A regional project for Massachusetts to import Canadian hydropower through Maine has run into difficulties because people living near the planned cable were unhappy with it. Planet roasters aggravated the dispute in order to kill the plan.

It wouldn't surprise me if the cable contractor chose an annoying route in order to increase its profits. Maybe its path should be changed. Maybe Massachusetts should pay Mainers and Anishnabeg more for the electricity so as to win their approval. Why not? They are not well off.

But I criticize the article for calling them "the most affected communities", assuming that people who live near the power cable — who are concerned about aesthetics and tourism — have more at stake than the hundreds of millions whose lives will be upended, or simply ended, by global heating disaster.

This deal is very important because it is a step towards saving them. Changing details to salvage the deal is fine. Killing it is not.

In Hong Kong, journalism that criticizes the government in any way is now forbidden. Even people who stopped months ago face prison for doing it before.

Everyone in Hong Kong who once criticized the state must be terrified now, but freezing and keeping mum will not prevent their being jailed, tortured and crushed. I hope that they have a chance to get out of Hong Kong and apply for asylum, but the state may already have blocked that. Otherwise, the only way I can see they can escape a fate worse than death is choose to die taking an enemy with you.

I hope that I will have the courage to die fighting if I am ever in a situation like that.

Putin is crushing the freedom to investigate and report on Stalin's crimes of 70 years ago and more.

The European Court of Human Rights, to which Russia is a party, ruled in favor of allowing Memorial to operate.

*Plastic beads could make nets more visible to cetaceans, scientists say.*

The response to Covid-19 has awakened pan-EU solidarity in pan-EU public opinion.

However, Slovenia joined Poland and Hungary in undermining democracy and civil liberties.