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Newsom Threatens to Defund California Counties That Don't Clear Homeless Encampments
After personally participating in the forced displacement of homeless people in a Los Angeles encampment, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to withhold funding from counties that don't sufficiently crack down on the unhoused. Buoyed by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court's recent City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson ruling—which was welcomed by Newsom and other Democratic leaders like San Francisco Mayor London Breed who filed amicus briefs in the case—the governor issued an executive order last month directing officials to clear out homeless encampments, which have proliferated amid rampant economic inequality and stratospheric housing prices in the nation's...
US Medalist's Experience of Free Healthcare in Olympic Village Bolsters Case for Medicare for All
U.S. Olympic rugby player Ariana Ramsey became a sensation on social media this week after documenting a series of free healthcare visits in the Olympic Village in Paris and becoming an advocate for universal care in her home country. Ramsey's initial TikTok video, published Saturday, went viral in France after she expressed disbelief about the free healthcare on offer, playing into the European idea that Americans—who live in the only high-income country in the world without universal care—don't know what they are missing. "I literally just got a pap smear—for free," Ramsey, who won a bronze medal last week, said....
US to Resume Saudi Arms Sales Despite Yemen Atrocities and Khashoggi Murder
One rights advocate on Friday said "nothing" has changed to justify a Biden administration decision to lift a ban on U.S. sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia—but the White House has reportedly briefed Congress on the decision to reverse the policy that's been in place for the last three years. According to Reuters, which cited five sources familiar with the matter, weapons sales could resume as early as next week due to the administration's belief that "the Saudis have met their end of the deal."President Joe Biden placed the ban on weapons sales in 2021 to pressure Saudi Arabia...
'Corporate Greed Is Out of Control': Warren Slams Kroger's AI Pricing Scheme
Expressing doubt that a new artificial intelligence-powered "dynamic pricing" model used by the Kroger grocery chain is truly meant to "better the customer experience," Sens. Elizabeth Warren said Friday that the practice shows how "corporate greed is out of control."Warren (D-Mass.) was joined by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) on Wednesday in writing a letter to the chairman and CEO of the Kroger Company, Rodney McMullen, raising concerns about how the company's collaboration with AI company IntelligenceNode could result in both privacy violations and worsened inequality as customers are forced to pay more based on personal data Kroger gathers about them...
Western Media, Leaders Slammed for 'Deafening' Silence Over Israeli Torture Revelations
Human rights defenders are calling out Western news outlets and political leaders for their conspicuous lack of coverage and vocalized condemnation after leaked video footage appeared to show Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian detainee in the notorious Sde Teiman prison and the release of a new report documenting systematic torture of prisoners held by Israel. Earlier this week, Israel's Channel 12 aired a video showing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists assaulting a Palestinian man at Sde Teiman, which is often called "Israel's Guantánamo." The victim was reportedly hospitalized with a severe anal injury, ruptured bowel, broken ribs, and lung damage. In...
Palestinians Demand ICC Arrest Warrant for Smotrich Over Starvation Remarks
The Palestinian foreign ministry on Thursday called on the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich after he suggested this week that it might be "justified and moral" to cause two million Palestinian civilians to starve to death until Hamas returns Israeli hostages. The ICC, based in The Hague, Netherlands, has already sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for Hamas leaders. The foreign ministry, a branch of the Palestinian Authority, which has partial control over the Israeli-occupied West Bank, condemned Smotrich's remarks,...
Simple Charity Reforms Could Unlock Hundreds of Billions for Nonprofit Sector
Thanks to outdated charity tax laws, the U.S. is missing out on hundreds of billions of dollars that could flow toward housing and food security, health research, education, advocacy, and other crucial nonprofit efforts aimed at uplifting the common good—but simple reforms could unlock some of the extreme wealth that is currently "warehoused" in private foundations and donor-advised funds. This is according to a new Institute for Policy Studies analysis that shows charitable groups currently hold an estimated $1.7 trillion in donations that are "ostensibly earmarked for philanthropy," but are able to "languish in go-between funds" while working charities remain...
Families Flee Khan Younis 'Wasteland' as Israel Hammers Gaza With US-Supplied Bombs
A wave of fresh bombings and military ground operations by Israel were underway in the city of Khan Younis on Friday as images of Palestinian families once again forced to flee plastered global news sites and world leaders, including the United States, refused to intervene to stop the relentless assault being inflicted on the people of Gaza.Al-Jazeera reports the southern city—which its reporter on the ground, Hani Mahmoud, described as "uninhabitable" and turning into a "wasteland"— was bombed approximately 30 times in "just a few hours" overnight. With evacuation orders by the Israeli military sweeping up and down the Gaza...
Trump Calls Abortion 'Much Less of an Issue' and Won't Say How He'll Vote in Florida
Republican former U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday tried to downplay the significance of reproductive freedom in this year's contest and refused to say how he plans to vote on a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution that would outlaw pre-viability abortion bans.The Republican presidential nominee gave a wide-ranging press conference from Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Palm Beach—an event featuring an "enormous number of lies and misrepresentations," as one critic put it, and which the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, described as a "public meltdown."During the press conference, Trump said, "I think the abortion issue has...
Trump Campaign: Where's Kamala? UAW: In Michigan With Union Autoworkers
Part of former U.S. President Donald Trump's GOP presidential campaign strategy has involved repeatedly asking, "Where's Kamala?" On Thursday, one of the nation's largest labor unions resoundingly responded: "At UAW Local 900 in Wayne, Michigan with 150 autoworkers." That's what United Auto Workers communications director Jonah Furman said on social media as Vice President Kamala Harris and her Democratic running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, joined UAW members at the Local 900 hall in Wayne following the union's endorsement for president "To me, this election is real simple. It's about one question, a question we've made famous in the labor movement:...
FEC Blasted Over Decision Not to Regulate Deepfakes Ahead of Election
An announcement by the U.S. Federal Election Commission on Thursday that it will not take action to regulate artificial intelligence-generated "deepfakes" in political ads before the November elections amounted to "a shameful abrogation of its responsibilities," said a leading critic of the technology. A year after consumer advocate Public Citizen filed a petition with the FEC to demand rulemaking that would prohibit a political candidate or advocacy group from misrepresenting political opponents using deliberately deceptive deepfakes—fake images generated with AI—FEC Chair Sean Cooksey told Axios the commission will not propose any new rules this year. Cooksey, a Republican, said he...
National Monument Pushed for New Deal Leader Frances Perkins, First Woman in Cabinet
The Frances Perkins Center on Wednesday launched a campaign calling for its 57-acre site in Maine to be named a national monument in honor of the trailblazing woman who led former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Labor Department and ushered in some of the most important legislation in the country's history. Frances Perkins became the first woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet when she was named secretary of labor in 1933. She was instrumental in establishing Social Security, unemployment benefits, a minimum wage, and a 40-hour work week. Campaigners called for President Joe Biden to designate the site, which...
Outrage as NYPD Arrests Cello-Playing Grandfather at Citibank Climate Protest
Climate campaigners expressed incredulous outrage Thursday following the arrest of a 63-year-old Extinction Rebellion activist who violated a dubious restraining order by playing a cello outside Citibank's New York headquarters during a protest against the bank's funding of fossil fuel projects. John Mark Rozendaal, a professional cellist and grandfather, performed Bach's "Suites for Cello" before he was arrested in the public plaza outside Citibank's headquarters in Lower Manhattan during a "Summer of Heat on Wall Street" protest against banks' fossil fuel financing. New York Police Department (NYPD) officers also arrested 14 peaceful protesters who encircled Rozendaal. Last month, a Citibank security guard...
Trump Gives 'Unbelievably Bad' Answer When Voter Asks How He'll Help Working People
Given a chance on Wednesday to speak directly to a voter about how his policies would materially help working families to afford housing and other essentials, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump instead repeated some of his favorite evidence-free attack lines—leaving the voter mainly with promises to "drill, baby, drill" and to get China "to behave properly."Featured in a "Fox & Friends" segment on Fox News in which the former president called in, the vote explained at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota that he has regularly been helping five of his eight children financially, as they are "struggling"...
Watchdog of Far-Right GOP Issues 'The Definitive Guide to Project 2025'
A watchdog organization that monitors the Republican Party and the far-right movement at its core released a document Thursday characterized as "the definitive guide to Project 2025," a sweeping policy agenda crafted by more than 100 conservative groups and alumni of former President Donald Trump's administration. The 67-page report published by Media Matters for America lays out in detail Trump's close ties to Project 2025 and examines specific policy proposals included in the agenda, which—if implemented—would affect every area of American life, from the workplace to the environment to reproductive rights and other fundamental freedoms. "Project 2025 lays out an extreme far-right...
Fossil Fuel Industry Propaganda Blamed as Record Heat Scorches Planet
As scientists around the world on Thursday released new data about recent record-smashing heat, one United Nations adviser placed blame for the lack of ambitious climate action on the fossil fuel industry's decadeslong disinformation efforts."There is this prevailing narrative—and a lot of it is being pushed by the fossil fuel industry and their enablers—that climate action is too difficult, it's too expensive," Selwin Hart, a special adviser to the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and assistant secretary-general of the Climate Action Team, told The Guardian's Fiona Harvey."It is absolutely critical that leaders, and all of us, push back and explain to...
Tlaib Slams White House for Criticizing Cori Bush's Vow to Fight AIPAC
U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Wednesday ripped the White House for admonishing Rep. Cori Bush's vow to fight the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after the powerful lobby group spent millions of dollars to unseat the Missouri Democrat for opposing Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza. AIPAC's dark money arm, United Democracy Project (UDP), spent $8 million in support of Bush's opponent, St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell, in the second-most expensive House race ever. UDP spent $15 million to defeat Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), another "Squad" member who has criticized Israel's war on Gaza. AIPAC has vowed to spend $100 million...
Highest Ocean Heat in 400 Years Poses 'Existential Threat' to Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef recently experienced the highest ocean temperatures in at least four centuries and faces an "existential threat" due to repeated mass coral bleaching episodes, a study published Wednesday in Science found.The network of coral reefs off of Australia—the world's largest living structure—has faced five of the six hottest three-month periods of average surface temperature ever recorded just since 2016, each of which was accompanied by devastating coral bleaching. Ocean temperatures around the reef reached a record-breaking extreme from January to March this year, with the three-month mean temperature 1.73°C higher than the pre-1900 average, according to the...
'Uncommitted' Leaders to Harris: 'Voters Need to See You Turn a New Page on Gaza'
Leaders of the Uncommitted National Movement aimed at pushing the U.S. government to end its support for Israel's assault on Gaza called on Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday to commit to a policy change and to follow through with her statement—made to them in a brief meeting Wednesday evening just before her campaign rally in Detroit—that she was open to discussing an arms embargo. Layla Elabed and Abbas Alawieh, two Michigan voters who co-founded the Uncommitted National Movement earlier this year, spoke with Harris and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, about the deep personal connection...
AFL-CIO Warns of 'CEO Payflation' Crisis Fueled by Stock Buybacks, Trump Tax Cuts
The largest federation of labor unions in the U.S. published a report Thursday warning that the country is facing a crisis of "CEO payflation" as executive compensation at leading companies surges, a trend fueled by former President Donald Trump's regressive tax cuts and record stock buybacks. The AFL-CIO's annual report on executive pay shows that the CEO-to-median-worker-pay ratio at S&P 500 companies was 268 to 1 last year, meaning that "it would take more than five career lifetimes for workers to earn what CEOs receive in just one year." "On average, the median employee of an S&P 500 company would have had...
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