The Arizona Department of Water Resources filed a motion Friday to join in a lawsuit against the federal government’s plan for Colorado River operations over the next 10 years.
Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw.
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In this week’s episode, Mike is joined by Mike McCue, founder and CEO of Flipboard, and a long term Silicon Valley exec and entrepreneur. Together, they discuss:
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There is an old expression that goes like this: “Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” There is a corollary to that adage: “Everybody knows we have to stop polluting our environment, but nobody wants to be first to do something about it.” A case in ... [continued]
The post France And Germany Agree On New Exhaust Emissions Rules, Sort Of….. appeared first on CleanTechnica.
This is the flyer for the next talk in our speaker series at IU. It’s on Tuesday, and a can’t-miss event. I explain more below.
I know a lot of people who know a lot about AI. Or seem to. Or say they do. But Pete Kaminski is the real deal. More importantly, he knows more about putting AI to work for you than anyone else I know. If you want to know how to get personal—not personalized—AI working for you, Pete’s your guy.
His talk is on this coming Tuesday, 20 October, in the Student Building, room 150, at Indiana University. And on Zoom. Go here to register and tune in. (See the Join Event button.) It’s participatory, so be ready to ask questions.
The Dune fans among us should grok the headline, but in case not, mentats are superintelligent humans. These were handy to have if AIs are outlawed, as they were in the Dune universe. For AI knowhow, Pete is my mentat, even if nobody in reality fits the description.
Big thanks to the Ostrom Workshop and the Hamilton Lugar School at IU for their help and support in this, our fifth year of the series—and for all their earlier efforts as well.
See ya’ll there!
For years, the idea of expanding the Supreme Court has been dismissed as a fantasy among “serious” thinkers. However, with it becoming ever more clear that the Supreme Court has gone completely off the rails and is now a purely partisan entity, rather than one doing neutral adjudications, more people are open to the idea of “fixing” or “reforming” the court in some form or another. Plenty of reforms are regularly suggested, from term limits to strict ethics and abstention rules. But one that gets the most attention is expanding the court.
This one is also the most controversial. A new Marquette poll found the public evenly split, 50-50, on expanding the court. That’s way behind the 79% who support term limits, but it’s hardly a fringe position.
Law professor Steve Vladeck, whose work we regularly discuss and cite, recently posted what he called “hard questions about court expansion,” which I think cover the key criticisms most people make about expanding the court. As regular Techdirt readers know, I advocate for expanding the Court to 100 Justices, with cases being heard by random panels of nine, with the possibility for some sort of larger “en banc” review as well.
Part of this also has to involve a more balanced system for bringing the number of Justices up to 100 without it being initially overweighted with ideologically biased Justices to one side. The most obvious initial system is to elevate a bunch of existing appeals court judges (currently there are 179 such seats), but doing so in a manner that requires some form of bipartisan consensus (at least one Senator from each party?) to agree to the elevation. Yes, such a system risks deadlock, but if there’s broad agreement that the process won’t tilt the Court toward either side, there’s at least a path to making it work. We have seen something kind of like this work with the FTC and the FCC and their bipartisan commissioners — at least until Donald Trump blew that up and basically fired all Democratic Commissioners (minus the one still hanging on at the FCC, because she’s needed under the law to allow the FCC to operate). And, yes, this ideologically captured Supreme Court blessed Trump doing so, but that’s all the more reason to set up a stronger system to ensure a Supreme Court that can’t become ideologically captured.
This can easily be combined with a term limit structure, but I’m not convinced term limits make that big a difference under my plan, other than changing the political calculus of when to retire. And with 100 Justices, that calculus matters a lot less, because no single retirement can swing the Court.
I think this type of expansion deals with nearly all of the “negatives” people warn about when it comes to expanding the Supreme Court. Let me explain why, and then see how it holds up against Vladeck’s “hard questions.”
I’m sure there are risks. But a massive shift in how the Court itself functions, rather than a small increase designed to swing the ideological balance, has a much better chance of surviving long-term without triggering partisan swings every few years. The goal of the 100-Justice system isn’t to swing the ideological balance. It’s to rethink how the Supreme Court functions to make it way more difficult for it to become ideologically captured in any way. And with such a big change, it also acts as a bit of a shock to the system, getting people to rethink the function of the court, to bring it back to being a true judicial body, rather than a political body.
Now, on to Vladeck’s “hard questions”:
I think my explanation above gets at this point directly. Merely expanding the Court by two or four Justices likely does set off just such a “race to the bottom” for each time Congress switches hands. But by massively shifting the setup of the Court, greatly diminishing the importance of any single Justice, we can avoid the value of constant one-upping the previous party in control, and reset the judicial balance.
First off, I think with my system, a race to the bottom is absolutely avoidable! And, again, there are other elements in my system that I think should increase public confidence in the Court. It diminishes the risk of ideological capture of the Court, it enables greater effectiveness and throughput of the Court, and includes a safety valve in the en banc system as well.
Again, I think my plan doesn’t erode public confidence at all. If anything, it should rebuild it, by making the institution more resistant to ideological capture. It could also help restore trust in the lower federal courts because the Supreme Court itself should be more effective and able to take on more issues, which gives the lower courts more clarity, as opposed to the vague hand-waving we’ve gotten used to under Chief Justice Roberts.
Vladeck has outlined a number of alternative proposals for Supreme Court reform in his own work, and we can address those and some of the other most popular suggestions.
Term limits by themselves seem to do very little to increase public confidence in the Courts. It still allows for ideological capture based on the party in power. Yes, it gets rid of a few very old cranks, but that’s a short term fix if they are just replaced by the next MAGA crank in line. A massive expansion with a push for some level of bipartisan consensus again seems like a much bigger lever towards resetting the Court.
The ethics enforcement system seems like it barely helps at the margins of the most corrupt scenarios, but does little more to help in other ways.
“Jurisdiction-stripping” would block the Court from hearing certain kinds of cases, but I’m not sure how that helps, other than potentially increasing the power of Congress in a way that could further unbalance our three branch system of government.
Vladeck also has suggested systems of increased accountability:
There are many examples, but these would include: (1) expanding the Court’s mandatory docket; (2) establishing an Article III Inspector General; (3) codifying existing standards (as opposed to raising the standards) for emergency relief; (4) increasing public congressional oversight of the Court (including of its budget); and (5) on a more basic level, heightening congressional engagement in the Court’s day-to-day work.
The paper linked above also includes specific docket reform proposals that… are… fine? But I’m not sure any really move the needle on institutional trust.
Finally, to Vladeck’s long-term focus on the shadow docket, I’d be open to a specific reform on that as well, requiring that the shadow docket be explicitly tied to actual emergency situations, designed to focus on keeping the status quo in such an emergency, and only up to the point when a full briefing/hearing process can lead to a full decision on the merits. That alone wouldn’t fix the Court’s reputation problem, but it would be a useful addition.
But, on the whole, part of the argument for switching to the 100-Justice system is the very fact that it’s not an incremental reform, but a rethinking of how the Supreme Court itself works in a way that shocks the system out of the mess it has currently become.
Just like no voting system is perfect, no system for selecting a Supreme Court will be perfect either. But I remain fairly convinced that a 100 Justice Supreme Court would be a big improvement over what we have today, and clearly better than almost all other suggested reforms, including (importantly) the much more narrow plans to increase the number of Justices by two or four, which would set off the very concerns Vladeck outlines in his questions.
11.2 million.
That’s the number of American citizens who rank climate change as their top issue but didn’t vote in the 2024 election, according to research by the Environmental Voter Project. For context, Donald Trump won the presidency in 2024 by less than 2.3 million votes.
For a little over a decade, EVP has been working to get these climate-first Americans to the polls. Over the years, through canvassing, phonebanking, and postcard writing, they’ve helped turn 2.2 million climate-first nonvoters into voters who consistently show up at the polls every election, for candidates at every level of government.
“We work in [21] states because we feel that there are important gains that the climate movement can make, not just at the federal level, but the state and local level there,” Nathaniel Stinnett, the founder and executive director of EVP told CCNow in an interview.
This year, EVP is getting help from Patagonia. In September, the outdoor apparel company launched The 11.2 Million Vote Project offering a $100 credit to 112,000 people who signed up three of their friends to encourage them to vote. The coupons were snapped up in just four days. (The tool is still live for folks who want to nudge their friends.)
So why don’t these people who care so much about climate change vote with that issue in mind? It turns out, many people still falsely think that the top two most effective actions they can take to combat climate change are to recycle and change their consumer habits, according to recent EVP polling. “For 30 years, the fossil fuel industry has been teaching us to ignore the coal-fired power plant back there and instead just obsess over the plastic water bottles in our hands,” says Stinnett. “So, of course the public feels this way.”
“Everybody is failing climate concerned Americans in not helping them realize that this is a systemic political problem that requires systemic political solutions,” says Stinnett. “It’s not just about buying the right clothes and eating like climate-friendly donuts, or whatever. It’s about taking political action.”
This election season, Stinnett’s looking closely at governors’ races. “This is where energy affordability and data center politics collide,” says Stinnett. “Lots of press will be looking at Congress, but governors are in the crosshairs where, when it comes to voter anger and fear over data centers, governors typically have enormous control over utility regulation and rate setting, like Georgia.”
The public needs journalism that illuminates the most effective climate solutions — by asking candidates about their climate policy positions and reporting on which elected officials are living up to their campaign pledges — helping Americans to connect the dots between their ballots and climate action.
– Theresa Riley, CCNow’s Audience Editor
For the latest polls and studies connecting climate to local and national races, plus recordings of conversations with experts on energy affordability and voter concerns, and a curation of great stories making the climate-elections connection, check out our 2026 Elections Guide. We’ll be updating the guide through Election Day!
Climate on the Ballot 2026 Reporting Initiative. We’d love to lift up the great coverage you’re doing about how climate factors into local, state, and congressional races. Send us your reporting to be featured in a curated selection of pieces. Email theresa[at]coveringclimatenow[dot]org with questions, ideas, and links to stories.
Know someone who might be interested in this newsletter? Forward Climate on the Ballot to a colleague!
The post If So Many Americans Care About Climate, Why Don’t They Vote Like It? appeared first on Covering Climate Now.
This reporting guide was republished with permission from SciLine, where it first appeared.
Nearly 50 million adults aged 18 to 29 will be eligible to vote in the 2026 midterm elections, making Generation Z potentially one of the nation’s most powerful and influential voting blocs.
The reality is that many Americans in this age group do not vote, a problem that researchers have studied for decades. Meanwhile, a number of new laws and policy proposals across the U.S. may make it even harder for young people to register to vote and cast their ballots on time.
We created this guide to encourage journalists to examine independent, nonpartisan research about youth voting patterns and obstacles — and to use that knowledge to ground their coverage of the 2026 midterm elections.
Historically, young adults have voted at lower rates than older adults. Less than a third of U.S. citizens aged 18 to 29 voted during the 2022 midterm elections, compared with 47% of voters aged 30 to 44, 58% of voters aged 45 to 64, and 67% of voters aged 65 and older, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
Even so, social scientists warn journalists not to equate a lack of voting with political apathy.
“A lot of our research shows young people deeply value democracy,” says Sara Suzuki, a senior researcher at the Tufts University Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Commonly known as CIRCLE, the center is a leading, nonpartisan source of data and analysis on the country’s youngest voters.
These voters, whom scholars refer to as youth voters, must overcome a series of structural and logistical hurdles to participate in elections, Suzuki says. Election laws in some states make voting more difficult for college students in particular, especially students who have a permanent residence in one state but live in a different state during the academic year.
Jonathan Becker, a voting rights scholar and acting president of Bard College in New York, has spoken out about election laws that he believes were meant to make it tougher for young adults to influence election results.
“Some of the systems used to exclude African Americans [from voting] have been used on young people,” Becker told a crowd of college students who gathered at Emerson College in Boston on Sept. 17 in recognition of Constitution Day.
In recent years, some conservative lawmakers and political candidates have voiced support for adding more barriers to young adults’ access to the ballot box. In extreme cases, they have suggested taking away their right to vote entirely. For example, while campaigning for the U.S. presidency in 2023, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — currently the Republican nominee for governor in Ohio — proposed raising the voting age to 25.
State laws and policies that researchers say discourage young people from voting include:
Banning student IDs and out-of-state driver’s licenses as forms of voter identification.
Earlier this year, New Hampshire and Florida became the latest states to adopt laws prohibiting voters from using a student ID to verify their identity. Of the states that allow student IDs, some only allow them under certain conditions. For example, Georgia allows college student IDs only if they have been issued by one of the state’s public colleges or universities.
Voters in 36 states must present identification before they can vote at the polls on Election Day, according to Ballotpedia, a reliable resource for election-related information. The 24 states that require a photo ID generally do not accept driver’s licenses from other states. This can make voting difficult for out-of-state college students who prefer to vote in the state where they go to college, or who may not be able to vote by mail or travel to their home state to vote.
Requiring proof of national citizenship.
Some states require adults to provide documents such as a U.S. birth certificate or passport to demonstrate they are U.S. citizens before they can register to vote. Many young adults do not have passports and, researchers assert, many also do not have ready access to their birth certificates.
Closing or rejecting requests to open polling locations on college campuses.
In January, the North Carolina State Board of Elections removed an early voting site at Western Carolina University and rejected plans to open early voting sites at three other universities, reports the nonprofit news outlet NC Local. On Sept. 1, county commissioners in Tarrant County, Texas, decided against restoring polling places at the University of Texas at Arlington and two Tarrant County College campuses, according to the digital news platform Democracy Docket.
Restricting voting rules related to state residency.
State laws that limit voters to one legal address can make registering to vote complicated for young adults who live with their parents but also reside in a different state during the academic year to attend college.
Limiting mail voting.
Election officials in 13 states only allow certain voters to use mail ballots, reports the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks state election laws. In those states, requests for mail ballots are granted based on the excuse the voter gives for not being able to vote in person at a polling location. In the other states, voters can submit mail ballots without needing to provide a reason or excuse.
Mandating that residents register to vote weeks before an election.
Voter registration deadlines vary across the U.S. As of May 2026, 15 states required their residents to register to vote at least 28 to 30 days prior to an election, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In nine states, the deadline is 20 to 27 days before an election. Seven states have a deadline of one to 19 days before an election.
An analysis from CIRCLE finds that youth voter turnout during the 2022 midterm elections often was highest in states where residents could register to vote on the same day they cast their ballots and in states with automatic voter registration. California and Oregon were the first to introduce automatic voter registration systems, which use data collected by certain government agencies, such as a state department of motor vehicles, to register eligible adults to vote.
Courtney Juelich, an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Stout Polytechnic, points out that legal battles over mail voting this year will likely affect turnout, too. She says President Donald Trump’s push to restrict mail voting, partly by changing the way the Postal Service processes mail-in ballots, has created confusion among voters.
“Even though the Supreme Court decided the Postal Service isn’t going to be doing that, it’s still in this crucial period of time close to the election,” Juelich says, adding that voters who do not follow election issues closely and adults who are not familiar with the voting process might decide not to vote. “This will be discordant for low-information voters, who are typically young.”
Young adults gained the right to vote beginning at age 18 after Congress passed and the states ratified the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in July 1971. Although researchers have now spent decades studying youth voters and how various laws, policies, and programs affect them, it can be difficult to make broad generalizations about the people in this group.
That is because the rules around elections vary from state to state, and youth voters themselves are a racially, socially and economically diverse group. Also, the habits and attitudes of 18- and 19-year-olds often differ considerably from the habits and attitudes of 28- and 29-year-olds.
That said, the research to date indicates:
A substantial proportion of young adults do not identify with either of the major political parties.
A national survey the Pew Research Center conducted in late 2023 finds that the youngest voters aligned more closely with the Democratic Party than older voters did. But about half of voters under age 25 identified as independent or something other than a Democrat or Republican, Pew reported in 2024. A nationwide survey conducted this year by CIRCLE and the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization When We All Vote got similar results. They found that 43% of the 5,549 adults aged 18 to 29 who completed the survey did not identify as Republican or Democrat.
In some states, young adults’ ballots are more likely to be challenged and rejected than those of older adults.
For example, from 2020 to 2025, election officials in Washington challenged 5.3% of all mail ballots submitted by adults aged 18 to 25 because of signature-related problems — more than any other age group, according to a new analysis by researchers from the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley. Election officials ended up rejecting 3.4% of their mail ballots, a higher rate than for voters from other age groups. As a comparison, election officials challenged 1.1% of mail ballots submitted by voters aged 46 to 65 because of signature issues. They rejected 0.7% of those voters’ ballots during the five-year period.
A Rutgers University Law Review article examines rejection rates for provisional ballots in North Carolina during elections in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020. It reveals that rejection rates rose over time for voters in most age groups but increased most for adults aged 18 to 25. In 2020, election officials rejected 80% of the provisional ballots completed by the state’s youngest voters, up from 68% in 2008. The rejection rate rose from 58% to 67% over the same period for voters aged 26 to 40 and from 53% to 58% for voters aged 41 to 65. The rate fell slightly for voters aged 66 and older.
Political campaigns often overlook or ignore youth voters.
A 2022 report from CIRCLE underscores the key role political campaigns play in educating 18- to 29-year-olds about political candidates, policy issues, and the voting process. CIRCLE surveyed 2,018 youth voters after the 2022 midterm election and learned that those contacted by campaigns were much more likely to vote.
“Our research has consistently shown that outreach correlates with higher youth voting, and this new survey suggests that was the case once again in the 2022 midterms,” CIRCLE researchers write. Almost half of the young adults who participated in the survey said they had not been contacted by any organization, candidate, or party about elections that year.
“Young people who said they were contacted were 29 [percentage] points more likely to report that they voted than those who were not contacted,” the researchers write.
Financial hardship is linked to lower levels of civic engagement.
Suzuki says CIRCLE researchers have consistently found that young people’s financial struggles tend to influence their attitudes about voting and their civic engagement. A key takeaway of one recent analysis: Young adults who missed voter registration deadlines or ran out of time to register were twice as likely to have money troubles.
“Being too busy or having a conflicting work schedule are commonly cited barriers to voting, a challenge that is likely heightened for young people struggling to make ends meet,” CIRCLE researchers write.
Political scientist Nathan Micatka studies the voting habits of young adults who participated in government assistance programs as children. A paper he wrote that appeared last year in the Policy Studies Journal estimates that white, non-Hispanic young adults who participated in these programs as adolescents were 6 to 17 percentage points less likely to vote in their first election as adults, compared with white, non-Hispanic young adults who did not participate in those programs. Micatka, an assistant professor at the University of South Alabama, looked at election turnout in 2004, 2006, 2008, and 2010.
He says the stigma associated with welfare programs and having negative experiences with government employees could help explain why the individuals he studied had lower odds of voting. Another possible reason: While these young adults were growing up, they might not have seen their parents or other role models vote or engage with the political process. Micatka did not find a relationship between voting and receiving government assistance for Hispanic young adults or Black, non-Hispanic young adults. In his paper, he writes that “the null results among non-white respondents may be rooted in historical political exclusion and racialization of politics that are more impactful for voting than welfare participation.”
We consulted three researchers with deep expertise in U.S. elections and young voters to create this reporting guide. Suzuki, Micatka, and Juelich shared a wealth of tips and insights to help journalists report on youth voters. Here are three of their recommendations:
1) Feature the views and experiences of young adults prominently in news stories about youth voting.
Suzuki says a lot of the news coverage on youth voting focuses on experts and decision-makers such as researchers, legislators, election officials, and higher education administrators. What often is missing, she adds, are young adults’ personal stories and observations.
“Young people can speak for themselves,” she says. “They have a voice.”
A good place to find these voters: youth-led organizations such as New Voters and TurnUp.
Jeulich urges journalists to find out what young voters care about and to ask a range of questions aimed at gaining a better understanding of how the values, attitudes, and opinions of young Americans vary.
Scholars have limited information about these topics because they rely heavily on telephone and online surveys to gather information from young adults. To encourage youth voters to take the surveys, researchers keep them short and ask mostly multiple-choice questions.
“Ask open-ended questions and publish [the answers],” Juelich suggests. “People will read it. It would be of interest to social scientists broadly. I think there is a feedback loop we could have that is normatively better for society.”
2) Don’t present youth voters only as college students.
Suzuki urges journalists to ask themselves this question: Who comes to mind when you think about youth voters? She says news stories and images frequently present them as college students, even though most 18- to 29-year-olds in the U.S. are not college students. Many never attended college.
“If young people equals college students, you’re missing large, large segments of young people,” Suzuki notes.
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that fewer than 40% of adults aged 18 to 24 — the primary age range for going to college — were college students in 2022, the most recent year for which the federal agency has complete data.
Micatka encourages journalists to interview young adults of different ages, education levels and backgrounds so news stories make clear that youth voters are a very diverse group.
He adds: “College campuses are easy [to access], and there are a lot of young people there. But we need to shift the focus away from college campuses.”
3) Don’t report or imply that low voter turnout indicates political apathy.
Juelich, Micatka, and Suzuki all stress the need for journalists to understand the various hurdles young people must overcome to vote. A report that CIRCLE released in January, “25 Things We Learned About Young Voters in 2025,” explains some of the most common challenges.
“A lot of times journalists, researchers, and average citizens, we tend to think low turnout means people don’t care,” Micatka says. “We need to be careful not to equate low turnout with political apathy.”
Juelich says many young people lack basic information about voting. During a recent classroom discussion, she corrected a misunderstanding that some of her students had about whether they could vote in the state where their college is located.
“I’m talking to my students and my out-of-state students are saying, ‘I can’t vote here,’” Juelich says. “And I say, ‘Yes, you can.’”
There are psychological barriers, too, researchers at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania write in a December 2025 commentary in the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass.
“Emerging adults are still developing self‐regulatory skills, such as goal setting, planning, and organization, that are important for voting,” they write. “Even those who have strong intentions to vote may not effectively act on their intentions due to poor planning, missed deadlines, or unforeseen circumstances.”
Here are three story ideas that journalists can localize for their audiences:
1) Getting young adults to vote: What works?
Researchers have identified programs and policies that encourage voting and prepare young people to participate in civic activities. For example, CIRCLE released a report on the topic in 2022 that includes recommendations for how political campaigns, nonprofit organizations, news outlets, educators, parents, and others can pitch in to help.
In a paper published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 2023, researchers at Duke University and the University of Virginia explain the various ways K-12 teachers can prepare young people to vote in the future.
“Schools should be laboratories of democracy, where young people’s civic intentions are converted into civic behaviors,” the researchers write.
Encouraging teenagers to preregister, or register to vote before they turn 18, also helps, another group of researchers writes in a 2020 paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. That paper finds that pre-registering is associated with higher voter turnout and increased state funding for higher education. As of September 2025, all states except North Dakota allowed pre-registration, according to Ballotpedia. North Dakota does not require its residents to register in order to vote.
2) Colleges’ efforts to motivate students to vote
Colleges and universities play a key role in mobilizing voters. In fact, the federal Higher Education Act of 1965 mandates that higher education institutions distribute voter registration forms to their students. Campus administrators and student and nonprofit organizations are continuously seeking new ways to better inform and engage students.
Examples:
3) Civic engagement among young adults
Micatka says his research indicates that some young adults who received public assistance as kids do not vote, but do participate in other civic activities such as volunteering for political campaigns, writing letters to lawmakers, and donating money to a cause they support.
“Remember voting is not the only way to engage with the political process,” he says.
Suzuki recommends journalists ask young adults about their civic engagement and then report on it. She says the general public might not realize that many young adults are deeply committed to their families, communities and the causes they support.
“Talk to young people running for office, young people running civic organizations, young people who are running voter registration drives at their schools and in their communities,” Suzuki says.
These are some of the organizations and research projects that provide reliable information about youth voters or young adults more broadly.
Ballotpedia: A frequently-updated digital encyclopedia of U.S. politics. It provides information on local, state, and federal elections and election laws.
Berkeley Initiative for Young Americans: A research center at the University of California, Berkeley that studies various issues affecting young adults, including their personal values and politics.
Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, also known as CIRCLE: A Tufts University research center that studies civic engagement among young people in the U.S.
Harvard Youth Poll: A widely cited national survey the Harvard Kennedy School of Government conducts each spring and fall to ask 18- to 29-year-olds for their views on a range of issues.
National Center for Education Statistics: The federal government agency responsible for collecting and sharing data on K-12 education and higher education in the U.S.
National Conference of State Legislatures: A bipartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks and reports on various state policies.
Pew Research Center: A private, nonpartisan think tank known for its survey research on a wide range of policy topics and social issues.
Student Vote Research Network: A joint project of Menlo College, the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition and the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge that brings scholars and practitioners together to study youth voting and find ways to mobilize youth voters.
Student Voting Rights Lab: A research and advocacy organization run by Duke University and North Carolina Central University focused on the voting rights of young adults in the U.S.
Students Learn Students Vote Coalition: A broad network of higher education institutions, student groups, and nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations that are working to increase voting among young adults.
Voting Information Trends Interactive Dashboard: A digital tool created recently by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School that looks at where adults go online to get information about the 2026 midterm elections. Journalists can view data for adults of different age groups.
The post The many barriers young adults must overcome to vote: A research-based reporting guide appeared first on The Journalist's Resource.
My colleague Tina Casey is doing a story about the new Tesla Roadster, and I hope she will pardon me for this intrusion. What we saw at the reveal was a totally irrelevant mind game cooked up inside the drug addled cranium of Elon Musk. That’s right, the world’s richest ... [continued]
The post Tesla Roadster Reveal — Madness From The Mind If Musk appeared first on CleanTechnica.
At the autumn meetings of the world’s most important development finance bodies, conversations around trying to attract more private investors and providing debt relief to low-income nations are positive – but for world’s poorest nations, Nick Ferris writes, there is little hope of economic development occurring without more aid
Electric ships attract attention because the vessel is the visible technology. Put a large battery into an inland cargo vessel, replace the diesel propulsion system with electric motors, and the decarbonization story appears straightforward. Inland shipping looks particularly promising because many vessels travel repeatable routes between known terminals, where large ... [continued]
The post Europe Needs Electric Freight Corridors, Not Just Electric Ships appeared first on CleanTechnica.
This story is part of an investigation conducted by an international team of journalists based at The Outlaw Ocean Project. Read the other stories here.
Monthly wind generation in the first nine months of 2026 was an average of 68% higher compared with the same period in 2025 in ISO New England (ISO-NE): Monthly generation from wind was highest in September of this year at 668.9 gigawatthours (GWh), more than double generation levels from September ... [continued]
The post Monthly Wind Generation In ISO-NE Is About 68% Higher Than Last Year appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Three regional transmission organizations (RTOs) set records for peak hourly load this past summer, according to data reported on Form EIA-930 and presented in the Hourly Electric Grid Monitor: PJM peaked at 162.6 gigawatts (GW) on July 2, 2026, 1.3% higher than the pre-2026 peak of 160.6 GW on June ... [continued]
The post PJM, ERCOT, and SWPP All Set Peak Load Records This Summer appeared first on CleanTechnica.
This is our latest family member EV. It’s my third daughter’s used 2023 Hyundai IONIQ 5 in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s been a progression: It started with a couple of family pioneers (my brother and me) first dipping a toe in the water in 2014–2015 with early short-range, small-battery EVs. ... [continued]
The post My Family & Friends Go Electric appeared first on CleanTechnica.
It’s not unusual for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin to be on the road touting the Trump administration’s agenda, but his travel itinerary in the weeks before the midterm election looks like a trail of political hot spots.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk aims to recover some of his EV magic from the Cybertruck debacle by showcasing the new Tesla Roadster on October 15, a $200,000 reboot of the original 2006 Tesla two-seater that sparked the global EV revolution.
The post Ghost Of Thanos Lingers Over Elon Musk’s Howard Stark Moment appeared first on CleanTechnica.
People love to complain about how China provides massive state subsidies to its domestic manufacturers, as if the US, the EU, and Japan do not. Whether is it a zillion tax breaks for corporations or forgiveness of local property taxes, the last thing any business in the west wants is ... [continued]
The post China Adjusts VAT Exemption For Exported Vehicles appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Apparently we’re in an era where the courts just decide to ignore precedents they don’t like. And that leads us to ridiculous results like yesterday’s ruling in the Eleventh Circuit allowing Florida’s HB3 social media age verification law to move forward. But to understand how messed up it is, you need to know the history of a few different Supreme Court cases, and how the Supreme Court has started undermining earlier precedents, effectively granting power to the Eleventh Circuit to make up its own rules.
As a quick primer, these are the historical cases you need to understand, to recognize what a clusterfuck this new ruling is.
Then we have some more recent cases that make all this shit trickier:
So, that brings us to this new ruling in the Eleventh Circuit regarding HB3, which was Florida’s attempt to broadly age verify internet services. The key parts require social media platforms that have “addictive features” (as defined by Florida) to block anyone under the age of 14 from creating an account, and then requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds. In short, it requires age verifying everyone and blocking many users from these services.
The trade groups CCIA & NetChoice challenged the law, and the case went through many twists and turns, including a district court judge pointing out that adults freaking out over whatever new thing kids are into is a moral panic that happens all the time, and we shouldn’t immediately assume that just because politicians are screaming about “protecting the children” that we need to believe them. At one point a judge refused to grant an injunction because (the judge said), the trade association that filed the case (CCIA) couldn’t show that any of its members faced imminent harm.
Soon after that Florida sought to enforce the law against Snap, a member of CCIA. Eventually, the district court issued a preliminary injunction on the law, though the Eleventh Circuit then put a stay on the injunction, with a dissent from Judge Robin Rosenbaum, who makes a ton of important points. As I said, lots of twists and turns.
However, now the Eleventh Circuit has come out with its latest ruling reversing the district court’s preliminary injunction (and vacating it as to the facial challenge), and it’s a fucking mess. Notably, it’s a totally different panel — Judges Newsom, Luck, and Tjoflat — than the earlier ruling, and so this new ruling doesn’t even have the kind of thoughtful dissent Rosenbaum issued last time through this court, and the ruling is worse off for it.
First, the similarities to Brown v. EMA should be obvious, but the panel here says that this law is more like the TikTok case, and thus the ruling in Brown doesn’t really apply:
HB3 more closely resembles the law at issue in TikTok than the one in Brown. HB3 is facially content neutral: It regulates social-media platforms based on their functional capabilities and features, not the content they communicate. The law neither references the substance of the speech on any platform nor draws distinctions based on it. Put differently, HB3 applies to platforms wholly without regard to the topics discussed or the ideas or messages conveyed on them. Truth Social is just as likely as Instagram to be affected by HB3 so long as (1) a proportion of minors under 16 spend an average of at least two hours a day on it; (2) it uses infinite scrolling, push notifications, auto-play, or livestreaming, or displays user-engagement metrics; and (3) it selects content algorithmically for users. Fla. Stat. § 501.1736(1)(e). And tellingly, neither a platform nor a user can “avoid or mitigate” the effects of HB3 by “altering” the substance of any posted expression. TikTok, 604 U.S. at 71 (quoting Turner I, 512 U.S. at 644).
HB3’s justification is also content neutral: to “protect[] children from [social-media] addiction and associated mental-health harms.” Br. of Appellant at 36. That purpose is “unrelated to the content of expression” on any given platform, and it doesn’t “reflect[] disagreement with the message such speech conveys.” TikTok, 604 U.S. at 72.
To put it simply: that is garbage. The reason for Florida’s law is not content neutral at all. It is passing these laws because it doesn’t believe kids should have access to all sorts of constitutionally protected speech. That is important. The claim that it is to “protect children” could equally apply to all sorts of speech, such as books, TV shows, movies, or video games (remember what the Brown case is about?), but we (and the courts) immediately recognize that has clear speech implications, and you can’t wave them off as “content neutral.”
On top of that, the claim that this is just about “capabilities and features” not content ignores that many of those features (as established in cases like Moody) are, in fact, the expressive (First Amendment-protected) speech of the platforms themselves, which the state is effectively banning. To call the law content neutral, even as it calls out specific editorial features, just seems fundamentally incorrect.
Even more incredibly, the Eleventh Circuit literally seems to suggest that states can regulate all sorts of speech that might make people more interested in content as “features” rather than speech. CCIA had pointed out that the law is not at all content neutral because it puts rules on internet speech that doesn’t apply to speech in other mediums, and uses “cliffhangers” in books as an example.
In particular, CCIA emphasizes that HB3 prohibits addictive features only on websites, not on other “services that disseminate speech”—like, for instance, “books that end in cliffhangers.”
The Eleventh Circuit dismisses this in a footnote… suggesting that cliffhangers and other tricks to get people to read more in books can be regulated because they’re “features” not “speech.”
Further, the analogy to literary devices that make books more engaging—like cliffhangers, shorter chapters, or serialization—simply reinforces Florida’s contention that it’s not focused on speech and the accompanying ideas, topics, and messages, but rather on features that in and of themselves are agnostic as to content.
I am… flummoxed by this. Cliffhangers are features, not speech? Have any of these judges ever read a book? Short chapters are features not speech? What? Under the logic of this ruling, a state could issue a ban on short chapters and cliffhangers as being too “addictive” and the Eleventh Circuit says that would pass intermediate scrutiny and be just fine.
And that alone should tell you how preposterous this ruling is.
CCIA pointed out how much protected speech gets stifled under this law, but the judges dismissed it. They claim (incredibly) that the law doesn’t “burden” too much speech:
HB3 doesn’t “burden substantially more speech than necessary” because it (1) calibrates its restrictions by age, (2) regulates minors’ creation of social-media accounts, not necessarily their access to the platforms themselves, (3) covers only those platforms that have been determined to induce heavy use by children, and (4) applies only to platforms that use both algorithms and one of several addictive features.
But that’s simply wrong. It absolutely burdens a ton of protected speech for users under the age of 14. The “calibrates its restrictions by age” ignores that it requires a full block on those under 14, even though there may be plenty of age appropriate speech online for those under 14 (my under 14-year-old middle schooler regularly watches educational videos on YouTube, for example).
Also, it simply ignores that anonymity is protected under the First Amendment, and this law effectively ends anonymous accounts for everyone, since age verification has to cover all users. How did the court address that? It didn’t. Search the ruling for “anonymous” and you get:
At least with the last time through this court in the Rosenbaum dissent, she was able to highlight the issue of anonymous speech. Here, the court just ignores it. Poof. Doesn’t matter.
The court also says all this is fine because it doesn’t restrict access, only account creation:
Second, even among those to whom HB3 does apply, the law restricts only their ability to create their own accounts, not their ability to access social-media platforms per se. The creation of a social-media account is a commercial act—a business transaction. Even a minor—indeed, even a young child—may continue to use the platforms provided he either (1) uses his parents’ (or someone else’s) account or (2) gains access without an account.
But there are plenty of platforms that restrict access to only those with an account. And, again, it also restricts how platforms decide what features to offer, which is its own burden.
Separately, the court claims that this law is fine because it only targets platforms to which kids are “already addicted.”
Third, HB3 targets only the platforms to which many minors are already addicted. As a reminder, a platform comes within HB3’s purview only if at least 10% of daily active users under 16 years old spend an average of two hours or more per day on it. Fla. Stat. § 501.1736(1)(e). Together with its other limitations, HB3’s tailoring efforts fall within the broad range of potential legislative solutions that intermediate scrutiny permits.
Even leaving aside the fact that repeated research suggests claims of social media “addiction” are way overblown, it’s also wrong about the law. Just because people use something an average of two hours or more a day does not, definitionally, mean “addicted.” People spend hours a day reading, playing sports, or watching TV, but we don’t claim those are addictions that need to be regulated. The data here (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics) is a bit outdated, but it found that people tend to watch more than two hours of TV a day. Do we claim that everyone is addicted to TV?
Also, nothing about the law is focused just on those who use the platform that much. It bans those who use it for just minutes a day as well if they’re 13-years-old. Arguing that it’s narrowly targeted makes no sense at all.
Bizarrely, the panel then claims that because the platforms can change what features they offer kids, that shows that this doesn’t burden speech. Really.
And fourth, HB3 operates not as an outright prohibition of platform usage but rather as a “conditional ban” of sorts—namely, on platforms’ use of addictive features and algorithms. See TikTok, 604 U.S. at 74, 77. The law applies only to platforms that use a combination of algorithms and addictive features and that succeed in keeping many minors on them for an average of at least two hours a day. See Fla. Stat. § 501.1736(1)(e). Refraining from using either algorithms or addictive features, or remaining below the temporal threshold, exempts a platform from the law’s application.
Right. So, you just admitted that it impacts the editorial decision making of the platforms, the very thing the Supreme Court said in Moody that is protected by the First Amendment.
And while the Packingham case makes it pretty clear that you can’t ban people from websites because there is so much important speech there, again the panel here dismisses that because it’s just banning “a subset of minors” rather than “all sex offenders” as was the case in Packingham.
Unlike HB3, which applies only to a subset of minors, the statute there covered all registered sex offenders. And unlike HB3, which applies only to a subset of social-media platforms, the law there defined the covered sites exceedingly broadly; it included “commonplace social media websites like Facebook and Twitter,” as well as “websites as varied as Amazon.com, Washingtonpost.com, and Webmd.com.” Id. at 101, 106 (majority opinion). And unlike HB3, which restricts account creation but doesn’t limit access to the platforms per se, the statute there forbade any usage of the covered sites. Id. at 101. HB3 is tailored in a way that the law at issue in Packingham was not.
I literally do not understand what they mean when they say HB3 is different because it only applies to a “subset of minors.” It applies to all minors under 14 with a ban on account creation, and also applies to all 14- and 15-year-olds by requiring parental approval for account creation. That’s… way more people than “all sex offenders” (unless Florida has more registered sex offenders than children under 16, which seems like a different kind of problem).
Then we get to the FSC v. Paxton issue. When the Supreme Court ruled in that case last year, we highlighted that the reasoning of the ruling was quite clearly limited to non-First Amendment protected speech, which they claimed included content that would be obscene to minors. But (importantly) we were sure it would open up the floodgates to people claiming it applied much more broadly to all sorts of internet services.
And… that’s exactly what is happening here, and the Eleventh Circuit judges seem to think it’s no big deal to magically expand the FSC ruling to mean you can age restrict First Amendment-protected content too.
CCIA contends that, by contrast, HB3 prohibits certain minors from accessing protected speech. That may be so, but Free Speech Coalition didn’t purport to establish a constitutional outer limit; nothing in the Court’s reasoning there precludes a state from imposing an age-verification requirement that operates to limit minors’ access to some protected speech—provided, of course, that it does so in a content-neutral manner.
That’s literally wrong. The majority decision in FSC quite clearly says it is okay to restrict it because the content is “obscene” to children, and thus not protected. Straight from Clarence Thomas’s decision:
Because H. B. 1181 simply requires proof of age to access content that is obscene to minors, it does not directly regulate the protected speech of adults…. On its face, the statute regulates only speech that is obscene to minors. That speech is unprotected to the extent the State seeks only to verify age. And, the statute can easily “be justified without reference to the [protected] content of the regulated speech,” because its apparent purpose is simply to prevent minors, who have no First Amendment right to access speech that is obscene to them, from doing so.
So, I’m honestly baffled that the Eleventh Circuit now claims that SCOTUS’s ruling wasn’t limited to only unprotected speech. It was core to Thomas’ ruling.
The Eleventh Circuit then takes other parts of the FSC ruling out of context, to say that because it mentioned age verification in other contexts (offline) being okay, that means they can extend it to protected speech:
To the contrary, everything the Court said in Free Speech Coalition seems to point in the other direction. The Court emphasized, for instance, that “[r]equiring age verification is common when a law draws lines based on age.” Id. at 479. It noted that many states require proof of age to buy alcohol and tobacco, as well as to obtain licenses to carry a handgun, to drive, and to marry.
Buying alcohol, tobacco, or firearms is, notably, not speech. Neither is driving or marrying. What the fuck are the judges even doing here?
Finally (though, not surprisingly, due to the awkwardness of the Moody ruling), the court rejects CCIA’s “facial” challenge, saying that because some of the platforms covered by this law might host speech that is unprotected under the First Amendment, CCIA hasn’t shown that the law’s unconstitutional applications substantially outweigh its constitutional ones. Incredibly, just pages after insisting that FSC v. Paxton isn’t limited to unprotected speech, the court turns around and leans on FSC’s unprotected-for-minors category to argue that some covered platforms host unprotected speech.
Put differently, just because users are “engag[ing] in speech” on a platform doesn’t mean that their expression is fully protected by the First Amendment. Id. There are all kinds of social-media platforms featuring—or even if not featuring, permitting—all kinds of expression. To be sure, much of that expression is fully protected. But some isn’t. The Supreme Court has held, for instance, that certain kinds of speech enjoy no First Amendment protection at all—e.g., incitement, true threats. See Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) (incitement); Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023) (true threats). Other kinds of speech enjoy constitutional protection when exhibited to adults but not when exhibited to children—pornography being the most obvious example. See Free Speech Coal., 606 U.S. at 496.
It may well be true that most expression on most social-media platforms is indeed protected. But not all of it is, at least not with respect to all users. So, for instance, imagine a platform that hosts only unprotected speech—say, Incitement.com or TrueThreats.com. A law restricting children’s (or anyone’s) access to it wouldn’t implicate the First Amendment at all and would trigger only rational-basis review. A law restricting access to a site that hosts speech that is protected for adults but not children—like pornography—would implicate the First Amendment, but a contentneutral restriction—like an age-verification requirement—would be subject only to intermediate scrutiny. See Free Speech Coal., 606 U.S. at 495. Accordingly, even if HB3 “imposes the same onerous restriction” on every platform, Dist. Ct. Order, June 3, 2025, at 43, that restriction could well be subject to different levels of scrutiny, potentially leading to different outcomes.
My response to that is a giant eye roll and “come on.” And, even the judges on the Eleventh Circuit realize “come on, you can’t be serious” is the only logical response here, but insist that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Moody requires such an outcome:
One might interpose a “come on” objection at this point: Surely, the argument would go, the overwhelming majority of platforms to which HB3 applies overwhelmingly host protected speech. And if, as CCIA insists, the law’s application to those websites would be unconstitutional, then the law’s unconstitutional applications would probably substantially outweigh the constitutional ones. But however intuitive, that sort of impressionistic judgment won’t satisfy Moody’s stringent demands. Whether or not it’s likely that the collective content of the platforms within HB3’s ambit is overwhelmingly protected, CCIA bears the “burden” of demonstrating both (1) the universe of the law’s applications and (2) that the invalid applications substantially outweigh the valid ones.
And, perhaps the ruling in Moody is to blame for this part of it, but when an appeals court has to admit how nonsensical this reasoning is, it seems like a sign that the Supreme Court should reconsider its silly requirements for facial challenges in Moody.
There is a concurrence from Judge Kevin Newsom, who points out that the Supreme Court is effectively all over the map regarding this “as applied” vs. “facial” challenge stuff post-Moody, noting that other recent SCOTUS rulings suggest “as applied” challenges for intermediate scrutiny may not really be allowed either, and then coming around to the obvious conclusion that this might mean that under recent SCOTUS doctrine, the state can pass all sorts of speech suppressing laws with no way for the courts to block them. And, uh, yeah, dude, that’s why these rulings are so damn concerning.
But if the Supreme Court’s point in Moody was to make as-applied challenges the new normal in First Amendment litigation, it seems strange that the same Court—the same nine people—would have then turned around less than two years later and nixed as-applied challenges for the whole range of First Amendment claims that call for intermediate scrutiny. And I don’t think it makes me a result-oriented hack to worry that a combination of Moody’s new (or newly emphasized) limitations on facial First Amendment challenges and a prohibition on as-applied challenges in a host of contexts would lead to, well, a lot less protection for traditionally safeguarded speech.
In the end, I’ll confess that I’m not quite sure what to make of B.P.J.’s statement casting doubt on the viability of as-applied challenges to laws that trigger less than strict scrutiny. But before exporting it to the First Amendment context, I think it’s wise to await a clearer signal from the Supreme Court.
While he doesn’t come out quite that far to say it, by suggesting it doesn’t make him a “result-oriented hack,” he is kinda pointing a finger at “the same nine people” on the Supreme Court who have made these conflicting decisions that make it effectively impossible to stop speech suppressing laws, even with the First Amendment. And they are result-oriented hacks, as some of us have been pointing out (though, realistically, he’s just talking about the “conservative” six who were in the majority of the BPJ case, which effectively puts the kibosh on as applied challenges for anything that qualifies for less than strict scrutiny.
Either way, this ruling makes a mess of free speech online in really damaging ways. Admittedly, some of that is due to the “results oriented hacks” at the Supreme Court, but the Eleventh Circuit’s interpretation of the rulings in Brown, Moody, Packingham, FSC, and a variety of other cases, suggests a do over is absolutely necessary. Hopefully this ruling gets tossed under an en banc hearing or, somehow, by the “results-oriented hacks” at the Supreme Court. With other circuits also having trouble remembering the First Amendment exists online, one hopes that the Supreme Court steps in and reminds them.
WHEN Hiroshi Okuda assumed the presidency of Toyota Motor Corporation in 1995, he fundamentally shifted the automaker’s global strategy. Recognizing the pressure of California’s impending zero-emission mandates and the long-term threat of petroleum depletion, Okuda demanded that Toyota accelerate its environmental vehicle programs from theoretical research into market-ready reality. Under ... [continued]
The post The RAV-4 Was An EV Experiment That Continues To Be One appeared first on CleanTechnica.
With the US midterm elections less than three weeks away, is it any surprise that corruption has emerged as voters’ top concern? “Corrupt” was the adjective most often chosen when registered voters were asked for a single word to describe President Donald Trump, according to a survey conducted in September by The Economist and the market research firm YouGov, with 53% of respondents calling Trump corrupt and only 23% saying he is “honest.” A Pew Research Center poll in early October found that nearly seven in 10 (69%) of Americans are “not confident” that Trump keeps his business interests separate from his presidential decisions.
Americans can thank diligent investigative reporting for alerting them to much of the self-dealing by Trump, his family, and aides. For example, The Washington Post has reported that Trump’s sons, Don Jr. and Eric, were investors in 15 companies that “collectively generated at least $3.2 billion in direct government business since the sons invested and an additional $3.1 billion in future contract options.” On Tuesday, in a rare retreat, the White House asked Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign as US ambassador to Greece after a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that Guilfoyle promised political favors to a Trump donor if he would quietly pay off her $100,000 American Express credit card bill.
Throughout the history of modern polling, voters have usually ranked the economy (or its proxies, such as “the cost of living”) as their top issue. Now, linking corruption with the cost of living, “Democrats Are Making Corruption Messaging a Pocketbook Issue,” a recent Politico headline declared. The Democrats’ claim, The New York Times reported, “is that rampant corruption in Congress and the administration is directly costing average citizens who are paying more for necessities like groceries, gas, and medicine….”
Both Democrats and the press, however, so far, are overlooking one of the most overt and consequential examples of Trump’s pay-to-play behavior. On May 24, 2024, Josh Dawsey and Maxine Joselow of The Washington Post published a blockbuster expose, reporting that Trump privately told a group of oil company CEOs they should donate $1 billion to his 2024 presidential campaign. It would be a good “deal” for the industry, Trump reportedly said, because of the tax and regulation benefits they would receive if he returned to the Oval Office.
Specifically, Trump reportedly said he would reverse the Biden administration’s pause on new liquified natural gas (LNG) export permits, approve more drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska, and roll back environmental regulations the industry didn’t like, including electric vehicle purchasing mandates and vehicle emissions limits. Dawsey and Joselow then published a follow-up, reporting that Trump also promised to soften Federal Trade Commission scrutiny of industry mergers and acquisitions.
Two and a half years later, his administration has delivered on each of these promises and then some. The Brennan Center has published a well-documented summary of Trump’s assault on climate policy — including his administration’s repeal of the “endangerment finding” that has granted the federal government the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions — that connects the dots between Trump’s actions and the many billions of dollars the oil industry has reaped as a result, including many millions of dollars benefitting oil executives as individuals.
What makes all this relevant to the midterm elections — beyond the fact that the leader of the Republican Party is directly implicated — is that many of Trump’s accomplishments were only possible because of rubber-stamp support from Republicans in Congress. Now, those same Republicans must face the voters. How will they explain themselves?
To be clear, Democrats don’t get a pass here; corruption has been part of politics forever, and one of the press’s central obligations is to expose and hold its perpetrators to account, whoever they may be. That requires following the facts where they lead. But it also requires challenging the practice, still common among old school newsrooms, of false equivalence — of portraying both sides as equally culpable for a given transgression for fear that an accurate portrayal would look like “taking sides.” If most of the facts point in one direction, our reporting should have the integrity and courage to say so.
Most voters don’t have access to directly question candidates seeking their votes. It’s our job as journalists to ask questions on their behalf so they can make informed decisions about their leaders.
Corruption is understandably a hot issue these days. Meanwhile, new scientific analysis from the nonprofit Climate Central shows that every congressional district in the country is hotter than it was in 1970, thanks to climate change. No surprise, then, that polling also shows that the vast majority of people want their government to take stronger climate action. Journalism that connects those dots — accurately and fairly, and without pulling any punches — is a true public service.
RSVP: Why COP31 Could Surprise Us. Join CCNow on Thursday, October 22, at 12pm US Eastern Time, for a press briefing with superstar panelists Kumi Naidoo, President of the Fossil Fuel Treaty initiative; Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research; Ana Toni, COP30’s CEO and Executive Director; and Stientje van Veldhoven, The Netherlands’ Minister of Climate and Green Growth.
APPLY: The Climate Newsroom. Join the fall cohort of CCNow’s free, three-session training program for US-based journalists. Apply by Friday, October 30; classes start Tuesday, November 3.
2026 Elections Guide. Access the latest polls and studies connecting climate to local and national races, recordings of conversations with experts on energy affordability and voter concerns, and a collection of stories we like about how climate factors into local, state, and congressional races. Plus, sign up for CCNow’s pop-up elections newsletter, Climate on the Ballot, for inspiration to help you integrate climate change into your midterms coverage. The first edition looks at climate hushing.
WATCH: Climate Change’s Toxic Hazards. Explore the intersection of toxic pollution, Superfund sites, and climate change in this recent CCNow conversation with journalists who have reported on these rising risks in some of the most vulnerable states: Florida, Louisiana, New Jersey, and California.
Delay tactics. Scientists working on the next report from the UN IPCC are being pressured by petrostates and major developing countries to delay publication of the AR7 report until 2029. The report was set to be released ahead of COP33 deliberations in 2028. By Fiona Harvey for The Guardian…
Climate and security. In June, NATO countries pledged to increase their security spending to 5% of GDP, raising concerns that some countries will favor “hard” security over climate and food security priorities. At a pre-COP31 summit in Fiji, Turkey’s climate change minister, Murat Kurum, said that NATO countries should be spending much more on the climate crisis. By Adam Morton for The Guardian…
Mapping Africa’s energy potential. Energy ministers, investors, and oil executives are meeting in Cape Town this week for African Energy Week. The continent is rich with oil, gas, and critical minerals, such as cobalt and manganese, that are used to produce most of the world’s EV batteries. This visual explainer looks at where deposits are located, how the continent’s electricity is currently generated, and the millions who still can’t access it. By Mohamed Hussein for Al Jazeera…
Diesel dissent. A bipartisan group of Senators are calling on the Trump administration to “immediately reverse course” on his plan to purchase diesel fuel from Russia, saying the US “should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline.” Energy experts say the deal is unlikely to lower US prices, which have been driven up by Iran war. By Lisa Mascaro for the Associated Press…
Data center emissions. El Paso, Texas, and New Mexico have spent millions of dollars developing plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but neither plan accounts for the emissions generated by three new massive data centers. By Diego Mendoza-Moyers of El Paso Matters and Paul Ratje for The Texas Tribune and ProPublica…
Electric commute. Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco plan to introduce battery powered trains on several busy commuter rail lines over the next two to four years. The projects will test whether cities can electrify without installing miles of overhead power lines. By Benton Graham for Grist…
“I work for a major insurer, assessing the risk posed by natural disasters on properties around the world, from family homes to schools, government offices and multibillion-dollar commercial centres.
“In the face of ever more dire and unpredictable climate risks, I am coming under pressure to cut my forecasts for the losses that disasters will cause in order to make insurance more affordable — and get my employer more business.”
– an anonymous insurance modeler, in The Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s new industry whistleblower series Secret Sources (This piece is republishable.)
Medill State of Local News Report 2026. The US gained 26 new local US “news desert” counties in 2025, up to 238, according to an annual report published by Northwestern University’s journalism school.
Jobs. Bloomberg Industry Group is hiring a News Team Lead – Environment (Arlington, Va.). Heatmap is hiring a Senior Editor (remote). Gulf Coast News is hiring a Meteorologist (Fort Myers, Fla.). Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism is hiring a David Laventhol Visiting Professor (New York, NY). The Council on Foreign Relations is hiring a Research Associate, Energy and Climate (New York, NY). CBS Miami is hiring a Meteorologist (Miami). Telemundo is hiring a Meteorologist (Dallas, Texas). KWES-TV is hiring a Chief Meteorologist (Midland-Odessa, Texas). WBZ-TV is hiring a Meteorologist (Boston, Mass.). Inside Climate News is hiring a Senior Editor (remote, American West preferred). Science News Media Group is hiring a Social Media Manager (Washington, DC). Floodlight is hiring an Operations and Development Coordinator (remote). Semafor is hiring an Asia Editor (remote, ideally Singapore).
Fellowships, Tours, Grants & Pitch Opportunities.
Over the coming months, in each edition of this newsletter, we’ll be spotlighting one category from the 2026 Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards. See all the winning work and help us celebrate the winners here.
This week, we’re highlighting winners from the Fossil Fuels category. Journalism investigating the power and machinations of the fossil fuel industry remains as critical as ever. Here, judges considered work covering new fossil fuel development, greenwashing, government lobbying, and dubious schemes to offset emissions, among other topics focused on the industry.
Life at 50 Degrees Celsius: Exposing the Toxic Record of Colombia’s Oil Giant
By Owen Pinnell, Christian Escobarmora, Monica Garnsey & Heather Sharp
BBC World Service
Why Brazilian Towns Awash With Royalties From Oil Are Still Among the Poorest
By Rafael Oliveira with Giovana Girardi, José Cícero, Bianca Muniz, Matheus Pigozzi, Bruno Fonseca & Magno Borges
Agência Pública (Brazil) with The Guardian
Romania’s Coal-Powered Energy Giant May Have Underdeclared Emissions — and Saved Hundreds of Millions
By Leopold Salzenstein, Eli Moskowitz, Andrei Ciurcanu & Roxana Jipa
The Organized Crime And Corruption Reporting Project & The Rise Project (Romania)
Check out the citations for these winners and find links to their stories here.
The post An Overlooked Trump Scandal appeared first on Covering Climate Now.
Modern farming depends heavily on nitrogen fertilizer because crops need nitrogen to build proteins, chlorophyll and ultimately yield, yet most major crops cannot directly use the nitrogen gas that makes up most of the atmosphere. Farmers have to buy nitrogen in forms plants can use, generally through ammonia, urea and ... [continued]
The post Farming’s Nitrogen Future Will Be Built From Several Technologies, Not One appeared first on CleanTechnica.
BYD Malaysia has selected Inokom Corporation Sdn. Bhd., a subsidiary of Sime Motors based in Kulim, Kedah, as its local assembly partner. The move marks a key milestone in the electric vehicle manufacturer’s strategy to assemble completely knocked-down vehicles within the country. The collaboration was formalized through the signing of ... [continued]
The post BYD to Assemble Vehicles in Malaysia appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Government seed funding is successfully helping the small business vehicle fleet transition to electric. I recently wrote about ARENA’s national push for more batteries across the country. At a state level, NSW is encouraging fleets of vehicles to go electric. New South Wales has a Labour Party government (Democrats). The ... [continued]
The post New South Wales Government Electrifies Fleet Revolution appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Some reservoirs in south at critical levels as water companies call for extended restrictions that would affect golf clubs, private schools and car washes
A severe drought has been declared in six areas of England, with some reservoirs at critically low levels, threatening public supplies.
Parts of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, East Sussex and West Sussex have moved into severe drought, and urgent measures are being taken to secure public supplies of water after the UK experienced its hottest summer on record.
Continue reading...Sgiath had originally trained as a mountain rescue dog – but now tracks down an invasive maritime creature
Border wall construction in the Big Bend region puts Republican Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham in a bind: back President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda or respond to growing bipartisan opposition to the wall.
Summary Analysis of official 2024 real-world data reveals that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) continue to exhibit a widening gap between real-world performance and official WLTP (Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure) testing values. On average, real-world emissions for 2024 PHEV models were nearly six times higher than official figures. The ... [continued]
The post Still Smoking: The PHEV Emissions Scandal Continues appeared first on CleanTechnica.