Kenny Stancil, Common Dreams

As multiple work stoppages continued across the United States, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania on Thursday introduced legislation that would enable striking workers to qualify for federal food aid.

Called the Food Secure Strikers Act of 2023, Fetterman's bill would amend the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 to ensure that striking workers aren't excluded from receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. In addition, the bill would preserve food stamp eligibility for public sector workers who are fired for striking and clarify that any income-eligible household is entitled to SNAP benefits even if a member of that household is on strike.

"We need to get rid of the anti-union provisions in our code that starve striking workers."

"Every union worker who is walking the picket line this summer needs to know that we have their back here in Washington," Fetterman said in a statement. "The union way of life is sacred. It's what built Pennsylvania and this nation. It is critical for us to protect workers' right to organize, and that includes making sure they and their families have the resources to support themselves while on strike."

"As chair of the Nutrition Subcommittee and an advocate for the union way of life, this bill is just plain common sense," he added. "I'm proud to introduce this bill that will eliminate the need for workers to choose between fighting for fair working conditions and putting food on the table for their families."

Workers typically forgo pay when they exercise their right to walk off the job in pursuit of higher wages and better conditions. Although union strike funds sometimes provide workers on the picket line with a stipend, it is less than their regular income.

Under existing law, striking workers and their households are ineligible to receive SNAP benefits unless they already qualified for food stamps prior to withholding their labor. This gives employers significant leverage over employees who can only endure economic hardship for so long. By repealing the current restriction on striking workers securing SNAP benefits, Fetterman's bill would help restore some balance to the struggle between capital and labor.

"It's good to see lawmakers attempting to correct the wrongs of the past by reinstating a benefit for striking workers that never should have been taken away in the first place," said International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Sean O'Brien. "Congress should never pass laws that punish American workers and hopefully this amendment is a repudiation of that practice."

O'Brien spent the past several weeks preparing 340,000 United Parcel Service (UPS) warehouse workers and delivery drivers for what would have been the second-largest work stoppage at a single employer in U.S. history, trailing only a 1970 strike of 400,000 General Motors workers. Although a UPS strike has likely been averted after the logistics giant and the Teamsters reached a tentative five-year contract agreement on Tuesday, Fetterman's proposal comes amid a nationwide wave of ongoing and potential labor actions.

"The United Auto Workers have mirrored the Teamsters' militant stance, blasting CEOs ahead of their own contract negotiations slated for later this year," The Intercept reported Thursday. "And the truckers union has staged trainings in dozens of cities for a strike that could shut down shipping from coast to coast. In California, meanwhile, thousands of hotel workers organized with Unite Here are already on strike, along with tens of thousands of Hollywood writers and actors belonging to the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA, respectively."

The walkout of 160,000 writers and actors, who are fighting for improved remuneration and attempting to safeguard unionized jobs threatened by artificial intelligence-induced automation, is perhaps the most well-known of the current strikes.

"It's good to see lawmakers attempting to correct the wrongs of the past by reinstating a benefit for striking workers that never should have been taken away."

Earlier this month, an anonymous studio executive admitted to Deadline that "the endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses," drawing widespread condemnation, including from star actor Ron Perlman.

The Food Secure Strikers Act is designed to counteract the delay tactics that bosses rely on to crush workers.

"Workers who make the difficult decision to go on strike are coming together to lift the standard of living and gain more respect for all working people," said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA). "They are prepared to make sacrifices—but going hungry should not be one of them. The Food Secure Strikers Act of 2023 will help ensure that when striking workers stand in solidarity for better working conditions and wages they can receive SNAP benefits so they don't put themselves and their families at risk."

The legislation is co-sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and 10 Senate Democrats, including Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), and Ron Wyden (Ore.). A companion bill was unveiled in the House by Democratic Reps. Alma Adams (N.C.) and Greg Casar (Texas).

It is also endorsed by numerous unions and anti-hunger organizations, including the Teamsters, NEA, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Communications Workers of America, the Food Research Action Center, and Hunger-Free America.

"We need to get rid of the anti-union provisions in our code that starve striking workers," said Casar. "We're seeing workers exercise their rights across the country by going on strike to demand better wages and working conditions. That's why our bill, the Food Secure Strikers Act, is more important now than ever. We need to stop starving strikers, and ensure all working families are able to make ends meet."

Climate scientists warned Friday that worsening atmospheric and marine heatwaves threaten food security around the world.

Large swaths of the Northern Hemisphere have been pummeled in recent weeks by serial heatwaves exacerbated by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis. Last month was the hottest June on record, and July—which saw the hottest day and week in modern history—is expected to surpass all previous monthly records. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made clear that heatwaves will increase in frequency, duration, and intensity with each additional degree of temperature rise.

While extreme heat has long been recognized as a lethal health hazard that preys upon preexisting patterns of inequality and vulnerability, experts are trying to alert the public to another deadly dimension of the climate emergency: Soaring temperatures jeopardize the stability of the world's agricultural land and its oceans, putting potentially billions of people at heightened risk of hunger and conflict.

"Our food system is global," John Marsham, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Leeds in England, toldThe Guardian. "There are growing risks of simultaneous major crop losses in different regions in the world, which will really affect food availability and prices. This is not what we're seeing right now, but in the coming decades that's one of the things I'm really scared of."

"As a human being, if you're wealthy enough, you can get inside and put the air conditioning on," said Marsham. "But natural ecosystems and farmed ecosystems can't do that."

Extreme heat and droughts are already having a discernibly negative impact on food production. In 2022, the heatwaves that killed more than 61,000 people in Europe also reduced the continent's agricultural output, hastening a decadeslong trend. Also last year, a historic drought in China resulted in crop losses, while a heatwave in India undermined wheat exports. In addition, famine is looming in the Horn of Africa due in large part to an ongoing climate-intensified drought.

These catastrophes—combined with Russia's war on Ukraine, which has damaged one of the world's key breadbaskets—have contributed to a yearslong spike in global hunger.

As a result of unmitigated greenhouse gas pollution, heatwaves are projected to become increasingly common, longer-lasting, and more severe in the coming years—providing even less time for recovery between events and leading to greater cumulative harm.

"People are generally isolated from the effects of the weather on which we all depend. We go to shops to buy food—we don't grow it ourselves," Marsham continued. "But if you talk to farmers anywhere in the world, they are extremely aware of what the weather is doing, and the impacts on their farming."

Meanwhile, as carbon dioxide and methane emissions continue to propel global warming, oceans absorb an estimated 90% of the excess heat trapped in the planet's atmosphere. This is accelerating ocean warming at a ferocious pace, especially in 2023, frightening experts in the field.

Not only do higher ocean temperatures put millions of people at risk of accelerated sea-level rise and turbocharged extreme weather, but they also disrupt the marine ecosystems that supply one-fifth of the world's protein. Just two years ago, a heatwave in British Columbia killed more than 1 billion intertidal animals.

Daniela Schmidt, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Bristol in England, told The Guardian on Friday: "We often think about impacts on ecosystems on land because it's easy to see—the plants wilt and animals get too hot. But people generally don't think about marine heatwaves. That's what really worries me—that unseen, silent dying."

As the newspaper noted:

Some of the most vulnerable ecosystems are the ones used to having a stable temperature year-round, such as species in the tropical oceans. Warming of 2°C is expected to essentially wipe out tropical coral reefs. They have the highest biodiversity of any ecosystem globally, and support more than 500 million people worldwide, most of whom are in poor countries.

"I've got young kids," Marsham said. "Whenever you watch Finding Nemo or read a book about coral reefs, you can't help but feel that, on some level, you're selling them a lie. Unless we act fast, those systems are going to disappear. Some people might not care about coral reefs, but there's no part of the globe that is immune to the impacts of climate change."

Schmidt added: "Not everything has to have a financial value. You need plants for every breath you take. It's the oxygen you breathe—we tend to forget that."

Friday's warnings echo recent peer-reviewed research about the specter of concurrent crop losses in the world's top food-growing zones due to climate breakdown. According to a paper published in Nature Communications earlier this month, most existing climate models tend to underestimate the mortal danger posed by "simultaneous harvest failures across major crop-producing regions."

It is far from the only study published recently to sound the alarm about the relationship between heatwaves and hunger. Research released in June assessed "a worst-case scenario in which extreme weather hits two breadbasket regions in the same year," as NBC Newsreported at the time.

Another paper from last August noted that "extreme heat not only damages agricultural yields and leads to supply drops and food insecurity in the long-term but also affects people's short-term ability to generate income from labor and purchase food."

Scientists said Thursday that newly arrived El Niño conditions are projected to make 2024 even hotter than this year.

"Without global action to address climate change, we will see unprecedented levels of hunger," the U.K. arm of the United Nations World Food Program tweeted Friday, noting The Guardian's report.

Despite mounting evidence of the climate emergency's disastrous consequences, fossil fuel giants—which raked in hundreds of billions of dollars in profits last year after knowingly suppressing warnings about the climate crisis for decades—plan to expand drilling operations in the coming years. Policymakers have shown little willingness to stop them, as COP27 ended in November with no commitment to phase out coal, oil, and gas.

Referring to the study published earlier this month in Nature Communications, journalist George Monbiot argued last week that "the struggle to avert systemic failure is the struggle between democracy and plutocracy."

"It always has been," he added, "but the stakes are now higher than ever."

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Monday temporarily blocked the construction of a section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline that runs through Jefferson National Forest, pending a conservation group's petition to review the federal government's authorization of the fossil fuel infrastructure development.

"Time and time again, Mountain Valley has tried to force its dangerous pipeline through the Jefferson National Forest, devastating communities in its wake and racking up violations," Ben Tettlebaum, director and senior staff attorney at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. "We're grateful that the court has given those communities a measure of reprieve by hitting the brakes on construction across our public lands, sparing them from further irreversible damage while this important case proceeds."

Work on unfinished portions of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was fast-tracked last month via the debt ceiling agreement that President Joe Biden, shunning his options for unilateral action, forged with House Republicans who took the global economy hostage.

Construction of the $6.6 billion fracked gas project—pushed hard by the GOP and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a coal profiteer and Congress' top recipient of Big Oil money—has been halted by courts for years due to concerns about the harms it would unleash on people and ecosystems in Virginia, West Virginia, and beyond.

But Section 324 of the so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 required federal authorities to approve all of MVP's outstanding permits, prohibited judicial review of those permits, and said only the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to hear challenges to the provision's constitutionality.

Citing Section 324, MVP's developers and multiple government agencies filed motions last month to dismiss lawsuits against the pipeline. On behalf of The Wilderness Society, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) filed a brief opposing those motions on June 26, arguing that Section 324 is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers.

In response to the stay issued by the Fourth Circuit on Monday, Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC said: "This is not the court to hear that claim. Congress, in plain terms, gave the D.C. Circuit 'exclusive jurisdiction' to hear such claims... Congress' message was crystal clear: If you want to challenge Section 324, you must do so in the D.C. Circuit."

In a similar vein, Manchin asserted that the Fourth Circuit lacks jurisdiction over MVP permits, rendering its new order unlawful.

But as The Wilderness Society and SELC explained last month, their two cases against the pipeline challenge "defective approvals by the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management allowing the MVP to cross the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia and West Virginia." Because both lawsuits predate the passage of Section 324 and allege violations of several environmental laws as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, the groups argued, the Fourth Circuit does have jurisdiction.

"Mountain Valley could not build their pipeline in compliance with the law, so they appealed to Congress to interfere with the courts, skirting both our legal system and Constitution," Chase Huntley, vice president of Strategy and Policy at The Wilderness Society, said two weeks ago. "The MVP rider buried in the Fiscal Responsibility Act attempts to ram through the pipeline, forcing it onto communities who have spoken out against its devastating impacts for nearly a decade."

"Because bedrock environmental laws stood in the pipeline's path, Mountain Valley convinced Congress to reach beyond its powers and decide in Mountain Valley's favor, circumventing the courts," said Huntley. "We're fighting to make sure our challenge to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management's approvals for the pipeline to cross the Jefferson National Forest has its rightful day in court."

The Wilderness Society and SELC weren't the only organizations to take action last month. Lawyers from the Sierra Club, Appalachian Mountain Advocates, and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a companion response opposing identical motions to dismiss another MVP case. That brief was submitted on behalf of 10 environmental groups—Wild Virginia, Appalachian Voices, Indian Creek Watershed Association, Preserve Bent Mountain, Preserve Giles County, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Sierra Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity.

In a Tuesday morning statement, Equitrans Midstream—which holds the largest interest among MVP stakeholders and plans to manage the pipeline once operational—said it was "disappointed" with the Fourth Circuit's stay and claimed the judges exceeded their authority.

"We are evaluating all legal options, which include filing an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court," the company said. "Unless this decision is promptly reversed, it would jeopardize Mountain Valley's ability to complete construction by year-end 2023."

MVP is one of several new fossil fuel projects being built or considered in the U.S. despite mounting evidence of the worsening climate crisis—and in direct conflict with the international scientific consensus, which has long warned that increasing the extraction and combustion of coal, oil, and gas will exacerbate deadly planetary heating.

As extreme weather disasters continue to wreak havoc across the U.S. and the world, Biden is facing growing pressure to declare a national climate emergency, which advocates say would unlock additional powers his administration could use to rein in the fossil fuel industry and ramp up clean energy production. Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are currently trying to preempt the president from making such a move.

Opponents of unmitigated corporate power celebrated Tuesday when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Norfolk Southern's attempt to limit where companies can be sued.

In a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonja Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the high court ruled that Pennsylvania's "consent-by-registration" law "requiring an out-of-state firm to answer in the commonwealth any suits against it in exchange for status as a registered foreign corporation and the benefits that entails" does not violate the due process clause of the 14th Amendment.

The decision vacates an earlier judgment by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and remands the case.

"This is really big," Slate's Mark Joseph Stern tweeted. Big business lawyers are "going to be furious with this decision."

"This is big—and, in my view, good—because it allows states to exercise personal jurisdiction over corporations that do business within the state but are incorporated elsewhere, often in a jurisdiction that they deem more favorable to their interests," Stern continued.

"Pennsylvania requires out-of-state corporations to file paperwork consenting to appear in Pennsylvania courts as a condition of doing business within the state," Stern added. "Gorsuch says: Nothing about that scheme violates due process."

Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project, also applauded the decision.

In 2017, months after being diagnosed with colon cancer, former Norfolk Southern worker Robert Mallory filed a lawsuit alleging that his illness stemmed from workplace exposure to asbestos and other hazardous materials and that the rail carrier failed to provide safety equipment and other resources to ensure he was sufficiently protected on the job.

Although he had never worked in Pennsylvania, Mallory filed his lawsuit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas because his attorneys were from the state and "he thought he would get the fairest access to justice there," Ashley Keller, the lawyer representing him before the U.S. Supreme Court, toldThe Lever in February.

As Rebecca Burns and Julia Rock, two of the investigative outlet's reporters, explained at the time:

Norfolk Southern asserts that being forced to defend the case in Pennsylvania would pose an undue burden, thereby violating its constitutional right to due process.

Even though Norfolk Southern owns thousands of miles of track in the Keystone State, the Philadelphia county court sided with the railroad and dismissed the case. Mallory appealed, and the case wound its way through state and federal courts before landing at the U.S. Supreme Court last year.

Norfolk Southern asked the U.S. Supreme Court "to uphold the lower court ruling, overturn Pennsylvania's law, and restrict where corporations can be sued, upending centuries of precedent," the journalists noted.

The American Association of Railroads (AAR), the rail industry's largest lobby, filed a brief last September on behalf of Norfolk Southern. AAR and other powerful corporate lobbying groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the American Trucking Association sought to undermine the ability of workers and consumers to file lawsuits in the venue of their choosing.

President Joe Biden's administration, meanwhile, came under fire earlier this year when The Lever revealed that the U.S. Department of Justice had also filed a brief siding with the railroad giant behind the toxic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

If Norfolk Southern had prevailed, it could have been easier for the profitable rail carrier to thwart pending and future lawsuits "on the grounds that they're filed in the wrong venue," The Lever reported, citing Scott Nelson, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which filed a brief backing Mallory. At particular risk would have been "lawsuits filed by residents exposed to hazardous chemicals as the result of accidents in other states," including victims of air or water pollution stemming from the disaster in East Palestine, five miles west of the Pennsylvania state border.

“[Norfolk Southern] might say, 'You can only sue us in Ohio or Virginia [where Norfolk Southern is headquartered],' even if you were injured at your home in Pennsylvania from an accident that took place five miles away in Ohio," Nelson warned.

A ruling in the rail giant's favor could have also established "a national precedent limiting where workers and consumers can bring cases against corporations," Burns and Rock pointed out.

However, workers and consumers are not out of the woods yet. As Bloomberg Lawreported Tuesday, "Alito seemed to invite a future challenge against the [Pennsylvania] law in his concurrence," where he suggested that "Norfolk Southern could win when the case goes back to the lower court."

"In my view, there is a good prospect that Pennsylvania's assertion of jurisdiction here—over an out-of-state company in a suit brought by an out-of-state plaintiff on claims wholly unrelated to Pennsylvania—violates the commerce clause," Alito argued.

Sean Marotta, a partner at Hogan Lovells, which filed a brief on behalf of a law professor in support of Norfolk Southern, "is telling his clients not to panic but to 'stay on guard,'" according to Bloomberg Law. "Under this ruling, he said state legislatures could amend their registration statutes to impose consent-by-registration. They could basically copy and paste the Pennsylvania law because the court is saying it's okay under the Constitution's due process clause, he said."

"There's still a dormant commerce clause fight to have," Marotta told the outlet.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday night announced that his state had dropped off its "first" busload of migrants in Los Angeles, the latest move by a right-wing governor to ship vulnerable asylum-seekers to a distant Democratic-led jurisdiction.

"It is abhorrent that an American elected official is using human beings as pawns in his cheap political games," the city's progressive mayor, Karen Bass, said in a statement condemning Abbott.

The arrival of 42 migrants, including eight children, at L.A. Union Station "did not catch us off guard, nor will it intimidate us," said Bass. "Shortly after I took office, I directed city departments to begin planning in the event Los Angeles was on the receiving end of a despicable stunt that Republican governors have grown so fond of."

"Now, it's time to execute our plan," she added. "Our emergency management, police, fire, and other departments were able to find out about the incoming arrival while the bus was on its way and were already mobilized along with nonprofit partners before the bus arrived."

Jorge-Mario Cabrera, communications director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights-Los Angeles (CHIRLA), was at Union Station when the bus arrived from McAllen, Texas. He told the Los Angeles Times that the passengers were forced to endure a 23-hour bus ride without food.

"Los Angeles is not a city motivated by hate or fear, and we absolutely will not be swayed or moved by petty politicians playing with human lives."

It remains unclear whether everyone aboard made the trip voluntarily or knew the final destination of the bus. Lindsay Toczylowski, executive director of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said her team is working to determine whether migrants provided informed consent or were unlawfully detained.

Cabrera said CHIRLA "had been tipped off Tuesday night about the migrants' pending arrival," the Times reported. "He said the travelers originated from Venezuela, Guatemala, and Honduras, with two of African descent. One of the Guatemalan migrants has a court date scheduled in New York, he added."

"That's where the cruelty of this process is unbounded," Cabrera explained. "That's why Los Angeles made sure that we were coordinated and prepared to deal with the human beings behind this political charade."

The migrants were taken to a welcoming center at a nearby church, where they were able to rest, eat, and speak with attorneys. As Cabrera put it, "We know that they're traumatized and they need a number of services."

Los Angeles Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez (D-1) said that "the church was serving as a triage center, with nonprofit organizations and the Community Investment for Families Department among those on hand," the Times reported. "Hernandez said migrants were getting services, and some were being connected with relatives."

According to the newspaper, "The city's Emergency Operations Center was activated Wednesday afternoon to assist in coordinating city, county, and state partners, along with local community organizations."

Hernandez noted that "months-old babies" were among those put on the bus by Abbott. The people involved "were essentially dehumanized," said Hernandez. "They were used by a weak politician as a political stunt."

Her fellow councilmember, Kevin De León (D-14), also denounced Abbott for engaging in "heartless exploitation." While the move was "not shocking," the city official said in a statement, it reflects "a tremendous lack of leadership."

Abbott has previously come under fire for his interstate migrant busing scheme. Since it was launched in April 2022, more than 21,600 people have been transported from Texas to Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, and now Los Angeles.

In a statement, Abbott claimed that "Texas' small border towns remain overwhelmed and overrun... because of President Joe Biden's refusal to secure the border."

Data released earlier this month showed that unauthorized crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border are at their lowest point since the start of the Biden administration.

"We are a city that seeks to treat all people with dignity and compassion."

Since the White House imposed new asylum restrictions that went into effect when Title 42 ended on May 11, the number of people stopped by Border Patrol each day has plummeted from more than 10,000 to roughly 3,000. In addition, the number of people waiting in northern Mexico prior to immigrating to the U.S. appears to be falling.

Undermining Abbott's dubious accusations of inaction at the border, immigrant rights groups have condemned Biden's crackdown on asylum-seekers, saying the president's new ban deepens the bipartisan abandonment of international human rights law set in motion by the Trump administration.

Abbott is not the only far-right governor to dump migrants in Democratic-led jurisdictions in the past year.

Last September, Florida governor and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis organized flights of nearly 50 South American asylum-seekers from San Antonio, Texas to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, prompting a lawsuit and a criminal investigation into whether people were "lured... under false pretenses." The Bexar County Sheriff's Office recently recommended criminal charges over the Martha's Vineyard flights.

After DeSantis flew additional migrants to Sacramento earlier this month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) threatened to slap the "small, pathetic man" with kidnapping charges.

Abbott, for his part, vowed Wednesday to continue shipping people across the country, saying that "Los Angeles is a major city that migrants seek to go to, particularly now that its city leaders approved its self-declared sanctuary city status."

In response, Bass said: "Los Angeles is not a city motivated by hate or fear, and we absolutely will not be swayed or moved by petty politicians playing with human lives. We are a city that seeks to treat all people with dignity and compassion."

This percentage has declined from nearly 10% in 2021, when the Chicago Project on Security & Threats (CPOST) first began conducting its Dangers to Democracy surveys of U.S. adults. But April data the University of Chicago research center shared exclusively with The Guardian reveals that a treacherous amount of support for political violence and conspiracy theories persists nationwide.

In the two and a half years since Trump's bid to overturn his 2020 loss fell short, Republican state lawmakers have launched a full-fledged assault on the franchise, enacting dozens of voter suppression and election subversion laws meant to increase their control over electoral outcomes. Due to obstruction from Republicans and corporate Democrats, Congress has failed to pass federal voting rights protections and other safeguards designed to prevent another coup attempt ahead of November 2024.

"We're heading into an extremely tumultuous election season," Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor and CPOST director, told The Guardian. "What's happening in the United States is political violence is going from the fringe to the mainstream."

Several right-wing candidates who echoed Trump's relentless lies about President Joe Biden's 2020 victory lost in last year's midterms. But more than 210 others—including at least two who participated in the January 6 rally that escalated into an attack on the U.S. Capitol—won congressional seats and races for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, underscoring the extent to which election denialism is now entrenched in the GOP and jeopardizes U.S. democracy for the foreseeable future.

The CPOST survey conducted in April found that 20% of U.S. adults still believe "the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president," down only slightly from the 26% who said so in 2021.

"What you're seeing is really disturbing levels of distrust in American democracy, support for dangerous conspiracy theories, and support for political violence itself," Pape told The Guardian.

According to the newspaper, Pape compared "sentiments about political violence" to "the kindling for a wildfire." While "many were unaware that the events on January 6 would turn violent, research shows that public support for violence was widespread, so the attacks themselves should not have come as a surprise."

"Once you have support for violence in the mainstream, those are the raw ingredients or the raw combustible material and then speeches, typically by politicians, can set them off," said Pape. "Or if they get going, speeches can encourage them to go further."

Pape pointed out that there was chatter among far-right groups and on online forums about potentially using force to prevent lawmakers from certifying Biden's win, but Trump's January 6 address at the White House Ellipse was the spark that ignited the mob to storm the halls of Congress.

CPOST's latest findings are based on polling completed before Trump was federally indicted Thursday night on seven criminal counts in the special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents. The charges, including willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy, could carry years in prison for the GOP's leading 2024 presidential candidate.

In response to the indictment, several Republican lawmakers rallied to Trump's defense, parroting his dismissal of the probe as a "witch hunt." Fox News personalities also denounced what they called the "weaponization" of the U.S. justice system, while commenters on Breibart opined that "this is how revolution begins."

The menacing language mirrored what was said after the FBI in early August 2022 searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and removed boxes of documents as part of the federal probe into his handling of classified materials.

At the time, many anonymous and some well-known reactionaries called for "civil war" on Twitter, patriots.win, and elsewhere. Soon after, Ricky Shiffer, a Trump loyalist with suspected ties to a far-right group and an unspecified connection to the January 6 insurrection, was shot and killed by police following an hourslong standoff. Shiffer, wielding an AR-15 and a nail gun, allegedly attempted to break into the FBI's Cincinnati office and fled to a nearby field when he was unsuccessful.

Afterward, Trump continued to lie about the Mar-a-Lago search on Truth Social, sparking an "unprecedented" surge in threats against FBI personnel and facilities. In March, just before he was hit with a 34-count felony indictment in the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into alleged hush money payments made during the run-up to the 2016 election, Trump called on his supporters to "protest" and "take our nation back," though right-wing violence did not materialize in that instance.

The Guardian on Friday observed that "it's important to track public sentiment about political violence regularly," noting that CPOST plans to release data from its Dangers to Democracy survey every three months from now until the 2024 election. "The instigating event, usually a speech or comment by a person in power, is unpredictable and can set people off at any moment, but the underlying support for violence is more predictable and trackable."

The research center's most recent survey found that "almost 14%—a minority of Americans, but still a significant number—believe the use of force is justified to 'achieve political goals that I support,'" the newspaper reported. "More specifically, 12.4% believe it's justified to restore the federal right to abortion, 8.4% believe it's justified to ensure members of Congress and other government officials do the right thing, 6.3% think it's justified to preserve the rights of white Americans, and 6.1% believe it's justified to prevent the prosecution of Trump."

Citing Duke University political science professor Peter Feaver, The Guardian noted that "while public support for political violence might seem extreme, a confluence of factors is necessary for actual violence to occur—which is still rare. On January 6, there was a time-sensitive action, an already existing rally, and inciters including Trump who encouraged others to commit violence."

According to Feaver, "You needed all of that at the same time to turn what would have been latent sentiment of the sort that this survey captures into actual violence."

On top of broad support for Trump's "Big Lie," the survey found that one in ten U.S. adults think "a secret group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles is ruling the U.S. government," meaning QAnon had roughly the same percentage of adherents in April as it did in 2021. The survey also found that a quarter of U.S. adults agree that "the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World," revealing an alarming amount of ongoing support for the white nationalist "great replacement" theory.

More optimistically, the survey found that over 77% of U.S. adults want Republicans and Democrats in Congress to issue a joint statement condemning any political violence.

"There's a tremendous amount of opposition to political violence in the United States," Pape remarked, "but it is not mobilized."

Republican legislators in more than three dozen states have introduced nearly 200 bills this year that would make it easier for them to rig electoral outcomes, according to a report published Thursday.

A Democracy Crisis in the Making—compiled by the States United Democracy Center, Protect Democracy, and Law Forward—found that right-wing lawmakers in 38 states unveiled 185 bills from January 1 through May 3 that would enable legislatures to "politicize, criminalize, or interfere with elections." Of those proposals, 15 were enacted or adopted into law in 11 states while three others were vetoed by Arizona's new Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs.

Thursday's report—the latest update of an analysis originally published two years ago—makes clear that "the subversion threat is very much still alive." The number of "election subversion" bills introduced during the first four months of 2023 is roughly on par with the hundreds put forward in the early months of 2021 and 2022. Eventually, 56 of those anti-democratic proposals from the past two years became law in 26 states.

"Legislators are trying to make it harder for trusted election officials to do their jobs, and easier for partisan politicians to overturn the will of the voters."

Since former President Donald Trump launched his deadly coup attempt following his loss in the 2020 presidential contest, GOP-controlled states have enacted dozens of voter suppression laws and redrawn congressional and state legislative maps in ways that disenfranchise Democratic-leaning communities of color and give Republicans outsized representation, which could help the far-right secure minority rule for years to come.

In addition to impeding ballot access, Republican lawmakers are further undermining the country's procedural democracy by obstructing the administration of free and fair elections, the new report notes.

Researchers identified five forms of interference that increase the risk of "election subversion," which they defined as instances when "the declared outcome of an election does not reflect the true choice of the voters." The methods are:

• Usurping control over election results (three new bills introduced as of May 3);
• Requiring partisan or unprofessional election "audits" or reviews (25);
• Seizing power over election responsibilities (31);
• Creating unworkable burdens in election administration (104); and
• Imposing disproportionate criminal or other penalties (73).

"Legislators are trying to make it harder for trusted election officials to do their jobs, and easier for partisan politicians to overturn the will of the voters. While many may think this threat abated after the midterms, it most certainly did not," Maya Ingram, a senior policy development counsel at the States United Democracy Center, toldNBC News on Thursday. "In fact, legislators are coming up with new ways to interfere with elections."

Several Republican candidates who parroted Trump's incessant lies about President Joe Biden's 2020 victory lost in last year's midterms. But more than 210 others—including at least two who participated in the January 6 rally that descended into an attack on the U.S. Capitol—won congressional seats and races for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general, underscoring how election denialism is now entrenched in the GOP and poses a threat to U.S. democracy for the foreseeable future.

"The decisions being made in statehouses this year and next will help determine how the 2024 election is conducted," the report warns. "Many of these bills are designed to inject confusion and delays into the election process, which increases the likelihood of attempted subversion and can give rise to disinformation, further eroding public trust and confidence in election results."

"Although a few of the bills that we have tracked would explicitly allow state legislatures or other actors to overturn the will of voters—what we sometimes refer to as direct subversion—the vast majority do not," says the report. "Bills that indirectly make subversion more likely are far more prevalent. A more probable scenario is a relatively close election, followed by efforts to create confusion and doubt about the results. Partisan actors could then claim that the true will of the voters cannot be determined, and engineer the outcome of their choice."

Nevertheless, "this legislative session has seen an increase in bills pushed by election deniers that would nullify election results if certain conditions are met," the report continues. "These bills are closely related to some of the direct subversion bills that we've seen in the past, in that they would allow the will of the voters to be disregarded."

NBC News summarized how two pieces of recently unveiled legislation could wreak havoc:

Republican legislators in Texas proposed a bill—H.B. 5082—that would give state officials the authority to order new elections in counties whose populations exceed 1 million people if there is "good cause" to conclude that 2% of polling places ran out of ballots and did not receive replacements. Such counties—like Harris County, which includes Houston—are home to a large share of the state's Democratic voters.

Arizona Republicans introduced a bill—H.B. 2078—that would, if it is enacted, allow candidates, political party county chairs, and certain ballot measure state committees to request post-election investigations that, under the law, would result in audits by the secretary of state.

While such audits should, in theory, be straightforward affairs, critics of the Arizona bill, and bills like it, note that election deniers were on the ballot in secretary of state races last year in 12 states—including Mark Finchem in Arizona. While Finchem lost, the scenario prompted enormous concerns about how such an audit might be conducted with an election denier overseeing it.

"The decisions that states make today will determine how elections are run in 2024," Ingram told the outlet. "Even when these bills don't become law, they keep lies and conspiracy theories alive and sustain the election denier movement."

According to a survey conducted in early 2022 by the Brennan Center for Justice, one in six election officials nationwide have experienced threats related to their job, and 77% say they feel such threats have increased in recent years. This spring, the Brennan Center found that 11% of current election officials are "very or somewhat likely" to step down before November 2024.

The new report urges voters to "be awake" to the "persistent threat" of election subversion and calls on state legislatures to "focus their efforts on the nonpartisan administration of elections, protecting election officials, and respecting the will of the people."

"Until they do," it warns, "our democracy is still far too close to a crisis."

If Earth were to get an annual health checkup akin to a person's physical exam, a doctor would say the planet is "really quite sick right now."

That's how Joyeeta Gupta, professor of environment and development at the University of Amsterdam, put it at a Wednesday press conference accompanying the publication of new research in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. Co-authored by Gupta and 50 other scientists from around the world, it warns that nearly every threshold for a "safe and just" planet has already been breached and pleads for swift action to protect "the global commons for all people now and into the future."

As Carbon Brief reported: "The new study develops the idea of 'planetary boundaries,' first set out in an influential 2009 paper. The paper had defined a set of interlinked thresholds that it said would ensure a 'safe operating space for humanity.' Its authors had warned that crossing these thresholds 'could have disastrous consequences.'"

"We cannot have a biophysically safe planet without justice."

The new paper, written by many of the same people, introduces justice considerations into the framework, leading the authors to propose a set of "safe and just" Earth system boundaries (ESBs) at global and sub-global scales, some of which are stricter than the "safe" limits outlined previously.

"For the first time, we present quantifiable numbers and a solid scientific foundation to assess the state of our planetary health not only in terms of Earth system stability and resilience but also in terms of human well-being and equity/justice," said lead author Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

The interdisciplinary team focused on five of the nine planetary systems identified in 2009—climate, biosphere, water, nutrient cycles, and atmosphere. To determine the health of these systems, they relied on the following eight measurable indicators:

1. Global mean surface temperature change since the pre-industrial era (climate);
2. Natural ecosystem area (biosphere);
3. Functional integrity (biosphere);
4. Surface water flows (water);
5. Groundwater levels (water);
6. Nitrogen (nutrient cycles);
7. Phosphorous (nutrient cycles); and
8. Aerosol loading (atmosphere).

As Phys.orgreported: "Safe boundaries ensure stable and resilient conditions on Earth, and use an interglacial Holocene-like Earth system functioning as a reference point for a healthy planet. A stable and resilient Earth is dominated by balancing feedbacks that cope with buffer and dampen disturbances. Cutting-edge science on climate tipping points features as one major line of evidence to set safe boundaries."

To establish "just" boundaries for each indicator, the authors assessed the conditions needed to avert "significant harm," which they defined as "widespread severe existential or irreversible negative impacts on countries, communities, and individuals from Earth system change, such as loss of lives, livelihoods, or incomes; displacement; loss of food, water, or nutritional security; and chronic disease, injury, or malnutrition."

As summarized by Carbon Brief, the researchers took into account the following justice criteria:

• Interspecies justice: prioritizing other species and ecosystems in addition to humanity.
• Intergenerational justice: considering how actions taken today will impact future generations.
• Intragenerational justice: accounting for factors including race, class, and gender, which "underpin inequality, vulnerability and the capacity to respond" to changes in planetary systems.

"The results of our health check are quite concerning: Within the five analyzed domains, several boundaries, on a global and local scale, are already transgressed," Rockström said. "This means that unless a timely transformation occurs, it is most likely that irreversible tipping points and widespread impacts on human well-being will be unavoidable. Avoiding that scenario is crucial if we want to secure a safe and just future for current and future generations."

According to the paper, "Social and economic systems run on unsustainable resource extraction and consumption" have pushed Earth past seven of the eight "safe and just" ESBs.

The paper includes the following image for reference. The Earth icons representing the current state of the planet should be in the green space, which marks where "safe" (red) and "just" (blue) ESBs overlap. Instead, they lie beyond the "safe and just corridor" for every indicator except aerosol loading.

When "safe" ESBs are looked at in isolation, the planet has entered the danger zone for six of the eight indicators. According to the authors, 1.2°C of global warming to date has pushed the world beyond the "just" ESB for climate, which requires mean surface temperature rise to be capped at 1.0°C. For now, the climate still remains in the "safe" threshold, they say, even as the impacts of increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather are already being felt, especially by the poor.

However, Gupta stressed that "justice is a necessity for humanity to live within planetary limits."

"This is a conclusion seen across the scientific community in multiple heavyweight environmental assessments," said Gupta. "It is not a political choice. Overwhelming evidence shows that a just and equitable approach is essential to planetary stability."

"We cannot have a biophysically safe planet without justice," she added. "This includes setting just targets to prevent significant harm and guarantee access to resources to people and for as well as just transformations to achieve those targets."

As Carbon Brief pointed out: "This study is the first to assess Earth-system boundaries at a local scale, rather than analyzing the planet as a whole. This allows the authors to determine which boundaries have been crossed in specific regions and to identify 'hotspots' for breached boundaries."

As a result, researchers were able to produce the following map, which shows that more boundaries have been breached in certain areas, including Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and substantial parts of Africa, Brazil, Mexico, China, and the U.S. West.

Rockström told reporters that the eight indicators were "carefully chosen" to be "implementable for stakeholders... across the world."

The researchers hope that the "safe and just" ESBs they have put forth "will underpin the setting of new science-based targets for businesses, cities, and governments to address the polycrises of: increasing human exposure to the climate emergency, biodiversity decline, water shortages, ecosystem damage from fertilizer overuse in some parts of the world coupled with lack of access elsewhere, and health damage from air pollution," Phys.org reported.

"Stewardship of the global commons has never been more urgent or important."

Rockström and Gupta are co-chairs of the Earth Commission, founded in 2019 "to advance the planetary boundaries framework," Carbon Brief observed. "The concept has been widely used in academia and policy spaces, but has also attracted criticism from scientists who say it oversimplifies a complex system, or could spread political will too thinly."

Earth Commission executive director Wendy Broadgate, for her part, said that "a safe and just transformation to a manageable planet requires urgent, collective action by multiple actors, especially in government and business to act within Earth system boundaries to keep our life support system of the planet intact."

"Stewardship of the global commons has never been more urgent or important," she added.

In their conclusion, the authors wrote that "nothing less than a just global transformation across all ESBs is required to ensure human well-being."

"Such transformations must be systemic across energy, food, urban, and other sectors, addressing the economic, technological, political, and other drivers of Earth system change, and ensure access for the poor through reductions and reallocation of resource use," they added. "All evidence suggests this will not be a linear journey; it requires a leap in our understanding of how justice, economics, technology, and global cooperation can be furthered in the service of a safe and just future."

The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature has passed a bill to allow public schools to replace professional counselors with uncertified religious chaplains.

GOP lawmakers in the state House approved Senate Bill 763 on Wednesday, one day after their counterparts in the state Senate passed the legislation. The measure, which permits school districts "to employ or accept as volunteers chaplains to provide support, services, and programs for students," now heads to the desk of far-right Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it into law.

In addition to undermining religious freedom, the legislation also advances the American Legislative Exchange Council's longstanding goal of weakening occupational licensing requirements, thus threatening both the secular foundations and quality of public education in the Lone Star State. The right-wing Christian lawmakers backing S.B. 763 and related bills have called the separation of church and state a "false doctrine."

Senate Bill 1515, which would have required teachers to display an edited version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom in Texas, was approved by Senate Republicans last month, but the proposal died in the House because the chamber didn't vote on it before midnight Tuesday.

"The purpose of these bills is clear: The same lawmakers trying to control what students think by banning books and censoring curricula now want to dictate what students worship."

S.B. 1515 "was an unconstitutional attack on our core liberties that threatened the freedom of and from religion we hold dear as Texans. It should never have gotten this close to passage," ACLU of Texas attorney David Donatti said in a statement. "Whether trying to place the Ten Commandments in every classroom or replacing school counselors with unlicensed chaplains, certain Texas lawmakers have launched a coordinated effort to force state-sponsored religion into our public schools."

"We cannot overlook their attempts to push legislation that would sanction religious discrimination and bullying," said Donatti. "The First Amendment guarantees families and faith communities—not politicians or the government—the right to instill religious beliefs in their children."

S.B. 763 and S.B. 1515 "came in a session of aggressive legislative measures in Texas and several other states aiming to weaken decades of distinction between religion and government," The Washington Post observed. "Supporters say they believe the [U.S.] Supreme Court's ruling last summer in Kennedy v. Bremerton, in favor of a high school football coach who prayed with players, essentially removed any guardrails between them."

Texas Senate Republicans "also passed a bill to allow districts to require schools to set aside time for staff and students to pray and read religious texts, and a second bill to allow public employees to 'engage in religious prayer and speech'—modeled after the coach ruling," the newspaper reported. "Those two bills failed to make it out of House committees Wednesday and were not considered likely to resurface this session."

Carisa Lopez, senior political director for the progressive Texas Freedom Network, denounced GOP lawmakers for approving S.B. 763.

"This bill violates the religious freedom of all faiths and Texans of non-faith by placing chaplains in our schools who are not required to be certified educators or omit their personal religious beliefs when working with students," Lopez said in a statement. "Chaplains, unlike counselors, are not given the professional training required to care for the mental health of all students, and we cannot be reasonably certain that every chaplain hired or allowed to volunteer would give unbiased and adequate support to an LGBTQIA+ student, someone grappling with reproductive health decisions, or a student who may struggle with suicidal ideation or self-harm."

"I find it egregious—especially on the one-year anniversary of the Robb Elementary shooting in Uvalde—that lawmakers would pass a bill allowing chaplains to be compensated with funding meant to address school safety," said Lopez.

"Yet again, our elected officials have squandered their opportunity to pass meaningful legislation that would keep kids safe, like commonsense gun reform or bills addressing the school counselor and teacher shortage," she added. "We will never stop fighting the religious right's agenda to inject their personal beliefs into our schools, and we urge Texans to hold these lawmakers accountable at the ballot box."

Rev. Erin Walter, a Unitarian Universalist minister in Texas, also condemned the state's GOP lawmakers for pushing theocratic legislation that violates the U.S. Constitution and, in the case of S.B. 763, could harm the well-being of students by leaving them in the care of unqualified chaplains rather than licensed counselors who have completed the requisite training.

"As a religious leader, I'm disgusted by this assault on religious freedom and the right of all religious communities to conduct their own religious education," said Walter. "As a mother, I'm angry that these politicians believe they know how to raise Texas children better than their own parents do."

"As a former public school teacher, I'm appalled by this erosion of public education as a means of preparing young people to thrive in our diverse state," Walter continued. "And as a fourth-generation Texan, I refuse to accept this government intrusion into our private lives."

Earlier this month, Rep. Cole Hefner (R-5), the House sponsor of S.B. 763, insisted during a floor debate that the legislation doesn't seek to promote religion.

"We have to give schools all the tools; with all we're experiencing, with mental health problems, other crises, this is just another tool," said Hefner.

But as The Texas Tribune reported, "opponents fear the bill is a 'Trojan horse' for evangelizing kids and will worsen the state's mental health crisis through disproven counseling approaches."

"Our elected officials have squandered their opportunity to pass meaningful legislation that would keep kids safe, like commonsense gun reform or bills addressing the school counselor and teacher shortage."

Critics of S.B. 763, including some religious groups and Christian Democrats, worry it could allow "religious activists to recruit in schools and would exacerbate tensions at local school boards, which would have the final say on whether to allow chaplains in schools," the Tribune noted. "Worse, opponents say, the bill could deepen the state's youth mental health crisis by providing students with unproven, lightly supervised, and nonscientific counseling that treats common childhood problems, such as anxiety, as 'sins' or issues that can merely be prayed away."

According to the newspaper, "The head of the National School Chaplain Association—a key supporter of the chaplains bill—has led another group for decades that touted its ability to use school chaplains for evangelizing to kids."

During debate on the House floor, "a half-dozen Democratic lawmakers rose to ask Hefner to amend the bill, saying it didn't provide protection for a diversity of religions, among other things," the Post reported. "Hefner and the majority rejected almost all amendments, including one requiring parental consent and another requiring chaplains to serve students of all faiths and not proselytize."

"Groups that watch church-state issues say efforts nationwide to fund and empower religion—and, more specifically, a particular type of Christianity—are more plentiful and forceful than they have been in years," the newspaper noted. "Americans United for Separation of Church and State says it is watching 1,600 bills around the country in states such as Louisiana and Missouri. Earlier this year, Idaho and Kentucky signed into law measures that could allow teachers and public school employees to pray in front of and with students while on duty." However, the group "said it knows of no other bills that replace guidance counselors with chaplains."

In a blog post published earlier this week by the ACLU of Texas, Walter argued that "the purpose of these bills is clear: The same lawmakers trying to control what students think by banning books and censoring curricula now want to dictate what students worship."

Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest decreased by 68% this April compared with last year, according to preliminary government data published Friday.

The finding reflects positively on the administration of leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has vowed to make the destruction of the crucial ecosystem "a thing of the past."

As Reutersreported:

Official data from space research agency INPE showed that 328.71 square km (126.92 square miles) were cleared in the Brazilian Amazon last month, below the historical average of 455.75 square km for the month.

That interrupted two consecutive months of higher deforestation, with land clearing so far this year now down 40.4% to 1,173 square km.

Lula's victory last October over Brazil's far-right former president, Jair Bolsonaro, was hailed as a critical step toward rescuing the Amazon from more severe and possibly irreversible damage.

Parts of the Amazon, often referred to as the "lungs of the Earth" due to its unparalleled capacity to provide oxygen and absorb planet-heating carbon dioxide, recently passed a key tipping point after Bolsonaro intensified clearcutting of the tropical rainforest during his four-year reign. Bolsonaro's regressive policy changes pushed deforestation in Brazil to a 15-year high last year, helping to drive the country's greenhouse gas emissions to their highest level in almost two decades.

Most of the deforestation that occurred under Bolsonaro was illegal, fueled by logging, mining, and agribusiness companies that were given a green light by the ex-president and often used violence to repress Indigenous forest dwellers and other environmental defenders.

During a November speech at the United Nations COP27 climate summit in Egypt—his first on the international stage after defeating Bolsonaro—Lula said that "there's no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon," roughly 60% of which is located in Brazil.

"The crimes that happened [under Bolsonaro] will now be combated," said Lula, a Workers' Party member who previously served as Brazil's president from 2003 to 2010 and took office again on January 1. "We will rebuild our enforcement capabilities and monitoring systems that were dismantled during the past four years."

"We will fight hard against illegal deforestation. We will take care of Indigenous people," said Lula, who drastically reduced both deforestation and inequality when he governed the country earlier this century. "Brazil is emerging from the cocoon to which it has been subjected for the last four years."

As Reuters noted Friday, "Experts say it is still too early to confirm a downward trend, as the annual peak in deforestation from July to September lies ahead, but see it as a positive signal after rainforest destruction rocketed in late 2022."

"There are several factors, and the change in government might indeed be one of them," Daniel Silva, a conservation specialist at WWF-Brasil, told the outlet. "The environmental agenda has been resumed, but we know time is necessary for the results to be reaped."

"The environmental agenda has been resumed, but we know time is necessary for the results to be reaped."

Friends of the Earth campaigner and author Guy Shrubsole was quicker to give Lula credit.

"Still a lot more to do but this is the impact of electing an environmentalist like Lula over a right-wing populist like Bolsonaro," tweeted Shrubsole, whose books include The Lost Rainforests of Britain and Who Owns England?

Lula has taken important steps toward fulfilling his pledge to halt deforestation by 2030, though Reuters reported that the president "has faced continued challenges since taking office as [the] environmental agency IBAMA grapples with lack of staff," one lingering consequence of his predecessor's funding cuts.

Earlier this month, Lula secured "an 80 million-pound ($100.97 million) contribution from Britain to the Amazon Fund, an initiative aimed at fighting deforestation also backed by Norway, Germany, and the United States," Reuters noted. Last month, he "resumed the recognition of Indigenous lands, reversing a Bolsonaro policy, while announcing new job openings at the environment ministry and [the] Indigenous agency FUNAI."

Research has shown that granting land tenure to Indigenous communities is associated with improved forest outcomes.

Lula fully expected to face substantial opposition from corporate interests and right-wing Brazilian legislators.

The Washington Postreported last year that "a bloc of lawmakers with ties to agriculture could try to block Lula's environmental policies and pass legislation to facilitate land-grabbing and illegal mining."

Vox also explained that "deforestation is unlikely to stop altogether once Lula takes office."

"Bolsonaro's party still dominates Congress and will likely continue supporting the cattle industry, which is behind nearly all forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon," the outlet pointed out. "The country also faces an economic crisis and fallout from mismanaging the coronavirus pandemic, and it's not clear exactly how Lula will prioritize these competing crises."

Despite scientists' warnings that it will be virtually impossible to avert the worst consequences of the climate and biodiversity crises unless the world stops felling trees to make space for cattle ranching, monocropping, and other harmful practices, global efforts to reverse deforestation by 2030 are currently behind schedule and woefully underfunded.

A newly published assessment from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns that three of the most commonly used neonicotinoid insecticides threaten the continued existence of more than 200 endangered plant and animal species.

"The EPA's analysis shows we've got a five-alarm fire on our hands, and there's now no question that neonicotinoids play an outsized role in our heartbreaking extinction crisis," Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), said Friday in a statement.

"The EPA has to use the authority it has to take fast action to ban these pesticides," said Burd, "so future generations don't live in a world without bees and butterflies and the plants that depend on them."

The agency's new analysis found that clothianidin, imidacloprid, and thiamethoxam likely jeopardize the continued existence of 166, 199, and 204 plants and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), respectively. This includes 25 distinct insects, more than 160 plants reliant on insect pollination, and dozens of fish, birds, and invertebrates.

"The Biden administration will have the stain of extinction on its hands if it doesn't muster the courage to stand up to Big Ag and ban these chemicals."

Species being put at risk of extinction include the whooping crane, Indiana bat, Plymouth redbelly turtle, yellow larkspur, Attwater's greater prairie-chicken, rusty patched bumblebee, Karner blue butterfly, American burying beetle, Western prairie fringed orchid, vernal pool fairy shrimp, and the spring pygmy sunfish.

"The EPA confirmed what we have been warning about for years—these neonicotinoid insecticides pose an existential threat to many endangered species and seriously undermine biodiversity," Sylvia Wu, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety (CFS), said in a statement. "Unfortunately, this dire news is what we have told EPA all along. EPA should be ashamed that it still has yet to ban these life-threatening pesticides."

The EPA is well aware of the risks associated with the three neonicotinoids in question. One year ago, the agency released biological evaluations showing that the vast majority of endangered species are likely harmed by clothianidin (1,225 species, or 67% of the ESA list), imidacloprid (1,445, 79%), and thiamethoxam (1,396, 77%). Its new analysis focuses on which imperiled species and critical habitats are likely to be driven extinct by the trio of insecticides.

As CBD pointed out: "For decades the EPA has refused to comply with its Endangered Species Act obligations to assess pesticides' harms to protected species. The agency was finally forced to do the biological evaluations by legal agreements with the Center for Food Safety and the Natural Resources Defense Council. After losing many lawsuits on this matter, the EPA has committed to work toward complying with the act."

"Given the Fish and Wildlife Service's refusal to lift a finger to protect endangered species from pesticides, we commend the EPA for completing this analysis and revealing the disturbing reality of the massive threat these pesticides pose," said Burd. "The Biden administration will have the stain of extinction on its hands if it doesn't muster the courage to stand up to Big Ag and ban these chemicals."

CFS science director Bill Freese said that "while we welcome EPA's overdue action on this issue, we are closely examining the agency's analysis to determine whether still more species are jeopardized by these incredibly potent and ubiquitous insecticides."

As CFS explained:

Chemically similar to nicotine, neonicotinoids kill insects by disrupting their nervous systems. Just billionths of a gram can kill or impair honeybees. Introduced in the 1990s, neonicotinoids have rapidly become the most widely used insecticides in the world. Neonics can be sprayed or applied to soil, but by far the biggest use is application to seeds. The neonic seed coating is absorbed by the growing seedling and makes the entire plant toxic. CFS has a separate case challenging EPA's regulation of these seed coatings.

Bees and other pollinators are harmed by exposure to neonic-contaminated nectar and pollen, with studies demonstrating disruptions in flight ability, impaired growth and reproduction as well as weakened immunity. Neonic-contaminated seed dust generated during planting operations causes huge bee kills, while pollinators also die from direct exposure to spray.

Neonics are also persistent (break down slowly), and run off into waterways, threatening aquatic organisms. EPA has determined that neonics likely harm all 38 threatened and endangered amphibian species in the U.S., among hundreds of other organisms. Birds are also at risk, and can die from eating just one to several treated seeds.

Neonicotinoids have long been prohibited in the European Union, but as recently as a few months ago, a loophole enabled governments to grant emergency derogations temporarily permitting the use of seeds coated with these and other banned insecticides. In January, the E.U.'s highest court closed the loophole for neonicotinoid-treated seeds—a decision the post-Brexit United Kingdom refused to emulate.

In the U.S., neonicotinoids continue to be used on hundreds of millions of acres of agricultural land, contributing to an estimated 89% decline in the American bumblebee population over the past 20 years.

According to Freese, "EPA has thus far given a free pass to neonicotinoids coated on corn and other crop seeds—which represent by far their largest use—that make seedlings toxic to pollinators and other beneficial insects."

"Our expert wildlife agencies—the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service—have the final say on this matter," Freese added, "and may well find that neonicotinoids put even more species at risk of extinction."

A 2019 scientific review of the catastrophic global decline of insects made clear that a "serious reduction in pesticide usage" is essential to prevent the extinction of up to 41% of the world's insects in the coming decades.

House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled their closely held plan to force a vote on a debt ceiling hike "without extreme conditions," a remote bid to prevent the chamber's GOP majority from unleashing an unprecedented and severely damaging U.S. default.

Less than 24 hours after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the federal government may not be able to meet its financial obligations beyond June 1 unless Congress raises or suspends the nation's arbitrary borrowing limit before then, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) announced a so-called "discharge petition" effort to "avert the Republican-manufactured default crisis."

The rarely used gambit compels floor action on legislation backed by a majority of House lawmakers. Democrats are seeking to force a vote on a fresh bill to increase the debt ceiling over the objections of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who controls the floor and has demanded trillions of dollars in devastating spending cuts in exchange for the GOP votes needed to avoid a worldwide economic disaster.

As The Hill reported:

The discharge petition—an obscure mechanism empowering 218 lawmakers to pass bills the speaker refuses to consider—is almost never successful, because it requires members of the ruling party to defy their own leadership.

Democrats, with 213 members, would need to find five Republicans willing to sign on. And some Republicans are already warning that it'll never happen, especially after GOP leaders last week were successful in passing a debt ceiling package through the lower chamber.

"They're not going to get any Republicans," Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), head of the far-right Freedom Caucus, told the outlet. "We already passed our bill."

The so-called Limit, Save, Grow Act passed last week by House Republicans would raise the debt ceiling, but only in conjunction with measures to slash the nation's already tattered social safety net, weaken efforts to crack down on wealthy tax cheats, repeal clean energy investments, and more.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said the bill is "dead on arrival" in the upper chamber. President Joe Biden—who was vice president in 2011 when GOP lawmakers weaponized the debt ceiling to impose austerity and hurt the nation's credit score in the process—has also refused to entertain Republicans' plot to treat the global economy as a bargaining chip to advance attacks on programs that benefit working-class households.

According to The Hill: "Some moderate Republicans have already floated a willingness to join Democrats on a discharge petition if Congress inches too close to a federal default with no resolution in sight. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), a co-chair of the centrist Problem Solvers Caucus, said earlier in the year that he might do so—'if that's necessary.'"

The challenge before House Democrats, in the words of Steven Harper, is to find "five rational Republicans willing to save the U.S. economy."

In a "Dear Colleague" letter sent to House Democrats on Tuesday, Jeffries wrote:

A dangerous default is not an option. Making sure that America pays its bills—and not the extreme ransom note demanded by Republicans—is the only responsible course of action. Since 1960, the debt ceiling has been extended or revised 78 separate times—49 under Republican administrations and 29 under Democratic presidents.

Most recently, under former President [Donald] Trump, Democrats voted three times to raise the debt ceiling without gamesmanship, brinksmanship, or partisanship. For the good of the country, extreme MAGA Republicans must do the same.

"House Democrats are working to make sure we have all options at our disposal to avoid a default," Jeffries added.

The newly revealed strategy was quietly hatched in January when Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.) introduced "The Breaking the Gridlock Act" and kept confidential until now.

In the wake of Yellen's warning, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the top-ranked Democrat on the House Rules Committee, introduced a "special rule" on Tuesday, during a pro forma session held while the House was in recess.

"The next step in the process is filing a discharge petition, which will start the signature-gathering process," The Hill explained. "The petition, however, cannot be filed for seven legislative days after the special rule is introduced, meaning the earliest signatures can begin to be collected is on May 16."

According toThe New York Times, McGovern's "open-ended rule would provide a vehicle to bring Mr. DeSaulnier’s bill to the floor and amend it with a Democratic proposal—which has yet to be written—to resolve the debt limit crisis."

As the newspaper reported:

The strategy is no silver bullet, and Democrats concede it is a long shot. Gathering enough signatures to force a bill to the floor would take at least five Republicans willing to cross party lines if all Democrats signed on, a threshold that Democrats concede will be difficult to reach. They have yet to settle on the debt ceiling proposal itself, and for the strategy to succeed, Democrats would likely need to negotiate with a handful of mainstream Republicans to settle on a measure they could accept.

Still, Democrats argue that the prospect of a successful effort could force House Republicans into a more acceptable deal.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) described the discharge petition as "an extraordinary action to address the extraordinarily disastrous position Speaker McCarthy has put our country in."

"By using the debt ceiling as a ticking time bomb hanging over the heads of the American people," Crockett continued, "Republicans are threatening to send our country into a full recession if they don't get to check off every box on their extreme conservative wishlist."

"Republicans are treating this debt ceiling negotiation as a hostage situation—with the American people as the hostages," she added. "In response, House Democrats are taking action to bring a clean bill raising the debt ceiling to the floor and end this game of high-stakes political chicken."

According to the Times:

House Democratic leaders have for months played down the possibility of initiating a discharge petition as a way out of the stalemate. They are hesitant to budge from the party position, which Mr. Biden has articulated repeatedly, that Republicans should agree to raise the debt limit with no conditions or concessions on spending cuts.

But behind the scenes, they were simultaneously taking steps to make sure a vehicle was available if needed.

The discharge petition process can be time-consuming and complicated, so Democrats who devised the strategy started early and carefully crafted their legislative vehicle. Insiders privately refer to the measure as a "Swiss Army knife" bill—one that was intended to be referred to every single House committee in order to keep open as many opportunities as possible for forcing it to the floor.

The American Prospect's executive editor, David Dayen, warned on social media that "the timing of a discharge petition is such that this needed to start at the beginning of the Congressional session; probably too late now."

In the absence of congressional action, Yellen—who has supported proposals to permanently eliminate the federal government's borrowing cap as most countries around the world have done—still has the authority to avert an economic calamity by minting a trillion-dollar platinum coin.

On Monday, former Labor Secretary Robert Reich urged Biden to "play hardball by ignoring" the GOP. As legal experts have argued, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits "fiscal obstructionism," and even the right-wing-controlled U.S. Supreme Court, some observers predict, would likely support the Biden administration.

A report published Monday highlights potential connections between the political influence of Harlan Crow's family and the billionaire GOP megadonor's yearslong endeavor to shower U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas with lavish vacations and other undisclosed gifts.

Since Thomas provided a deciding vote in the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, the Crow family's ability to influence federal elections has increased by a factor of almost nine, according to an Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) analysis of campaign finance data.

In Travel Rewards: What the Crow Family May Have Bought by Hosting Those Luxury Trips for Justice Thomas, ATF shows how Thomas' vote in the 5-4 decision that effectively legalized unlimited political spending has allowed the Crows to increase their average annual campaign contributions by 862%, from $163,241 pre-Citizens United to $1.57 million post-ruling.

While Thomas and Crow have denied any impropriety, recent revelations about their relationship have fueled fresh calls for the conservative justice to resign or face impeachment proceedings.

"The Crows used their fortune to buy access to and curry favor with one of the most powerful officials in Washington, then benefited from his central role in loosening rules meant to limit the influence of money over politics and policy," said ATF executive director David Kass.

"It's a vicious cycle that can only be short-circuited by restoring meaningful campaign finance rules and by demanding a much fairer share of taxes from billionaires, which, among other good results, will leave them less money to distort our democratic process," Kass added.

"The Crows' influence-buying and political spending are emblematic of a larger problem: the ongoing attempt by billionaires to purchase our democracy."

As ATF notes, the Crow family (Harlan, his wife, parents, siblings, and their family-owned businesses) has used its $2.5 billion fortune to influence elections for the past half-century.

But of the $25.8 million dollars the Crows donated to mostly GOP candidates from 1977 to 2022, $20.5 million (almost 80%) came in the 12 years after Thomas joined his fellow right-wing jurists in gutting campaign finance laws, the analysis points out.

ATF argues that "the Crows' influence-buying and political spending are emblematic of a larger problem: the ongoing attempt by billionaires to purchase our democracy."

In a report published last summer, the group documented how "billionaires are increasingly using their personal fortunes and the profits of connected corporations to drown out regular voters' voices and elect hand-picked candidates who further rig the nation's economy—especially the tax system."

Not counting dark money contributions, billionaires dumped $1.2 billion into the 2020 elections, 65 times more than the $16 million they donated in 2008, the report found. By last June, a few dozen billionaires had already pumped tens of millions of dollars into the 2022 midterms—mostly to support Republican candidates, including several election deniers—in a bid to ensure that Congress is full of lawmakers willing "to make their wealthy benefactors even richer."

"Billionaires shouldn't be able to buy political access and influence with their enormous fortunes," ATF tweeted Monday. "It's well beyond time for Citizens United to go, and to put real action towards making billionaires pay their fair share in taxes. Our democracy depends on it."

"It's well beyond time for Citizens United to go, and to put real action towards making billionaires pay their fair share in taxes. Our democracy depends on it."

In addition to benefiting from the Citizens United decision that has increased wealthy Americans' ability to shape electoral outcomes, Crow has connections to right-wing groups involved in Supreme Court cases since Thomas was first confirmed to the bench in 1991.

Crow's financial ties to Thomas, which the jurist failed to disclose and only came to light last month thanks to investigative reporting by ProPublica, go beyond decades of all-expenses-paid trips valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.

For instance, four years after Thomas helped deliver a victory to U.S. oligarchs in Citizens United, Crow purchased a property owned by Thomas for $130,000 and made improvements to it while the judge's mother continued to live there.

Thomas is not alone when it comes to conflicts of interest on the high court. Last week, Politicorevealed that just days after his April 2017 confirmation, Justice Neil Gorsuch and his business partners sold a 40-acre Colorado ranch for almost $2 million to an undisclosed person. The buyer, Brian Duffy, is the CEO of a law firm that has since been involved in 22 cases before the court.

Despite growing evidence of possible corruption, Chief Justice John Roberts has refused to accept an invitation to testify at an upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on potential reforms to the Supreme Court, which is currently controlled by six far-right justices, most of whom were appointed by Republican presidents who lost the popular vote.

Progressives have demanded far-reaching changes to disempower the country's "rogue" justices, including adding seats—a move that has been made seven times throughout U.S. history—and enacting robust ethics rules.

Polling data shows that public approval of the Supreme Court has declined sharply in the months since its reactionary supermajority eliminated the constitutional right to abortion care, among other harmful and unpopular decisions. According to a survey conducted in April, nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults no longer have confidence in the nation's chief judicial body.

UPDATE: A New York Times investigation published on Sept. 24, 2023 stated that reporters had been unable to confirm Mansoor Adayfi's claims that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was involved in prisoner maltreatment. "An examination of military records and interviews with detainees’ lawyers and service members who served at the same time as Mr. DeSantis found no evidence to back up the claims," the Times wrote. "The New York Times interviewed more than 40 people who served with Mr. DeSantis or around the same time and none recalled witnessing or even hearing of any episodes like the ones Mr. Adayfi described."

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday scolded a journalist for asking him about his time working as a naval judge advocate general at the U.S. penal colony in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

During an event at Israel's Museum of Tolerance, DeSantis was asked about allegations that he was present on at least one occasion when a former Guantánamo detainee was force-fed by guards to quash a hunger strike. The United Nations has deemed force-feeding a form of torture.

Before the reporter could finish his question, DeSantis, who is believed to be preparing a bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, snapped, "No, no... all that's BS, totally BS."

After the journalist completed his question, DeSantis angrily responded: "Who said that? How would they know me? Okay, think about that. Do you honestly believe that's credible?... This is 2006, I'm a junior officer, do you honestly think that they would have remembered me from Adam? Of course not!"

In response, Mansoor Adayfi, a Yemeni citizen who was incarcerated without charges at Guantánamo for 14 years, tweeted, "I will never forget his face, he was laughing and smiling watching me being tortured on the force-feeding chair."

While chastising the reporter, DeSantis, who is trying to crack down on press freedom in Florida, accused Adayfi of "trying to get into the news because they know people like you will consume it because it fits your preordained narrative that you're trying to spin."

"Focus on the facts and stop worrying about the narrative," DeSantis said.

Adayfi, who was finally released from Guantánamo in 2016 without ever being charged with a crime, first told Mike Prysner's Eyes Left podcast in November that guards brutally force-fed him and other prisoners cans of Ensure in 2006 to break a hunger strike and that DeSantis was there for at least one torture session.

"Ron DeSantis was there watching us. We were crying, screaming," said Adayfi. "We were tied to the feeding chair. And that guy was watching that. He was laughing."

Unable to handle the amount of Ensure being crammed into his body through his nostrils, "I threw up on his face," Adayfi said. "Literally. On his face."

"When I was screaming, I look at him [Ron DeSantis] and he was actually smiling. Like someone who enjoyed it," Adayfi added. "It shocked us all."

In March, Adayfi toldThe Independent that he doesn't "remember exactly when DeSantis came because we had no watch, no calendar, nothing."

According to Adayfi, DeSantis feigned concern for the detainees' welfare before watching them endure torture: "He came to talk to us along [with] others—medical staff and interpreters. And we explained to him why we were on hunger strike. And he told us, 'I'm here to ensure that you get treated humanely and properly.' We were talking about our problems with the brothers, the torture, the abuses, the no healthcare."

An investigation by The Independent confirmed that DeSantis' role as an attorney at Guantánamo was to field complaints of illegal treatment. A second former prisoner has claimed the Florida governor witnessed forced feeding. Following his stint at Guantánamo, DeSantis advocated for its continued operation and against the release of detainees.

In an Al Jazeera opinion piece published earlier this month, Adayfi explained how he came to recognize DeSantis:

In 2021, just as my memoir—Don't Forget Us Here, Lost and Found at Guantánamo—was about to be published, I was on Twitter and saw a photo of a handsome man in a white navy uniform. It was Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. I do not remember what the post was about—probably something about him clashing with President Joe Biden over Covid policies. But I remembered his face. It was a face I could never forget. I had seen that face for the first time in Guantánamo, in 2006—one of the camp's darkest years when the authorities started violently breaking hunger strikes and three of my brothers were found dead in their cages.

After finding a Miami Heraldarticle in which DeSantis bragged about his service at Guantánamo and confirming that my memory is correct, I sent his photo to a group chat of former detainees. Several replied that they too remembered his face from Guantánamo. Some said seeing his face again triggered painful memories of the trauma they suffered during their imprisonment. I understood. Even after spending the previous few years working on my memoir, which meant reliving everything I had been through at Guantánamo, seeing his face again triggered a lot of pain in me too.

As Adayfi pointed out, "DeSantis still calls Guantánamo a 'terrorist detention facility,' even though back in 2006, the year he was there, an analysis of official documents found that the great majority of the Guantánamo prisoners were innocent men, imprisoned only because of mistaken identity or because they had been sold to the U.S. for bounty money."

"Regardless of these facts, DeSantis advocated keeping Guantánamo open in his 2016 testimony before the Subcommittee on National Security, in which he claimed that all detainees were 'hardened and unrepentant terrorist[s],' whose release 'risks harming America's national security,'" Adayfi wrote.

"At the time of DeSantis' speech, 80 prisoners remained at Guantánamo. I was one of them," he continued. "Of the 779 men held at Guantánamo since it opened in 2002, only 12 have been charged with crimes. Only two have been convicted. I wonder who DeSantis was talking about."

Adayfi, who was just 18 years old when he was sent to Guantánamo in 2002, is one of several people released in recent years. But as human rights defenders made clear on January 11, the 21st anniversary of Guantánamo's opening, they won't stop fighting until the notorious military prison is shut down for good.