Category: Politics

Fossil fuels still power much of the world, even though renewable energy has become cheaper in most places and avoids both pollution and the climate damage caused by burning coal, oil and natural gas.

To understand this paradox, it helps to look at how countries – particularly major greenhouse gas emitters, including the U.S., China and European nations – are balancing the pressures of rising electricity demand with the global need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet.

US embraces fossil fuels

The United States makes no secret of its fossil fuel ambitions. It has a wealth of fossil fuel reserves and a politically powerful oil and gas industry.

Since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, his administration has been promoting oil and gas drilling and coal production, pointing to rising electricity demand to justify its moves, particularly to power artificial intelligence data centers.

Reviving the “drill, baby, drill” mantra, the Trump administration has now embraced a “mine, baby, mine” agenda to try to revive U.S. coal production, which fell dramatically over the past two decades as cheaper natural gas and renewable energy rose.

The Department of Interior on Sept. 29 rolled out a plan to “unleash American coal power” by opening 13 million acres of federal land to mining. The Department of Energy also pledged US$625 million to try to make coal competitive. It includes lowering the royalty rates mining companies pay and extending the operating lifespans of coal-fired power plants.

However, these initiatives further lock communities with coal plants into a carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Coal’s resurgence would also have public health costs. Its pollution is linked to respiratory illness, heart disease and thousands of premature deaths each year from 1999 to 2020 in the United States.

The Trump administration is also ceding the clean energy technology race to China. The administration is ending many renewable energy tax credits and pulling federal support for energy research projects.

I work in the Climate Policy Lab at The Fletcher School of Tufts University, where we maintain a suite of databases for analyzing countries’ energy research budgets. The Trump administration’s 2026 U.S. budget request would slash funding for energy research, development and demonstration to $2.9 billion — just over half the budget allocated in 2025. These energy research investments would fall to levels not seen since the mid-1980s or early 2000s, even when accounting for inflation.

China’s clean energy push – and coal expansion

While the United States is cutting renewable energy funding, China is doubling down on clean energy technologies. Its large government subsidies and manufacturing capacity have helped China dominate global solar panel production and supply chains for wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles.

Cheaper Chinese-manufactured clean energy technologies have enabled many emerging economies, such as Brazil and South Africa, to reduce fossil fuel use in their power grids. Brazil surged into the global top five for solar generation in 2024, producing 75 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity and surpassing Germany’s 71 TWh.

The International Energy Agency now expects global renewable energy capacity to double by 2030, even with a sharp drop expected in U.S. renewable energy growth.

However, while China expands clean energy access around the world, its production and emissions from coal continue to rise: In the first half of 2025, China commissioned 21 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power plants, with projections of over 80 GW for the full year. This would be the largest surge in new coal power capacity in a decade for China. Although China pledged to phase down its coal use between 2026 to 2030, rising energy demand may make the plan difficult to realize.

China’s paradox — leading in clean energy innovations while expanding coal — reflects the tension between ensuring energy security and reducing emissions and climate impact.

Europe’s scramble for reliable energy sources

The European Union is pursuing strategies to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels amid the ongoing geopolitical tensions with Russia.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed many countries to supply disruptions and geopolitical turmoil, and it triggered a global energy crisis as countries once reliant on Russian oil and gas scrambled to find alternatives.

In June 2025, the European Commission proposed a regulation to phase out Russian fossil fuel imports by the end of 2027, aiming to enhance energy security and stabilize prices. This initiative is part of the broader REPowerEU plan. The plan focuses on increasing clean energy production, improving energy efficiency and diversifying oil and gas supplies away from Russia.

Renewables are now the leading source of electric power in the EU, though natural gas and oil still account for more than half of Europe’s total energy supply.

The EU’s fossil energy phaseout plan also faces challenges. Slovakia and Hungary have expressed resistance to the proposed phaseout, citing concerns over energy affordability and the need for alternative supply sources. Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán said Hungary would continue importing Russian oil and gas. Cutting off these supplies, he asserted, would be an economic “disaster” and immediately reduce Hungary’s economic output by 4%.

The path to reducing Europe’s dependence on fossil fuels thus involves navigating internal disagreements and incentivizing long-run sustainable development. Europe does appear to be gaining in one way from the U.S. pullback from clean energy. Global investment in renewable energy, which hit a record high in the first half of 2025, increased in the EU as it fell in the U.S., according to BloombergNEF’s analysis.

Brazil: Torn on fossil fuels as it hosts climate talks

In November 2025, representatives from countries around the world will gather in Brazil for the annual United Nations climate conference, COP30. The meeting marks three decades of international climate negotiations and a decade since nations signed the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise.

The conference’s setting in Belém, a city in the Amazon rainforest, reflects both the stakes and contradictions of climate commitments: a vital ecosystem at risk of collapse as the planet warms, in a nation that pledges climate leadership while expanding oil and gas production and exploring for oil in the Foz do Amazonas region, the mouth of the Amazon River.

Thirty years into global climate talks, the disconnect between promises and practices has never been so clear. The world is not on track to meet the Paris temperature goals, and the persistence of fossil fuels is a major reason why.

Negotiators are expected to debate measures to curb methane emissions and support the transition from fossil fuels. But whether the discussions can eventually translate into a concrete global phaseout plan remains to be seen. Without credible plans to actually reduce fossil fuel dependence, the annual climate talks risk becoming another point of geopolitical tension.

Kate Hua-Ke Chi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

President Donald Trump phoned into a private Indiana Senate Republican caucus meeting Friday, pressing reluctant Hoosier lawmakers to undertake mid-cycle redistricting, according to two people briefed on the call who were granted anonymity to discuss the private conversation.

The call — which was Trump’s first-known call with rank-and-file Indiana state lawmakers on the matter following an August Oval Office meeting with state House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray — punctuated an intense period of national lobbying on redistricting.

It follows a new push by late MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point Action this week to ramp up pressure on Indiana lawmakers who oppose mid-cycle redistricting. The New York Times first reported details of the call.

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), a close White House ally, has warned that control of the House of Representatives could ride on whether the state can produce additional Republican-held congressional districts by reopening the maps.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun is supportive of calling a special session to do so, likely next month, but has not wanted to strong-arm the legislature into convening in Indianapolis.

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The call also comes on the heels of Vice President JD Vance’s second visit to the Hoosier State to make the case to lawmakers last week. Allies of the White House’s efforts described that meeting as productive but not “a slam dunk.”

The Indiana Conservation Voters, a liberal environmental-focused group, has put six figures behind television ads opposing mid-cycle redistricting and set to play this weekend during this weekend’s Colts, Indiana University and Notre Dame games.

​Politics

Graham Platner is trying to move on from the divisive online posts that threaten to derail his insurgent candidacy for Senate.

The Maine business owner seeking the seat now held by GOP Rep. Susan Collins released a video Friday offering a lengthy explanation and expressing regret for Reddit comments that endorsed political violence, minimized rape in the military and disparaged police.

Platner said his online views were a reflection of his mental state following his return from military service in Afghanistan, and that his views have since evolved.

“When I got back from Afghanistan in 2011, I stayed in the Army for another year. I got out in 2012. Some of the worst comments I made, the things that I’m — I think are least defensible, that I wouldn’t even try to defend, come from that time,” he said in the video message. “When I got out, I still had the crude humor, the dark, dark feelings, the offensive language that really was a hallmark — hallmark of the infantry when I was in it.”

Platner’s social media posts, including messages from as recently as 2021, have gained widespread media attention in recent days.

POLITICO reported Platner suggested political violence is necessary to affect social change in a 2018 post. The Washington Post reported Platner downplayed concerns about sexual assault in posts from 2013. CNN reported he labeled all White Americans in rural areas as racist and stupid in one 2020 post and said all cops are “bastards” in a 2021 post. The Bangor Daily News reported Platner asked why Black people “don’t tip” in a 2013 post.

The Reddit posts were deleted prior to announcing his campaign. Platner acknowledged making the posts and has apologized for them.

Platner said in his video statement that he stopped posting on Reddit “around 2020 or 2021” when he returned to Maine.

“I went from thinking that people were bad to knowing that people are good. I went from thinking that there was no hope to having nothing but hope — a hope that is rooted in the fact that it was in my community, here in Sullivan, Maine, that I got to come home and build a nice life,” he said.

Platner, who’s been endorsed by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, is hoping to defeat Senate Democrats’ preferred candidate Gov. Janet Mills and win the party’s nomination in Democrats’ best opportunity to pick up a Senate seat in the midterms.

Republicans quickly dismissed Platner’s video apology.

“Five minutes in which Graham Platner blames HIS FELLOW SERVICEMEN for things he said,” National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez said in a social media post.

​Politics

NEW YORK — The Vermont state senator involved in the hate-filled Young Republican group chat uncovered by POLITICO announced his resignation Friday.

Sam Douglass, a state lawmaker who represented an area near the Canadian border, said in a statement that “if my Governor asks me to do something, I will act, because I believe in what he’s trying to do,” referring to Vermont Republican Governor Phil Scott’s call for Douglass to step down.

Douglass was the only elected official in the group chat, though four others worked for elected officials at the time the messages were being sent. Those officials include New York’s state senate minority leader and the Kansas attorney general. One member of the chat worked in President Donald Trump’s Small Business Administration.

“I know that this decision will upset many, and delight others, but in this political climate I must keep my family safe,” Douglass said, adding that his resignation will be effective Monday at noon. “Since the story broke, I have reached out to the majority of my Jewish and BIPOC friends and colleagues to ensure that they can be honest and upfront with me, and I know that as a young person I have a duty to set a good example for others.”

His lengthy statement also cites hateful messages he received from others in his state since the story broke.

Douglass’ resignation comes as at least six others in the chat are out of jobs since POLITICO began reporting on the exchanges. He served as the chair of Vermont’s Young Republicans organization.

In one portion of the chat, Douglass refers to an Indian woman as someone who “just didn’t bathe often.” In another instance, Brianna Douglass, Sam’s wife and the Vermont Young Republican’s national committee member, says her husband may have erred by “expecting the Jew to be honest.”

The Vermont state lawmaker initially resisted strident calls to resign from top state Republican leaders — including Scott and the GOP conferences in the state’s House and Senate.

One day after POLITICO published its initial story about the Telegram group, Douglass apologized for the chat, saying “I am weighing all my options.”

Douglass was a first-year lawmaker and said Friday he was proud to pass his first bill on agriculture and begin his work to reform the state’s welfare system.

“I will continue to do what I have done my entire life, the very reasons why I was elected; I will help others in my community, be active, foster communication, and look out for others,” he said.

Liz Crampton contributed to this report.

​Politics

Soon after the NFL’s announcement that Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny would headline the Super Bowl halftime show, conservative media outlets and Trump administration officials went on the attack.

Homeland Security head Kristi Noem promised that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “would be all over the Super Bowl.” President Donald Trump called the selection “absolutely ridiculous.” Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson bemoaned the fact that the rapper has “no songs in English.” Bad Bunny, conservative pundit Tomi Lahren complained, is “Not an American artist.”

Bad Bunny – born Benito A. Martínez Ocasio – is a superstar, one of the top-streaming artists in the world. And because he is Puerto Rican, he’s a U.S. citizen, too.

To be sure, Bad Bunny checks many boxes that irk conservatives. He endorsed Kamala Harris for president in 2024. There’s his gender-bending wardrobe. He has slammed the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies. He has declined to tour on the U.S. mainland, fearing that some of his fans could be targeted and deported by ICE. And his explicit lyrics – most of which are in Spanish – would make even the most ardent free speech warrior cringe.

And yet, as experts on issues of national identity and U.S. immigration policies, we think Lahren’s and Johnson’s insults get at the heart of why the rapper has created such a firestorm on the right. The spectacle of a Spanish-speaking rapper performing during the most-watched sporting event on American TV is a direct rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to paper over the country’s diversity.

The Puerto Rican colony

Bad Bunny was born in 1994 in Puerto Rico, an unincorporated U.S. territory that the country acquired after the 1898 Spanish-American War.

It is home to 3.2 million U.S. citizens by birth. If it were a state, it would be the 30th largest by population, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.

But Puerto Rico is not a state; it is a colony from a bygone era of U.S. overseas imperial expansion. Puerto Ricans do not have voting representatives in Congress, and they do not get to help elect the president of the United States. They are also divided over the island’s future. Large pluralities seek either U.S. statehood or an enhanced form of the current commonwealth status, while a smaller minority vie for independence.

But one thing is clear to all Puerto Ricans: They’re from a nonsovereign land, with a clearly defined Latin American culture – one of the oldest in the Americas. Puerto Rico may belong to the U.S. – and many Puerto Ricans embrace that special relationship – but the island itself does not sound or feel like the U.S.

The over 5.8 million Puerto Ricans that reside in the 50 states further complicate that picture. While legally they are U.S. citizens, mainstream Americans often don’t see Puerto Ricans that way. In fact, a 2017 poll found that only 54% of Americans knew that Puerto Ricans were U.S. citizens.

The alien-citizen paradox

Puerto Ricans exist in what we describe as the “alien-citizen paradox”: They are U.S. citizens, but only those residing in the mainland enjoy all the rights of citizenship.

A recent congressional report stated that U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans “is not equal, permanent, irrevocable citizenship protected by the 14th Amendment … and Congress retains the right to determine the disposition of the territory.” Any U.S. citizen that moves to Puerto Rico no longer possesses the full rights of U.S. citizens of the mainland.

Bad Bunny’s selection for the Super Bowl halftime show illustrates this paradox. In addition to criticisms from public figures, there were widespread calls among MAGA influencers to deport the rapper

This is but one way Puerto Ricans, as well as other Latino citizens, are reminded of their status as “others.”

ICE apprehensions of people merely appearing to be an immigrant – a tactic that was recently given the blessing of the Supreme Court – is an example of their alienlike status.

And the bulk of the ICE raids have occurred in predominantly Latino communities in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. This has forced many Latino communities to cancel Hispanic Heritage Month celebrations.

Bad Bunny’s global reach

The xenophobic fervor against Bad Bunny has led political leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson to call for a more suitable figure for the Super Bowl, such as country music artist Lee Greenwood. Referring to Bad Bunny, Johnson said “it sounds like he’s not someone who appeals to a broader audience.”

But the facts counter that claim. The Puerto Rican artist sits atop the global music charts. He has over 80 million monthly Spotify listeners. And he has sold nearly five times more albums than Greenwood.

That global appeal has impressed the NFL, which hopes to host as many as eight international games next season. Additionally, Latinos represent the league’s fastest-growing fan base, and Mexico is its largest international market, with a reported 39.5 million fans.

The Bad Bunny Super Bowl saga may actually become an important political moment. Conservatives, in their efforts to highlight Bad Bunny’s “otherness” – despite the United States being the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world – may have unwittingly educated America on the U.S. citizenship of Puerto Ricans.

In the meantime, Puerto Ricans and the rest of the U.S. Latino community continue to wonder when they’ll be accepted as social equals.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Pregnant women crossing borders to get an abortion. People who miscarry facing jail time or dying from infection. Doctors who won’t perform lifesaving procedures on a pregnant patient for fear of prosecution.

For years, this was the kind of thing that happened in Poland, Nicaragua or El Salvador. Now, it’s headline news in the United States.

As a scholar who studies the relationship between reproductive rights and political regimes, I see the U.S. mirroring a pattern that has happened in authoritarian regimes around the world. When a government erects barriers to comprehensive reproductive care, it doesn’t just cause more death and suffering for women and their families. Such policies are often a first step in the gradual decline of democracies.

Yet, the U.S. is different in a meaningful way. Here, abortion has historically been framed as a personal right to privacy. In many other countries I’ve studied, abortion is viewed more as a collective right that is inextricably tied to broader social and economic issues.

The American individualist perspective on abortion can make it harder for people in the U.S. to understand why banning abortion can serve as a back door for the erosion of civil liberties – and of democracy itself.

Autocrats target abortion first

Restricting reproductive rights is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.

From Benito Mussolini’s Italy in 1926 and Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1936 to Francisco Franco’s Spain in 1941 and Nicolae Ceaușescu’s Romania in 1966, the first move most 20th-century dictators made after seizing power was to criminalize abortion and contraception.

Initially, for some of those autocratic leaders, limiting access to abortion and contraception was a strategy to gain the approval of the nation’s religious leaders. The Catholic Church held great power in Italy and Spain, as did the Orthodox Church in Romania. At the time, these faiths opposed artificial birth control and still believe life begins at conception.

Restrictions on reproductive rights also aimed to increase birth rates following two world wars that had stamped out some of the population, particularly in the Soviet Union and Italy. Many political leaders saw procreation as a national duty. They designated women – white, heterosexual women, that is – specific roles, primarily as mothers, to produce babies as well as future soldiers and workers for their regimes.

In the past two decades, countries in Europe and the Americas have been following this recognizable pattern. Nicaragua and Poland have both banned abortion. Hungary, Turkey and Russia have all clamped down on access to it.

Restricting reproductive freedoms has helped Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stoke lasting political divisions within society that help them consolidate their own power.

These leaders invoke a threat of moral and demographic decline, claiming that child-free women, queer people and immigrants pose a danger to national survival. In doing so, they portray themselves as defenders of their respective nations. It’s a way to regain and retain popular support even as their policies deepen poverty, erode civil liberties and increase corruption.

These politicians have also taken power away from a significant portion of the population by reinstating earlier, fascist-era restrictions on bodily autonomy. As feminist scholars have pointed out, strong reproductive rights are central to functioning democracies.

Restrictions on reproductive freedoms often necessitate other kinds of restrictions to enforce and maintain them. These might include free speech limits that prohibit providers from discussing people’s reproductive options. Criminalizing political dissent enables the arrest of people who protest restrictions on reproductive freedoms. Travel bans threaten prison time for individuals who help young people get abortion care out of state.

When these civil liberties weaken, it becomes harder to defend other rights. Without the right to speak, dissent or move freely, people cannot engage in conversations, organize or voice collective grievances.

Putting the US in a global context

In 2022, the U.S. joined the likes of Poland and Hungary when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending 50 years of federal abortion protections.

President Donald Trump was not in power when this happened. Yet the Supreme Court’s conservative majority was shaped during his first term.

Since then, both the second Trump administration and many states have enacted their own regulations or bans on abortion. This has created a divided country where in some states abortion is as restricted as it is under some of the world’s most autocratic regimes.

Yet, there’s a key difference.

In the U.S., abortion is viewed by the law and the public as a matter of individual rights. The debate often boils down to whether a person should be allowed to terminate their pregnancy.

In many other contexts, reproductive rights are understood as a collective good that benefits all society – or, conversely, harms all society when revoked.

This perspective can be a powerful driver of change. It’s how, for example, women’s and feminist groups in places such as Argentina, Colombia and Mexico have successfully pressured their governments to decriminalize abortion in recent years.

Since 2018, the movement known as Latin America’s Green Wave, or “Marea Verde” for their green protest bandannas, has deliberately and strategically reframed abortion as a human right and used that assertion to expand reproductive rights.

The Latin American feminist activists have also documented how restricting abortion intensifies authoritarianism and worsens both individual and collective rights.

In a region where many citizens remember life under military dictatorship, highlighting the relationship between abortion and authoritarianism may be particularly galvanizing.

Limits of framing abortion as an individual right

Roe v. Wade in 1973 recognized abortion as a private medical decision between “the woman and her responsible physician” up to the point of fetal viability − roughly around 24 to 26 weeks − and that framing has stuck.

This was basically what the mainstream pro-choice movement advocated for at the time. White feminists saw abortion rights as a personal liberty. This framing has real limitations.

As Black and brown reproductive justice advocates have long pointed out, Roe never served women of color or poor people particularly well because of underlying unequal access to health care. Their work has, for decades, illustrated the strong connection between racial, economic and reproductive justice, yet abortion is still largely regarded as solely an individual issue.

When debates about reproductive freedoms are framed as fights over individual rights, it can engender a legal quagmire. Other entities with rights emerge – the fetus, for example, or a potential grandparent – and are pitted against the pregnant person.

Recently, for instance, a pregnant woman declared brain dead in Georgia was kept alive for several months until her fetus became viable, apparently to comply with the state’s strict anti-abortion law. As her mother told the press, her family had no say in the matter.

Narrowly focusing on abortion as an individual right can also obscure why banning it has societal impacts.

Research worldwide shows that restricting reproductive freedoms does not lead to fewer abortions. Abortion bans only make abortion dangerous as people turn to unregulated “back alley” procedures. Maternal and infant mortality rates rise, especially in marginalized communities.

Simply stated: More women and babies die when abortion and contraception laws become more restrictive.

Other kinds of suffering increase, too. Women and their families tend to become poorer when contraception and abortion are hard to get.

Abortion bans also lead to discriminatory practices in health care beyond reproductive health services, such as oncology, neurology and cardiology. Physicians who fear criminalization are forced to withhold or alter gold-standard treatments for pregnant patients, for example, or they may prescribe less effective drugs out of concern about legal consequences should patients later become pregnant.

Lifesaving procedures in the emergency room must await a negative pregnancy test.

As a result, abortion bans decrease the quality and effectiveness of medical care for many patients, not just those who are pregnant.

Defending reproductive freedoms for healthy democracies

These findings demonstrate why reproductive rights are really a collective good. When viewed this way, it illuminates why they are an essential element of democracy.

Already, the rollback of reproductive freedoms in the U.S. has been followed by efforts to limit other key areas of freedoms, including LGBTQ rights, freedom of speech and the right to travel.

Access to safe abortion for pregnant people, gender-affirming care for trans youth, and international travel for noncitizens are intertwined rights – not isolated issues.

When the government starts stripping away any of these rights, I believe it signals serious trouble for democracy.

This story is published in collaboration with Rewire News Group, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering reproductive and sexual health.

Seda Saluk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Throughout modern American history, reporters who cover the Pentagon have played an invaluable role shining a light on military actions when the government has not been forthright with the public.

For instance, reporters covering the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan in 2021 revealed the chaos that ensued and repudiated official statements claiming the pullout was smooth. That included reporting on a drone strike that killed 10 civilians, not ISIS militants, as the government initially claimed.

But free press advocates warn that recent changes in a Pentagon policy threaten journalists’ ability to cover the Department of Defense. That’s because it could curb their rights to report information not authorized by the government for release.

An initial policy change announced on Sept. 20, 2025 – and later revised – forbade journalists from publishing anything that hadn’t been approved by government officials. It gave journalists 10 days to sign and agree to the restrictions. A refusal to sign could have resulted in a cancellation of their press credentials to enter the Pentagon.

As a First Amendment expert, I believe the Pentagon policy change represents an unprecedented development in the Trump administration’s offensive against the press and a historic departure from previous administrations’ policies.

Attacks on journalism, said once-imprisoned journalist Peter Greste, “are a national security issue, and we have to protect press freedom.” Greste spoke in early October 2025 at the Global Free Speech Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, adding that “anything that undermines press freedom undermines national security.”

Greste was jailed for more than a year in Egypt while working for Al Jazeera in 2013. In Nashville, he drew a direct connection between the public’s access to information under a free press and the stability and freedom that democracies enjoy.

Even President Donald Trump seemed critical of the policy initially, telling a reporter in September 2025 he didn’t think the Pentagon should be in charge of deciding what reporters can cover.

An attempt to control critical coverage

Under the initial Pentagon policy change, journalists covering the Defense Department were required to sign a contract saying that department information must be “approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News on Oct. 5, “The Pentagon press corps can squeal all they want, we’re taking these things seriously. They can report, they just need to make sure they’re following rules.”

Media outlets decided they could not accept the policy change. They also mulled legal action.

The Pentagon revised its initial policy change on Oct. 6 and set an Oct. 14 deadline for journalists to comply. The revised policy says prior approval would not be required to report on the Defense Department, but it suggests that soliciting information from Pentagon sources “would not be considered protected activity under the 1st Amendment.” But journalists who don’t sign and follow the revised policy could be deemed “security risks” and lose their credentials to access the Pentagon.

As the Oct. 14 deadline approached, dozens of media outlets said they would not sign the revised policy. Fox, Newsmax and the Daily Caller – all conservative news organizations – have also rejected the policy. The following day, journalists from dozens of news outlets turned in their press passes rather than agree to the new policy.

The Pentagon Press Association, which represents journalists covering the Defense Department, says the revised policy is “asking us to affirm in writing our ‘understanding’ of policies that appear designed to stifle a free press and potentially expose us to prosecution for simply doing our jobs.”

Conservative commentators have also criticized the policy. Law professor Jonathan Turley told Fox News: “What they’re basically saying is if you publish anything that’s not in the press release, is not the official statement of the Pentagon, you could be held responsible under this policy. That is going to create a stranglehold on the free press, and the cost is too great.”

This isn’t the first time Hegseth has sought to limit media coverage of the Pentagon. In May 2025 he restricted journalists’ access to large portions of the Pentagon where they’d previously been allowed to go unescorted.

Freedom from government control

It is not unusual for the government to view the press as an adversary. But such direct attempts to control media outlets have been rare in the U.S.

The federal government has rarely been successful in its efforts to censor the media. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court set a high bar for the government to overcome if it wanted to stop the presses.

As Chief Justice Charles Hughes wrote in 1930 in Near v. Minnesota: “The fact that, for approximately one hundred and fifty years, there has been almost an entire absence of attempts to impose previous restraints upon publications relating to the malfeasance of public officers is significant of the deep-seated conviction that such restraints would violate constitutional right.”

In the years since, the high court has reiterated its belief that an adversarial press is essential to democracy. At the height of the Vietnam War, the court ruled the government could not prevent The New York Times from publishing leaked documents detailing U.S involvement in the conflict, despite the sensitive nature of the documents.

President Richard Nixon’s own nominee, Chief Justice Warren Burger, recognized the danger of allowing the government to restrict freedom of the press. “The thread running through all these cases is that prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights. … The damage can be particularly great when the prior restraint falls upon the communication of news and commentary on current events,” Burger wrote.

Burger acknowledged the role the press plays as a watchdog against the government’s abuse of power in 1976 in Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart. “The press … guards against the miscarriage of justice by subjecting the (legal system) to extensive public scrutiny and criticism.”

Whether the Supreme Court’s commitment to these long-standing precedents remains steadfast is anyone’s guess.

Law scholars RonNell Andersen Jones and Sonja West have documented a marked decline in references by the high court to press freedom over the past two decades. They have also noted a dramatic change in the justices’ tone when discussing the press:

“(A)ny assumption that the Court is poised to be the branch to defend the press against disparagement is misplaced … When members of the press turn to the Court in their legal battles, they will no longer find an institution that consistently values their role in our democracy,” Andersen Jones and West write.

Yet even Burger was aware that muzzling the press posed serious consequences for a democratic society: “(I)t is nonetheless clear that the barriers to prior restraint remain high unless we are to abandon what the Court has said for nearly a quarter of our national existence and implied throughout all of it. The history of even wartime suspension of categorical guarantees, such as habeas corpus or the right to trial by civilian courts cautions against suspending explicit guarantees,” Burger wrote in his opinion in Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart in 1976.

The new Pentagon policy, however, does just that by threatening reporters who write critical stories with the loss of their press credentials.

Amy Kristin Sanders has served as an expert witness for Fox News. She previously served on the Board of Directors for the Student Press Law Center and was a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Removing parking requirements for new buildings could help thousands of Coloradans who struggle to afford housing.

There is a shortage of over 106,000 homes across Colorado, according to a recent study by the Colorado State Demography Office.

Nearly 90% of the lowest-income households in the state spend over one-third of their pretax income on rent or mortgage payments. That means they pay more on housing, as a percentage of their income, than is considered affordable.

The cost of providing parking – borne by developers and passed on to residents – helps push prices up. Parking minimums may be mandated by city ordinances or demanded by lenders. Some renters prefer apartments that come with dedicated parking.

Structured parking can cost as much as US$50,000 per parking space, according to Denver’s Community Planning and Development office. Off-street surface parking, though cheaper to construct, requires dedicating valuable urban land to parking lots.

We are a law professor and urban planning scholar who worked with data scientists at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation to model how parking requirements affect the development of multifamily residential housing in the city and county of Denver.

Cutting parking boosts construction

We found that cutting minimum-parking requirements would likely boost housing construction in Denver by about 12.5%, translating into roughly 460 more homes per year.

This is a surprisingly high-impact result for a single, relatively simple policy change. We published our findings as a white paper with the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute in July 2025.

In August 2025, the Denver City Council eliminated parking minimums for new buildings.

Denver followed the lead of other cities such as Boulder, Longmont, Austin and Minneapolis that have all recently abolished parking minimums.

In 2024, the Colorado legislature also removed parking minimums near transit hubs statewide in order to increase housing supply. However, that effort has been challenged in court on the grounds that the state mandates infringe on local government prerogatives. This legal tug-of-war underscores the importance of Denver’s decision.

Parking can be expensive

Before the policy change, market-rate apartments in Denver were required by law to provide as many as one parking space per unit. In a 200-unit building, parking could add millions of dollars to the developer’s costs.

Parking requirements are often determined by a formula. Based in part on an outdated view that modern cities should be car-oriented, cities around the country, including Denver, passed zoning codes in the 1950s and 1960s that created legal requirements for the number of parking spaces that new housing projects must include.

Land is expensive in high-demand cities like Denver. Dedicating part of a building’s footprint to parking imposes both a direct cost – because developers must pay to build the parking – and an indirect cost, because it leaves less space for housing. These development costs are passed along to renters and owners, decreasing affordability.

Reducing parking requirements lets developers build only the parking spaces that residents want or need.

Eliminating parking minimums

We built a simulator that estimates the total number of apartments expected to be built in multifamily, market-rate rental developments in Denver in one year. It then allows for a comparison of possible outcomes based on changing policy assumptions.

Our predictions factor in:

• Building size and allowable unit counts for parcels.
• The type of development and corresponding number of units that are likely to be financially feasible.
• The probability that parcels might actually be developed in the future based on a statistical analysis of historical Denver development data.

Following guidelines developed by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, we modeled 75 scenarios. They included five potential parking policies tested across five economic environments and three sets of assumptions for developer-driven parking inclusion.

Changes would bring hundreds of housing units

Our prediction that eliminating parking mandates in Denver could result in approximately 460 additional multifamily units per year is based on three assumptions:

1. Somewhat unfavorable economic conditions, including high interest rates and relatively low margins for developers.
2. Elimination of all regulatory parking mandates.
3. Voluntary construction of 0.5 spaces per unit near light rail and 1.0 spaces per unit away from light rail.

We find that eliminating parking minimums creates more options for developers and renters. Developers will still build parking where needed or demanded by city residents.

Eliminating mandatory parking requirements offers several additional benefits.

The city will save labor costs associated with enforcing parking requirements, reducing housing costs.

The policy change frees up land for more economically productive uses and for desired civic infrastructure such as sidewalks or green space. Developers freed from building parking are also more likely to invest in beautifying their building for residents and pedestrians.

Removing parking minimums can increase the flexibility to use small undeveloped or underdeveloped parcels for “missing middle” forms of housing, such as duplexes or triplexes. These forms of housing provide “gentle density,” meaning they do not significantly alter neighborhoods but still make them more affordable for lower- and middle-income people and increase the city’s overall housing supply. It can also allow for the adaptive reuse of historic buildings that may have been built before the city required on-site parking.

And finally, eliminating a requirement for surplus parking spaces allows more compact, efficient forms of development, which results in more walkable cities and more connected neighborhoods.

Susan D Daggett has received a teaching stipend from the University of Denver’s Executive Certificate in Affordable Housing Program, which is partially funded by a donation from the Colorado Housing Finance Authority and the Simpson Family. She serves on the Board of Smart Growth America and Transportation Solutions. She is married to Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado.

Stefan Chavez-Norgaard previously worked as an in-residence scholar at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, an organization mentioned in the article.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation