“This week, thousands of excited children in Gaza took part in a ritual seen as normal in much of the world: going back to school. Instead of being in classrooms with whiteboards and desks, however, most sat on the floor in makeshift structures or tents. School supplies were scarce and costly. Teachers were few. Nearly three years of a war between Hamas and Israel have devastated most school buildings and staff. Nevertheless, to many in Gaza, the fact that the schools even opened was testament to every child’s desire to be inspired, curious, and skilled for a life of progress. An estimated 540,000 children – the most since the war began – returned to in-person schooling. Working together, Gaza’s residents and international aid agencies upheld the ideal of maintaining a decent life for children, in part because they are the most innocent in any war.” (09/23/26)
“Six years ago, the rise of the ‘Bernie bros’ supporting avowed socialist candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) raised the question of whether decades of soft indoctrination about the ‘horrors’ of capitalism by the Democrat-media complex and the oft-promised but never delivered benefits of socialism had finally produced enough voters willing to elect their way out of free enterprise. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. However, in 2026 the evidence supporting that question is harder to wave away. A self-described democratic socialist now runs City Hall in the nation’s largest city, and a slate of Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed candidates is on ballots nationwide for Congress, statehouses, and mayor’s offices. The question is no longer academic.” (09/24/26)
“African elephants use dozens of different medicinal plants to treat themselves and their families when they are sick. This is the conclusion of a study which interviewed people who live and work alongside the elephants in the Mount Elgon region of Kenya. These particular animals have long intrigued scientists with their extraordinary behaviour – they are known as salt-mining elephants, because they go into caves and scrape the rock with their tusks to extract minerals for their diet. This newly published research suggests that the same elephants use several different plant species in the forest for medicinal purposes.” (09/24/26)
“Italy’s government passed a decree Thursday to place an upper limit on the number of students in each school classroom who have only limited Italian language skills and to ban face-covering Islamic veils in schools. Premier Giorgia Meloni’s conservative government said the package is aimed at strengthening integration through language learning and has drawn support from right-wing allies. Opponents including some educators, unions and opposition parties warn that new rules could force students to attend schools far from their neighborhoods, while critics accuse the government of turning immigration into a political issue. With elections possible as early as next spring, analysts say the measures allow the premier to reassert her credentials on issues central to her conservative base, even though their impact is likely to be limited and significant questions remain about how they would be enforced.” (09/24/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Doordash has reached a historic $131.5 million settlement to repay workers in New York City for wages the food delivery app stole from them over the last four years, which sounds like a big win for the little guy if you don’t think about it too hard. … A hundred and fifteen million dollars. What do you think would happen to you if you stole $115 million from your employer? Can you imagine that not being treated as a crime? Can you imagine going ‘Haha, ya got me! I’ll return the cash. Can’t blame a guy for trying!’ and then paying a small fine and just going back to your life like it was no big deal? Of course you can’t. You know you’d be arrested, handcuffed, prosecuted for grand larceny, and then spend many years behind bars.” (09/24/26)
“The cost of healthcare just keeps going up — and millions of Americans are set to lose coverage. Under the GOP’s so-called ’Big Beautiful Bill’, around 17 million people in this country will lose health care thanks to the law’s Medicaid cuts, failure to renew Affordable Care Act subsidies and other changes. Those cuts accelerate after this year’s midterms. Instead, that money is going toward tax cuts for the rich plus record budgets for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Pentagon. Immigrants — including well over 1 million residents who are lawfully present — will be especially hard hit. ” (09/23/26)
“Many of us are gearing up with columns previewing the Court’s October term and have highlighted the upcoming arguments over bans on AR-15s and semiautomatic weapons out of the Seventh Circuit in Chicago (Viramontes v. Cook County) and the Second Circuit in New York (Grant v. Higgins). In a recent column, Professor Rory Little suggests that these cases will strike at what he considers a glaring flaw in the Heller decision that recognized the individual right under the Second Amendment. Professor Little repeats a common claim about Heller that some of us have challenged. I wanted to briefly address that controversy again.The column appeared in Scotusblog, a respected site that offers tracking and commentary on pending Supreme Court cases.” (09/23/26)
“The UK is reviewing its deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, the defence secretary has said. Wes Streeting confirmed the deal was being looked at again after US President Donald Trump called it ‘terrible’ at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday. The original agreement would see the UK cede sovereignty of the territory to Mauritius and pay an average of £101m ($136m) per year to lease back a joint UK-US military base there, prized for its strategic location in the Indian Ocean. In April the deal, agreed under Sir Keir Starmer, was paused indefinitely because Trump pulled his support. Streeting said ‘we have to’ review the deal ‘because the United States doesn’t support it’.” (09/23/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I strongly disagree with the idea that it’s unhelpful to bully celebrities about their position on Palestine. On the contrary, I think we should bully them more. We tend to underestimate the consequences of the fact that all the most amplified voices in our society are millionaires. Under capitalism the people with the largest platforms and the biggest audiences are all wealthy enough to have a vested interest in preserving the status quo, so they’re reluctant to rock the boat politically in any major way. When all the most influential voices in our society are creating the illusion that the system is more or less fine the way it is by what they say and what they don’t say, it cannot help but significantly influence public political opinion. In this way celebrities function as a kind of goalkeeper preventing dissident thought from reaching the minds of the masses.” (09/23/26)
“One of this year’s world-shaping elections has been largely hidden from the world. Since July, the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council have held three secret straw polls to select the U.N.’s next secretary-general by January. No clear front-runner has emerged. But here is the headline so far: Two of the top three candidates are women. In the U.N.’s 81 years, only men have been chosen as its top executive. Typically, a secretary-general ends up serving two five-year terms. What’s more, the two women leading the informal balloting are from Latin America. The last U.N. secretary-general from that region left 35 years ago. The Security Council’s choice this time will certainly reflect the usual backroom horse-trading among the body’s three major veto-wielding nations: Russia, China, and the United States. … The 193-member Assembly has the final say on the choice.” (09/22/26)
