Daily News 10/21
Daily News 10/21
Daily News Archives Since June 2026
Environmental Awareness When governments continue to support fossil fuel industries through subsidies, tax breaks, and favorable policies, the environmental costs don’t simply disappear they are passed on to everyone. Rising temperatures, melting glaciers, extreme weather, wildfires, floods, droughts, and biodiversity loss affect ordinary people and future generations. Climate action means putting people and the planet before short-term profits.
Ahead of Biodiversity Summit, UN Chief Warns Countries Are ‘Subsidizing Suicide’ by Backing Fossil Fuels“I urge governments everywhere to end these handouts once and for all, and to use the savings for people and planet instead,” said António Guterres. “The food we eat, the water we drink, the very air we breathe—all are the gifts of biodiversity. Yet every day, humankind saws another branch off the tree of life,” outgoing United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declared Friday, before a key global summit in Armenia. “Climate chaos. Invasive species. Overgrazing and overfishing. Excessive fertilizers, pesticides, plastics, and heavy metals. All these and more are driving the triple planetary crisis of pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate chaos,” he warned. “Over 1 million species now face the risk of extinction, edging us ever closer towards an uninhabitable world.”
As Biodiversity Summit Begins, ‘Systems That Sustain Life on Earth Are Under Threat’ Governments can’t keep “promising to protect nature while supporting its destruction through harmful subsidies and incoherent policies,” said one campaigner. “Any more delay is a threat to our survival on the planet.”
COP17: A Global Reckoning for Nature Conservation Managing the biodiversity crisis within political borders is impossible; we must prioritize a global approach that manages Earth’s interconnected systems.
5 Hidden Ways the Government Rigs the Market in Favor of Fossil Fuels While renewables have received scrutiny from the Trump administration and congressional Republicans over subsidies, the administration’s narrative hides how fossil fuel industries reap the benefits of a distorted market that has made Americans pay more for polluting fossil energy for decades. Introduction and Summary For more than a century, American taxpayers have paid oil, coal, and gas industries to extract and pollute.1 From special tax breaks to ignoring the impacts of pollution, companies have been extremely successful in pushing the costs of an expensive industry onto the public.2 Yet the Trump administration has almost exclusively attacked renewables subsidies while doubling down on fossil fuels. In April 2025, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said, “Subsidies are meant to drive prices down and boost supply. But subsidizing wind and solar has done exactly the opposite. … It’s time to stop subsidizing such insanity in perpetuity. If sources are truly economically viable, let’s allow them to stand on their own, and stop forcing Americans to pick up the tab if they’re not.”3. In reality, coal, oil, and gas industries have reaped the benefits of being subsidized for much longer.4 The federal government has long provided the fossil fuel industry with direct financial subsidies, cheap and plentiful access to land for drilling, and more predictable permitting—and has let companies get away with pollution harms. Analysis by the Center for American Progress finds that fossil fuel companies receive government subsidies at every step in the production process that hide the true cost of fossil fuel operations. Oil, gas, and coal have received $549 billion in direct tax subsidies since these industries were created more than 150 years ago.5 That is nearly three times the amount that the renewable energy industry has received in subsidies over the same period. Additionally, the fossil fuel industry pays almost 40 percent less for federal lease rent than the solar industry’s median per-acre rent and twenty times the amount in production fees. These taxpayer-funded benefits create the very market distortion that Wright claims to oppose, boosting corporate profits without providing meaningful benefits to consumers.6. The narrative being pushed by Wright and others—that renewables are not economically viable without subsidies—is false, but its harms are real. The Trump administration and congressional Republicans have used this reasoning to unveil increasingly draconian policies on renewable energy, including stripping away tax credits and blocking federal permitting for solar and wind.7 Contrary to critics’ claims, these sources of clean energy are providing major benefits to consumers’ wallets and their health. Moreover, since 2009 the costs of wind and solar have fallen by 55 percent and 84 percent, respectively, making renewables the cheapest source of energy even without subsidies.8 President Trump’s pro-oil and -gas and anti-renewable policies make good on his promises to fossil fuel executives, who donated millions to Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign after hearing assurances that he would repeal environmental regulations and expand access for drilling on public lands.9 The fossil fuel industry spent more than $150 million to lobby the federal government in 2024, including for expansion of tax deductions for oil and gas exploration and other priorities that often come at the expense of renewable energy.10 But the Trump administration’s actions to block support for renewables, while continuing to boost funding for fossil fuels, will have major consequences for energy affordability, reliability, and pollution. While subsidies are often advertised to help reduce energy costs, research suggests that these industry-specific corporate handouts primarily go toward increasing company profits, with little impact on jobs or energy prices.11 By tilting the playing field, the Trump administration is actively choosing fossil fuel “winners,” increasing costs for American taxpayers and exposing them to the risks of a less resilient, polluting energy system.12
Build the 20 November youth strike! Down with militarism! Down with capitalism!A collection of student organisations across Europe have put out a call for a youth strike against war and militarism to take place on 20 November, under the slogan of “Fight for our future, not their wars!” At a time when the European ruling classes are beating the war drums, implementing compulsory conscription laws and rearming to the tune of trillions, coordinated action against these reactionary policies is urgently needed. Under pressure, some trade unions have called strikes on the same day. The general secretary of the CGIL in Italy, Landini, announced a general strike on 20 November, explicitly connected to the youth strike. The lecturers’ union in Britain, the UCU, has likewise called upon its members to join the youth on strike that day. The union leaders have come under massive pressure from the mood of anger sweeping Europe this autumn.
France: October 17th placed revolution on the agendaThe mobilization of October 17 marks a major step in the development of a movement which, clearly, is far from having exhausted its reserves of energy, determination and fighting spirit. High school students, university students, young workers, and the unemployed: “Generation Z” dominated the marches and enlivened them with a contagious radicalism. Older workers were also mobilized in large numbers. All sectors of the economy, all the vital forces of the country, were represented. he figures reported in the press—between 500,000 and 800,000 people nationwide—underestimate the scale of the mobilization. In Paris, in particular, the streets adjacent to the official march route were packed. Entire neighborhoods vibrated with slogans and chants.w the method used—aside from guesswork—to accurately count such a turbulent mass! Many protesters – some wearing yellow vests – brandished signs vying with each other in humor and imagination. The demands, puns, and witticisms converged in a radical rejection of the government, the ultra-rich, their state, their police, and their system. Many signs referenced the great revolutionary traditions of the French people, particularly May ’68 and the French Revolution of 1789-94.ind. Young people from the poorest neighborhoods wanted to confront a police force from which they suffer racism, harassment, and brutality every day – and for far too long. (Goggle French to English Translation)
Ukraine Background: Volodymyr Zelensky offers us a nation of admirable patriotic pride and fervor. But does Ukraine’s president represent the sentiments of Ukrainians so faithfully as our corporate-owned media lead us to assume? There are too many reports of Zelensky’s political vulnerability to dismiss as he takes the nation in what amounts to a frenzy of self- destruction, this is to say, of the nation he purports to be saving. The New York Times and the other major American dailies, which print when the Times prints and are silent when the Times is silent, do not tire of telling us Zelensky came to office in a landslide electoral victory four years ago. I wish they were honest enough to note that one policy, more than any other, won Zelensky 71 percent of the vote. This was a commitment to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Ukraine’s Russian neighbor and mend the fracture running down the center of the country between its western and eastern provinces. What kind of national leader is this man who betrayed his electorate and now advertises himself as standing for them? Volodymyr Zelensky used to make his living as an actor, a performer, and it seems to me he continues to do so. What drama is he performin? … Those running Ukraine and the oligarchs who control those running Ukraine are highly dependent on neo–Nazis bearing arms and other ultranationalists. These groups are present in Kyiv’s ministries and in the regime’s intelligence services and, ends justifying any and all means, count assassinations among their methods. A new makeup job will not change this. Fraud is a way of life among the ruling cliques and atop the military. The world’s largest black market in illicit weaponry, a human-trafficking cesspool, 122nd of 180 nations in Transparency International’s corruption rankings: Not even Vogue, with photographs by Annie Liebovitz, can make this look good other than among those with a crying need to believe the orthodoxy because they have a crying need to submit to authority. — Patrick Lawrence: The Pathology of Ukrainian Nationalism
Trump’s obsession with Ilhan Omar has reached a dangerous new level
Election Officials Fear Trump Has Compromised Cybersecurity Agency Critics say the administration has undermined an agency key to protecting election infrastructure ahead of the midterms.
The Gutting of Election Security Donald Trump has said voting is vulnerable, even as his administration has undermined the agency that is supposed to protect it.
Hezbollah missile makes ‘direct impact’ in Tel AvivThe Lebanese resistance has intensified its long-range drone and missile attacks against sensitive targets deep inside Israel Missiles launched by Hezbollah achieved at least one “direct hit” in the greater Tel Aviv area late on 18 November after air defenses failed to intercept the barrage launched from Lebanon. Impacts were reported by the Israeli municipalities of Bnei Brak and Ramat Gan, located just east of Tel Aviv. According to the military, only fragments of the missiles hit the populated areas, injuring at least five. However, the district police commander for Ramat Gan told Israeli media that the damage in the city “is not fragments of an interceptor but a heavy missile hit.” The impacts in Israel’s economic hub came following a large missile barrage launched from Lebanon. According to reports in Israeli media, the projectile that bypassed air defense systems was the Fateh 110 surface-to-surface ballistic missile.
AI Bubble Monitor #19, October 19, 2026 Is CoreWeave’s Very Bad Week the Beginning of the End of the AI Bubble?