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'Vatican's Call for Divestment Is a Breath of Hope in Times When Faith Is More Needed Than Ever'
In an unprecedented move, today the Vatican issued its first-ever set of comprehensive environmental guidelines. The document is the fruit of a collaboration across all Vatican departments and suggests concrete ways for the Church to implement Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si', including a call to all Catholic institutions to "avoid supporting companies that harm human or social ecology and environmental ecology (for example, fossil fuels)."
Global
In an unprecedented move, today the Vatican issued its first-ever set of comprehensive environmental guidelines. The document is the fruit of a collaboration across all Vatican departments and suggests concrete ways for the Church to implement Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si', including a call to all Catholic institutions to "avoid supporting companies that harm human or social ecology and environmental ecology (for example, fossil fuels)."
In response to the announcement, Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org, said:
"The Vatican's call for divestment is a breath of hope in times when faith is more needed than ever. It is also one of the handful of great moments in this decade-long campaign. It is a powerful statement that attempting to profit off the destruction of the planet is plainly and simply immoral and unethical."
Yossi Cadan, Global Finance Campaign Manager at 350.org, said:
"Laudato Si already demands that 'highly polluting fossil fuels need to be progressively replaced without delay'. The announcement today is a strong statement that the Vatican is supporting the call of many institutions, companies, the youth and other groups who already showed that the only way to rebuild our societies and economies is through a Just Recovery that centers people's needs and not major polluters corporate interests, which led us to the global climate crisis we face now.
"Faith groups continue to lead the way and clearly indicate to the rest of the world that any future investments or stimulus funds must exclude fossil fuels and yield long-term structural emissions reductions. We must urge all sectors of society to use this opportunity to accelerate the transition needed towards low- and zero-carbon."
This is the first-ever endorsement of the divestment movement to come from the Vatican, and it comes on the heels of the largest-ever announcement of divestment by faith institutions. In May, 42 institutions in 14 countries announced their commitment to drop fossil fuels.
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
As Trump Issues New Threats to Mexico and Colombia, Democrats Push to End Unauthorized Aggression
Rep. Gregory Meeks, who introduced a war powers resolution, said Trump’s actions combine the “worst excesses of the war on drugs and the war on terror.”
Nov 18, 2025
As Democrats in the US House of Representatives introduced their latest measure to stop President Donald Trump from continuing his attacks against alleged drug cartels without approval from Congress, the president said he wouldn't "rule out" deploying US ground troops in Venezuela—and warned he could escalate attacks across Latin America, with possible strikes in Mexico and Colombia as well.
Shortly after the Department of Defense, called the Department of War by the Trump administration, announced its 21st illegal airstrike on what they've claimed, without evidence, to be "narco-terrorist" vessels mostly in the Caribbean—attacks that have killed at least 83 people—Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that he may soon begin similar operations against drug cartels in mainland Mexico.
“Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? It’s OK with me. I’ve been speaking to Mexico. They know how I stand,” he said. “We’re losing hundreds of thousands of people to drugs. So now we’ve stopped the waterways, but we know every route."
Earlier this month, following reports from US officials that the Trump administration had started “detailed planning” to send US troops to Mexico, the nation's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, retorted that "it’s not going to happen."
In his comments Monday, Trump threatened to carry out strikes in Colombia as well, saying: "Colombia has cocaine factories where they make cocaine. Would I knock out those factories? I would be proud to do it personally.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has been one of Latin America's fiercest critics of Trump's extrajudicial boat bombings, last week referring to the US president as a "barbarian." Trump, meanwhile, has baselessly accused Petro of being "an illegal drug leader," slapping him and his family with sanctions and cutting off aid to the country.
In response to Trump's threats on Monday, Petro touted the number of cocaine factories that have been "destroyed" under his tenure. According to figures from the Colombian Ministry of Defense, around 18,000 of them have been taken out of commission since Petro took office in 2022, a 21% increase from Colombia's previous president.
Immediately after Trump issued his threat against Colombia, he backpedaled, saying: "I didn't say I'm doing it, I would be proud to do it."
However, reporting from Drop Site News earlier this month has suggested that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) "was briefed by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on the new list of hard targets inside Venezuela, Colombia, and Mexico in early October, and lobbied fellow senators on expanding the war to include drug-related sites in Colombia."
The senator had alluded to the plans on CBS News' "Face the Nation," saying: “We’re not gonna sit on the sidelines and watch boats full of drugs come into our country. We’re gonna blow them up and kill the people who want to poison America. And we’re now gonna expand our operations, I think, to the land. So please be clear about what I’m saying today. President Donald Trump sees Venezuela and Colombia as direct threats to our country, because they house narco-terrorist organizations.”
On Tuesday, a group of Democrats in the US House of Representatives introduced another measure that would stop Trump from continuing his attacks against alleged drug cartel members without approval from Congress.
The measure would require the removal of “United States Armed Forces from hostilities with any presidentially designated terrorist organization in the Western Hemisphere,” unless Congress authorizes the use of military force or issues a declaration of war. Previous measures to stall Trump’s extrajudicial attacks have been narrowly stymied, despite receiving some support from the Republican majority.
“There is no evidence that the people being killed are an imminent threat to the United States of America,“ said Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who introduced the resolution.
Meeks added that Trump’s campaign of assassinations in Latin America combines “the worst excesses of the war on drugs and the war on terror.”
Trump's threats of military action come after Hegseth announced what he called "Operation Southern Spear" last week, which he said would be aimed at "remov[ing] narco-terrorists from our hemisphere." In a description that evoked the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, Hegseth wrote on social media that "the Western Hemisphere is America's neighborhood—and we will protect it."
In the Oval Office, Trump declared, without evidence, that with each strike his administration carries out against Venezuelan boats, "we save 25,000 American lives," which experts say is obviously false since Venezuela plays a very minor role in global drug trafficking.
Several international legal experts have said Trump’s strikes constitute a war crime. Earlier this month, Oona A. Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, said that members of the Trump administration “know what they are doing is wrong.”
“If they do it, they are violating international law and domestic law,” Hathaway said. “Dropping bombs on people when you do not know who they are is a breach of law.”
The Trump administration has argued that its actions are consistent with Article 51 of the UN’s founding charter, which requires the UN Security Council to be informed immediately of actions taken in self-defense against an armed attack.
The administration has not provided evidence that its attacks constitute a necessary form of self-defense. But last month, a panel of independent UN experts said that “even if such allegations were substantiated, the use of lethal force in international waters without proper legal basis violates the international law of the sea and amounts to extrajudicial executions.”
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Trump Plan to Privatize Student Loans Denounced as ‘Giveaway to Wealthy Insiders’
"By selling parts of the federal student loan portfolio, the Trump administration may seek to unlawfully strip borrowers of their legally guaranteed protections," wrote a group of more than 40 Democratic lawmakers.
Nov 18, 2025
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers in the US House and Senate warned Monday that the Trump administration's reported push to sell off the federal government's massive student portfolio to the private market would be disastrous for borrowers and a "lucrative giveaway" to predatory corporations.
The lawmakers, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) in the House, pointed with alarm to recent reports indicating that Treasury and Education Department officials have met repeatedly with finance industry executives for the purpose of valuing the federal government's student loan portfolio, which is believed to be worth around $1.7 trillion.
"By selling parts of the federal student loan portfolio, the Trump administration may seek to unlawfully strip borrowers of their legally guaranteed protections," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. "As experts have explained, private investors' 'interest would likely be to squeeze as much profit from the repayment as they could.' Those profits would likely come at the expense of the borrower via fewer protections and less generous benefits."
Politico reported last month that the Trump administration is considering selling at least part of the federal government's student loan portfolio to private companies.
Though small relative to the federal portfolio, the private student loan market has an "outsized" impact on borrowers, the advocacy group Protect Borrowers explained earlier this year.
"While private student loans account for roughly 8% of all student loan debt, more than 40% of student-loan-related complaints submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) are about private loans," the group said. "Of these private student loan complaints, roughly one-third are from borrowers who are struggling and can’t afford their monthly payment. This is because, unlike federal student loans, private loans lack critical safeguards for students and parents."
In their letter to McMahon and Bessent, the Democratic lawmakers demanded that the Trump administration "immediately cease any efforts to privatize the federal student loan portfolio," arguing that "this sale would be a giveaway to wealthy insiders at the expense of working-class borrowers and taxpayers."
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'This Is Our Reality': Charlotte Residents Horrified After Border Patrol Arrests Women for Honking Car Horn
"Our city has gone from a thriving city to a standstill," said one local official.
Nov 18, 2025
Residents in Charlotte, North Carolina are expressing outrage after two local women were arrested for honking their car horn to alert others that US Border Patrol was in the area.
Local news station WCNC reported on Monday that the two women, who are US citizens, were taken into custody in the city's Plaza Midwood neighborhood after Border Patrol agents pulled them over and accused them of interfering in operations by honking their horn.
Video of the incident shows masked federal agents yelling at the women and demanding that they roll down their car windows. When the women do not comply, one officer smashes through the window and then he and other officers pull them out of the vehicle.
The two women, who have not been identified, then spent several hours in an FBI facility before being released with citations.
Local resident Shea Watts, who took video of the encounter, told WCNC that he was feeling "somewhere between disbelief and just being really upset that this is our reality now" as he watched the incident unfold.
Watts also discussed his own interactions with the federal officers whom he was filming.
"I was already close to despair and feeling helpless and hopeless," he said. "But I think just the reminder that if we see something, to document it. I tried to be respectful and ask questions and knowing my own rights, and I was told to back up a couple times, which, that's fine, but at the end of the day, this all feels a little heavy handed."
Charlotte has become the latest target of the Trump administration's mass deportation operation, which has already drawn opposition from both local residents and elected officials in the North Carolina city.
NBC News reported on Monday that many Charlotte residents are living in fear of immigration operations in the city, with some local businesses closing down and some local churches reporting dramatic drops in attendance during the current operation.
Jonathan Ocampo, US citizen of Colombian descent who lives in the area, told NBC News that he's started carrying his passport with him everywhere for fear of being mistaken for an undocumented immigrant.
"I’m carrying it here right now, which is sad," he said. "It's just scary."
Charlotte city council member-elect JD Mazuera Arias told The Guardian on Monday that the immigration enforcement operations have had a chilling effect on the entire community.
"Our city has gone from a thriving city to a standstill," he said.
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