“David Keith Cobb, a longtime organizer within the Green Party of the United States who helped the party secure federal recognition as a national committee before going on to become its 2004 presidential nominee, died Monday at the age of 63. The national Green Party announced Cobb’s passing this week, confirming that he died on Labor Day. … The Green Party nominated Cobb for president at its 2004 national convention, with Maine activist Pat LaMarche selected as his running mate.” [editor’s note: I was a few feet away when Cobb and 2004 Libertarian presidential nominee Michael Badnarik got arrested together while attempting to serve a lawsuit to Presidential Debate Commission in St. Louis; he was an opponent, but not an enemy – TLK] (09/11/26)
“Sweden’s general election remains too close to call, early results suggest.
With 50% of the votes counted, the two main blocs were separated by only 20,000 votes, Sweden public broadvasteer SVT said. Exit polls had given the left-wing political bloc led by Social Democrats leader Magdalena Andersson a small lead over the rival four-party coalition put together by current conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Kristersson has been supported in government by the hard-right Sweden Democrats (SD), which have neo-Nazi roots. He has promised cabinet jobs for the SD if he stays in charge, but partial results suggest the party was losing support for the first time since 2010 when it entered parliament. Sweden has two major political blocs featuring four parties on the right and four on the left – meaning coalition and minority governments are relatively common.” (09/13/26)
“A Guatemalan court has cleared a deputy minister and three other Indigenous leaders of terrorism charges, brought over their role in leading protests against a prosecutor accused of trying to block President Bernardo Arevalo from taking office. The Third Criminal Court judge, Mynor Moto, dismissed the case on Friday at the request of prosecutors, who concluded after their own investigation that the four had not broken any laws by organising the protests in October 2023.” (09/12/26)
“House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., rejected an emergency moratorium on artificial intelligence development Sunday during CNN’s ‘State of the Union,’ warning that slowing American innovation could allow China to pull ahead as tech executives and lawmakers intensify calls for new AI safety measures. ‘We have to resist Congress jumping in and imposing some sort of emergency moratorium,’ Johnson said. ‘Here’s what I’m proposing: I think the leaders and providers of these platforms need to come together in a meeting with us and figure out what the right balance is. We cannot put a moratorium on this because China will overlap us.’ … Humans First, a grassroots conservative [sic] movement against new data centers, is pushing a policy framework that opposes blanket data-center moratoriums while calling for local control and rejecting eminent domain for projects.” (09/13/26)
“A federal appeals court on Friday ruled against a Trump administration order that forced a coal plant in Michigan to stay open beyond its scheduled closure. The J.H. Campbell coal plant in West Olive was slated to close in May 2025, but has remained open under an emergency order by Secretary Chris Wright’s Energy Department. … The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled the government’s actions went beyond its authority. … The lawsuit was filed by the states of Michigan and Illinois and a number of environmental groups.” (09/11/26)
“A federal judge sided with the Sierra Club and other groups Sept. 1 to halt a controversial data center project outside Boulder City, Nevada, southeast of Las Vegas. Backed by the Trump administration, the project had come from Townsite Solar 2 LLC, a Houston-based company that had previously received approval for a solar farm in the same location. The legal setback marks a high-profile failure for what would have been the first data center on federal land. Though both the Trump administration and the tech industry seek to build more data centers to support generative artificial intelligence technology like ChatGPT, public sentiment has largely turned against them, particularly in areas plagued by drought, and where people worry about rising energy bills and access to public land.” (09/11/26)
“British MPs threw out a bill legalizing assisted dying for terminally ill adults in England and Wales Friday. In a narrow vote, MPs rejected the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill’s second reading by 286 to 270. The decision was a marked contrast to a near identical bill by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, which received two votes of support from MPs in 2024 and 2025. The legislation failed to become law after running out of time in the unelected House of Lords earlier this year.” (09/11/26)
“Yemen’s Houthis have seized Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandab Strait, tightening their grip on the strategic waterway, a local government official and eyewitnesses told AFP on Friday, September 11. Boats carrying armed Houthi fighters reached Perim, also known as Mayyun, after [Saudi puppet regime] forces withdrew from the island on Thursday, the official said. Reuters separately reported that Houthi forces had reached Dhubab, a coastal town on the strait directly opposite Perim, strengthening their position around the waterway. The advance follows the Houthis’ capture of the Red Sea port city of Mocha on Thursday, September 10, as their forces pushed south along Yemen’s western coast towards Bab el-Mandab. Perim sits inside the strait and divides the waterway into two shipping channels.” (09/11/26)
“The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked an order that told Missouri to keep implementing Republicans’ favored 7-1 congressional map, which sparked confusion about what boundaries would be used in the November election. By lifting that federal judge’s directive, it leaves in place a state court directive that tells elections officials to return to the existing map with a 6-2 split. The GOP had pushed for a pickup opportunity as part of the mid-decade redistricting war. Missouri state leaders have said reverting would cause chaos, as they already conducted their primaries using the new map. The Supreme Court did not publicly explain its decision, and no justice publicly noted a dissent.” (09/10/26)
“At least two people were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Tula region, while eight people were injured in Russian air strikes which caused a fire in a nine-storey apartment building in Kyiv on Friday morning, the authorities said. … Russia returned to its near-constant air attacks on Kyiv this week after a brief halt during the visit to Moscow and Kyiv of U.S. President Donald Trump’s negotiators seeking to end the war which the Kremlin started by invading Ukraine in 2022.” (09/11/26)
