second-generation farmer in rural Nahualapa, adapting means changing how every drop of rain is captured and used. She plants trees alongside her crops to provide shade and minimise evaporation and uses simple irrigation channels and a homemade drip system to conserve water. Instead of burning stalks, leaves and husks after harvest, as generations before her did, she turns them into mulch to hold moisture in the soil.

“The effects of climate change are a constant challenge,” she says. But the new techniques have made her farm more resilient to El Niño as well. Where she once harvested about 50 bags of maize per acre, she now gets around 80, even during droughts. It’s enough to feed her family and sell the surplus.

Managing risk now cuts future costs

Together, these adaptations can mean the difference between losing a crop and getting through a dry season with enough food, seed and income to plant again. They are also the result of climate finance invested before disaster strikes.

RECLIMA shows what that kind of adaptation investment can buy. Adaptation accounted for 45 percent of climate-related development finance to agrifood systems in 2024, and multilateral development banks are directing more agricultural finance towards resilience. That shift reflects a growing recognition that adaptation is a form of risk management, not just a development cost.

We need much more of it. The same investments that help farmers withstand El Niño also enable them to adapt to a hotter, more unpredictable future. Cutting investment in the people who produce our food just as climate risks intensify does not save money. It simply pushes a much larger bill into the next harvest, the next food crisis, and the next El Niño.

The post As El Niño intensifies, we should be investing more in the world’s farmers appeared first on Climate Home News.

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• ‘Brazil is back’
• New Jersey-sized forest
• Election significance
• ‘Greenest’ policies 
• Soy moratorium and Brazilian congress

An area of Amazon forest roughly the size of the US state of New Jersey has remained standing due to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s leadership of Brazil, according to Carbon Brief analysis. 

Lula beat Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election to become president of the nation that is home to nearly 60% of the Amazon rainforest. 

Forest loss surged during Bolsonaro’s far-right presidency and dropped sharply under the left-wing Lula, with Amazon deforestation likely to hit its lowest level on record this year. 

Now, as another presidential election approaches, Lula is facing off against Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio Bolsonaro, whose “anti-environmental” policies are similar to his father’s.

Carbon Brief’s analysis suggests that at least 20,000 square kilometres (km2) of deforestation has been avoided since Lula took office and prioritised Amazon protection.

The analysis is based on modelling by an international research team of an alternative scenario in which Brazil’s flagship forest code legislation was not enforced – a proxy for Jair Bolsonaro’s leadership. 

Experts tell Carbon Brief that this estimate is likely “conservative” and that actual deforestation under Bolsonaro could have been “much higher”. 

With Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro tied in the polls, the upcoming election is expected to significantly shape the level of environmental action in the world’s fourth-largest emitter, whose emissions are largely driven by deforestation. 

‘Brazil is back’

When Jair Bolsonaro was president of Brazil between 2019 and 2022, he championed the nation’s powerful agribusiness sector and oversaw an unprecedented increase in Amazon deforestation.

Bolsonaro weakened regulations, slashed federal agency budgets and empowered illegal activities in the Amazon, while attacking Indigenous and environmental groups.

This meant that the forest code – Brazil’s flagship legislation that requires landowners to preserve and restore forest on their property – was not properly enforced.

After Lula’s presidential victory in 2022, he promised to target “zero deforestation” by 2030, telling the COP27 UN climate summit that “Brazil is back”.

Lula rolled back Bolsonaro’s wave of deregulation and reinstated a deforestation “action plan”. Led by celebrated environmentalist Marina Silva, the environment ministry scaled up enforcement and policing activities in the Amazon. 

As a result, annual deforestation in the Amazon has more than halved from 11,594km2 per year in 2022 to 5,731km2 in 2025.

Data from August 2025 to July 2026 – the timespan used in government records – is yet to be released, but preliminary satellite alerts put the deforestation figure at 2,874km2.

While the final figure is likely to be higher, experts still think Amazon deforestation in 2026 could hit its lowest level since records began in 1988.

New Jersey-sized forest

Compared to a scenario in which Bolsonaro won in 2022, Carbon Brief analysis suggests that at least 20,000km2 of Amazon forest remains standing today due to Lula’s leadership.

This area – roughly the size of Wales, Belize, Slovenia or the US state of New Jersey – is indicated by the grey area in the chart below.

Each year covers a period from August to July. Deforestation data is from INPE’s PRODES dataset, except for the 2026 figure. This is based on INPE’s DETER real-time satellite alert data, which tends to give lower estimates than PRODES. The “Bolsonaro” projections are based on a scenario with no forest code enforcement, from a 2023 study.

This analysis is based on a 2023 study on the role of nature-based solutions in Brazil’s pathway to net-zero emissions. This was a refined update of a 2018 study that used the same GLOBIOM-Brazil model, from researchers at the University of Oxford, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

It is based on a comparison of forest code implementation with a “baseline” scenario in which the code is not enforced, reflecting the kind of weak governance seen under the Bolsonaro administration. (See Carbon Brief’s 2022 article for more details of this modelling.)

Dr Aline Soterroni, a University of Oxford researcher who led the 2023 analysis, tells Carbon Brief that the reversal seen under Lula “shows how quickly deforestation can respond to political will”.

However, she stresses that the modelling of the “no forest code” scenario is “relatively conservative”, with deforestation remaining high but not rising. 

Deforestation in this scenario – used here as a proxy for a Bolsonaro election win – is tempered by slower demand growth for Brazilian beef and soy, says Soterroni. She notes that the scenario also does not capture the potential for illegal forest clearing in response to weak governance.

Indeed, some experts anticipated in 2022 that a Bolsonaro victory would send deforestation rates rising to near-record levels.

Claudio Angelo, international policy coordinator at Brazil’s Climate Observatory, tells Carbon Brief that if Bolsonaro had won in 2022, “we have reason to believe [this would have resulted] in much higher rates than during his first term”.

Angelo says the “political signal” would likely have driven an “explosion of wildcat mining” and illegal deforestation in the Amazon. He also points to efforts – including by Flávio Bolsonaro – to formally dismantle the forest code in the Brazilian congress, during Jair Bolsonaro’s first term.

Soterroni notes that deforestation rates did not immediately drop following Lula’s election, as suggested by modelling of a full “forest code compliance” scenario. She says this reflects the “gradual and imperfect process” of restoring and enforcing the law.

Nevertheless, she tells Carbon Brief:

“The key message from our modelling is the contrast between these trajectories: weak environmental governance keeps deforestation substantially higher than full implementation of the forest code. That message remains relevant today.”

Election significance

With Jair Bolsonaro in prison for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election, his son Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator for Rio de Janeiro, is standing against Lula in the upcoming contest for president.

There are 13 candidates, but Flávio Bolsonaro and Lula are by far the frontrunners and are currently neck-and-neck in opinion polls. 

If Lula wins, experts say he is likely to continue with the “zero deforestation by 2030” agenda that has already had a pronounced impact on forest loss. 

As the chart below shows, periods when Amazon deforestation fell in recent history all occurred during Lula’s three terms as president. 

In contrast, experts say Flávio Bolsonaro, a climate sceptic who has indicated he will continue his father’s political agenda and favour agribusiness and mining, will likely drive a surge in deforestation. Angelo tells Carbon Brief:

“At the risk of sounding alarmist, I’ve been saying that Lula’s re-election is the only thing standing between us and a wide destruction of the Amazon.”

A Bolsonaro win would be a “tremendous disaster”, says Dr Patricia Pinho, deputy science director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, adding: 

“I don’t think we can afford four years of increasing deforestation [and] violence against Indigenous peoples.” 

Dr David Lapola, an ecologist focused on Amazon research at the University of Campinas in Brazil, says he believes deforestation “would certainly rise” and Brazil’s climate and deforestation goals “would be thrown in the trash bin”. He tells Carbon Brief: 

“The Bolsonaro administration in the 2019-2022 period showed that the deconstruction of environmental policies and institutes can be done very, very quickly. 

“In a matter of a few months, they can destroy what has been constructed over decades of environmental policy and activism in Brazil.” 

‘Greenest’ policies 

Lula has the “greenest” policy proposals of Brazil’s six top-polling presidential candidates, according to analysis by the Climate Observatory. 

The analysis identifies 16 “positive and detailed” environmental commitments in Lula’s proposals, including reaffirming his “zero deforestation by 2030” goal. 

Flávio Bolsonaro, on the other hand, has one positive environmental commitment and seven “clearly anti-environmental” proposals. 

The right-wing politician has committed to zero “illegal” deforestation by 2029. However, he has also previously led an attempt to change the forest code, opening up large tracts of previously out-of-bounds forest for legal clearance by extractive industries. 

Given this, Angelo tells Carbon Brief that he is sceptical about the 2029 pledge. 

“The only way you can trust him on this is to think that he is going to revoke the forest code and make all illegal deforestation legal.”

Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro with a cardboard cutout of his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

Lula is also the only major candidate to list a clear target for cutting national emissions, sticking with Brazil’s existing goal to cut emissions by 59-67% by 2035, compared to 2005 levels. 

Overall, the Climate Observatory notes that climate change and environmental issues “are off the radar for most candidates”, who are instead focusing on the economy and security issues. 

Pinho adds that deforestation and the Amazon have not been at the “forefront” of this election, compared to 2022. 

If Bolsonaro wins, up to 95% of the Amazon would fall under the leadership of right-wing national governments – including those in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – reported Mongabay. It noted that presidents in all these nations “explicitly favour agribusiness and mining over environmental conservation”.

If no candidate receives a majority of votes in the first round of Brazil’s election on 4 October, a runoff will take place on 25 October, as has happened at every presidential election since 1998.

Soy moratorium and Brazilian congress

Other factors will also play a role in future deforestation in Brazil, regardless of the next president. 

One is the effective end of the Amazon soy moratorium. This is a voluntary agreement signed by companies committing to not buy soya beans grown on land in the Brazilian Amazon that was deforested after 2008. 

Conservation organisation WWF’s international director general, Kirsten Schuijt, previously described it as the “most impactful voluntary supply chain policy ever implemented”. 

However, major grain traders withdrew from the agreement earlier this year, effectively bringing it to an end. Pinho describes this move as a “huge destruction” of Brazil’s environmental protections. 

Research shows the moratorium prevented around 18,000km2 of deforestation in its first decade of operation from 2005-16. 

In contrast, a 2026 study estimated that the end of the moratorium could result in 14,000km2 of additional deforestation in the Amazon by 2036. 

Alongside choosing a new president on 4 October, Brazilian voters will elect state governors and members of congress, which will also factor into future environmental impacts.

Right-leaning parties, including the far-right Liberal Party linked to the Bolsonaros, currently hold half the seats of the two chambers of congress. 

This has led to conflict between lawmakers and Lula. For example, in 2025, congress bypassed Lula’s veto of several aspects of a controversial piece of legislation dubbed the “devastation bill”. 

Pinho says that the potential for a right-wing congress and president would be “devastating for the environmental and climate agenda”. 

Lapola notes that a Flávio Bolsonaro presidency “would consolidate the view in Brazil that environmental protection is solely a matter of political preference, and not a crucial need of all people”. He adds: 

“Land pillage, destruction of precious biodiversity and scorning of Indigenous peoples simply cannot be a nation’s project in the 21st century. We have got to be smarter than that, for sure.”

related Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition 26.06.2026 International policy Brazil’s biodiversity pledge: Six key takeaways for nature and climate change 16.01.2026 Nature policy COP30: Could Brazil’s ‘Tropical Forest Forever’ fund help tackle climate change? 05.11.2025 COP30 Belém Guest post: How Caribbean states are shaping climate legislation 10.10.2025

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