*How lawmakers in thrall to the NRA stifle gun safety laws.*

This is what plutocracy consists of.

*Will Black churches throw their weight behind reproductive rights?*

If you are reading this, please do not have children.

I wish for humanity to survive; I wish for technological civilization to survive. I wish for human rights and democracy to recover. I hope you wish for these things, too.

The biggest threat to that goal is the climate disaster we are still heading for. The more children we can avoid, the more we will reduce the intensity of the disaster and increase the chances of survival.

*G7 countries to stop funding fossil fuel development overseas* by the end of this year. They said they would move that money to renewable energy!

This seems like a substantial change. However, if it fails to stop projects that are already started, they can still doom civilization.

What should the US do with its 900 troops at Deir ez-Zor in Syria?

I trust Juan Cole to describe the situation accurately, but I don't entirely agree with his conclusions. The 900 US troops in Deir ez-Zor may have no sensible mission, but the YPG are the only secular and democratic force in Syria, and face the threat of massacre by either Assad or Erdoğan. The bully did wrong to take US support away from them, and we can right that wrong.

US citizens: call on Congress to end US intervention in Yemen.