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What started as high school students striking for better learning conditions has now become a widespread revolt against austerity, racism, and neocolonialism. Looming over the protests are the threat of an electoral victory for the fascist Marine Le Pen in next year’s presidential election.

The following interviews are a result of collaboration between U.S. revolutionary socialist Janette Zahia Corcelius and French Marxist Jane-Léonie Bellay. They were concluded on October 16, the day before major protests nationwide, when well over half a million faced a ferocious police response featuring explosive weapons and mass arrests.

French trade unions such as the CGT, CNT, CFDT, UNSA, Solidaires, & FSU, FO & Solidaires have announced that they will launch a nationwide general strike on Thursday, November 5.

 

Jane-Léonie: To set the stage, it is important to note that the high school student movement began in Mayotte, an island in the Indian Ocean near Réunion, which became a French department in 2011. [The protests] then spread to French Guiana, a former French colony that became a French department in 1946. In fact, the high school student movement began on August 31 at the Lycée de la Cité du Nord in Mayotte and then spread across the entire island— with students and teachers acting together in most cases until the school break on October 10. The movement then spread to the Félix Eboué High School in French Guiana on September 7, followed by the Melkior-Garré Comprehensive High School and the Bertène-Jumine High School in French Guiana, and then—as in mainland France—to Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion, and Tahiti. Police violence was just as widespread overseas, but as with the high school strikes—and as is customary—not a single word was mentioned in the mainland French press, which remains deeply colonial in its outlook, regarding these events for several weeks. Subsequently, the movement in mainland France took root at the Saint-Exupéry High School in Créteil on September 21, which was the first to be blockaded.

The interviewees are:

• Smael Afnaï, a 16-year-old high school student activist in Montreuil (a Paris suburb).

• Léon, a senior at the Louise Michel vocational high school in Grenoble (France), specializing in health and social technology. At his school, there is no student union; the students have organized themselves. This is generally the case in France.

• Hamet Nimaga, a high school student and representative of the Lycée Jean Macé in Vitry-sur-Seine in the 94th Department, just southeast of Paris.

• Julia, a 23-year-old woman living in Lyon who is preparing for the entrance exam to become a primary school teacher.

Tempest: How did the student movement begin, and what are its main demands?

Smael: The student movement began with the blockade of Saint-Exupéry High School in Créteil (a Paris suburb). The demands centered on a lack of resources at the school and a resulting shortage of staff (teachers, nurses, etc.). This was followed by videos on social media and a wave of blockades at other high schools, as students observed the same lack of resources within the national education system.

Léon: The student movement began at a disadvantaged high school in Créteil, then spread to other disadvantaged high schools, and now all high schools are mobilizing around demands that include more resources for suburban high schools neglected by the government, the end of Parcoursup [a web portal that manages admission to higher education nationwide], the hiring of new teachers, etc.

Hamet: The movement first began at Saint-Exupéry High School in Créteil, then spread to other schools in Val-de-Marne (94th Department), the Île-de-France region, throughout France, and finally to several European countries.

Julia: The movement began at a high school in Val-de-Marne, in the Paris region, at a school where learning conditions are very difficult. The students are calling for more resources for education, more teachers, school psychologists employed by the Ministry of Education, and nurses. Very quickly, a large number of high schools across France joined the movement, demanding not only additional staff but also financial resources to bring a number of schools up to standard and renovate them. Finally, some demands challenge the current learning conditions by criticizing overly packed schedules and selection systems like Parcoursup, which cause anxiety for high school students throughout their high school years.

Pretty quickly, college students joined the movement by organizing through general assemblies and staging their own blockades of their campuses. In Lyon, various campuses were blockaded, including buildings where blockades are very rare. The same was true in Nice, where the College of Arts is in a state of serious disrepair. And surely the same is true in many other cities.

Tempest: How did the French government react?

Smael: The French government responded with heavy-handed police repression (more than 7,000 people taken into police custody to date, 96 percent of whom are minors). Several students were notably injured.

Léon: The government initially resorted to police repression and continues to do so. The only real, concrete measures announced since the movement began have been the allocation of 3,000 substitute teachers.

Hamet: The French government responded with severe repression, deploying law enforcement officers who engaged in acts of violence (beatings, people having their eyes gouged out, broken teeth) and physical assaults against French youth.

Tempest: Why are unions and social movements getting involved, and how? What is the relationship between the student movement, the unions, and the Left?

Smael: Relations between the student movement, the unions, and the Left are generally good. The student movement sets the dates for mobilizations following their general assemblies. (It sets the pace.) The unions join in on those dates, and the Left comes out to support the blockades and participates in the demonstrations.

They are getting involved because, for the vast majority, these are the demands they have long championed—it is their cause. And they are getting involved by participating in the scheduled protests and sharing information about the demonstrations on social media.

Léon: I think the other unions are also mobilizing because this is not a new problem, because the French people are fed up with our government, which doesn’t listen to us, and does nothing but erode the purchasing power of the French by making the rich even richer at the expense of the people.

Hamet: Unions and social movements are getting involved to align the high school students’ cause with that of workers. They are taking concrete action by informing students of their rights in the event of police custody, providing free legal representation, and offering logistical support during protests. All of this is of great help to young people.

As for the Left, it provides us with political and organizational support, but it does not interfere with the high school general assemblies. This preserves our genuine independence and prevents us from feeling patronized.

Julia: The social movement is involved in this mobilization in various ways. First, they are filing strike notices and calling for demonstrations based on the high school students’ demands and by expanding upon them. For example, education unions have championed the high school students’ demands by expanding them to include the working conditions of educational staff. Other unions have also come out in support of the high school students’ struggles, both in terms of their demands and in the face of the repression they have endured.

I believe one of the key challenges for the unions was to protect the high school students from police violence by standing by their side and providing them with material support (megaphones, sound systems, signs, etc.) and legal assistance (a help desk for accessing legal rights, referrals to lawyers, etc.).

Unions and left-wing organizations support the high school student movement in various ways and to varying degrees. Sometimes by being on the ground with them and trying to protect them. I’m thinking in particular of certain elected officials—notably members of La France Insoumise (a left-wing political party)—who have tried to dissuade the police from charging or firing on high school students. They also provide material and legal support without interfering with the students’ general assemblies or their decisions.

Tempest: What is the far right saying, and how might these events influence the 2027 elections?

Smael: The far right obviously supports law enforcement and not the students, arguing that students’ only right is “to go to class, sit down, and keep quiet.” And these events could influence the 2027 elections because they are currently a major focus of public debate.

Léon: The far right is quite pleased with the situation because it’s capitalizing on the anger of high school students, who sometimes vandalize things like trash cans, and it uses this to claim that if it were in power, there wouldn’t be these “problems with delinquency.” It also uses this to attack its opponent, La France Insoumise.

High school students are continuing their struggle despite heavy police repression and the violence used by the police.

Hamet: The far right refuses to listen to young people. It insists that the majority of young people simply want to study and work, adding that at our age, the previous generation faced the same problems. Young people respond that just because past generations endured these injustices without speaking out or rebelling doesn’t mean we have to do the same.

Julia: The far right is taking a nuanced stance. First, some far-right groups, such as Action Française (royalists), are trying to co-opt the movement by arguing that the demands made by high school students are legitimate but that violence is unacceptable. They advocate a return to order and a more peaceful approach to the struggle. Others condemn the movement, claiming it has been co-opted and led by La France Insoumise, and downplay the high school students’ demands. One might hear people say, “We used to have tough times too; young people just don’t want to work anymore.” Finally, some racism is directed toward the mobilized high school students because the movement began in working-class neighborhoods where educational conditions are particularly poor.

Tempest: What type and scale of organization have the students managed to establish?

Smael: The students organize themselves through general assemblies. They gather in committees by high school and college and propose and vote on decisions regarding the next steps in the mobilization. Other general assemblies are sometimes convened, but on a larger scale—by city, for example.

High school students are continuing their struggle despite heavy police repression and the violence used by the police.

Hamet: The students have succeeded in providing unprecedented support to high school students: A convergence of this magnitude between high school and college students had not occurred since May 1968. This has given much greater visibility to all of the demands.

Julia: I would say that this high school student movement is an experience for them in collectively organizing a group, a struggle, a blockade. Decisions are made in general assemblies about what they want to do and how they want to do it. The unions and political youth organizations that have traditionally been at the center of social movements are not behind this mobilization, even though they are present and come to support the high school students. I would say that the way high school students organize can vary: Some are driven by political motives, others by union interests, and still others remain within an organization at the level of their high school or local community. But there is a desire among some of them to become more structured. For example, we’re seeing youth action groups form in several cities within La France Insoumise (and this is surely the case in other organizations as well).

Tempest: Are there clearly defined political factions among the students, and do certain adult organizations play a role in the students’ politics or organization?

Smael: Yes, the left-wing faction is clearly at the heart of the student movement. This is because the movement also champions left-wing demands, more funding for the National Education System and public services in general. But the movement has grown so much that even right-wing students are participating, and some of them are shifting to the left as they listen to and come to understand the movement’s demands.

Léon: La France Insoumise has elected officials that have been coming to the demonstrations and blockades to help the high school students and protect them from violent police.

Hamet: Yes, political factions exist within certain high school student organizations. While this may sometimes appear to be political co-optation on their part, it also brings us visibility in return. Their attempts to influence us do not alter our initial demands, and they help us organize.

The high school students involved in the movement are highly politicized. They sometimes hold very materialist views and are acutely aware of inequalities in life, particularly regarding access to education. But they are also aware of discriminatory inequalities based on where they study and their presumed background. There also seems to be an anti-imperialist or decolonial perspective. This is evident in the number of Palestinian flags and demands related to international issues. One notable connection is the belief that all children should have access to school—which is not the case everywhere, particularly in Palestine. However, I think the movement is diverse, with varying levels of politicization and different political stances. And it seems important not to essentialize high school students.

I believe that “adult organizations”—such as associations, political parties, and unions—provide support. Their role is not so much to help high school and college students organize themselves but to provide support and experience. However, there has been a call for a general strike by the CGT (General Confederation of Labor) on November 5.

Tempest: Is it mainly high school students, or has the movement spread to colleges and universities?

Smael: Initially, it did indeed consist mainly of high school students, but the movement has spread to higher education institutions and universities. On Tuesday, October 6, 90 percent of universities were blockaded.

Léon: Yes, the high school students’ movement has also been joined by college students and others, who are now setting up roadblocks themselves because they’ve experienced the very issues we’re denouncing right now. There are also students coming to help with the high school students’ roadblocks.

Hamet: The movement has gradually expanded to higher education institutions and universities, which has allowed us to increase our visibility and draw much larger crowds during protests.

Julia: The movement began in high schools but is continuing in institutions of higher education. Numerous general assemblies are taking place on college campuses in an effort to organize the struggle. Many blockades have occurred. Students are mobilizing for more funding for higher education, the renovation of a number of buildings, against the elimination of housing assistance, and against the admissions processes via Parcoursup and “Mon Master” [a web portal for admissions to masters programs nationwide].

But some are also adopting an anti-imperialist stance. In fact, this morning at INSA [a network of public graduate engineering schools], only the buildings that have partnerships with arms manufacturers were blockaded. A connection is being drawn to the month-long campaign against the arms industry led by a number of organizations, such as the Stop Arming Israel collective.

Tempest: What impact will all of this have on the elections?

Smael: All of this has a real impact on the elections because this movement is raising awareness and politicizing a huge portion of the youth, who are now aware of the issues at stake and the importance of voting in 2027. And this increase in youth voter turnout in 2027 will play a major role in the victory of the radical Left, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s candidacy.

Léon: The impact this movement will have on the upcoming elections will be a double-edged sword. Because people who have seen the problems will, I think, be more inclined to vote for the Left, but there are also many people who will have seen only what the media reports—and since the media shows only the most striking and violent images—they’re afraid and think this high school movement is just a pretext for causing chaos.

Hamet: The images of repression seen by all French people are making people realize that change must happen as soon as possible. The high school student protests are not intended to wait for the election in six months, but to achieve results as soon as possible.

Julia: This movement brings to the forefront the issues of public services, education, discrimination, and equality—all themes championed by the Left. Furthermore, the support from La France Insoumise and other left-wing political groups for the high school student protests may lead these young people to vote more toward the left. Moreover, this mobilization is creating a dynamic of engagement and politicization among young people, which is positive for the radical left. And as we’ve seen, this is also reflected in the formation of political organizational branches, such as the “Insoumis” action groups. However, the anger on the streets does not always translate into votes at the polls, so it seems to me that we must undoubtedly remain cautious and continue to mobilize without assuming that victory is already assured. And, in my view, we will need to be vigilant against the far right co-opting the movement and against rhetoric that could exploit the movement for racist electoral purposes.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Guallendra, Aurelio Cárdenas, Patxi Beltzaitz; modified by Tempest.

The post Inside the French student revolt appeared first on Tempest.

Barbara Kopple’s latest film, Union Town, opens with a series of burn-ins about the staggering number of packages that “are delivered” and food deliveries that...

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We demand an immediate end to the U.S. blockade against Cuba—a silent genocide that violates human rights and condemns our people.

The post Cuba: To sow is to Resist, and to Resist is to Triumph appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

When 83-year-old Sam Getsinger thinks about the future, she pictures her five grandchildren and the world she wants to leave them. An important part of that world, Getsinger said, is a healthy democracy. So when she first heard about an initiative to limit Michigan utilities’ influence in political campaigns, she immediately volunteered to support it. 

“I don’t want our politics to continue so that the person with the most money wins everything,” Getsinger said. “I don’t think that’s a very sound democracy.” 

Getsinger spent months knocking on doors throughout northern Michigan. She said nearly all the people behind those doors agreed with her that utilities shouldn’t wield as much political influence as they do. 

Keeping corporate money out of elections is notoriously difficult in the United States, but next week Michiganders are going to vote on whether they should try it anyway, with a particular focus on the state’s electricity and gas utilities. Saying they are sick of power outages and high bills, advocacy groups and volunteers are pushing for a ballot measure they say will roll back utilities’ influence over state elections, freeing lawmakers to hold them accountable. Polls from supportive organizations show strong voter approval of the initiative, but even if it passes, and even if it survives legal challenges, some experts say it still won’t get all utility money out of politics.

The ballot proposal comes as customer dissatisfaction with Michigan utilities mounts — the state sees some of the highest utility rates in the country and the least reliable service. Rounds of extreme weather events like ice storms and tornadoes over the last few years left people without power for extended periods of time. Residents are angry at the increasing footprint of data centers in the state and the utilities that power them.

“Everything is more expensive. The quality of service is worse, and we are dealing with more air and water pollution as a result of utility influence in Lansing,” said Christy McGillivray, co-chair of Michiganders for Money Out of Politics, a coalition of local groups that collected 560,000 signatures to put the proposal on the ballot. “So we have to put a stop to it.”

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The measure is designed to plug up leaks in Michigan’s laws restricting corporate influence over politics. The state already prohibits corporations, including investor-owned utilities, from giving directly to political campaigns, but corporate dollars have plenty of other avenues into elections. The classic example is for companies to establish and fund nonprofit organizations known as political action committees, or PACs, which then contribute to campaigns or launch political advertisements. Last year, Michigan lawmakers and committees on both sides of the aisle accepted $421,000 in corporate utility donations, according to the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. In the 2022 election cycle, donations totaled more than $1.6 million across state and local races.

Proposal 2 would end some of that spending, prohibiting utility-funded PACs from giving directly to campaigns. It would also go a step further by prohibiting utility executives, board members, and even the family members of those individuals from giving to campaigns or parties. The same would go for other companies that provide services to state or local governments with contracts larger than $250,000. 

The measure would also tighten some loose bolts in Michigan’s campaign finance laws, making the funding of certain political ads more transparent and adding legal definitions to online political advertisements.

For Getsinger and many of the voters she spoke to, climate was an important motive in wanting to limit utilities’ political power. Michigan has set ambitious climate goals that require utilities to get 100 percent of their energy from clean and renewable sources by 2040, but utilities in Michigan have been seen as impeding climate and environmental progress.

Michigan utilities have lobbied against community solar, arguing that these programs would increase electricity rates. Legislation that would force utilities to pay to clean up contaminated sites has stalled at the state house because of industry pushback. And previous attempts to introduce legislation on what this year’s ballot proposal aims to do — curb utilities’ influence in the state capitol — have failed.

DTE Energy’s Monroe Power Plant lies on the shore of Lake Erie near Monroe, Michigan. The coal-fired plant is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the United States. DTE says it will close the plant by 2035. Jim West / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

However, it appears that Michigan lawmakers have become aware of the unpopularity of utility influence in politics. When the Michigan League of Conservation Voters launched its “No Utility Money Challenge” in 2025, pushing lawmakers to promise they wouldn’t accept money from utilities or associated groups, fewer than 10 candidates signed on. Today, that number has jumped to 126 candidates for state office, including Democrats and Republicans.

“These pledges are reflective of how toxic utility money has become, and that’s new,” said Karlee Weinmann, a research and communications manager for the Energy and Policy Institute, a think tank that focuses on utilities. “It used to not even be controversial in the state capitol to be connected with the utilities as a lawmaker.”

Critics like utilities and interest groups argue that Prop 2 infringes on freedom of speech and fails to address the outsize influence of out-of-state groups.

John Sellek, spokesperson for the opposition group Protect MI Free Speech, said supporters are using voters’ frustration with high costs of living “to carry out a much wider sneak attack” on Michiganders who can’t support candidates “simply because of who they are related to or contract with.” The group formed after Prop 2 was first proposed in 2025. Protect MI Free Speech has received $232,000 from utility interest groups, out of a total of about $851,000 from all sources, according to campaign finance disclosures tracked by the Michigan Transparency Network. In contrast, Michiganders for Money Out of Politics, also known as Mop Up Michigan, has received more than $8.7 million in contributions from individuals and voter interest groups. 

Consumers Energy, one of the state’s largest publicly regulated utilities, said it follows all campaign finance laws and reports political donations transparently. 

“Mop Up Michigan’s approach won’t eliminate money in politics — it will simply shift influence away from Michigan companies and toward wealthy national donors and special interests,” said Katie Carey, a spokesperson for the company. 

Supporters for Prop 2 in Lansing, Michigan, dropping off signatures for the ballot measure in May.
Photo courtesy of Michiganders for Money Out of Politics

Twenty-one states have made it illegal for corporations to donate directly to campaigns, but very few have tried to expand those limits as far as Prop 2 would, and none have done so by specifically targeting utilities. The coalition that helped write the ballot question said the goal was to rein in some of the “worst spenders” in state politics. “Nothing happens in our state legislature if regulated gas and electric utilities don’t greenlight it,” said McGillivray with Michiganders for Money Out of Politics.

Hawai‘i lawmakers passed a law in 2026 that would prevent all kinds of political spending by organizations, whether they’re corporations or nonprofits. (That law has already received two challenges in court.) Montana voters will see a similarly ambitious effort on their ballot in November. And states including Colorado, Connecticut, and Maine have set limits on utilities’ ability to fund political lobbying with ratepayer money.

If voters pass the measure, Michigan will almost certainly test the limits of what states can legally do to limit corporate money’s influence in politics. Though residents of many states might want restrictions like the ones listed in Prop 2, they probably haven’t materialized because the Supreme Court has severely limited their options. 

In 50 years of cases, culminating in the 2010 Citizens United case, courts have ruled that political spending is protected as a form of free speech, and that corporations have speech rights like individuals. As a result, governments have limited legal means to control corporate spending on elections. 

Governments can ban direct corporate contributions to candidates, courts have said, because it helps prevent corruption and its appearance, as well as the circumvention of contribution limits. States and federal lawmakers can also limit the amount that anyone, including corporate-aligned nonprofits, donates to campaigns. But lawmakers cannot prevent corporations from funding PACs that donate to campaigns. And governments can put almost no limits on some other kinds of political spending, namely expenditures on political advertising that supports a campaign without coordinating directly with that campaign. Corporations can contribute unlimited amounts of money to aligned nonprofit organizations that run these kinds of ads, trying to convince voters in one direction or another.

With those court decisions in place, some experts believe it would take nothing short of a constitutional amendment to put meaningful limits on corporations’ or wealthy individuals’ political spending. 

Opposition groups have vowed to sue Michigan if the ballot initiative wins. Experts point to limitations on PAC spending and family members’ political contributions as particularly vulnerable to legal attack.

And even if it beats those challenges, the measure still wouldn’t address the amount of corporate spending on politics, including lobbying and political spending on uncoordinated advertisements. 

“If one avenue is closed off to them, they can redirect that money to other entities that can effectuate pretty much the same goal,” said Karley Abramson, a research associate at the Citizens Research Council of Michigan, a nonpartisan research organization. 

Advocates for the initiative, like the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, acknowledge the limits on what it can do. It doesn’t matter, they say: Even if the measure can’t satisfy the system-wide frustration voters are feeling, it’s a step in the right direction. And anyway, it will let politicians know how serious their constituents are about holding utilities accountable.

“This is a really solid first step in starting to kind of push forward some more transparency,” said Nick Dodge, senior director of programs for the Michigan League of Conservation Voters.

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This story was originally published by Grist with the headline High power bills, blackouts land Michigan utilities on the ballot on Oct 27, 2026.

Subjecting the incarcerated residents of Texas to extreme heat constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and prisons statewide must install air-conditioning by the end of 2029.

Although the ruling Judge Robert Pitman issued last month is unique in its invocation of the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, it is an explicit recognition of an idea increasingly reflected in laws and policies nationwide: As extreme heat becomes more dangerous, even deadly, access to cooling is increasingly seen as a necessity rather than a luxury. This shift has been especially active in housing, where renters often face structural hurdles to accessing cool air, from high costs to explicit bans on the installation of air-conditioning.

This summer, jurisdictions across the U.S. passed policies setting maximum indoor temperatures, requiring landlords to provide AC, or otherwise expanding tenants’ access to cooling. The state of Maryland, for instance, said property owners with 10 or more units must install AC if they renovate. In Spokane, Washington, where 14 people died during a heat wave in July, landlords must now provide “adequate cooling” in at least one room of each unit.

“You can no longer responsibly rent a place if you don’t have a way of keeping it cool, because people will die,” said Brian Henning, director of the Institute for Climate, Water, and the Environment at Gonzaga University and a leading advocate for the Spokane policy.

Indeed, a study from 2024 found that renters were three times more likely than homeowners to need medical attention due to heat exposure at home, and researchers estimate as many as 50,000 people died during the five heat waves Europe experienced this summer. But unlike the incarcerated in Texas, whose protection rests on the Eighth Amendment, renters’ claim to safe indoor temperatures rests on a different and less explicit legal foundation.

It’s based, in part, on the “implied warranty of habitability,” a legal principle requiring landlords to provide the basic necessities for life — things like running water — even when they aren’t explicitly guaranteed in a lease or by law. Heating has long been understood as part of that warranty. As extreme heat poses an increasing threat to health, advocates argue that protection from dangerously high indoor temperatures should be as well.

“You can’t rent a place without heat,” said Doug Ruley, director of the Environmental Justice Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law. “The same is exactly true for cooling. I think the rights framing is powerful, and very consistent with how we Americans tend to think about things we care about.”

Tenants could, in theory, ask courts to recognize heat protection as part of the implied warranty of habitability. But rather than rely on judges, advocates have largely pursued explicit protections through housing codes and landlord-tenant laws. 

Exactly what those protections should guarantee — and how they are implemented — is far from settled.

The first question is whether they should require air-conditioning, as the ruling in Texas does, or simply establish a maximum allowable indoor temperature that property owners can comply with however they see fit. Clinton Andrews, director of the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University, believes the latter approach could encourage passive, energy-efficient methods, like planting trees or installing window shades. A well-designed performance standard also makes clear exactly what landlords are expected to achieve. Unlike a law that simply requires them to install AC or provide “adequate cooling,” a temperature threshold gives tenants and regulators something concrete to measure against.

A Los Angeles woman attempts to keep her infant daughter cool during the heat wave that hit Southern California in September. The apartment she shares with her parents and brother does not have air-conditioning.
Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Such a standard still requires deciding how hot is too hot, and there’s no universally accepted science on this. Some jurisdictions have settled on 82 degrees Fahrenheit. Others, like several cities in Canada, are exploring a limit closer to 79 degrees F. Stefano Schiavon, a professor of architecture and civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, said this is to some extent influenced by physiology and culture, because people regularly exposed to high temperatures can more readily adapt to hotter weather.

The same flexibility that appeals to Andrews, however, can also be a liability. Some housing advocates worry that a performance standard could allow a landlord to avoid providing the most effective — and costly — means of cooling: air-conditioning.

“The only intervention that is going to protect people’s lives in a heat event is AC,” said Chelsea Kirk, advocacy and policy director for the L.A. nonprofit Strategic Actions for a Just Economy. During a major heat wave, she added, “tree shade is not gonna get us there.”

Jurisdictions are already experimenting with different approaches. Houston’s right-to-cooling ordinance, approved in August, requires AC. It establishes air-conditioning as a health and safety standard for all rental housing, closing a loophole that had allowed landlords to forgo it in apartments with window screens. Spokane stops short of requiring AC, but says landlords must reimburse their tenants up to $500 if they want to install it themselves.

Los Angeles County has taken the performance-standard approach in its unincorporated communities. Beginning January 1, landlords must provide a “safe and code-compliant method” of maintaining a maximum indoor air temperature of 82 degrees F. The city of Los Angeles voted in February to explore a similar measure, though adoption has been delayed.

Other jurisdictions have adopted variations on these protections. Since 2020, New Orleans, New York City, and Austin, Texas, have passed cooling requirements, while Washington and Oregon have barred landlords from prohibiting tenants from installing their own AC units. In Arizona, the attorney general’s aggressive interpretation of housing laws has established what amounts to a de facto statewide AC requirement.

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Henning said he’s been in talks with advocacy groups and state legislators about taking Spokane’s right-to-cooling policy statewide, while lawmakers and officials elsewhere in the U.S. and Canada are weighing similar measures.

One hurdle advocates will likely continue to face is cost. Landlords argue cooling requirements will lead to higher rents, though researchers say there’s scant evidence to support that. Some tenant advocates and other experts worry greater reliance on AC could mean higher utility bills. Supporters of such mandates concede that is a significant concern, but not a reason to deprive people of AC.

“Tenants can make their own choices. I don’t think somebody’s going to be, like, ‘Well, I’d rather risk dying tonight because I don’t want to turn on the AC,” said Michele Thomas, director of policy and advocacy for the nonprofit Washington State Housing Alliance.

C.J. Gabbe, an associate professor of environmental studies and sciences at Santa Clara University, said one way to help cover cooling costs would be to expand the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The Trump administration fired the federal staff that administered the program last year and has proposed eliminating it, but Congress continues funding it. This month, the administration released about $3.6 billion for the current fiscal year.

Experts Grist spoke with stressed that expanding access to cooling can’t be a substitute for addressing the climate change that is making it increasingly necessary. Ultimately, Henning said, governments must address the underlying causes of the crisis by stopping the burning of fossil fuels. “Otherwise, these problems will continue to outstrip our ability to address them,” he told Grist. “We can’t just AC the world.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline As extreme heat worsens, renters are gaining a ‘right to cooling’ on Oct 27, 2026.

“Our job is to move together as far and as fast down the path as we can …”
– Prime Minister Mark Carney, Sept. 30, 2026

TIMES ARE CHANGING. This week, this month, the signals are there for Indigenous people: the terrain on which we discuss reconciliation is shifting. 

This week, in our home province of British Columbia (B.C.), a Conservative government, which campaigned on expediting resource development, repealing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), and a host of other anti-Indigenous commitments — including prohibiting land acknowledgements — was overwhelmingly elected to a majority government. In other words, a party that ran, and won, based largely on anti-Indigenous policies, will govern for the next four years and inevitably fuel the flames of anti-Indigenous racism.

Meanwhile, in advance of the First Ministers’ meeting, also this week, First Nations had an opportunity to discuss reconciliation. Grassroots organizations, angry at the Federal Government’s new approach to the “nation-to-nation” relationship, called for protests. And what is that new approach?

Late last month, on the sixth annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s address laid out the national agenda. The language of a shared path toward reconciliation sits uneasily alongside a political and economic plan built on accelerating resource extraction, no matter the socio-ecological impacts.

There is a familiar logic here: land becomes commodity, resources become opportunities, and speed becomes a measure of progress. For Indigenous Peoples whose rights, territories, and relationships to land and waters are at stake, the question is not simply how fast Canada can move down the path, but at what cost? 

These recent signals of the change have a contemporary context. Since the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Final Report (2015) only 15 of 94 Calls to Action have been completed. Progress on these actions is further jeopardized by the Supreme Court of Canada’s looming destruction of the largest and most comprehensive body of Indian Residential School records, which is set to take place in September 2027. Multiple reports, inquiries, and investigations outline the ongoing harms caused by residential schools, colonization, genocide, and racism (RCAP, 1996; TRC, 2015; National Inquiry, 2019; Report on Missing Children and Unmarked Graves, 2024). On September 30th of this year, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal released its finding that Canada “committed the international crimes of genocide… and crimes against humanity” (para. 7). This ruling’s release coincides with increased residential school denialism, including the white nationalist gathering that took place on Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc territory where the first unmarked graves were confirmed. 

Days after this year’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, on October 1st, Carney announced the Pacific Link Pipeline (formerly the West Coast Oil Pipeline), which is set to become the first “national interest” project under Bill C-5’s Building Canada Act. This follows the introduction of Bill C-39, the Building Canada Strong Act, and the September 29th support for LNG Canada’s Phase 2 project. In the days surrounding September 30th, these announcements demonstrate that Canada is only interested in reconciliation that sustains its access to our territories, lands, and waters. Such tactics constitute “feigned redress… an inclusion that is nothing more than thinly veiled assimilation” (George 2017, 49). 

How will this new approach to “reconciliation” shape Indigenous-Crown relations? 

Building Canada or Bypassing Process? Reconciliation as Compliance

Aside from the troubling trends above, the clearest evidence we have of the new landscape is Bill C-39. This is the most recent omnibus bill using the purported urgency of the political moment to expedite environmental assessment and permitting processes. It will streamline consultation, increasing pressure on governments and communities to respond to proposed projects quickly. No one yet knows how consultation will unfold under the legislation. 

But by constraining the time available for cultural continuity, harvesting, visiting, and collective decision-making, this dynamic contributes to the “politics of distraction,” which serves to further “separate us from our homelands, cultures, and communities” (Corntassel 2012, 91). This expediting demonstrates a similar strategy: community consultations for Pacific Link held to a two-month timeline, despite concerns due to overlapping community, cultural, and harvesting practices (Passafiume 2026). Rather than assessing projects individually, Bill C-39 creates mechanisms through which entire regions and categories of development can be pre-designated in the national interest. Unsurprisingly, given the Carney government’s deprioritization of climate change in favor of “economic advantages,” the Pacific Link pipeline has been greenlit. 

Ottawa maintains that Indigenous communities will be offered 10% ownership in Pacific Link, but offering communities an opportunity to invest in a pipeline does not equate to securing their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). Indigenous opposition to Pacific Link is mounting, with many groups considering court action, noting a violation of the Crown’s duty to consult. The Union of BC Indian Chiefs (2026) released a statement in opposition of the project’s “national interest” designation, with Grand Chief Stewart Phillip noting, “We have a duty and an obligation to protect our rights to the fullest extent of the law and we have every intention of doing that. This is not a cake walk, this is not a ‘gimme,’ this will be hard-fought in the court rooms, and if necessary, with boots on the ground” (para. 2). 

Carney’s brand of reconciliation depends on a predatory economy built on the extraction and export of natural resources. In essence, the Canadian government seems to be happy to reconcile with Indigenous Nations who say yes to development, while those who say no, or simply need more time, are left to question whether “reconciliation” really means “compliance.” The Costs We Count, and the Costs We Don’t

The Pacific Link will cost Canadians between $35.2 billion and $43.7 billion. While counter-intuitive in light of recent global politics, the outlook for global oil demand actually remains poor, and is projected to reach a “plateau followed by a permanent decline within the next 5-10 years.” This already expensive infrastructure could become another energy-transition related stranded asset. In light of this, the designation of “national interest” does not resolve the underlying question of whether it is, in fact, a sound public investment.

The promotion of economic reconciliation through resource development also raises questions about what this framing looks like in practice. While Indigenous ownership and participation in major projects may be presented as economic opportunities, it does not necessarily translate into meaningful decision-making power, recognition of Indigenous jurisdiction, or consent. Potential financial benefits do not resolve the broader question of who will bear the long-term economic, environmental, and social costs of continued resource extraction amid increasingly volatile environmental and geopolitical conditions. 

Canada is already 20 years behind schedule in achieving its international climate commitments, and is on track to be five degrees Celsius warmer by 2100. The Pacific Link pipeline would carry “approximately one million barrels of crude oil a day along roughly 1,250 kilometres,” impacting over 100 Indigenous communities. In recent years, public support for climate action has slipped, while the impacts of climate change are accelerating. In 2026, drought and wildfire devastated river levels in B.C., affecting keystone species like salmon (Pacific Salmon Foundation 2026, para. 8). These watershed impacts are far-reaching, impacting food security, culture, and relationality — costs often not captured within standard risk assessment processes. These impacts also extend beyond human communities, affecting the non-human relations with whom these ecosystems are shared.

The Pacific Link project includes a “sacrifice zone,” which overlaps with the Southern Resident Killer Whale (SRKW) habitat, a unique population of orca that live in the Salish Sea, whose diet consists entirely of pacific salmon. Despite the $1.2 billion dollar pledge for ocean protection announced on September 29th, experts remain skeptical that the increased spending will reduce the “suite of threats” facing the SRKW (para 7). The pledge is “pennies” (Owen 2026, para. 24) compared with Ottawa’s $10-billion contribution to the proposed Roberts Bank expansion,” a major marine container terminal expansion in Delta, B.C., which will grow the port’s capacity by approximately 50%, adding further pressures on the SRKW. The environmental impacts under C-39 will further strain this at-risk population through increased tanker traffic, climate change, noise pollution, and declining salmon stocks. This risk is exacerbated by the proposed weakening of legislation designed to protect the SRKW.

In 2018 and 2025, a mother orca named Tahlequah (J-35) made international headlines by carrying her stillborn calf for 17 days. Tahlequah’s response makes visible a form of care, grief, and relational connection that is deeply recognizable: what is important cannot be reduced to economics. Nor should it be. 

Hard numbers aside, the “national interest” test tends to make project-by-project economic benefits visible, while making cumulative, long-term, geographically distributed harms, and harms to non-human worlds much harder to account for.  What is Actually in the National Interest?

There is an urgent need to reconsider the “national interest” narrative. A framework that privileges economic returns above all else undermines the future it promises to build. If reconciliation is meant to transform the Crown–Indigenous relationship, why does the Crown continue to hold the ultimate authority in determining what constitutes a single vision of our shared future?

We can no longer afford to be shortsighted. Climate change is already here; our plans need to be made for future generations, rather than the gains of a short-term economic boom. B.C.’s newly elected Conservative government is a symbol of troubling times ahead. Combined with residential school and climate change denialism, late-stage capitalism, and support for Carney’s “national interest,” we are preparing ourselves, once again, to stand up for what matters and to protect our territories for future generations. 

Whether on the frontlines or in the courts, Indigenous Peoples will continue to challenge visions of our futures that erode our rights and our responsibilities to the life around us. Indigenous rights, jurisdiction, and sovereignty are not political bargaining chips, and our territories are still not for sale at the cost of a vision of national interest.

Endnotes

Corntassel, Jeff. “Re-envisioning Resurgence: Indigenous Pathways to Decolonization and Sustainable Self-Determination.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, & Society, vol. 1, no.1 (2012): 86-101, https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18627. 

George, Rachel Y. “Inclusion is just the Canadian word for assimilation: Self-determination and reconciliation paradigm in Canada.” In Surviving Canada: Indigenous peoples celebrate 150 years of betrayal, edited by K. L. Ladner and Myra Tait. Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2017.

National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls [National Inquiry]. Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. National Inquiry, 2019, https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/final-report. 

Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves. Upholding Sacred Obligations. Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor, 2024, https://osi-bis.ca/report/final-report-october-2024-2/. 

Passafiume, Alessia. “Indigenous groups given just 2 months to consult on Pacific Link pipeline designation.” Global News, October 2, 2026, https://globalnews.ca/news/12084779/pacific-link-pipeline-indigenous-consultation/. 

Pacific Salmon Foundation. “Fraser sockeye forecast reduced by 61% as drought, wildfire grip B.C.” Pacific Salmon Foundation, August 20, 2026, https://psf.ca/blog/2026-fraser-sockeye-forecast-halved-as-drought-wildfire-grip-bc/?st_source=ai_overview.

Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples [RCAP]. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. RCAP, 1996, https://www.canada.ca/en/library-archives/collection/research-help/indigenous-history/royal-commission-aboriginal-peoples.html.  

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada [TRC]. Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future. TRC, 2015, https://nctr.ca/publications-and-reports/reports/#trc-reports. 

Union of BC Indian Chiefs [UBCIC]. “UBCIC Rejects “National Interest” Designation for Toxic West Coast Oil “pacific link” Pipeline.” UBCIC, October 1, 2026, https://www.ubcic.bc.ca/ubcic_rejects_national_interest_designation_pacific_link.

Waters, Shannon. “B.C.’s DRIPA drama — explained.” The Narwhal, May 6, 2026, https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-declaration-act-explainer/.

Citation:

Wale, Janna and Michaela McGuire. “The Narrow National Interest: Sacrificing Reconciliation & Climate to “Build Canada Strong” Yellowhead Institute. Oct 26 2026. https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2026/the-narrow-national-interest-sacrificing-reconciliation-climate-to-build-canada-strong

Artwork by Tyson Brown

 

The post The Narrow National Interest: Sacrificing Reconciliation & Climate to “Build Canada Strong” appeared first on Yellowhead Institute.

Climate resilience and adaptation remain largely neglected in UK politics, a glaring omission our proposal aims to address.

On 23 July 2025, the International Court of Justice said what scientists had been saying for forty years: states are legally obliged to protect the climate system.

I’m writing this post from the Isle of Iona, a small island with a rich history.

However you vote, fossil fuels win Channel Comment brendan 27th October 2026 Teaser Media

Communities that drive less and have more mobility options also have fewer deadly crashes, a new study confirms — so why is reducing car dependency so rarely discussed as a life-saving strategy in its own right?

In a fascinating recent study, researchers found that states whose residents drove more miles on average also reported more crashes on average — at least when states recorded those stats on a per capita basis, rather than the misleading per-mile basis on which many US transportation officials rely.

Wyoming, for instance, recorded both the highest average fatality rate across modes and the highest average driving mileage, while New York reported the lowest on both counts.

That finding might seem intuitive to street safety advocates, or anyone who’s taken a vacation to car-light places like Denmark. But when you think about it, it’s weird how little safety leaders tend to talk about reducing car dependency specifically as a tool to save lives — and how infrequently attacks on funding for transit service are received by the public as acts of premeditated road violence.

“I think Safe Systems is great, and we’ve made a lot of progress on road safety over the last couple decades — but in the U.S., we’ve stagnated a little bit,” said Nick Ferenchak, a professor at University of New Mexico and co-author of the paper. “To me, the elephant in the room is that a lot of our places are pretty auto-dependent … [If we have] more driving, we’re going to get more car crashes, and we really need to have a conversation about that.”

Recommended Why ‘Safe Systems’ Are Not Enough to End Road Violence Kea Wilson February 26, 2024

Ferenchak’s co-author, Todd Litman, explains that many transportation officials are hesitant — likely for political reasons — to acknowledge that cars are the only common denominator in all car crashes, and prefer to focus on stamping out extra-dangerous “outlier” driving behaviors instead.

“The standard transportation engineering narrative is that driving is not inherently dangerous, so traffic safety programs should be targeted [to] youths and drunks and bad actors,” he added. “The unstated assumption is that reducing driving is so onerous that it would be unfair to force responsible [motorists] to reduce their driving just because of the risks [imposed by] an irresponsible minority.”

But those bad apples tend to stay in the barrel if they don’t have any place else to go. Less-deadly drivers, meanwhile, are human beings who make mistakes too — and because a fallible person piloting a multi-ton, ultra-fast hunk of metal is inherently dangerous, those mistakes often cost lives.

In car-dominated communities, though, most residents lack a good bus route or bike path to take instead, so they remain firmly behind the wheel. In each of the 20 most dangerous states on the researchers’ list, average annual per capita vehicle miles traveled topped 10,000.

“We have graduated licenses; we have special testing for seniors; we have anti-drunk driving and anti-impaired driving campaigns,” Litman adds. “But if we don’t invest in good alternatives? Those fail.”

Recommended California’s State Transportation Officials Say We ‘Need to Drive Less’ Melanie Curry August 8, 2023

While the researchers hesitate to say that reducing driving outright causes crash deaths to plummet on roads, they do say there’s enough evidence of a strong correlation to empower transportation officials to change how they operate. Because at the end of the day, making driving non-mandatory doesn’t mean banishing all cars from the face of the earth — and it may actually make motoring better.

“New policy should [work] to make more [travel] possible through safe and practical alternatives,” said Abbas Sheykhfard, who also co-authored the study. “These changes may reduce driving exposure across the system while preserving access and other facilities for people who want to continue to drive.”

More to the point, it won’t take many car-limiting policies to get America a lot closer to Vision Zero.

“The travel behavior shifts to improve safety outcomes would be pretty modest,” added Ferenchak. “We’re not talking about turning the entire USA into Utrecht. Just 10 to 15 percent reductions in car-orientation, and our [road safety] outcomes are on par with some of our international peers.”

Recommended Advocates Warn Short-Term Transit Cuts Could Foreshadow Deeper Long-Term Slashing Kea Wilson September 29, 2026

The researchers acknowledge that in many US communities, it’d be political suicide to embrace full-on VMT reduction targets – even if evidence suggests that doing so might save lives, at least in the context of shifting public dollars away from highways and towards great multimodal options.

Still, transportation officials could internally score proposed “safety” projects more highly if they also reduce overall driving — or at the very least promote the life-saving potential of projects that shift people onto other modes, even if that’s not why they were initially launched. Litman offers increasing fuel taxes to stabilize budgets and walk-to-school programs to promote student health as two examples of powerful safety strategies that aren’t usually sold as such.

And by contrast, as lawmakers in Washington take aim at federal transit funding and smear anything that even remotely smacks of “green,” he says it’s more important than ever to call out the fact that axing mode shift strategies costs real lives.

“Any politician that calls themselves conservative should support win-win safety strategies because they deliver so much value,” Litman added. “I understand how these issues have become so ideologically weaponized. But if there is a true conservative out there, they should be very interested in this research.”

Donate to the fund to support the Toronto bike lane removal protestors here.

On Tuesday October 13, 2026, at around 8pm, myself and several hundred other people on bikes stood in front of multiple construction vehicles that had been sent to remove lanes in Toronto. After about 45 minutes of Toronto Police officers unsuccessfully trying to cajole cyclists out of the way of the trucks, workers without any animosity advised protestors that if we would allow them to pass, they would go home and not start removing bike lanes that night. 

It was a big win in the first on-street battle for safe streets in Ontario Canada’s ongoing bike lane saga.

“Get home safe! Get home safe!” protestors chanted as the workers in their vehicles were escorted out of the crowd and away from the bike lanes they had come to help remove. We weren’t mocking them with our chant. Rather “Get home safe!” strikes to the core of why we were there putting our lives and liberty on the line: road safety, and the benefits separated cycling infrastructure convey to all road users.

How we got here

In Canada’s largest city, Toronto, our bike lanes have been under attack for nearly two years now by Provincial Premier Doug Ford.

While today he holds an office similar in power to the governor of a state in the US, Ford actually lost a mayoral election years ago that has since spawned into a grudge against the city who rebuffed him. He’s also the less famous brother of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who famously declared there was a “War on Cars” — which resulted in our first and only bike lane removals in 2011, and inspired the name of the famous Brooklyn-based podcast.

Doug Ford presents himself as ‘Captain Canada,’ standing up against Donald Trump’s trade war. But the two officials have a lot in common politically — including their fixation on removing bike lanes. Both are men who know how to divide and conquer voters, or whip up culture wars as a distraction.  

With sagging approval ratings — another similarity with Trump — Doug Ford and his government have distracted the populace from their decline by targeting people on bikes in Toronto. We’ve seen constant threats and media scrums about the congestion caused by bike lanes, all of which are refuted by data and actual evidence. 

For months, local advocacy organization Cycle Toronto has been fighting Premier Ford’s Bill 212, which sets out the provincial power to remove specific bike lanes in Toronto, while practically halting the installation of bike lanes elsewhere in the province. 

The legal battle has been a long roller coaster, and after the tough loss for advocates in August, Ford saw a window to go after a stretch of bike lanes quite literally in his own backyard. With record low approval numbers and a base that needs satisfying, this far west end of our growing cycling network was seen as an easy initial salvo by the premier. 

But advocates haven’t made it easy for him.

A winning formula — and a call to action

In the last weeks, groups of cyclists have shown up to defend their bike lanes from early in the morning to late in the night — even though those lanes are seven miles from the downtown core, which is the traditional hotbed of cycling in Toronto.  

We have blocked construction and peacefully observed bollards, barriers and bus platforms being torn out of the road, all to demonstrate against the taxpayer-funded removal of taxpayer-funded infrastructure. Throughout, the removals have been guarded by taxpayer-funded police forces that have included riot cop battalions, mounted officers, drones, unmarked vehicles, and dozens of cruisers. Protestors have been threatened and charged criminally under draconian terms of release, which we will be fighting in court.

These protests have been large, like the one that shut down work completely on October 13 or slowed it down markedly on October 14, 15, 16, 19 and 20. Smaller groups, meanwhile, have staged “die-ins” or “critical mass”-style rides down the middle of the roadway to demonstrate what sharing the lanes is going to be like once the bike paths are gone. 

The people of Toronto have shown up. And we believe this initial struggle sets the tone for what will be required to remove the remaining proposed 18 kms of bikes lanes, in terms of time, costs, political capital, and police resources.

We hope this community response on the ground — alongside legal and political strategies behind the scenes — will prove to be a winning formula. But even if not, it’s our obligation. 

Bike lanes are a matter of life and death. The people of Toronto are amongst the first to wage this scale of a fight, not just across Canada but also in the U.S. Our response, tactics and community-driven solidarity can and should be mirrored in similar fights. We know people on bikes in Minnesota ride in the thousands in deep winter for their murdered community members, Alex Pretti and Renee Good; pedal power is there. 

We hope to see solidarity rides or displays in U.S. cities — and when your bike lanes come under attack, you can expect the same from us.

• You need a special driver’s license to ride a motorcycle or drive a big rig, so why do we let just anybody tow a boat with a giant truck or get behind the wheel of what is essentially a race car? (Jalopnik)
• NACTO has a new guide out for designing transit-friendly streets.
• The D.C. Metro and L.A. Metro are seeking federal permission to run automated trains, which are common in the rest of the world but rare in the U.S. (Associated Press)
• Two South Florida commuter rail projects cleared state and federal milestones. (Trains)
• The Pacific Northwest has big plans for passenger rail. Now all the region needs is funding. (Oregon Public Broadcasting)
• A new 1,000-space parking structure has made one of Honolulu’s most dangerous streets for cyclists and pedestrians even worse. (Island News)
• Sound Transit needs to find $10 billion by 2033 to fulfill its promise of building an already-delayed metro Seattle light rail line by the new deadline of 2042. (My Ballard)
• A hit-and-run driver killed a teenage pedestrian in Seattle, later identified as a member of prominent athletic family the Tuiasosopos. Deejay’s relative Matt was formerly a coach for my beloved Atlanta Braves. (KOMO)
• Las Vegas cyclists are rightfully miffed that drivers are waiting in bike lanes to pick up their kids from school. (Fox 5)
• Colorado is not ready for Waymo. (News From the States)
• Car-centric Dallas suburbs are going all in on walkable downtowns. (Morning News)
• In a rare exception to Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, yes, Charleston Post and Courier, safer biking and walking does help the climate.
• YouTube urban planning influencer CityNerd declared Minneapolis the best biking city in the U.S. (Star Tribune)
• Muni service was disrupted over the weekend when a San Francisco driver drove their vehicle into a subway tunnel and abandoned it. (Mission Local)

Most of Planet Earth now knows cruelty is the point of Trump 2. But if anyone implausibly needs more evidence, meet Rev. Edward Nalwamba, a 79-year-old, pro-democracy Ugandan priest who spent over a year in ICE detention. When he went in, he was fit; at his long-delayed release last week, fellow detainees had to carry him to a car because officials wouldn't let him take his wheelchair that far. To ICE, he charged, "You are an animal...They forget they are dealing with human beings."

In the last 18 months, the Trump regime has deported nearly a million people, and killed at least 60, including two U.S citizens in cold blood and broad daylight. The family of one, Renee Good, has filed two federal civil lawsuits over her Jan. 7 murder, alleging wrongful death, "negligent infliction of emotional distress," conspiracy to conceal evidence, and coordinated campaigns of "aggression and abduction" against ethnic communities and "intimidation and violence" against their allies. And of course it has detained, terrorized, traumatized or shattered the lives of untold thousands, the vast majority with no criminal history.

One was the good Rev. Nalwamba, who arrived in the U.S. in 2002 for a religious conference. Having publicly condemned human rights abuses by the Ugandan government, and subsequently heard from colleagues that government agents were pursuing him, he decided to stay in Colorado and apply for asylum. In 2010, after his application was denied, he began living peaceably in Lakewood under a 15-year ICE supervision order, reporting to immigration officials as required, working as a health aide for people with developmental disabilities, and serving as a pastor at nearby Resurrection Anglican Fellowship until he retired two years ago.

In September 2025 he was arrested by ICE; they charged he was under a removal order dating back to 2010, and that he'd failed to "cooperate with efforts to obtain travel documents" before a deadline, aka to help with his own deportation in a timely manner. He was taken to the GEO Group's private ICE detention facility in Aurora, where for over a year DHS repeatedly vowed to deport him and then didn't. On Oct. 20, after his lawyers filed a second habeas corpus petition, Judge Cyrus Chung ruled feds had exceeded a “presumptively reasonable” six months of holding time with "no concrete plan” to return him to Uganda, and ordered his release.

When he was detained, Nalwamba was a fit 77-year-old who regularly walked, exercised and played ping pong. Inside, his health quickly deteriorated. He caught pneumonia which persisted for weeks, lost over 30 pounds and the ability to walk, developed a stubborn cough, chest pain, scratchy throat, headache and fatigue that were never treated - and besides, "You don’t want to go to the hospital - they shackle you like a bull.” "He walked in. He can't walk now," noted Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper. "They want the misery of one person to be known by others. It's a low-rent form of terrorism to make people so scared they'll self-deport."

Along with the barbaric cruelty, observers also blasted the "staggering hypocrisy" of a regime that simultaneously charged Biden et al "targeted" Christians yet in their voter intimidation efforts sent ICE into churches, interrogated church staff, and detained and abused a church elder. Last week, because they hadn't alienated Christians enough by picking a fight with the Pope, they also turned a supposed prayer gathering of Catholic bishops into a sleazy photo op, prompting two angry Archbishops to apologize, charge they'd been "manipulated," and clarify this was "in no way an endorsement of the president, his policies, or his party."

In the final, petty degradation meted out to Rev. Nalwamba, detention officials told his attorneys they would ensure his safe passage on release with a wheelchair and escort, and then reneged on it all. The wheelchair couldn't go out to the gate, they insisted, nor could vehicles approach it. Hickenlooper: "There is no excuse for this cruelty. None.” In the end - no surprise here - it was two young mensches also being released who hooked their arms together - one lawyer: "It was heartbreaking and it was infuriating" - carried the reverend to his waiting car, and went on their way: "They didn't even give me a chance to say thank you.".

After his release, a buoyant Nalwamba said he’s “in another world." He talked to his children, he's well fed, he’s staying with a family who lent him an electric scooter to get around. The next day, he visited a health clinic to get a chest X-ray, blood work, TB testing. He looks forward to physical therapy and reconnecting with his church community: "I am a happy man." Except for the monsters, still here. DHS said they were "forced" by "an activist judge" to release "an illegal alien" who "chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation's laws." Most vitally, "He remains in the country illegally," under a removal order, without legal status.

So much, or not yet for Obama's Michigan citing of "a decency we should expect from our public officials." Attorneys plan to reopen Nalwamba's asylum case; conditions in Uganda have seriously deteriorated with widespread crime, unrest and targeting of political opponents and a U.S. "Do not travel" advisory in effect. At the same time, says attorney Joy Athanasiou, she has never seen "this inhumanity and cruelty" over 20 years of working with detained clients. Before, there were under 1,000 habeas corpus petitions a year; now there are about 90,000, a demand "100 times greater than what we can provide.”

Nalwamba says his thoughts remain with those innocents still inside a callous, corrosive environment worse than any maximum security prison. He loves the America he has lived in for almost 26 years, he says, and has always thought African and other countries should aspire to be like the U.S. But no more, he adds, not without drastic change. Those other countries, he argues, treat their livestock better than he was treated. "It's as if they've gotten used to treating people that way, like they're taking care of goats or cows,” he said. “I have never imagined human beings treated like I saw in this place."

The Rev. Edward Nalwamba Photo by Resurrection Anglican Fellowship

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 27, 2026

MEDIA CONTACTS
Stephanie Ambriz, 442-400-2534, sambriz@leadershipcounsel.org

BAKERSFIELD, CA — After a 6-hour hearing on October 14, 2026, the Southern Region Hearing Board of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District upheld the Authority to Construct Permit for a hydrogen energy project at the Kern Energy oil refinery. 

This decision came after community groups 184 Community Action Group and Comité Progreso de Lamont, represented by Leadership Counsel and the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, submitted a petition on May 29, 2026 calling for the revocation of the Permit. Petitioners alleged that District staff violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the AB 617 Community Emissions Reduction Program (CERP), and federal and state Stationary Source Review requirements. However, the Petitioners’ CEQA and CERP claims were dismissed at a preliminary hearing on August 12, 2026. The remaining Stationary Source Review claim, outlined in Petitioners’ trial brief, was argued at length on October 14.

“Residents living near the refinery suffer some of the worst air quality in the United States” said Vivyana Prado, Staff Attorney with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, “the Clean Air Act is supposed to improve air quality and alleviate related health issues. However, improper implementation and inadequate enforcement of the Clean Air Act at the local, state, and federal levels are making conditions worse. ”

“We simply ask that Kern Energy abide by state, federal, and Air District rules and regulations. It is the bare minimum the refinery can do for our communities,” said Kayla Karimi, Staff Attorney with the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment. “The Hearing Board’s determination last week allows Kern Energy to avoid doing even that bare minimum.”

Kern Energy has accumulated more than 500 violations over the last decade, which include release of more air pollutants than legally permitted, gas leaks and “fugitive emissions”, failure to monitor or report pollution, pollution control systems that are either not installed or not functioning, and more. Fence-line air monitoring shows daily exposures to benzene, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and nitrogen dioxide–chemicals linked to cancer, respiratory illness, and death. Flares and noxious odors frequently trigger emergency responses. Moreover, residents of Fuller Acres have consistently identified Kern Energy as a major source of pollution and a health concern. 

“While Kern Energy has paid fines, residents see no direct cleanup or benefits. Fuller Acres is treated as a sacrifice zone, where toxic exposure is normalized by industry and elected leaders,” said Jennifer Martinez, a Fuller Acres resident in the 184 Community Action Group. 

“Kern Energy has shown itself to be a bad neighbor,” said Diana Mireles, President of the Comité Progreso de Lamont. “The community does not feel safe with something as dangerous and new as hydrogen energy in Kern Energy’s hands, knowing they would rather pay fines than protect public health, as they have done for years. This is made worse by the lack of public emergency response planning.”

Community members remain deeply concerned about the lack of emergency response preparedness. Hydrogen leaks easily and is very flammable, which creates significant safety risks for surrounding communities. Furthermore, producing hydrogen energy from fossil sources can harm local air quality and release dangerous pollutants.

184 Community Action Group remains steadfast in their commitment to improve the health and well-being of their community.

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184 Community Action Group is a community organization formed by residents and their family members of disadvantaged communities, communities that face high economic, health, or environmental challenges, in and near Fuller Acres to advocate for the overall health and wellbeing of their communities, including equitable energy policy programs, and investments that protect public health, prevent climate change, and reduce risk of harm to residents. 

Comité Progreso de Lamont is a community-based organization formed to achieve a healthy environment and to improve community quality of life through resident and advocacy. The Comité works to hold local polluting industries accountable using collective action strategies and legal and policy tools.

Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability works alongside the most impacted communities in the San Joaquin Valley and Eastern Coachella Valley to advocate for sound policy and eradicate injustice to secure equal access to opportunity regardless of wealth, race, income, and place. Leadership Counsel focuses on issues like housing, land use, transportation, safe and affordable drinking water and climate change impacts on communities.

Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN) supports grassroots leadership to promote environmental health education, community organizing, collaborative dialogue, and political involvement among rural, underserved communities of color in the San Joaquin Valley. 

The Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment works in Kern and Tulare counties alongside the most impacted communities to protect our air, land, water, health, and economic security through collective action, community lawyering, and policy advocacy.

The post After Years of Pollution, the Kern Energy Hydrogen Project Will Proceed Without Environmental Review appeared first on Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability.

After losing in the first round of elections and given little chance of victory, Lula, with a powerful mobilization of working people and a head-on confrontation with Meta and tech…

Op-Ed by Victoria Higgins, CCAN Action Fund’s Virginia Director, initially published in Richmond Times Dispatch.

Recently, NextEra CEO John Ketchum joined President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to celebrate a $54 billion investment in a new gas pipeline in Alaska. In his remarks, Mr. Ketchum said Trump has done an “amazing” job on energy.

Really?

If NextEra welcomes Trump’s energy policies, Virginians have cause to be concerned about the Florida-based company’s proposed acquisition of Dominion Energy.

Donald Trump promised voters he would cut electricity prices in half within 18 months; instead, by that deadline, residential rates had climbed at twice the rate of inflation. This was not bad luck; it was policy. His signature tax law gutted the clean energy credits that were bringing the cheapest new power onto the grid, and Rhodium Group projects that this move alone will push the national average household energy bill up by $78–$192 a year by 2035. Then Trump launched a war with Iran, choking off the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world’s LNG flows. The Pentagon estimates this has already cost $29 billion.

In a move so transparently ideological it’s nearly satirical, the administration has now agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion in taxpayer money to developers just to walk away from their offshore wind leases — after courts blocked Trump’s earlier attempts to kill the industry outright. That’s money spent to guarantee less power: offshore wind would have saved regional ratepayers roughly $400 million last winter. Estimates suggest that canceling the five major East Coast projects the administration tried to halt would add $45 billion to the bills over the next decade.

It’s all well and good for Mr. Ketchum. NextEra’s John Ketchum took home $24.2 million the same year Florida regulators approved a record $6.9 billion rate hike for its Florida Power & Light subsidiary. He is hellbent on “winning the AI race” and proudly brags that his company is spending a billion dollars a week to build the energy infrastructure to get there. And he’s not alone: 51 investor-owned electric and gas companies paid their CEOs a combined $626 million in 2025, while everyday families struggled to keep the lights on while putting food on the table. The numbers paint a picture of two Americas: nearly all (98%) Dominion shareholders voted in favor of handing the keys to Virginia’s energy future to NextEra. In contrast, 3 in 4 Virginia voters (76%) said the merger will raise electricity costs.

All of this makes it very clear to me: NextEra is not here out of a benevolent desire to achieve “capital and operating efficiencies” to the benefit of Virginia ratepayers. It is here to win the AI race, and the company is willing to shake hands with the Trump administration to do so. And if its track record in Florida is any indication, I worry it may be willing to go further than shaking hands.

Though the companies tried to withhold the document, a Virginia regulatory hearing examiner recently ordered Dominion and NextEra to release the infamous “Robo memo” to intervenors, which details an investigation into subsidiary Florida Power & Light’s alleged illegal political conduct in the Sunshine State. Among the allegations are that the company funded ghost candidates to spoil elections and surveilled journalists. While NextEra agreed to settle a related shareholder lawsuit and was never formally charged, the regulators’ choice to force the release of the memo in the merger proceeding is good news. It is an acknowledgment that political conduct is relevant to the companies’ ability to ensure just and reasonable rates.

Virginians won’t get a vote on whether to approve the merger, so they’re counting on regulators to read the fine print and the secret memos very, very closely. That due diligence should include the question: If NextEra thinks the last two years of Trump’s energy policy have been “amazing,” what does it have in store for Virginia?

Op-Ed by Victoria Higgins, CCAN Action Fund’s Virginia Director, initially published in Richmond Times Dispatch.

About the author: Victoria Higgins is the Virginia Director for CCAN Action Fund. Her career in environmental advocacy began with Green Corps, a rigorous training program for environmental organizers.

She worked on campaigns with Mighty Earth, Conservation Colorado, and Environment Virginia to hold corporate polluters accountable, pass state climate policy, and limit plastic pollution in Virginia’s waterways.

She received a Master of Science in Energy Policy and Climate at Johns Hopkins University. 

The post NextEra Support for Trump Energy Policies Is a Concern  appeared first on Chesapeake Climate Action Network.