Author: TheGuardian

Governor Tony Evers is launching a taskforce to brainstorm ways to cut climate pollution, despite inevitable pushback from the state’s Republican-controlled legislature. The Democratic governor has vowed Wisconsin will meet the goals of the international Paris climate agreement, even as Donald Trump aims to leave the pact and has discounted climate science, rescinded pollution efforts and promoted fossil fuels. The executive order Governor Evers signed on October 17 establishing the task force calls the climate crisis “a grave threat to the health, safety and economic wellbeing of people and communities throughout the state of Wisconsin.” Governor Evers is one...

U.S. military suicides surged this year to a record high among active duty troops, continuing a deadly trend that Pentagon officials say is frustrating and they are struggling to counter. The army, navy and marine corps all saw the rate of suicides go up as well as the overall numbers, with only the air force showing a decrease, according to data newly released by the Pentagon. Suicides among members of the reserves and the national guard also grew. The difficulties involved in identifying service members with possible problems and finding ways to prevent suicides were underscored earlier this month...

Photo by Gage Skidmore and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 The west is being destroyed, not by migrants, but by the fear of migrants. In country after country, the ghosts of the fascists have rematerialized and are sitting in nations around the world. They have successfully convinced their populations that the greatest threat to their nations isn not government tyranny or inequality or climate change, but immigration. And that, to stop this wave of migrants, everyone’s civil liberties must be curtailed. Surveillance cameras must be installed everywhere. Passports must be produced for the most routine of tasks, like buying...

The US military is conducting wide-area surveillance tests across six midwest states using experimental high-altitude balloons, documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reveal. Up to 25 unmanned solar-powered balloons are being launched from rural South Dakota and drifting 250 miles through an area spanning portions of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri, before concluding in central Illinois. Travelling in the stratosphere at altitudes of up to 65,000ft, the balloons are intended to “provide a persistent surveillance system to locate and deter narcotic trafficking and homeland security threats”, according to a filing made on behalf of the Sierra Nevada...

Donald Trump continues to play his cynical game of dodging responsibility, shifting blame, and exploiting tragedy. In a press conference called to address the horrors of two mass shootings in the United States over the August 3 weekend, the president said nothing about his pivotal role in stoking fear and racism among certain segments of the population, said nothing about the fact that five of the 10 deadliest shootings in American history have happened since 2016, the fact that he has become a figurehead in the dark underground of the global white nationalist movement. Instead, Trump blamed the internet,...

Domestic terrorism now results in more deaths than the foreign kind but the president shows no sign of toning down his rhetoric. Two menaces have stalked America throughout its history. One is gun violence. The other is white supremacy. In El Paso, Texas, on August 3, they collided. A 21-year-old gunman with a hatred of Hispanic immigrants killed 20 people in a shopping mall in the eighth deadliest mass shooting in American history. The suspect is believed to have posted online an anti-immigrant screed that praised the killing of 51 people in Christchurch mosques in New Zealand in March....