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Water Protectors Lock Down Inside Line 3 Pipeline
Thursday morning, water protectors locked to each other inside a Line 3 pipe segment, halting construction at an Enbridge worksite as dozens more held space.
The site is a few miles from a large Enbridge man camp operating in the township of Backus, Minnesota. Enbridge is working 24 hours per day at several worksites, as a pending injunction to halt work while tribally-led lawsuits are heard has yet to be decided.
According to several cultural site maps, numerous sacred and significant sites lie in the path of the Line 3 project.
WASHINGTON
Thursday morning, water protectors locked to each other inside a Line 3 pipe segment, halting construction at an Enbridge worksite as dozens more held space.
The site is a few miles from a large Enbridge man camp operating in the township of Backus, Minnesota. Enbridge is working 24 hours per day at several worksites, as a pending injunction to halt work while tribally-led lawsuits are heard has yet to be decided.
According to several cultural site maps, numerous sacred and significant sites lie in the path of the Line 3 project.
Water Protector Abby Hornberger said, "After moving to Minnesota to attend college and study environmental science, I was excited to be in a place where's people valued protecting the earth and finding a viable future. What I found, however, was a state that had formed "ambitious" climate goals yet endorsed one of the dirtiest fossil fuels, tar sands oil. I realized that indigenous ways of knowing and practicing harmony with the environment are continuously ignored. The Line 3 pipeline far outweighs all clean energy initiatives and progress being made in renewable energies. Line 3 will destroy Minnesota's essential clean water resources for future generations and will ultimately drive us into climate doom. Education and spreading awareness is no longer enough to create meaningful change for me."
Hornberger continued, "Enbridge's last ditch effort to build fossil fuel infrastructure is killing people and the planet. I refuse to be complicit in settler colonialist practices, and feel that I have to put my body on the line to protect indigenous communities sovereignty and all of our futures. This is not just an issue relevant to some, it affects each of us on a deeper level that goes beyond our daily lives. It determines if we will have a livable future."
Water Protector Andrew Lee said, "I'm here today to protect the treaties that my ancestors failed to uphold. I've learned over the course of this year that Tim Waltz isn't going to protect us, the government of Minnesota isn't going to protect us, and the federal government isn't going to protect us. I believe it is my duty, as a colonizer and as a person with the privilege to do so, to put my body on the line to stop the Enbridge Corporation from building this pipeline. It breaks my heart and enrages me to see how these people are desecrating the earth and the lengths they will go to to leech every last dollar they can from its surface." They continued, "But for as much as I'm here in anger and fear, I'm also here in love. Love for this planet, for my comrades, for the Native people who've been in this fight for over 500 years, and for all future generations of people who will inhabit this earth after we're gone.
So I'm joining this fight. If you see this and are able, you should do the same. Love and lights <3"
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
Sanders Proposal Would Mandate at Least Two Weeks of Paid Vacation for All Full-Time Workers
"Every worker in America deserves the chance to rest, recharge, and spend time with the people they love without worrying about missing a paycheck," said Rep. Seth Magaziner, a co-sponsor of the measure in the House.
Aug 06, 2026
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday reintroduced legislation that he said would end the "international embarrassment" of the US being one of the few countries in the world to not offer guaranteed paid vacation time for workers.
Sanders (I-Vt.)—who is co-sponsoring the Guaranteed Paid Vacation Act along with Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.)—said guaranteed vacation was essential for all American families.
"We hear a lot of talk about family values in America, but let’s be clear," Sanders said. "When a husband, wife, and kids, during the course of an entire year, are unable to spend any time together on vacation, that is not a family value. That is an attack on everything that a family is supposed to stand for."
"It’s not a radical idea to require companies in America to provide at least two weeks of paid vacation to their workers," Sanders added. "What’s radical is that millions of Americans are not only working longer hours for lower wages, but that they do not receive a single paid vacation day. That should not be happening in the United States of America, the richest country in the history of the world."
The legislation proposes giving every worker in the US the right to accrue at least one hour of paid annual leave for every 25 hours worked, with full-time workers earning at least two weeks of paid annual leave per year.
The bill would also prohibit employers from discriminating against workers who exercise their right to vacation.
Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI), who introduced a companion guaranteed paid vacation bill in the US House of Representatives, said the legislation was needed because "every worker in America deserves the chance to rest, recharge, and spend time with the people they love without worrying about missing a paycheck."
The legislation comes one day after the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) released a report finding that "US workers get an average of 10 days per year of paid vacation time, far less than the legal minimum required in almost all comparable world economies."
CEPR also found that nearly a quarter of US workers get no vacation time at all, including 57% of the lowest-paid 10% of the US workforce.
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Rights Groups: Israel’s Killing of Journalist Amal Khalil ‘Must Be Investigated as a War Crime’
“Amal’s killing can’t be allowed to become yet another unresolved case of a journalist killed by Israeli forces with complete impunity,” said one campaigner demanding a probe into the Lebanese reporter's death.
Aug 06, 2026
An Amnesty International investigation published Thursday led human rights defenders in Lebanon and around the world to renew their calls for a war crimes probe into an Israeli attack that killed Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil and wounded a colleague earlier this year.
Khalil, a 42-year-old veteran correspondent for the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, and 21-year-old freelance photographer Zeinab Faraj were reporting in the southern Lebanese village of al-Tiri on April 22 when an IDF drone bombed what Amnesty said was a civilian vehicle traveling in front of them. A second strike then hit the journalists' car, wounding them.
As Khalil and Faraj sheltered in a nearby building, IDF drones hovered overhead for two hours before the structure was bombed, collapsing it. Lebanese Red Cross personnel coordinated access to the site with Israeli authorities, and once granted permission, rushed to the scene and pulled Faraj—who suffered a fractured skull, severe leg and eye injuries, and a crushed hand—from the rubble. But due to what they called threats of further attack while trying to save the mortally wounded Khalil, the Red Cross workers said they had to withdraw. Recovery operations were delayed for hours.
A medical examiner's report said that Khalil died of cardiac arrest due to head trauma and severe bleeding hours after rescuers were forced to leave her.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at the time condemned that attack as "a clear-cut war crime."
The IDF contends that it declared the area where Khalil was killed off-limits and that it was targeting Hezbollah militants.
"The IDF does not target journalists in any way and works as much as possible to minimize harm that may befall them while maintaining the security of our forces," a spokesperson said.
However, dozens of journalists have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Lebanon, while the figure is in the hundreds in Gaza, where Israel is waging what Amnesty and many others say is a genocide in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. The IDF also attacked and invaded Lebanon—which it has repeatedly done before—to stop Hezbollah from firing rockets at Israel in solidarity with Gaza.
According to Reporters Without Borders, Israel was the world's leading killer of journalists last year, while the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in February that Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all journalist deaths worldwide in 2025.
“The Israeli military says it does not target journalists, but the facts and evidence show that it has repeatedly done so. Amal Khalil and Zainab Faraj are the latest victims in a long series of such attacks,” Ramzi Kaiss, a researcher at Human Rights Watch in Lebanon, said Thursday. “The evidence is clear that the Israeli military knew or should have known that Faraj and Khalil were civilians, but attacked them anyway, and then prevented paramedics from rescuing them for hours."
“Israeli forces’ continued killing of journalists shows a brazen willingness to commit atrocities without any fear of consequences," Kaiss added.
Amnesty argues that the IDF strike on the building where the journalists were sheltering, and the subsequent delay in allowing first responders to rescue them, should be investigated as a war crime.
“Amnesty International’s investigation paints a harrowing picture of a direct attack on two civilians while they had sought refuge from Israeli attacks," Amnesty Middle East and North Africa regional director Heba Morayef said Thursday in a statement.
"After the first strike had eliminated the military-stated target, and with two drones flying low overhead, the Israeli military knew or should have known that two civilian women were sheltering in that building," she continued. "Despite this, they proceeded with what we have reasonable grounds to believe amounted to a direct attack on civilians, demonstrating a shocking disregard for international humanitarian law (IHL)."
“The fact that the two journalists were in what Israel has designated a no-return zone does not make them lawful targets," Morayef added. "All parties to a conflict have a clear obligation to distinguish between civilians and military targets at all times and to direct their attacks only at military objectives. There can be no justification for targeting civilians who sought shelter in search of safety. This attack must be promptly, independently, and impartially investigated as a war crime.”
CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said Thursday that “Amnesty International’s findings paint, yet again, a deeply disturbing picture of a systemic failure of legal mechanisms designed precisely to protect civilians—including journalists.”
“Amal’s killing can’t be allowed to become yet another unresolved case of a journalist killed by Israeli forces with complete impunity,” Qudah stressed. "This repeated failure to conduct transparent investigations into attacks on journalists has reinforced a climate of impunity and hollowed out the protections granted to the press under IHL."
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Talarico Explains Infamous 'Powell Memo' to Texas Voters, Making Right-Wing 'Master Plan' a Campaign Issue
"The top 1% put the American Dream behind a paywall," said the Texas Democrat as he unveiled a framework for his economic vision.
Aug 06, 2026
Politicians from both sides of the aisle have come to realize in recent years that "affordability" and "cost of living" are key issues voters want to hear about on the campaign trail, with nearly all respondents to a Harris Poll last month reporting they believe the US is currently in an affordability crisis.
But on Wednesday, before 1,300 Texans in the city of Arlington, state Rep. James Talarico (D-50), the Democratic US Senate candidate, contextualized the crisis for voters.
Talarico provided a history lesson that explained how—while his opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, has blamed the Biden administration for rising costs and the struggles of working Texans—"this affordability crisis isn't something that happened over the last five years. This affordability crisis has been 50 years in the making."
While introducing his economic platform, "The New American Dream," Talarico held the audience's attention as he explained the Powell Memo—a document formally titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” which Virginia-based corporate lawyer Lewis Powell wrote in 1971 for his client, the US Chamber of Commerce.
The memo, said Talarico, provided "a blueprint for how corporations could amass political power, reverse the gains of the Great Society and the New Deal, and rig the system for themselves."
"The Powell memo outlined a strategy. Unite corporate special interests, privilege corporate perspectives in the media, appoint sympathetic judges to the court, and buy politicians in both political parties," continued Talarico. "And it worked. Republicans and some Democrats sold the false gospel of trickle-down economics."
.@JamesTalarico: 50 years ago, a corporate lawyer named Lewis Powell circulated a memo around DC — a blueprint for how corporations could amass political power, reverse the gains of the Great Society and the New Deal, and rig the system for themselves.
The Powell memo outlined a… pic.twitter.com/ne7f23iXP3
— Team Talarico (@TeamTalaricoHQ) August 6, 2026
In the memo, Powell—who was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon just months after he delivered the blueprint to the powerful Chamber of Commerce—outlined how the interests of corporate America should be framed as "individual freedom" that the country must protect.
Private companies should use political influence "aggressively and with determination" to stop "the stampedes by politicians to support any legislation related to 'consumerism' or to the 'environment,'" wrote Powell, and should show no "reluctance to penalize politically those who oppose” the corporate effort.
“Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations," the memo argued.
"Trickle-down economics is not a theory, it is theft."
The result of that "long-range planning" and "consistency of action over an indefinite period of years," said Talarico, is the current political system—in which corporate interests pour billions of dollars into elections to support favorable candidates, Congress passes massive tax breaks for billionaires, and working families are left struggling to afford healthcare, childcare, and other essentials.
"Trickle-down economics is not a theory, it is theft," he said. "Since the late 1970s, megadonors and corporate special interests have been buying politicians in both political parties. And then those politicians turned around and rigged the economy to benefit their wealthy donors at our expense. We have an affordability crisis because we have a corruption crisis."
He added that five decades after the Powell Memo, "the top 1% put the American Dream behind a paywall"—pointing to the extreme wealth of tech CEOs like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, while "one in five Texas children live in poverty."
The American Dream has become an American Nightmare.
It’s too expensive to buy a home.
It’s too expensive to get married and have kids.
It’s too expensive to retire comfortably.
The top 1% put the American Dream behind a paywall. pic.twitter.com/gfhM2weVY0
— James Talarico (@jamestalarico) August 6, 2026
David Sirota of The Lever, whose team produced the award-winning 2024 podcast "Master Plan," which details the history and influence of the Powell Memo, applauded Talarico for speaking directly to voters about the long history behind today's "affordability crisis."
"Talarico is recounting—and promising to fight—the master plan that we exposed. And he’s making that promise in one of America’s most high-profile Senate races," said Sirota.
Talarico's event in Arlington marked the beginning of a monthlong tour across Texas in which he plans to roll out his plans to begin reversing the decades of damage done by the Powell Memo and politicians from both major parties who have prioritized corporate interests over working Americans.
The candidate's agenda includes raising the minimum wage; closing billionaire tax loopholes and ending tax breaks for the top 1% of earners in President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act; passing universal childcare; permanently expanding the child tax credit; passing an anti-corruption package to ban super political action committees; and providing down payment assistance for first-time home buyers.
"People are working hard every day," said Talarico. "They're playing by the rules. But those rules of today weren't written for us. They were written for billionaires."
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Corporate-Funded Third Way Plans to Spend $15 Million Waging 'War' on Progressives
"Instead of going to war against the left, why not attract votes by going to war against insurance companies gouging patients, against employers busting unions, or against polluters?" said one critic.
Aug 06, 2026
Abdul El-Sayed's victory in the Democratic US Senate primary in Michigan this week was just the latest example of an insurgent progressive challenger defeating candidates backed by the Democratic establishment.
The establishment, however, is vowing to not go down without a fight.
In an interview with The New York Times published Thursday, Jonathan Cowan, the president of the corporate-funded group Third Way, revealed plans for a $15 million campaign to counter the influence of organizations such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which he described as a "mortal danger" to the Democratic Party.
"We are preparing for the next war that is coming," said Cowan, who added that "it is deeply troubling to see radical, far-left candidates winning in places that are potentially presidential swing states."
The Times report noted, however, that big moneyed interests, most notably the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), spent tens of millions of dollars attacking El-Sayed, who nonetheless emerged triumphant in the race.
Some critics fired back at Third Way, noting that the group only appeared interested in attacking progressives rather than promoting a positive agenda to improve people's lives.
Maurice Mitchell, the director of the Working Families Party, told the Times that groups such as Third Way are "missing a point of view" and are not seeing the "populist insurgency taking place in this country."
Mitchell was far from alone in criticizing the group's plans.
Jon Favreau, co-host of Pod Save America, remarked in a social media post that Third Way's $15 million investment would be better spent "building a movement and coming up with a vision that actually excites voters."
Favreau's comments were echoed by journalist Nathan Newman.
"Have moderates thought about presenting compelling policies more appealing to voters?" Newman asked. "Instead of going to war against the left, why not attract votes by going to war against insurance companies gouging patients, against employers busting unions, or against polluters?"
Even some critics more in line with Third Way's politics expressed skepticism of its proposed campaign.
Derek Thompson, co-author of Abundance, a book that critiqued progressive governance, argued that Third Way's efforts would only reinforce progressives' narratives about big moneyed interests trying to squash a grassroots rebellion against the status quo.
"People should do what they want with their money but moderate Democrats' deficits relate to candidates, messaging, organizing, and enthusiasm... not money," said Thompson. "Plus, I hope people see the risk in a headline about moderates raising millions of dollars to attack a popular left insurgency that attracts support in part... by representing themselves as a bulwark against moneyed interests."
New York University School of Law professor Chris Sprigman was similarly dismissive of the Third Way campaign, predicting that "centrists [are] likely to be no more effective against their own democratic left than they’ve been against the authoritarian right."
Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, argued that Third Way and other neoliberal organizations needed to look in the mirror when it comes to placing blame for the current state of US politics.
"The reason we are in this mess is because the biggest risk we face is market fundamentalism," Owens wrote. "That's what broke the country and voters know it. That's why they are turning against Third Way corporate Dem-style candidates. That’s the thing to fix."
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Khanna Introduces 'Data Center Bill of Rights' For Communities Seeking to Oppose Them
The congressman from Silicon Valley said his resolution aims to give communities "the right to oppose data centers instead of having them shoved down their throats by state governments."
Aug 06, 2026
The congressman from Silicon Valley, Rep. Ro Khanna, is introducing one of the first comprehensive federal frameworks to give seething communities the right to fight back against Big Tech and its breakneck expansion of artificial intelligence data centers.
Khanna (D-Calif.), who announced the plan on Thursday, referred to it as a "Data Center Bill of Rights" and said it will aim to give communities "the right to oppose data centers instead of having them shoved down their throats by state governments."
Opposition to data centers has become a central plank in some progressive campaigns that have seen success in recent months, most recently the Democratic primary victories of Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and House candidate William Lawrence in Michigan.
They and other candidates have called for moratoriums on the construction of these facilities, which have come with soaring utility costs, dwindling water supplies, and pollution.
A nonbinding resolution introduced by Khanna earlier this week emphasized that developers have often made deals with state and local governments under a shroud of secrecy, with nondisclosure agreements that hide information about the ownership and potential costs of data centers until it's too late for the public to fight back.
Among other provisions, the resolution calls for Congress to give communities the right to:
- Ban the construction of data centers within 2,500 feet of homes, schools, childcare facilities, hospitals, or nursing homes;
- Reject any proposed data center through a transparent community process;
- Prohibit or regulate data centers without being overridden by the state government;
- Receive independent assessments on a center’s electricity and water demands, pollution dangers, and potential effects on utility bills, rents, and housing availability;
- Demand that centers do not raise electricity rates for households and businesses; and
- Require that data center owners pay their fair share of taxes and that any exemptions come with strong labor standards and transparency.
Khanna's proposal comes as he says the developers seeking to hyperscale data center development are "losing the country."
A Gallup poll from May found that more than 7 in 10 Americans would either somewhat or strongly oppose the construction of a data center near them.
And while the Trump administration has pushed hard for rapid development, opposition is bipartisan. Three-quarters of Democrats say they don't want the facilities in their communities, but so do nearly two-thirds of Republicans.
Khanna's resolution is one of many legislative pushes by Democrats on Capitol Hill to regulate data centers, an issue on which they are eager to build credibility ahead of this November's midterms.
Also on Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, proposed an excise tax on data centers and to stop them from benefiting from tax-advantaged "opportunity zones," which Republicans extended last year.
Other proposals have gone further than Khanna's. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduced legislation earlier this year for a nationwide moratorium on new data centers until national safeguards can be put in place.
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'See You in November': Progressives Welcome the Fight as AIPAC Plots Round Two Against El-Sayed
"I’m happy to burn your money for you, and then we can get on to the business of governing," Abdul El-Sayed said in a message to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Aug 06, 2026
After setting over $30 million on fire in Michigan's Democratic US Senate primary, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is reportedly plotting round two against progressive epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed—this time seeking to boost his Republican general election opponent, Mike Rogers.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that the pro-Israel lobbying organization, known as AIPAC, "has told allies that it is considering a major financial campaign to support the Republican Senate nominee in the Michigan general election this fall." AIPAC said publicly following El-Sayed's victory over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in Tuesday's primary that "our members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr. El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda in November."
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who endorsed and campaigned for El-Sayed, wrote in response to AIPAC's post-election statement that she appreciates the group "proving it doesn't belong in the Dem Party and especially in our primaries."
"From endorsing Jan. 6th members to ensuring Congress remains in the hands of a 34-count felon, AIPAC is an org committed to undermining democracy at home and abroad," Ocasio-Cortez wrote on social media. "See you in November."
Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) noted that "a big majority of Americans want the US government to stop sending American dollars to Israel's reckless regime and to end the war in Iran."
"Yet AIPAC is threatening to spend to deliver the Republicans a critical Senate seat in Michigan, helping a Trump stooge like Mike Rogers who will keep funding Netanyahu's wars and do nothing to stop Trump's Iran war," said Deluzio. "This is exactly why so many Democrats like me have rejected AIPAC."
AIPAC cash accounted for around half of all outside spending in the contest between El-Sayed and Stevens—the most expensive Democratic primary in American history.
But the organization and its affiliated groups appear to have plenty more resources to devote to the general election, the results of which could decide control of the US Senate next year.
The United Democracy Project (UDP), AIPAC's super PAC, had over $80 million in cash in hand at the end of June, according to federal filings.
AIPAC is UDP's primary funder, but the group has also received cash from right-wing billionaires such as hedge fund manager Paul Singer and businessman Haim Saban.
During a virtual town hall days before Tuesday's election, El-Sayed—a vocal opponent of US support for Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza—dared AIPAC to keep pouring its financial resources into Michigan's Senate race.
“AIPAC, if you’re listening, burn your money. Come back and burn it again in the general,” said El-Sayed. “I’m happy to burn your money for you, and then we can get on to the business of governing and asking whether or not our foreign policy ought to be dictated to us by the interests of a foreign government.”
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Human-Caused Climate Emergency Made Canada's Summer Wildfires Twice as Likely: Study
"Time and again we see the same results: Climate change is a key driver behind uncontrollably large and unprecedented fires."
Aug 06, 2026
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.”
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'A Fake and Fraudulent Watchdog': Trump Installs Project 2025 Author at Interior IG Office
"He fired the real watchdogs, tried to gut their budgets, and now he's stuffing his own political operatives into the offices built to investigate his administration’s wrongdoing."
Aug 06, 2026
The Trump administration has reportedly installed an author of the far-right Project 2025 agenda inside the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General as the watchdog is facing growing calls to investigate alleged corruption by top agency officials.
Dennis Kirk worked in the White House budget office during Trump's first term and co-authored a Project 2025 chapter that recommended sweeping action to "decentralize and privatize" the federal government "as much as possible." Last year, Kirk was placed inside the office of the inspector general of the US intelligence community, drawing alarm.
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement on Wednesday that Kirk's reported appointment to a role inside the Interior Department IG office "is a fraud on the office and a fraud on the American people."
“Dennis Kirk is a fake and fraudulent watchdog," said Huffman. "Everyone should have their eyes wide open. Each and every thing this political puppet does will be in service of Donald Trump. This man helped write the Project 2025 playbook for seizing control of the federal workforce. Now he sits inside the office charged with rooting out corruption at Interior, the department that manages our national parks, public lands, Tribal programs, and now, under Trump, gold-slathered statues and a botched Reflecting Pool renovation."
The current acting head of the Interior Department's IG office is Caryl Brzymialkiewicz, who ascended to the role after Trump fired the previous watchdog, Mark Greenblatt, in January 2025 as part of a broader purge.
Greenblatt said in a statement posted to his website earlier this week that reports of Kirk's installation at the Interior IG office "should concern anyone who values independent government oversight."
"Placing someone with that background inside an inspector general's office raises serious questions about the independence of one of the federal government's most important accountability institutions," said Greenblatt. "Unfortunately, this development does not stand alone. It follows a series of actions—including the dismissal of inspectors general, proposed budget reductions, and efforts to redefine the role of inspectors general themselves—that have steadily eroded confidence in independent oversight across the federal government."
In a statement to the investigative outlet Public Domain, a spokesperson for the Interior Department Office of Inspector General said that "we do not have a comment on this matter, which relates to personnel issues."
The IG office is currently under pressure from Democratic lawmakers and outside advocacy organizations to investigate various issues at the department headed by Doug Burgum, a close ally of the fossil fuel industry. Earlier this year, Huffman called for an IG probe of Associate Deputy Secretary Karen Budd-Falen "for potential conflicts of interest, ethics violations, and self-dealing related to her family's multi-million-dollar financial stake in a Nevada lithium mine."
In late June, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleged that the Interior Department "may have run afoul of federal contracting and ethics laws when it awarded contracts for renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and maintenance on Lafayette Park fountains to Trump associates, without seeking bids through the typical full and open competition requirements for government contracts."
Huffman said Wednesday that "it’s no surprise the White House suddenly wants its own man inside the one place that Trump's cronies still have reason to fear."
“Trump is running the most corrupt presidency in American history, and he's working overtime to make sure no one is left to hold him accountable," said Huffman. "He fired the real watchdogs, tried to gut their budgets, and now he's stuffing his own political operatives into the offices built to investigate his administration’s wrongdoing."
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'Bay of Pigs Reloaded': New CIA Task Force to Further Destabilize Cuba Revealed
The revelation comes as the State Department "has been on a full-throttle media blitz," noted one writer, "painting Cuba as an espionage superpower and a threat to US national security."
Aug 05, 2026
After months of President Donald Trump threatening a US takeover of Cuba and ramping up a decadeslong economic assault of the island, The New York Times revealed Wednesday that the Central Intelligence Agency created a related task force, "setting in motion plans for a more concerted campaign to pressure the Cuban government to make the economic, political, and leadership changes."
"In 1960, the CIA established an earlier Cuba task force, whose members oversaw the failed, agency-backed invasion of Cuba the next year known as the Bay of Pigs," the newspaper noted. "The people briefed on the new task force said its mandate is more limited: to create fissures among the Cuban political elite, in hope of pressuring the Cubans to replace perceived anti-American hard-liners with more practical leaders more amenable to Mr. Trump's demands."
Despite the anonymous sources' claims about the differences from over a half-century ago, Eva Golinger, an American lawyer who wrote multiple books about former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, simply responded, "Bay of Pigs reloaded."
The Times article—on which the CIA declined to comment—came a day after Politico reported that "the US has increased its intelligence assets in Cuba in recent months as it pushes the country's communist regime to reform or fall from power, according to two people familiar with the Trump administration's plans for the island."
The agency also declined to comment on Politico's piece, which pointed out that "US military operations are often preceded by increased American intelligence activity. CIA efforts to track the whereabouts of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro reportedly played a critical role this January in the successful US operation to capture him."
Sharing Politico's coverage on social media, Andrés Pertierra, a Cuba historian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that it is "hard to say at this point to what degree this is theater aimed at rattling the cage in Havana or performing strength to Miami, on the one hand, or some kind of prelude to an actual escalation, on the other, given recent months of warnings of escalation that went nowhere."
Enrique "Ric" Prado, a Cuban exile who served in various posts at the CIA, "is convinced that Washington is preparing a definitive blow against the island regime," El País reported early Wednesday. He predicted, "Cuba is the next apple to fall from the tree."
This week's reporting followed the July release of a "McCarthyite" US Department of State document that was widely decried as an "attack on Americans' constitutional rights to free speech and assembly," as well as an attempt to justify an invasion of Cuba, where the Trump administration has fueled a humanitarian crisis.
"For nearly seven decades, the Cuban regime has waged a sustained campaign of subversion against the United States," the department's report begins, "that has infiltrated the highest reaches of the US government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists, backed an unprecedented wave of left-wing terrorism on American soil, and carried out one of the most durable and damaging foreign intelligence penetrations in American history."
Promoting the publication on social media, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio—the son of Cuban immigrants and a longtime advocate of regime change on the island—claimed his department was "exposing the full history of Cuban espionage and subversion in our country."
During a Sunday interview with Fox News host Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law, Rubio repeated claims from the report and called the island nation, about 90 miles south of Florida and home to roughly 10 million people, "an influence and espionage superpower." His comments drew criticism from Democrats in Congress, the Cuban foreign minister, and other experts.
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Trump's $275 Billion Battleship Fleet Set to Be 'Most Expensive US Warships Ever'
"At a time when families are struggling to afford groceries, gas, healthcare, and childcare, Congress cannot throw hundreds of billions of dollars at Trump’s ‘Golden Fleet,’" said one Democratic senator.
Aug 05, 2026
The Trump administration's controversial plan to build a new "Golden Fleet" of guided-missile battleships is drawing mounting criticism from budget watchdogs, defense analysts, and Democratic lawmakers, who warn the proposal would put taxpayers on the hook for what could be the costliest naval procurement in US history.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Wednesday said the cost to build 15 Trump-class nuclear-powered battleships is approximately $275 billion in current dollars through 2056—roughly 50% more than a previous estimate.
"Under the 2027 shipbuilding plan, compared with the 2025 plan, the Navy would purchase substantially more large surface combatants," the CBO said. "The average annual amount of funding needed to buy surface combatants would rise by slightly more than two-thirds, from about $11 billion to $19 billion."
"By 2035, the Navy's 2027 plan would more than double the tonnage of large surface combatants that shipbuilders would need to produce," the office added. "Overall, the tonnage of large surface combatants to be constructed would need to increase by 60%, while the tonnage of small surface combatants would decrease by about 40%. Accommodating such a sizable increase in the production of large surface combatants could be a challenge for the shipbuilding industry."
One journalist noted that the Trump-class battleships' cost would make them "the most expensive US warships ever produced."
President Donald Trump claimed in December that his proposed Golden Fleet would "help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding industry, and inspire fear in America’s enemies all over the world."
The president explicitly linked his desire to revive battleships—which were last built in the US in 1944 and were all decommissioned by the early 1990s—to his affinity for the 1950s television documentary series "Victory at Sea."
Critics say the program will inflate already historically high military budgets while diverting hundreds of billions of dollars that would be better spent on underfunded social programs.
"At a time when families are struggling to afford groceries, gas, healthcare, and childcare, Congress cannot throw hundreds of billions of dollars at Trump’s ‘Golden Fleet,’ including plastering his name across a new battleship," Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said Wednesday in response to the CBO analysis.
"Congress cannot afford to commit to another massive military boondoggle that will only succeed in filling the coffers of the military-industrial complex."
"Just like Trump’s ‘Golden Dome,’ the ‘Golden Fleet’ is expected to cost much more than previously estimated," he continued, referring to the president's proposed missile defense system that Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) derided as a "dangerous $1.2 trillion boondoggle."
“While we continue to see too many Pentagon programs burdened by cost overruns, delays, and unrealistic promises that fail to meet reality, Congress cannot afford to commit to another massive military boondoggle that will only succeed in filling the coffers of the military-industrial complex," Merkley added. "I will work with my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to reject moving forward with this wasteful project, and instead invest in programs that help families thrive."
In addition to cost, military experts and others noted the obsolescence of battleships—which are now all scrapped or museum pieces—and the fact that they make great big targets.
Among the most outspoken critics of the Golden Fleet is Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), who has argued that the ships represent a throwback to outdated naval warfare doctrine.
Rather than concentrating enormous combat power in a handful of exceptionally expensive vessels, Cancian has said the Navy's own operational concepts increasingly emphasize "distributed maritime operations," the spreading of offensive capabilities across larger numbers of smaller, networked ships that are harder for adversaries to target.
Bernard Loo, a senior fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, was even more blunt in a December CBNC interview, calling the proposed Trump-class ships "bomb magnets."
“The size and the prestige value of it all make it an even more tempting target," Loo added.
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