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Two Different America's (Sic)
Hoo boy. With the approach of what bleakly promises to be "the super-Islamophobic midterms," the Bigot-In-Chief is letting his racist freak flag fly by attacking Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, whose smarts, strength, hotness, accomplished wife and Michigan win clearly terrify him. Cue charges of "communist," "man of hate," and, probs soon, AI slop featuring suicide vests. Meanwhile, El-Sayed, a far sharper tool in the shed, has embraced the charge they represent "(two) America’s": The ads write themselves.
Planet MAGA, of course, is already so delusional Trump just boasted of his "Great Poll Numbers," which now sit at rock-bottom lows of 38% to 33%. For a bunch of hacks led by a fragile narcissist who's never seen a scapegoat he didn't relish, the fantastical goes hand-in-stubby-hand with the fear-mongering: vandals in the Reflecting Pool, domestic terrorists at No Kings, migrant caravans, lunatic Bolsheviks, weird names or just brown-or-black skinned success, more terrifying to many of these losers than any threat of extremism. Enter, in peril, the high-achieving epidemiologist, health official, author and "Muslim boogeyman" El-Sayed. “Expect them to throw the whole bigoted kitchen sink at El-Sayed," says Mehdi Hasan. "This will be the anti-Zohran Mamdani campaign on anti-Muslim steroids."
Unsurprisingly, it began in earnest the minute the good doctor won Michigan's against-the-odds primary against establishment Dem Haley Stevens. He'll face off against GOP Rep. and racist ijiot Mike Rogers, who of course has rushed to call the U.S.-born-and-bred El-Sayed "anti-American" and - pulling the same juvenile "Barack Hussein Obama" crap to undermine his legitimacy - to use his full, scary, def-not-in-Kansas-anymore name Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed. But Abdulrahman, who doesn't suffer fools gladly, has brutally pushed back. "With a name like mine, I never thought running for office would be possible," he said at a campaign event. But if "Mike" wants to focus on his 11-letter (a lot!) first name, he just wanted to remind him, "If you don’t know how to say it, keep the name out of your damn mouth.”
In moronic lockstep, MAGA's bigots, brown shirts and zealots have followed suit with "cartoonishly Islamophobic attacks." They use his full name and say he's a "socialist," which they can't define but anyway he isn't. Anti-trans goon Nancy Mace charges, “Every single Muslim holding public office (is) a Trojan Horse and a threat to national security and our republic," and woe is us when "our granddaughters are wearing burkas to school." Vapid scumbag JD calls him a "crazy" guy who doesn't want Trump's rip-off, oligarch-run "prosperous economy" and flings "personal insults" at Vance's family, though hours later Trump attacked El-Sayed's wife, who is U.S.-born and thus not an alleged Einstein Visa immigrant third wife who somehow after 30 years here can still barely speak English. Maybe it was an Epstein Visa?
As usual, Trump has eagerly led the racist, vulgar charge. Along with a communist man of hate, he's also called El-Sayed a "jihadist" from a rigged, "strictly Third World" state who's "full of shit." It turns out El-Sayed is also "the absolute best at casually burning Trump to the fucking ground": Asked about the barb, El-Sayed snapped back, “At least I don’t let mine go in the middle of the Oval Office." And as with another smart, quick, non-white guy who's way above his pay grade and lives rent-free in his wee puerile mind, he likes to sneeringly recite, often stumbling, the full, scary name of a guy who this time actually would be the first Muslim U.S. senator. Presumably, the ketchup really hit the White House walls last weekend when El-Sayed said he'd had "a really good conversation" with Obama about "what we need to do to win."
Above all, the bigot for all seasons pivots to the trope of anyone Arabic - El-Sayed's parents immigrated from Egypt - being anti-Semitic. "He doesn't love Jewish people," babbles Trump. "He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart." In fact, El-Sayed has plainly, repeatedly said he opposes not Jews but Israel's genocidal policies, AIPAC and the dark U.S. money that abets both: "I believe in equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for all people." That call for equality under the law has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, notes Peter Beinart; cognizant of history. he also warns that a political party or ideology willing to be "nakedly bigoted" toward any group of people, in this case Muslims, in order to maintain power would, if the politics were to shift, "do the same thing to Jews in a heartbeat."
Obviously, such subtlety is beyond the dim-witted likes of Trump and his MAGA zombies, who alone could look at Dr. El-Sayed and his (one) wife Dr. Sarah Jukaku, a psychiatrist whose parents emigrated here from India, and see a threat. Both are U.S.-born-and- raised doctors with undergrad degrees from University of Michigan, where they met, and advanced degrees from Columbia and Oxford. In his book Healing Politics, El-Sayed offers a rigorous framework for understanding systemic medical and political failure, and building conditions for lasting healing. He also calls Jukaku his “rock" and praises the "quiet confidence" that led her to work with people confronting pain. "I struggled to learn who I was,” he wrote of their earlier selves. “Sarah did not. She danced with her emotions. I wrestled with mine." The couple has two daughters.
No wonder, then, a needy, hollow rapist, con-man, bully and aspiring tinpot dictator, routinely raking in billions while kids go hungry and stuffed into a cheap tux for his fellow billionaire felons, posted a photo of himself with his tacky, mail-order, call-girl wife in a tight dress with "redacted Epstein files written all over it" - both smirking, "We're richer and be better than you and just ignore our vile name appearing in those pedo files thousands of times" - alongside the other couple, warmly smiling after a pancake breakfast in a diner, El Sayed in a t-shirt, Jukaku in a hijab so she must be a terrorist (though Trump, suspect, is wearing a cat.) The caption for the side-by-side pics, which only the spectacularly tone-deaf Trump could remotely imagine as a mic-drop: "Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s (sic).” Umm. Sure.
Kudos to El-Sayed, prince among men, who didn't even stoop to pick the low-hanging fruit of Trump's "grammatical shitbaggery" - one comment: "What a maroon" - emblematic of a proudly semi-literate GOP somehow come to power in our debased America without understanding how apostrophes work. Instead, El-Sayed went for the meat of the matter. "Yeah, he's right," he told CNN. Swiftly, he embraced the campaign-ready concept of two Americas: "Trump's vision, the one you're living in right now (in) which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other, but join in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you...Or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, and want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that family is going to have the good things."
Those "good things" - health care, good jobs, clean air and water, a relatively level playing field to replace gross inequality, a country where people can live peaceably together "with their sisters and brothers" - are what he and his wife want for their kids, and he wisely gauges most of the rest of us do too. And no, he says, rebutting GOP charges, it's not "radical" to believe people should be able to afford groceries, have health care, partake in free elections. Also, he and his wife actually "like each other," he adds; as to the couple in the "very different" America, "From what I've heard, it's a bit of a rocky road." As mid-terms loom. “They are going to try to paint me as a certain thing, (but) America is a lot bigger than (these) very small people make it out to be," he says. "They all think we won't step up and fight...We fight for each other."
@abdulelsayed They all think we won't step up and fight... They think they're the biggest, baddest bully on the playground... That they're going to show up and we're going to run away...
Aug 10, 2026
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Human-Caused Climate Emergency Made Canada's Summer Wildfires Twice as Likely: Study
Committed to climate denial, President Donald Trump has insisted in recent weeks that hundreds of wildfires currently burning across Canada are the result of the country's mismanagement of its vast boreal forests—but scientists confirmed in a study out Thursday that "human-induced climate change" made the fires twice as likely.
The World Weather Attribution (WWA), a consortium of scientists who study how planetary heating and the climate emergency fuel extreme weather, examined the weather conditions connected to fast-spreading fires, including extreme heat, drought conditions, humidity, and wind.
They measured the Canadian index for those conditions and then compared the country's current weather patterns to a world without the 1.4°C of warming that has occurred since humans began burning fossil fuels.
"The weeklong weather conditions that led to the fires in Ontario are now the type that can happen every six years or so," WWA reported.
In the Northwest Territories, where more than 5,000 square miles of forest burned, sending smoke drifting thousands of miles into the continental United States, WWA noted that lightning initially caused the fire, "but it was the climate conditions that took that initial ignition and made the fire burn intensely and spread too fast to control."
Theodore Keeping, a member of WWA and a weather expert at Imperial College London, told The Guardian that "adaptation alone is not enough. We need to rapidly move away from fossil fuels to avoid events like this becoming even more of a reality.”
“Smoke does not carry a passport, but carbon pollution does have a history. President Trump is pointing at the smoke while ignoring America's fingerprints on the climate conditions behind it.”
The weather conditions that dry out vegetation and make them more prone to catching fire are now expected to occur every 2-6 years in the Northwest Territories.
"If humanity hadn’t overheated the planet by burning coal, oil, and gas, the scientists determined, such extreme fire conditions would occur less than once every 40 years," said WWA.
The study was released as a new wildfire in the Vancouver area broke out, prompting air quality warnings and evacuations.
Wildfire smoke contains significant amounts of particulate matter (PM2.5), which can lodge itself in human lung cells and enter the bloodstream.
Trump asserted last month regarding Canada, "If they managed their forests, they wouldn’t have the fires.”
But Mike Flannigan, a fire scientist at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, who was not part of the WWA study, told ABC News that forest management and prevention efforts can only go so far in a country where much of the boreal forest is remote and hard to access.
“In Canada, when things are extreme, you have about a 30-minute window to put that fire out,” Flannigan said. "If you don't get there in 30 minutes, you're out of luck. And many of the fires that start in Canada are northern remote areas that are more than 30 minutes away from an airport. So even with perfect detection systems, we would get there too late and these fires are going to burn.''
By continuing to burn fossil fuels, Flannigan added, “we're putting nails in our coffins."
The study comes days after Trump's Interior Department moved to further expand offshore drilling by proposing weakened protections for drilling in the Arctic Outer Continental Shelf, and as his push for artificial intelligence data centers has sent the demand for natural gas soaring. He has also accelerated approvals for liquefied natural gas export terminals.
Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at University of Victoria in British Columbia, noted that in addition to Trump's push for more fossil fuel extraction, the US has caused more carbon pollution than any other country in history.
“Smoke does not carry a passport, but carbon pollution does have a history," Weaver told ABC News. “President Trump is pointing at the smoke while ignoring America's fingerprints on the climate conditions behind it.”
WWA also found recently that wildfires in Spain this summer were made 20 times more likely by the climate emergency.
“What is going to be next?” Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and a co-author of the study, said to The Guardian. “Time and again we see the same results: Climate change is a key driver behind uncontrollably large and unprecedented fires. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The science has been clear for decades: Burning fossil fuels is making these wildfires more frequent, more intense, and more difficult to contain.”
Aug 06, 2026
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Noting ‘Trillions Within Reach,’ Campaigners Demand Justice at UN's Global Tax Treaty Talks
As world governments meet at the United Nations for another round of negotiations on a first-of-its-kind "Global Tax Treaty," economic justice campaigners are urging them to think big or risk leaving on the table trillions of dollars that could help alleviate global inequality and the climate crisis.
The fifth round of negotiations for the treaty began in New York on Monday, with countries ironing out its language line by line as they seek a global framework to more fairly tax the rich and multinational corporations and crack down on tax avoidance.
Jenny Ricks, the general secretary of the Fight Inequality Alliance—a global coalition of anti-inequality groups—said the framework, which was first conceived in 2022 at the urging of poorer nations in Africa, "aims to make global tax governance more inclusive, transparent, and equitable, shifting it away from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and giving the global majority a genuine say in rules that have long been set by wealthy states."
The first drafts of the proposed tax convention were released in late July in advance of this month's negotiations. Advocates at Greenpeace International, however, argue that they contain many gaps that fail to adequately tax fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis or other multinational corporations and extremely wealthy individuals.
In a briefing document released to media organizations, Greenpeace argued that the text lacks clear language linking taxation to sustainable development, despite it being demanded by 24 countries, and that it lacks provisions requiring polluters to bear the public cost of environmental damage.
The group also criticized the weakening of an article covering taxes on high-net-worth individuals, the lack of a minimum tax on multinational profits, and the absence of specific rules for taxing extractive industries such as oil, gas, and mining.
The oil and gas industry, the group pointed out, is in the midst of a boom, with companies reporting record profits as President Donald Trump's war against Iran drives global oil prices higher.
"The money is right there," said Nina Stros, Greenpeace International's global senior policy expert. "It is about time governments recognized this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make those most responsible for the climate, nature, and inequality crises we are facing pay their share, and reclaim trillions of dollars to invest in our shared future.”
An open letter from Tax and Fiscal Justice Asia, a group of over 50 civil society organizations across 13 Asian countries, emphasized many of the same concerns that the conference could end up merely affirming broad principles without creating concrete rules.
They said representatives of Asian nations at the negotiating table needed to push for a shift in taxing power away from wealthy countries where corporate headquarters are located and toward poorer ones where much of the workforce and resources are concentrated. They also argued for a move away from regressive consumption taxes that disproportionately fall on lower-income people.
"The majority of states in Asia were among the 125 states that voted in November 2023 to adopt a resolution for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC)," the letter said. "The vote has brought forth a historic opportunity to leave behind unjust systems and build a new global tax architecture."
Aug 04, 2026
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Scale of Trump's Raid on National Parks Funds for White House 'Vanity Projects' Revealed
Internal documents from the US National Park Service reportedly show that massive sums of money have been diverted to fund assorted projects commissioned by President Donald Trump.
According to a Sunday report from journalist Scott MacFarlane, NPS records show that $323 million has been rerouted to fund projects on the White House grounds this year alone, representing an increase of nearly 5,000% from the amount spend on such projects in 2024.
Additionally, the documents show NPS allotted nearly $100 million for projects on the Washington National Mall, a tenfold increase on the amount spent two years ago.
At the same time, the records show "multimillion-dollar reductions" in funding for several famous national parks, including Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon.
In fact, the total spending for projects at the White House and National Mall is larger than the combined spending at nine of the largest US national parks, MacFarlane found.
One anonymous federal employee who spoke with MacFarlane said that the spending shifts documented in internal records are "part of a pattern of the National Park Service being forced to prioritize Trump’s vanity projects over our own needs."
Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, similarly argued that "the National Park Service is being used as a piggy bank for Trump’s vanity projects," which he said was "costing the American people."
Some Democratic critics of Trump pounced on the report, which they said was the latest example of the president corruptly wasting taxpayer dollars.
"Let’s ask the American people," wrote Democrats on the US House Ways and Means Committee in a social media post, "would you rather have your nearest national park preserved and protected or another monument to Trump?"
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), whose state has been hit by devastating wildfires this summer, accused the president of "raiding wildfire prevention funding to pay for his vanity projects."
Fred Wellman, a Democratic candidate for the US House of Representatives in Missouri, said that "Trump and his complicit Republican Congress have been robbing us to gild statues and build his private home without any oversight or approval."
"This is theft on a grand scale," Wellman added, "and all of us are paying for it."
Aug 10, 2026
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Omar Demands Answers After ICE Agent in Car With Mismatched Plates Spotted Outside Her Town Hall Event
Rep. Ilhan Omar is demanding the US Department of Homeland Security explain why a federal immigration enforcement officer was stationed outside one of her monthly town hall gatherings in Richfield, Minnesota.
In a letter sent last week to Michael McCarthy, interim special agent in charge of the St. Paul Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) field office, Omar (D-Minn.) explained that local law enforcement officials on Thursday spotted a woman sitting in a Ford Explorer who appeared to be monitoring the building where her town hall was taking place.
A Richfield Police officer scanned the woman's license plates and found they were registered to a different vehicle. As noted in a Monday report from HuffPost, it is illegal under Minnesota state law for federal immigration agents to drive in vehicles with mismatched plates.
The officer then approached the car and asked the woman to identify herself, and she said she was an agent for HSI, which is an agency within US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Although the agent left the property without incident, Omar nonetheless said that HSI "put an entire community at risk" by improperly deploying personnel there.
"Instead of monitoring the area for those who might wish harm to me and my constituents," Omar wrote, "Richfield Police were required to devote time to investigating why an HSI agent was outside of a congressional event in a vehicle with mismatched plates."
Omar then linked the HSI agent's presence with "many Americans' growing concern that the Trump administration uses ICE to surveil political opponents and interfere with our democracy."
The Minnesota Democrat demanded to know more details about the agent's deployment, including why she was stationed outside of Omar's town hall event, an overview of the agent's training, and the coordination that HSI is supposed to have with local law enforcement before engaging in such an operation.
In a separate social media post, Omar said that President Donald Trump "is continuing to use ICE and DHS to intimidate Americans who disagree with him," although she offered no specific evidence that this HSI agent was sent as part of an intimidation campaign.
Aug 10, 2026
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What Kind of Ceasefire Is This? UNICEF Says 300 Children Killed in Gaza Over 300 Days
"The world calls it a ceasefire, but families in Gaza are still burying their children."
That was one United Nations spokesperson's assessment of the ongoing US-backed Israeli assault on Gaza on Thursday, which marked the 300th day since a ceasefire deal was reached between Israel and Hamas—a period during which at least 300 Palestinian children have been killed, the UN reported.
"A ceasefire that leaves an average of one child dead each and every day is failing children," said Edouard Beigbeder, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF). "With hundreds more children injured, many severely, children in Gaza are still waiting for the end to the violence they were promised."
Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for UNICEF, noted that in the first three days of August, at least four children were killed across Gaza, and surviving children have been left with "painfully simple" and urgent questions for Israeli officials who had agreed last October to cease hostilities, reopen border crossings, and ensure 600 aid trucks entered Gaza per day to get much-needed food and essentials to Palestinians who had been facing a near-total blockade.
Wateridge said Palestinian children need to know: "When will the killings stop? When will food and medicine reach me at the level needed? When will hospitals reopen? And when will clean water flow again?"
300 children gone in 300 days.
300 days of the ceasefire in #Gaza has seen at least 300 children killed.
"The world calls it a ceasefire, but families in Gaza are still burying their children."
- @UNICEF's Louise Wateridge pic.twitter.com/1rmJz3YExW
— United Nations Geneva (@UNGeneva) August 6, 2026
Reports of the mass casualties of children come as Israel and President Donald Trump's Board of Peace raise doubts about whether Israel will accept a deal stipulating the disarmament of Hamas and Israel's withdrawal from the exclave.
UN officials on Thursday expressed hope that the next steps of the peace plan can move forward to save children and other civilians across Gaza.
"Children have heard promises before. This time, agreements must translate into action," said Beigbeder.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Thursday that continued airstrikes have damaged civilian infrastructure, including healthcare facilities and medical supplies.
UNICEF warned that children are continue to face acute malnutrition almost a year after Israel agreed to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, as well as suffering from disease and a lack of sanitation.
An attack on a medical storage facility next to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah last week destroyed supplies that had been delivered by the UN, said the World Health Organization.
The UN is working to help "exhausted and hungry mothers" arriving at health centers with their malnourished children, and are fighting to save newborns born prematurely or with health issues, with extremely limited resources.
“There’s not enough incubators and in some cases [health workers are] saying they see two or even three babies sharing a single machine,” said Wateridge. “In Gaza, children only days old are already fighting to stay alive, born into partially functioning hospitals lacking equipment and medicine. This is what the world has chosen to tolerate. The killing must stop, aid has to enter at scale and children must be protected.”
According to OCHA, at least 1,209 people have been killed and 3,943 have been injured since the ceasefire deal was reached last October.
Aug 06, 2026
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Pressley Demands Israel Release US Citizen Sama Safi, Abducted by IDF More Than Two Months Ago
"I’ve been calling on the Trump administration to secure Sama's immediate release, continued access to medical care, and end all unjust and arbitrary detentions."
Aug 11, 2026
US Rep. Ayanna Pressley on Tuesday demanded that the Israeli government release Sama Safi, a 20-year-old US citizen who was taken into custody by Israeli military forces two months ago while staying with family in the occupied West Bank.
In a social media post, Pressley (D-Mass.) revealed she recently met with Safi's parents, who said their daughter has been subjected to "inhumane conditions" during her two-month detention, while also citing concerns about an unspecified chronic health condition that they said has been gradually worsening.
Pressley cited a statement from an attorney representing Safi that "there is little credible evidence" that warrants Safi's continued detention. Israel has so far not leveled any criminal charges against Safi.
"I’ve been calling on the Trump administration to secure Sama's immediate release, continued access to medical care, and end all unjust and arbitrary detentions," wrote Pressley. "And I’ll keep fighting for Sama's release and demanding accountability from the Israeli government and the Trump administration."
The Guardian reported in June that Safi, a psychology student at the West Bank's Birzeit University, was arrested along with three other women around the same time. An Israeli military spokesperson told The Guardian that they were all arrested "after promoting hostile terrorist activity and additional terrorist-related activities."
Safi's case on Monday was cited by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) in his call for US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to resign from his position.
Van Hollen accused Huckabee of remaining silent about Safi and other Americans unlawfully detained or otherwise mistreated by Israel, and said the former Republican Arkansas governor had become "a complete apologist for the most extreme Israeli government in history."
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After Months of Denials, Pentagon Says US Killed and Wounded Hundreds of Civilians in 2025 Yemen Airstrikes
The US Department of Defense had initially denied that any civilians were killed in its operations in Yemen.
Aug 11, 2026
An internal review conducted by the US Department of Defense found that US airstrikes in Yemen last year killed and wounded hundreds of civilians.
As reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, the Pentagon review estimated that US strikes killed more than 150 Yemeni civilians while wounding nearly 250 others.
The strikes were carried out as part of an operation authorized by President Donald Trump targeting Houthi rebels, who were suspected of launching attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea.
The body count from US strikes in Yemen could be even larger than the Pentagon's current estimates, which only cover three attacks that were determined to have "more likely than not" harmed civilians. An additional 15 incidents are still being reviewed by the DOD.
The deadliest operation carried out by US forces was a strike on Ras Issa Port in the city Hodeidah, which the DOD estimates killed 80 people and wounded 171 others.
As noted by NBC News, the DOD initially said the Yemen strikes did not cause any civilian deaths, and the Pentagon "has yet to publicly acknowledge the casualties or share a full account with Congress."
Stanford University historian Robert Crews remarked that the internal DOD report shows that there is "no end in sight for America’s brutal colonial wars" and "still no substantive domestic anti-colonial movement in the US."
Human rights groups have long been critical of US operations in Yemen, and Human Rights Watch last year described the attack on Ras Issa Port as "an apparent war crime."
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'Landmark Victory' for Human Rights as Lebanon Becomes First Arab Nation to Abolish Death Penalty
"In a country that has experienced profound loss and suffering, this decision represents a powerful commitment to the right to life," said the UN's human rights chief.
Aug 11, 2026
In a move cheered by human rights defenders around the world, Lebanon's Parliament on Tuesday abolished the death penalty for all crimes, making the country the first in the Arab world to do so and standing in stark contrast to neighboring and nearby nations.
Lebanon's abolition—announced on June 30 at the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris—was approved by parliamentary lawmakers and, once signed by President Joseph Aoun as expected, will make the country the 129th worldwide to abolish capital punishment.
Under amendments introduced by Independent MP Abdul Rahman Bizri, execution—formerly carried out by hanging or firing squad—will be replaced as the ultimate punishment by life imprisonment under hard labor for crimes committed after abolition. Those currently condemned to death will have their sentences commuted to hard labor for life.
“Lebanon is regaining its pioneering role in the region as a defender of human rights,” Lebanese Justice Minister Adel Nassar said, adding that his country “has chosen to combat murder rather than resort to capital punishment."
MP Georges Okais of the Christian, right-wing Lebanese Forces party, said that “Abolishing the death penalty is a historic achievement, and we have adopted international standards regarding human rights.”
Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc walked out in protest of abolition, which is also opposed by other lawmakers including Independent MP Jihad al-Samad, who called the move "contrary to Islamic law."
Opponents of abolition argue that it, plus a general amnesty draft law introduced in April, could result in leniency for perpetrators of bombings and other serious crimes.
However, Nassar insisted that abolition “does not mean leniency toward criminals.”
Lebanese law had designated execution as punishment for a wide range of crimes including—but not limited to—murder, aggravated rape, terrorism, treason, spying, military desertion, aggravated theft, and arson. While 84 people were sentenced to death, Lebanon has not executed anyone in 22 years.
“We can see the uncertainty that those who are condemned to death are living under," one psychologist working in Lebanese prisons told the French advocacy group Together Against the Death Penalty in a 2021 study. "We don’t apply the death penalty, but we don’t cancel it either."
"Are we going to wake them up one day and tell them that they will be executed?" the psychologist added, describing the process in Japan and Europe's last executioner, Belarus, without mentioning the countries. "It is the most horrible thing to live through. It leads to anxiety, depression, and stress that is sometimes uncontrollable. They are alive, but without living.”
Lebanon's imminent abolition stands in stark contrast with neighboring and regional countries. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen rank among the world's most prolific executioners, while Syria's recent history is marred by thousands of extrajudicial executions during the administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and Israel recently legalized the hanging of "terrorists"—a law critics claim will only be applied to Palestinians.
Daniel Cullen, project manager at Oxford University's Death Penalty Research Unit, lauded Lebanon's achievement, which came at "a time of myriad domestic challenges."
"Since October 2023, Israeli forces have conducted intense bombardments in their campaign against the Hezbollah militant group, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths, including during periods of nominal ceasefire," Cullen wrote. "Together with the Israeli military occupation of large areas of the south of the country and issuing of evacuation orders, this has resulted in the displacement of around one million people."
"Even prior to this, the country had already experienced a stark economic collapse since 2019, with a near 40% reduction in GDP, in addition to recovering from the effects of the explosion at Beirut port in August 2020," he continued. "Against this background, Minister of Justice Adel Nassar specifically highlighted the importance of the abolition legislation as a demonstration of Lebanon’s ability to commit to international human rights standards."
"Lebanon’s commitment to achieving abolition during a time of national crisis demonstrates that this is entirely possible," Cullen added.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on social media: "I welcome the Lebanese Parliament's decision formally to abolish the death penalty, and call on others to follow its lead. In a country that has experienced profound loss and suffering, this decision represents a powerful commitment to the right to life."
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas called Lebanon's abolition "a significant step forward for human rights in the country."
"As the first country in the region to abolish the death penalty, Lebanon is setting a powerful example for other countries in the Middle East and beyond, reinforcing the strong global trend towards abolition and the growing international support for ending the death penalty worldwide," she continued.
"The European Union calls on all countries that still apply the death penalty to abolish it and, pending abolition, to maintain or introduce a moratorium on executions as a first step," Kallas added, urging "those considering its reintroduction to refrain from such a regressive step."
The West African nation of Burkina Faso adopted a draft penal code last December that would restore the death penalty for crimes including treason, terrorism, and espionage. An effort to revive capital punishment in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan was blocked by its Constitutional Court. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has repeatedly said he is ready to reintroduce the death penalty during his 23 years in power, while populist Filipino Sen. Ronald dela Rosa—a former police chief closely associated with former President Rodrigo Duterte's mass-murderous drug crackdown—reintroduced death penalty legislation after his reelection last year.
Human Rights Watch Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss hailed Lebanon's "final break from a cruel sentence that should never be imposed.”
“Capital punishment is unique in its cruelty and finality and is plagued with arbitrariness, prejudice, and error,” Kaiss asserted.
Amnesty International called the move "a landmark victory."
“Lebanon’s decision to abolish the death penalty marks a major milestone and a victory for human rights in the country," said Heba Morayef, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director.
Morayef continued:
Justice must be rooted in human rights, not in an irreversible and cruel punishment. After more than two decades without executions, today’s step transforms a precarious hiatus in executions into lasting legal protection upholding the right to life and bringing Lebanon in line with the global trend towards abolition.
The passing of this law is testament to the decades of tireless advocacy by Lebanese human rights defenders and organizations, as well as the leadership of key officials who recognized the death penalty as a cruel and inhuman punishment, often imposed after unfair proceedings and the burden of which frequently falls on those at most disadvantage.
“To turn this law from paper to practice, Lebanese authorities must now ensure that all death sentences are commuted and ratify the key international treaty on abolition, while advancing broader reforms to strengthen a justice system based on dignity, fairness, and respect for human rights," Morayef added. "Authorities must accompany this law with broader legislative reform, including to ensure that any criminal justice punishments are consistent with human rights principles.”
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Trump Doesn't Rule Out 'National Security Emergency for Elections' Floated by Far-Right Host
"There is zero reason to not take Trump at his word that he and his team are planning something alarming to disrupt the midterms," said CNN host Jake Tapper.
Aug 11, 2026
A right-wing talk show host on Tuesday pushed President Donald Trump to declare a "national security emergency" that would let him meddle in the 2026 midterm elections—and the president did not rule it out.
In an appearance on Real America's Voice, Trump listened as host Wayne Allyn Root rattled off actions he would like to see the president take ahead of the midterms.
"Let me put an idea in your head," Root told Trump. "Because it's so hard to get the Senate to do anything, now they're on recess, they never get anything done. If they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections."
🚨🚨🚨
WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: You have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. If you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail ballots
TRUMP: Let me just say stranger things have happened. I'll leave it at… pic.twitter.com/SvXYoYI0lQ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 11, 2026
Root then told the president that "if you do this in the next month" it would allow for the implementation of photo identification and proof of citizenship requirements, as well as restrictions on mail-in ballots.
"Let me just say that stranger things have happened," Trump said in response. "I'll leave it at that."
The US Constitution does not give the president power to declare a "national emergency" that would allow him to unilaterally rewrite states' election laws.
Regardless, ABC News reported in February that a group of pro-Trump attorneys were circulating a 17-page draft order that would use the purported threat of election interference from the Chinese government to declare a "national emergency" that would outright ban mail-in ballots and mandate that all ballots be hand-counted.
Trump has not yet signed such an order, but he has issued other election-related directives, including one that instructs the United States Postal Service (USPS) to not deliver ballots in any states that have not given the federal government access to their voter lists.
The USPS executive order and an order that required Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote have been blocked by courts.
Regardless, some observers expressed concern that the president wasn't yet finished in his efforts to meddle in the coming elections.
"There is zero reason," wrote CNN host Jake Tapper, "to not take Trump at his word that he and his team are planning something alarming to disrupt the midterms and beyond."
Criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield observed in response to the president's appearance on Real America's Voice that "Trump has no legal authority to do this," but warned "that doesn't mean he won't try."
Journalist Mike Rothschild questioned what the conversation between Trump and Root said about both men’s mental stability.
"Once again, Donald Trump is not a wizard," wrote Rothschild. "He can't just manifest things into existence by saying them or with a tweet. There is no 'right' to do this in US law, nor is there any mechanism that would enable any of this to happen. Both people in this conversation are deranged."
After losing the 2020 presidential election to former President Joe Biden, Trump refused to concede the race, lied about the election being "stolen" by nefarious actors, pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to overtake Biden in the Peach State, and pushed then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject certifying the election despite lacking constitutional authority to do so.
When these efforts to overturn the election failed, Trump encouraged his followers to march to the US Capitol, where they broke into the building, assaulted law enforcement officers, and sent members of Congress running for their lives.
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Can Flanagan in Minnesota and Wisconsin's Hong Continue Progressive Wave in Midwest?
The Minnesota official took aim at the "special interests" funding her opponent's campaign ahead of the election, while Francesca Hong rejected claims that her priorities are too "extreme" for Wisconsin.
Aug 11, 2026
As the Democratic establishment and the corporate media continue to grapple with the results of last week's Senate primary in Michigan, which Abdul El-Sayed won after campaigning on Medicare for All, ending corporations' grip on elections, and investing in the social safety net instead of foreign wars, two more high-profile Midwestern races on Tuesday may provide more answers about the direction in which the Democratic base hopes to push the party.
In Minnesota, progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is facing US Rep. Angie Craig in the Democratic Senate primary, while in neighboring Wisconsin, democratic socialist state Rep. Francesca Hong's (D-76) closest opponent is Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley.
As in Michigan, where Democratic operatives have insisted that Rep. Haley Stevens would have been a better bet to win against Republican candidate Mike Rogers, supporters of Craig claim the congresswoman is more "electable" than Flanagan, who supports Medicare for All, an end to "offensive weapons sales to Israel," and publicly financed universal pre-kindergarten.
“Electability is probably the No. 1 factor,” Joe Radinovich, a Democratic strategist who views Craig as the better candidate to face a Republican in the November midterms, told The New York Times.
But a number of Craig's positions and ties suggest her backers may be working with a flawed understanding of what makes a candidate appealing to voters in 2026, with nearly half of Democratic voters in swing districts last year telling Upswing Strategies that they would avoid supporting a candidate who was funded by the pro-Israel lobby, 78% of Democrats saying in a poll in December that they supported Medicare for All, and half of Americans telling YouGov last month that they believed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should be abolished.
Craig has received major support from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the past, but says she asked the powerful pro-Israel group not to donate to her this year as Americans sour on US military support for Israel, which, with the backing of the Biden and Trump administrations, has slaughtered more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. AIPAC has continued hosting fundraisers to boost Craig's campaign indirectly.
Craig has refused to call Israel's attacks on Gaza a genocide, while Flanagan has joined top human rights organizations and Holocaust experts in doing so, saying that “American taxpayer dollars should not be used to fuel the horrific violence and suffering that’s being experienced there."
The congresswoman is also out of step with the majority of Democrats on healthcare, pushing for legislation that would "build on" the Affordable Care Act instead of establishing a national healthcare plan, and on immigration policy. She was the only Democrat in Minnesota to support the Laken Riley Act, which gave ICE broader power to detain immigrants. Although Craig initially defended her vote, she expressed regret in March, after two Minnesota residents were killed by federal immigration agents who were part of President Donald Trump's crackdown in the state.
Flanagan has not joined the specific call to abolish ICE, but told The New York Times: “Whatever word you want to use, it can’t exist like this anymore. We have to rip ICE apart and start over.”
Outside groups, including super political action committees (PACs) representing cryptocurrency interests, have poured roughly $20 million into the effort to elect Craig, a co-sponsor of the CLARITY Act. The bill would split regulation of digital assets between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the industry-friendly Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Flanagan on Monday said she was not intimidated by the special interests that, as she said "think they can buy this Senate seat."
The lieutenant governor has been endorsed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.), among others, as well as a number of labor unions, the anti-corruption group End Citizens United, and the advocacy group Indivisible.
Some recent polls have shown Craig with a small lead, while some internal surveys by Flanagan's campaign have shown the lieutenant governor several points ahead of her opponent.
Sanders predicted "a tight race" on Sunday in an interview with Margaret Brennan of CBS News' "Face the Nation."
"I hope very much that Peggy wins," said the senator. "I think what we’re seeing in Minnesota, Margaret, in Michigan, and all across this country, is that people understand that we’re living with an economy that is rigged. You have working families, 60% of our people, living paycheck to paycheck. People can’t afford groceries, housing, healthcare, basic necessities of life."
In Wisconsin, Sanders, Warren, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) are among the high-profile progressives who have declined to wade into the race and endorse Hong, who has consistently led by double digits in polls since February.
The gubernatorial candidate has distanced herself recently from what she called "bad takes"—a call in 2020 to "cancel Thanksgiving" and support for abolishing law enforcement.
“I will not abolish the police," said Hong in a debate in July. “I want to focus on stopping violent crime and giving law enforcement the resources and the training that they need but ensure that we are also holding accountable law enforcement that does not follow the law."
But Hong has won the support of Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), with Omar calling her a "true champion for working families" and highlighting her support for broadly popular proposals like universal childcare, Medicare for All, and guaranteed paid leave.
Opponents of Hong are striving to attach the word "communism" to her political priorities—a clear sign, said Gustavo Gordillo of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) chapter in New York City recently, that "democratic socialism is not the scary word it used to be" for voters.
When asked by Fox News on Tuesday about alleged "fears that democratic socialism could turn into communism," Hong dismissed the idea, echoing Ocasio-Cortez's recent comment that "we can't even raise the minimum wage" in Congress.
"This is a state where we still have a $2.33 tipped minimum wage and $7.25 minimum wage," said Hong. "I think it's gonna be hard to turn that into socialism soon, but what we can do with this campaign is make sure we fight for policies that put working-class people first."
She added that she rejects claims that she is too "extreme" to win the general election in November due to her support for policies like taxing the rich and abolishing ICE, countering that Republican primary front-runner Rep. Tom Tiffany has displayed extremism by denying the 2020 election results and voting to keep files regarding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a former associate of Trump, hidden from the public.
"What's extreme is that Congressman Tiffany, a longtime DC congressman, has voted against the interests of Wisconsinites over and over again," said Hong.
Q: Were you prepared for the pushback you received, especially from Republicans, framing you as far too extreme for Wisconsin?
FRANCESCA HONG: What's extreme is Rep. Tiffany has voted against the interests of Wisconsinites over and over again. What's extreme is that he's an… pic.twitter.com/QW0M5AVIVc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 11, 2026
The Intercept noted that despite the recent hand-wringing in the corporate media over Hong's past comments on Thanksgiving—complete with a Times article that asked whether voters can forgive her—"the Times’ on-the-ground reporting managed to dig up precisely one Wisconsinite who would not."
"Even allowing for the fact that the attacks on Hong follow a well-established right-wing tradition—let us never forget those who laid down their lives in the War on Christmas—why has such a ridiculous controversy come to dominate efforts to quash her campaign?" asked Intercept reporter Sean Bell.
"The answer is simple: Nothing else has worked, and that failure indicates a worrying pattern for the Democratic establishment terrified of an insurgent left," Bell continued. "As the numerous recent victories for DSA-backed or progressive Democratic candidates have demonstrated, attacking the left on policy is not the winning strategy it once was. Many voters no longer recoil at the mere mention of universal healthcare, rent controls, or the dreaded 'socialism.'"
Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of Our Revolution, which has endorsed both Hong and Flanagan, issued a reminder on Tuesday: "Here’s how electability actually works: The most electable candidate is the one who gets the most votes. This narrative was always manufactured by people afraid of Francesca—and afraid of what happens when working people actually win. Her supposedly ‘radical’ agenda is healthcare, affordable childcare, and making billionaires pay their fair share."
"That’s not unelectable," he said. "That’s what working people are asking for.”
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'Fighting for the Peeping Tom Vote': El-Sayed Calls Out PATRIOT Act Champion Rogers Over Privacy
"You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated," Rogers said in an infamous clip from 2013 as he defended the NSA's mass spying programs.
Aug 11, 2026
Amid an expanding assault on privacy by the federal government, Democratic nominee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed has brought the issue of mass surveillance to the forefront of Michigan's Senate race, attacking his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, for his longtime defense of the PATRIOT Act.
"Mike Rogers out here fighting for the Peeping Tom vote," wrote El-Sayed, a former public health official, in a social media post on Monday. "Creepy stuff, Mike."
El-Sayed was responding to an unearthed comment from Rogers, then the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, made during a 2013 committee hearing in Congress just months after whistleblower Edward Snowden's explosive revelations about the extent of the National Security Agency's (NSA) warrantless surveillance of Americans.
At the time, Congress was debating whether to enact legislation reining in a provision in the PATRIOT Act, Section 215, which the government had used to secretly collect phone records and other information in bulk from Americans not accused of wrongdoing.
Rogers was pushing American University law professor Stephen Vladeck to agree that the government should be allowed to examine Americans' business records to determine if they were connected to a foreign terrorist organization. Vladeck said he believed it should, but that protecting Americans' privacy needed to be taken into account. "The way we do it matters," he said.
The chair responded that in the decade since the policy had been enacted, nobody had ever complained about it. Vladeck, noting that the program was a secret, responded: "But who would be complaining?”
"Somebody whose privacy was violated," Rogers retorted. "You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated."
The quote is highly representative of Rogers' record of support for extensive government surveillance over his decade-and-a-half in Congress. He was one of the PATRIOT Act's leading champions since its introduction in 2001 and led the charge to stop mass collection powers from being curtailed after the Snowden revelations.
“The charge that the program tramples on the privacy of citizens is simply wrong,” he said in a statement with Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), then the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee.
Rogers and Ruppersberger also coauthored the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) in 2012, which would have allowed companies to share cybersecurity-related information with the government, including the NSA, with protections from existing privacy restrictions. The American Civil Liberties Union argued that the bill, which failed in the Senate, would have allowed the government to obtain large amounts of sensitive personal data with few restrictions.
"You can't have your privacy violated if you don't know your privacy is violated."
In 2026, as artificial intelligence becomes a new tool for even more powerful and pervasive spying, El-Sayed has said the government must be banned from using it to "conduct warrantless surveillance."
As part of an AI policy platform rolled out in June, he said rules should be put in place to prevent its use for "domestic authoritarianism," including "mass political surveillance, protected-characteristic predictive policing, or AI targeting of dissent."
During President Donald Trump's second term, as he's used anti-"terrorism" rhetoric to justify a legal crackdown on domestic opposition, the government's expanding spy powers have become an increasing concern.
With the aid of private surveillance companies like Palantir, the administration has created an unprecedented surveillance dragnet that connects AI-powered facial recognition technology, license plate readers, and phone location tools to piles of data on Americans that have been used to supercharge its mass deportation campaign and aggressively monitor protesters and dissenters.
It has been met with some pushback in the Senate, where Republicans earlier this year narrowly failed to extend Trump's powers to surveil noncitizens under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) without warrants. Though US citizens are not supposed to be targeted, civil liberties advocates argue that their information is often collected easily and the government has used it to prosecute them.
Rogers has attempted to back off some of his earlier defense of mass surveillance, though he has not meaningfully pushed to reduce the government's spying powers. During a losing Senate bid against Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) in 2024, he said that it's "wrong" for the FBI to conduct warrantless searches against US citizens, but did not call for actually repealing or blocking Section 702.
Since serving in Congress, Rogers parlayed his time overseeing the intelligence community into a lucrative career advising and governing cybersecurity, intelligence, and government-contracting firms.
He served as a senior security adviser to AT&T while the company operated a little-known program that gave law enforcement access to searches of trillions of domestic phone records, though there is no record that he personally worked on the program.
Michigan Advance reported earlier this year that he also made almost $100,000 advising a company that helped the government of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro spy on dissidents.
Noting the Republican nominee's recent pivot to Trumpian election denialism, journalist Spencer Ackerman—who has extensively covered the expansion of government surveillance during the War on Terror—suggested in a post on social media that there is little reason to believe Rogers has changed much after over a decade out of Congress.
"I saw up close his efforts, post-Snowden, to protect the NSA and ensure it continues to nullify your constitutionally-protected privacy," Ackerman said. "He was for impunity then and wants the same thing for himself."
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Mamdani Backs Proposal to End Amazon's 'Exploitative' Delivery Model in New York City
If passed, the Delivery Protection Act would be the first law in the US to regulate Amazon's vast network of subcontractors that handle the company's deliveries.
Aug 11, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has thrown his support behind legislation that could become a first-in-the-nation law to regulate Amazon's network of subcontractors that deliver the $3 trillion company's packages—an "exploitative business model" that shields the e-commerce giant from accountability, as Mamdani said Monday.
The Democratic mayor endorsed the Delivery Protection Act, proposed by New York City Council Member Tiffany Cabán, which would establish new safety, training, and labor standards for "last-mile" warehouses and distribution facilities in New York City, and hold the companies that operate the facilities, such as Amazon and FedEx, liable for employing the workers who make hundreds of deliveries per day across the city.
As the mayor's office said Monday, at least 11 last-mile facilities have opened across New York City since 2020, with subcontractors running the warehouses as Amazon directs the hiring of delivery drivers, the routes they use, and requires them to use Amazon-branded vehicles and uniforms.
But while exerting control over the deliveries, Amazon pushes responsibility for the vehicles used onto the subcontractors, as delivery workers explained in a video released on social media by Mamdani on Monday.
"When injuries and worker accidents skyrocket, Amazon says they have nothing to do with it. They can't have it both ways," said the workers.
If it looks like an Amazon delivery and drives like an Amazon delivery, then it's an Amazon delivery, right? Not according to Amazon.
Big companies like Amazon have built a vast network of subcontractors who deliver their packages while shielding them from accountability.
It… pic.twitter.com/6hQVV8GoNH
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) August 10, 2026
According to a report by the Office of the Comptroller in New York City last year, 78% of areas surrounding last-mile facilities saw an increase in injury-causing crashes after the warehouses opened.
“Corporations like Amazon build billion-dollar business models by insulating themselves from accountability through a system of exploitative subcontracting," said Mamdani in a statement. "As last-mile delivery centers have exploded across New York, so too have traffic accidents and worker injuries. The Delivery Protection Act is commonsense regulation that protects delivery workers, safeguards the communities where these facilities operate, and ensures that the corporations benefiting from workers’ labor are responsible for the consequences of their business practices."
"The people who make these companies run deserve dignity, stability, and a safe workplace," he added. "It's time to end the subcontracting model that puts profits over people and build an economy that works for working New Yorkers.”
By using subcontractors, Amazon can avoid municipal regulations regarding minimum pay and benefits. A nationwide survey by the Shift Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy last year found that Amazon delivery drivers are paid an average of $19 per hour, compared with $35 per hour at UPS and $25 per hour at FedEx. Pay does not rise with tenure at Amazon, as opposed to its delivery competitors, and fewer than half of Amazon drivers have access to health insurance, paid vacation, and retirement plans that are provided to nearly all UPS delivery workers.
In New York City, pay for the drivers who make Amazon's deliveries is higher, starting at about $20 per hour and averaging close to $24 per hour. But one driver in Queens, Luc Rene, told The New York Times that Amazon controls the volume of packages he delivers and has refused to allow the subcontractor he works for, DNA Logistics, to lighten the workload during extreme heat and other inclement weather.
The company could not be reached for a comment to the Times, and Amazon did not address Rene's allegations but claimed it adjusts drivers' routes due to inclement weather.
Amazon has claimed that the Delivery Protection Act—which would require last-mile facilities to obtain licenses from the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, ensure worker protections, and hold companies accountable for delivery quotas, schedules, and routes—would raise costs for people who use delivery services, with one Amazon-commissioned study claiming households would spend $664 more annually if the company had to comply with the law.
But Brendan Griffith, president of the New York City Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, said the workers and communities in New York City are already "paying the price" for Amazon's reliance on subcontractors.
“The Delivery Protection Act will establish stronger protections for worker safety, employment, and responsible operations while bringing long-overdue oversight to an industry where major operators have too often hidden behind subcontractors," said Griffith. "To be clear: when these companies 'raise the alarm' of fewer jobs, higher prices, or service reductions, they are describing choices that they may make, not in the best interest of consumers and workers but to protect their bottom line. We thank Mayor Mamdani for standing with the Amazon Teamsters and the labor movement in support of this legislation that puts NYC workers—who are also consumers—first, and we urge the City Council to pass it without delay.”
Mamdani's advocacy for the legislation in New York City caught the attention of at least one lawmaker across the country.
"We should pass something like this in Colorado," said state Rep. Javier Mabrey (D-1).
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'Truly Devastating': Trump Ends Federal Funding for Key Arctic Climate Report
"For two decades," said one of the report's authors, "it has documented conditions across the Arctic system, bringing together physical and social sciences with real-world observations/data and consistent updates."
Aug 11, 2026
The Trump administration has reportedly decided to yank federal funding from an annual National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report that examined the state of the Arctic, which is warming significantly faster than other regions of the world as continued fossil fuel extraction and use drive up global temperatures.
Politico, which first reported the decision, noted that the move "jeopardizes public dissemination of the report that NOAA has published since 2006. It has previously been available on the agency’s website, requires NOAA staff for its production, and pools data from NOAA scientists for many of its findings."
Zack Labe, a climate scientist who has been an author on NOAA’s peer-reviewed Arctic Report Card since 2020, wrote on social media that the Trump administration's decision "is truly devastating."
"The Arctic Report Card has been one of my favorite scientific endeavors," Labe wrote. "For two decades, it has documented conditions across the Arctic system, bringing together physical and social sciences with real-world observations/data and consistent updates."
Speaking to the science news outlet EOS, Labe warned that "the loss of the Arctic Report Card would be significant not only for the scientific community, but also for decision-makers and the public."
"Written for a broad audience and developed by more than 100 scientists from around the world, the report is an important resource for consistently documenting changes in one of the fastest warming regions on our planet," Labe added. "Discontinuing it would create a significant gap in our ability to track and connect these changes from year to year, with implications for people and communities around the world."
Last year's edition of the report card found that "surface air temperatures across the Arctic from October 2024 through September 2025 were the warmest recorded since 1900."
"The last 10 years are the 10 warmest on record in the Arctic," the report observed.
The Trump administration, packed with fossil fuel industry allies and headed by a climate denier, has worked aggressively to gut federal initiatives designed to track the worsening impact of the global climate emergency. Since taking power last year, the administration has dismissed government scientists, scrubbed climate information from federal websites, stopped updating a database that tracked the country's costliest weather disasters, and picked a climate denier to oversee the federal government's flagship climate report.
Rick Thoman, an Arctic climate specialist, called the Trump administration's latest move "devastating news for Arctic environmental monitoring."
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July Was Hottest Month in History of Contiguous US, Breaking Dust Bowl Record
"If we're exceeding records from the Dust Bowl, that says that we're in deep trouble," warned one meteorologist.
Aug 10, 2026
While President Donald Trump continued his war on renewables and support for climate-wrecking fossil fuels, the contiguous United States endured the hottest July on record, according to data released Monday by his own government.
"July 2026 averaged 76.9ºF, the warmest month on record (1895-present)," National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced. That figure was "3.3ºF above the 20th-century average. This was the warmest July—and warmest month—in the 132-year record, 0.1-0.2ºF warmer than July 1936 and July 2012."
The Associated Press highlighted that last month's average for the Lower 48 eclipsed "the Dust Bowl's July 1936 by an eighth of a degree," a development that meteorologist Jeff Masters of Yale Climate Connections described as alarming.
"It's not good when you’re breaking records from the Dust Bowl, which we are in this case," he told the AP. "And that was a crazy sort of situation where you put tens of millions of people in motion. You had this great migration because of the drought and the heat that hit the center of the US—just a cataclysmic event in US history. If we're exceeding records from the Dust Bowl, that says that we're in deep trouble."
Separately, Masters and fellow meteorologist Bob Henson wrote at Yale Climate Connections that "there's no denying the scorching conditions of the 1930s Dust Bowl. An impressive 24 of the 48 contiguous US states have yet to exceed the single hottest readings observed in each of those states during the 1930s."
"However, the Dust Bowl has been misused for years in climate-denial writing and speaking to argue that human activity isn't warming the nation's climate to any great degree. In fact, human influence played a vast part in the Dust Bowl itself," they explained. "Decades of overplowing by European settlers in the Plains and Midwest—in the erroneous belief that 'rain follows the plow'—left the landscape vulnerable when a sequence of multi-year droughts struck. Huge volumes of topsoil simply blew away, and the denuded land heated up far more quickly than better-managed land would have. The Dust Bowl intersected with the Great Depression to make the 1930s a period of profound misery for millions of Americans."
"A 2022 study, 'How the Great Plains Dust Bowl drought spread heat extremes around the Northern Hemisphere,' showed how the Dust Bowl's physical influence extended well beyond US borders," the pair added. "As lead author Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research put it, 'This is a mechanism that arose in a unique way from human influence—not by burning fossil fuels but from plowing up the middle third of the US.'"
We just broke a heat record set during the Dust Bowl. 😬That record has been a favorite talking point of climate deniers. Now it's bitten the dust: yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/08/the-...New from @drjeffmasters.bsky.social and @bhensonweather.bsky.social
[image or embed]
— Yale Climate Connections (@climateconnections.bsky.social) August 10, 2026 at 2:50 PM
Wildfires broke out across Canada and in the United States' Pacific Northwest last month, burning over 140,000 acres in Oregon alone. NOAA found that "daytime maximum temperatures averaged 89.5ºF, 2.9ºF above average, ranking as the sixth-warmest month on record for average high temperatures, while overnight minimum temperatures averaged 64.2ºF, 3.7ºF above average, ranking as the warmest month on record for average low temperatures, surpassing July 2022 by 0.7ºF."
Those high temperatures overnight can be dangerous. Masters told the AP that "if you're talking heatwaves, that nighttime low is incredibly important for determining total heat stress... So if it doesn’t cool off at night, your body doesn't have time to readjust to all the heat."
While July set a new record in the United States, because of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis, "this may be one of the coolest years we’re gonna experience for the rest of our lives," the meteorologist also said. He added that humanity needs "to stop burning so many fossil fuels. We also need to be spending money to adapt to the new climate that we've put in place."
Wildfires also impacted the European Union last month—and NOAA's new numbers came out as the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service announced Monday that worldwide, last month was second warmest July on record, tied with 2024. The agency also found that the average global ocean surface temperature was the hottest ever recorded in July, fueled in part by El Niño conditions.
"Our leaders’ response has to be swifter and stronger than El Niño," argued Anne Jellema, executive director of the advocacy group 350.org. "We already know that global heating is supercharging extreme weather damage, and the public wants polluters to pay for it. With Big Oil's earnings skyrocketing while a global food crisis looms, now is the time to act. The only way to stave off a humanitarian disaster is to make those causing it pay upfront—before even more damage is done."
The Guardian pointed out that "an unusually strong El Niño event, a periodic climate feature where a section of the Pacific Ocean heats up causing weather around the world to alter, is likely to cause next year to be the hottest on record globally, surpassing a record set just in 2024. Some scientists think the developing El Niño could even ensure that this year is the one that breaks the record."
Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the newspaper that "the bottom line... is that we expect to set record global temperatures as long as carbon emissions continue to warm the planet, and typically these records are set during major El Niño events."
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Trump Order Rooted in Debunked Vaccine-Autism Link 'Will Get Kids Killed,' Warns Critic
Protect Our Care called the president's decree on the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine "a wildly dangerous escalation of the administration’s deadly anti-vax agenda."
Aug 10, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order overhauling federal childhood vaccine recommendations, reviving a discredited theory that vaccines may contribute to autism and prompting condemnation from public health advocates and even rebuke from a Republican senator.
Trump's order, “Delivering Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans,” calls for separating the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination into three individual shots "once such products are domestically available." The directive also recommends administering childhood immunizations during separate medical visits, "to the maximum extent feasible."
At a press conference, Trump explained that the recommendations in his order concern "many subjects, but including autism in particular."
"Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today," the president said. "In those times, people were much healthier and, of course, the high rates of autism now observed did not exist. So, there's a reason for such epidemic rates of autism. And we're going to bring it back to much closer to where it was."
"While we do not know exactly what the cause is with respect to autism, it is essential to our research efforts that we have the very best vaccine recommendations in the entire world," he added. "So we're reducing them, we're changing it to visits over the period of a year, a year and a half, so they get 20% of what they would have gotten in one big shot."
Decades of rigorous research have failed to produce any credible scientific link between vaccines and autism. That has not stopped influential figures, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., from claiming such a link. Trump and Kennedy also alarmed experts by claiming last year that acetaminophen, commonly known by the brand name Tylenol, is linked to autism spectrum disorders in developing fetuses when taken during pregnancy.
While anti-vaccine and vaccine skeptic voices applauded Trump’s order, public health experts said the directive will prove deadly.
Trump also claimed that inoculating children with all three components of the MMR vaccine could possibly be "quite lethal," but when asked by a reporter for evidence supporting that claim, the president could offer none.
I put together these two parts of Trump’s event on vaccines.
Trump claims there is a possibility that the MMR vaccine could be “quite lethal.” But later, when asked if he has any evidence to back up his claims, he says no pic.twitter.com/AwuW9IiYNl
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 10, 2026
The Affordable Care Act advocacy group Protect Our Care warned that Trump's executive order on the "nonexistent autism-vaccine link will get kids killed" and "is a wildly dangerous escalation of the administration’s deadly anti-vax agenda."
“Pushing parents to spread out these lifesaving vaccines over time is guaranteed to increase kids’ exposure to these very harmful diseases, including the simple reality that follow-up appointments will be missed," Protect Our Care senior adviserc Anne Shoup said in a statement. "If Trump’s baseless, science-free decree is followed, the end result will not be fewer children with autism, but far more in the ER or even the morgue."
"Whether or not state health departments follow Trump’s ignorant guidance, this official proclamation from the highest level of power will have a further chilling effect on vaccination rates across the board," Shoup added. "All Trump is doing is fanning more unfounded fear, pressuring a further drop in vaccination rates, and welcoming a resurgence of preventable diseases once thought eradicated. For the anti-vaxxer-in-chief, the current record-breaking measles crisis is apparently not on a grand enough scale.”
Anthony Wright, executive director at the health advocacy group Families USA, said in a statement that “today, the president announced yet another change in vaccine policy that is not based on science or medical evidence."
"The science has not changed. Vaccines that prevent common illnesses like rotavirus, hepatitis B, and the flu are just as safe and effective today as they were yesterday," he continued. "The new policy will simply create chaos and confusion for patients and providers, and increase costs for families when getting their kids vaccinated."
"This executive order seeks to sidestep the established panel of experts entirely, replacing decades of bipartisan, public, evidence-based review with the whims of a rogue White House and HHS secretary," Wright said. "This new directive sabotages a science-based process that has successfully prevented widespread outbreaks among American children for generations."
“Downgrading the universal recommendation for common, lifesaving vaccines will cause confusion for parents and providers alike, and confusion costs lives," he added. "Removing the presumption that every child should receive them isn't just dangerous; it risks undermining the guarantee that recommended vaccines are covered without cost-sharing, forcing families to choose between protecting their kids and paying for an expensive doctor's visit."
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, health research group director at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said that "the Trump administration is continuing a mindless anti-scientific assault on the childhood vaccine schedule and falsely tying vaccines to autism."
"There is no medical reason for the MMR vaccine to be split into three separate single-disease shots that would be administered at separate office visits, changes that would only decrease vaccine coverage and increase healthcare costs," he continued. "Under the draft executive order, mandatory vaccine requirements for children to attend school would be also put at further risk. These and other directives are the exact opposite of ‘Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations’ during the worst year for measles cases in decades."
The resurgence in measles is directly linked to vaccine refusal and hesitancy stoked by influential figures and fora like Kennedy and the Children's Health Defense nonprofit group he formerly chaired.
Trump will sign an executive order proposing reducing childhood vaccines, and separating the MMR vaccine into 3 individual shots.This reckless move will decrease vaccine uptake further at a time where measles cases are at a 35-year high, and the US is set to lose its measles elimination status.
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran.com) August 10, 2026 at 12:24 PM
“Senate confirmation of Dr. Erica Schwartz as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should have restored sanity to the federal government’s vaccine policies," Steinbrook added. "Regrettably, within days of Schwartz’s confirmation, the Trump administration has offered only more irrational nonsense.”
Trump and Kennedy have pursued a broad rollback of federal vaccine policy, including by purging the CDC's entire vaccine advisory committee and replacing its members with controversial figures; reducing or eliminating universal recommendations for several vaccines, including Covid-19, flu, hepatitis B, and some childhood vaccines; canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA-vaccine development funding; and pushing individual decision-making.
Physicians serving in Congress from both parties also decried Trump's order.
“Donald Trump and RFK Jr. have gambled with American lives and seem determined to turn the clock back on decades of medical and scientific progress," said Congresswoman Kelly Morrison (D-Minn.), an OB-GYN. "Communities across the country continue to face outbreaks of preventable diseases, and Trump and RFK Jr. are doubling down on their dangerous disinformation."
"Meanwhile, working families continue to see their healthcare and prescription drug costs skyrocket—all so Trump can pay for tax handouts for billionaires," she added, referring to the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill signed by the president in July 2025. "Families shouldn’t have to worry that Trump and RFK Jr. will stand in the way of protecting themselves and their loved ones from serious illnesses.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a gastroenterologist who voted to confirm Kennedy, wrote on X: "I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The president does not have the expertise to make these changes."
"Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism," he continued. "Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe."
"Parents should listen to their child’s pediatrician about vaccines rather than listening to an inaccurate executive order," Cassidy added. "This is so wrong."
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