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Oil and Gas Executives Visit White House to Ensure Trump Will Protect Record Profits
Top fossil fuel executives visit the White House today to meet President Donald Trump in a closed-door meeting. The assembly includes members of the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) executive committee, made of Big Oil oligarchs from the largest oil and gas companies in the U.S. The meeting is expected to be part of a “victory lap,” cheerleading the Trump administration's giveaways to the industry since taking office for the second time, according to reports. In response, Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, issued the following statement:
“After spending $450 million in the last election to elect Trump and install friendly lawmakers on Capitol Hill, fossil fuel executives are getting what they paid for. We know precisely what the oil industry will do with decreased costs stemming from Trump's deregulation: They will pocket the savings and shower executives and wealthy investors with bonuses and dividends.
“Under Trump, fossil fuel corporations will accelerate the transfer of wealth from consumers to billionaires while exposing millions of Americans to more pollution and delaying the transition to clean energy for as long as possible.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
(202) 588-1000LATEST NEWS
Union Report Warns Electronic Shelf Labels Could Kill Jobs and Crush Wages
Some states are cracking down on "surveillance pricing." But a report out from the AFL-CIO suggests that the risk of electronic shelf labels are much broader than just price gouging.
Sep 09, 2026
Lawmakers are already raising concerns that electronic shelf labels could be used by grocery chains to jack up prices on shoppers. But the technology could also be used to shrink paychecks and kill jobs, according to a report out Wednesday from the research arm of the AFL-CIO.
The new report examines marketing materials used by electronic shelf label (ESL) companies to sell their products to grocery chains. It finds that they are often billed as a tool allowing retailers to save on labor costs, automate work, and reduce hours for real employees.
"Grocery giants like to claim that electronic shelf labels will free up workers to serve customers directly, but this report shows this is not the case," said Ademola Oyefeso, the international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents over 800,000 grocery industry employees. "Using studies and marketing material from the manufacturers pushing the technology, we know ESLs could actually cost workers and their families billions of dollars in lost income."
The AFL-CIO Tech Institute, which conducted the report, examined studies from two ESL manufacturers, Pricer and Vusion Group, that examined how their systems were used at specific stores.
The 2022 study by Pricer found that by automating price changes, its system saved one store about 5,200 worker hours annually. Vusion, meanwhile, found in 2024 that its technology saved about 600 hours of work over about six months, or 1,200 annually.
Using data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the AFL-CIO projected that at these rates, were the technology to be adopted at all of the nearly 60,000 grocery stores in the US, it would reduce the number of worker hours annually by anywhere from 71 million to 308 million.
Using hourly wage data, they found that this translated to the loss of between $1.61 billion-$6.97 billion in annual wages and between 44,000-192,000 full-time jobs. That's anywhere from $608 to $2,633 per employee.
The issue of using ESLs to gouge customers has already become an area of focus for lawmakers in Congress. Earlier this year, Democrats in the US House and Senate introduced legislation to prohibit "surveillance pricing," which involves targeting individual shoppers with increased prices by analyzing their personal data.
Surveillance pricing has been used in e-commerce to fluctuate prices for individual consumers of everything from grocery delivery to airline tickets. But as facial recognition and other surveillance technologies grow more powerful, fears have grown that ESLs could be used to bring surveillance practices into the physical realm.
“Through our analysis, we found that the implementation of electronic shelf labels are likely going to drive prices even higher. The reason being that these labels are connected to the same algorithmic pricing software that online retailers are already using,” said Sunny Glottmann, the policy and programs manager at the AFL-CIO Tech Institute and co-author of the report.
"Electronic shelf labels create the infrastructure that would make rapid algorithmic price changes easier to implement at scale, and this raises concerns for consumers that are already struggling with grocery costs," Glottmann said.
At least three states—Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey—have banned some forms of surveillance pricing, and other states are also considering a ban.
Unions like the AFL-CIO and UFCW say that legislating only against surveillance pricing is much too narrow, encompassing only a small segment of the dangers posed by ESLs.
"Policymakers should ban ESLs outright, rather than rely on narrower disclosure or dynamic-pricing laws that leave the underlying technology in place," the AFL-CIO report says, noting New Jersey's one-year moratorium on the technology as a good starting place.
"When grocery store workers lose income, that means less money to spend at other stores and businesses in the community," Oyefeso said. "Banning this technology should be a top priority for lawmakers at every level, like New Jersey has done with a moratorium on ESLs and a ban on predatory pricing practices outright. More states should follow suit to protect both shoppers and workers.”
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'Deaths Will Continue to Mount,' Scientist Warns After August and Summer 2026 Set US Heat Records
"It's unconscionable that the federal government is putting specific industry interests, including fossil fuel companies’ profits, ahead of people’s health and safety."
Sep 09, 2026
Under US President Donald Trump's predecessor, government scientists used the release of data about record-breaking temperatures to warn that "we are facing a climate crisis," but with the Republican climate denier back in the White House, that commentary now comes from outside experts.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Wednesday that 2026 had the warmest August ever recorded in the contiguous United States. Following a July that broke a Dust Bowl record, August averaged 75.6°F—which was 3.5°F above the 20th-century average—with daytime maximum temperatures averaging 88.6°F.
This year also featured the hottest meteorological summer—June to August—in the 132-year record, with an average temperature of 74.4°F, or 3°F above average, according to NOAA. As CNN reported, "The Dust Bowl summer of 1936 has... long been regarded as the benchmark of hottest summers in the US, but has now been equaled or eclipsed twice in the past five years thanks to the influence of human-caused climate change," both in 2026 and 2021.
Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, told Agence France-Presse that "it is now time to stop acting surprised that our warming planet keeps getting warmer."
"This is occurring exactly as forecast by scientists literally decades ago," he stressed. "The interesting question is not whether we will keep breaking heat records (we will), but whether we're going to do anything about it or just stand there while the climate train runs us over."
NOAA said that "record-breaking warmth was widespread across the West, Southwest, southern Rockies, and southwestern Plains, as well as the southern Florida Peninsula. California, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado each set records for their warmest August average temperature. California and New Mexico also recorded their warmest average daytime maximum temperatures on record, while average nighttime minimum temperatures were record warm in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado."
Beyond the Lower 48, "Alaska's average temperature during August was 52.4°F, 2.9°F above the 1925-2000 average, ranking in the warmest third of the 102-year record. Alaska's June-August average temperature was 51.6°F, 1.1°F above average and ranking in the warmest third of the record," the agency detailed.
"Hawaii's average temperature during August was 70.8°F, 1.4°F above the 1991-2020 average, ranking as the third-warmest August in the 36-year record," the agency added. "Hawaii's June-August average temperature was 69.4°F, 0.8°F above average and ranking in the warmest third of the record. Hawaii's average temperature during August was 70.8°F, 1.4°F above the 1991-2020 average."
Marc Alessi, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that "we now live in a completely different climate than the one that existed 50 years ago. Heat records were shattered in all parts of the globe this summer, from the United States to Europe to Asia."
Alessi pointed to El Niño, the warm phase of a key pattern in the Pacific Ocean. Recent research suggests fossil fuel-driven global heating has intensified El Niños, and experts have said that the currently developing event "may be stronger than anything since our monitoring began" and make 2027 the hottest year humanity has ever endured.
"While the developing super El Niño undoubtedly impacted the summer's global temperature and heat records, we must recognize that this El Niño is occurring on top of a changed climate from the burning of fossil fuels," Alessi said. "In other words, we can expect record-breaking summers for generations to come if nations fail to sharply curtail heat-trapping emissions."
"What's equally clear is that policymakers—especially in richer, high-emitting countries like the United States—must act urgently to limit climate change impacts and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its role in the crisis," he continued. "Extreme heat and back-to-back heatwaves have taken a deadly toll this summer in the United States and across the world. Without action to reduce global warming emissions and invest in climate resilience measures, heat-related illnesses and deaths will continue to mount."
Despite the threats currently posed by the global crisis, and expectations that they will only get worse as the world blows past the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting temperature rise this century to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, "the Trump administration has attacked and dismantled policies to limit heat-trapping emissions and to prepare for climate disasters," Alessi noted.
After openly courting Big Oil on the campaign trail, Trump has served fossil fuel industry interests in a range of ways since returning to the White House last year, including by declaring a national energy emergency, waging a war on renewable power projects, and ditching the Paris Agreement, again.
"Failure of the administration and Congress to act has also left workers exposed to killer heat without comprehensive, enforceable heat-health protections," Alessi said. "It's unconscionable that the federal government is putting specific industry interests, including fossil fuel companies' profits, ahead of people's health and safety."
NOAA's new data was released less than two months away from the midterm elections—which which Democrats hope to win back majorities in Congress from Trump's Republican Party—and as firefighters in Türkiye, host of the next United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), battled deadly blazes.
"It is not enough merely to respond to the consequences of the climate crisis. We must eliminate the causes that exacerbate it," Efe Baysal, Türkiye manager at the global advocacy group 350.org, said Wednesday, calling for a phaseout of fossil fuels. "COP31 is an opportunity for Türkiye to demonstrate true leadership in this direction."
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As Congress Fails to Take Action on AI, AFT and Microsoft Reach 'First-of-Its-Kind' Deal to Protect Kids
Teachers, said one union leader, "forged a hard-fought, ironclad privacy agreement... because no one else, including the federal government, has stepped up to do the real work."
Sep 09, 2026
The advocacy group Fairplay on Wednesday applauded education union leaders for spearheading efforts to ensure students and teachers in the US are protected by safety and privacy standards as artificial intelligence companies push for their products to be used in schools.
But the organization's executive director, Josh Golin, emphasized that the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and United Federation of Teachers (UFT) "should never have been in this position in the first place," and Congress and states should have already passed legislation to create "industry-wide standards that are enforceable through attorneys general and a private right of action."
"With our elected leaders failing to live up to their responsibilities, we are left with an agreement that places an unfair burden on schools and doesn't do enough to keep kids safe," said Golin.
The deal reached Wednesday was between AFT, UFT, and Microsoft, so it will pertain only to the Silicon Valley giant's AI products.
It includes 10 "legally enforceable protections," reported Politico, including a commitment from Microsoft not to use student or teacher data to train AI models, except in narrow "safety and security" circumstances.
Other requirements of the deal include:
- Microsoft can only collect, process, or store data that is strictly necessary to deliver an educational product;
- All covered data, including every prompt, response, file, and AI-generated output, belongs exclusively to the school and students;
- All tools support educators and students and do not replace human judgment; and
- The company and schools must be transparent with families about how AI is being used.
AFT said the "first-of-its-kind" agreement came after months of painstaking negotiations "in the absence of any meaningful federal and state rules governing artificial intelligence in schools."
The deal was announced on the same day that Jacob Coxon, a researcher at AI firm Anthropic, resigned in protest of an industry that he said is pushing to build "superhuman systems" without guardrails.
He told The Wall Street Journal he was "worried such systems could spiral out of control and destroy humanity.”
Coxon's warning intensified calls for Congress to pass legislation to rein in AI, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) proposed moratorium on AI data centers and his bill, introduced with Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), to ban artificial superintelligence.
Bipartisan legislation has also failed to pass.
More than 80% of Americans believe the government is not doing enough to regulate AI, according to one recent NBC poll, and President Donald Trump has joined the industry in pushing to block states from passing their own regulations.
Randi Weingarten, president of AFT, said the unions had "forged a hard-fought, ironclad privacy agreement with real teeth that protects students and families, because no one else, including the federal government, has stepped up to do the real work."
“We can get angrier and angrier, or we can act decisively; anything less than legally enforceable provisions is simply a wish list," said Weingarten.
Golin emphasized that the deal "elides the most important question of all: Should student-facing AI products be used in schools at all?"
"There is no evidence that AI products are effective teaching tools for children and growing evidence that they undermine learning and create a number of risks for kids," said Golin. "That’s why Fairplay and its network of experts are calling on schools to implement a five-year pause on all [generative] AI products until it can be determined whether those products are safe for young people and beneficial to their education."
“We hope this agreement does not fool schools into thinking that GenAI products are safe and effective for use with schoolchildren or hoodwink policymakers into thinking legislation restricting AI use in schools is not needed," he added. "It also places the burden on schools to execute and enforce the contract, which they are not in a position to do, and which should be the job of regulators."
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Young Voters Disrupt Meeting to Urge USPS Board of Governors to Reject Trump Attack on Voting
"Trump is threatening not just our ability to mail our vote but our right to decide our future and the direction of our country."
Sep 09, 2026
A group of young voters on Wednesday crashed a meeting of the United States Postal Service Board of Governors and demanded that they not carry out President Donald Trump's executive order to disrupt the mail-in voting process.
The voters, which were organized with the help of Sunrise Movement, walked into the Board of Governors' meeting in Potomac, Maryland, and asked members if they would commit to delivering all ballots sent through the USPS for November's midterm elections.
Stella Lovelady, 24, approached the board members holding a sign that read "Let Us Vote," and said she is "worried that Donald Trump will prevent millions of people from voting by mail."
"I’m worried young people’s voices won't be heard in November because their ballots won't be delivered," said Lovelady. "Trump is threatening not just our ability to mail our vote but our right to decide our future and the direction of our country."
Alex Ames, a 24-year-old voter from Georgia, asked the board members to "commit to us, to the public today, that you will mail every ballot out and not cave to Donald Trump’s political demands."
Amber McReynolds, chair of the Board of Governors, thanked Ames for her input but informed her that she was intruding on a private meeting.
"We understand it’s a meeting but this is also an emergency," Ames responded. "Ballots have already started getting mailed out. And if there's a new emergency screening system that hasn't been practiced before and all these ballots get tossed out, young voters, potentially millions of people, will not get their ballots in November."
Shortly after this, the young voters were escorted out of the meeting.
Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order that instructed the United States Postal Service to not deliver ballots in any states that have not given the federal government access to its voter lists.
However, that order is currently tied up in court, and both Wisconsin and North Carolina last week began mailing out ballots to voters.
Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of Sunrise Movement, said that the president's attempts to restrict mail-in voting show he is "desperate" and "has decided the only way he can win is if possibly millions of people can’t vote."
“The American people won’t let that happen," Shiney-Ajay emphasized. "We’ll defeat this wannabe dictator in November like we did in 2020—with our votes, our voices and our peaceful actions."
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Top Democrats Called Out for Silence Over Racist Push for Mamdani to Skip 9/11 Memorial
"Hi Democrats, don’t think that millions of Muslims—and not just Muslims but anti-racist liberal and leftist Americans—don’t hear the deafening silence from most of you," said one journalist.
Sep 09, 2026
Ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, progressives this week have expressed appreciation for the few Democratic leaders who have defended Mayor Zohran Mamdani against openly Islamophobic attacks from right-wing city lawmakers demanding that he skip Friday's memorial event.
But Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan was among those who said the silence from some of the party's top leaders—who have also failed to speak out against other recent incidents of anti-Muslim hate—has been "deafening."
Republicans including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, and multiple members of the New York City Council have appeared entirely comfortable in recent days calling on Mamdani to stay away from the annual memorial, solely due to the fact that he is Muslim.
Giuliani told the right-wing outlet Newsmax over the weekend that because the 2001 attacks were perpetrated “in the name of the Muslim religion," Mamdani—who this week released files that the Republican mayor had kept hidden regarding air quality concerns after the attack—should not attend the memorial.
New York City Council Members Vickie Paladino and Joann Ariola, both Republicans, have joined Giuliani's call, with the latter lawmaker bringing a petition to City Hall with 100,000 signatures—less than 2% of the population of New York City—of people who believe "Mayor Mamdani is not welcome at the ceremony."
Paladino, who earlier this year called for "revolutionaries" like members of the Democratic Socialists of America to be "neutralized" by federal law enforcement agencies, appeared on Fox News Tuesday night and told anchor Laura Ingraham that Mamdani's presence at the 9/11 memorial would send "a message to Osama bin Laden that look, we conquered New York."
Paladino also said Tuesday that she is "demanding that he not show his face on that sacred ground," adding, "he does not belong there."
Jonathan Shainin of Equator magazine said the demand for Mamdani to skip the memorial ceremony appeared to be "the most brazenly racist episode in recent American history," while noting that "competition is fierce."
The latest right-wing attacks on Mamdani—whose approval rating stands at 69% and whom 73% of New Yorkers say should attend the 9/11 event—follow months of attacks on left-wing streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker, who publicly apologized for a comment he once made that the US "deserved 9/11." US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Michigan Democrat who is Muslim, faced accusations of being "un-American" for campaigning with Piker.
A number of pro-Palestinian student protesters have also been threatened with deportation since Trump took office, and both Republicans and Democrats claimed that nationwide campus demonstrations in opposition to US military support for Israel as it waged war on Gaza in 2024 were "antisemitic."
Now, said Hasan on Tuesday evening, top Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, have said nothing in defense of Mamdani—or the roughly 1 million Muslims who call New York City home and presumably also don't "belong" at the 9/11 memorial, according to Paladino and others.
"Hi Democrats, don’t think that millions of Muslims—and not just Muslims but anti-racist liberal and leftist Americans—don’t hear the deafening silence from most of you as the Muslim Democratic mayor of New York is being smeared and attacked by the GOP and right-wing media over 9/11," said Hasan.
Writer Wajahat Ali added that the silence has come from the same Democrats who "threw Mamdani under the bus when he was running and are throwing El-Sayed under the bus now."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who also resides in New York City, told local media outlets when asked about the issue that Giuliani's comments were "divisive" and said that "Mamdani is the mayor of New York City and of course he should be at 9/11."
But Jeffries and the state's other senator, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D), are not among the federal lawmakers who have condemned the Republican attacks.
The relative silence was juxtaposed by what journalist Emma Vigeland called "deference" to "gutter bigotry towards Muslim people," as displayed in a lengthy Vanity Fair article that described "an inchoate, emotional component" of New York City "that sees the city’s first Muslim mayor as a stand-in for the 19 Muslims who hijacked four planes and turned them into deadly weapons, part of the 'them' who attacked 'us.'"
"Chris Smith and Vanity Fair, I cannot believe you published this racist Islamophobic drivel without any pushback," said Hasan. "Mamdani was 9 years old on 9/11 and all Muslim Americans are not ‘stand-ins’ for 19 foreign hijackers."
On Wednesday, Vanity Fair edited the article to include the word "Islamophobic" along with "inchoate" and "emotional."
Hasan applauded Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) for condemning Giuliani's "blatant anti-Muslim rhetoric."
"This from the man who betrayed his country by conspiring to overturn a presidential election," said Van Hollen. "Giuliani is a traitor to our democracy. Mayor Mamdani champions it."
Reps. Pat Ryan, Gregory Meeks, and Jerrold Nadler, all Democrats from New York, were also among those who spoke out.
"Rudy Giuliani is a hypocrite trying to distract the public from his role in hurting New Yorkers after 9/11 by feeding into ridiculous, hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric. He’d like the public to reminisce on his days as 'America’s Mayor.' Meanwhile, as Mayor, he intentionally hid the truth about the toxins in the air at and around ground zero," said Nadler. "We must denounce claims like Giuliani’s as the bigoted, anti-Muslim rhetoric that they are."
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'Collective Punishment': Mother of Jailed Palestine Action Activist in UK Was Denied Mortgage Over Daughter's Case
Emma Kamio's daughter, Ellie, was also "debanked" by Lloyds Bank before she was criminally convicted for her sabotage of Israeli military equipment.
Sep 09, 2026
One of the UK's largest financial institutions, Lloyds Bank, reportedly targeted a jailed Palestine Action protester and her family for financial punishment before she was ever convicted of a crime, according to a report out Wednesday from Novara Media.
The outlet reported that activist Leona "Ellie" Kamio had her account shuttered by Lloyds, a process known as "debanking," while she was being held on remand for her role in destroying Israeli military equipment at a factory owned by the technology firm Elbit Systems.
Ellie and four other activists were convicted of criminal damage earlier this year. But although a jury never convicted them of terrorism, they were sentenced as terrorists after a judge made an unprecedented ruling that their actions had a “terrorist connection," due to their political motivation. She and other members of the so-called "Filton Four" have appealed their sentences.
Ellie was held in prison on "remand" for more than 18 months before her first trial concluded in February 2026 although she was never charged with terrorism.
In February 2025, a year before her trial for criminal damage, Novara reports that Kamio was sent a letter by Lloyds informing her that it was closing her bank account because it was “unable to maintain a banking relationship." It did not give an explanation for the decision.
In June 2026, after Ellie had been convicted of criminal damage but before she was slapped with a terrorism sentence, her mother, Emma Kamio, learned that Lloyds had denied her request for a new mortgage on the commercial properties for her small business.
Lloyds made it clear that it was because of her daughter's case.
"We’ve now assessed the deal and consulted with our credit sanction team," a business development manager for the bank told Emma's mortgage broker. "Unfortunately, due to the adverse media, it’s not something they’re comfortable supporting at this time.”
When the broker offered an alternative plan to transfer the properties into her sister's ownership, Lloyds also rejected it.
Emma told Novara that she lost her properties as a result of Lloyds' decision. Her businesses, she said, "had to slip down the list of priorities as for the past two years, she's "spent every waking moment dealing with the trauma of my wrongful arrest or fighting for my daughter’s campaign and her release."
Emma was herself arrested in July 2025 after she locked herself to a suitcase outside Parliament to protest as members voted to enact the ban on Palestine Action. She was acquitted in April 2026.
"Thankfully, my drive for justice is more important to me than money," Emma said.
In the UK, banks are not allowed to cancel customers' accounts based on religion or belief. But they can be closed if the bank suspects a user is engaged in money laundering, terrorism financing, fraud, or other criminal activities that could pose a risk to the financial institution.
Emma contends that Lloyds "debanked my daughter Ellie with no reason at all, and while she was on remand and therefore innocent until proven guilty."
A spokesperson for Lloyds told Novara that the bank does not "close customer accounts or make lending decisions based on political or personal beliefs."
"Our decisions are based on relevant laws, regulations, account conditions, or lending requirements," the spokesperson said. "We’re unable to comment on individual cases.”
Anas Mustapha, the head of public advocacy at CAGE International, a UK-based organization focused on state abuses under terrorism laws, described the actions committed against Emma as “collective punishment."
"Emma Kamio has nothing to appeal against—just a bank’s discriminatory risk assessment, applied because her daughter took action to stop the supply chain of deadly weapons used in a genocide," Mustapha told Novara.
The highly controversial sentencing of Ellie and the rest of the "Filton Four" as terrorists was widely condemned by civil liberties and human rights activists, who described it as a dramatic escalation of the British government's effort to punish pro-Palestinian speech.
Last July, the Labour government of then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer used the Terrorism Act to ban Palestine Action, which has engaged in "direct action," including property destruction against entities activists believe are complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Not only is membership in the group now considered a terrorist offense, but nonviolent expressions of support for the group have also been criminalized.
Since the ban came into effect, 3,500 arrests of peaceful protesters have taken place across the country, according to Amnesty International, including more than 1,200 who've been charged with terrorism-related offenses.
Separately, official Home Office figures show that as of March, 92% of terrorism-related arrests in the UK over the previous year were linked to suspected support for Palestine Action.
Ellie and the other members of the Filton Four have defended their acts of sabotage against Israeli military equipment—including dozens of drones—as a justifiable response to Israel's destructive military campaign in Gaza.
That campaign, which many human rights organizations have described as a "genocide," has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including over 20,000 children, according to official tallies from the Gaza Ministry of Health, while independent analysts have argued the true death toll since October 2023 is much higher.
Elbit is one of the companies that provides much of Israel's drone fleet, which has been involved in attacks that have killed Palestinian civilians.
"Ellie was sentenced as a terrorist after she was convicted of criminal damage for destroying 40 Israeli weapons, including quadcopter drones," said Huda Ammori, one of the co-founders of Palestine Action, in a post on X. "For saving lives, she was deemed a terrorist, and her family is also being targeted."
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Anthropic Building a 'Pre-Crime' System to Surveil Anti-AI Dissenters, Investigation Shows
One legal expert said that as AI companies “become more hated, there’s more pressure on them to over-disclose knowing that some of the people they identify for law enforcement shouldn’t be targeted.”
Sep 09, 2026
The American Prospect on Wednesday published an investigation revealing that top artificial intelligence firm Anthropic is building a predictive surveillance system aimed at tracking activists who are opposed to advanced AI development.
The Prospect found that Anthropic last month issued a job posting seeking an intelligence specialist to "identify, assess, track, and investigate global threats including geopolitical instability, terrorism, crime, activism, nation-state targeting of the AI sector."
This job will also employ a "pre-crime" approach that will involve "attempting to predict incidents before a crime occurs," according to the Prospect. The concept of "pre-crime" was explored in Minority Report, a dystopian science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick.
A report last week in The San Francisco Standard revealed there is already at least one example of Anthropic taking this kind of predictive approach to policing.
Specifically, Anthropic called police last year and informed them that one of its users told the company's Claude AI chatbot that he had purchased a rifle and had CEO Dario Amodei "in his sights."
The AI lab told police that this person "was going to kill everyone at Anthropic," but it didn't provide law enforcement officials with transcripts of the chats, which would have let them make their own determination about the seriousness of the threat.
The person in question was not arrested or charged with a crime, and they told the Standard that they were "just fucking around" when they talked about buying a gun.
Eric Goldman, a law professor at Santa Clara University, told the Standard that he had some sympathy for Anthropic because if they don't report potential crimes to police then "they face significant liability if, in fact, a crime does occur."
"As they become more hated," Goldman said of the AI companies, "there’s more pressure on them to over-disclose knowing that some of the people they identify for law enforcement shouldn’t be targeted at all."
Anthropic isn't merely using technology to monitor potential crimes, but also to keep tabs on US citizens lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights.
The Prospect tracked down a podcast interview with Keon Ellison, global security operations center manager at Anthropic, where he revealed how employees at the company use technology provided by risk detection firm Samdesk to monitor activists.
"Last year we had an executive travel into a major city when we received some intelligence through Samdesk about a planned protest,” Ellison said. "Samdesk gave us about 60 minutes of advanced notice that the protest organizers had moved the timeline... That extra hour was critical. Without it our executives would have departed their meetings, they would have ran right into the heart of the disruption."
This story about taking great lengths to evade protesters drew a sarcastic reaction from tech journalist and author Brian Merchant.
"You know what you're doing is good," Merchant wrote in a social media post, "when you have to develop an in-house, real-time surveillance system to help your executives locate the ideal service exit to avoid contact with the public."
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'Outrageous and Backwards': Trump Officials Plot Raid on Childcare Funds Amid Affordability Crisis
"Raiding an underfunded program solely to score culture war points is not pro-family—it’s a wasteful grift that I will fight every step of the way," said Sen. Patty Murray.
Sep 09, 2026
The top Democratic appropriator in the US Senate responded with alarm and outrage on Tuesday to news that the Trump administration is preparing a rule change that would siphon federal dollars away from a chronically underfunded program that helps working-class parents afford childcare.
The diverted funds would be used to finance a new federal subsidy for "married couples with one stay-at-home parent in certain income brackets," The New York Times reported late last week. The proposed change, a top priority of Vice President JD Vance, is "outrageous and backwards," Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday. Murray argued it would be illegal and immoral for the administration to shift taxpayer money away from the Child Care and Development Fund, which serves around 1 million families nationwide in a typical month.
"It’s not the 1950s in America—our government shouldn’t punish people for being single parents or choosing not to marry," said Murray. "Nobody cares what JD Vance thinks constitutes a ‘real’ family—single parents and parents who aren’t married pay taxes, too. Raiding an underfunded program solely to score culture war points is not pro-family—it’s a wasteful grift that I will fight every step of the way.”
The Times reported that "the policy change would effectively create a government incentive for parents to stay home with their children, an idea embraced as part of a broader conservative effort to advance policies that promote more mothers staying at home." Unmarried couples with one stay-at-home parent would not qualify for the newly proposed subsidy.
"The move could end up redirecting money away from working parents and their childcare providers, causing some to raise their rates or even close, critics said, potentially worsening what many experts say is a childcare crisis in the country," the newspaper added. "About 80% of the 870,000 families who currently get the childcare subsidies have single working parents, most of them mothers, according to Health Department data."
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), House Democrats' top appropriator, said in a statement that "supporting stay-at-home parents should never come at the expense of working families."
“At a time when families are already struggling to find and afford childcare, this proposal would force more parents to compete for the same inadequate pot of money, threaten childcare providers, and disproportionately hurt single working parents, most of whom are mothers," said DeLauro, "If Republicans want to support families, they should join Democrats in passing the expanded Child Tax Credit and increasing access to affordable childcare—not rob Peter to pay Paul while imposing their preferred definition of what a family should look like."
Childcare costs—which run many families tens of thousands of dollars per year—are a major concern of US voters. One recent survey found that more than 80% see childcare costs as part of the nation's broader affordability crisis, and 76% view them as "a crisis or major problem" for families with young children.
But the Trump administration has so far done nothing to lower childcare costs—and has taken steps that could raise them and deny low-income families badly needed relief.
Earlier this year, roughly a month after launching his costly and destructive war on Iran, President Donald Trump suggested that the federal government should not provide any funding for childcare.
"We’re fighting wars," the president said. "We can’t take care of daycare. You gotta let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it too."
Amy Matsui, vice president for childcare and income security at the National Women’s Law Center, said it is "outrageous that the administration would propose siphoning money away from families who are struggling to afford childcare to send cash to married couples with a stay-at-home parent, when hundreds of thousands of families are on childcare waiting lists around the country."
"If this administration really wanted to support families," Matsui added, "it would invest more—not less—dollars in childcare, create a national paid family and medical leave program, expand access to a fully refundable Child Tax Credit, and restore health care and nutrition assistance."
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'A Serious and Alarming Threat': US Bombing, Blockade Deepen Iran Medical Crisis
"The most serious risk is premature death," said one physician.
Sep 09, 2026
A senior Iranian health official on Tuesday accused the United States of deliberately targeting Iran's medical infrastructure amid a worsening shortage of critical medicines as President Donald Trump's illegal US-Israeli war of choice against Iran drags on.
Iran's pharmaceutical system is straining under US bombing, blockade, and sanctions that have severely disrupted trade and transportation in the Middle East nation of around 90 million people. Iranian officials say shortages of roughly 800 medicines—including dozens of essential drugs—are affecting the treatment of cancer and other serious illnesses.
“The enemy has identified medicine as one of the sensitive areas of the country, and is trying to denigrate and portray Iran’s conditions as unfavorable by releasing content in the press and social media," Deputy Health Minister Mahdi Pirsalehi, who also heads Iran's Food and Drug Administration, told Al Jazeera.
Pirsalehi has said that more than 50 factories and pharmacies have been damaged or destroyed by US and Israeli bombing during the six-month war. The attacks have exacerbated existing shortages.
One gastroenterologist and university professor in Tehran, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, sounded the alarm on what she called a "staggering" rise in drug prices—including for domestically produced generic medications—caused in significant part by the US naval blockade.
“Reports that rotavirus vaccine imports have been halted because of the maritime blockade—and that influenza vaccines may soon face the same problem—represent a serious and alarming threat to nationwide efforts to prevent vaccine-preventable communicable diseases,” she said.
“Runaway inflation, poverty, and inadequate access to essential food groups among vulnerable populations, including infants, children, and pregnant women, signal the onset and spread of malnutrition,” she added, warning of the risk “of both communicable and noncommunicable diseases, creating a vicious cycle in which malnutrition develops and progressively worsens."
For ordinary Iranians, empty pharmacy shelves, delayed treatments, and prohibitively expensive prescription drugs have become the new normal.
One Iranian pharmaceutical company recently announced price increases for scores of drugs, including a 543% rise in the price of the Alzheimer's medication donepezil, a 308% higher cost for the antibiotic clarithromycin, and a 135% spike in acetaminophen and diphenhydramine syrups, according to reporting by Tasnim News Agency.
Dr. Hassan Nayeb Hashem told Deutsche Welle last month that "for many specific diseases, there is effectively no substitute" for prescribed drugs.
"If the medicine becomes inaccessible, patients can develop complications much sooner," he said. "The most serious risk is premature death."
One patient requiring testing for an abdominal and pelvic mass recently told Iran International that CT and MRI scans now cost over $100, even with Social Security insurance—the equivalent of a month's pay for many Iranians.
“How are we supposed to pay these costs with such meager incomes?” they asked.
A 33-year-old man said the exorbitant cost of dental treatment has left him without half of his teeth.
“I feel like I’m 60,” he said. “The bitter part is that this humiliating way of life has become normal for me.”
Another Iranian said they feared what would happen if anyone in their family got sick this winter.
“We’re stressed about where we would get the money for treatment," they said, "if God forbid we or our children even catch a cold."
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With Türkiye to Host COP31, Wildfires Spark Demand for Fossil Fuel Phaseout
"The climate crisis is here, and the frequency and severity of extreme weather events are increasing day by day," said 350.org's Türkiye manager.
Sep 09, 2026
Scientists have long warned that the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis means more frequent and destructive wildfires, and blazes raging in Türkiye this week have sparked a fresh call to rapidly phase out planet-heating coal, gas, and oil.
As firefighters battled blazes in three southern Turkish provinces, Efe Baysal, Türkiye manager at the global advocacy group 350.org, pointed out that the country is set to host the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP31.
"In November, the world will gather in Antalya for COP31 to discuss the steps that must be taken against the climate crisis," Baysal said in a Wednesday statement. "Today, however, that same city is battling an uncontrollable wildfire that began in Aksu district of Antalya and spread throughout the region. Reports of fires are also coming in from Adana and Mersin."
"Our prayers are with those fighting the blazes on the ground to defend life," he continued. "The wildfires occurring primarily in Antalya demonstrate this truth once again: Rising temperatures create the conditions for fires to start more easily, spread faster, and become more destructive. The climate crisis is here, and the frequency and severity of extreme weather events are increasing day by day."
Baysal said that "assuming the COP31 presidency, Türkiye's responsibility is even more crucial. At COP31, Türkiye should aim to produce concrete outcomes to advance the transition away from fossil fuels. To make this leadership credible, Türkiye should announce a timeline for a phaseout of coal without delay."
"It should initiate a just transition to renewable energy that will reduce our dependence on coal, oil, and gas," he added. "It is not enough merely to respond to the consequences of the climate crisis. We must eliminate the causes that exacerbate it. COP31 is an opportunity for Türkiye to demonstrate true leadership in this direction."
Previous UN summits on the planetary crisis have ended in deep disappointment, with critics calling the "empty deal" that came out of COP30 in Brazil last year "a stark reminder that the answers to the climate crisis do not lie inside the climate talks," and, a year earlier, blasting COP29 in Azerbaijan as "a dumpster fire" and "a big F U to climate justice, to the poorest communities who are on the frontlines of climate breakdown."
Since those summits, there has been a constant stream of events that have fueled fears of a hotter world—and United Nations scientists are now warning that preventing at least a temporary temperature rise above 1.5°C, relative to preindustrial levels, is not possible, but humanity can still limit the damage by dramatically lowering emissions.
"This summer's scorching heat, raging wildfires, and deadly floods are a warning of what lies ahead," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said last week. "We must make the overshoot above 1.5 degrees as small and short as possible."
The fires in Türkiye have already proven deadly. The Aksu district mayor, Isa Yildirim, said on social media that one person died after suffering a heart attack during the fire there.
That blaze has also caused injuries. Citing the Turkish Anadolu Agency, The Associated Press reported that "two people were hospitalized with injuries to their legs while six others affected by smoke were treated on site."
As Deutsche Presse-Agentur detailed Wednesday:
Forest fires are common in Turkey in the summer months, fueled by long periods of drought and strong winds.
Cihan Erdönmez, an expert at Istanbul University, said triggers for the fires were often poorly maintained power lines running through forests.
Forestry Minister İbrahim Yumaklı said there had been more than 5,000 forest fires in Turkey in 2025 and 96% of them were directly or indirectly caused by humans.
Meanwhile, 350.org called the current blazes "a reminder that a hotter, drier climate will continue to exact its toll on ordinary people unless leaders act urgently to phase out fossil fuels."
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