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More than 11 million tons of textiles end up in landfills or incinerators every year in the US alone. Now, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hope to make a dent in that fabric waste with a recyclable elastic yarn.

The yarn is made from polyethylene, the widely produced plastic used in milk bottles and grocery bags. That means that a discarded garment made from the yarn could be melted and then re-spun into new yarn for fabrics.

Many modern high-performance fabrics contain a blend of materials that impart stretchiness and strength while being lightweight. The yarns are made of a spandex core sheathed in a polyester or nylon. Spandex, or polyurethane, is highly elastic and makes high-performance fabrics stretchy and comfortable. The nylon or polyester add durability and strength. But the blended material make garments difficult to recycle because the polymers have to be separated.

“Eighty percent of textiles on the U.S. market currently contain some amount of spandex, which makes them nonrecyclable,” said Svetlana Boriskina, a researcher in MIT’s mechanical engineering department, in a press release. “There’s no widely adopted technology now that recycles textiles into textiles. With our new yarn, we hope to change that.”

 

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The new yarn, reported in the journal ACS Materials Letters, mimics the strength and stretchiness of spandex-polyester and spandex-nylon blends. But it is made from just one type of plastic, which makes it easier to recycle. Both the stretchy core and tougher sheath are made of polyethylene-based polymers. So the entire fiber can be recycled without the chemical separation required for traditional yarns.

To demonstrate this, the researchers spun a spool of yarn, melted it, and re-spun it into new yarn several times. Even after 10 cycles, the yarn was as strong and flexible as conventional blended fibers. “Because they are exactly the same chemistry, they play nicely together,” Boriskina said. “That’s what makes this yarn very recyclable.”

The researchers believe the technology can be scaled up for industrial production.

Source: SeongHyeon Kim et al. Polyethylene-Based Thermo-Mechanically Recyclable Stretchable Yarns for Circular Sustainable Textiles. ACS Materials Letters, 2026.

Image: Based on Adobe stock/fotoyou. ©Anthropocene Magazine

 

An adaptation story Channel Comment brendan 30th July 2026 Teaser Media

Since the colonial era, India has regarded its native scrublands and savannas as little more than degraded forest. Now, amid a growing recognition of rangelands globally, officials are working to map the nation's ailing grasslands, with a view to restoring these vital ecosystems. 

Read more on E360 →

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) advanced an agricultural research portfolio that built resilience, boosted yields, and shaped public policies. When the Trump-Vance administration dismantled it last year, their actions created a vacuum that former agency officials hope will be filled by well-intentioned supporters.

Before its closure, USAID’s funding fell into three main buckets. One share went to universities in the United States equipped for advanced agricultural research—some of which were home to the agency’s Feed the Future Innovation Labs, focused on advancing U.S. innovation leadership in agriculture and global food security. Another portion went to international research centers like the CGIAR network and World Vegetable Center, while a smaller chunk supported work in the private sector. 

“We viewed our investments in those three groups of partners in the context of a larger research ecosystem,” Jerry Glover, the former Deputy Director of the Center for Agriculture and Lead for Agricultural Research Strategy and Budget at USAID, tells Food Tank. “Most importantly,” he adds, “USAID had a wide range of highly skilled, world-recognized thought leaders.”

Rather than make isolated investments, the agency aimed to complement and fill in the gaps from funding from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other institutions. Research covered everything from crop improvement and horticulture to livestock production and policy issues. 

Glover, who managed an annual portfolio of over US$100 million, saw how this work benefited some of the poorest regions of the world, helping farmers and their communities. The goal wasn’t to prescribe a pathway for individual producers, but to create opportunities that they could pursue to increase their yields. 

“There’s this ripple effect” when farmers’ productivity and livelihoods grow, Glover explains. “Greater local and regional production also greatly impacts local food prices in the market. When those come down…very poor people benefit the most.” 

This shift frees up funds for education and more, “laying the foundation for future improvement,” Glover tells Food Tank. “It’s one of the most robust development theories out there.”

USAID’s investments supported farmers domestically as well—a point often overlooked by critics of the agency. As demand grows abroad, it creates new export markets for U.S.-grown agricultural products. Lessons learned and crop varieties developed also helped prevent problems from becoming crises at home. 

As one example, Glover points to research done on sorghum, a crop that many farmers in the Great Plains rely on. Years ago, a pest decimated the crop, costing millions of dollars in losses. With the agency’s support, U.S. researchers worked with partners in Ethiopia to identify a gene that made sorghum strains more resistant to the bug. 

The result was a new variety of sorghum that U.S. farmers can grow without worrying as much about pest destruction. This single crop has led to savings of more than US$750 million per year, Glover says. 

For decades, investments like these saw broad bipartisan support. When the Trump-Vance administration took office and talk of gutting USAID began, “my first thoughts were that…it wouldn’t be possible to tear it down so quickly,” Glover tells Food Tank. But “they just wiped it out.” 

In the year since USAID’s official closure, Glover says that the research ecosystem has been “so disrupted.” The majority of the Innovation Labs closed, funding was cut off, programs ended, and trust with partners has been broken. He believes that there is no replacing the combination of resources and technical capacity USAID was able to offer, but there is still a way forward. 

The Food Security Leadership Council, where Glover now serves as a Distinguished Fellow, is providing guidance to bring back investments—including for research and development—that support global food security. He hopes that as funding returns, their recommendations will help researchers and development partners pick up where USAID left off without repeating mistakes or reinventing the wheel. 

Glover also sees a glimmer of hope: “I’m confident that we are seeing somewhat of a shift in the traditional donor support in the development arena that could have long-lasting positive impacts.” He also hopes that other governments, including middle-income nations, will support low-income countries and encourage them to increase investments in their agriculture sectors.

“I hope that that vacuum is filled with well-intentioned supporters, and not…by those wanting to extract more from low-income countries.”

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Photo courtesy of Yana Petkova, Unsplash

The post After USAID, Who Will Fill the Gap in Agricultural Research? appeared first on Food Tank.

Research workers gathered in Toronto on July 21 to launch the Organize the Lab campaign, led by the Toronto chapter of Science for the People...

The post Organize the Lab campaign: Toronto research workers demand an end to exploitation first appeared on Spring.

My weather app says it’s 80 degrees, but that’s a lie. I’m standing on a football field at Portland State University with professor Vivek Shandas, and we can feel intense heat radiating off the grass. Instead of being made of cellulose, these blades are plastic, because this field is artificial turf. Whereas natural vegetation has a cooling effect on a landscape — it “sweats” water vapor — this stuff absorbs and radiates the sun’s energy, making the ambient temperature especially uncomfortable.

Shandas, who’s founder and director of the Sustaining Urban Places Research Lab, can prove it. He hands me a Flir (forward-looking infrared) camera that I attach to my phone and control through an app. I point it at the ground and it gives me a color-coded view of the temperature at any given spot — approaching 150 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of the ground beneath my feet, compared to as low as 100 degrees in a patch of real grass in the sun next to it. (In the video below comparing the two, brighter oranges and yellows indicate higher temps, with purple showing lower readings.) We’re actually picking up significant differences even within the field: The darker greens are about 10 degrees hotter than white lines, which are bright enough to reflect some energy away — the same reason you feel cooler wearing lighter colors on a hot day.

At 1:45 in the afternoon, conditions are relatively mild so far. “If you think about a 100-degree day on a soccer game or a football game turf like this, I mean, those ankles are going to blow out, those knees are going to blow out,” Shandas says while pointing his own Flir camera at bits of turf. “Those kinds of temperatures are not good for the joints or physiology generally.”

We walk up a small hill at the edge of the field to get an overview of the I-405 highway. These multilane thoroughfares are consistently among the hottest parts of a city, because the surface soaks up the sun and vehicles generate still more heat with the friction of their tires. In addition, an internal-combustion engine produces a substantial amount of waste heat. You can think of them as thousands upon thousands of little heaters zooming past the Portland State campus every hour. I point the Flir camera at the lanes and from a few hundred feet away get readings approaching 120 degrees — still far cooler than the artificial turf — and pan down to the shaded vegetation in front of us, where it’s in the mid-80s. 

For pedestrians, shade is especially important on sidewalks. Making our way along the side of the field, pavement in the sun is in the mid-130s, dropping 50 degrees in adjacent shaded areas (shown below).

Back in his car, Shandas attaches a small magnetic sensor to the roof. A different app feeds me a constant stream of readings. Here in Portland’s downtown, with its tall, shade-bestowing buildings, it’s 84 degrees. As we move east across the Willamette River, it dips to 82 degrees before steadily climbing — 85, 86, 87, 88, and finally topping out at 89 F. 

There are many reasons for these disparities. The more trees a neighborhood has, the more shade it gets, and the more of that “sweating” cooling effect. (That low reading of 82 came as we drove down a tree-lined street in a residential neighborhood.) Lower-income areas tend to have much less tree cover, and therefore more open pavement that absorbs heat and releases it at night: The highest readings we recorded were in areas with wide roads, few trees, and low buildings, which provide minimal shade. So not only do these areas suffer higher highs during the day, but their residents don’t enjoy as much of a respite in the evening, compounding the stress on their bodies. This is especially dangerous for people who can’t help but be outside, like construction workers and the unhoused. 

Depending on where you live in a city, this heat unfolds in unique ways, hour after hour. “Places with the most buildings and infrastructure tend to be the hottest in the morning,” Shandas says, “but often some of the taller buildings keep it much cooler relatively in the daytime.” Areas with shorter buildings and few trees get blasted all day, taking a heavy toll on residents.

The hotter the planet gets, the wider these disparities grow. On this 80-degree day we’re finding differences of up to 7 degrees between neighborhoods. But during a previous heat wave, Shandas recorded 125 degrees in one notoriously hot area on the city’s east side, compared to 99 in a hilly, verdant neighborhood. “On a 90-degree day, the difference is about 15 degrees to 18 degrees,” Shandas says. “On a 110-degree day, it goes up to 20 to 25 degrees, and on. I don’t know what that limit is. I don’t think I want to find out.”

Read Next Why heat is so deadly and how to stay safe Jessica Stahl

The first step to helping urbanites cope is to understand the nuances of heat, hence Shandas’ regularly driving around with a sensor on his roof. (He’s also trying to get the devices on public buses, which run reliable routes throughout the region.) Different solutions will do different things in different neighborhoods. Portland and other cities, for instance, might prioritize planting trees in areas where heat accumulates and residents don’t have air-conditioning. (Better yet: They can develop urban farms, which produce nutritious food in addition to reducing temperatures.) They might also take the simple step of painting more roofs white, which, like the lines on the football field, bounce energy back into space. (Better yet: Move the urban farms onto rooftops.) Or more simply, they can identify particularly hot bus stops and shade them. 

“There’s just not one solution ever for these things, right?” Shandas says. “And so what we’re trying to do is: What’s the right mix of things that will actually reduce the likelihood of heat-related illnesses?”

For cities, extreme heat is now a many-headed emergency. The hotter it gets, the less productive workers become and the more economies suffer. Heat already kills far more Americans than any other natural disaster, and that only stands to worsen. And the electrical grid is straining as more people are forced to install air-conditioning. “Everything is dependent on that peak temperature,” Shandas says. “It is going to be pretty telling in the coming years, as we see it just crank up more and more.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline These psychedelic images reveal what your weather app isn’t telling you on Jul 30, 2026.

Nel giro di qualche anno, il sostegno alla “remigrazione” – un progetto illegale volto a espellere migranti, rifugiati e cittadini ritenuti “non assimilati” – è passato dai margini al centro del dibattito politico. Questa dinamica è stata resa possibile dalla collaborazione tra l’estrema destra al governo e gruppi extraparlamentari. Come opporsi alla normalizzazione delle idee estremiste quando il dibattito continua a spostarsi sempre più a destra? 

A maggio, circa 500 tra politici, attivisti e influencer di estrema destra si sono riuniti a Porto per la seconda edizione del “Remigration Summit”. La prima si era tenuta l’anno scorso a Gallarate, non lontano da Milano. Proprio nel capoluogo lombardo, questo aprile è invece andata in scena la manifestazione “Senza paura! In Europa padroni a casa nostra”, organizzata dal partito europeo di estrema destra Patriots for Europe. A giugno si è invece svolto a Roma un corteo pro-remigrazione, al quale avrebbero partecipato circa 4000 persone. Due settimane più tardi, il 30 giugno, il “Comitato Remigrazione e Riconquista” ha poi depositato una proposta di legge di iniziativa popolare sulla remigrazione, raccogliendo oltre 130 mila firme (ben più delle 50 mila richieste).   

Tutte queste iniziative riflettono l’ascesa politica dell’idea di “remigrazione”, che secondo i promotori del summit mirerebbe a “prevenire la sostituzione della popolazione attraverso l’inversione dei flussi migratori, ripristinando così la sovranità, l’indipendenza e l’identità dei Paesi attraverso la difesa della loro specificità etno-culturale”. Di fatto, la remigrazione consiste nell’espulsione di massa di migranti irregolari, ma anche richiedenti asilo, rifugiati, e altri migranti legali e cittadini cosiddetti “non assimilati” alla cultura dominante – ovvero, non bianchi e di religione musulmana.  

Appoggio istituzionale 

Il Comitato Remigrazione e Riconquista unisce diverse realtà dell’estrema destra extraparlamentare antidemocratica e neofascista, tra cui CasaPound (i cui membri si  sono orgogliosamente autodefiniti “I fascisti del terzo millennio”), Veneto Fronte Skinheads, Brescia ai bresciani, e la Rete dei patrioti.  

A rendere popolare la remigrazione ha però contribuito anche il suo impiego da parte di esponenti politici di primo piano della destra istituzionale, e in particolare della Lega. Il partito guidato dal ministro dei Trasporti e vicepremier Matteo Salvini è la seconda forza della coalizione di governo e rimane forte in alcune regioni del Nord Italia, ma negli ultimi anni è stato cannibalizzato da Fratelli d’Italia di Giorgia Meloni. Nel tentativo di arginare le perdite, la Lega si è sempre più radicalizzata sui temi identitari.  

Questa strategia, finora, non ha funzionato. A febbraio Roberto Vannacci, un generale dell’esercito eletto con la Lega al Parlamento europeo nel 2024, ha abbandonato Salvini per fondare un nuovo partito, Futuro Nazionale. Più volte criticato per affermazioni omofobe, razziste, e revisioniste del regime fascista, Vannacci è tra i sostenitori più accaniti della remigrazione, e imputa al governo e alla Lega posizioni troppo moderate e aperte al compromesso. Nei sondaggi più recenti, Futuro Nazionale supera il 7 per cento dei consensi, posizionandosi sopra la Lega e poco dietro a Forza Italia, l’altro partito di governo.  

Sebbene la remigrazione rimanga, per ora, un progetto minoritario, la sua ascesa politica ha già creato un clima di tensione. A gennaio, per esempio, durante un evento stampa alla Camera per il lancio della legge d’iniziativa popolare sulla remigrazione, un membro della Rete dei patrioti ha consegnato al giornalista di origini spagnole ed egiziane Youssef Hassan Holgado un finto biglietto aereo.  

“Io mi trovavo lì come giornalista e mi è stato regalato un biglietto per remigrare al mio Paese d’origine. Il problema di quel gesto non riguarda me, che da giornalista ho i mezzi dialettici per difendermi da accuse e aggressioni,” spiega Hassan Holgado. “Quel gesto è un insulto nei confronti di tutte quelle persone di origine straniera che potrebbero non avere gli strumenti per difendersi da questa barbarie.”  

La conferenza stampa, voluta dal deputato leghista Domenico Furgiuele, è stata poi annullata dopo che decine di esponenti delle opposizioni hanno occupato l’aula intonando la canzone partigiana Bella ciao e impugnando la Costituzione. Ad aprile, i 32 deputati che avevano preso parte alla protesta sono stati sanzionati con una sospensione per aver bloccato l’iniziativa. A giugno, Furgiuele ha lasciato la Lega per unirsi a Futuro Nazionale.  

Sia Italia e Germania, […] stabiliscono come nessuno possa essere privato della cittadinanza per motivi politici. Nati dalla volontà di non ripetere mai più le persecuzioni naziste e fasciste, questi principi vengono ora rimessi in discussione in tutta Europa

Razzismo e complotti 

L’Italia, con due partiti di destra radicale al governo, rappresenta un laboratorio importante per l’estrema destra europea. Ma il movimento per la normalizzazione della remigrazione come progetto politico viene da molto più lontano. Un suo antecedente ideologico è la teoria del differenzialismo etnico, avanzata dagli esponenti francesi della Nouvelle Droite e del Gruppo di Ricerca e di Studi per la civiltà europea (GRECE), fondato nel 1968 da Alain de Benoist. Antitetico all’universalismo, che insiste su diritti innati e libertà di movimento, il differenzialismo legittima una forma di apartheid basata non più su un razzismo esplicito, ma sull’idea che i popoli possiedano differenze di fondo impossibili da superare, e che dunque debbano vivere in regioni etnico-culturali separate. 

“Il perno ideologico è il nativismo; l’idea che gli stati nazionali debbano essere popolati dai nativi”, spiega Mattia Zulianello, professore associato di scienze politiche all’Università di Trieste ed esperto di populismo, radicalismo ed estremismo politico. “Oggi, il nativismo si divide in nativismo economico, secondo cui gli immigrati rubano il lavoro ai nativi, sciovinismo del welfare, che sostiene che i migranti spremano risorse senza contribuire, e nativismo simbolico, che vede nei migranti, soprattutto se musulmani, una minaccia per tradizioni, usi e costumi.”  

Alle radici ideologiche e teoriche del nativismo si aggiungono le teorie del complotto come la “sostituzione etnica”, articolata nel 2011 da un altro intellettuale e scrittore francese, Renaud Camus. Nel libro Le grand remplacement (“la grande sostituzione”), Camus sostiene che l’immigrazione di massa verso l’Europa farebbe parte di un piano volto a porre fine alla civiltà europea bianca. Il razzismo di Camus è anche intriso di antisemitismo: sarebbe un’“élite globalista” composta da esponenti della politica e della finanza ebrei e del mondo progressista, a mettere in atto il disegno transnazionale della “grande sostituzione”. 

Leonardo Bianchi, giornalista, scrittore e autore della newsletter Complotti!, sostiene che “La parte ideologica e complottista è il vero cuore della proposta politica, che oltre a essere l’espulsione delle persone migranti, è anche e soprattutto la privazione dei diritti civili dei cittadini cosiddetti ‘non assimilati’, cioè di chi ha passaporto europeo, ma che non è autoctono, come dicono loro, cioè non è bianco e non è cristiano.”  

Jean-Marie Le Pen, fondatore del partito di estrema destra Front National, ha contribuito a diffondere le idee di Camus. Nel suo libro Mémoires scrive che “La grande sostituzione è un fatto” e che “il mondo bianco sta morendo.” Negli anni, la teoria di Camus si è propagata in tutta Europa e negli Stati Uniti attraverso il movimento di ultradestra dell’“alt-right”. Ha anche ispirato gli autori di stragi di matrice terroristica e xenofoba come quella di Christchurch, in Nuova Zelanda, nel 2019. 

Partiti e influencer 

Il lessico della remigrazione emerge in contemporanea con la diffusione delle idee di Camus. “I primi partiti, attori e movimenti a parlare di remigrazione, nei Paesi Bassi e in Belgio, sono stati le classiche formazioni di estrema destra, come gruppi di skinheads e ultras, più o meno estremisti. Queste idee sulla remigrazione, però, avevano ancora poca presa,” spiega Zulianello.  

Tra gli attori politici istituzionali, Geert Wilders (fondatore in Olanda del Partito per la Libertà, euroscettico e islamofobo) e il partito di destra nazionalista delle Fiandre Vlaams Belang (“Interesse fiammingo”) sono stati tra i primi ad appropriarsi del termine tra il 2011 e il 2012.In seguito alla crisi dei rifugiati del 2015, il discorso sulla migrazione si sposta a destra, e partiti come Fidesz in Ungheria iniziano a diffondere le teorie di Camus. Ancora nel 2022, durante il discorso di insediamento del suo quarto e ultimo mandato da primo ministro, Viktor Orbán ha dichiarato: “Considero la grande sostituzione della popolazione europea un tentativo suicida di colmare il vuoto di bambini europei e cristiani con adulti provenienti da altre civiltà: i migranti,” ha dichiarato nel discorso d’insediamento del suo quarto mandato.  

Anche in Danimarca, l’idea che i migranti sottraessero risorse sociali destinate ai cittadini nativi ha preso piede nell’agenda politica: “Lo sciovinismo del welfare è un tema nato dal partito danese, Dansk Folkeparti, che poi ha causato un effetto di emulazione da parte degli altri partiti, i quali hanno cercato di copiare i modelli che funzionavano,” spiega Zulianello. Il tema è poi entrato nell’agenda di vari partiti di estrema destra in Europa. “L’ondata che vediamo adesso è partita da Alternative für Deutschland (Afd).”  

Il 25 novembre 2023, in un hotel sul lago di Lehnitz, non lontano da Potsdam, si tiene un incontro tra membri di AfD, uomini d’affari, imprenditori, medici, membri di confraternite, e addirittura alcuni esponenti del partito cristiano-democratico (la CDU). Martin Sellner, ideologo e influencer neofascista austriaco, detta la linea: parla della strategia politica necessaria per normalizzare la remigrazione: un progetto di lungo termine, destinato a durare decenni. Parla anche di una “città modello” nel Nord Africa in cui trasferire, cioè deportare, due milioni di persone. I paralleli con il progetto nazista per deportare quattro milioni di ebrei in Madagascar sono evidenti. L’incontro di Potsdam doveva restare segreto, ma viene rivelato dalla testata d’inchiesta indipendente Correctiv. 

“Questa teoria non è innocua,” commenta Bianchi: “È un progetto di fatto aggressivo verso le Costituzioni dei Paesi europei, fondate sui principi fondamentali del Dopoguerra. Sia in Italia, con l’articolo 22, sia in Germania, con l’articolo 16, che stabiliscono come nessuno possa essere privato della cittadinanza per motivi politici.” Nati dalla volontà di non ripetere mai più le persecuzioni naziste e fasciste, questi principi vengono ora rimessi in discussione in tutta Europa: da Chega in Portogallo, da Vox in Spagna, da Reform UK nel Regno Unito.  

Secondo Zulianello, la destra radicale europea ha influenzato anche quella statunitense, che a sua volta ha contribuito a sdoganare l’idea di remigrazione. Dopo l’acquisizione di Twitter da parte di Elon Musk nel 2023, i contenuti violenti hanno potuto circolare liberamente, dando maggiore visibilità a personaggi come Sellner. Un report del Centro per lo studio dell’odio organizzato ha evidenziato un picco di 71 mila menzioni del termine “remigrazione” su X tra l’1 e l’8 settembre 2025, seguito a post coordinati dello stesso Musk e di altri personaggi popolari, come l’influencer olandese di estrema destra Eva Vlaardingerbroek.  

Anche Donald Trump ha invocato e messo in atto espulsioni di massa di migranti, usando esplicitamente il termine “remigrazione” sui canali ufficiali del Dipartimento per la sicurezza interna. Ma secondo Zulianello, il vero propulsore di questo movimento resta l’Europa. “Ciò che è interessante nel caso italiano,” dichiara Zulianello, “è che la proposta non è nata da un partito, bensì da un network dell’estrema destra, il Comitato Remigrazione e Riconquista.”  

Come sottolinea Bianchi, la proposta del Comitato “ricalca per filo e per segno il piano di Martin Sellner, che prevede tre passaggi: l’espulsione dei migranti irregolari, la restrizione del diritto d’asilo e del ricongiungimento familiare (che sono anche battaglie di lungo corso della Lega) e la remigrazione volontaria, che è tutt’altro che volontaria e prende di mira tutte le persone cosiddette ‘non assimilate’”. 

La proposta di legge depositata a giugno mira a “disciplinare” i flussi migratori per combattere la migrazione irregolare e lo sfruttamento. Propone di istituire un “programma nazionale di Remigrazione”, contrastare le Ong (che sarebbero “coinvolte nel traffico migratorio”), ridurre i flussi di lavoratori stranieri, favorire il “rientro degli italo-discendenti” e istituire un “Fondo per la Natalità Italiana”. Per farle tutto questo, servirebbe un “fondo per la remigrazione” da 500 milioni di euro annui. Le fonti di finanziamento proverrebbero da sequestri alle Ong, una tassa sulle rimesse dei lavoratori stranieri alle famiglie, e dal fondo per le politiche di asilo. Tuttavia, il problema principale della proposta non è di natura economica, ma legale e costituzionale: la remigrazione viola apertamente i principi antifascisti della Costituzione italiana e la Carta dei diritti fondamentali dell’Unione europea.  

Secondo Zulianello, i promotori dell’iniziativa “sanno che così com’è non è assolutamente realizzabile. Quello che gli interessa è che il tema entri in agenda. Con lo sdoganamento di certi temi, si allarga lo spazio per il dibattito e i partiti tradizionali tendono a voler entrare in quel vuoto, di fatto legittimando il tema e inasprendo le politiche contro l’immigrazione.” 

I risultati iniziano già a vedersi. Nel decreto Sicurezza approvato il 24 aprile è stato inserito un emendamento che premia con un compenso gli avvocati che portano a termine procedure di rimpatrio volontario dei migranti. La controversia legale scaturita da questa misura ha in seguito portato il governo a modificarla.  

Resistere alla normalizzazione 

I biglietti per il Remigration Summit di Porto costavano da 45 a 325 euro. Un prezzo giustificato dalla posta in gioco: secondo gli organizzatori,  “con la remigrazione, l’Europa diventerà più europea giorno dopo giorno. Senza, sarà sempre meno europea fino a che non cesserà di esistere.” L’Europa di cui parlano i sostenitori della remigrazione (e che emerge sempre più spesso dalla cooperazione tra centro-destra ed estrema destra al Parlamento europeo sui temi migratori) non è tuttavia l’unica possibile. “L’Unione si fonda sui valori del rispetto della dignità umana, della libertà, della democrazia, dell’uguaglianza, dello Stato di diritto e del rispetto dei diritti umani, compresi i diritti delle persone appartenenti a minoranze,” recita l’articolo 2 del Trattato sull’Unione Europea. ” 

Secondo Bianchi, opporsi alla remigrazione e alla teoria del complotto della sostituzione etnica significa innanzitutto non permettere che vengano normalizzate, passando per proposte di buon senso. “Il termine ‘remigrazione’ suona neutro perché viene dalle scienze sociali, ma è un’opera di normalizzazione linguistica: il suo significato e le sue origini sono indissolubili dalla proposta politica.”   

The looming threat of cyclospora — a parasite often found in summer produce that causes severe gastrointestinal distress in humans — has struck fear into the hearts of salad enjoyers nationwide. 

On July 17, shortly after beginning its investigation into the multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak, the Food and Drug Administration announced a positive test result identifying cyclospora on shredded iceberg lettuce grown in Mexico for Taylor Farms, a major U.S. food producer. The company issued a voluntary recall — but the FDA walked back its statement two days later, describing the test as a “false positive” while insisting its investigation is “ongoing.” Representatives from Taylor Farms allegedly asked the FDA for more time before the agency recalled its products, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

At the time, the outbreak had been contained to five states in the Midwest, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since then, the CDC has linked four more states reporting cases of cyclosporiasis to contaminated lettuce from Taylor Farms, bringing the total of impacted states to nine. The CDC also stated that the outbreak has caused close to 2,000 cases of the illness — although that is likely an undercount. (The CDC is also monitoring cases of cyclosporiasis that appear unrelated to this outbreak.)

There are a number of reasons why it can be difficult to track cases of cyclosporiasis. For example, many people may experience and manage symptoms, which include persistent, watery diarrhea, at home without ever seeing a doctor. 

But the uneven rollout of information from public health authorities during this outbreak has further complicated matters. Former federal food-safety officials have criticized the Trump administration’s handling of what is now considered the largest known cyclosporiasis outbreak in U.S. history. 

Unsaid in all of this is whether climate change and its impact on our globalized food system made this year’s outbreak more likely. The answer is complicated. 

“There are a couple things that make it a little difficult to fully assess what [the role of] climate change or changes in weather patterns could be,” said Jeffrey Griffiths, a professor of public health at the Tufts University School of Medicine. “But I would say there’s still enough information that we have such that we can make some pretty reasonable inferences about how climate change would work.”

First off, what is cyclospora?

Unlike other foodborne pathogens — like salmonella and E. coli, which exist in and on animals — cyclospora is transmitted through food or water that has been contaminated with human feces. When infectious, cyclospora causes explosive diarrhea and other gastrointestinal symptoms in humans. 

Cyclospora can often linger in difficult-to-wash produce with uneven surfaces, like leafy greens and berries. Previous outbreaks have been tied to fresh produce including cilantro, basil, raspberries, and other berries. Thankfully, for anyone feeling overly cautious, cooking fresh produce kills this parasite. 

Whether or not a person who has ingested the parasite becomes ill depends on the maturity level of the parasite at the time of exposure. Cyclospora is not immediately infectious when released in human stool. The parasite must undergo a maturation process that typically takes about one to two weeks. If cyclospora is ingested after that point, then it is considered infectious and causes gastrointestinal distress in its host. However, if the parasite is ingested before it has had enough time to mature, then it will likely pass without causing any illness. 

This window of time wherein cyclospora is in the natural environment (say, in our water supply or on our produce) but not infectious to humans has created a lag in public health authorities’ ability to trace the origins of the outbreak. 

How does human fecal matter enter our food or water supply to begin with?

The exact origin of this specific outbreak is still unclear. Taylor Farms said in a statement that the company has voluntarily recalled its iceberg lettuce products that came from central Mexico “out of an abundance of caution” and has also reached out to “independent experts” to review its food-safety protocols.

But experts say there are a few potential pathways for contamination — most having to do with how water is used and managed for agricultural production. 

In many past outbreaks of cyclospora that have been associated with fresh produce, “we’ve seen that water is critical,” said Kalmia Kniel, a professor of microbial food safety at the University of Delaware. If the irrigation water supply on an agricultural site comes into contact with wastewater, for example, and is not adequately filtered, then it runs the risk of contaminating crops meant for human consumption. 

“There’s lots of different little mechanisms where that could happen,” said Griffiths — like if agricultural fields are located adjacent to faulty sanitation systems. In these cases, storm events resulting in flooding or water runoff could lead to cross-contamination. Additionally, if a farm reuses municipal wastewater as part of its irrigation system and that wastewater is not treated to a high enough standard so as to remove pathogens, it poses a risk of transmitting cyclospora to crops. 

Read Next Would you pay $49 a month to drink recycled wastewater? Matt Simon How might climate change increase the risk of an outbreak?

For one, warmer temperatures help speed up the maturation process that makes cyclospora oocysts, or early stage parasites, infectious to humans. That’s why you typically see more cases of the infection during the summer months. As climate change makes summers hotter — and longer — the window of time when cyclospora could become infectious and present a public health risk is also growing. 

Another way that climate change supercharges the conditions for an outbreak like cyclosporiasis is by disrupting the water cycle. Extreme heat sucks moisture out of the environment, from rivers and lakes as well as the soil and plants. During drought conditions, agricultural producers are more likely to reuse nontraditional water sources, such as municipal and commercial wastewater, to irrigate crops. What’s more, cycling between drought and downpours means that when it does rain on dry soil, more runoff carries more particles and organisms across a landscape. 

Is cyclospora the only foodborne pathogen to worry about?

I wish. Food system researchers have seen how very dry, hot conditions supercharge the likelihood of other foodborne pathogens, such as salmonella and E. coli. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a multiyear study centered on Yuma County, Arizona, where a majority of the country’s lettuce is grown in the winter months. The researchers found that dust kicked up from a nearby cattle feedlot helped carry E. coli through the air and deposit the bacteria on nearby water and soil.  

Holly Bainbridge, a senior attorney at FarmSTAND, a legal advocacy organization, noted that studies like the USDA’s point to a gap in the nation’s regulatory oversight of the food system. “It was a step in the right direction, but the federal government hasn’t really done anything with it,” she said. 

Bainbridge added that the corporate consolidation of agriculture — and specifically, the intensive confinement of animals on farms — makes outbreaks of salmonella and E. coli more likely. 

Last week, the FDA issued a recall of over one and a half million eggs that have been potentially contaminated with salmonella. As of this writing, 98 people across 17 states have been made sick, according to the latest numbers from the CDC.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline 4 things to know about cyclospora and climate change  on Jul 30, 2026.

It seemed an odd request for a poetry magazine. What stuck with me most, though, was the very notion of a “nature poem.” What is such a thing? How in this age of collapse and dislocation do we define it?

A man who sees a forest as an unswept floor, who calls coal “beautiful,” who believes offshore wind is driving whales insane and making foxes obese, isn’t just someone with unusual opinions about nature. He’s someone who doesn’t understand the natural world on a fundamental level and doesn’t care to.

Richard’s clarity and kindness went right into my heart. My activist was ignited again, not to stop the system but to help my community and others adapt. With kindness.

Editor’s note: In July 2026, ten residents of Bali, Indonesia filed a citizen lawsuit against the country’s government, seeking a moratorium on new fossil fuel projects and accountability for climate-related disasters. Below, one of the plaintiffs and a field organizer with 350 Indonesia, Suriadi Darmoko, explains why he joined the case and what he believes is at stake for Bali’s future.

Flooding in the dry season? That was my first question after encountering so many floods, caused by extreme rain, that of all things, fall during what should be the dry season. To me, this situation is an extraordinary anomaly.

Back in elementary school I was taught that Indonesia’s dry season runs from April to September, while the rainy season usually falls between October and March. But in the year 2000, when I still lived in my home village, the rain did not come when it was supposed to. Even after the “coffee-blossom rain” — the first rain of the rainy season, after which the coffee plants would normally flower — more than a month passed and no more rain fell. The ground that had been soaked by that “coffee-blossom rain” turned dusty again. As a result, the planting season for rain-fed farmers — including my own parents — had to be delayed. That is a childhood memory of mine, one I thought things would improve after, but they didn’t. Instead I have lived through seasons that grow more and more unpredictable, even more extreme.

The intensifying climate crisis is growing more widespread and costly

The great flood in Bali that struck during the dry season, specifically on 10 September 2025,  brought that memory rushing back. A memory that returned with a simple question: since when did the seasons become so hard to predict? Now, the rain no longer holds back; it strikes right at the peak of the dry season.

Eighteen people died, 295 were displaced, and 6,309 households were affected. In addition, 520 public facilities were damaged, three bridges were severed, 23 road sections were destroyed, 82 retaining walls collapsed, and 194 houses were damaged. Total economic losses were estimated at Rp28.9 billion.

Flooding in Denpasar, Bali. Photo: Kresnanta – BaleBengong

That same year, extreme rainfall struck again at the peak of the dry season, this time in July — collapsing a section of Bali’s main highway, the Denpasar–Gilimanuk route, into a sinkhole roughly 8 meters (26 feet) deep and causing severe congestion. It wasn’t the first time: a 2022 flash flood in nearby Jembrana, a district on the same route, had already submerged 156 homes, displaced 117 households, and destroyed seven bridges.

Rescue efforts after flooding in Denpasar, Bali. Photo: Kresnanta – BaleBengong

Flooding is clearly nothing new for Bali: it keeps recurring, but it does get worse every year. It no longer strikes only the outskirts, but also tourist areas like Kuta, Legian, Seminyak, Canggu, Sanur, Ubud, and other parts of Bali, none of which have escaped flooding. Today, you no longer need to strain to remember when Bali last flooded — the footage is easy to find online. 

It is ironic: an island marketed as a comfortable tourist destination “the last paradise” is instead being battered by climate disasters that grow more intense and more destructive by the year.

Extreme heat, too, no longer holds back even during the rainy season. Several areas in Bali Province have recorded daily temperatures reaching 36 degrees Celsius. Bali was also hit by a prolonged drought in 2016, which caused drinking-water supplies to plummet drastically. For example, at that time the local water treatment plant  could only operate at 25 percent of its total production capacity of 550 liters per second.

Beyond flooding, coastal areas are also not spared from threats coming from the sea: tidal surges threatening beach destinations such as Sanur, Kuta, and many other locations. The threat from ocean waves keeps worsening, to the point that it could paralyze the sea crossings to Bali at any moment. In mid-2025, a ferry  sank after being struck by a tidal surge in the Bali Strait, disrupting the flow of logistics into Bali; the sinking also claimed lives.

2025 is certainly not the peak of Bali’s environmental crisis, because extreme weather continues to threaten this increasingly deforested island.

When threat meets vulnerability

Increasingly intense extreme weather is colliding with poor land-use practices. According to findings from the PULIHKAN Bali (Restore Bali) Coalition, a public advocacy group, between 2019 and 2024, Bali’s main urban area, the fast-growing region around Denpasar known by the acronym SARBAGITA, lost at least 6,522 hectares of productive rice fields — equivalent to an average shrinkage of 1,087 hectares of rice fields every year, a real erosion of the Subak cultural landscape long celebrated as a world heritage. In the Ayung River Basin (DAS), which serves as the lifeline of Bali’s water supply, the ecosystem is in a state of severe crisis. Forest cover in the Ayung basin, which once reached roughly 49,500 hectares, has now shrunk to only about 1,500 hectares. Meanwhile, Bali’s cities are falling well short of Indonesia’s legal requirement to keep at least 30% of urban land as green space: parks, urban forest, and other unpaved, vegetated areas that help absorb rainwater and reduce flood risk.

The destruction caused by flooding in Denpasar, Bali. Photo: Kresnanta – BaleBengong

To me, it is as if those in power have let Bali become a case of  the classic disaster equation: extreme rain (hazard) plus land-use conversion (vulnerability), compounded by a lack of readiness to face it (capacity).

The root of Bali’s ecological crisis

To me, flooding is only the surface of a much longer chain of root causes. Extreme rain is a result of unstable weather caused by climate change. Climate change is a result of global warming driven by rising greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, and others. So the question follows: does the root cause i.e. the greenhouse gases also originate from within Bali itself?

A survey by the KemBali Becik Community found that 64 percent of Bali’s greenhouse gas emissions come from tourism industry activities. The tourism and industrial sector consumes 3,737 GWh of electricity, while households consume only 3,153 GWh. And with far fewer customers — 226,942 in the tourism sector compared to 1,468,786 households — business and industrial sectors are far more energy-hungry, making their contribution to greenhouse gas production disproportionately large.

I see no sign of improvement at the island-wide scale, even as promises of an energy transition keep echoing across Bali — whether from the Bali Provincial Government or from international forums such as the G20, which gave birth to the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP). In fact, Bali is being shown a policy paradox. Regional and central governments keep clearing the way for massive projects that would only add to greenhouse gas emissions and deepen the climate crisis — including plans for four new gas-fired power plants with a combined capacity of 1,550 megawatts (enough to power more than a million homes), paired with a floating terminal that would import and process liquefied natural gas offshore. To put that in perspective: it’s more than Bali’s entire current power supply — the island’s whole existing electricity system has an installed capacity of just 1,518 megawatts, against a peak demand of around 1,227 megawatts. Rather than pursuing a transition, the government instead seems intent on demonstrating that Bali’s energy-security strategy is anchored in fossil fuels. In my view, this is a false sense of energy security — dependence on gas actually threatens Bali with the risk of future energy crises.

I have tried to untangle this complexity through a bit of philosophical reflection. Under the teaching of Karma Phala — the law of cause and effect that also underpins the moral foundation of Balinese society — it is hard to imagine the impacts of the climate crisis easing while the very causes behind it continue to be funded, reinforced, and built up across Bali. Every infrastructure project that increases carbon emissions, and every political decision that sacrifices water-catchment areas, will eventually bear bitter fruit, coming back to collect its due in the form of floods, droughts, rising sea levels, and extreme weather.

For that reason, fossil energy expansion can no longer be treated merely as a technical matter of power supply, it is now a critical issue of public safety, ecological justice, and the very existence of this “last paradise.”

A path to calming the crisis

I believe the climate crisis in Bali cannot be calmed by stopping just one greedy project alone. One of the best paths to calming this crisis, is to delay, or even halt, the granting of “extractive permits” across the board, all at once. It is on this basis that I chose to take part in this climate lawsuit together with the PULIHKAN (Movement for Environment and Sustainability) Bali Coalition, with one goal: to prevent Bali from being further destroyed.

At this point, it is entirely reasonable for the Court, and for the judges’ gavel, to take on the important role of deciding on the suspension of extractive permits that are undermining efforts to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis in Bali.

Press conference by PULIHKAN Bali Coalition on July 7, announcing the filing of Bali’s first climate lawsuit Photo: 350.org Indonesia

Through this lawsuit, the PULIHKAN Bali Coalition also hopes to spur the birth of structural policy correction in the form of a moratorium. This moratorium would include a temporary halt on new fossil-fuel energy megaprojects, as well as a halt on permits allowing the conversion of productive agricultural land, water-catchment areas, green open spaces, and protected zones. A moratorium is not an attempt to stop the pulse of the economy — it is the application of a precautionary principle, to ensure that no one becomes a sacrifice made in the name of development.

The road to recovery

Beyond a moratorium on permits, I believe it is also essential to emphasize the urgency of reforming climate and disaster financing. Until now, the handling of climate disasters in Indonesia has tended to be reactive, and heavily dependent on the bureaucratic process of declaring a disaster emergency status. Yet the climate crisis has already transformed the frequency and scale of disasters into a real, recurring threat. Regional preparedness must not be held hostage by convoluted administrative procedures. The government needs to progressively allocate dedicated funding within the national and regional budgets  toward mitigation, adaptation, strengthening community preparedness, rapid emergency response, and community-based post-disaster recovery.

Bali, in fact, has a strong historical track record on the global climate stage. As host of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 13) in 2007, Bali once stood at the center of the world’s attention in shaping the Bali Road Map. Now, having set the ambitious target of Bali Net Zero Emissions 2045, that commitment is being tested on the ground. Climate commitments mean nothing if they remain mere diplomatic jargon, while on the ground, permits for fossil industries and the destruction of water-catchment areas continue unabated.

Bali’s climate leadership can only be proven through consistent policy: accelerating the adoption of renewable energy, protecting what remains of its natural landscape, halting fossil expansion, and restoring degraded ecosystems.

This citizens’ lawsuit is, in the end, a mirror of the stakes riding on Bali’s future. The decisions made today will determine whether we will find a Bali that is sustainable and resilient, or an island drowning in an ecological crisis of its own elites’ making. The choice at this crossroads is clear: continue down the path of dependence on fossil energy and destructive land-use conversion, or dare to step toward a clean energy transition, protection of the remaining landscape, and governance grounded in public safety.

Bali cannot walk in two opposing directions at once. For the safety of both people and nature in Bali, choosing a safe and clean future is no longer merely an option — it is a mandate that must be fulfilled now.

The post Bali’s Climate Lawsuit appeared first on 350.

“We need to connect this production, this creative action of the people, to a society project where we overcome the exploitative relationships faced by the working class."

The post Brazil: The collective role of arts and culture in the fight of the MST appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Killing The Messenger Dept: Somehow going still lower, Republicans - aka "you absolute fucking pieces of shit" - just hauled Dr. Anthony Fauci into a Senate hearing to charge the guy who saved three million lives with "sabotaging" a dog heartworm pill, wanting to be a megalomanic "sun god," destroying "Americans' trust in their government" and probs being "responsible for this entire pandemic." In response, Fauci, "the man they cannot forgive for being right," declined to answer any of their "questions."

Wednesday's Stalinist circus shitshow trial from a GOP so desperately bogged down they've resorted to, "Ok, but remember the pandemic?" - and forget the Epstein files - offered dismal proof they're still mindlessly bowdlerizing science and using Fauci - a Cornell-trained, 85-year-old immunologist and infectious disease specialist who spent over 50 years in public service - as its main punching bag. Fauci, who evil bridge troll Steve Bannon once said should be beheaded, served almost 40 years as head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid) under 7 presidents. Reagan hired him, George H. W. Bush cited him when asked to name someone he admired, George W. gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom and asked him to design a wildly successful AIDS relief PEPFAR that saved 25 million lives, most poor people in Africa.

In the 1980s, HIV/AIDS was one of multiple public health crises largely afflicting marginalized populations, along with Ebola and a first coronavirus, that Fauci confronted with grace and courage. "AIDS arrived attached to a despised population," notes one observer. "Fauci did not look away." He redirected research toward what was then deemed a plague "when it was neither safe nor popular," and when furious, screaming, ill AIDS activists stormed his office, he invited them in, listened to them, decided they were at least partly right and expedited clinical trials so patients could get quicker access to experimental drugs. Fierce AIDS activist Larry Kramer, who once called Fauci "an incompetent murderer," years later called him "the only true and great hero" among government officials of the time.

This week's hearing, called and convened under subpoena by rabid gadfly and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, was billed as an investigation into the origins of COVID, a legit scientific question that to some extent remains unresolved. For years, MAGA has chosen to blame an accidental "lab leak" from China's Wuhan Institute of Virology, and Paul has devoted much of his otherwise less-than-memorable political career to arguing, according to that theory, that Dr. Fauci “could be responsible for this entire pandemic” - because NIH once provided the Institute with a sub-grant. Most virologists and other health experts say it was more likely caused by the occasional "spillover event" of a virus jumping from an infected animal to a human, arguing the “preponderance” of evidence points to that natural origin.

Public health officials have stepped up to protest the government's “vilification and harassment" of American scientists,” and a group of 155 scientists wrote an open letter dismissing bizarre MAGA charges against Fauci - he covered up the origins of his own research, bribed or others to join him, holds patents on vaccines, is working with bad actors to suppress the awful truth - as "baseless...No credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges." Still, Paul's office spent last weekend dumping over 1,100 pages of Fauci’s private “diary” online; after blowback, they took them down, made redactions and reposted them. Inadvertently or no, they left in Fauci's various descriptions of Trump as “rambling,” “crazy,” “bumbling,” “incompetent,” “an idiot” and “truly an obnoxious adolescent.”

In a somber preamble, Fauci noted over the decades he has testified before Congress, willingly and under oath, hundreds of times. But because he "has spent years playing Twister with these sinuous assholes (and) he knows it doesn’t matter what the spinner says," he went on, "Though it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government," following counsel's advice he would invoke the Fifth and "refrain from answering your questions." He also blasted Paul's "unhinged obsession" with him. Then, dozens of times over the infuriating hours, he intoned, "I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.“ Later, an expert noted his carefully neutral body language during the ordeal: "He is refusing to participate in the confrontation beyond what is legally required.”

Paul - the only senator to vote against $8.3 billion in emergency spending during COVID, and the first senator to get it - grew agitated by Fauci's calm stream of refusals. He threatened him with "repercussions" and with a charge of contempt. Heatedly refusing to allow any of Fauci's attorneys to join him - "The attorneys were not recognized," he snarled - at one point he called on security to escort out of the hearing room one lawyer after he attempted to speak with Fauci. "This is the way Anthony Fauci wants to be remembered - for a lawyer not recognizing the rules," he said. "Security, please remove him from the room.” The attorney gently patted Fauci on the shoulder and turned to leave on his own; a guard sheepishly trailed after him. In the audience, Laura Ingraham and other MAGA-ites applauded, because they have no shame and never will.

Rand and other Republicans tried to claim Fauci had no right to take the Fifth because Biden issued him a preemptive pardon that eliminated that privilege, an ongoing debate in some legal circles. What is not debated though Repubs tried to argue otherwise: Invoking the Fifth Amendment is not a confession of guilt, but a foundational right against self-incrimination as long as there exists a valid threat of prosecution. Most pointedly, the Fifth does not represent guilt but "the ordinary caution" of any citizen who is dragged before a hostile panel by a vindictive chairman vowing for years to put him behind bars, and who "understands this hearing was "never a search for information but a search for a crime - of having stood in public and told a frightened country the truth, while a president lied to it."

Public health experts now say roughly 40% of America's million-plus COVID deaths, representing hundreds of thousands of lives, could have been prevented under more effective federal policies. But because they were caused by an idiotic malignant narcissist tragically unable to admit he's ever fucked up - or to allow anyone around him to admit it - the lies keep spewing. Last year the White House published a paper on the lab-leak theory as a rationale to defund the NIH, justify cutting over a billion dollars in state and local health funding, and gut cancer and Alzheimers research; now, citing that lame lie and dreaded diversity, they're trying to put the entire $1 trillion federal grant apparatus under the control of political appointees. This week, in honor of Paul's hearing, Trump wrote Dr. Fauci’s ideas were "CRAZY."

On Wednesday, MAGA dutifully jumped in. Cowardly slimebag Josh Hawley, who fist-pumped then ran away from the mob who smeared shit on the Capitol walls, said Fauci had no right to invoke the Fifth, "This is about contempt for this body and the American people," and, yuge pot/kettle, the good doctor was a lying megalomaniac who "wanted to be the sun god." Bernie Moreno demanded Fauci apologize for his crimes and sneered, "Who the fuck did you think you were?" Roger Marshall, an alleged doctor, said vaccine lies "made Americans not trust their government," though unvaxxed MAGA died at twice the rate of Dems. Ron Johnson called a vaccine that saved millions of lives "an experimental gene therapy, and accused Fauci of lying in his own diary, eliciting the day's only smile from him.

Later, a frustrated Paul told reporters he would hold Fauci in contempt, though it's not up to him. Besides, notes Tom Wellborn, the spectacle wasn't really about answers to questions; it was about a mob of willfully ignorant quacks and losers finding an imaginary villain. "Fauci was the man on the screen," he writes. "He absorbed the rage that had nowhere else to go." Above all, Fauci was hated, not for lying, but for "telling the truth to people who did not want to hear it." He "stood between the American public and a president who wanted the problem to vanish before an election," who suggested insane things - Ivermectin, disinfectant, lights - as Fauci carefully contradicted him, "trying to keep his job long enough to keep being useful."

Fauci wasn't a saint, Wellborn writes, and he wasn't right about everything. But he was "right about the things that mattered most" - it was airborne, masks and distance helped. He "told the truth as the science understood it at the time, and when the science changed, as science does, he changed the guidance, and his enemies have spent years calling those updates lies." Meanwhile, "he saved lives, and they were on the other side." Most vital: To remember "that in the summer of 2026, a man who had given his entire adult life to keeping other people alive was hauled before a hostile Senate by a colleague nursing a personal vendetta... and which of the two men in that room had spent his life saving strangers, and which spent his trying to jail the person who did."

"As some day it may happen/that a victim must be found" - Gilbert and Sullivan's I've Got A Little List

Food labels 'would help avert climate crisis' Channel News brendan 30th July 2026 Teaser Media

In just a few years, support for “remigration” – an illegal project to deport migrants, refugees and citizens who are deemed “unassimilated” – has moved from the fringes to the fore of political discourse. In Italy, this dynamic has been enabled by collaboration between the far right in government and extra-parliamentary groups. How to resist the normalisation of extremist ideas when the debate keeps shifting further to the right?

Around 500 far-right politicians, activists, and influencers gathered in Porto last May for the second edition of the “Remigration Summit”. The first had been held a year earlier in Gallarate, not far from Milan. In April this year, Milan also hosted the demonstration “Fearless! In Europe, we are masters in our own home”, organised by the European far-right party Patriots for Europe. In June, a pro-remigration march took place in Rome, reportedly attended by around 4000 people. Two weeks later, on 30 June, the “Comitato Remigrazione e Riconquista” (“Remigration and Reconquest Committee”) filed a citizen initiative bill on remigration, collecting over 130,000 signatures (well above the 50,000 required).  

All of these initiatives reflect the growing popularity of “remigration”, which, according to the summit’s promoters, aims to “prevent population replacement through the reversal of migratory flows, thereby restoring the sovereignty, independence, and identity of countries, through the defense of their ethnocultural specificity.” In practice, remigration means the mass expulsion of irregular migrants, but also asylum seekers, refugees, and other legal migrants and citizens deemed “unassimilated” into the dominant culture – that is, people who are non-white and Muslim.  

From the fringes to the institutions 

The Remigration and Reconquest Committee brings together various strands of the extra-parliamentary, anti-democratic, and neo-fascist far right, including CasaPound (whose members have proudly called themselves “the fascists of the third millennium”), Veneto Fronte Skinheads, Brescia ai bresciani, and the Rete dei patrioti. But remigration has also been popularised by prominent figures within the institutional Right, particularly the League.  

Led by Transport Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the League is the second-largest force in the three-party governing coalition. It remains a key player in regional politics in Northern Italy, but has in recent years lost many of its supporters to Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy. In an attempt to stem its losses, the League has increasingly radicalised on identity issues.  

So far, this strategy hasn’t worked. In February, Roberto Vannacci – an army general elected to the European Parliament with the League in 2024 – left the League to found a new party, Futuro Nazionale (“National Future”). Vannacci, who has been criticised for his homophobic, racist, and fascism-revisionist statements, is among the staunchest supporters of remigration, and accuses the government and the League of being too moderate and too willing to compromise. National Future is currently polling above 7 per cent, ahead of the League and just behind Forza Italia, the junior coalition partner.  

Although remigration remains, for now, a minority project, its political rise has already created a climate of tension. In January, for example, during a press event at the Chamber of Deputies for the launch of the popular-initiative bill on remigration, a member of Rete dei patrioti handed a fake plane ticket to journalist Youssef Hassan Holgado, who is of Spanish and Egyptian origin. “I was there as a journalist and was given a ticket to ‘remigrate’ to my country of origin,” recounts Hassan Holgado. “As a journalist, I have the rhetorical tools to defend myself against accusations and attacks. But that gesture is an insult to all the people of foreign origin who might not have the tools to defend themselves against this barbarity.”  

The press conference, organised by League MP Domenico Furgiuele, was later cancelled after dozens of opposition lawmakers occupied the chamber, singing the anti-fascist anthem “Bella ciao” and holding up copies of the Italian constitution. In April, the 32 MPs who had taken part in the protest were suspended for blocking the event. In June, Furgiuele left the League to join National Future.  

Both in Italy and Germany, […] provisions stipulate that no one may be stripped of their citizenship on political grounds. Born from the resolve never to repeat Nazi and fascist persecutions, these principles are now being challenged across Europe.

Racism and conspiracy theories 

Italy, with two far-right parties in government, represents an important laboratory for the European Right. But the movement to normalise remigration as a political project dates back much further. One of its ideological antecedents is the theory of ethnopluralism, advanced by French thinkers from the Nouvelle Droite and the Research and Study Group for European Civilisation (GRECE), founded in 1968 by Alain de Benoist. Rejecting universalism – the idea that all people share a common human worth – ethnopluralism legitimises a form of apartheid based not on explicit racism, but on the idea that peoples have fundamental, unbridgeable differences, and must therefore live in separate ethno-cultural regions.  

“The ideological core [of remigration] is nativism, the idea that nation-states should be populated by natives,” says Mattia Zulianello, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Trieste and an expert on populism, radicalism, and political extremism. He explains nativism splits into three strands: “Economic nativism holds that immigrants steal jobs from natives; welfare chauvinism claims migrants drain resources without contributing; and symbolic nativism sees migrants – especially Muslim migrants – as a threat to traditions and customs.”  

Linked to these ideas is also the conspiracy theory of the “Great Replacement” articulated by another French writer and intellectual, Renaud Camus. In his 2011 book Le grand remplacement, Camus argues that mass immigration into Europe is part of a plan to end white European civilisation. Camus’s racism is also steeped in antisemitism: he claims a “globalist elite” made up of Jewish political and financial figures, along with the progressive world, is carrying out the transnational design of the “Great Replacement”.  

Leonardo Bianchi, a journalist, writer, and author of the newsletter Complotti! (“Conspiracies”), argues that the conspiratorial and ideological dimension lies at the heart of remigration as a political proposal: “It isn’t just about expelling migrants, but above all about stripping civil rights from citizens deemed ‘unassimilated’, meaning those who hold European passports but, in the movement’s own terms, aren’t ‘native’ – that is, not white and not Christian. 

Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the far-right Front National, helped spread Camus’s ideas. In his book Mémoires, he claimed that the “Great Replacement” is a fact and that the white world is dying. Over the years, Camus’s theory spread across Europe and reached the United States through the “alt-right” movement. It also inspired the perpetrators of terrorist, xenophobic massacres, such as the 2019 Christchurch attack in New Zealand.  

Parties and influencers  

The vocabulary of remigration emerged alongside the spread of Camus’s ideas. According to Zulianello, the first movements to talk about remigration, in the Netherlands and Belgium, were classic extreme-right groups: skinheads and ultras of varying degrees of extremism. But the idea initially had little traction.  

Among institutional political actors, Geert Wilders (the Eurosceptic and Islamophobic founder of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands) and the Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang (“Flemish Interest”) were among the first to adopt the term between 2011 and 2012. Following the 2015 refugee crisis, the discourse on migration shifted rightward, and parties like Fidesz in Hungary began spreading Camus’s theories. As recently as 2022, during his inauguration speech for his fourth and final term as prime minister, Viktor Orbán said: “I see the great European population exchange as a suicidal attempt to replace the lack of European, Christian children with adults from other civilisations – migrants.” 

In Denmark too, the idea that migrants were siphoning off social resources meant for native citizens took hold in the political agenda. “Welfare chauvinism originated with the Dansk Folkeparti [“Danish People’s Party”], which then prompted other parties to follow suit, as they sought to replicate successful strategies,” says Zulianello. The theme later spread across various far-right parties in Europe. “The current wave owes to Alternative für Deutschland”.  

On 25 November 2023, AfD members, businesspeople, entrepreneurs, doctors, fraternity members, and even some figures from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) gathered at a hotel on Lake Lehnitz, near Potsdam. Martin Sellner, an Austrian neo-fascist ideologue and influencer, set out the strategy needed to normalise remigration, a long-term project meant to unfold over decades. He also spoke of a “model city” in North Africa where two million people would be relocated (that is, deported). The parallels with the Nazi plan to deport four million Jews to Madagascar are clear. The Potsdam meeting was meant to remain secret, but it was exposed by the independent investigative outlet Correctiv.  

“This theory isn’t harmless,” Bianchi comments. “As a project, it undermines the constitutions of European countries, which are founded on the fundamental principles of the post-World War II era. Both in Italy, under Article 22, and in Germany, under Article 16, these provisions stipulate that no one may be stripped of their citizenship on political grounds.” Born from the resolve never to repeat Nazi and fascist persecutions, these principles are now being challenged across Europe: by Chega in Portugal, Vox in Spain, and Reform UK in the United Kingdom.  

According to Zulianello, Europe’s radical right has also influenced its American counterpart, which in turn has helped mainstream the idea of remigration. After Elon Musk’s 2023 acquisition of Twitter, violent content circulated more freely, giving greater visibility to figures like Sellner. A report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found a spike of 71000 mentions of the term “remigration” on X between 1 and 8 September 2025, following coordinated posts from Musk himself and other prominent far-right figures, such as Dutch influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek.  

Donald Trump, too, has invoked and carried out expulsions of migrants, explicitly using the term “remigration” on the official channels of the Department of Homeland Security. But according to Zulianello, the real driving force behind this movement remains Europe.  

“What’s interesting about the Italian case,” says Zulianello, “is that the proposal didn’t originate from a party, but from a far-right network – the Comitato Remigrazione e Riconquista”. As Bianchi points out, the Committee’s proposal “follows Martin Sellner’s plan to the letter, which sets out three steps: the deportation of irregular migrants, the restriction of the right to asylum and family reunification (which are also long-standing causes championed by the League), and voluntary remigration, which is anything but voluntary and targets all so-called ‘non-assimilated’ people.” 

The citizen initiative bill submitted in June aims to “regulate” migratory flows in order to combat irregular migration and exploitation. It proposes establishing a national “remigration Programme” to crack down on NGOs (allegedly “involved in migrant trafficking”), reduce flows of foreign workers, encourage the “return of Italian descendants”, and create a fund to boost Italy’s birth rate. These measures would be financed through a “remigration fund” of 500 million euros per year, raised through NGO asset seizures, a tax on remittances, and funds currently allocated to asylum policy. However, the proposal’s central problem isn’t economic but legal and constitutional: remigration openly violates the anti-fascist principles of the Italian Constitution and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.  

According to Zulianello, the initiative’s promoters “know that the proposal as it is is simply not feasible. What matters to them is getting the issue onto the agenda. By mainstreaming certain topics, the space for debate widens, and mainstream parties tend to want to fill that vacuum, effectively legitimising the issue and hardening anti-immigration policies.”  

The effects are already visible. A security package approved in April included an amendment that offered financial rewards to lawyers who successfully carried out voluntary repatriation procedures for migrants. Legal controversy over the measure later forced the government to amend it.  

Resisting normalisation 

Tickets to the Remigration Summit in Porto cost between 45 and 325 euros – a price justified by the stakes, according to the organisers: “With remigration, Europe will become more European day by day. Without remigration, it will become less European every day and will eventually cease to exist.” But the Europe imagined by remigration’s supporters – which is moving closer to the mainstream, also thanks to the cooperation between the centre-right and the far-right in the European Parliament – isn’t the only possible Europe. Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union states that “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.” 

According to Bianchi, opposing remigration and the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory means, above all, refusing to allow their normalisation as “common sense” proposals. “The term ‘remigration’ sounds neutral because it comes from the social sciences, but it’s an act of linguistic normalisation: its meaning and its origins are inseparable from the political project behind it.” 

The spiking price of oil helped increase global sales of electric cars in the second quarter of 2026 despite total car sales falling, a new International Energy Agency (IEA) report shows.

The IEA’s latest update on the market for electric cars said sales increased by 4% in the second quarter, after the war between the US, Israel and Iran disrupted oil supplies around the world and caused oil prices to jump at the end of February.

The increase in electric car sales was achieved despite customers buying fewer vehicles in total due to economic problems and, in China, a reduction in government subsidies for cheap cars. Total car sales fell 5% globally in the first half of 2026.

“While a lag in consumer responses and policy implementation means the full effects will take time to materialise, the crisis has clearly reinforced the case for [electric vehicles] as a way to address energy security and fuel cost concerns,” the IEA’s report said.

• May 22, 2026 Clean Energy Frontier Chinese EV brands woo Yemen’s wealthy elite as war prompts solar boom For the well-off few, buying an EV is the next step in a solar revolution that has helped Yemenis weather years of power outages and high fuel prices Read more
• Apr 8, 2026 News Charging worries, high prices put brakes on EV growth in Bangladesh Sales of e-bikes and rickshaws are up amid queues at fuel stations, but a lack of charging infrastructure and high prices still deter many Bangladeshis from going electric Read more
• Apr 2, 2026 News Nepal’s EV revolution pays off as oil crisis causes pain at the pumps Import subsidies, abundant hydropower and charging investments have spurred EV adoption, with electric vehicles now making up about three-quarters of new car sales Read more

The IEA predicts that sales of electric cars will speed up in the second half of the year, increasing by 10% for 2026 in total compared to 2025. Electric car sales will be 29% of total car sales over the full year, it forecasts, up from 24% in the first half.

The IEA expects sales of fossil fuel-reliant internal combustion engine vehicles to continue declining, as they have been doing for a decade because of economic shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic and, since around 2020, the rise of electric cars.

Road transport – which also includes two- and three-wheeled vehicles like scooters and rickshaws – currently accounts for half of global oil use. The oil industry has been trying to expand markets in newer, growing sectors like plastic to replace its declining business in petrol and diesel for road transport.

Pro-EV policies

As well as the higher oil price, the IEA said this year’s electric car boom is being driven in some countries – particularly in Europe and Southeast Asia – by government policies that have been put in place since the Iran war blocked shipping of oil and other commodities through the Strait of Hormuz.

It highlighted the Netherlands and Ireland, which have both announced subsidies for scrapping old internal combustion engine cars and replacing them with electric ones.

Australia, Spain, Chile, Vietnam and the US state of California have introduced, or are introducing, tax benefits for electric cars.

Australia, the UK and Hungary have announced funding or support for charging infrastructure, while Cambodia, Brazil and Kenya have reduced taxes on imports of electric vehicles.

Growth in electric car sales was particularly strong in Europe, Brazil, Australia, India, South Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, South Africa and New Zealand.

On the other hand, electric car sales fell 16% in China – the world’s biggest electric car-buying country – in the second quarter. This was driven by a decline in total car sales, which was more extreme for internal combustion engine cars than electric ones.

In the US, electric car sales rose 20% in the second quarter compared with the first quarter of 2026. But this was about 25% less than in the same period of 2025, when Americans were taking advantage of expiring Biden-era federal tax credits.

These statistics back up Climate Home News’ reporting from the ground since the oil price spiked. As we reported from Yemen in May, the IEA data shows Chinese electric car companies are having success in the Middle East.

And as our correspondents found in Nepal and Bangladesh, there has been a surge of interest in electric vehicles across Asian countries outside of China. Yet while EV adoption in Nepal has been enabled by investments in charging and import subsidies, drivers in Bangladesh have been put off by a lack of chargers and high prices for electric two-wheelers.

The post Hormuz crisis speeds up transition to electric cars, IEA data shows appeared first on Climate Home News.

Give them liberty … and give us death.

A forthcoming federal bill proposes to outlaw speed- and red-light cameras under the cover of legitimate, but unrelated, mass surveillance fears.

Flock Safety, which operates more than 120,000 surveillance cameras across the country, is under fire for a growing number of data breaches, stalking incidents, and wrongful arrests. Police have been caught 28 times abusing their system access to stalk romantic interests in the past several years, according to public interest law firm Institute for Justice. In one case this year, a Milwaukee police officer pleaded guilty to using the system to stalk an ex-partner 124 times.

Now, Republicans may be using Flock opposition – and confusion – to advance their war on safety. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) announced earlier this week that he is introducing legislation to “withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law-abiding citizens.” (Emphasis added.)

I’ll soon be sponsoring a bill to withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law abiding citizens. pic.twitter.com/FGzE69psxS

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 25, 2026

Should that “other style” include speed- and red-light cameras, the bill would effectively ban traffic enforcement on local roads nationwide and lead to hundreds of fatalities. (But, then again, people caught on such cameras are not “law-abiding…”)

Speed- and red-light cameras prevent hundreds of road deaths every year, but they collect far less data, and under more-strict regulations, than Flock’s devices. For instance, traffic enforcement cameras do not collect data except when prompted to do so by an active violation. A transgressing driver sets off a trigger, either by running through a red light or traveling above the speed limit, which prompts the camera to take one to two photos.

Drivers who do not violate the law are not photographed by traffic enforcement cameras. But libertarians like Massie still object to speed cameras, which are derided as a “money grab.”

Recommended This Data Proves that Speed Cameras Improve Safety John Greenfield March 5, 2025

This form of automated enforcement technology was developed in the 1980s. In San Francisco, speeding dropped by 72 percent at key locations after cameras were installed last year. Boulder Springs, Colorado reduced red light-running violations by the same percentage in its first year of enforcement. In New York City, which has the largest automated camera system, collisions declined by 30 percent and injuries by 16 percent in the the seven months following the introduction of a camera, the local Department of Transportation reported.

Traffic enforcement cameras deter reckless driving by capturing specific illegal behaviors. Flock cameras watch everyone, everywhere, all of the time.

The company operates a national network of Automated License Plate Readers that scan for, and log, every plate that comes into view. Every vehicle in frame is sent to a broader database that anyone to whom Flock grants access can see.

Recommended Report: Speed Cameras Working in San Francisco, Floundering in Bureaucracy in L.A. Damien Newton December 11, 2025

Last year, the company introduced FreeForm, an AI search tool enabling its clients to parse data using plain language searches. A law enforcement officer could search “red SUV with dent on rear bumper” and find every image of a specific vehicle captured by Flock. Police could then compile that information into a detailed history of the vehicle occupants’ location.

“We’re making it easier than ever for investigators to track down vehicles of interest,” the company said in an announcement.

Automated traffic enforcement and plate reading systems differ enormously in the quantity of data they collect and what can be done with it. Few Americans can actually tell the difference – and many are taking their frustrations out on the wrong cameras.

One enraged X user tagged Fox News in a post: “I received a speeding ticket as a result of a flock camera! I was going ONE MILE over the speed limit. ONE!!!!!”

@FoxNews I received a speeding ticket as a result of a flock camera! I was going ONE MILE over the speed limit. ONE!!!!!

— Vera Allen (@AliCat203) July 27, 2026

Under differing state laws, speed cameras don’t issue tickets until violators are driving many miles per hour — in New York City, it is 11 mph — above the limit. Even more puzzlingly, Flock does not issue speeding tickets.

The company itself has blurred the line between its plate readers and traditional speed enforcement. Its website used to claim that it does not “perform facial recognition, does not store biometrics, cannot be queried to find people, and is not used to enforce traffic violations.” Sometime after Dec. 2, 2025, it quietly removed that last commitment.

Just three weeks later, Flock had already gone back on its commitment. A Georgia State Patrol officer used a Flock license plate reader to ticket a motorcyclist for holding his phone, as first reported by 404 Media.

Georgia State Patrol used a Flock camera to cite a motorcyclist in December 2025.

Massie’s legislation is not the Republicans’ first attempt this term at enacting The Purge on US roads. A bill by Rep. Pat Harrigan (R-N.C.) would ban speed cameras by withholding federal highway funds from states.

Increased conflation between privately operated license plate readers and standard traffic enforcement could increase public support for anti-speed enforcement bills – including the ones that won’t rein in Flock at all.

Whether by panicked confusion or targeted destruction, automated traffic enforcement is under attack. That attack won’t disarm mass surveillance, but it will cause thousands of Americans to die on the road.

Diet shapes nearly every aspect of human well-being. It influences the risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers as well as how we learn, think, feel, age, and function.

That critical connection between food and health was the theme of Food Tank’s Capitol Hill Luncheon on July 29, held in partnership with the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, “The Power and Peril of Food: The Latest Science on Your Mood, Memory, Metabolism, and Longevity.” The discussions explored how diets rich in fruits, vegetables, and minimally processed foods may benefit mood and mental health, and how nutrition can influence memory, metabolism, and cognitive decline.

According to the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation, about 6 in 10 Americans live with at least one chronic disease, creating significant health and economic burdens. In 2022, 90 percent of the US$4.5 trillion spent on health care in the United States was for individuals with chronic physical and mental health conditions. And American families feel the impact.

“For an average family of four, we spend US$50,000 a year on healthcare,” says Dariush Mozaffarian, Director of the Food is Medicine Institute. “Imagine if we spent just US$10,000 less per family, what that family could do or what the government could do with the US$10,000 a year, let alone US$20,000 less.”

Eric Verdin, MD, of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, described nutrition as a key influence on multiple systems in the body, serving as a signal to switch metabolic and repair pathways on or off.

“Many of us think about nutrition as a form of energy. Nutrition is actually a lot more than this…The choices that you make when you’re eating influence your metabolism and your brain,” says Verdin, who also connected diet to chronic inflammation and brain health. “What happens when you have a poor diet is you enter a state of chronic inflammation…This affects your brain.”

Ultra-processed foods were a major focus of discussion at the event, with speakers pointing to their prevalence in the American diet and potential connections to chronic disease and other health outcomes. Speakers agreed that more research is needed to understand what makes ultra-processed foods impact health and how the food system might pivot toward more nutritious options.

“Ultra-processed food represents 50 percent of nutrition for most Americans,” says Verdin. “These foods are not engineered for nutrition; they’re engineered for palatability and to make you eat more.”

Nutrition’s influence extends beyond physical health, too. Ashley Gearhardt, PhD, Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, says “some of the strongest evidence between ultra-processed food diets and disease is actually for mental health conditions…We are seeing a strong body of evidence that the food you’re eating is going to influence how your mind is working.”

Jan Ellison Baszucki, President of the Baszucki Group, shared a personal story highlighting the potential for metabolic approaches to address mental health conditions: Her son used a ketogenic diet to help treat bipolar disorder. She questioned whether the country is investing enough in research on the relationship between metabolism and mental health.

“Can we afford, as a society, to not investigate nutritional, metabolic approaches to our most serious mental illnesses?” says Baszucki.

Speakers also challenged the traditional approach to healthcare, arguing that prevention and nutrition should play a greater role. “We have a medical system now that we call healthcare. It is not healthcare, it is sickcare,” says Verdin.

The discussion comes as policymakers and the public are paying greater attention to the role of food in health. At a time when Americans disagree on many issues, speakers agreed that improving nutrition and reducing diet-related disease offers common ground.

“I’ve been thinking about active advocacy in this area for about 10 years, and I’ve never seen such bipartisan support,” says Mozaffarian.

Calley Means, Senior Advisor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, agreed that “wherever we are on the political aisle, we can all hopefully agree that there is a unique political moment right now where we are talking about these things more in this country.”

Speakers called for better data and research to understand how nutrition affects individuals differently, including using emerging technologies.

“The age of AI is here, and we should be implementing it to collect more accurate data to offer personalized solutions for some individuals, but also offer better research,” says Uma Naidoo, MD, Director of Nutritional & Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Ultimately, the event underscored the importance of turning scientific findings into policies and practices that can improve health at scale.

“There’s a handful of policies that we could enact to both improve the science and improve the food right now for Americans,” says Mozaffarian. He emphasizes that while much more investment is needed in science and solutions, “there really is an opportunity here, and we really can fix this.”

Watch the full event below:

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Photo courtesy of A.E.Landes Photography for Food Tank

The post Experts Highlight the Power of Food to Improve Metabolic and Mental Health appeared first on Food Tank.

Protesters today climbed into an ancient cottonwood tree in Arizona’s San Rafael Valley to stop the Trump administration from cutting it down for construction of two parallel 30-foot-tall border walls.

The action comes after Department of Homeland Security contractors cut down three neighboring Fremont cottonwoods estimated to be 200 to 250 years old.

“Destroying these ancient cottonwoods is a death sentence for an entire ecosystem,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These magnificent cottonwoods survived centuries, nourishing wildlife through floods and drought, only to be bulldozed for the Trump administration’s disastrous border wall. The San Rafael Valley is one of the most biologically rich landscapes in North America. It’s both a refuge and crucial corridor for jaguars, ocelots, black bears, pronghorn and hundreds of bird species.”

Today’s action is believed to be the first tree sit aimed at stopping U.S. border wall construction.

The three cottonwoods cut down earlier this week stood along a rare stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border where mature trees once formed a transboundary canopy. The trees provided nesting habitat, shade and shelter within an increasingly scarce riparian ecosystem that supports hundreds of animal species. One protester was arrested Monday while trying to protect those trees and nesting migratory birds.

Federal officials said preconstruction surveys would be conducted during Arizona’s active nesting season, but observers at the site reported that no surveys for nesting migratory birds were completed before the trees were destroyed.

The area also contains prehistoric archaeological sites that preserve evidence of thousands of years of Indigenous presence in the borderlands. Ongoing construction threatens cultural resources that would be permanently lost if disturbed.

The Department of Homeland Security is constructing the border wall under authorities that waive dozens of the nation’s cornerstone environmental and cultural resource protection laws, allowing construction to proceed without reviews normally required under laws including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Historic Preservation Act.

In a letter sent today to the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Center called for an immediate halt to construction in the Lochiel area. The letter urged the agencies to conduct comprehensive biological and cultural resource surveys, consult with Tribes with ancestral and cultural connections to the San Rafael Valley, protect the remaining ancient cottonwoods, and assess the ecological and cultural resources at risk.

Videos and photos for media use are available here.

Cottonwood tree destruction for border wall construction in Lochiel, Arizona. Credit: John Kurc. Image is available for media use.