People protest outside the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, on September 21, 2026, a day after Wilber Rafael Garces Perez was shot and wounded by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation. (Photo by Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images)
“This isn’t law enforcement,” said US Senate candidate James Talarico. “It’s lawlessness.
Democrats in Congress on Monday evening were demanding a full, independent investigation into US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s shooting on Sunday of Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, as it was reported that he had been held in an ICE detention center with a bullet still lodged in his back—close to his spine—and that he was finally being taken to a hospital only after he lost feeling in the left side of his body.
In a video posted on social media, US Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) recounted how Perez was initially hospitalized after ICE agents in an unmarked SUV sideswiped his car as he was making DoorDash deliveries in Austin, Texas, and then shot him through his windshield as he was trying to pull over.
But “only a few hours after being shot, he was forced out of the hospital,” said Castro, “and sent over to what is known as STIPC, in Pearsall, Texas, along I-35, the South Texas ICE Processing Center.”
Castro and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) spent Monday attempting to gain permission to visit with Perez and raising alarm over the fact that ICE’s bullet had not been removed from his back before he was taken to STIPC, where he was reportedly forced to sleep on a floor.
“He reported that he’s in incredible pain, that he’d not been given any medication,” said Castro. “It’s basically abuse that you would take somebody who has been shot and move them from a hospital to a prison, that kind of prison, within a matter of hours, and then also, it looks like, start the process to deport them immediately.”
Update on the condition of Wilber Rafael Garcés Pérez at the South Texas Ice Processing Center. He’s being taken to the hospital. He is in tremendous pain and tells us that the bullet is still inside his left side. He can’t move the left side of his body. pic.twitter.com/SWquC2AOrj
Perez entered the country two years agoafter using the CBP One application to set up an appointment with immigration agents. The app was introduced by the Biden administration, but President Donald Trump abruptly terminated it immediately after he took office last year. Perez was permitted to enter the country, applied for asylum, and received a work permit.
As Common Dreams reported Monday, Perez’s lawyer, Kate Goldfinch-Lincoln, and his wife were unable to make contact with him when he was first taken from the hospital on Sunday.
After Perez briefly called in from the detention center to a press conference held by Goldfinch-Lincoln on Monday, she said she received a call from another detainee who told her “that officers came in and handled Wilber roughly.”
“According to this detainee, Wilber then lost feeling on the left side of his body, including his arm and leg,” she said. “Wilber has a bullet lodged near his spine. I was told that he was handcuffed, shackled at the feet, placed in a waist chain, and taken to a hospital. I am waiting to find out how he is doing and what his current condition is. We need answers. We need to know that Wilber is safe and receiving appropriate medical care. So far, he has not.”
Just a dude who was in the country legally and had a work permit working….ICE shoots him for no reason then refuses him medical care. And now he is facing paralysis. https://t.co/RQu23w8OAh
In response to the update on Perez’s condition, Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico said: “This isn’t law enforcement. It’s lawlessness.”
Casar called Perez’s transfer back to the hospital “a positive first step,” and credited immigrant rights advocates and community members for “speaking up.”
“Now, we have to make sure he fully recovers, is reunited with his family, and gets to tell law enforcement the full story of how he was shot in the back by ICE,” said Casar.
Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) were among the lawmakers calling for a full investigation into the shooting and ICE’s treatment of Perez.
“This is absolutely horrific,” said Frost. “ICE must be stopped. Their regime of cruelty will continue until they are held accountable.”
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
A protester is seen in Los Angeles during a climate change demonstration holding a placard that says, “There is no Planet B.” (Photo by Ronen Tivony/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“Seven of nine planetary boundaries are transgressed, and pressure on all seven is at its highest recorded level,” said one scientist.
Like other recent warnings from climate scientists, the message sent by the latest Planetary Health Check report on Monday was clear: “We need to move fast,” as the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the group behind the report, said.
“Seven of nine planetary boundaries are transgressed, and pressure on all seven is at its highest recorded level,” said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute (PIK).
The report finds that seven measures of the Earth’s health are no longer within the “safe operating space”: ocean acidification, freshwater change, land system change, climate change, modification of biogeochemical flows, introduction of novel entities, and change in biosphere integrity.
Just two markers, stratospheric ozone depletion and the increase in atmospheric aerosol loading, have shown improvement over the last decade, said the Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at PIK.
Today, we launched the Planetary Health Check 2026. Seven of nine Planetary Boundaries are transgressed, and pressure on all seven is at its highest recorded level. Yet, we still have a window to change course. But we need to move fast.https://t.co/QQM6PKOQSf
“The diagnosis is unambiguous,” said Boris Sakschewski, the lead author of the report. “Pressure is rising across every planetary boundary already outside the safe operating space. It means that the risk of large-scale, persistent, and potentially irreversible change is increasing, while our margin for error in tackling these problems is shrinking.”
The scientists behind the report emphasized that with recent news regarding the state of the planet’s crucial coral reefs, forests, and extreme weather events like heatwaves and flooding, it should come as no surprise that the Earth’s boundaries have been transgressed, as continued fossil fuel emissions have caused runaway planetary heating.
Earlier this month, United Nations scientists said the planet can no longer avoid at least a temporary temperature rise above 1.5°C over preindustrial levels.
Oceans have also become so warm that stressed coral reefs have less and less time to recover from climate damage, as Common Dreams reported last month, and a UN report last year found that the world’s governments are not moving fast enough to end the destruction of forests.
Last month and the summer of 2026 both set heat records, with extreme heatkilling more than 1,000 people across Europe, and wildfiresspreading across the continent and Canada. Record-breaking heat was also recorded in parts of Asia and the Middle East.
In June, the UN Children’s Fund found that nearly every child on Earth is now exposed to at least one climate hazard driven by fossil fuel emissions, including flooding, heatwaves, and drought.
“Pakistan’s 2025 monsoon floods affected more than 6.9 million people,” said PIK. “Global ocean heat content reached a new record in 2025, with Hurricane Melissa rapidly ramping up to a Category 5 hurricane and striking Jamaica after passing over exceptionally warm seas. From January 2023 to September 2025, bleaching-level heat stress impacted about 84.4% of the world’s coral reef area, making it the largest global coral-bleaching event observed to date.”
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, chair of Planetary Guardians, implored readers of the Planetary Health Check report to “read that list again: Pakistan, the Caribbean, Europe, the reefs beneath our oceans. These are not separate emergencies; the planet is telling us, in every region at once, that it is out of balance.”
“As chair of Planetary Guardians, I hear this same story wherever I go, whether from a pastoralist watching the rains fail season after season or a coastal community watching the sea rise,” said Ibrahim. “The 2026 Planetary Health Check puts data behind what communities on the frontlines already know from living it. We do not have the luxury of treating these as separate crises any longer.”
Rockström emphasized that while “we do not have the luxury of time… we do have the knowledge, capacity, and solutions to change course.”
“Accelerating action to return to the safe operating space across all planetary boundaries is essential to protect lives and livelihoods,” said Rockström, “and to deliver on the promise of shared future prosperity.”
Donald Trump urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
This year’s so-called “super El Niño” is entering into record-breaking territory.
Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific now equal the previous daily record set in 2015 and will likely keep rising in the days ahead.
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate phenomenon in the Pacific that reshapes weather patterns around the world and temporarily boosts global temperatures.
The current El Niño event – which has been underway since June and is expected to last until next year – has been developing faster than any previous event on record.
The strength of an event is tracked using the “Niño 3.4 anomaly”, which measures how much warmer sea surface temperatures in a section of the central Pacific are than average.
As of 19 September, the daily anomaly in the Niño 3.4 region stands at 3.07C, putting it in a statistical tie with the previous record of 3.08C.
Some scientists, using a different baseline for calculating the anomaly, have already called the new record.
Either way, this is remarkable, in part because of how early in the calendar year it is occurring. El Niño typically peaks in the winter months, most commonly in November or December.
Every strong El Niño on record has continued to strengthen after mid-September – and there is every reason to think that this one will as well.
El Niño events are typically classed as “weak” when the Niño 3.4 anomaly reaches 0.5C, “moderate” above 1C, “strong” above 1.5C and “very strong” above 2.0C.
For this year’s event, the Niño 3.4 anomaly has now reached 3.07C, which puts it in a statistical tie with the record set on 18 November 2015, set during a “very strong” El Nino event.
The chart below shows how the strength of the current El Niño (red line) is dramatically outpacing both 2015-16 (blue) and another “very strong” event in 1997-98 (light blue).
Daily Niño 3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies, 1982-2026, each relative to a centred 30-year climatology (ONI convention). Chart by Carbon Brief.
ONI is calculated by subtracting the latest 30-year average temperature in the Nino 3.4 region from daily sea surface temperatures. This approach allows for the most recent years to be compared against the most recent 30-year period. It removes much of the influence of longer-term, human-driven warming from the index.
(While meteorological organisations typically track changes to ONI on a three-month rolling average basis, Carbon Brief’s analysis looked at how the metric is changing on a daily basis.)
If ONI is calculated using a baseline of 1991-2020 then the current El Niño has already set a new record.
Since the start of June, El Niño’s strength has been greater than any other year. In early September in both 1997 and 2015, anomalies were around 1.9C – more than one degree below where they are this year.
Introduced by NOAA in 2024, the RONI index adjusts for tropical ocean warming linked to human-caused climate change. To do this, it takes sea surface averages in the Nino 3.4 region and subtracts out temperature anomalies observed across the tropical oceans (between the latitudes of 20 degrees north and south).
This approach may better remove the influence of climate change in this specific region, but can also diminish the apparent strength of strong El Niño events, such as the current one, which extend well outside the Niño 3.4 region.
The chart below shows daily RONI values, which are record setting for this time of year, but remain below an all-time daily record set during the 1982-83 El Niño event.
Daily relative Niño 3.4 (RONI) anomalies for every year, 1982-2026. Chart by Carbon Brief.
RONI stood at around 2.5C in mid-September, some 0.7C below the 1982 record.
However, that record was set in late December, at the peak of the event.
The 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2015-16 events added between 0.5C and 1.9C to their RONI values between mid-September and their peaks.
On track to smash monthly and seasonal records
Because daily El Niño values are noisy, scientists typically turn to monthly or seasonal averages to compare El Niño events.
The latest full calendar month for which data is available – August 2026 – had a Niño 3.4 anomaly of around 2.45C. This is higher than the peak of every prior El Niño event on record except 2015-16 – where the anomaly reached 2.75C – and 1877-78, when the anomaly sat at around 2.7C, based on a reconstruction of sea surface temperatures using sparse ship data.
The figure below shows the monthly evolution of the five strongest El Niño events on record alongside 2026, as well the current forecast from 14 seasonal forecast models.
Monthly Niño 3.4 anomaly (degrees C) for the five strongest El Niño events on record, for 2026 through August and the 2026-27 forecast across 14 models, each relative to a centred 30-year climatology (ONI convention). Data from NOAA CPC, Copernicus C3S, ECCC and JAMSTEC. Chart by Carbon Brief.
Taken together, the models project a peak monthly anomaly later this year of around 4.1C, with 80% of the 674 individual model runs falling between 3.4C and 4.6C.
Every single model run peaks above the 2015-16 record. The projected margin over that record, some 1.3C, is larger than the entire gap between the strongest and fifth-strongest El Niño of the past 150 years.
Some caution here is warranted, however. No seasonal forecast system has ever been verified against an event of this size, because none has ever occurred. The models also predicted temperatures slightly warmer than observed this summer, with real-world observations for August coming in around 0.3C below forecasts.
However, all strong El Niño events on record have continued to strengthen well into the winter – and the models are in near-unanimous agreement that this one will, too. If the forecast holds, the current event will peak between November and January at a level far beyond any event previously observed in the instrumental record.
El Nino’s effect on global temperatures typically lags rising ocean temperatures in the Pacific by several months, so most of the impact will be felt in 2027 rather than 2026.
Carbon Brief’s most recent “state of the climate” quarterly analysis found 2026 on track to be the warmest or second-warmest year on record. The next update in early October will examine what a record El Niño means for 2027.
El Niño: Indonesia fire emissions in 2026 ‘on track’ to match record for this century
Explainer: How the ‘super El Niño’ will reshape the world’s weather
Analysis: What are the causes of recent record-high global temperatures?
State of the climate: First quarter of 2020 is second warmest on record
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Donald Trump has gone on record calling climate change a “scam” and “con job.”| People’s World graphic
WASHINGTON—Just weeks after the United Nations Environment Programme released its grim report concerning climate change and the future of humanity, the Trump administration has repealed pollution limits on fossil fuel power plants. This rule change is happening despite the fact that power plants are the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions—the very same emissions scientists and climate activists say are the cause of global warming.
The reversal was announced by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin at the G20 Energy Abundance Ministerial Meeting on Sept. 14 in Houston. He claimed the move “delivers reliable and affordable energy in the largest power sector deregulatory action in U.S. history,” and that it is “expected to unleash the full potential of America’s vast energy resources, including coal and natural gas.”
Zeldin alleged that former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama implemented “a war on coal to destroy reliable and affordable energy” and boasted that the Trump administration “has come to protect American energy.”
The administrator’s comments continue a pattern where the EPA, under a president who said climate change is the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” has prioritized exalting the fossil fuel industry and thwarting the growth of clean energy initiatives such as solar, wind, and hydropower.
In February, Trump announced the official termination of the EPA’s 2009 landmark determination that greenhouse gases warm the planet and threaten the health and welfare of those who inhabit it. In 2025, the president referred to oil as “liquid gold” and created the National Energy Dominance Council as a means to expand U.S. fossil fuel and energy production.
Doug Burgum, who serves as secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI) and chairs Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, stood alongside Zeldin during the announcement on power plants. He claimed that the EPA’s repeal of pollution rules would save Americans “hundreds of millions of dollars” and put an end to “the Biden administration’s disastrous Green New Scam policies.”
The EPA’s lofty claim of delivering $300+ billion in savings to Americans might sound appealing in the middle of an affordability crisis, but independent researchers and advocates question whether Trump’s EPA is making false promises and ignoring the science.
Trump’s EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, has fought to lift almost all controls on toxic chemicals that harm workers and the public. | AP
While Zeldin and his colleagues claim that during periods of peak electricity demand coal and natural gas continue to “keep the lights on,” recent reports show that coal is actually driving higher utility costs for consumers. The non-partisan think tank Energy Innovation noted that coal power was 28% more expensive in 2024 than in 2021 and that “coal’s already poor economics are getting worse as aging plants make coal power more expensive.” The organization also referred to another study that showed “coal plants were more expensive to continue operating compared to replacement with local wind or solar.”
In nearly every part of the United States, people are seeing a rapid rise in their energy costs lately. Electricity and home energy bills have risen faster than inflation—climbing an estimated 21% to 30% over a three to four year period. The quick jump for power bills has been attributed to a number of influences.
The top two reasons experts point to are, first, the high energy demand of AI data centers straining existing energy capacity (data centers which Trump champions) and, second, the extreme weather of hotter summers and freezing winters resulting from the climate change that the president doesn’t believe in.
In a press release announcing the power plant pollution rule elimination, the EPA maintained that “models” show greenhouse gas emissions from power plants have no “material impact on global climate change.” The claim provided no details on what models the agency was referring to or what science it relied on to make such an assessment.
Environmental advocates and scientists paint a different picture, one where continued pollution will impose detrimental costs for millions, both medically and financially.
Resources for the Future, an independent nonprofit research institution based in Washington, asserts that any savings made from the EPA’s continued deregulation of fossil fuels will be surpassed by the health damages many people will face as a result of increased emissions. The organization estimates that the free flow of power plant air pollution will increase health issues among the public, bringing additional health costs of up to $476 billion.
Advocates, political leaders, and medical professionals are also sounding the alarm on what they see as the immense danger the latest EPA move poses to working people.
“The administration is once again green-lighting massive corporate pollution with no regard to how it will harm our environment, climate, or Hoosiers struggling to afford their daily lives,” said Robyn Skuya-Boss, director of the Sierra Club Hoosier Chapter in Indiana. Last year, that state’s coal plants released more than 5.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
“These protections have been essential guardrails to improving the health and safety of our communities from soot, smog, and toxic air pollutants. This dirty and dangerous rollback comes at the same time the administration is using illegal bailout orders to keep two of Indiana’s coal plants online at Hoosiers’ expense rather than close as planned in December 2025.
“Over and over again, the Trump administration demonstrates it cares more about forcing Indiana to burn coal than it does the health and welfare of Hoosiers,” Skuya-Boss asserted.
Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender told the press that Trump’s EPA actions were a “full-throated climate denial while the climate crisis happens in real time.” The move is a “shocking betrayal of the American public,” she declared.
“While wildfires rage, floods devastate communities, and families struggle to afford skyrocketing electricity bills and insurance premiums, the Trump administration is handing the fossil fuel industry a license to keep polluting,” Bender said.
American Lung Association President and CEO Harold Wimmer noted in a statement that leaving the rules in place would have “resulted in other immediate health benefits,” such as reducing emissions of harmful oxides of nitrogen, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter from coal-fired power plants, preventing “1,200 premature deaths in 2035.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said, “American families and businesses will pay for President Trump’s reckless failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. By giving power plants a free pass to pump industrial carbon pollution into our communities, the EPA will saddle people with the bill for more expensive electricity, respiratory illnesses, and climate change-fueled disasters.”
The governor added, “Nobody wants this, and nobody can afford this,” saying the Trump administration has lost all credibility on energy and that the American public can’t afford more “endless wars driving up gas prices” and further reliance on “dirty coal plants.”
Rep. Adelita S. Grijalva, D-Ariz., asserted that the president and his administration is “once again prioritizing corporate profits over lower utility bills and the health of working families.”
Though the Trump administration is wasting no time in moving forward with its fossil fuel initiatives, the fight for clean air may not be over just yet. Just days after Zedlin’s announcement, a number of organizations have come forward to sue the administration to stop the rule elimination.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Clean Air Council, Clean Wisconsin, and the Environmental Defense Fund filed suit, alleging that the EPA was failing in its “legal responsibility to protect health and the environment.”
The federal climate legal director at NRDC, Meredith Hankins, wrote in a statement: “The Clean Air Act and Supreme Court precedent demand that the EPA address climate pollution from the largest industrial source in the nation. The EPA’s legal reasoning is fatally flawed, so we are going to court.”
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Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
United States President Donald Trump holds a press conference at the end of the G7 Summit in Evian, France, on June 17, 2026. (Photo by Daniel Pier/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A host on the Trump-friendly Newsmax network said it seemed his exile of the press was “backfiring just a little bit.”
It turns out that President Donald Trump may not have thought through all the consequences before he banned some of his most hated news outlets from the White House.
After Trump declared CNN, MS NOW, and Politico “fake news” and exiled them from the White House grounds on Friday, the other networks that make up the White House press pool—including ABC, CBS, NBC, and even Fox News—agreed to boycott their pool duties on Monday in solidarity with the banned outlets.
“There will be no replacement pool put in place,” wrote Bryan Boughton, Fox News’ Washington bureau chief and chair of the White House television pool, in an internal notice to news organizations obtained by Politico.
It became clear exactly what that meant when the White House attempted to broadcast a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Trump’s new helipad on the White House lawn on Monday afternoon.
LMFAO — Trump is holding an event at the White House right now but there's no audio because the press pool isn't there. The Newsmax host notes that this is an example of Trump's attacks on the press "backfiring just a little bit" pic.twitter.com/dAy1dvDvFL
The president’s voice could be heard faintly. But his words were inaudible over the whir of a helicopter parked nearby.
“There’s no microphone because the pool cameras aren’t there,” explained Bianca de la Garza, who was covering the event for the Trump-friendly outlet Newsmax.
The anchor said this was maybe “one example” of the president’s attack on the media “backfiring just a little bit.”
As of Monday afternoon, there is no reported effort by the White House to find a new press pool. This may prove problematic for Trump as he attends the United Nations General Assembly this week.
Meanwhile, the three outlets banned by Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday, arguing that their removal from White House grounds violated the First Amendment. Previous attempts by the Trump administration to ban news outlets from covering its activities have been shot down in court.
Aidan McLaughlin, the Washington correspondent for Vanity Fair, suggested on social media that, at the rate things are going, a lawsuit may not even have been necessary.
“He’s gonna lift the ban by the end of the week,” he predicted.
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.
