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Majestic Scorn: A City Aflame Fights Fire and ICE
Despite the specious swapping out of fascist ICE leaders seeking to quell public fury, the gutted, steadfast denizens of Minneapolis continue to show up in frigid weather to demand "ICE Out" and "Stop Killing Us." Honoring their righteous struggle, Friday sees the city nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by The Nation, which cites its "moral leadership" for those fighting fascism on "a troubled planet." Likewise moved, The Boss just wrote them a song. Minnesota, says one patriot, "taught us to be brave."
Writing to "the distinguished members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee," the editors of The Nation magazine nominated the city of Minneapolis and its people for the 2026 Nobel Peace "as longtime observers of struggles to establish peace and justice" and as the editors of a magazine that's proudly included "several Nobel laureates on our editorial board and masthead - including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." With their "resistance to violent authoritarianism," they argue, "the people of Minneapolis have renewed the spirit of Dr. King’s call for the positive affirmation of peace.” No municipality has ever been recognized for the award, they acknowledge, but "in these unprecedented times," they believe Minneapolis "has met and exceeded the committee’s standard of promoting 'democracy and human rights, (and) creating (a) more peaceful world."
To the Committee, they offer a brief, harrowing history: The Trump regime deploying thousands of armed, masked federal goons targeting the city's immigrant communities in a campaign more about terrorizing people of color than safety; the abuses of harassment, detention, deportation, injury, and the murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti; the call by elected officials, labor leaders and clergy for nonviolent protest; the people answering that call by the tens of thousands in the streets in sub-zero conditions, with mutual support and care for vulnerable neighbors, "through countless acts of courage and solidarity." Quoting Renee Good’s widow - “They have guns; we have whistles" - they argue the whistles have both alerted residents to the presence ofICE and "awakened Americans to the threat of violence (from) governments (that) target their own people."
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., they note, served as The Nation’s civil rights correspondent from 1961 to 1966. When he received the Peace Prize in 1964, he declared it recognizes those "moving with determination and a majestic scorn for risk and danger to establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice." King believed it is vital to show nonviolence as "not sterile passivity, but a powerful moral force which makes for social transformation...Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace (and) transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood...The foundation of such a method is love." "We believe that the people of Minneapolis have displayed that love," the editors conclude. "That is why we are proud to nominate them and their city for the Nobel Peace Prize."
They don't mention any possible response by a mad, vengeful, impossibly petty king. But they do reflect the respect and gratitude of countless Americans who have watched the people of Minnesota endure "in the face of immense and continuing tragedy," and maintain their courage, dignity and humanity. One of those Americans was Springsteen, who explains in a brief note that he wrote, recorded and released Streets of Minneapolis within days "in response to the state terror being visited on the city." He dedicates it to "the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good," and signs off, "Stay free, Bruce Springsteen." On Wednesday, in hours, it soared to the top of the iTunes chart ranking bestselling individual tracks in the country.
The song is both classic Springsteen - potent, lyrical, with "a sense of urgency and genuine fury" - but atypically direct. It names names, crimes, this specific moment in history: "A city aflame fought fire and ice/‘Neath an occupier’s boots/King Trump’s private army from the DHS/Guns belted to their coats/Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law/Or so their story goes." There is rage: "It's our blood and bones/And these whistles and phones/Against Miller's and Noem's dirty lies." Resolve: "Our city’s heart and soul persists / Through broken glass and bloody tears." Tragedy: "And there were bloody footprints/Where mercy should have stood/And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets/Alex Pretti and Renee Good." Thank you to The Nation, to The Boss, to all those ordinary, extraordinary Americans standing strong against the monsters among us.
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Makeshift memorial for Alex Pretti, shot dead in the streets of Minneapolis (Photo by Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty Images)
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Group Sues to Expose Trump 'Extinction Plan' as Study Shows 2,204 Species May Need Protection
On the heels of publishing a study that shows 2,204 species across the United States should be considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act, the Center for Biological Diversity on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump's administration for failing to release public records about efforts to dismantle the ESA.
"Americans want to live in a country where animals and plants on the brink of extinction get the protections they need to survive. The Trump administration is hiding information about its efforts to gut these protections," said Ryan Shannon, a senior attorney at the nonprofit, in a statement.
"Widespread public support for the Endangered Species Act makes the administration's secrecy around these rules all the more insidious," Shannon continued. "Trump hands out favors to his billionaire friends while ignoring the irreplaceable value of our nation’s endangered wildlife. This lawsuit seeks to bring that corruption out into the open."
Filed in federal court in Washington, DC, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit could make the departments of Commerce and the Interior, as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Marine Fisheries Service, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), turn over documents about potential revisions to the ESA proposed in response to orders from Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
"Thousands of plants and animals across America are at risk of extinction while they wait for the federal government to do something, anything, to help them."
The complaint warns that if the administration's proposed rules are implemented, they "will dismantle essential protections by, amongst other things, inserting economic considerations into the listing process, curtailing critical habitat designations, prohibiting habitat protections for species threatened by climate change, weakening consultation mandates, and removing nearly all protections for newly designated threatened species."
"On July 3, 2025, the center submitted FOIA requests to each defendant seeking records relating to the development of these proposed rules," the filing details. "The requested records are vital to understanding the basis, rationale, and likely impacts of the agencies' proposed rules. Such information is necessary for meaningful public participation in the rulemaking process."
"Without timely disclosure, the center and its members cannot effectively understand or respond to the agencies' proposed rules, thereby undermining FOIA's core purpose of ensuring government transparency and accountability," the complaint adds, noting that the center sent follow-up requests early last month.
The suit over Trump's "extinction plan" records followed publication of a study in which four experts at the center argued for protecting thousands more species under the landmark 1973 law—which, the analysis notes, "currently protects 1,682 species as endangered or threatened."
"According to the independent scientific organization NatureServe, however, there are more than 10,000 imperiled species in the United States that may need protection," explains the study, published in PeerJ. "One barrier to protecting recognized imperiled species is a lack of threats information."
The center's experts reviewed all species recognized NatureServe as "critically imperiled" or "imperiled" and identified 2,204 species "where there is sufficient threat information to indicate ESA protection may be warranted."
A majority of those species—1,320—are plants, followed by 309 insects, 115 terrestrial snails, 90 freshwater snails, 85 fish, 25 lichen and fungi, 23 reptiles and turtles, 21 amphibians, 14 birds, and various others.
Given that the FWS "has on average listed just 32 species per year since the law was passed," the analysis warns, "at this rate, most species currently recognized as imperiled and facing threats will not receive consideration for protection within any meaningful timeframe."
The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned for protecting the Mount Pinos sooty grouse under the Endangered Species Act in June 2024. The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced in January 2026 that it is considering protections. (Photo by James Bland/Center for Biological Diversity)
Noah Greenwald, a study co-author and co-director of endangered species at the Center for Biological Diversity, stressed in a Tuesday statement that "thousands of plants and animals across America are at risk of extinction while they wait for the federal government to do something, anything, to help them."
"This study underscores the cruelty and shortsightedness of the Trump administration's slashing of funding and weakening of protections for endangered species," Greenwald declared. "That so many species need help highlights just how much we're degrading the natural world at our own peril."
"Humans need clean air and water and a stable climate, just like the many species in decline," he added. "People are destroying the wild places where plants and animals live, and that habitat destruction remains the greatest threat to species' survival both in the United States and around the world.”
Habitat destruction threatens 92% of the 2,204 species, according to the analysis. Other notable threats include invasive species (33%), small population size (26%), climate change (18%), altered disturbance regime (12%), disease and predation (8%), over-utilization (7%), and inadequacy of existing regulations (4%).
Last week, in response to petitions from the center and other groups, the FWS announced that 10 species across the country—including the Olympic marmot, gray cat's eye plant, Alvord chub fish, Mount Pinos sooty grouse, and San Joaquin tiger beetle—warrant consideration for ESA protections.
"I'm relieved to see these 10 precious plants and animals move closer to the protection they so desperately need," said Greenwald. "Unfortunately they're joining a backlog of hundreds of species waiting for safeguards during an administration that didn't protect a single species last year—the first time that's happened since 1981. As the global extinction crisis deepens, imperiled wildlife need the Endangered Species Act's strong protections now more than ever."
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Immigrants Delivered $14.5 Trillion Surplus to US Economy Over Last 30 Years: Report
Looking at 30 years of data, the 95-page report—titled "Immigrants' Recent Effects on Government Budgets: 1994-2023"—discovered that immigrants overall "generated a fiscal surplus of about $14.5 trillion" over those years. In part, the NASEM-Cato model shows:
- Every year from 1994 to 2023, immigrants have paid more in taxes than they received in benefits.
- Immigrants generated nearly $10.6 trillion more in federal, state, and local taxes than they induced in total government spending.
- Accounting for savings on interest payments on the national debt, immigrants saved $14.5 trillion in debt over this 30-year period.
- Immigrants cut US budget deficits by about a third from 1994 to 2023, and fiscal savings grew to $878 billion in 2023.
The paper concludes that "the average immigrant is much less costly than the average US-born American, and that immigrants impose lower costs per person on old-age benefit, education, and public safety programs."
The findings arrive with the US embroiled in a heated debate about immigration enforcement as President Donald Trump—backed by far-right xenophobes in his inner orbit, including White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller and Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem—has unleashed violent federal agents into communities nationwide to sweep up undocumented workers and their family members.
In a video produced for social media, David J. Bier, director of Immigration Studies at Cato and one of the report's co-authors, said the analysis shows in detail why it's a lie to believe that immigrants are "sucking us dry," a familiar argument by anti-immigrant "nativists" like Miller.
In summary, the report notes that immigrants produce a net fiscal benefit in the US economy because:
- The United States collected more in taxes from the average person than it spent on benefits (excluding pure public goods).
- Immigrants paid higher-than-average taxes because their higher-than-average employment rate led to higher-than-average incomes.
- Immigrants cost the government less than average because they did not add to the cost of the government’s largest expenditure (pure public goods) and received lower-than-average benefits for other major items, particularly old-age benefits and education.
As shown in the figure below, the difference between taxes paid by immigrants and the public benefits they receive "has grown from $158 billion to $572 billion in real terms since 1994." Just to look at 2023, working immigrants that year paid $1.3 trillion in taxes yet received only $761 billion in benefits.
This trend, despite endless cries from far-right pundits and xenophobic lawmakers that immigrants are a drain on public coffers, has held steady for decades—with no sign of it ending in the future.
"For decades, nativists have sold America this narrative that immigrant welfare is behind our deficits and debt," said Bier. "This figure shows how absurd that is."
The report argues that "rather than treating [immigrants—both documented and undocumented] as the cause of America’s fiscal struggles, we should consider immigrants part of the solution."
Mark D. Levine, comptroller of New York City, was among the public officials pointing to the report as timely evidence that the Trump-Miller-Noem narrative about immigration is built on a foundation of falsehoods.
"MAGA’s claim that immigrants are a drain on government budgets? It’s a lie," said Levine.
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