Thursday, September 17, 2026

Palestinian American activist arrested and ‘charged for trespassing at a public hearing’. Noura Erakat says a Florida mayor shortened speaking time and banned discussion of investment in Israeli bonds

Noura Erakat poses for the photographer at a ceremony to award honorary degrees at the University of Antwerp on 2 April 2026. Photograph: Jonas Roosens/BELGA MAG/AFP/Getty Images

Alice Speri

Wed 16 Sep 2026 15.17 EDT

The human rights lawyer Noura Erakat was arrested on Tuesday at a Palm Beach county, Florida, budget hearing about the county’s more than $1bn investments in Israeli bonds.

Erakat, a prominent Palestinian-American activist, legal scholar and Guardian contributor, was one of several people in attendance at the public commission hearing who were forcibly removed by local law enforcement. The removal happened when the group attempted to speak out against the county’s investment in the bonds – the largest by a municipal government.

Representatives for Palm Beach county did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a video of Erakat’s arrest posted by Al Jazeera, two law enforcement officers are seen taking her away as she speaks about wanting to exercise “basic free speech”.

Erakat said that she and other critics of the county’s investment in Israeli bonds had planned to make statements at the hearing but that when they arrived there, the county’s mayor, Sara Baxter, told those present they could only speak for one minute as opposed to the slotted three.

She later said only residents would be allowed to speak and that people who applauded would be removed. Erakat also recalled that Baxter said that speakers could not address the Israeli bonds issue because they were a policy matter and not a budget one.

When people spoke about the matter anyway, they were removed from the room. During a recess, police officers entered the room and “handpicked” people to remove, she added.

“I insisted that I had a right to stay, they didn’t know what I was going to talk about, they were racially profiling me,” said Erakat.

Investments in the Israeli bonds have become a controversial issue as US public opinion of Israel has plunged. In Florida, a group of residents sued Palm Beach county last year over the investment, which the group says was carried out in violation of local laws, including requirements that foreign investments meet certain ratings and prohibitions around investing for political reasons. The case was dismissed in August for lack of standing, but the plaintiffs are appealing the decision.

“These millions of dollars should be going to local needs,” Lydia Ghuman, executive director of the Internationalist Law Center, which is representing the plaintiffs in that case, told the Guardian earlier this year. “The fact that they are being invested in bonds that are not beating the rate of inflation and propping up the economy of a foreign government is a sign of the special interests gripping local politics.”

Nationwide, a coalition of groups has launched a “Break the Bonds”campaign encouraging advocacy for divestment at the local level, as well as targeting state and union pension funds and universities’ investments in Israel. Several candidates in recent primaries races have pledged to... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/16/noura-erakat-palestinian-arrested-florida

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]

'Everything changed': The human cost of 25 years of US wars... Successive wars launched after 9/11 have killed at least 4.5 million people and displaced more than 38 million others.

"The United States has spent an estimated $5.8 trillion on two decades of war, with an additional $2.2 trillion reserved for veterans' care in the coming decades - bringing the total cost to at least $8 trillion.

By 2030, the US will have spent as much on interest as on the fighting itself, a debt today's under-25s will help pay off."

By Hanna Duggal and Alia Chughtai

Twenty-five years have passed since 19 al-Qaeda hijackers seized four commercial aeroplanes and slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.

What followed was a series of US-led wars that reshaped Washington’s foreign policy for a generation, in which every year since 2001, US forces have bombed a country somewhere in the world, devastating the lives of millions.

“Everything changed,” Omar*, an Iraqi student at the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, told Al Jazeera. The war was launched on the false pretence that Iraq harboured weapons of mass destruction.

Less than a month after 9/11, the US invaded Afghanistan, launching what President George W Bush called the “War on Terror” - a series of seemingly endless wars and military campaigns spanning Afghanistan, Iraq and countries across the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.

According to the Cost of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs estimates that US-led wars since 2001 have directly or indirectly killed an estimated 4.5 to 4.7 million people - including approximately 940,000 direct deaths and 3.6 to 3.8 million indirect deaths from disease, malnutrition and health complications.... READ MORE

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2026/9/11/everything-changed-the-human-cost-of-25-years-of-us-wars

The long-term costs have also been enormous. The Costs of War Project estimates that caring for post-9/11 veterans in the United States could cost $2.2 trillion to $2.5 trillion by 2050, much of it still unpaid. Many veterans continue to face a mental-health crisis.

“Four times as many US service members and veterans died by suicide as were killed in combat during the post-9/11 wars,” Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War Project, told Al Jazeera

Wednesday, September 16, 2026

4.7 Million Dead, $8 Trillion: Counting the Devastating Human & Economic Costs of the Post‑9/11 Wars

September 10, 2026

Watch Full Show

As part of our weeklong coverage marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and the launch of the United States’ so-called war on terror, we take a look at the human, financial and environmental costs of U.S. military intervention around the world with Neta Crawford, co-founder of Brown University’s Costs of War Project. Researchers at the Costs of War Project estimate that nearly a million people have been killed as a direct result of U.S. military violence in the Middle East since 2001. At least half are estimated to be civilians. An additional 3.8 million deaths can be attributed to the indirect effects of war, including injuries, famine and long-term health conditions. And the wars have also increased the U.S. debt, military footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, destruction and destabilization abroad and unchecked executive power at home. “The consequences are all around us,” says Crawford.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We end today’s show with a look at the human, budgetary and environmental costs of these forever wars. According to the latest numbers from the nonpartisan Costs of War Project at Brown University, close to 1 million people were killed due to war violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and beyond. At least half of them are estimated to be civilians. The indirect death toll from these wars is far higher, between 3.6 and 3.8 million people.

AMY GOODMAN: In terms of budget costs, the U.S. federal government has spent more than $8 trillion on the post-9/11 wars through 2021.

For more, we’re joined by Neta Crawford, the co-founder of the Costs of War Project.

In these last few minutes that we have, lay out the costs of war, as we are here today on this 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

NETA CRAWFORD: Well, you’ve already touched on the direct death, the killing that results when bombs and bullets and fire are rained down on people. And the soldiers who were fighting for the United States and its allies died. But there’s the indirect death, the consequences of the destruction of infrastructure, which can be two or three times the number of people who are injured. And this is because there’s no longer hospitals or healthcare available to people, because food has been — production has been disrupted. So, the harm to bodies is substantial.

A second harm, which Spencer Ackerman discussed briefly, was the harm to U.S. democracy. There’s decreased congressional and judicial oversight of the executive, increased executive power. There’s been a decline in the rule of law. The United States waged preventive war in Iraq. That’s a real consequence, which has led to more easily waging war in Iran.

So, there’s the human toll, the political consequences, and the environmental consequences are devastating, because not only did the United States increase its use of force immediately after the attack on Afghanistan began, the United States military has increased its use of force even after those wars ended. The United States has a global military presence, more than 750 bases around the world. And its presence has caused environmental harm because of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the world’s largest petroleum user, which is the Department of Defense.

So, it’s human, political, and now just to conclude with the economic costs, which are increased debt to the United States, increased military spending, but also, because these wars were not paid for through taxes like previous wars — they were paid for by borrowing — the United States’ debt has grown, and the interest to pay the debt will be coming out of the Treasury for many years to come. So, the consequences are all around us.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, Neta Crawford, co-founder of the Costs of War Project, which we will link to.

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/9/10/9_11_25th_anniversary_costs_of

Never forget also means remembering who else was hurt on 9/11 | - Ann Van Dyke, PennLive letters

Published: Sep. 16, 2026

Twenty-five years ago, I worked for the PA Human Relations Commission. Part of my job was to follow up on reports of bias incidents to determine whether they violated anti-discrimination or criminal law, or were constitutionally protected acts of miserable behavior, which sometimes do not violate any law because of our extremely strong freedom of speech and expression.

Bias incidents directed at adults and children who appeared to be of the same ancestry or religion as the attackers surged.

While some people expressed widespread unity immediately after the 9/11 attacks, others carried out what they considered acts of retaliation. For example, a home in Enola belonging to a Muslim family originally from India was defaced with hate graffiti, and their mailbox was blown up anonymously.

While that was happening, members of the family were at a fundraiser for the 9/11 victims. “Acts of revenge” against people who had nothing to do with the attacks continued intensely in the months after and never stopped: destruction of property, assaults, anonymous hate mail, graffiti, slurs yelled during drive-bys, and public discourse increasingly full of vicious, false stereotypes.

All of that was and continues to be directed at adults, children and families who are Muslim, Middle Eastern, of Arabic descent, or who appear to be.

Twenty-fifth-anniversary calls to “never forget” need to include the innocent people who were harmed then and now because of what their ancestry or religion is or appears to be. The U.S. still strives to be better than that.

Ann Van Dyke, Mechanicsburg, Pa.

https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2026/09/never-forget-also-means-remembering-who-else-was-hurt-on-911-pennlive-letters.html?gift=e4c9a45f-441e-497f-84c7-31f77e3d66eb

Datacenter rush will create ‘tsunami’ of discarded electronics, report says: Global push will triple toxic e-waste annually in 25 years, filling enough shipping containers to circle globe six times

Datacenter equipment won’t be designed for repair and reuse, the report projects, and would need to be completely replaced every two to five years. Photograph: Tatsiana Volkava/Getty Images

Datacentres in The Guardian

Erin McCormick

Wed 16 Sep 2026

The electronic trash AI generates in the next 25 years could fill enough shipping containers to encircle the globe six times, it said. Yet, says the report by the non-profit environmental group Basel Action Network (BAN), there is no plan to deal with that waste – which typically contains toxics like lead, mercury, cadmium and forever chemicals, as well as valuable metals that are challenging to reclaim.

“Already electronic waste is the fastest-growing waste stream on the planet and only one-fifth is properly managed,” said Jim Puckett, co-founder of BAN, which works to see that toxic waste doesn’t end up getting dumped on the world’s poorer communities.

Experts concur. “We’re doing a terrible job of handling e-waste in the US,” said Vince Beiser, author of the book Power Metal, which details the global problems of trying to reclaim valuable metals inside electronic goods. “Some of it gets dumped overseas. Most of it just gets dumped in landfills, which is a problem because it can leach all kinds of nasty things into the water, into the soil.”

There are 4,871 new datacenters in the construction pipeline in the US, the report said, adding that, while not all are clearly designated for use by AI, many will be.

It calculated the volumes of e-waste related to computer servers used for AI, and to “the thousands of tonnes of copper, steel, concrete” for cooling, power distribution, networking and energy storage equipment needed to operate inside datacenters.

To estimate the total, the report estimated the amount of computing power analysts project will be built – totalling roughly 100 gigawatts of new capacity worldwide by 2030 alone and growing beyond... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/16/datacenters-pollution-electronics

AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]

Monday, September 14, 2026

"The White Dove" by artist Reem Arkan

"The White Dove" by artist Reem Arkan

Pal Arts

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1383426310438764&set=a.191541839627223

"It’s worth remembering that no one actually asked for AI, and yet here it suddenly is trying to kill us. And even if that’s averted, it’s embedding itself in our workplaces and in our emotional lives (ChatGPT may be the largest provider of mental health services in the US), robbing us of the capacity for critical thinking, and threatening economic and social stability." Brigid Delaney

‘Flourishing is having a direct relationship with the natural world – not the world through a screen, or the natural world itself destroyed and degraded to create more capacity for screen-based existence.’ Photograph: Martyn Williams/Alamy

Opinion

AI (artificial intelligence)

We greet the news that AI could extinguish us with a glazed indifference. What is the way out of this nihilism?

There are several answers, and none of them will be provided by tech. One thing we must do is identify the ingredients for human flourishing

Brigid Delaney

Sun 13 Sep 2026

Imagining the future as almost entirely bleak has somehow crept into the collective consciousness this year.

Last week I was having coffee with an old friend. He was telling me about what his kids wanted to study when they went to university, when he suddenly broke off, stared into the middle distance and said, “I wish I’d never had children.”

He’d been a father for 20 years and I’d never heard him say that.

“Oh my god, why?”

He loves his kids beyond measure, but right at that moment, he looked desolate.

“AI,” he replied.

“What about it?”

It could have been anything AI-related at this point in time. Was it that AI was going to take all the jobs his kids would have done, rendering their lives impoverished and without purpose or meaning? Or was it environmental, with all the water and energy AI consumes that is going to create further stress on the climate and make the planet uninhabitable? Or was it the news that week that AI could “kill all humans” within the next 10 years?

It was the latter. We talked listlessly about the “killing all humans” thing for a bit, then moved on. But the shadow had fallen and I started wondering: is the polycrisis that we are facing so overwhelming that we don’t even have the capacity to talk about it with urgency any more? Instead it’s just there, in the air, ambient, like pollution, each particle containing its own particular doomsday scenario – and the only way to be in this atmosphere is to be numb to it.

Currently, for so many, all our past and future decisions are being refracted through this strange and dark moment.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/14/we-greet-the-news-that-ai-could-extinguish-us-with-a-glazed-indifference-what-is-the-way-out-of-this-nihilism

Annie's New Letters (& notes)

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