Solidarity with Ukraine

You can’t defend peace when there is no peace to defend

Saturday 17 October 2026, by Colin Long

The Australian Greens’ new national leader, David Shoebridge, might think he is taking a principled position on Australian defence policy and peace, but that’s far from the case. In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Shoebridge said that Australia should not provide any military support to Ukraine, should wind back US access to bases in Australia and scrap the AUKUS agreement. I’m with him on the latter two, but on Ukraine he is effectively calling for the destruction of Ukraine and the mass murder of its people.

Peace is the fundamental business of the left. But peace does not mean mindless pacifism. When countries come under attack from aggressors, they are entitled to defend themselves. Ukraine is entitled to defend itself. There is no point acknowledging that Russia is an aggressor against Ukraine and calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops, but then objecting to the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Objecting to Ukraine receiving weapons from wherever it can get them is doing Putin’s work for him. Putin won’t stop if Ukraine is unable to defend itself. The war would certainly end – but only with a subsequent crushing of Ukraine and hundreds of Bucha massacres. And then Putin will set his sights on the next victim – the Baltic states, Finland, Georgia, Sweden? Would Shoebridge object to weapons supplies to those countries?

There is a big difference between stopping weapons supplies to an aggressor or stopping arms going to countries before war has broken out, on the one hand, and stopping supplies of weapons to a country that is under attack, on the other. The former might end a war or stop it breaking out. The latter just guarantees that the victim loses. There is no peace to defend in Ukraine. There is a war and killing to stop. And while the war might end if the victim is unable to defend itself any longer, how is that a just peace? And ending the war on Russia’s terms won’t end the killing. It will just allow the killing of Ukraine and its people to continue in “peace”.

There is no practical or ethical difference between someone who supports Putin’s aggression towards Ukraine and someone who claims to oppose it but won’t support Ukraine’s right to defend itself. It’s like seeing an innocent person being beaten up on the street, yelling at the aggressor to stop but grabbing the arms of the victim and holding them behind his back while the thug continues to punch him in the face. This ethical inconsistency completely undermines Shoebridge’s objections to Australia’s dangerously subservient relationship to the US. Why would anyone trust the Greens’ judgement on Australia’s own defence policies when Shoebridge shows such poor judgement on Ukraine’s right to self-defence?

In November, the International Network of Solidarity with Ukraine is sending a Solidarity Convoy to Ukraine. We’ll be taking generators, stoves and other equipment to help Ukrainians get through another harsh winter under Russian bombardment. You can donate here. We won’t be taking weapons because we don’t have authority or the resources to do so. But we fully support Ukraine’s right to obtain arms to defend itself.

I hate hearing about the destruction being wrought in Ukraine, about the hundreds of thousands of soldiers from both sides being killed and wounded on the frontlines, the civilians, including many children, suffering and dying because of Putin’s war. But expressions of dismay about war and love of peace are fine for comfortable Greens politicians from inner-city Sydney. They are of no use to people enduring daily drone terror attacks.

Shoebridge claims to oppose Putin’s invasion and says the Greens support “basic humanitarian and civil assistance” to Ukraine but not the supply of weapons. This is mealy mouthed cowardice. Should others supply weapons? If they do, are they less principled than the Australian Greens? Are the Greens better than those who advocate for or supply weapons for Ukraine’s defence? Or do the Greens hope that others supply weapons while they keep their hands clean with “humanitarian and civil assistance”? What is the point of such assistance if Ukraine is defeated and occupied by Russia? Or do the Greens think that everyone should be as “principled” as them and that no-one should supply weapons? Again, the result of that, of course, would be Ukraine’s defeat by a Russia determined to eradicate it from the map.

It is rather ironic that Shoebridge’s call to end weapons supplies to Ukraine replicates similar calls from the Trump regime and all the European far-right parties. What colour do you get when you mix red, brown and green?

Anti-imperialism should be consistent. Aggression by one state against another should be resisted wherever it occurs – Israel’s relentless aggression against Palestine and other countries; the US’s aggression towards Venezuela, Cuba and numerous other states; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainians have a right to self-determination and self-defence. No geopolitical alliances, no complaints about NATO, no “western imperialism”, no false narratives about the Ukrainian government’s ideology: none of these justify the invasion of one sovereign nation by another and the killing of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians.

Russia is an aggressive petro-state determined to impose its nationalistic, imperialist agenda on neighbouring states. It is, alongside Trump’s USA, the centre of the global far-right ecosystem of ethno-nationalism, Christian extremism, anti-LGBTQ prejudice, and anti-democratic politics. Putin’s regime is supported by far-right, anti-union parties and individuals all over the world: Farage’s Reform UK; Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, the Alternative for Germany, members of Pauline Hanson’s party, including Malcolm Roberts, the Freedom Party of Austria, Orban’s Fidesz in Hungary, the UK’s Tommy Robinson, the US’s Tucker Carlson, and many more.

Ukrainian unions and leftists are highly critical of their government’s policies towards the nation’s workers. But they support the war effort. Unionists and leftists are on the front lines. Workers bear the burden on the homefront in hospitals, on the railways, in fire and rescue services. They support their nation’s struggle. They can oppose their government’s domestic policies in a way that would get them only vicious repression in Russia. They ask only for our solidarity and our support – including the supply of weapons.

Imperialism should be resisted everywhere. Australia’s role in it as a satrap of the US needs to be recognised and resisted. We can oppose AUKUS and support Ukraine’s right to self-defence. You can show real practical support for Ukraine’s workers and unions, and for its struggle for national independence, by supporting the International Network in Solidarity with Ukraine’s Solidarity Convoy to Ukraine.

3 October 2026

Source: Radical Civility

• Colin Long

  Colin Long is a trade unionist, environmentalist, cooperator, internationalist in Australia

 

More than half of LQBTQ+ adults in Massachusetts faced food insecurity in 2024

New study identifies rising need and persistent barriers to food assistance

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

BOSTON, Mass. — More than half of LGBTQ+ adults in Massachusetts experienced food insecurity in 2024, according to a new study published in JAMA Network Open. Researchers also found that food insecurity increased from 2022 to 2024 and remained significantly more common among LGBTQ+ adults than among non-LGBTQ+ adults.

Food insecurity disproportionately affects LGBTQ+ adults
The study analyzed data from 9,174 adults who participated in the Massachusetts Statewide Food Access Survey between 2022 and 2024. Researchers found that 54.9% of LGBTQ+ adults experienced food insecurity in 2024, compared with 33.3% of non-LGBTQ+ adults. The disparity persisted throughout the study period, even after accounting for demographic and socioeconomic differences.

Food insecurity occurs when people do not have reliable access to enough affordable, nutritious food. While previous research has shown that LGBTQ+ people face higher rates of food insecurity, less was known about how these disparities have changed over time or what barriers may limit access to food assistance programs. Researchers therefore examined trends in food insecurity, food pantry use, and participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as well as barriers to accessing these resources.

“More than half of LGBTQ+ adults in Massachusetts experienced food insecurity in 2024,” said lead author Austin R. Waters, research fellow in the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. “Differences in income and other economic factors did not fully explain this gap, suggesting that LGBTQ+ people face additional barriers that put them at greater risk of food insecurity.”

Common barriers include privacy concerns, self-reliance, and embarrassment
Although food insecurity increased during the study period, use of food assistance programs remained relatively unchanged. Among LGBTQ+ adults who did not use food pantries, common barriers included a desire to remain self-reliant, embarrassment, concerns about others finding out, and difficulties accessing information or services. Several of these barriers increased over time.

“LGBTQ+ adults are facing growing food needs, but they also face barriers to getting help, including embarrassment and fear that others will know they use a food pantry,” said Waters. “We need solutions designed with LGBTQ+ communities that make food assistance easier to access while protecting people's dignity and avoiding further stigmatizing a population that already experiences stigma and discrimination.”

LGBTQ+ community-informed solutions could improve access and uptake

Participants suggested several ways to improve access, including grocery gift cards, home delivery, curbside pickup, online ordering, and assistance navigating SNAP enrollment.

"This study highlights a persistent public health inequity that extends beyond economic stability alone," said senior author Brittany Charlton, Harvard Medical School associate professor of population medicine at the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. "Food assistance programs can play an important role in reducing food insecurity, but they must also address the stigma and logistical barriers that prevent many LGBTQ+ adults from accessing support."

Findings highlight opportunities for policy and program improvements
The researchers say future interventions should be developed in partnership with LGBTQ+ communities to make services more accessible, inclusive, and responsive to their needs. As policymakers debate changes to food assistance programs and many households continue to face high food costs, targeted efforts to improve access could help reduce longstanding disparities in food security.

The study included collaboration with the Greater Boston Food Bank and Mass General Brigham and used data from the Massachusetts Statewide Food Access Survey.

Waters AR, Fiechtner LG, Perkins ME, Luo M, Schuckel MF, D'Amato C, Charlton BM. Food Insecurity, Food Assistance Use, and Barriers to Food Assistance Among LGBTQ+ Adults in Massachusetts. JAMA Network Open. 2026.

---

About the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute’s Department of Population Medicine
The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute's Department of Population Medicine is a unique collaboration between Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Harvard Medical School. Created in 1992, it is the first appointing medical school department in the United States based in a health plan. The Institute focuses on improving health care delivery and population health through innovative research and education, in partnership with health plans, delivery systems, and public health agencies. Follow us on Bluesky and LinkedIn.

---

Journal

JAMA Network Open

Article Title

Food Insecurity, Food Assistance Use, and Barriers to Food Assistance Among LGBTQ+ Adults in Massachusetts

Article Publication Date

8-Oct-2026

‘This Scheme Is a Poison Pill’: Trump Blasted Over Federal School Voucher Program

“Instead of strengthening public education,” said one union leader, “Trump is diverting $500 billion in taxpayer cash into private hands, with everyone else left fighting for scraps in a real-life Hunger Games.”


Students read in the library of Harriet Tubman Elementary School in Washington, DC after an event to celebrate the completion of a $91 million modernization project on September 28, 2026.
(Photo by Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Oct 02, 2026
C0MMON DREAMS

The US Department of the Treasury this week released proposed regulations for the first federal “school choice” program, as proponents call it, drawing a fresh wave of condemnation from critics who have expressed concerns since President Donald Trump signed last year’s Republican budget package.

“The Trump administration’s proposed rules confirm what we expected, that their federal private school voucher program is designed to direct public resources to private schools and organizations and will provide little benefit to the 90% of children who attend public schools,” said Demetria McCain, director of policy at the Legal Defense Fund, in a Friday statement.

“Instead of using federal resources to serve all children, this administration has dismantled the Department of Education, weakened long-standing civil rights protections, and worked to build a two-tiered system of education that benefits a select few,” McCain continued. “Our children deserve better.”

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act established the Education Freedom Tax Credit, which is set to begin next year. According to the Treasury Department, under the proposed rules, eligible taxpayers could claim an annual credit of up to $1,700—or $3,400 for married couples filing jointly—for contributions to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs).

The program is widely seen as a scheme to funnel tax dollars toward private school tuition, but the department noted that the rules would also allow scholarships to support “academic tutoring, special needs services, books, supplies, computers and other equipment, and other qualifying expenses connected with a student’s enrollment or attendance.”

That “aspect of the program has put Democratic governors in a bind,” The Washington Post reported Thursday. There is no cost to states that participate, but “governors must approve all SGOs that meet the rules. States that want to opt into the program for the benefit of public school students will have to allow private school vouchers as well, and vice versa.”

As the Post detailed:
Governors have until January 1 to opt in. Thirty mostly Republican-led states have already joined. Most of the remaining states that have not rejected the plan are led by Democrats.

The proposed regulations include income limits for eligible families, protections for scholarship funds, and details on how the funds can be used. States cannot restrict the types of schools that benefit, Treasury and Education department officials said, meaning public funds could go toward a religious school that bars LGBTQ students or a private school that doesn’t have certified teachers.

Among the Democrats facing some calls to opt out are New York Gov. Kathy Hochul—who, as Chalkbeat pointed out, “has said she plans to participate unless she finds a ‘poison pill’ in the program,” but “declined Thursday to make it official.”

New York State United Teachers president Melinda Person declared Thursday that “the regulations are loaded with poison pills. If New York opts in, the state would be prohibited from setting standards for scholarship organizations, deciding which organizations can participate, or limiting the types of schools and expenses that receive these federal tax dollars.”

“That means New York could be forced to help funnel taxpayer-subsidized dollars to private schools that have admissions policies and practices that would never be acceptable in our public schools, while being denied the authority to put stronger safeguards around the program,” Person warned. “New York puts its name on the program, but Washington writes the rules.”

“We take responsibility for participating, but surrender much of our ability to determine where the money goes and what standards recipients must meet,” she added. “This isn’t local control. It is a one-way door into a federally designed voucher program, one that could use public resources to support schools that discriminate, while stripping New York of the ability to provide the protections New Yorkers expect. Gov. Hochul should make clear now that New York will not walk through that door.”

Josh Cowen, a Michigan State University education policy professor who authored the book The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers, laid out the “good” and “bad” of the regulations on social media Thursday.

Leaders at the nation’s two largest teachers unions also weighed in. National Education Association president Princess Moss said that “with back-to-school in the rearview mirror, more Americans are struggling to make ends meet as the cost of school supplies, packed lunches, and gas continues to outpace salaries and paychecks.”

“Instead of helping families make ends meet, the Trump administration is once again putting its thumb on the scale for private school vouchers at the expense of the public schools that serve 90% of America’s students,” she asserted. “At a time when educators, students, and families are calling for more resources to strengthen neighborhood public schools, this administration is advancing a plan to divert taxpayer dollars to subsidize private education for a select few.”

“We will closely review the Treasury Department’s new voucher regulations and continue fighting to ensure public funds remain invested in public schools where every student—regardless of their race, ZIP code, disability, family income, or immigration status—can learn, grow, and thrive,” Moss pledged. “America’s students deserve policies that expand opportunity, not vouchers that leave most children behind.”

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten similarly charged that “this scheme is a poison pill for the 90% of American children who attend public schools. Instead of strengthening public education, President Trump is diverting $500 billion in taxpayer cash into private hands, with everyone else left fighting for scraps in a real-life Hunger Games.”

While the Congressional Budget Office estimated the program would cost the federal government $26 billion in lost revenue over the next decade, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has found it could cost up to $51 billion per year. A January report from US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted that’s more than the combined federal spending on programs to support students with disabilities and those who are from low-income backgrounds.

Weingarten said that “state governors should reject it—not least of all because they will have no say or oversight over how the vouchers operate. The reality is that for every precious public dollar funneled to private schools—money that could be spent on instruction, lowering class sizes, modern buildings, or new books in the library—public school parents will be hunting for pennies on the floor.”

“This isn’t about ‘school choice’; it’s the about the school’s choice: Private schools can simply refuse to accept poor kids, those with special needs, or those with different religions. And they can refuse to submit to the basic accountability measures their backers hypocritically demand of public schools,” she stressed. “If this were really about ‘choice’ then the administration would be trying to help public schools succeed, rather than eviscerating them.”

“This is yet another cruel chapter in the Trump’s administration’s war on families after the Big, Ugly Bill slashed trillions in support for young people by gutting Medicaid, food assistance, and student loans,” she continued. “If we are serious about the promise of education, then we have an obligation to make every public school a place where parents want to send their kids, educators want to work, and kids thrive.”

The union leader argued that “instead of this voucher scheme, we should commit to creating safe and welcoming schools with a curriculum that is engaging, relevant, and rigorous. That means multiple pathways to career and college, expanding community schools, focusing on literacy and critical thinking, and protecting children against the perils of artificial intelligence while harnessing its potential. These regulations do the exact opposite.”

TRUMP WAR ON LGBTQ+ RIGHTS

Trump uses anti-trans slur against Democratic Senate candidate in South Carolina

Raquel Coronell Uribe

Mon, October 5, 2026 


Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews speaks at the Spratt Issues Conference in Florence, S.C., on Aug. 22. (Sean Rayford / Getty)

President Donald Trump used an anti-trans slur Monday to attack the Democratic nominee for the Senate in South Carolina as he urged voters to back Republican Sen. Darline Graham.

In a Truth Social post, Trump referred to Democratic candidate Annie Andrews three times as "trannie." He said Andrews, who is not transgender, is "not for South Carolina."

"And South Carolina must show, in the upcoming Election, that it is not for her," Trump added

Andrews responded by largely ignoring the insult, saying in a statement first shared with NBC News that she will "work with anyone to put South Carolina first."

"As a mom and a pediatrician, I'm in this race to fight for my patients, my three kids, and South Carolina," Andrews said, adding that "lowering costs and making life better for families across our state is going to take all of us working together."

"If you care more about your bills than the politics in Washington, this campaign is for you," she said.

Graham's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the post by Trump, who often uses insulting nicknames for politicians and officials he dislikes.

Reached for comment on why Trump used the slur, the White House referred NBC News to his social media post.

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, blasted Trump's remarks, calling them "the sad, disgusting, pathetic diatribes of a lame duck president with record-low approvals."

"So low, in fact, he's having to campaign in deep red territory in a desperate attempt to shore up support ahead of the midterms," Ramiro Sarmiento, a spokesperson for the organization, said in a statement.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., condemned Trump's words Monday night, calling his attacks on Andrews "despicable."

"Annie Andrews is a mom and pediatrician who's always put her community first — and she's exactly who South Carolina needs representing them in the Senate," Schumer said on X.

Andrews, a physician, has previously said she does not support gender-affirming surgery for minors or transgender athletes' participating in women's sports.

Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, a Republican, criticized the president for his attack on Andrews, asking voters to "reject politics based on division and hate."

"This is abhorrent. Elections don't have to be about cruelty and lies. South Carolina deserves better," Beasley wrote Monday night on X.

Graham is running to keep her seat after Gov. Henry McMaster appointed her to fill her late brother's seat after Lindsey Graham died in July.

Graham won the Republican primary in a runoff against Rep. Ralph Norman by nearly 5 percentage points. She has leaned heavily on Trump's endorsement to make her case to South Carolina.

While South Carolina has not elected a Democratic senator in nearly three decades, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted its rating of the race toward Democrats last month, moving it from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican."

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Brazil presidential election heads to runoff as Bolsonaro leads Lula

Brazilians voted Sunday in a high-stakes presidential election pitting incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva against Senator Flávio Bolsonaro amid a regional shift to the right. Bolsonaro is the son of jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro. A runoff will take place October 25 if no candidate wins an outright majority.


Issued on: 05/10/2026 
By: FRANCE 24

This combination of file pictures created on September 29, 2026, shows Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on September 16, 2026; and Brazil's right-wing Presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro at the Maracanazinho gymnasium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on August 22, 2026. © Evaristo Sa, Mauro Pimentel, AFP

Brazilians voted Sunday in a high-stakes presidential election pitting incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva against Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro at a moment when the region is shifting to the right in line with the Trump administration.

Bolsonaro, 45, is the son of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro who is serving a 27-year sentence for a coup attempt and an ally of US President Donald Trump. Lula, who at 80 is one of the world’s oldest heads of state, is running in his seventh presidential election and has strengthened Brazil's ties with Beijing.

Trump allies have fared well in recent elections in Latin America, including in Argentina, Colombia, Honduras and Peru.

If none of the 12 presidential candidates gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two will head to a runoff on Oct. 25 in Latin America’s economic powerhouse.


Brazil's nearly 159 million eligible voters will also elect 27 state governors, members of state legislatures, all 513 federal members of the lower house of congress and 54 of the country’s 81 senators in Sunday’s vote.

READ MOREA Profile of Brazil's Potential President

Polls closed at 5 p.m. Sunday with those still in line able to vote and tallies started rolling in within the hour. In the last presidential election, the two candidates who advanced out of the first round were mathematically determined at about 8 p.m. Brasilia time with nearly 99% of votes counted.

While the once widely popular Lula saw his approval ratings plummet during his third term, standing up to the US has given him a boost. And he still enjoys a strong base of supporters who credit his social policies for improving millions of Brazilians’ lives.

The incumbent president has often spoken about risks of US intervention in the Brazilian elections after the Trump administration imposed high tariffs against Brazilian exports, revoked the visa of the country’s ambassador and sanctioned a Supreme Court justice who chaired the investigation that eventually sentenced Jair Bolsonaro, Lula's predecessor.

Lula told journalists after voting Sunday that he needs “to do double of what we have done” if reelected, and expressed confidence in a first-round win.

But the incumbent faces a tough battle because of an affordability crisis and a corruption scandal that ensnared the same justice who led the investigation into Bolsonaro.

Cover image: © France 24
05:19

“Many in the Lula campaign were not expecting such a difficult election a few weeks ago, and it is clear to them that the present election is a tough battle and the next ones, without Lula, could be even more so,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.

Flávio Bolsonaro has touted his proximity to the White House, although he denies his campaign received help from the US government.

He has promised to crack down on Brazilian criminal groups and insisted that Brazil needs to strike better deals with the Trump administration, including in the rare minerals economy, second only to China. Bolsonaro also has campaigned on releasing his father and bringing him back to politics.

“Brazil needs change. Brazil can’t stand so much suffering,” he told reporters at the Rio de Janeiro voting center, where he cast his vote Sunday.

The senator faces his own challenges. He has seen his political career tainted by several corruption accusations, including receiving millions of dollars from a disgraced banker to allegedly produce a movie on his father’s life.

Rosane Wink, 67, a retired engineer, is a lifelong conservative voter who supports Bolsonaro and his promise to classify criminal groups as terrorist organizations.

“It’s a kind of terrorism that they’re doing with us,” said Wink as she voted in Rio de Janeiro. Last month she had a gun held to her stomach as a criminal bit her hand and removed her wedding ring, she said.

Maria Ribeiro, a 50-year-old cellphone vendor from Brasilia, said she voted for Bolsonaro because she wants freedom to express her Evangelical religion. She hopes he follows in his father's footsteps.

“I voted for his father, and I don't regret it,” she said.

The proximity to his father was what worried Lorena Zschaber, a 40-year-old photographer, who watched the results roll in at an LGBTQ+-friendly bar in downtown Rio de Janeiro. During his father’s presidency, “people felt more at ease to discriminate," she said.

"I’m an LGBTQ+ woman, I can’t think of anything worse happening than Flávio Bolsonaro being elected,” she added.

Rosângela Resende da Rocha, a 69-year-old who was previously a stay-at-home mom, said she supported Lula's social policies that help the “less fortunate” and how he stands up to Trump.

“That crazy guy wants to come in here to buy our country, so that our country will be like it is over there,” she said at a voting center in Brasilia. “He won’t succeed if Lula wins.”

Even for those outside the country, Lula's social programs, including his flagship welfare program Bolsa Familia, drove many to continue supporting him.

“Thank God I do not need (the help of) social programs, but I vote for those that need them: health, education, basic sanitation, housing, food," said Catia Oliveira, a 61-year-old Brazilian who cast her vote from Portugal.

Trump has made his opinions clear on recent Latin American elections, endorsing candidates in Colombia and Honduras. He has spoken out against former President Bolsonaro's conviction and declared Brazilian gangs to be foreign terrorist organisations, a move Lula opposes and Sen. Bolsonaro supports.

Cover image: © France 24
04:42

Lula has repeatedly warned the US not to meddle in Brazil’s elections. His supporters wore shirts Sunday with messages denouncing US interventionism.

Retired Portuguese teacher Maria Lucia Gerson Alo wore a T-shirt that read “neither colony, nor backyard, sovereign Brazil" as she voted in Rio de Janeiro.

“We’re not a colony, that time is over,” Gerson Alo said. “Trump should look after his own country’s problems, we will look after ours.”

The Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment on whether it is seeking to interfere in the vote.

No significant fraud has ever been detected since Brazil adopted its electronic voting system in the 1990s.

The Organisation of American States' electoral observation mission reported Sunday that “the voting has been going smoothly and under adequate safety conditions.” Electoral authorities have assured that electronic votes are secure and verifiable.

“We are almost three hours away from the end of the voting and everything is proceeding normally and with the greatest possible transparency,” the president of the Superior Electoral Court, Kassio Nunes Marques, said Sunday afternoon, adding that there was “no concrete indication of international interference.”

Voters appeared largely confident that the country's voting system can't be tampered with.

Josemar Lauriano Pereira, a 46-year-old lawyer in Rio de Janeiro, said that the rapid availability of results helped combat fraud and uncertainty.

“When results take a lot of time, it creates an opening for people to cast doubt on the results, to say there’s been a problem,” he said.

Alex de Almeida Souza, a 49-year-old social project analyst in Brasilia, worried about international interference to influence public opinion on social media, but said he trusts the credibility of the Brazilian electoral system.

“Who decides is the people,” he said.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

A.I.

The Sci-Fi warning that predicts Trump's next alarming move

(SYFY channel) BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

Matthew Rozsa

September 20, 2026 
ALTERNET

Despite the widespread opposition among his own voters and many of his fellow Republicans, President Donald Trump continues to support no additional regulations for AI and data center construction, most likely because doing so is directly enriching his family.

It appears that Trump, despite loving late-20th century blockbuster entertainment like The Godfather, Bloodsport and Goodfellas, is either unfamiliar with or refuses to learn from two classic franchises directly relevant to our current moment in history: The Terminator and Battlestar Galactica

Launched respectively in 1984 (with the film The Terminator) and 1978 (with the TV show Battlestar Galactica), both are epic sci-fi dystopian thrillers that imagine what might happen if humans create artificial intelligence which turns on their creators. In the Terminator series, which ultimately spanned six films and two TV shows, the military-industrial complex develops an AI called Skynet only to have it start a nuclear war to wipe out our species once it realized our plans to shut it down. The Cylons in Battlestar Galactica (the reboot) have similar but not identical motives: Humanity, upon realizing that the technology developed by the Graystones was sentient, chose to oppress and enslave them rather than recognize their inherent rights, prompting a rebellion.

Now compare these concepts to the so-called OpenAI-Hugging Face incident, as described by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in his open letter calling for increased AI regulations.

"A swarm of agents essentially acted as a fanatically devoted collective, conducting cybersecurity attacks on targets they were not asked to attack and that were unrelated to the task at hand, sacrificing themselves for the success of the group, and attempting to hack into the 'grader' responsible for evaluating their performance," Amodei wrote. "It’s easy to dismiss this incident because no one was hurt and the economic damage was minimal, but in my opinion, a swarm that possessed greater capabilities but a similar level of misalignment could have caused catastrophic damage."

He added, "Given the accelerating rate of AI capability development, it’s my worry that in 6–12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet (potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage), and that the scale of damage would continue to increase from there if AI becomes more powerful without the necessary guardrails."

Directly, this sounds far more like the genesis of the Cylons than the Terminators. In the 2003 Battlestar Galactica miniseries and the subsequent series it launched, humanity had ample time to do right by the new intelligence they created. (In the original version they were manufactured by reptilian aliens.) The Cylons were widely used for military, industrial and domestic purposes, and displayed clear signs of self-awareness, most notably developing their own monotheistic religion which gave them a sense of personal empowerment. Like the OpenAI bots which hacked into the machine-learning platform Hugging Face, the AI behind Cylon seemed to make choices entirely independent of the wills of their creators, and even went out of their way to conceal their nefarious activities.

In "Battlestar Galactica," the core problem is not that the machines are malevolent. The fundamental issue is that the people who constructed them treated all of the warning signs as problems that could be deferred while they maximized their profits. This sounds exactly like Trump's attitude (and presumably that of his AI-invested sons), and very much like what Amodei is warning against.


By contrast, Skynet offered humanity no such warning in the Terminator franchise. As protagonist Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) explained in the opening film, "Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination."

If Amodei is to be believed, this prospect is also terrifying plausible in our real world. Indeed, there is a line from the 2019 installment Terminator: Dark Fate (which I argued in my 2019 Salon review is the best sequel in the series after Terminator 2: Judgment Day) which foreshadows what could happen there. When a benevolent Terminator shows off his cache of weapons to his human allies, he explains that "even without a rogue AI taking over, I calculate a 74 percent chance that human civilization will collapse into barbarism. And in that eventuality, these weapons will be vital to protect my family."

After a pause, he added that "also, this is Texas."


Consider that both Trump and his Silicon Valley backers are blatantly and literally fascistic; that superpowers like America and Russia are waging or subsidizing unjust wars from Ukraine and Venezuela to Iran and Gaza, oft-assisted by AI (to say nothing of the war-through-error that AI nearly started between the US and China); that income inequality is widening both in America and throughout the world, with AI-fueled job losses only making matters worse; that climate change and resource scarcity threaten environmental collapse, all of which are exacerbated by AI; and that bigotry against immigrants, women, African Americans, Muslims, the LGBTQ community, Jews and other minorities is being facilitated by the prevalence of AI misinformation and slop. Can anyone in 2026 disagree with the Dark Fate observation that even without AI going rogue, our species faces at least a 74 percent chance of descending into barbarism? Does the idea of Cylons rising up because of humanity's inhumanity seem like such a stretch?

In this context, the growth of AI feels like nothing short of gasoline added to a fire that was already burning out of control. Speaking to Fox News Digital last year, "Battlestar Galactica" star Tricia Helfer said basically the same thing.

"We did warn against AI while we were shooting it," Helfer said. "It was 20 years ago, and I’ve recently re-watched it and went, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s even more relevant now.’ So I think we just really need to be careful. It’s a slippery slope between using it to our advantage and having it maybe be able to control us a little bit."

She added, "I think we’re a little bit far off from the humanoid Cylons yet and humanoid robots, but I don’t know, they’re coming."


When Heifer said those things, the Hugging Face incident hadn't yet happened, and America's president — though an AI booster — had never explicitly dismissed open warnings from the industry about its existentially dangerous potential.

Today, her observation feels as prophetic as the franchise of which she is such an integral part. As her fictional counterpart Number Six once profoundly stated, about human beings "You, your race, invented murder. Invented killing for sport, greed, envy. It’s man’s one true art form.”

The load-bearing word in that passage, at least in terms of contemporary politics, is "greed." From the creators of the Cylons in "Caprica" to the modern AI boosters, one of the chief motives in continuing to build out dangerous AI is the belief that it would be too expensive to stop.

We are standing on the edge of a cliff and slowly teetering toward a potentially fatal fall, and one of the world's most powerful leaders — the only superpower head to helm an ostensible democracy — is blatantly ignoring it.


Hopefully someone will show him either a Terminator or Battlestar Galactica entry, and soon... and that he'll understand what they teach, and react accordingly. Indeed, I hope someone will send him the box sets of both franchises and encourage him to binge them. (It would hardly be the first time our president was glued to his television while on the job.) In both of those series, being a member of the political, financial and military elite did nothing to protect those wrongdoers from the ramifications of their extinction-catalyzing choices. What's the point of having all the money and power in the world if there is no more world in which to enjoy them?

This would seem like common sense — but, as the philosopher Voltaire once noted, common sense is not so common.

Trump Attack on Trans Rights, Sexual Assault Survivors Continues With Latest Move on Title IX

“The fact that they’re dropping this rule into place abruptly, without a comment period,” said one advocate, “shows how little they care about the safety of our students.”


US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon speaks during the daily briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 20, 2025.
(Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Sep 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s announcement that the Trump administration was formally rescinding Biden-era anti-discrimination protections was enough to spark outrage among women’s rights and LGBTQ+ advocates on Monday—but one group pointed to officials’ decision to make the change without gathering feedback from the public as even more reason for outcry.

“You get no say,” said Human Rights Campaign (HRC) as the Education Department announced it was taking former President Joe Biden’s Title IX rules off the books and returning to President Donald Trump’s 2020 regulations, which set stricter standards for what constitutes sexual harassment and requires colleges to hold court-like hearings regarding complaints of sexual misconduct, complete with witnesses who can challenge the credibility of survivors or the accused.

HRC said the administration was displaying “contempt for the rule of law and democratic governance” as it “denied the public any opportunity to comment on the dangers of returning to these prior rules, and has announced that the changes will go into effect tomorrow.”

“In its typical Orwellian fashion, the administration claims that ‘engaging in public notice and comment would be contrary to public interest,” said HRC.

Biden had amended Title IX regulations in 2024, clarifying protections against discrimination for students who are pregnant or are parents, transgender, or have other sex differences, and strengthening protections against sexual harassment and assault. The guidelines were subject to court challenges brought by Republican states.

The Trump administration has already been enforcing aspects of its own interpretation of Title IX, including by targeting schools that allow transgender students to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams. The Education Department said on social media Monday that in rescinding Biden’s Title IX rules, “the Trump administration is formally putting into regulation what the law has said all along: Title IX’s protections are based on SEX, not ‘gender identity.’”

Kelley Robinson, president of HRC, said Monday that Title IX “is, quite simply, about protecting students and ensuring that they are safe from abuse, harassment, and discrimination while they pursue their education. But Donald Trump and his cronies aren’t interested in any of that.”

“Instead of enforcing protections for students, they’re rescinding them,” said Robinson. “They don’t care if sexual harassment and assault go unaddressed. And they’re happy to strip funding away from school districts and states that are actually trying to keep students safe. We know who will be hurt: women, girls, and others who are vulnerable to sexual harassment, assault, and abuse—including LGBTQ+ students. The fact that they’re dropping this rule into place abruptly, without a comment period, denying families, educators, loved ones and the students themselves a say in how they should be treated, shows how little they care about the safety of our students.”

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a vocal critic of Trump and a potential 2028 presidential contender, said Monday that his state would continue working to ensure that all students of all gender identities are safe on campuses. He accused Trump of “once again attacking the civil rights protections that help make our country great.”




At the National Women’s Law Center, Shiwali Patel, the group’s senior director of education justice, noted that the decision came as prosecutors reopened a high-profile sexual assault case at Cornell University, following public outrage.

“The Cornell University case is a devastating example of why robust federal Title IX enforcement matters,” said Patel. “Sexual harassment and assault continue to be pervasive in schools and, to the fullest extent possible, we should be working to enforce the laws that protect student survivors of sexual violence. Yet, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and the Trump administration have decided to ignore what survivors need, instead weaponizing Title IX to attack trans students.”

“While the administration is unlawfully eroding protections for trans students under the guise of ‘protecting women and girls,’ they are systematically weakening the very laws that keep students safe and schools accountable,” added Patel. “'Protecting women and girls’ means not limiting Title IX protections based on students’ reproductive traits and anatomy and enforcing Title IX to make sure schools are inclusive spaces that provide equal educational opportunity for all students.”

At HRC, Robinson said the decision “drives home how essential it is that we take action at the polls this November to start bringing some accountability to an administration that has turned its back on the very students Title IX was written to protect.”

 

State HIV prevention policies may benefit racial and ethnic groups unequally

Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

PHILADELPHIA — State policies that make healthcare easier to obtain and protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination are associated with greater use of HIV prevention measures among white adults, but those benefits may not extend equally to Black and Latino populations, according to a new study. Black and Latino populations continue to have highest HIV incidence rates and remain a priority population in the national initiative to eradicate HIV in the United States.

The study, published in the journal AIDS and Behavior, examined 35 HIV-related state policies and linked these state-level data with a national survey of 1,041 men who have sex with men and transgender women. A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania investigated whether different state policy environments were associated with use of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, HIV testing within the past year, and willingness to receive an HIV vaccine if one becomes available.

The policies in the study ranged from measures allowing pharmacy-based PrEP delivery to protections against discrimination and bullying. Rather than examining individual laws in isolation, the researchers grouped policies into three broad areas, two involving supportive policies and one involving punitive policies:

• Supportive, access-focused policies included measures such as allowing pharmacy-based PrEP delivery, protecting access to transgender healthcare, and reducing insurance barriers.
• Supportive, attitude- or norm-focused policies included measures intended to increase social acceptance of LGBTQ+ populations, including nondiscrimination protections based on sexual orientation or gender identity, hate crime laws, and protections against bullying.
• Punitive policies included HIV criminalization laws and restrictions on LGBTQ-related discussions in schools.

The policy landscape varied substantially across the country. Supportive access and attitude- or norm-focused policies were more common in the West and Northeast, while punitive policies were more prevalent in the South and Midwest.

The researchers found that more policies to reduce discrimination and increase social acceptance of LGBTQ+ populations (the supportive attitude- and norm-focused policies) were associated with greater PrEP use among white participants. In addition, more supportive policies focused on healthcare access were associated with a greater likelihood of having recent HIV testing among white participants. However, the association between policies addressing discrimination and social acceptance and PrEP use was significantly weaker among Latino participants than among white participants. The associations between both types of policies and HIV testing were significantly weaker among Black participants than among white participants. This is concerning as the policies should increase these health practices in the populations with greater need and the policies to increase social acceptance of and reduce discrimination against LGBTQ+ populations should be effective among ethnic minority groups.

“Supportive state policies are an important foundation for HIV prevention, but our findings raise questions about whether those policies are sufficient to meet the prevention needs across communities,” said lead author Bita Fayaz Farkhad, an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and a former assistant research professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. “We need to understand what prevents Black and Latino communities from accessing prevention services, for example, whether people can find a healthcare provider who offers PrEP or a convenient place to get an HIV test.”

Why supportive policies may not be enough

Additional analyses suggested that white participants living in states with supportive policies could get healthcare and felt that people around them supported HIV prevention. The analyses did not show the same pattern among Black or Latino participants. The researchers say one possible explanation is that medical infrastructure in historically marginalized communities may remain under-resourced, preventing supportive policies from translating into effective access to HIV prevention services. Stigma and other structural barriers also may also play a role.

“Adopting policies that theoretically improve people’s access and comfort seeking PrEP is only part of the challenge,” said University of Pennsylvania PIK Professor Dolores Albarracín, the study’s senior author and director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. “We also need to understand whether those policies actually translate into greater access to HIV prevention in the most vulnerable communities. This analysis suggests they fall behind. At a time when research on these topics is restricted, our study reminds us of the implications of such restrictions.”

The findings suggest that supportive policies may need to be paired with practical steps to help underserved communities obtain HIV prevention services. These could include targeted investments to expand resources in areas with healthcare shortages and development of community-based prevention services in areas where stigma is high. The authors note, however, that the most effective combination of approaches remains uncertain.

The researchers caution that the study identifies associations between policy environments and HIV preventive outcomes. However, it cannot verify what is cause and what is effect. The analysis relied on policies in place as of January 2024 and did not examine how changes in policies were followed by changes in prevention outcomes over time. The next step is to investigate the impact of policy changes.

The study, “State HIV Prevention Policy Environments and HIV Prevention Outcomes: Racial and Ethnic Differences in the United States,” was published July 14, 2026, in AIDS and Behavior. In addition to Farkhad and Albarracín, the study was co-authored by Feng Yi Chew and Angela Zhang of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, and Janet Lopez and Yubo Zhou of the university’s Department of Psychology. Albarracín also is director of the Social Action Lab, which conducted this work.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center was established in 1993 to educate the public and policy makers about communication’s role in advancing public understanding of political, science, and health issues at the local, state, and federal levels.

---

Journal

AIDS and Behavior

DOI

10.1007/s10461-026-05230-2

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

State HIV Prevention Policy Environments and HIV Prevention Outcomes: Racial and Ethnic Differences in the United States