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Jane Fonda on US Election: 'The Future of the Planet Is at Stake'
Actor and activist Jane Fonda took aim at Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump and his climate-wrecking plans in comments published Monday from her wide-ranging conversation with CBS News, The Guardian, and Rolling Stone.The interview with Fonda, which took place in California earlier this month, was coordinated by Covering Climate Now and is set to air on "CBS Saturday Morning" on September 28. It comes as she travels the country to support climate champions including Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democrats taking on Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in the November election.Trump "invited all...
Pro-Democracy Alliance Says Supreme Court's Trump Immunity Ruling Must Not Stand
Dozens of civil society groups on Monday told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that congressional action is "imperative" to ensure the Supreme Court decision in Trump v. United States does not stand, warning that the court's ruling on presidential immunity in July "poses a significant threat to our democracy."In deciding that a U.S. president has "absolute immunity" for "official acts" taken while in office, said the groups, the court "effectively [provided] the president with sweeping legal immunity for criminal acts" two-and-a-half years after former President Donald Trump urged his supporters to block the 2020 election results from being certified with...
100+ Global Lawmakers Urge Biden to Reject New LNG Exports
With Climate Week underway in New York City, 106 lawmakers from the United States and around the world on Monday urged the Biden administration to reject new liquefied natural gas export permits, stressing that they "are not in the U.S. public interest or necessary for the national or energy security of our allies." Rejecting new permits, they wrote, "will help protect communities from the environmental harm that fossil gas causes; promote global energy security and encourage investment and trade in clean energy technologies; and help our nations satisfy both national and global climate commitments, including those made at the 2023...
Israeli Bombardment Kills 350+ in Lebanon as Fury Over US Complicity Grows
The Israeli military's massive bombing campaign in eastern and southern Lebanon on Monday killed more than 350 people and wounded at least 1,200, overwhelming the country's already-strained hospitals, increasing the likelihood of all-out war, and intensifying calls for an arms embargo against Israel. The Associated Press described the Israeli bombardment on Monday as the "deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war," and it came just days after Israel's military detonated thousands of pagers and other electronic devices across Lebanon, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands more in what experts—including former CIA director Leon Panetta—called an act of terrorism. Lebanon's health ministry...
'Words Are Not Enough': UN Pact for the Future Must Lead to Action, Climate Groups Say
The world's nations agreed on Sunday to pass the "potentially game-changing" Pact for the Future, drawing praise from climate groups but also warnings that its abstract, generalized reforms must lead to concrete action. The 56-page United Nations agreement, which deals not just with climate but also such issues as inequality, security, artificial intelligence, and global governance, was passed by consensus at the end of a dramatic weekend summit. It came after nine months of negotiations, with one sticking point being whether a reference to "transitioning away from fossil fuels" would be included—ultimately, it was. "This a positive signal for the road ahead,...
Meet the 7 Corporations Doing the Most to Undermine Democracy Worldwide
Big Tech, Big Oil, and private equity firms are among the leading companies that profit from controlling media and technology, accelerating the climate crisis, privatizing public goods and services, and violating human and workers' rights, the International Trade Union Confederation revealed on Monday. The ITUC has labeled seven major companies as "corporate underminers of democracy" that lobby against government attempts to hold them accountable and are headed by super-rich individuals who fund right-wing political movements and leaders. "This is about power, who has it, and who sets the agenda," Todd Brogan, director of campaigns and organizing at the ITUC, told The Guardian....
Under Republican State Laws, US Book Bans Nearly Tripled Last School Year
As Banned Books Week kicked off, a leading free expression group in the U.S. announced Monday that the number of books that were pulled from shelves or "challenged" by right-wing groups and Republican lawmakers skyrocketed to at least 10,000 over the last year with state legislatures passing new censorship laws. PEN America found that the number of banned books tripled from the 2022-23 school year, when it had been 3,362. New laws passed in Iowa and Florida were major drivers of censorship in libraries and public schools in the last school year, with 8,000 instances of book bans in the...
'Global Oligarchy' Reigns as Top 1% Controls More Wealth Than Bottom 95% of Humanity
A report published Monday by the humanitarian group Oxfam warns that decades of intensifying inequality have left the world in the grip of a "global oligarchy" under which the richest sliver of humanity owns more wealth than nearly everyone else combined—a state of affairs that undermines democratic institutions and international cooperation on climate, pandemics, and other crises. Oxfam's analysis of data from the investment banking giant UBS found that the fortune controlled by the top 1% is now larger than the collective wealth of the bottom 95%. Such inequality pervades the global economy, Oxfam noted, with a small number of corporations...
Israel Launches Massive Bombing Campaign in Lebanon as 'US Weapons Continue to Flow'
The Israeli military launched a wave of deadly airstrikes in eastern and southern Lebanon on Monday, the latest escalatory step toward a full-blown war following Israel's mass detonations of electronic devices that killed dozens of people last week. The Lebanese health ministry ordered hospitals in the southern part of the country to temporarily halt elective surgeries to make room for victims of Israel's latest barrage of airstrikes, which came just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed his "support for Israel's right to defend itself from Lebanese Hezbollah attacks" in a conversation with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant. While Austin also...
Congress Announces Short-Term Spending Deal After Johnson Drops Key MAGA Demand
Congressional leaders on Sunday said they reached an agreement on legislation to fund the federal government for three more months, averting a shutdown and stoking right-wing ire and allegations that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson "caved" to Democrats by dropping a key demand by his far-right colleagues. According to The New York Times: The deal, which extends federal appropriations through Dec. 20, includes an additional $231 million to help the beleaguered Secret Service protect candidates during the upcoming presidential election and into next year. According to the Treasury Department, the United States has spent about $6.3 trillion in fiscal 2024, which...
Fears of 'Imminent Catastrophe' Mount as Hezbollah Hits Back Amid Israeli Airstrikes
Fears of an all-out Middle East war mounted Sunday as Hezbollah fired more than 100 rockets into Israel, whose military continued bombing targets in southern Lebanon while moving troops, tanks, and other equipment toward the northern border. During a Sunday funeral speech for three members killed in Israeli airstrikes, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem declared an "open-ended battle" with Israel was underway. Hezbollah is reeling from last week's unprecedented surprise attack on communication devices that killed dozens of people and wounded thousands more, as well as Israeli airstrikes on Beirut suburbs that have slain dozens of Lebanese including women and children...
Critics Say IDF Shutdown of Al Jazeera's West Bank Bureau Is 'Aimed at Erasing the Truth'
Press freedom advocates accused Israel of "trying to erase the truth" after heavily armed soldiers raided Al Jazeera's bureau in the West Bank of Palestine early Sunday morning and ordered the outlet—which has been the world's sole media window on the Gaza genocide—to shut down for 45 days. Al Jazeera—which is owned by the Qatari government—said Israel Defense Forces troops stormed its bureau in Ramallah, the capital of the illegally occupied West Bank, at 3:00 am Sunday during a live broadcast. IDF troops confiscated documents and equipment and took the microphone from the hand of bureau chief Walid al-Omari as he...
Sheer Lunacy, With Coins
We keep thinking it's all gone as low and weird as it possibly can, and then....This weekend, the purported GOP presidential candidate, aware of the serious issues facing our country, announced the launch of Trump Coins, "a true symbol of American greatness," featuring "my very beautiful face." Then he assured women, who are "DEPRESSED AND UNHAPPY" because Dems want to execute babies after birth, that he will "FIX ALL OF THAT" and "THIS NATIONAL NIGHTMARE WILL BE OVER." Whew. Not a moment too soon. Saturday, Trump held a rally in battleground North Carolina. Conspicuously missing - oh to be a...
Green Groups Applaud 1 Million Public Comments Urging Biden to Protect Old-Growth Forests
Green groups on Friday pointed to the more than 1 million public comments urging the U.S. Forest Service to protect old-growth forests from logging in urging the Biden administration to increase what critics say are inadequate protections for mature trees in a proposed federal amendment. The Forest Service (USFS)—a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture—received massive input during four rounds of public comment on the National Old-Growth Amendment Draft Environmental Impact Statement. The USFS' proposed national old-growth amendment follows a 2022 executive order by President Joe Biden that directed the agency to draft policies to protect mature trees in national forests,...
UN Officials Urgently Call for Lebanon Cease-Fire as Middle East on 'Brink of Catastrophe'
As Israel followed up its remote bombings of communications devices in Lebanon with airstrikes on Beirut, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency session Friday during which officials urgently called for an immediate cease-fire and warned that the Middle East is on "the brink of catastrophe." "We risk seeing a conflagration that could dwarf even the devastation and suffering witnessed so far," U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo told representatives of the 15-member Security Council (UNSC) during the session. "It is not too late to avoid such folly. There is still room for diplomacy," DiCarlo stressed. "I also...
FTC Sues Big Pharma Middlemen for Inflating Insulin Prices
The Federal Trade Commission on Friday initiated a legal process against middlemen that collectively administer about 80% of all prescriptions in the United States, accusing them of artificially inflating the list price of insulin drugs and blocking patients from accessing cheaper products. The FTC action targets the "Big Three" pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs): CVS Health's Caremark Rx, Cigna's Express Scripts (ESI), and UnitedHealth Group's OptumRx. It also involves their affiliated group purchasing organizations (GPOs): Zinc Health Services, Ascent Health Services, and Emisar Pharma Services. "Millions of Americans with diabetes need insulin to survive, yet for many of these vulnerable patients, their insulin...
After Georgia Shooting, Students Walk Out Demanding 'Future Free From Gun Violence'
Joined by educators, parents, and gun control advocates, thousands of Georgia students on Friday staged a classroom walkout organized by the youth-led March for Our Lives "to demand a future free from gun violence" following the September 4 mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, the deadliest such event in the state's history. March for Our Lives (MFOL)—which was founded in the wake of the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—said that Friday's walkouts "speak to the urgency and frustration young people feel after yet another shooting has been met with only 'thoughts and...
Trump Allies on Georgia Election Board 'Setting System Up to Fail'
Forty-five days before U.S. elections and less than a month before early voting begins, former President Donald Trump's allies on the Georgia State Election Board on Friday passed a rule requiring county officials in the key swing state to count all ballots by hand, a move one expert said could "be exploited by election deniers" like Trump, the 2024 Republican nominee. The board's pro-Trump majority voted 3-2 in favor of requiring hand counts, with Chair John Fervier, an Independent, casting one of the two dissenting votes. "The overwhelming number of election officials that have reached out to me have been opposed to...
Trump 'Is the Architect of This Crisis,' Says Harris of Women Killed by Abortion Bans
Speaking at a campaign event in Atlanta, Georgia on Friday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to two women from the state whose deaths have been deemed by health experts as "preventable" and the result of the state's six-week abortion ban.Amber Nicole Thurman and Candi Miller, said the Democratic presidential candidate, are doubtlessly just two of many people who have died because they couldn't access abortion care since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—and she blamed former Republican President Donald Trump for their deaths. "This is a healthcare crisis and Donald Trump is the architect of this...
'Back With a Bang': Climate Marches Kick Off Worldwide as Global South Seeks Reparations
Climate protesters across the world hit the streets on Friday to kick off this year's Global Climate Strike ahead of the opening of high-level United Nations General Assembly meetings next week, where climate finance for the Global South is on the agenda. Protests for climate justice were planned across 50 countries, with Germany alone seeing more than 100 rallies that together drew some 75,000 people. The protests were spearheaded by the youth-led group Fridays for Future (FFF), started by Greta Thunberg in 2018. The New York chapter of the group marched across the Brooklyn Bridge Friday afternoon aiming to "tear down...
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