Edward Carver, Common Dreams

The German foreign ministry on Wednesday issued a rejoinder to Republican nominee Donald Trump's debate claim that Germany had reverted back to a "normal" energy policy after, as he implied, failing to transition away from fossil fuels.

Near the end of the televised presidential debate, Trump addressed Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, saying:

"You believe in things that the American people don't believe in. You believe in things like we're not going to frack. We're not going to take fossil fuel. We're not going to do, things that are going to make this country strong, whether you like it or not. Germany tried that and within one year they were back to building normal energy plants."

The Germans replied forcefully and included a snarky reference to Trump's baseless claim, made earlier in the debate, that immigrants were eating Americans' pets....

Bat die-offs in the U.S. led to increased use of insecticides, which in turn led to greater infant mortality, according to a "seminal" study published Thursday that shows the effects of biodiversity loss on human beings.

Eyal Frank, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago, authored the study, which was published by Science, a leading peer-reviewed journal.

Bats can eat thousands of insects per night and act as a natural pest control for farmers, so when a fungal disease began killing off bat populations in the U.S. after being introduced in 2006, farmers in affected counties used more insecticides, Frank found. Those same counties saw more infant deaths, which Frank linked to increased use of insecticide that is harmful to human health, especially for babies and fetuses....

Crews breached the final of four dams on a key stretch of the Klamath River on Wednesday, letting salmon run freely there for the first time in over a century and garnering tears from Indigenous activists who had campaigned for the dam removals for decades.

Together the four demolitions mark the largest dam removal project in U.S. history.

The Klamath, which runs from south-central Oregon into northwestern California, has long been bordered by Native American tribes—"Salmon People," as they call themselves—that once relied on the protein-rich fish for about half of their caloric intake but were impoverished by the institution of the dams, among other white settler colonialist initiatives....

The Center for American Progress on Tuesday released an analysis of the tax plans in Project 2025, a right-wing manifesto whose authors have close ties to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, showing that conservatives aim to lower taxes on corporations and the rich while raising them on working- and middle-class Americans.

The liberal research and advocacy group, which published the analysis as part of a series of in-depth articles on Project 2025, found that the right-wing plan would raise income taxes for the median family of four by about $3,000, cut taxes by at least $1.5 million for a household earning more than $10 million per year, on average, and cut the corporate tax rate to 18% from 21%, an already historically low rate instituted by Republicans in 2017.

The analysis, authored by Brendan Duke, a senior director of economic policy at CAP, shows that, of households with a married couple and two children, only those earning more than $170,000 per year would see a tax break under the Project 2025 plan. ...

The Sunrise Movement on Tuesday launched a campaign program in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, aiming to reach 1.5 million young voters in key swing states.

The left-wing, youth-led climate action group didn't endorse Harris—though it's part of the Green New Deal Network, which has— but announced that it would mobilize to help her defeat Republican nominee Donald Trump, whom Kidus Girma, the group's campaign director, referred to as "Big Oil's favorite henchman."

The group's program will include canvassing, phone banking, and digital outreach, as well as protests and the creation of social media videos aimed at stoking youth enthusiasm. ...