INTERVIEW

'We need more athletes to speak out': the future of sport in a warming world

Spanning venues in three countries, and welcoming a record number of teams, this year's World Cup will carry a massive carbon footprint – and see players exposed to potentially dangerous heat. Sports and sustainability expert Mael Besson tells RFI why organisers need to pay more attention to climate change, how it is already affecting professional and amateur athletes, and why we should expect bigger shifts to come.


Issued on: 20/06/2026 - RFI

Tennis players Camila Giorgi of Italy (top L), Maria Sharapova of Russia (top R), Kei Nishikori of Japan (bottom L) and Alize Cornet of France (bottom R) use ice-packed towels to cool off at the 2014 Australian Open. © REUTERS/Bobby Yip/David Gray/Petar


Formerly in charge of sports and sustainability at France's Ministry of Sports and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) France, Besson now advises French sports federations, insurance companies and local authorities through his agency Sport 1.5 – named for the Paris Agreement target to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C.

Sports ecological transition consultant Mael Besson, in June 2026. © Mael Besson for RFI

RFI: What does sport have to do with the work of a conservation organisation like the WWF?

Mael Besson: Sport has a powerful influence on our lifestyles, habits, consumption and ideals.

The impact of an athlete drinking from a plastic bottle isn't limited to that one bottle. It's however many bottles are then consumed through imitation. And it's precisely because of this imitation effect that so many sponsors invest in sports: to promote and steer consumer behaviour towards their products.

RFI: The 2026 World Cup stands to be the most damaging yet in terms of climate change, but it's still world's biggest sporting celebration. What do you make of it?

MB: Societies throughout history have always needed moments to get people together. We need these moments of shared enthusiasm, be it cultural, religious, political. In this case, it's sport.

The problem lies in the format of this competition. It doesn't fit the trajectory for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to a level compatible with planetary limits.

The main issue is travel. A large proportion of the teams and fans who follow football are in Europe. This inevitably increases the number of people travelling, and travelling long distances, therefore by plane. Add to that a record number of teams, and this World Cup will be one of the most impactful.

France's Kylian Mbappe scores for France in their opening game against Senegal in East Rutherford, New Jersey, 16 June 2026. @ AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

RFI: Then there's the issue of marketing and consumption…

MB: Yes, and that's not usually factored into an event's carbon footprint. This ripple effect isn't taken into account. We'll count the number of bottles consumed at the event venue, but not the additional consumption by television viewers worldwide. We don't have the figures, and major sponsors are careful not to disclose the return on their investments. It would be complicated, anyway, because it's not just consumption at a specific moment; it's long-term brand capitalisation.

France adopted the Evin Law [in 1991] banning alcohol and tobacco advertising because it influences our behaviour and ultimately our health. Given our planet's limits, we need an Evin Law for the climate.

Future of Olympics in doubt as climate change drives up temperatures

RFI: The World Cup may also put athletes at risk, with at least a quarter of matches expected to be played in potentially dangerous temperatures. Norwegian player Morten Thorsby has called on Fifa to do more to protect footballers from extreme heat and take care of the planet. Does football need more voices like his?

MB: We need more athletes to speak out, including for the very survival of the sport. Increasingly, extreme weather events will prevent events from taking place or damage sports infrastructure. Even insurance is a problem. When it comes to making the adjustments we'll need in the future, sport risks being a lower priority than other sectors such as healthcare, hospitals and schools. Football therefore has every reason to be a leading advocate for the climate.

Athletes have the most legitimacy to demand that reducing greenhouse gas emissions be taken into account when organising tournaments. But every time they speak out on these issues, athletes are to some extent criticised and accused of hypocrisy because they are obliged to follow an international circuit and be surrounded by sponsors.

In France, a collective of more than 50 athletes, the Climate Sport Camp, is working on this issue. This involves making public statements in the media and lobbying ministers, federations and event organisers.

RFI: What do you tell the athletes you work with about taking responsibility?

MB: The first thing I tell them, if they don't want to speak publicly, is to stop promoting things they should avoid doing. A story on social media filmed on a plane – we know it will have an impact. But no one will ask you why you've stopped posting stories from planes. And by doing so, you've stopped promoting this mode of transportation. So the first step is to clean up your communications.

The second option for the athlete is to contact the governing bodies of their sport privately or via the athletes' commissions. Then athletes can specify in their sponsorship contract that they will not travel to the other side of the world to shoot an advert for sunglasses, for example. This cuts down travel.

There are plenty of concrete actions like that which don't necessarily leave athletes exposed.

RFI: This year's Tour de France starts on 4 July and lasts three weeks. It draws hundreds of thousands of spectators during the peak summer holiday season. Should organisers change the timing or is that impossible for economic reasons?

MB: That schedule may not be compatible indefinitely with climate change. It seems inevitable to me that it will change. July will become increasingly risky in terms of temperatures and even fires. Crossing mountains covered in woods could become more difficult.

It had to be postponed during the Covid pandemic. I don't know what the financial results were like that year, but I would think the Tour de France has enough going for it to withstand being pushed back.

However, adapting could also involve adjusting the schedule or even the regulations: introducing water breaks or safety measures when it gets too hot. Or perhaps modifying the route, with less demanding stages. It will likely be a combination of all these things.

The Tour de France cycling race during Stage 4 from Amiens to Rouen, 8 July 2025. @ REUTERS - Sarah Meyssonnier

RFI: Over the weekend of 24 May, two people in France died after taking part in amateur fitness events during an unprecedented heatwave. What can we learn from this?

MB: The main lesson is that you shouldn't just look at the temperature, but also its sudden increase. In a few days, it went from around 15C to 32C and people's bodies didn't have time to adapt. Over two weeks, even amateur athletes can adapt to intense heat. We're capable of exerting ourselves in 32 or 33C – but that doesn't mean it's not risky.

You also have to be careful when resuming activities after a break. We have to get used to helping our bodies adapt, whether to changing temperatures or to different intensities of training.

RFI: In a 2021 report for the WWF, you calculated the number of sports days lost due to global warming. What was your total?

MB: Based on IPCC projections, we estimated the number of days exceeding 32C, the threshold beyond which amateurs would be discouraged from doing sport. In a world warming by 2C, this would mean up to 24 extra days above 32C. But IPCC projections are generally underestimated, and it's likely to be more than 24 days.

The 2030-2050 projections of France's national climate change adaptation plan didn't predict any days would top 32C in May, but the recent heatwave has shown the contrary. These phenomena are arriving earlier than anticipated and with greater intensity.

What does 50C feel like? Touring ‘heat chamber’ allows French people to find out

RFI: What's the future of street sport? In 2050, will it still be possible to play football on dried-out public fields, or skateboard on hot asphalt?

MB: There are significant inequalities in adapting to climate change, in sports and elsewhere. The most disadvantaged populations will suffer the most from the consequences of climate disruption. They will have fewer resources to adapt. Unfortunately, sports facilities in disadvantaged neighbourhoods will likely not be the first to be protected.

Sport will continue to exist, but in my opinion, the timing will change. Summer may no longer be the peak season. In the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in the south of France, already no mountain biking competitions take place in summer due to a high risk of fire. The same goes for climbing.

Girls play on an outdoor pitch in France. © Charlie Dupiot

RFI: Is France's infrastructure adapted to climate change?

MB: No, clearly not. Our sports facilities are ageing – half were built before 1985. We've worked on energy efficiency, but often focusing on protection against the cold and very little on summer comfort.

Furthermore, specific facilities will be under pressure. Swimming pools and other cool areas are valuable resources for helping people withstand extreme heat. France's facilities are both ageing and inadequate, because they will have to accommodate more people. During the 2022 heatwave, we saw security guards at the entrance to pools because they were full and families couldn't get in. Making these facilities places of refuge will be a major challenge.

We could have more trees surrounding stadiums to act as natural cooling channels. There's also the issue of playing surfaces: synthetic pitches heat up much faster than natural grass. And we could consider staggering training times to allow for cooler periods.

RFI: How much of a threat is climate change to France's sports economy?

MB: I don't have an overall figure, but I have lots of examples of disciplines or clubs that are affected. In the Paris region, a kayak club had to cancel many of its courses and rentals due to flooding caused by storms. The Burgundy-Franche-Comté Sailing League told me that with the high temperatures, there are more cyanobacteria [potentially toxic microalgae], so swimming and other activities are banned.

On the coast, according to the WWF's figures, one in seven sports clubs in France will be threatened by rising sea levels at a temperature increase of 2C. In the mountains, the melting permafrost is making paths to iconic peaks impassable. Mountain guides find themselves having to reconsider their activities in August. Glacier trekking is difficult to postpone to September or winter.

This interview has been adapted from the original in French by RFI's Géraud Bosman-Delzons.

 

Nanoplastics: new method provides clearer picture of the risks

Universiteit van Amsterdam

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Micro- and nanoplastics are now popping up everywhere: in seawater, snow, food, and even in our bodies. The very smallest particles, in particular, are difficult to measure, meaning we still know too little about their spread and associated risks. UvA chemist Maria Hayder and her colleagues have developed a new measurement method that maps nanoplastics in water and the environment much more accurately. On Wednesday, 24 June, she will defend her PhD dissertation on this research at the University of Amsterdam.

Much plastic waste, of which millions of tons are produced annually, breaks down into increasingly smaller particles: microplastics and ultimately nanoplastics. Microplastics are particles between 1 micrometer and 5 millimeters; nanoplastics are even smaller, from 1 nanometer to 1 micrometer.

It is these minuscule particles that are a cause for concern, because they end up in water and food, and thus eventually in our bodies as well.

Combining two techniques

It is particularly difficult to accurately determine the amount of nanoplastics in the environment because they are so tiny and also behave differently from microplastics. ‘Many techniques are already used for microplastics, but they usually don’t work for nanoplastics,’ says Hayder.

To achieve a more reliable measurement, Hayder combined two complementary techniques: one for separating the plastic particles by size and one for chemically recognising and measuring the different types of plastic.

This new method proved capable of identifying and quantifying specific nanoplastics in wastewater.

No simple pattern

The new method was immediately deployed to discover how everyday plastics, which the researchers had exposed to fresh and seawater for years, break down into increasingly smaller particles.

‘We found the nanoplastics in both fresh and seawater,’ says Hayder. Remarkably, the plastic particles did not break down according to a simple "increasingly smaller" pattern but were present in all sorts of different sizes and also appeared at all depths regardless of their density.

Especially common in food

Hayder also examined what is currently known about plastic particles in our food and drinks. ‘Quite a bit of research has been done on seafood, while other important components of our diet – such as fruit, vegetables and grains – have received less attention.’ Yet the researchers estimate the highest daily intake for precisely those food types.

‘We mainly see the commonly used plastics, such as packaging plastic,’ says Hayder. ‘But how you measure largely determines what you find – and that makes studies difficult to compare.’

What happens in our gastrointestinal tract?

And what actually happens if we swallow the plastic particles via water and food and they enter our gastrointestinal tract? To find out, the researchers recreated the digestive process in the lab and subjected plastic particles of various sizes and with diverse properties to it.

‘In the gastrointestinal tract, small particles clump together into larger lumps, mainly due to the action of digestive enzymes. As a result, they become larger and the chance of them passing through the intestinal wall and entering the body is reduced, although this research shows that we still have much to learn about that,’ says Hayder.

Better measurements desperately needed

Better measurements to properly assess the health risks of plastic pollution are sorely needed. ‘Currently, measurement methods vary widely between laboratories, making results difficult to compare. This hinders not only scientific research but also policy regarding plastic use and pollution,’ says Hayder.

‘Our approach is not yet perfect, but it is a good step towards much more precise measurements of nanoplastics in the future. This will be crucial in helping us estimate their spread and potential health risks.’

Thesis details

Maria Hayder, 2026, 'Analytical approaches for studying occurrence and fate of environmental micro- and nanoplastics'. Supervisors: Prof. G.J.M. Gruter and Prof. A.P. van Wezel. Co-supervisors: Dr A. Astefanei and Dr C. Angelici.

 

Tiny additive has big impact on compostability of bioplastic

A simple step dramatically improves the biodegradability of PLA while retaining the plastic’s useful qualities

American Chemical Society

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image: 

PLA plastic (left piece) usually takes months to break down in industrial composting facilities, but incorporating a sprinkling of an organic additive dramatically speeds the process for a modified PLA plastic (right piece) to less than three weeks.

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Credit: Jinsol Yook

Compostable plastics could be part of a solution to the world’s plastic waste problem. But currently these materials need industrial composting facilities to break down. In a step toward making a home-compostable plastic, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have augmented polylactide (PLA) — a widely used biobased and compostable polymer— with a small amount of an additive. Tests show it helps the material degrade substantially faster without sacrificing critical qualities like strength or transparency. 

“PLA can be made to degrade much more effectively under practical composting conditions without compromising the properties that make it useful in everyday applications.” — Marc Hillmyer

PLA is currently found in products such as food packaging, textiles, and biomedical devices, and it accounts for roughly two-thirds of total bio-based and biodegradable plastics production worldwide. “Composting is considered one of the most effective end-of-life strategies for PLA products, especially food-contaminated single-use products, because it eliminates the need for additional sorting and washing processes,” says Marc Hillmyer, a corresponding author of the paper. This process converts organic waste into environmentally innocuous products such as small organic acids. However, PLA “is only industrially compostable in engineered environments where it degrades over a few months,” he adds. The bioplastic usually needs high temperatures and humidity to break down over practical timescales. 

Inspired by this limitation, Hillmyer, Christopher Ellison and colleagues wanted to develop a PLA-based material that breaks down faster and under a broader set of conditions. Instead of adding organic acids directly, which can weaken PLA during processing, the team blended PLA with small amounts of organic anhydrides. These compounds are “masked acids,” because once exposed to water, they activate and help catalyze the breakdown of the plastic’s polymer chains. 

The researchers created two plastic films containing different organic anhydrides: phthalic anhydride or 2-sulfobenzoic acid cyclic anhydride. They found that PLA blends modified with either substance maintained their mechanical properties, including strength and transparency, compared to pure PLA films.  

The 2-sulfobenzoic acid cyclic anhydride additive worked especially well, even at trace levels as low as 100 parts per million. Under industrial composting conditions at 136 degrees Fahrenheit (58 degrees Celsius), PLA containing 0.1% of this additive completely degraded within 21 days, surpassing unmodified PLA, which reached 83% biodegradation after 90 days. The researchers also had success with improving the biodegradability of the modified PLA around 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius), a temperature within the range of healthy home composts. 

The authors say their approach could expand the practical use of PLA by helping it degrade not only in industrial composting facilities but also in home composting bins. However, more testing is still needed to understand how modified PLA materials behave in various settings and environments. 

The authors acknowledge funding from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineer Research and Development Center’s Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and a University of Minnesota Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. 

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The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1876 and chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is committed to improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry. Its mission is to advance scientific knowledge, empower a global community and champion scientific integrity, and its vision is a world built on science. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, e-books, and news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. 

Registered journalists can subscribe to the ACS journalist news portal on EurekAlert! to access embargoed and public science press releases. For media inquiries, contact newsroom@acs.org. 

Note: ACS does not conduct research but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies. 

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Journal

ACS Central Science

DOI

10.1021/acscentsci.6c00395 

Article Title

Tiny additive has big impact on compostability of bioplastic

Article Publication Date

17-Jun-2026

 

How do flocking birds and schools of fish move? New research offers crystal-clear answer

Study shows that group movement is akin to a soft crystalline material, with individual animals acting as “atoms”

New York University

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image: 

Birds and fish can influence one another through the flows they generate, helping shape group flight and swimming patterns. The gray arrow pointing from right to left in front of the flyers indicates the resulting propulsive direction while the thick vertical blue lines directly above the flyers illustrate the instantaneous flapping velocity direction of each flyer, with the smaller blue arrows that follow representing wake velocity. The black dashed line indicates that the flyers are constrained to move along a one-dimensional horizontal path, one behind the other.

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Credit: Images of birds by Boyce Fitzgerald and Neophytos Charalambides.

Flocking birds and schools of fish are a familiar sight. While previous research has uncovered the broad dynamics driving these movements, their underlying intricacies remain a mystery. 

A study by a team of New York University mathematicians offers some new insights into these phenomena. It reveals that flocks and schools behave in ways that are similar to a soft crystalline material, with individual birds and fish serving as “atoms” that are evenly spaced in a lattice-like formation. 

The findings, which are reported in the journal Physical Review Fluids, offer detailed insights into the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic interactions crucial in aerospace and automotive engineering, robotics, and energy harvesting.

“Our findings offer a new way to understand how animal collectives coordinate movement and respond to their environment,” says Christiana Mavroyiakoumou, a researcher at NYU’s Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science at the time of the study and now a fellow at Oxford University’s Mathematical Institute. “More specifically, lines of birds or fish behave like an elastic material with regularly spaced individuals held together by flexible, or spring-like, bonds—akin to soft crystalline substances in which atoms are arranged in an orderly, repeating pattern.”

“Because these movements are similar to those that form the building blocks of materials, the work opens new avenues for analyzing—and potentially manipulating—how these components interact,” adds Courant Professor Leif Ristroph, director of NYU’s Applied Mathematics Laboratory, where the research was conducted. 

The laboratory previously uncovered how birds and fish move together without colliding and the underlying aerodynamics of these movements. However, the detailed nature of these orchestrated motions had been less clear.

The research team, which also included Jiajie Wu, an NYU undergraduate at the time of the study, proposed a mathematical model to explain these movements—one that was akin to those of soft crystalline materials, or soft crystals. These ordered solid materials can change their properties in response to stimuli, such as temperature or physical force, which make its atomic organization fragile. The researchers, then, saw a connection between crystalline organization and how birds or fish move together while adjusting their movements and formation in response to air or water flows, predators, or objects, such as rocks or buildings. 

“Crystalline organization is inherently fragile as positions are susceptible to deformations and instabilities,” explains Mavroyiakoumou. “In similar ways, birds and fish must sense and respond quickly to other forces in order to maintain long columnar formations. So while soft crystals, flocks of birds, and schools of fish are fragile in their makeup, such fragility may also be advantageous as it can be responsive to its surroundings.”

The study’s authors considered previous experiments to determine if the model matched these experimental results. Among these was an experiment that mimicked  the columnar formations of birds—in which they line up one directly behind the other—using mechanized flappers that act like birds’ wings. The wings were 3D-printed from plastic and driven by motors to flap in water, which captured how air flows around bird wings during flight. This “mock flock” propelled through water at different speeds and could freely arrange itself within a line or queue, as seen in a video of the experiment (caption: A live recording of the experimental apparatus in operation. Five foils are driven to flap up and down in unison, and they freely and interactively propel around a water tank. Courtesy of NYU's Applied Mathematics Laboratory at the Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science.).

Overall, the flappers as a group behaved as the researchers had conceptualized—one of several experiments that offered support for their proposed model.

The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (DMS-1847955).

# # #

Editor’s Note: In November 2025, NYU announced the establishment of the Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science. The newly established school recognizes the storied history of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences—and its strengths in both applied and pure mathematics—while encompassing NYU’s Center for Data Science and linking the computer science departments at Courant and the Tandon School of Engineering.  

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Journal

Physical Review Fluids

DOI

10.1103/tp8s-76vr 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Article Title

Modeling flying formations as flow-mediated matter

Article Publication Date

18-Jun-2026

US Is Terrorizing Its Own Citizens With “Less-Lethal” Weapons, Victim Says

Human rights experts condemn the increasing use of weapons like tear gas, pepper balls, and rubber bullets.

By Kevin Foster , 

Truthout

June 15, 2026

A protester throws tear gas back at federal agents on March 28, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles.Kevin Foster

On March 28, 18-year-old University of Southern California student Tucker Collins documented a protest outside the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center.

“I didn’t even see any of the officers who had their weapons out,” Collins told Truthout. “[I was] standing back from the crowd and, you know, focused on trying to frame up the crowd, and then the next thing I know, I can’t see anything.”

A federal agent shooting from behind a fence struck Collins in his right eye with a .68 caliber FN 303 projectile, destroying Collins’s eyeball and fracturing his orbital bone.

While often mislabeled as common pepper balls, FN 303 projectiles carry more than just the chemical irritants found in typical paintball-style rounds. They have a hard plastic casing and a metal front payload, adding weight and kinetic energy to “temporarily disable” targets with “a sufficiently dissuasive level of pain,” according to their manufacturer.

A protester holds up a cardboard shield against federal agents firing projectiles on March 28, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles.Kevin Foster

“Less-lethal” weapons are broadly defined by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as weapons or instruments that are “designed or intended to be used in a manner that is not likely to cause death or serious bodily injury.” Such weapons include pepper balls, rubber bullets, tear gas, and more. While many of these weapons have the capacity to kill, they are often referred to as “less-than-lethal,” according to DHS.

Police Use “Less Lethal” Weapons to Crush Social Movements Across the World
A new report finds that more than 121,000 people globally were injured or killed by crowd-control weapons since 2015.  By Mike Ludwig , Truthout  March 24, 2023

Despite their “less-lethal” designation, FN 303 projectiles have proven deadly. A Boston police officer killed Victoria Snelgrove in 2004 by shooting her in the eye with an FN 303 round.

In January 2026, federal agents shot two people in the eye with FN 303 rounds in Santa Ana, California, at least one of which was at point-blank range and reportedly left the individual with a piece of metal near his carotid artery.

In spite of the risks, officers continue to use them.

Under Customs and Border Protection’s 2021 use-of-force policy, firing FN 303 projectiles within 10 feet of a target is only authorized when deadly force is considered “reasonable and necessary,” such as when an individual is determined to pose an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to an officer or another person. The updated overarching policy from DHS also considers “uses of impact weapons to strike the neck or head” deadly force.

“I think a troubling sign is that this has become the new norm for how law enforcement deals with mass assemblies.”

Scott Reynhout, a researcher with Physicians for Human Rights, studies what he calls the “misuse” of less-lethal weapons, with a special focus on DHS.

“The first thing that’s clear is that there’s a lot of it,” Reynhout told Truthout. “I’d say the biggest alarming trend of misuse that we’ve seen is people getting shot in the face. This is something that is not necessarily new.”

Critics argue against the use of these weapons altogether because of the potential deadly risks, as well as officers using them to suppress free speech and the right to protest.

A megaphone sits on the ground in front of a line of DHS officers on March 28, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles.Kevin Foster

Collins says he was shot while standing among many other people filming. He believes such individuals are targeted because they’re filming federal agents committing illegal acts, including shooting him.

“They shot at me with no cause or justification,” Collins said. “And they have no need to be using these weapons anyways, especially in this scenario where there was no imminent threat to them.”

Following the attack on Collins, federal agents continued firing pepper balls and tear gas in waves from behind a fence and into the crowd. They nearly hit more individuals in the face and struck journalists (including me) and protesters.
No Sign of Slowing Down

Both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection have dramatically increased weapons spending since Donald Trump took office for his second term, according to a report from the office of California Sen. Adam Schiff. DHS is reportedly spending upward of $50 million on “less-lethal” weaponry.

Reynhout and other researchers with Physicians for Human Rights recently released a report on how U.S. law enforcement escalated the use of certain weapons to crack down on immigration protests. Notably, they highlight the use of inherently indiscriminate scattershot munitions that send multiple small projectiles in different directions — these munitions are included in the DHS purchasing spree.

“Their deployment against crowds cannot be rationalized as crowd-control under any reasonable interpretation of international standards and cannot be considered legal, even under existing frameworks that already inadequately regulate less-lethal munitions,” the report states.

Federal agents chase after a protester as others make an arrest on March 28, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles.Kevin Foster

Reynhout said previous Physicians for Human Rights research on crowd-control weapons indicated that 82 percent of all injuries reported between 2016 and 2021 came from metal birdshot projectiles, which he says are very similar to the rubber-ball scattershot munitions DHS is purchasing.

The report also highlights federal agents using powder blast dispersion munitions, also known as “muzzle blast” munitions, in the most dangerous way possible. These munitions, also included in the DHS purchasing contract, discharge a cloud of tear gas or pepper irritant from a grenade launcher. While they aren’t technically considered a projectile, materials such as wadding and other debris can leave the muzzle and exceed speeds of 200mph, according to the PHR report.

These muzzle blast munitions appear to have been shot through the fence at protesters in Los Angeles in the hour following Collins’s injury.

“I think a troubling sign is that this has become the new norm, I would say, for how law enforcement deals with mass assemblies,” Reynhout said. “It’s just, ‘Let’s just throw more money at the problem and hope it goes away.’”


“It’s one of the most threatening things to us as a nation: the increasing force and authoritarianism that this administration is using to essentially terrorize its own citizens.”

The PHR report offers multiple recommendations, from prohibiting the use of scattershot kinetic impact projectiles to limiting or restricting the use of powder blast munitions and certain chemical obscurants — most importantly, banning the use of HC smoke, a highly hazardous chemical obscurant used by DHS as recently as January 2026 in Portland, Oregon.

Crowd-control weapons are commonly referred to as “less-than-lethal,” or even “non-lethal,” and the Physicians for Human Rights report concludes that this creates a pattern of risk where such weapons are subject to fewer regulations. The report adds that this may also lead to law enforcement using these weapons without exhausting deescalation techniques, something critics have pointed out at protests around the country.

A federal agent aims a weapon at protesters on March 28, 2026, in downtown Los Angeles.Kevin Foster

Whether it’s indiscriminate crowd-control weapons or more targeted munitions that can be deadly, both DHS officers and police departments around the country have demonstrated a willingness to utilize them broadly, even if it means suppressing free speech or injuring people in their line of fire.

“I do think about that day often, just in the events of it, just of what could have happened,” Collins said. “I’m enraged, but I’m not surprised. This is not the first time something like this has happened, nor will it be the last. I think it’s one of the most threatening things to us as a nation: the increasing force and authoritarianism that this administration is using to essentially terrorize its own citizens.”


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Kevin Foster is an independent journalist covering activism, politics, and accountability.

'Like we’re under occupation': Tourists aghast at Trump’s ugliest obsession

U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a press briefing at the White House, on the one-year mark into his second term in office, in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 20, 2026. REUTERS Nathan Howard

Adam Lynch

June 20, 2026

ALTERNET

Visitors touring Washington D.C. cannot seem to shake off the feeling that President Donald Trump is stamping his presence on every nook and crevice — and they’re furious.

Speaking with city visitors Julie and husband Robert on the edge of Lafayette Square, the Guardian noted a scuffed sign proclaiming: “We are making DC safe and beautiful.”

But Julie didn’t see it that way while visiting the city in celebration of her recent marriage, said the Guardian.

“The irony,” she said, spying the chain-link fence surrounded the square, closing the site off from the public for renovation under the Trump’s orders. “It’s neither safe, nor beautiful.”\

Local preservationists say Julie’s “withering verdict is widely shared.”

“It is a different city right now,” said Rebecca Miller, executive director of the DC Preservation League, a city heritage group. “There are visitors from out of town who are disappointed that they’re only here for a few days, and there’s so much construction going on at the moment. … This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip for some people, and to have it marred down with not being able to access certain sites can be really disappointing.”

Trump ordered the East Wing of the White House demolished to make way for a massive ballroom, leaving a $600 million bill and a colossal gash in the dirt where once sat a pristine wing occupied by First Ladies advocating for women’s and minority rights, as well as national preservation projects, among other noble ventures.

The administration also commissioned a laughable “restoration” of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on the National Mall. By Saturday the “waterproof” American Flag Blue-tinted sealant was peeling up in huge blue mats of floating plastic and being collected by tourists as souvenirs of Trump-style efficiency.

Trump’s no-bid renovation for the project cost taxpayers more than $14 million—about seven times the cost of a competitor’s estimate.

Impenetrable construction barriers and cranes scratch the rest of the local tourist scenery with dozens of Trump-related projects underway, complete with dust, steel beams and overturned lumps of deep gray dirt.

“Scenes of visitors like Robert and Julie squinting for a better view have become commonplace,” as Trump micromanages city construction in connection to his personal birthday and the birthday of the nation, said the Guardian.

“Everything that I’ve seen is to honor Donald Trump, not America’s 250th anniversary,” said Robert, a retired US history professor at a private college in Brooklyn. “ … “We have the irony of a man who has the instincts of an absolute monarch presiding over the celebration of our separation from a constitutional monarch. It’s quite something.”

“I’ve been here many times before, and I have never imagined that I would be so completely locked out of everything,” said Angie Clark, a molecular biologist from Salt Lake City. “It feels exclusive, and not in a good way. Maybe once the party starts up, it will be better.”

“It’s so symbolic of what he’s doing to the country. It’s like he’s s—— all over our nation’s capital,” said Tampa author Norma Roth, spying a line of nearby ugly Porta Potties connected to Trump’s June 14 Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) game. “… It’s like we are under occupation.”

Study finds positive aging videos affected women’s views of getting older – for the better

Researchers theorize that having a positive aging role model might be enough to change one’s own thinking: 'If they look good with gray hair, I might too'

University of Connecticut

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Women who view TikTok videos of others comfortable with their gray hair and laugh lines start to feel more positive about their own aging the more they watch, a new UConn study has found, potentially influencing a woman’s ability to age well later in life.

For almost as long as time, or at least as long as television, film, and print media have been around, women have been held to a different beauty standard than men, penalized if they don’t have smooth skin and perfectly highlighted hair well into old age, says Amanda Cooper, an assistant professor of interpersonal communication at UConn.

“Anti-aging messages, particularly around beauty care, have been prominent for a long time,” she says. “Historically, an older man has been labeled ‘a silver fox,’ but a woman who gets gray hair has been called an ‘old lady.’ There’s been this double standard in aging for a long time, and now it’s amplified for younger women in addition to older women.”

Cooper says she and her co-authors, UConn graduate student Lexi McNamara and Heather Gahler from the University of Wisconsin, were dismayed when they first started to notice on social media that women in their 20s were using anti-aging products and promoting dermatological procedures to erase signs of aging on their young faces.

Plastic surgery used to be something relegated to mostly mid-life, Cooper says, now a growing number of teenagers are looking at minimal creases in disgust.

“I don’t want to blame everything on social media, but my guess is they’re hearing the anti-aging messages that used to be targeted to older women thanks to our constant media intake. I don’t know if we can fully prove that, but I think that’s what the change is. Younger women seem to be more conscious of their aging and more concerned about how to make sure they’re going to age the right way or appear not to age at all.”

Several years ago, Cooper says she read an article about and started exploring the positive aging movement on TikTok, featuring mostly middle-aged and older women posting videos about the good parts of aging.

Hashtags like #GrayHairDontCare bring up videos of radiant women talking about how much they love their gray locks, she says. Other similar searches produce videos about how crow’s feet are merely proof of a life filled with joy and laughter.

The team started to wonder whether watching these videos would have any effect. Their study – “Examining the Effects of Viewing Positive Aging TikTok Videos on Aging Outcomes and Attitudes Among Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Women,” which was published last month in the journal Communication Research – sought to put the question to the test.

Shifting the Dial

Groups of women identified as younger, middle-aged, and older watched videos of women either touting the positives of aging or talking about travel. They then were asked questions soliciting their feelings on aging: What are your concerns about aging? Do you feel negative or positive emotions about it? How confident are you in your ability to age well?

“We found that women who watched those positive aging reels increased their positive emotions about aging. They felt more upbeat about aging and also felt more confident in their ability to age well as compared to the control group that watched travel videos,” Cooper says. “It means that watching these videos of older woman talking positively about aging can at least somewhat shift the dial on how women are feeling about their own ability to age.”

The team theorizes that merely having a positive aging role model might be enough of an influence to change one’s own thinking. Cooper says it might allow a person to feel more comfortable with the idea that if someone else looks good with gray hair, they might too.

While all three age groups of women in the study were affected by the positive aging videos, the middle-aged and older subgroups were more significantly affected, she notes, which might be because aging is more salient in their lives.

“There can be moments of panic around aging, of course, but when women see examples of successful aging or when they hear positive messages it can help them feel more confident,” Cooper says.

“Shifting attitudes about aging is important because women reinforce some of the negative messages about aging and penalize each other,” she continues. “Our society as a whole does this, but we also do it on a micro level. If we can promote communication environments that are positive, we can empower women to feel better about their aging.”

The study also notes the positive aging videos brought about another thought change among those who watched them: Viewers started feeling more positive about older people in general.
Cooper says that was an exciting finding, perhaps with a profound effect of reducing ageism and prejudice against older people.

“We should be creating more content that celebrates the markers of aging and gives permission for women to age, whether that’s talking about gray hair or wisdom gained,” Cooper says. “My call to content creators would be to create more messages that do this. Let’s create more content that features older women and messages about aging as an experience that can be meaningful and triumphant.”

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Journal

Communication Research

DOI

10.1177/00936502261442688 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Examining the Effects of Viewing Positive Aging TikTok Videos on Aging Outcomes and Attitudes Among Young, Middle-Aged, and Older Women