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Tuesday, October 6, saw vibrant mass demonstrations in dozens of French towns, as five of the nation’s six main trade union confederations mobilized in support...

The post France: Workers mobilize to support student revolt first appeared on Spring.

Federal agencies have long been required to seek public comment when writing new regulations or approving large projects, from highways to data centers. The Trump administration is systematically undercutting that process, stifling public input while skirting federal laws.

Read more on E360 →

'We poison our soils for efficiency' Channel Comment brendan 8th October 2026 Teaser Media

• Transportation used to be a relatively nonpartisan issue — see President Obama’s appointment of Republican Ray LaHood as his first transportation secretary, or George W. Bush tapping Democrat Norm Mineta — but not anymore. Sean Duffy and the rest of MAGA revel in revving V8 engines while attacking “DEI bike lanes,” suing over congestion pricing, and withholding funding for transit and pedestrian projects. (Bloomberg CityLab)
• It’s not just in the U.S. Worldwide, the far right is railing against sustainable transportation, according to Christian Wolmar. (Transport News)
• A recent poll shows that a Bay Area transit tax referendum only has 48 percent support. A majority are at least willing to consider decimating the region’s transit system. (SFGate)
• Michigan police are arresting immigrants on minor traffic and jaywalking charges, then turning them over to ICE. (Michigan Public)
• The Washington, D.C. city council approved $300 million for Metro improvements around the new RFK football stadium (Post). However, neighborhood residents are unhappy with a planned nine-story parking deck (The Cool Down).
• An Atlanta Journal-Constitution contributor argues that the city is obligated to build light rail along the Beltline because over 70 percent of voters approved it.
• Suburban Minneapolis communities are asking the Trump administration to help them get more local road funding. (Star Tribune)
• Can Boston’s electric trains replace overhead wires? (Grist; Streetsblog MASS)
• With 10 million riders as of late September, Seattle’s scooter- and bikeshare ridership is on pace to shatter last year’s record. (PubliCola)
• There’s a lot of tension in Minneapolis between drivers who are rudely blocking walkways and homeowners who are putting up homemade, nonenforceable no-parking signs. (Axios)
• Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is a big Minecraft fan. (The Ringer)

Every year, the Week Without Driving floods social media with stories of how punishing life without a car can be in America. And every year, I wonder whether that gives motorists the wrong message about how good life can be without driving at its center.

Don’t get me wrong: since advocates in Washington state first challenged their neighbors to hang up their keys in 2021, the Seattle-born event has become one of my favorite national advocacy campaigns. I love the way it pushes motorists to undertake a radical act of empathy that’s far harder to ignore than a policy brief — and when those motorists are also public officials, the initiative can be even more transformative. If I had my way, every mayor, councilperson and transportation leader in the country would have to do it, ideally for at least seven days out of every month. 

Now that this year’s Week Without Driving is coming to a close, though, I’ve found myself reflecting on what should come next — and what it will take for the Week Without Driving to become a celebration of the benefits of car-free transportation, rather than the challenges, and a call to action to demand more of them. Because as important as it is to condemn the conditions that put those advantages out of reach, our advocacy cannot stop there.

Recommended How the ‘Week Without Driving’ Helped CHI Elected Officials Understand The Challenges of Being Car-Free Cameron Bolton October 12, 2023

Here’s the thing: most U.S. residents have been undertaking an involuntary “week without active or shared transportation” challenge every week for their entire adult lives, give or take the walk to and from the parking lot. And while a recent study found that 53 percent of them want more mobility options than policymakers are delivering, a staggering 47 percent are apparently happy with the status quo.

To understand why, just look at the more negative entries from the Week Without Driving challenge. Missing sidewalks, near-miss bike crashes, buses that never come; it can all make getting around without a car look like nothing more than a gauntlet of dangers and indignities that only a masochist would willingly undertake.

Without an understanding of the universe of solvable, structural reasons why non-automotive transportation in America can suck so much — a universe that doesn’t fit neatly into a social media post — the campaign isn’t a particularly good advertisement for car-free living, or even skipping a single trip behind the wheel.

But it can be.

Recommended Transportation Reform Has an Imagination Problem Kea Wilson September 28, 2026

Invariably, my favorite Week Without Driving posts are those that name what’s wonderful about walking, biking and transit — and those that demand policymakers give us even more of the good stuff.

The specific amount of money saved on gas in just seven days. The extra chapters of the novel read on the train, instead of dodging road-raging drivers in the rush hour crawl. The precious memories made biking a kid to a neighborhood school, instead of plunking them in the back seat with an iPad. The subtle health benefits that start to accumulate with just a week of walking to work, but can snowball until they literally add years to your life.

These are the kind of stories that I love seeing during this campaign, and I wish I saw more of them.

Recommended Opinion: Slow Transportation Should Be a Human Right Kea Wilson August 12, 2022

What if next year, a whole flank of the Week Without Driving effort focused exclusively on places where forgoing driving isn’t a challenge, or on people who have happily done it for years? How can we reach people who are skeptical that joyful, car-free living is possible — and not just in the Netherlands or New York City, but in Tempe, Arizona, suburban Houston and other neighborhoods across America? How can we reach people for whom skipping short trips in a car would authentically make life better, if they only thought to try it?

And if it’s truly not possible to enjoy life without driving in your specific town, how can we give you a glimmer of how wonderful things could be — after a few achievable policy and infrastructure shifts that give you other options?

Recommended Bill McKibben Talks How Walking Can Help End the Climate Crisis — And Make Americans Happier Streetsblog October 31, 2023

Look, I won’t pretend that this type of positive framing would work for everyone, and the research on this stuff is incredibly mixed. If we’d prefer to go negative, though, why not aim that negativity at the mode of transportation that’s killing our neighbors, our budgets, our natural environment, and so much more?

After all, as soon as the Week Without Driving challenge ends, many US residents will begin the “51 Weeks of Forced Driving” challenge that’s functionally become our national default. That means an average of $1,025 month just to own, insure, and maintain a vehicle, plus the long list of other financial, social, emotional, planetary, and public health costs of near-compulsory mass car dependency.

It would not be hard to log a social media post every day documenting the downsides of constant driving that so many of us have no choice but to experience every day — and to start doing the hard work of denormalizing them.

The Week Without Driving should expose not just the injustices endured by people outside cars, but the joys they experience, too. But the real challenge is to help our neighbors imagine what else is possible for our transportation system – and to build the collective power necessary to bring it to life.

Imagine you’re a worker on the late shift, and you just finished your job for the day. Your car has been at the shop for two weeks; you still have to pay the repair bill, and the estimate the mechanic gave you was a staggering amount you just don’t have right now. There is a bus stop across from your apartment complex ,and the route even runs near your job. On paper, you have transit access — but your shift ended at 11 p.m., and the last bus left at 7 p.m.

So you stand in the parking lot and do the math. What an Uber costs at this hour. How much of tonight’s pay that will leave you to buy groceries and pay rent. Whether to text someone for a ride again, and how many times you’ve already asked this week.

There is a bus. It just won’t get you home.  

It takes very little to put someone in this position. Only 63 percent of U.S. adults said they could cover a $400 emergency expense entirely with cash or an equivalent. When your car goes, the bus is usually what’s left — even if it leaves you stranded. 

Legally, transit agencies that receive federal funding a Title VI equity analysis before implementing major service changes. This analysis compares how a proposed change will hit minority and low-income neighborhoods compared to everyone else. If the gap stays under a certain threshold, the change is allowed. If it doesn’t, the change can’t be made.

But Title VI requires agencies to measure whether the pain is shared evenly — not whether the bus runs at all. If everyone is equally stranded, the analysis comes back clean, the service cut goes into effect, and you and every other late-shift worker still be stranded in the parking lot at 11 p.m.

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

To better understand “transit desserts” — or neighborhoods where the demand for transit exceeds the service provided — and what that label hides, I and my fellow researchers at Syracuse University recently conducted a study where we mapped transit access in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Nashville and Dallas. 

Our comparison flagged neighborhood after neighborhood in Philadelphia, specifically, as starved for shared mobility options, and many were far worse off than the rest of the cities. That is exactly what an equity analysis like Title VI is built to catch — at least in theory. 

But then we ran a basic service screen. We asked five basic questions about each neighborhood: Is there a transit route you can walk to? Is enough of the neighborhood within a walk of a stop? Does a bus come every 30 minutes at rush hour? Does service run at least 12 hours a day? Can you reach a decent number of jobs in 45 minutes? Fail three of those five tests, and the neighborhood is not being “served,” whatever the equity analysis says.

According to the results of this test, Philadelphia’s “transit deserts” disappeared. None of its flagged neighborhoods failed the screen. In Dallas, about four in ten did; in Nashville, more than half. 

Title VI, by contrast, asks whether a given service cut falls harder on some riders than others. It doesn’t ask whether what’s left is enough to get anyone to work. A cut can clear a Title VI test and still take away the last bus someone needed. And when you make enough of those cuts, eventually no one has a bus they can rely on.

Recommended Myth-Buster: Uber and Lyft Aren’t Addressing Transit Deserts John Greenfield November 24, 2020

In a car-dependent city, the logic behind a Title VI analysis can do something even worse: it can make the places with the worst transit service look the fairest on paper. 

In car-dependent regions, anyone who can find a way to buy, borrow, finance or keep a car has usually done it. Standard measures count neighborhoods with a high concentration of households that drive every day as “not needing transit.” Once almost everyone has been pushed into a car, the gap between neighborhoods’ relative “transit need” shrinks. 

What the numbers leave out is why: the people who could leave transit behind already did. 

The same cut lands differently depending on money and flexibility, too. Some riders call an Uber when the bus doesn’t come. Others wait longer, miss work, or don’t make the trip at all. A traditional equity analysis might miss that while transit deserts often look similar on paper, some of their riders might be hit harder by service cuts: a senior who no longer drives, a teenager getting to class, anyone whose car is stuck at the dealer.

Recommended Workers Remind Philadelphia Pols That Transit Cuts Kill Kea Wilson September 2, 2025

This isn’t a hypothetical. Just last month, TriMet in Portland eliminated or reworked 33 bus lines against an originally projected $300 million shortfall. Cleveland slashed its own service in August. 

Each cut is judged on its own. Nobody adds up how these cuts collectively impact low-income riders: a route gone here, a line cut short there, one defensible decision at a time.

Agencies will say late-night service costs too much for too few riders, and offer on-demand rides instead. Fine. But the van has to actually show up at 11 p.m. — and when it doesn’t, that has to impact how an agency grades itself. 

Fortunately, there is something any advocate can do right now. Every agency that receives federal funding files a Title VI Program, usually on its website. Look yours up. Does it promise when the buses will run, or just draw lines where the routes go? If it is only lines, tell your agency’s board to screen for basic service before the next service cut. 

A neighborhood should not count as “served” by transit just because a route exists on a map. The pipeline behind this analysis is open and runs on public data. Push them to run it for your city.

A city should not be able to pass its equity analysis while someone is still standing in that parking lot at 11 p.m.. A system that looks fair on paper only because it pushed everyone else into a car is not equitable.

Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin previewed the Agency’s imminent proposal to weaken critical protections from oil and gas pollution.  

The 2024 Methane Rule is a landmark EPA regulation designed to sharply curb methane and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from oil and fracked gas operations. Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is a leading contributor to climate change.

The rule, which was developed with significant input from advocates, the oil and gas industry, investors, health experts, and elected officials, provided commonsense measures to protect public health and reduce methane waste. These measures include standards to monitor and repair leaks, the phase-out of routine flaring, and the replacement of process controllers with non-emitting alternatives.  

President Trump and Administrator Zeldin’s unlawful delay of the implementation and enforcement of the Methane Rule, and now their proposal to roll it back, is a continued attack on the well-being of all Americans. Pennsylvanians in particular will be harmed by the reconsideration of the Methane Rule.  

The Commonwealth is the second-largest producer of gas, and over 1.5 million Pennsylvanians live within just half a mile of active oil and gas infrastructure. It is more important now than ever that states act. Governor Shapiro’s recent announcement to develop state rules that reduce methane emissions is a key step to protecting residents. 

“EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment, yet it continues to stray further from that goal,” said Alice Lu, policy analyst with Clean Air Council. “The latest proposal to roll back methane standards is an affront to the health of Pennsylvanians. This rule was the result of years of advocacy and, for impacted residents and advocates, is more than just another regulatory action. It is a way of holding oil and gas operators accountable for their wasteful practices and ensuring residents are protected from the industry’s dangerous pollution.” 

HARRISBURG, PA (October 7, 2026) —Today, families and environmental and health organizations from across the state called on Governor Shapiro to establish greater protective distances between new fracking wells and nearby homes, schools, and water sources.

Groups made this push as Pennsylvania faces an influx of proposed data centers. These proposals raise concerns about increased reliance on fracked gas and the potential for additional drilling and fossil fuel infrastructure across the state, putting Pennsylvania families in danger.

Pennsylvania’s current rules allow fracking wells to be located as close as 500 feet from buildings (and even closer with exceptions) — a distance that was never set based on health studies and are woefully insufficient to protect public health and the environment from the numerous dangers of fracking.

To address harms from fracking, Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project filed a rulemaking petition with the Environmental Quality Board (EQB) in October 2024, asking the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to increase minimum setback distances from fracking wells. This October marks two years since the petition was filed. Minimum setbacks, also referred to as protective buffers and no-drill zones in the context of fracking, are mandatory distances that fracking companies must abide by to keep fracking operations separated from homes, schools, hospitals, drinking water wells, and surface water.

“Pennsylvanians are frustrated with politics that seem to work against our cries for a better environment and better health,” said Lauren Otero, Staff Attorney at Clean Air Council. “This is a simple step forward, yet we wait years for our Commonwealth to help us.”

“Nothing has given me more hope than watching communities all across Pennsylvania come together, speaking out against the predatory and parasitic companies looking to pollute our homes and exploit our natural resources,” said Katie Weber, who helped form grassroots group, Protect Burgettstown. “We are united and our message is clear: We do not want data centers. And we do not want fracking anywhere near our homes, schools, or daycares.”

“Pennsylvania can do their part to protect Pennsylvania citizens with far more protective setbacks between fracking activities, people and water,” said Kurt Limbach, a member of Concerned Residents of Western PA and Mountain Watershed Association. “It could also do its part by conducting a thorough review of any air permits to potentially massive polluters like the Homer City fracked gas power plant. The Pennsylvania constitution guarantees the rights of Pennsylvania citizens to clean air and water. Our citizens should not be forced to live in a sacrifice zone to power AI. “

“Too many Pennsylvania families are being harmed by fracking and drilling right next to their homes, schools, and daycare centers,” said Lisa Graves Marcucci, Pennsylvania Coordinator of Community Outreach for the Environmental Integrity Project. “We need protective buffers now. The current 500-foot minimum setback distance was never based on any public health information. And Pennsylvania’s inaction has put more communities at risk each day. Since we filed our Petition for Rulemaking on October 22, 2024, at least 784 new fracking wells have been drilled with only a 500-foot setback required to protect nearby Pennsylvanians. We urge the Shapiro Administration and the Environmental Quality Board to act now to increase minimum setback distances.”

Registered nurses will hold a rally and community event on Saturday, Oct. 10 in Washington, D.C. to demand that MedStar Washington Hospital Center reopen its shuttered postpartum unit in the midst of a Black maternal health crisis in the District. Following the rally, the nurses and allies in the community will make their way to the hospital where they will deliver a letter to management calling for the immediate reopening of the unit.

One month before a referendum vote that will include a question on Alberta independence, a free-market organization promoted “free cities” as a solution to separatist grievances at a Calgary conference. Free cities have received backing from MAGA tech CEOs.

“Here in Alberta, I know that you have questions about sovereignty, decentralization, provincial authority, and political distance”, said Mailyn Salabarria, senior advisor on U.S. Development and Strategic Partnerships for the Free Cities Foundation. “The free cities movement in general pushes your questions and your concerns a little step forward.”

The Free Cities Foundation promotes the creation of self-governing cities through conferences, media, and a global directory of Free Cities. Salabarria made these comments at the Capitalism and Morality conference in Calgary in early September.

The Free Cities Foundation is part of a broader effort to create autonomous jurisdictions as low-tax, private enclaves attractive to investors and entrepreneurs. There are many different names for and formations of these projects, including special economic zones, charter cities, startup cities, and network states. The movement has significant backing from tech CEOs close to the Trump administration. 

This pitch to Alberta separatists is “not surprising”, said Quinn Slobodian, Professor of International History at Boston University. “[T]he possibility of breaking up existing nation-states, especially very large ones like Canada, has been on the mind of these radical libertarians now for at least 30 plus years,” he told DeSmog in an interview. Slobodian traced the history of free marketeers and libertarians designing special economic zones and charter cities in his 2023 book Crack up Capitalism.

Salabarria pitched free cities to the Calgary crowd as something smaller and more nimble than a breakaway state: “How small can the political decision-making be for ordinary people to actually have meaningful choices? For some of you, the answer might be greater provincial autonomy. For others, it could be a general seccession. For another group, it can be charter jurisdictions, especially economic zones, competitive municipalities, or private communities,” said Salabarria.

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The Free Cities Foundation’s founder and president is Titus Gebel, a German entrepreneur and thought leader on special economic zones. Between 2017 and 2019, he served as chief legal officer for the company operating Próspera, a special economic zone (known as a ZEDE) in Honduras. Located on the island of Roatán, Próspera was first pitched in 2017 and broke ground in 2020, promoted as a libertarian paradise where businesses can choose from a list of regulatory frameworks, or mix and match their own. 

Companies can be set up by e-residents without stepping foot on Roatán. Those companies then pay taxes to the economic development zone, not the municipality or Honduran government. Bitcoin is accepted as legal tender and innovative experimental medical clinics allowed Milton Friedman’s grandson Patri Friedman get a Tesla key implanted in his hand.   

Some of Próspera’s most prominent backers are Silicon valley Tech CEOs who have ingratiated themselves with U.S. President Donald Trump. Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen have both invested in Próspera through Pronomos Capital, a fund for charter cities.

Thiel has provided capital for a similar venture that the Free Cities Foundation promotes, called “seasteading”, which entails creating “autonomous ocean communities”. Thiel’s software company Palantir has been assisting the Trump administration’s massive deportation campaign, has said that freedom and democracy are incompatible, and has called Greta Thunberg the antichrist.

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen is now a new member of the U.S. Pentagon Defense Policy board. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has also backed Próspera, along with Praxis, another free city. Praxis’ architects wanted to site the project in Greenland before settling on Uruguay. Altman donated $5M to Trump’s Super PAC ahead of the 2025 inauguration through his Tools for Humanity company. Thiel and Andreessen are also invested in Praxis through Pronomos Capital.

Residents of Roatán have fiercely opposed Próspera. According to Human Rights Watch, “Indigenous and Afro-Honduran organizations say that such zones were created within their traditional territories without proper consultation, including free, prior, and informed consent”. Locals reported they were not approached by Próspera until 2019, two years after the project was approved, and at that point it was presented as a resort.

Locals grew more concerned that their land could be expropriated when Próspera posted development designs on its website that included Crawfish Rock, an adjacent community. Honduras has faced a long history of U.S. and corporate incursion; it is where the term “Banana Republic” was invented in response to the control of the United Fruit and Standard Fruit companies. Salabarria told DeSmog in a statement that “Free Cities Foundation does not support any project involved in expropriation of land from any community, including First Nations communities”.

Honduras’ Supreme Court struck down the zone laws which allowed for the creation of Próspera in September 2024 and ruled that the framework violated human rights. Próspera is suing Honduras for nearly US $11B, equivalent to almost two thirds of Honduras’ national budget in 2022. The case is still pending at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

Juan Orlando Hernández, the Honduran president who pushed the special economic zones initially, was extradited to the U.S. on drug trafficking charges, and a U.S. court later sentenced him to 45 years. He was pardoned by U.S President Donald Trump and returned to Honduras, where he was cleared of criminal charges. 

Salabarria told DeSmog in a statement “Free Cities Foundation has no direct financial relationship with Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman, or their companies. We have worked with Próspera in limited, time-bound ways in the past”. Salabarria shared that Free Cities Foundation is independent from Próspera, though the foundation held its most recent conference in the ZEDE in September 2026, and Próspera has sponsored some Free Cities Foundation events.

Free Cities, for Whom?

In Alberta, Salabarria urged conference attendees: “Please don’t buy [into] the stereotype that these alternative forms of governance are only for rich people fighting or trying to look for tax havens”. 

Salabarria presented free cities as an opportunity to strengthen Albertans’ rights and freedoms. “It is mostly a concept, an umbrella, a legal framework where territories can be created by a contract within a host nation, with meaningful local autonomy, stronger protection of individual rights, and much more freedom on how people can live, work, conduct their business, innovate, build, invest, and organize their communities,” she said.

According to Slobodian, there are two sides to the Free Cities Foundation’s proposal. One is the creation of special economic zones to create opportunities for private investors. The other side is the promise of gated communities that “offer their residents a certain sense of increased security, often cultural and class homogeneity, stability for their real estate investments.” Slobodian explained that service provision within these communities can become quite costly when publicly funded services are privatized. In that way, free cities are for the wealthy few who “already have many, many options for living according to [their] preferences,” he said.

Salabarria told DeSmog that “free cities are not only for the wealthy” and named another special economic zone in Honduras, Ciudad Morazán, as providing affordable housing to local residents. She also said these zones offer employment and higher earnings to locals. 

The conference was organized by Econ Americas, a Colorado based financial consulting firm, and talks ranged from banning trans athletes from competitive sports and managing diabetes through the paleo diet, to getting rid of government altogether.

Credit: Danielle Paradis

At the opening evening of the conference Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich was given a “Good Rebel” award. In a Substack post ahead of the conference, Econ Americas founder Fergus Hodgson wrote that “[t]here is an incredibly rare opening in Alberta to peacefully build a state-of-the-art nation that can lead the world for freedom.” Conference sponsors included Bow Valley Credit Union and Alberta Women for Independence, as well as right-wing websites Western Standard and Juno News.

“I personally see Alberta nationhood as tremendously beneficial,” Hodgson said in response to DeSmog’s request for comment, explaining that it would increase government accountability and individual choice for Albertans. 

“Ottawa loyalists who push the notion that Americans are behind the movement demonstrate a lack of understanding and an eagerness to turn a blind eye to the disaffected, homegrown, and highly motivated movement that is staring them in the face”, said Hodgson.

 Salabarria wasn’t the only speaker calling for an end to government as we know it. “Democracy is not reformed. It is progressively displaced by property-based decision-making,” said Darcy Gerow, former deputy leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada, in a talk he called “The Anarcho-Capitalist Case For Alberta”. Gerow argued in favour of an independent Alberta where “[a]ll public assets should be privatized by distributing shares to the people who funded them and rightfully owned them, the taxpayers”.

Gerow said the same logic that is applied to privatizing education and healthcare should be extended to security, the courts, and finance. He also proposed that only property owners and net tax contributors should have a say over local taxes and regulation, with private contracts taking the place of a constitution, and competition and secession standing in for elections.

Gerow did not respond to DeSmog’s questions.

According to Slobodian, American investors would be very interested in the creation of free cities or special economic zones in Alberta, especially in the context of the Canada- U.S. trade war and increasing energy demands for artificial intelligence. This could be “part of like a U.S. driven oil grab that’s driven by the energy demands of the tech sector …which is exploiting this secessionist energy and exploiting culture war issues for very direct economic ends.”

Meanwhile, Alberta separatist leaders have visited the U.S. State Department to offer up resources including water and oil royalties. Republican political operatives visited Calgary to present software to identify Albertans likely to vote yes in a referendum on separation.

Salabarria stated “We are not currently working with any specific investors, groups or proposals to establish a Free City or Special Economic Zone in Alberta. We are, however, open to engaging with serious proposals aimed at creating new zones with greater autonomy where these  are based on voluntary participation and lawful agreement.”

Slobodian argued that “I can see tons of reasons why a tech-adjacent investor, of which most of these network state people are, would see this as an opportunity to grab access within the continent.”

CORRECTION (10/14/26): The original version of this article referred to Próspera as a “fully privatized city state”. The article has been updated to clarify the proper terminology of special economic zone or ZEDE. The original version of this article stated that the Free Cities foundation is a “free-market organization with links to MAGA-tech CEOs”. The language has been updated to better reflect the relationship between the foundation and these individuals.

UPDATE (10/14/26): This article has been updated to include an example of a startup city that Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen are invested in through Pronomos Capital, Praxis.

The post MAGA Tech-Aligned Group Offers Advice To Alberta Separatists appeared first on DeSmog.

At 192 years old, Jonathan the giant tortoise is the oldest known living land animal. A new study offers clues as to his incredible longevity.

Read more on E360 →

DENVER—A new analysis by the Center for Western Priorities found that 99.1 percent of the 370,238 public comments posted on the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule oppose the Trump administration’s plan. The comment period closed October 6.

The 2001 Roadless Rule prohibits most road construction and commercial logging on more than 44 million acres of national forest land outside of Colorado and Idaho, where state-specific roadless rules apply. The proposed rule, published August 20, would rescind those protections nationwide and leave the management of roadless areas up to individual forest plans. USFS argues that removing the rule would help reduce wildfire risk and give local managers more flexibility, claims that are undercut by the agency’s own environmental analysis of repealing the rule.

Key findings:

• 99.1 percent of posted comments opposed rescinding the Roadless Rule
• 0.5 percent supported the rescission
• 0.3 percent were neutral or off-topic

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Creative Content and Policy Manager Lilly Bock-Brownstein:

“For the second year in a row, Americans have flooded the Forest Service with comments telling it to keep the Roadless Rule. If the Trump administration moves forward with this proposal, they will be blatantly ignoring the wishes of the American people.

“The Trump administration keeps claiming that repealing the rule is about wildfire, but the public isn’t buying it—our comment analysis confirms that Americans know this is about giving private industry easier access to our public lands.”

These results track previous CWP analyses that found near-universal opposition to the Trump administration’s public lands rollbacks. In September 2025, more than 99 percent of approximately 183,000 comments opposed repealing the Roadless Rule. In November 2025, 98 percent of comments opposed rescinding the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule. And last month, 99 percent of 134,312 comments opposed the Forest Service’s rewrite of the Travel Management Rule, which would open national forest roads and trails to motorized vehicles by default.

Methodology:

CWP downloaded all 370,238 comments posted to docket FS-2025-0001 on regulations.gov as of October 7, 2026, 7:06 AM MT. CWP also downloaded and read the 17,857 attachment files submitted with 3,924 of those comments, so that letters submitted as PDFs or images were classified by their content. Those attachments represent an estimated 296,000 additional individual comments or signatures. Each comment was classified as supporting, opposing, or neutral/off-topic using a combination of keyword matching and a large language model. CWP staff manually audited the labels on a sample of 300 comments, which oversampled “support” and “neutral/off-topic” comments. The audit found a labeling accuracy rate estimated at 99.9 percent.

The comments posted to regulations.gov reflect a portion of the massive public outcry against rescinding the Roadless Rule. Conservation organizations have tracked more than 1 million letters and signatures asking the Forest Service to keep the Roadless Rule in place. The General Services Administration does not post every comment submitted to each agency; CWP’s analysis covers all of the comments that are available online.

Learn more:

• USFS’s own analysis shows Roadless Rule repeal would harm wildlife, water, and rural communities — Westwise

• Commenters overwhelmingly oppose Travel Management Rule rewrite — Center for Western Priorities

• Comment analysis finds over 99% opposition to repealing 2001 Roadless Rule — Center for Western Priorities

The post STATEMENT: New analysis finds 99.1 percent of public comments oppose repealing the Roadless Rule appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission approved fuel cost securitization for the second time since 2023, adding additional interest costs for customers.

“We are disappointed by the lieutenant governor’s decision and respectfully disagree with it,” Neil Nissan, a spokesperson for NextEra Energy, told Utility Dive. State regulators are set to hold their first local hearing on the case Wednesday.

Renew Home is now Everyday Electric. CEO Ben Brown told Utility Dive its flagship Everyday VPP can reduce the need for new centralized generation and mitigate costs for all ratepayers.

An investigation by ABC News has shed new light on the problem of abandoned mines in the Western U.S. and across the country. The investigation compiled records from the Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), part of the Department of the Interior, to create an interactive map of more than 230,000 documented abandoned mine sites.

Many of the documented abandoned mines are in coal-producing regions in the eastern U.S. The investigation points out that since the 1970s, coal mining companies have been required to develop and execute remediation plans to restore the land after coal mining operations have ended, and OSMRE’s Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program, established in 1977, addresses legacy coal mines using fees on current coal production. However, there is not a similar funding source for reclaiming hardrock mines, which are much more common in the West. The ABC News map shows just how many documented abandoned mines are concentrated across Western states.

OSMRE officials also acknowledge that there may be many more abandoned mine sites that are not documented or identified. “Mining back in 1865 or 1880 or 1890, there are no records of that. No one kept records,” Lanny Erdos, an OSMRE official, told ABC News. “There potentially can be mines out there that we would have no idea that they are there until they express themselves in some adverse way.”

Quick hits As Pitkin County looks toward management of the Maroon Bells, what does it mean for the iconic place?

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Quote of the day

What’s it going to be? ‘The Maroon Bells brought to you by Budweiser’?”

—Victor Valinskas, visitor to the Maroon Bells Scenic Area, CPR News

Picture This @greatbasinnp

On a cool September evening, sundown reveals the Great Basin one layer at a time: rock and rabbitbrush, sagebrush and pinyon-juniper, the broad basin below, and distant mountain ranges rising beyond it.

These isolated ranges are sometimes described as “sky islands”—higher, cooler habitats surrounded by lower, drier country. Each change in elevation brings changes in temperature, moisture, plants, and wildlife.

But this landscape offers something that cannot be measured by elevation alone.

Quiet. Distance. Room to breathe.

Great Basin National Park preserves not only mountains, caves, ancient trees, and dark night skies, but also opportunities to experience solitude. Sometimes the landscape’s quietest moments tell its story best.

What do you notice first when you look across the Great Basin?

Photo Credit: NPS/G. Zierdt

 

Featured image: An abandoned mine in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, D&RG Railfan via Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 3.0

The post Abandoned mines ‘a constant problem’ across the West appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Coyotes, it seems, prefer the roar of the garbage truck to the call of the wild.

While pigeons, rats and cockroaches might be more emblematic city-dwelling wildlife, coyotes have shown an aptitude for urban living. In just the last year they’ve made the news for taking up residence in such places as West Hollywood, Chicago and suburban Miami. Their presence near cities is so routine that it takes something unusual to generate headlines.

Much as humans pack together in cities, it turns out coyotes inhabit at least one urban area at roughly 9 times the density they do in the wild, according to research in Washington state published recently in the journal Environmental Research: Ecology.

“That might surprise people who think of coyotes as afraid of humans, but I think it just shows how ideal the urban setting is for coyotes,” said Laura Prugh, a University of Washington wildlife ecologist who led the new research.

This isn’t the first time scientists have noted that cities boast higher concentrations of coyotes, nor is the phenomenon confined just to these canines. Other research has found that raccoons, red foxes and (improbably) leopards live in cities at densities five times that of their counterparts in the countryside.

But in the case of coyotes, much of the evidence is incomplete, without the scientific rigor that could get at just how coyote life varies between paved streets and remote forest.

To get a more accurate comparison, Prugh and her collaborators tracked coyotes through their scat. In 2021, they repeatedly scoured 34 green spaces in Seattle, such as parks and cemeteries, for feces left behind by coyotes. They did the same in forests and open country in a mountainous north central part of the state, some 120 miles away from Seattle.

 

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All told, they gathered more than 800 samples. Genetic analysis told them the scat came from 48 different Seattle coyotes and 213 wildland coyotes.

While that might make it seem like there were more coyotes in the wild, that’s not adjusting for the size of the locations where they looked for scat. Relying on statistical techniques commonly used to estimate wildlife population demographics, the scientists found that urban coyotes were, in fact, much more closely packed together.

There are a host of reasons why coyotes might thrive more in a city. They are much less likely to encounter animals that prey on them, such as wolves, bears and mountain lions. Among radio-collared wolves in the wildland  study area, 3 were killed by cougars and one by a black bear. Coyote pups were also killed by wolves.

While cars present a danger on city streets, armed humans bent on killing coyotes in rural areas might well be more lethal than any vehicles. Of the 47 collared wildland coyotes whose deaths could be confirmed, slightly more than half were killed by hunters or trappers. A single coyote was killed by a vehicle.

Then, there’s the urban smorgasbord of food. Between overflowing trash cans, fast-food burgers dropped in the gutter and ubiquitous urban bunny rabbits, Seattle coyotes have a far more diverse, and potentially much more abundant, food supply. The same research group found that coyote scat in Seattle contained genetic matches for more than twice as many species or groups of species than their wild counterparts±64 to 27.

Despite these results, coyotes appear conflicted about urban life. While there are more of them per square mile, the scientists found that when you compared different parts of Seattle, the places with the highest coyote density were the ones with the fewest people. They’re drawn to much of what the city offers, just not the humans that built it.

So how should we react to the idea that coyotes appear to thrive more in cities than in the wild? Perhaps acceptance or resignation are best. It’s repeatedly been shown that the animals defy efforts to control their numbers, said Prugh. We might just need to add them to the pantheon of urban animals.

“Whether there are too many or too few coyotes is sort of a societal question, but ultimately our answer might not matter,” said Prugh. “Coyotes are here to stay in cities, and it is up to us to learn how to live with them.”

Prugh, et. al. “Urbanization increases coyote density 9-fold in Washington state despite negative effects of human density within Seattle, USA.” Environmental Research: Ecology. Sept. 10, 2026.

Image: ©Robert McGouey/Alamy

Headline News:

• “Invasive Plant Spreads Across Portugal And Lengthens Allergy Season” • Pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana, has large feathery plumes that make it a familiar in decorative arrangements in gardens. But what many regard as a showy plant is, in Portugal, an invasive alien species that can spread rapidly with potential consequences for health. [Euronews]

Pampas grass (Arnim Littek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped)

• “Physicist Raises Alarm Over Proposed Massive Nuclear Power Project” • A proposal for a huge industrial project in Utah would be powered by over 450 nuclear reactors. Dr Robert Davies, a professor of physics at Utah State University, worries that current regulations do not consider the massive thermal footprints that facilities like this can leave behind. [KSL News]
• “Von Der Leyen Turns To Europe’s Refineries As Shrinking Capacity Raises Energy Security Concerns” • President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission announced a new “strategic dialogue” on European refineries, drawing attention to a growing vulnerability for the EU: Its refining capacity has been declining since 2009. [Euronews]
• “GWEC Alliance Unveils Floating Wind Action Plan” • The Global Wind Energy Council and more than fifty companies and organizations have set out an industry action plan aimed at commercializing floating wind. The plan focuses on reducing costs and demonstrating value, scaling the supply chain and expanding access to finance and insurance. [reNews]
• “Heart’s Electric Airliner Still Needs Fuel” • For 27 minutes, batteries flew a machine roughly the size of the regional aircraft Heart Aerospace eventually wants airlines to operate. There was no engine aboard aside from the electric motors, but by adding a turbogenerator, the airplane can fly as a hybrid aircraft. Further development will doubtless come. [CleanTechnica]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

When antibiotics stop working Channel News brendan 7th October 2026 Teaser Media

NAZA, the new documentary by Yuval Abaraham and Rachel Szor, is a movie about Israelis. Their previous movie — the critically acclaimed No Other Land...

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