alyaza

Voters in Seattle appear to be setting the stage for what could end up being one of the liveliest, closest, and most exciting contests for mayor in the city’s history, judging by our latest seasonal survey of the Emerald City electorate.

651 likely August Top Two voters interviewed by Change Research for the Northwest Progressive Institute last week collectively identified incumbent Mayor Bruce Harrell and grassroots challenger Katie Wilson as their top choices for the city’s top job out of an eight-candidate field, with Harrell and Wilson drawing similar levels of support in every single question that we asked. The other six candidates running received no meaningful support in the survey, which suggests voters are coalescing behind the frontrunners in the voting that’s now taking place across the Emerald City.

Harrell starts out with a symbolic two-point lead in this month’s horserace polling, but Wilson takes over that symbolic lead after voters see a list of the candidates’ occupations from the voter’s pamphlet distributed by King County Elections and get invited to read the complete statements for all eight candidates on King County’s official website.

Wilson increases her symbolic lead to three points after we ask who respondents would support if the general election were being held today and the candidates were the two of them, mirroring what we saw in our last survey in May, which was a poll of general election voters. We now have two consecutive surveys of different universes of Seattle voters suggesting that this year’s mayoral race could go down to the wire.

As for the long term, candidates should enthusiastically address the need to restore sanity and good government to the country after Trump is gone.

I’d like to see people campaign on something along the lines of a 10-point plan. And my first draft is something like this:

1. Restore the rule of law. This includes rebuilding a devastated and defiled Justice Department, prosecuting the rampant law-breaking of the Trump era, and expanding the Supreme Court.
2. Stop mass deportations. That includes defunding ICE, closing concentration camps, restoring temporary protected status, respecting asylum claims, ending to the harassment of people on visas, and welcoming more international students.
3. Revive the civil service. That means hiring back tens of thousands of workers who were driven out, undoing organizational changes, reestablishing the tradition of a nonpartisan bureaucracy.
4. Restart international aid.
5. Invert Trump’s tax changes, to increase taxes on the rich and lower them on the middle class.
6. Restart the Green New Deal and restore environmental protections.
7. Condition Israeli aid on humane treatment of Palestinians.
8. Restore the role of science in government decision-making.
9. Reassert support for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
10. Support human rights for all, including trans rights.

Is it too early to start talking about how to roll back Trumpism? What do you think of my list? And what did I leave out? Please discuss in comments.

With this year’s summer touring season in full swing, the Dave Matthews Band’s efforts are just one example of the increased focus on sustainability in live music over the past several years. Decades after trailblazers like Bonnie Raitt began to prioritize climate, more and more artists are embracing sustainability and pushing for change — both inside and outside the industry — with the help of organizations like Reverb.

Founded in 2004 by environmentalist Lauren Sullivan and her husband Adam Gardner, a guitarist and vocalist of the alt-rock group Guster, Reverb has become a leading force in greening live music. The nonprofit sends staffers like Hutnik out on the road with acts from Matthews to Billie Eilish, setting up eco-villages and organizing volunteers. Reverb staffers serve as the bands’ de facto sustainability coordinators, allowing initiatives like RockNRefill to be scaled up, rather than every artist having to build something similar from scratch.

Reverb also coordinates with concert promoters and venues, which have their own sustainability teams and programs. As part of the recent renovation of Jones Beach, for example, Live Nation added a sorting facility out back where employees handpick recyclables and compostables out of the garbage. The company’s Road To Zero campaign, a partnership with Matthews, diverted 90 percent of landfill-bound waste at the majority of the band’s shows last summer.

Live music has grown immensely since the pandemic — the top 100 tours grossed roughly $10 billion last year, nearly double what they reached in 2019. (For various reasons unrelated to climate, the 2025 number will likely be lower.)

If abandoning climate projects is the new normal in our current political moment, the music business hasn’t gotten the memo. According to a recent Reverb study, 9 out of 10 concertgoers are concerned about climate change and are prepared to take action — and artists are ready to lead the way.

On Monday, Mayor Patrick Collins of Cheyenne, Wyoming, announced plans for an AI data center that would consume more electricity than all homes in the state combined, according to The Associated Press. The facility, a joint venture between energy infrastructure company Tallgrass and AI data center developer Crusoe, would start at 1.8 gigawatts and scale up to 10 gigawatts of power use.

The project's energy demands are difficult to overstate for Wyoming, the least populous US state. The initial 1.8-gigawatt phase, consuming 15.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually, is more than five times the electricity used by every household in the state combined. That figure represents 91 percent of the 17.3 TWh currently consumed by all of Wyoming's residential, commercial, and industrial sectors combined. At its full 10-gigawatt capacity, the proposed data center would consume 87.6 TWh of electricity annually—double the 43.2 TWh the entire state currently generates.

Because drawing this much power from the public grid is untenable, the project will rely on its own dedicated gas generation and renewable energy sources, according to Collins and company officials. However, this massive local demand for electricity—even if self-generated—represents a fundamental shift for a state that currently sends nearly 60 percent of its generated power to other states.

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon praised the project's potential benefits for the state's natural gas industry in a company statement. "This is exciting news for Wyoming and for Wyoming natural gas producers," Gordon said.

The proposed site for the new data center sits several miles south of Cheyenne near the Colorado border off US Route 85. While state and local regulators still need to approve the project, Collins expressed optimism about a quick start. "I believe their plans are to go sooner rather than later," he said.

archive.is link

In the face of this existential threat, an unprecedented climate visa program has begun. In 2023, Tuvalu and Australia signed the Falepili Union Treaty, an agreement that provides for a migration scheme that will allow 280 Tuvaluans per year to settle in Australia as permanent residents.

The visas will be allocated through a ballot system and will grant beneficiaries the same health, education, housing, and employment rights enjoyed by Australian citizens. In addition, Tuvaluans will retain the ability to return to their home country if conditions permit.

The first stage of applications was open from June 16 to July 18. “We received extremely high levels of interest in the ballot with 8,750 registrations, which includes family members of primary registrants,” the Australian High Commission in Tuvalu said in a statement on July 23. The first cohort of 280 people will be drawn via a ballot on July 25, the high commission says.

“When combined with other Pacific pathways to Australia and New Zealand, nearly 4 percent of the population could migrate each year,” says Jane McAdam, a fellow at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney, writing in the Conversation. “Within a decade, close to 40 percent of the population could have moved—although some people may return home or go backwards and forwards.”

For nearly two years, Los Angeles County Superior Court, which has jurisdiction over the city of Los Angeles, has been operating under a zero-bail policy. Despite Trump's claims, releasing people without cash bail has not flooded LA’s streets with violent criminals. Instead, the policy has coincided with declining violent and nonviolent crime rates in the county.

The court announced its zero-bail policy in October 2023. Under the bail guidelines, most people arrested for nonviolent minor offenses are either released after arrest or booked at a jail and then released with $0 bail. Those who commit nonviolent crimes that pose a greater threat to the community are released with $0 bail and some nonmonetary conditions, such as requirements to show up to all court dates or avoid substance use. Monetary bail remains in use for people charged with domestic violence or other violent crimes.

Although the county’s zero-bail policy is not the only factor in LA’s crime rate, its implementation has coincided with a period of historic declines in crime. In 2024, homicides in LA were down 14% compared to 2023, with the number of shooting victims down 19%. Other violent and property crimes also saw significant decreases. This trend continued in the first half of 2025, with homicides decreasing by 20%. In June, LA had the fewest number of homicides since 1966.

According to the Real-Time Crime Index, crime rates in LA County as a whole are also falling, with violent crime down nearly 7% and nonviolent crime down almost 12%.

Why do people keep paying for increasingly expensive houses in obviously risky coastal areas? A recent piece in the Tampa Bay Times ("Investors snapped up Tampa Bay homes damaged by Hurricanes Helene and Milton") by Rebecca Liebson and Teghan Simonton sticks with me. It's a cycle: Despairing owners of damaged houses, overwhelmed and underinsured, sell out; speculators buy, then quickly transfer to house-flippers; flippers quickly renovate (or don't), then rent or sell at higher prices to the next set of people who can't wait to get into the market.

The whole thing is driven by buyers' desires to live in precarious coastal locations. That desire appears unconstrained, and it seems that nothing will diminish it other than perhaps a series of disasters in short order that make life acutely uncomfortable. And even that might not be enough. Until there is no land left under a house for it to stand on, someone will buy it—and someone else stands ready to make money from the sale. Laws and policies systematically planning for decommissioning of public infrastructure (sewer, water, roads) over several years, together with well-resourced buyout offers accompanied by wraparound relocation services, could change this picture. Until then, the cycle will grind on.

Distressed properties all over Florida and up and down the East Coast can be a goldmine for investors. Along the Jersey Shore, essentially unconstrained speculation and development since 2012's Hurricane Sandy has led to explosive growth in very expensive homes.

Look, making money is what developers and speculators do. It makes sense that, left to their own devices, they buy cheap and sell for much more. But why do buyers keep showing up? There's a telling quote from Florida economist Brad O'Connor in the Tampa Bay article:

"We always worry that there's going to be a stigma put on Florida every time we have a bad hurricane, and it just doesn't seem to materialize. People still want to move here. People still want to live in paradise."

The ICJ’s advisory opinion for the first time gives the Pacific and all vulnerable communities a legal mechanism to hold states accountable and to demand the climate action long overdue.

In the landmark opinion published on Wednesday, the court said countries must prevent harm to the climate system and that failing to do so could result in their having to pay compensation and make other forms of restitution. It says states are liable for all kinds of activities that harm the climate, but it takes explicit aim at fossil fuels.

For a young Pacific woman at the forefront of this global fight, this win wasn’t just political, it was personal. And it was history.

“We were there. And we were heard,” she said.

The group of students all hailed from Pacific island countries that are among the most vulnerable in the world to the climate crisis. They came up with the idea of changing international law by getting the world’s highest court to issue an advisory opinion on the climate crisis.

The campaign was led by the nation of Vanuatu, a Pacific state of about 300,000 people that sits at the forefront of the climate crisis and has been ranked by the United Nations as the country most prone to natural disasters.

Last month, from June 27 to 29, The Emergency Workers Organizing Committee (EWOC) held its first ever in-person conference: The “United & Win” Conference, co-hosted by Labor@Wayne. The location: right here in Detroit, on the campus of Wayne State University. Hundreds of labor activists from around the United States and Canada attended, and members of our own DSA chapter made up a large contingent of organizers, volunteers, and attendees for the event.

EWOC was born in the early days of COVID-19. DSA members–many of them volunteers and workers on the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign–teamed up in its creation with the militant United Electrical Workers (UE) union. The idea was to help workers confronting COVID in their workplaces to organize for the protections they needed.

One of EWOC’s early victories was helping workers at a Michigan Taco Bell win hazard pay, paid sick leave, and personal protective equipment necessary to work during the early days of the pandemic. EWOC has stayed busy and has grown in the five years since, turning attention to the growing number of union drives in the time of Starbucks and Amazon organizing. Currently, EWOC has more than 400 volunteer organizers, 200 additional volunteers, and is supporting over 350 active campaigns.

This summer, kids are taking the climate crisis to the courts. The 22 plaintiffs of Lighthiser v. Trump, a lawsuit filed in May, range from 7 to 25 years old. They are challenging three of President Donald Trump’s most controversial executive orders to “unleash” fossil fuels and revoke renewable energy initiatives. The orders roll back critical investments in sustainable technologies and climate science, declare a “National Energy Emergency” to increase fossil fuel use, and prop up the coal, oil and gas industries through deregulation.

The case will hinge on the youth’s constitutional rights — a pivotal angle in recent environmental suits. When hearings begin in September in the U.S. District Court of Montana, the Lighthiser plaintiffs will argue that the three executive orders violate their Fifth Amendment rights to life and liberty. Additionally, they allege the president exceeded his authority by attempting to override laws like the Clean Air Act. As the case unfolds, it will have sweeping implications for the legal resistance to the Trump administration, and for the climate movement at large.

While the most dangerous consequences of the executive orders will play out over years, from environmental degradation to increased carbon emissions, the plaintiffs can also point to more immediate personal consequences. That could help them prove that the orders harmed them directly, providing legal grounds for the case, which are often questioned in climate lawsuits.

The stores I’ve stopped in are all different, with their own stock and their own personalities. There are stores on tree-lined streets, and in urban centers, strip malls, old homes, and refurbished warehouses. Once, I pulled into a dirt parking area convinced I was lost, until I saw a bright awning confirming there was indeed a bookstore there. Yet no matter where I went or how far from home I traveled, I felt welcomed every time I stepped inside. I was reminded that I’m part of a community that transcends geography and countless divisions—a community of people who read. Regardless of our favorite books or chosen genres, we believe in the value of language, creativity, and communication.

At Bookery Cincy in Ohio, Sierra told me about an annual bookstore crawl across the city, and how what had started with just a few stores now has two dozen places participating. At Joy and Matt’s, also in Cincinnati, Joy and I swapped book recs (she told me to read Amor Towles, I said I couldn’t stop thinking about The Safekeep). At The Novel Neighbor in Webster Grove, Missouri, I discussed with three booksellers who should read Greenwich first, based on the shelves of staff picks (shout out to Haley—I hope the ARC got to you!). I talked horror with Stevie at Foxing in Louisville, and Liz Moore with Jessica at Subterranean Books in St. Louis.

At Skylark in Columbia, Missouri, I got to tell Matthew behind the register that my editor grew up nearby, and then check out her favorite childhood ice cream spot, Sparky’s. (It was eleven AM, raining, and sixty degrees, and no that didn’t stop me. Get the mango if you’re in town.) At Rainy Day Books in Fairway, Kansas, I felt the bookseller’s excitement when I said I was publishing my first novel. “You’re a real author!” Tom at Trident exclaimed once I’d made it to Boulder. Over and over, I had the thrill of hearing that my book was already in stock at some stores, and the excitement of introducing it to others. I took home notecards, T-shirts, novelty socks. I bought a lot of books. When I asked a pink-haired bookseller at Left Bank Books in St. Louis how long the store had been around, they proudly said it had been founded in 1969 by “hippies and queers,” and that today the store is keeping up the legacy. That’s what I kept thinking about after every mile and every new stop. This fight for free speech isn’t new, and independent bookstores have been fighting it for a long time.

Capitalism isn’t going to save us. But supporting independent bookstores isn’t just about personal consumer choice—it’s civic engagement. For every book that’s banned, and every library that loses its autonomy over curation, we’re going to need community action and mutual aid to get books into readers’ hands. Buy books from indie stores, gift books to those who can’t access them, show up at local meetings, and speak against censorship. None of us can afford to look away, even if it isn’t our library, our county, or our book that’s on the chopping block.

After eight months of pre-trial incarceration, endless speculation, and millions of dollars spent on attorneys, the United States of America v. Sean Combs trial came to an unsatisfying conclusion earlier this month. Combs, a hip-hop mogul with endless access to fame, wealth, and power, was facing a life sentence if convicted of the five counts charged by the Southern District of New York. Despite compelling testimony from several of his victims, including his former girlfriend Cassie Ventura, the jury ultimately acquitted him of three of the most serious charges, including sex trafficking, and convicted him on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

Combs is now facing 20 years, with legal experts estimating that he will likely be sentenced to less than five years and will have that time reduced by 13 months because he was denied both pre-trial and post-trial bail. It is certainly a disappointing outcome, especially for those of us—me included—who perceived this as the proverbial first domino in the long overdue reckoning owed to Black women in hip-hop.

I understand the hopelessness. I even understand the fear. However, as we sort through the wreckage of this trial, another possibility emerges. The jury acquitted Combs on two counts of sex trafficking for a number of reasons, including the fact that the SDNY overreached with the charges. But as I followed the trial, it became abundantly clear that the prosecution was committed to presenting Ventura and the witness known as “Jane” as victims who were forced to participate in sex acts. However, the defense team was able to split those hairs, lean into the sexist idea that these women were willing to compromise themselves for access to Combs’ wealth and fame, and ultimately convince the jury that they were willing participants in their own abuse.

But between those two legal extremes, there is another option here, one that could signal new protections for women who are publicly regarded as girlfriends to powerful, wealthy men but are privately treated as sex workers existing at the beck and call of their primary client. If the movement to decriminalize sex work were successful, there might be an avenue for those like Ventura and the anonymized Jane to seek recourse when they are abused in the act of providing of service without facing the possibility of being criminalized or prosecuted for participating in sex work. If these women were regarded as workers instead of the gold diggers Combs’ defense team depicted them as, then there might even be space in our cultural imagination to debunk the notion that these women were willing to compromise their “moral integrity” in exchange for access to wealth, power, and fame.