President Donald Trump’s obsession with unfounded claims of election fraud has defined his second term in office. But in recent months his fixation has moved from executive nominee litmus tests and executive orders reinforcing proof of citizenship to vote into legislation – dragging Congress into the fray.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE America Act, featured heavily in Trump’s primetime speech on July 16, 2026.

It’s become the focus of the administration in recent months, eclipsing prior legislative efforts by proposing stringent and widespread voting changes. The proposed law, which would federalize elections, require additional documentation in order to vote and curtail mail-in registration and ballots in all states, faces major logistical, legal and political hurdles.

The act, which is stuck in limbo between the U.S. House and Senate, has dominated and derailed the summer’s legislative calendar. In the House, Republican members delayed votes on major legislation in an effort to pressure the Senate to take the bill up for a vote, and it has become a sticking point in other unrelated legislation.

The controversial act has also soured the relationship between Trump and members of his party, leading him to refuse to sign a bipartisan housing bill passed by Congress. Although the bill became law without his signature, Trump’s preoccupation with the SAVE America Act ultimately denied congressional Republicans an opportunity to tout a bipartisan, popular policy win.

Yet, despite mounting political pressure, Congress hasn’t budged.

This tension between Trump’s priorities and congressional inaction is noteworthy because Republicans control both chambers. But as a political scientist who studies the evolving power of congressional leadership, I find inaction on the SAVE America Act to be more than a reflection of Trump’s waning popularity among Republican lawmakers. Rather, congressional hesitation on what would be the largest election reform in decades reflects an awareness of constituent needs and lawmakers’ own reelection risks.

What’s the latest?

House Republicans have been quick to blame the Senate – and the 60-vote filibuster threshold the legislation must overcome to receive a vote on the Senate floor – for the inaction.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has brought the legislation to the floor for at least three votes in an effort to pressure the Senate to take up the legislation. In July 2026, Johnson took a more creative approach, relenting to conservative lawmakers by including portions of the SAVE America Act in a House-passed bill to fund the State Department.

These actions are largely theatrical. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said since February 2026 that there aren’t enough votes to move the SAVE America Act through the Senate, telling Fox News in June that “the votes currently aren’t there.” Although Senate Republicans could vote to remove the filibuster, which Trump has also requested, they have not.

Even in the House, the slim margins of Republican control have made it challenging for Johnson to keep the party together on the controversial issue. And Johnson’s gambit to attach the SAVE America Act to important legislation risks not only derailing bipartisan policy but another government shutdown, too.

If Republicans were serious about electoral reform, including moderate reforms that the majority of Americans do support, their approach would be like that used for other major legislation: bipartisan. Instead, partisan passage of a controversial bill, with a known Senate blockade, presents half-hearted strategy that avoids true responsibility.

Legal and logistical hurdles

The SAVE America Act would be confusing, time-consuming and expensive, and it would not provide funding to help states implement changes.

Changing election processes warrants precision and time, too. As Republican Sen. Thom Tillis noted, “Do you honestly believe that we can have this thing up in 50 states? There’s no funding. There’s no specific implementation instructions.”

Beyond logistics, the legality of federalizing election processes is murky.

Congress does have the power to mandate election requirements. But under Article 1, Section 4, of the Constitution, while Congress can outline parameters, states are responsible for election administration.

For example, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 reinforced citizenship as a requirement, but states maintained responsibility for creating their own form and enrollment process. The SAVE America Act attempts to circumvent this by requiring federal possession of voter rolls.

Uncertainty for American citizens

Beyond legal challenges, the SAVE America Act introduces very real implications for American voters – and the members of Congress who represent them.

While the act’s stated goal is to ensure only citizens vote, citizenship requirements for voting are already federal law. In practice, many scholars believe the bill would make it more difficult for eligible voters to engage in the democratic process.

For rural Americans, most of whom are represented by Republican members of Congress, the act would sharply restrict mail-in registration and mail-in voting. More than 5 million Americans would need to drive an hour or more to register to vote, with some voters facing drives as long as eight hours.

For women who changed their name after marriage, a trait more likely to be associated with Republican women, voting would require marriage certificates in addition to birth certificates.

First-time voters, young voters on college campuses and voters who have recently moved could also face the hurdle of finding and presenting this documentation in person.

Members of Congress, particularly those who represent rural areas, are likely aware of this reality. Disenfranchising or, at best, confusing their voters risks their own electoral success, too.

Safety and security of upcoming elections

One of Trump’s first acts following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Slaughter in June 2026, which allowed the president to remove executive branch officials without cause, was to fire the remaining members of the bipartisan, Senate-confirmed Election Assistance Commission.

The agency is the point of contact for states regarding election administration processes, offering resources, guidance and expertise on voting logistics. If the SAVE America Act were to pass, this office would be integral to ensuring changes are unbiased and fair across all 50 states.

Coupled with warnings that Trump may invoke emergency powers over election administration, aggressive actions by the Department of Justice to control voter rolls, partisan redistricting, and now a vacated election commission, the SAVE America Act risks further disrupting elections. All while these elections have already been secure and overwhelmingly free of fraud.

As Tillis noted to reporters, “They’re being disingenuous to suggest to the American people they could possibly be operational by this election. And so then it begins to make me wonder … if we’re just beginning to undermine the underlying integrity of any of our elections. And I think that’s dangerous, and I think it’s wrong.”

Trump’s grip on Republicans

Does Congress’ hesitation to pass the SAVE America Act reflect a weakened Trump grip on the Republican party? Possibly. The president is more unpopular than he has been at any point during his second term. Ignoring Trump on the SAVE America Act may be a risk worth taking to some members.

But for most Republican members of Congress, appeasing Trump remains key to primary and electoral success. The president’s record on primary endorsements – even for Senate incumbents – remains strong, as he continues to define the party. Among constituents, some provisions of the SAVE America Act are popular among MAGA-aligned voters, making it an important electoral issue for members representing deep-red districts.

By publicly supporting the act, but relying on the Senate to serve as a doorstop to House-passed legislation, Congress falls into a familiar pattern that allows conservative members to appeal to the president while using procedure to block legislation that would make major changes to voting, mere months from Election Day.

Congress’ hesitance to pass the SAVE America Act is more than a test of its relationship with Trump. It’s an example of Congress doing what it was intended to do: represent its constituents.

SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/republicans-control-congress-so-why-is-trumps-save-america-act-stuck/

Manchester has always been an English city that tells its story through culture. Its reputation was not built solely through a global crucible of industry, commerce or politics but through music, football, television, art and a tradition of creative self-invention.

The northern English city of Manchester has played a critical role in the development of Andy Burnham’s political and social outlook. This series considers what some have dubbed Manchesterism and what it might mean for the future of the UK.

Few cities have translated local culture into international influence quite like Manchester. It is the city that gave the world Joy Division, The Smiths, New Order, Oasis and The Stone Roses; where Factory Records and The Haçienda redefined independent music and club culture; where punk, post-punk, rave and Britpop became part of a distinctive civic identity.

But Manchester’s creative influence extends far beyond music, encompassing internationally recognised comedy, theatre, television, literature, visual art and festivals. It is a city whose cultural output has consistently shaped how Britain is imagined around the world.

Manchester is no longer simply a place on the map; it has become a globally recognised cultural brand built on creativity, reinvention and an unwavering confidence in its own identity.

That identity is important because culture in Manchester has never been decorative. It has long functioned as civic infrastructure; shaping how the city understands itself, how it responds to moments of crisis and renewal, and how it presents itself to the world.

Music, in particular, has provided a shared language through which successive generations have expressed ideas about class, community, resilience and belonging.

It is against this backdrop that Andy Burnham’s mayoralty should be understood as he becomes the UK’s prime minister.

For much of the modern era in British politics, culture has been treated as an optional extra: valuable for tourism, regeneration or economic growth, but rarely considered central to how places function.

Burnham took a noticeably different approach.

Culture and ‘Manchesterism’

Throughout his time as mayor of Greater Manchester, culture was increasingly positioned not as a luxury but as part of the region’s strategic infrastructure. Culture matters because it creates economic value, but also because it creates civic value: fostering belonging, confidence and the conditions in which communities flourish.

Part of that perspective appears rooted in Burnham’s own relationship with music. Unlike politicians who occasionally deploy popular music as an electoral prop, Burnham’s engagement with Manchester’s musical culture feels authentic and longstanding (despite the fact that he is originally from Merseyside, and supports Everton).

He has become one of the clearest exponents of a distinctly contemporary “Manchesterism”. No longer simply shorthand for swagger, musical heritage or post-industrial resilience; Manchesterism has evolved into a civic philosophy that combines cultural confidence with social purpose. It treats culture not as decoration but as infrastructure: something that underpins economic renewal, public wellbeing and collective identity.

Read more:
Andy Burnham: what to expect from the UK’s likely next prime minister

Now he has moved onto the national stage, the question is not simply whether he will take Manchester’s policies with him. It is whether this evolving form of Manchesterism can itself become a national political language.

His greatest political innovation may not be a single transport scheme or cultural initiative, but the demonstration that investment in music, creativity, local identity and civic pride can sit at the heart of modern government rather than at its margins.

As Manchester continues to reinvent itself as an internationally recognised cultural city, Burnham’s politics appear to be evolving alongside it. The relationship has never been one-way.

He has helped shape the city’s contemporary identity, just as the city has shaped his political imagination. Now, as he enters national leadership, it may be this distinctive model of culturally informed civic leadership – born in Manchester but increasingly relevant far beyond it – that proves his most enduring legacy.

Indie music and Manchester icons

Burnham’s social media posts and running playlists reveal an affection for the independent music that has shaped both the city and his own generation.

The playlists move comfortably between Manchester icons and other British acts, such as The La’s, suggesting someone whose soundtrack has been formed as much by post-industrial Britain as by Westminster.

Musical taste is rarely just about entertainment. It often reflects values.
The music Burnham returns to is characterised by independence, community, experimentation and a certain scepticism towards established power.

From The Smiths to The Stone Roses, these are artists who emerged from a city that repeatedly reinvented itself after industrial decline. Their music speaks of resilience, ambition and some sense of civic pride without sentimentality. Those themes have become remarkably consistent features of Burnham’s political language.

His connection to Manchester’s music scene therefore feels less like political performance than political formation.

His administration’s creation of the night time economy adviser, establishment of the Greater Manchester Music Commission, advocacy for grassroots music venues, and sustained backing for major cultural institutions all reflect an appreciation that cultural ecosystems are interconnected.

Via the Greater Manchester Music Commission in particular, music was recognised not simply as part of the city’s heritage but as a strategic asset with implications for economic growth, skills, health, education, tourism and international reputation. Rather than viewing culture as something to preserve, Burnham’s administration increasingly treated it as something to invest in.

This Is The Place

But perhaps nowhere was Burnham’s understanding of culture more visible than in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena attack in 2017.

At a moment of profound grief, one of the defining public responses was not a government statement or policy announcement but Tony Walsh’s poem, This Is The Place.

Performed before thousands gathered in Albert Square, it articulated a version of Manchester rooted in solidarity, creativity and resilience.

The moment resonated because it demonstrated that culture was not simply reflecting Manchester’s identity; it was actively producing it.

What has frequently been missing from politics is an understanding that people experience places emotionally as well as economically. Burnham’s contribution has been to recognise that identity itself matters.

People do not simply inhabit cities. They develop attachments to them. They inherit stories about them. Music venues, festivals, football clubs, libraries, theatres and public spaces all contribute to those attachments. Culture becomes one of the ways communities imagine themselves.

As Burnham enters 10 Downing street, the more interesting question is whether this contemporary form of Manchesterism will travel with him. The city’s distinctive blend of cultural confidence, civic identity and creative ambition has become more than a local political style. It offers a model of how culture can shape economic development, public life and place-making.

If that vision gains national traction, Burnham’s most significant legacy will not simply be the projects he championed in Greater Manchester, but the argument that culture is not an optional extra to be supported once economic priorities have been met. It is a fundamental part of how resilient, innovative and internationally recognised places are made.

Manchester understood that long before politics did.

I am a member of the GM Music Commission.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/how-manchester-created-manchesterism-from-music-and-culture-to-political-power/

For the second time in a year, there have been public protests in Ukraine in response to a decision by the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

In July 2025, protests erupted when Zelensky tried to curb the powers of two independent corruption agencies, forcing him to backtrack. The trigger for the latest protests was the dismissal of Ukraine’s popular defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov.

This is not the first time Zelensky has reshuffled his defence team. Oleksii Reznikov, who had been defence minister since 2021, was dismissed in 2023 following a string of high-profile corruption scandals.

He was replaced by Rustem Umerov who, after two years in office, was moved to the role of secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, as part of a full-scale cabinet reshuffle.

Umerov’s replacement, former prime minister Denys Shmyhal, lasted almost exactly six months before another reshuffle linked to the long fallout from the corruption scandals of summer 2025. Shmyhal was moved to the energy ministry and replaced by Fedorov.

What distinguishes Fedorov’s ousting is that this is the first time a reshuffle has been carried out for reasons of internal disagreement within Zelensky’s core team.

In a press conference on July 16, Fedorov accused the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, of blocking his reform initiatives and dividing the country. Their rift had become increasingly public. Fedorov and Syrskyi had apparently each demanded that the other be dismissed, rather than finding the compromise Zelensky wanted.

That the president sided with the commander-in-chief rather than his defence minister seemingly defies all logic. Fedorov had been an advocate of drone warfare during his earlier tenure as Ukraine’s minister for digital transformation, a role he assumed at the beginning of Zelensky’s tenure as president in 2019.

Since Fedorov was appointed minister of defence in January, Ukraine has made significant progress in stalling Russia’s momentum in the war. Key to this has been an intensified campaign of strikes against Russian oil infrastructure – one of the backbones of the country’s war economy.

Fedorov also moved to reform procurement policies in the defence ministry. In June, he stated that his team’s efforts to enforce competitive tendering for defence contracts had saved more than US$100 million (£74 million) by cutting the costs of 155mm artillery shells.

This is one probable source of Fedorov’s conflict with Syrskyi, who decides which weapons systems and military equipment should be procured. More than an issue of corruption, the rift is about control – and a clash of cultures between the moderniser, Fedorov, and the more traditional military leadership around Syrskyi.

After his dismissal, Fedorov apparently refused to continue in an advisory role for Zelensky. Two key advisors in the defence ministry, Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov and Serhii Sternenko, as well as the deputy commander of the air force, Pavlo Yelizarov, have all now resigned.

These developments further underline the internal strategic disagreements over the direction of Ukraine’s war effort.

Fedorov’s replacement

Zelensky’s initial choice for his next defence minister was Ihor Klymenko, who apparently declined the role and is set to take up the post of secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council instead.

As a former national police chief who had been Ukraine’s interior minister since 2023, Klymenko was seen as someone who could resolve Ukraine’s continued recruitment crisis. This is arguably the area in which Fedorov failed to make sufficient progress.

In light of sustained rumours about a new mobilisation of Russian troops for the war in the autumn, it is clear that Ukraine’s manpower problem is becoming more acute and needs an urgent resolution.

According to Fedorov’s diagnosis of the scale of the problem, 2 million Ukrainians are currently wanted for draft evasion, and 200,000 soldiers are absent without official leave.

Less clear, however, is why Klymenko was touted for the role. As interior minister, he was at least part of the problem caused by so-called “busification” – the forcible seizure of military-age Ukrainian men by recruitment officials. Klymenko has consistently maintained that these officials have acted within the boundaries of martial law.

Klymenko’s refusal to accept the position may also have been an implicit acknowledgement of how difficult a job any reform of recruitment would be. This is particularly the case given Zelensky’s highly public commitment to eradicating busification, during his press conference with the outgoing British prime minister, Keir Starmer, in Kyiv on July 16.

Yevhenii Khmara, a major general and acting head of the Ukrainian intelligence service SBU, has now been appointed as acting defence minister. Given Kharma’s previous role in supporting Ukraine’s intensifying air campaign against Russia, his appointment placates critics of the Fedorov dismissal. These include members of Zelensky’s own party, who saw Klymenko as insufficiently aligned with Fedorov’s strategy in the war.

But a realignment with Fedorov’s vision of how to win the war will do little to address either the recruitment issue or the underlying conflict with Syrskyi. That this will likely fester could be particularly destabilising, because the timeline towards Kharma’s parliamentary confirmation is unclear.

Under Ukrainian law, Kharma first has to resign from active military service before he can take on the civilian role of defence minister. He then has to be formally nominated by the president, after which the Ukrainian parliament must approve his appointment.

Like the summer 2025 corruption crisis, Zelensky will probably weather this storm. But the price he is likely to pay is a further erosion of his authority – and a shrinking of his inner circle of trusted advisors.

This is an unnecessary and unwelcome distraction from a defence effort that had finally seemed to put Ukraine on the front foot, for the first time since the end of 2022.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the Nato Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/ukraines-defence-shake-up-exposes-rift-in-zelenskys-inner-circle/

As mayor of Greater Manchester, one of Andy Burnham’s most eye-catching policies was his agenda for public transport. This centred on the creation of a more integrated and inclusive “London-style” system, and the aim was that everybody should be able to access reliable, safe and affordable public transport across the region.

The idea behind his flagship “Bee Network” is the joining up of buses, trams, rail, cycling and walking under one brand, with simple fares and better coordination.

Burnham and his team at local government body Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) fought to turn back Margaret Thatcher’s bus deregulation policies, which opened the market up to private providers. They then brought buses back under local control through franchising.

In practice, this means that rather than letting commercial operators take charge, TfGM makes the decisions on routes, frequency, fares and integration. Services around the city centre are free.

The northern English city of Manchester has played a critical role in the development of Andy Burnham’s political and social outlook. This series considers what some have dubbed Manchesterism and what it might mean for the future of the UK.

Outside London, Greater Manchester is the first area to achieve this considerable shift towards an integrated public transport network. Other metropolitan authorities plan to follow its lead, and most people in the region credit Burnham’s leadership for this success.

In a departure from the England-wide policy of a £3 cap on bus fares introduced in January 2023, the Bee Network has retained its £2 cap on fares. The Bee Network also allows “hopper-style” ticketing, which lets passengers change buses within a time window without paying again. There have also been fare freezes for 2026 and expanded concessionary travel for older and disabled passengers.

Problems outside the centre

But there are still significant challenges. A key question is whether the quality and reliability can improve enough to generate sustained growth in passenger journeys. Greater Manchester’s official bus strategy targets a 30% increase in bus use by 2030, equivalent to nearly 50 million additional journeys each year.

It is also unclear whether funding for fare subsidies will remain stable given wider policy pressures, such as the need to provide affordable social housing and support for businesses.

But arguably, the most important of these challenges is the ongoing problem of transport-related social exclusion. I have serious doubts around whether orbital and cross-borough journeys in Manchester’s urban periphery will improve enough for the Bee Network to benefit communities beyond the city centre. This is particularly the case for deprived boroughs such as Oldham, Rochdale and Wigan.

Research I was involved in looked at low-income and transport-poor communities in these peripheral areas. It found that limited public transport, especially bus services, continues to make it harder for people to get jobs, study or access healthcare and social activities.

While the Bee Network is working well in the centre of Manchester, it largely serves those who already enjoy a high standard of bus services. It remains to be seen whether the same high standards can be achieved in Greater Manchester’s district centres, and it’s likely to prove even more challenging in its semi-rural areas.

Karen Lucas receives funding from Department for Transport and Transport for Greater Manchester. She consults with Ipsos, Steer and Arcadis

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/yes-burnhams-bee-network-has-transformed-central-manchester-but-thats-not-the-whole-picture/

AI companies increasingly want to move their operations into space. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has applied to launch over a million AI data centre satellites and ultimately build them on the moon.

Jeff Bezos, Google, OpenAI and others have similar plans. The idea is to harness 24/7 solar energy and, in Bezos’s vision at least, to move all polluting industries off-world, re-zoning Earth for humans and nature.

It’s an intriguing plan. But once you factor in the whole life cycle, from water and rocket fuel used to launch these satellites into space, to keeping them cool and eventually disposing of old satellites, the environmental case becomes less clear.

Outer space, out of mind

Off-worlding polluting industries is not a new idea. In the 1970s, when the last Iranian oil crisis caused rocketing fuel prices, Nasa kicked off a plan to build huge solar plants in space. The idea flopped when the oil began to flow again.

Nasa also explored the prospect of storing nuclear materials on the moon and blasting hazardous waste at the sun. These plans may have been feasible from an engineering perspective but were politically impossible due to the risk of radioactive particles eventually falling back to earth.

Since data centres need so much energy, much of it for AI, such astronomical ideas are back on the table. Regular Earth-based data centres were responsible for around 5% of all electricity used in the US last year, for instance, mostly using fossil fuels. Their share of US power demand will likely triple by 2028.

The fragile frontier

That’s why the cold vacuum of space, with its endless supply of solar energy, is being pitched as a more sustainable alternative to big, noisy, hot data centres in our back yards.

Meanwhile, a recent petition from environmental law charity Earthjustice, is calling for a comprehensive review. They argue these proposals fail to acknowledge any environmental impact. “This is not just poor planning and a missed opportunity”, the petition states, “it violates federal law”.

Indeed, SpaceX’s planning applications come with assurances of no meaningful environmental impact. “It’s always sunny in space,” according to Musk, who says orbital data centres are “obviously the only way to scale”.

Yet data centres in space would be even more prone to overheating than those on earth. That’s because, like a Thermos flask, space keeps things hot. There’s no water or air to carry excess heat away. Instead, keeping powerful AI chips cool in orbit requires massive ammonia-filled radiators that let heat escape as infrared radiation. This isn’t very efficient and those radiators are much larger than the computers they cool. Lifting these huge structures to orbit would require a lot of rocket fuel.

Most plans for orbital data centres depend on the future success of SpaceX’s heavy-lift Starship. But every Starship launch burns over 1,000 tonnes of liquid methane, releasing around 80,000 tonnes of CO₂ (about the same as what 20,000 cars emit in a year). The warming associated with soot emissions in the upper atmosphere is 500 times more intense than the same emissions at ground level. We know soot from rockets reduces stratospheric ozone – the stuff shielding us from harmful UV rays. In the lower atmosphere, most soot falls back to Earth in weeks. In the stratosphere, soot stays there for up to four years, prolonging its damaging effects.

While it is always sunny in space, solar panels degrade much quicker there. Microchips are also easily damaged, falling prey to a phenomenon known as “bit flipping” – when high-energy particles rewrite memory hardware randomly changing data from 1 to 0. Retrieving busted hardware from space is not financially viable. SpaceX satellites have a five-year shelf life before being incinerated as they fall back to Earth. The environmental impacts of things burning up in the atmosphere are not well known.

Musk’s AI satellites would be connected by lasers. Should any one of the million or so satellites become untethered and collide with another, it would create further debris, creating more risk of collisions, more debris, and so on. Scientists call this the Kesler Syndrome and worry that orbital debris fields could hinder human activities in space for a very long time.

Orbital data centres would have a huge water footprint too. To catch toxic dust and protect their concrete launch pad from heat damage, a typical spaceport uses a deluge system releasing around 2 million litres of water with every launch. SpaceX has repeatedly broken environmental laws with its deluge system, allowing contaminated run-off from Starship launches to enter protected waters off the coast of Texas.

Some suggest these sci-fi schemes are designed to prop up SpaceX’s teetering stock price, rather than humanity’s computing needs. Others see orbital data centres as just one of many ambitious visions to tackle the environmental costs of AI. Either way, my research suggests this quest to off-world the industry’s headaches will have profound implications that are not well understood.

Peter Howson has received research funding from the British Academy.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/why-ais-environmental-footprint-wont-disappear-into-orbit/

Flying abroad for a summer holiday is not as simple as it used to be. Geopolitical uncertainty has already disrupted flight schedules and fuel prices this year.

For many, staying closer to home will seem like a sensible option. And in the UK, warmer summers could also make staycations much more appealing.

But for others, the allure of foreign holidays will always remain.

So the challenge for travel companies is to demonstrate that an overseas holiday is worth the risk. Our research on tourism suggests that at times like this, consumers seek reassurance and expertise. And for tour operators and travel agents, this presents an opportunity.

When travel seems straightforward, consumers may be happy to organise their own flights, hotels and transfers online. But when disruption and uncertainty are likely, trusted intermediaries become more valuable.

There is evidence this is already happening in the UK. More people are turning to trusted travel agents to steer them through the uncertainty of conflicts, economic crises and extreme weather.

For a good travel operator does more than sell flights and accommodation. They can reduce complexity and vulnerability, and offer support when things change.

This reassurance should perhaps be made more visible in marketing. Flexible booking terms, clear refund policies, Atol cover (government-backed protection for travellers) and guidance about disruption should not be buried in small print.

Our research suggests that for cautious travellers, the destination matters of course – but so does having confidence that someone will help if things go wrong.

Operators should also continue to promote deals, as price remains important. But they should aim to focus particularly on value.

For instance, all-inclusive holidays reduce uncertainty around the cost of food, drink and activities. Package holidays can simplify decisions and provide clearer protection than booking separate elements independently. Flexible payment plans can make holidays appear more manageable.

Tour operators should also appeal explicitly to the emotional value of travel, embracing the reasons that make going abroad so appealing – the sense of escape, of adventure and memory-making with loved ones.

In this way, travel abroad can be framed as an investment in experience and memories laden with emotional value.

Research also suggests that many travellers are drawn to experiences that help them express a distinctive sense of self. This gives operators another way to frame value: authentic local culture, distinctive experiences and memorable occasions that are difficult to replicate at home.

But this emotional promise needs practical backing. Travellers want evidence that their money, time and plans will be protected – which means an increasingly important aspect of any travel agent’s role is communicating the experiences of fellow travellers.

Holiday memories

A strong strategy for the industry would show why overseas holidays are still worthwhile, and explain clearly how risks will be managed. A UK government report found that travellers see tour operators as trusted messengers during times of disruption. And clear communication can reduce confusion and build trust.

Demand for overseas travel remains strong, even as booking behaviour is changing. There is evidence that plenty of people plan to travel in the next 12 months.

Travellers are not necessarily turning away from holidays abroad. But they are becoming more careful about when, where and how they book.

People do not simply stop travelling when the world feels uncertain. They adapt. Consumers substitute destinations, shorten trips, book later, travel off-peak, reduce spending or move towards providers they trust.

Tourism has repeatedly bounced back from major disruptions, including the pandemic. But each disruption make tourists more cautious, more likely to compare options, and more demanding of travel providers.

Success will depend less on offering the cheapest holidays than on building lasting customer relationships. Cautious tourists are buying more than flights, hotels and sunshine. They are buying confidence that their limited time and money will be well spent.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/worried-about-booking-a-holiday-abroad-heres-how-travel-operators-can-provide-reassurance/

A new law created in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster, which aims to prevent state cover-ups, has finally passed through the UK’s House of Commons.

The Hillsborough Law has been championed by the campaign for truth and justice which emerged from the tragedy that unfolded on April 15 1989, during an FA cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield. A crowd crush resulted in the deaths of 95 people. Another person died in March 1993 as a result of injuries sustained that day, with a similar final death in July 2021.

A subsequent public inquiry and an inquest found that in the aftermath of the disaster, South Yorkshire Police deliberately engaged in a strategy of denial and obfuscation – blaming fans for the tragedy.

South Yorkshire Police released statements suggesting intoxicated, ticketless Liverpool fans had caused the crush. The force also altered witness statements to remove negative comments about police conduct during the investigation. These baseless accusations were promoted in parts of the British media as fact.

As a result of campaigning by families of Hillsborough victims, a number of state-mandated investigations were held into the disaster. Initial inquests and a public inquiry did little to reveal the truth.

But in 2009, the Bishop of Liverpool James Jones was appointed to chair the Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP), which finally put survivors and families first and ensured the questions they wanted to have answered fundamentally drove the panel’s work.

The HIP was made possible only as a result of tireless campaigning in the face of years of denial and disappointment. It definitively dispelled the myth of fan culpability, revealing the true causes of the Hillsborough disaster to be a combination of longstanding safety issues and unprecedented police mismanagement of the crowd as well as the subsequent establishment cover-up.

A positive legacy

Campaigners’ struggles raised questions about how those in positions of power were able to shift blame in the wake of disasters. These questions only became more salient in the aftermath of the panel’s report. Campaigners were also vindicated in 2016, when new inquests finally ruled that the fans who died as Hillsborough had been unlawfully killed. Yet this too raised profound questions about how this truth could have been surpressed for so long.

Further scandals, including the Post Office Horizon IT scandal and the Grenfell Tower fire, each pointed to the need for greater accountability and candour from people in positions of power. In seeking to build a positive legacy out of trauma, the Hillsborough community has led the fight for this through what has been dubbed the “Hillsborough Law”, which passed unanimously through the House of Commons on July 14.

The original Hillsborough Law (the Public Office Accountability Bill), was introduced before Parliament in 2017 by Andy Burnham. He had developed a close link with the Hillsborough campaign for justice, having raised their cause in Parliament in 2009 after he was heckled at a 2009 anniversary event held at Anfield whilst serving as culture secretary.

It had been drafted by lawyers who had worked with Hillsborough victims’ families, and it made two key demands. First, that those in public life must tell the truth during police investigations (an “active duty of candour”) into disasters like Hillsborough. Second, that communities directly affected by disasters have access to funds to cover their legal representation, addressing their financial imbalance.

However, the 2017 general election interrupted the bill’s passage through parliament. Burnham subsequently left Westminster to become the mayor of Greater Manchester, and the legislation was not reintroduced.

In the wake of further cover-ups including Grenfell and Post Office Horizon, in 2022 the Hillsborough Law Now campaign launched. It involved a number of community campaigns such as Grenfell United and allies including Burnham and Liverpool MP Ian Byrne.

During his speech to the Labour party conference in 2024, Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed that Labour would pass the Hillsborough Law.

However, Labour missed its self-imposed deadline for introducing the bill before the 36th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, citing the need for more time “to draft the best version” of the bill.

Campaigners were concerned that Labour might be watering down the Hillsborough Law, amid pressure to exempt security services from the duty of candour on the basis that requiring them to do so could compromise national security, and rumours that Labour was considering ditching the proposal for funding of legal representation to avoid footing hefty legal costs.

In the face of this, the Hillsborough Law Now campaign quickly mobilised, lobbying the prime minister directly and campaigning publicly for the law to be enacted in full.

Following negotiations between the prime minister and families of the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing who argued that their fight for truth and justice was harder because of failures in security service candour, this will now happen – with no exceptions.

The political legacy of the Hillsborough Law

For Starmer, ensuring the Hillsborough Law passed through the Commons was one of his last acts as prime minister. Having personally promised some of the relatives that he would ensure the law was enacted, he now seeks to frame it as a key part of his own legacy.

Starmer’s successor, Burnham, was a key early proponent of the Hillsborough Law. Burnham has linked the bill to broader questions. Burnham asked: – “What kind of country we want to be? One where power is concentrated in distant institutions, or one where it is shared more fairly with the people and places those institutions are meant to serve.”

The Hillsborough Law will not be a magic bullet for ensuring truth and accountability in the wake of major disasters. But it might be a step towards shifting the balance between powerful figures and the communities affected by disaster and cover-ups.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/why-the-hillsborough-law-has-finally-been-passed-37-years-on/

The Trump administration has decided that destroying the habitat of endangered species is not harmful.

Think about that.

Habitat loss is the No. 1 reason species become endangered. Red-cockaded woodpeckers need mature long-leaf pine forests to reproduce. Endangered western monarch butterflies depend on pesticide-free milkweed for food. Pacific salmon must have clean, cool rivers for spawning. If coastal water becomes too polluted, manatees will starve.

Yet, on July 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Interior formally rescinded the so-called harm rule under the Endangered Species Act, removing language that has protected species from losing millions of acres of habitat.

As a law professor who has followed these issues for over five decades and litigated early cases under the Endangered Species Act, I believe this effort to gut the nation’s premier wildlife conservation law is unjustified and unlawful.

I see several reasons the rule change is not likely to survive the legal challenges that have already begun.

Origins of the Endangered Species Act

Enacted in 1973 at the behest of President Richard Nixon and passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress, the Endangered Species Act’s stated purpose is to “provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1978 described the act’s role more plainly: to “halt and reverse the trend of species extinctions whatever the cost.”

The act requires federal agencies to designate habitat for species as critical if it is deemed “essential to the conservation and recovery” of that species. Once habitat is designated, federal agencies are required to “insure” that their actions are not likely to result in the “destruction or adverse modification” of such habitat. All of this is spelled out in the text of the law itself.

The ‘take’ prohibition

The Endangered Species Act prohibits the unauthorized “take” of protected species. It broadly defines “take” to include deliberate actions such as hunting and trapping, but also those that “harm or harass” individual members of the protected species.

The prohibition applies to everyone: individuals, corporations, states and municipalities, tribes and others. The act is by far the most important federal law protecting habitat on nonfederal land.

“Take” is a term of art in wildlife law with deep roots in Anglo-American jurisprudence. It has always included requirements to conserve habitat. The earliest wildlife laws in England also required landowners to retain adequate forage and cover for wildlife, in addition to regulating hunting and fishing.

In 1975, shortly after Congress passed the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Department of Interior created the rule defining harm to include “acts or omissions that actually injures or kills wildlife,” including habitat degradation that “significantly disrupts essential behavioral patterns, which include, but are not limited to, breeding, feeding or sheltering.”

The rule was revised somewhat in 1981 to clarify that harm “may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering.”

The 1982 Endangered Species Act amendments

In 1981, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that habitat destruction qualifies as an unlawful take under the Endangered Species Act, ruling in a case brought on behalf of an endangered bird called the palila.

Congress reacted to that ruling by amending the act to create the incidental take program. I testified in favor of this provision during the hearings.

The incidental take program provides a way to reduce conflicts between protected species and commercial development by authorizing only those takes that meet strict rules to minimize and mitigate the impact on the species in question. Over the years, hundreds of incidental take permits have been issued covering over 47 million acres of habitat.

If Congress didn’t believe habitat destruction and degradation constitute “harm” under the statute, why would it require permits and plans to offset habitat loss?

This will factor into the litigation to come challenging the move to rescind the harm rule.

The Sweet Home decision

The controversy over the harm rule reached the Supreme Court in 1995 in a case brought by the timber industry in Oregon. In Sweet Home Communities for a Greater Oregon v. Babbitt, the court upheld the harm rule by a vote of 6-3.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the court’s majority opinion. He cited multiple reasons for upholding the rule as a “reasonable interpretation” of congressional intent under the then-prevailing Chevron Doctrine:

• First, Stevens wrote that the ordinary meaning of “harm” naturally encompasses habitat modification that results in actual injury or death to members of an endangered or threatened species.

• Second, under relevant Supreme Court precedent, every word in a statute must be given effect. Thus the word “harm” must encompass indirect as well as direct injuries or it would have no meaning that does not duplicate the other words in the definition of “take.”

• Third, the fact that Congress amended the act to authorize incidental take permits with habitat conservation plans strongly suggests that Congress intended for the law to prohibit both direct and indirect causes of death or injury.

Justice Antonin Scalia dissented in that case, arguing that the word “harm” applies only to an action “directed immediately and intentionally against a particular animal.” Or as he put it, “A strikes B.”

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor disagreed, arguing in a sharp exchange with Scalia: “… to make it impossible for an animal to reproduce is to impair its most essential physical functions and to render that animal, and its genetic material, biologically obsolete. This, in my view, is actual injury.”

The Loper Bright ruling’s impact

Fast-forward to 2024, when the Supreme Court, in deciding Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, formally abandoned the Chevron Doctrine. In doing so, it ruled that the courts must decide what the “best reading” of statutory text is without deferring to agency interpretations.

The Trump administration argues that the Loper Bright ruling means that the court’s decision in Sweet Home is no longer good law because Stevens’ majority opinion relied on the Chevron doctrine.

Instead, the Trump administration argues that Scalia’s dissent is actually the best reading of “harm” and is now the law of the land.

However, in the majority opinion in Loper Bright, Chief Justice John Roberts cautioned: “We do not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron framework.” In short, it is not enough to say a precedent relied on Chevron and suggest it is no longer valid.

The Trump administration will have to overcome the presumption that the Sweet Home ruling remains the law unless the current Supreme Court overturns it.

Where we go from here

Environmental groups and tribes have already filed multiple lawsuits challenging the repeal of the harm rule.

In addition to defending the validity of the Sweet Home decision as the best reading of the law, the cases allege a number of procedural flaws in how the Department of Interior changed the rule.

Those include alleged violations of the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to prepare an environmental impact statement; violations of the Endangered Species Act by failing to engage in consultation regarding the impacts of the rescinding of the harm rule; and failure to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act to justify and explain the basis for wholesale repeal of the harm rule without proposing an alternative.

While the administration is likely counting on getting the case to the Supreme Court before its time in office runs out, I expect the strategy of the challengers will be to delay the litigation by filing lawsuits in multiple courts and asking the courts for preliminary injunctions to block the rule change pending the cases’ outcome. That would allow a future administration to reinstate the rule.

The stakes are huge for the nation’s most imperiled species. Over two-thirds of listed species depend on nonfederal land for their survival and recovery. The harm rule is the single most important reason they are still alive and have a chance of recovery.

Patrick Parenteau 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/why-trumps-move-to-gut-the-endangered-species-act-likely-wont-hold-up-in-court/

A little-noticed presidential national security directive is now the legal engine behind a wave of terrorism prosecutions against left-wing protesters.

That domestic campaign now has an international dimension, one that American officials had been planning for months, culminating on July 16, 2026, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism drew representatives from more than 65 countries to Washington. The gathering was informally called the “Antifa summit.”

Rubio described antifa-aligned networks as sharing infrastructure across borders and accused Iran and Cuba of helping bankroll the movement, without offering evidence. The White House declared the summit the start of an “unprecedented global offensive” against what it calls “radical left terrorism.”

This offensive is built on the same domestic legal architecture that has now sent American activists to prison for decades.

That architecture is National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, which for the first time appeared to authorize preemptive law enforcement measures against Americans based not on whether they are planning to commit violence but for their political or ideological beliefs.

Nearly a year later, that blueprint has moved from paper into practice.

The Justice Department has built task forces staffed by counterterrorism prosecutors. The FBI has set up its own NSPM-7 mission center to oversee investigations into left-wing movements, including a joint effort with the IRS to investigate nonprofit groups.

The Justice Department has used this machinery to convict activists and send some of them to prison for decades.

NSPM-7 was not passed by Congress. It’s a lesser-known tool of executive power: a presidential memorandum.

As an international relations scholar who has studied U.S. foreign policy decision-making and national security legislation, I recognize that presidents can take several types of executive actions without legislative involvement: executive orders, memoranda and proclamations.

This structure allows the president to direct law enforcement and national security agencies, with little opportunity for congressional oversight.

Presidential national security powers

Executive memorandums direct agencies to prepare reports, implement policies or align programs with the administration’s priorities. Unlike executive orders, they aren’t required to be published. When they relate to national security, like NSPM-7, they’re called national security directives – many of which stay classified and may not be declassified for years or decades.

The stated purpose of NSPM-7 is to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence, focusing mainly on perceived threats from the political left. The memorandum identifies “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views as potential indicators that a group or person will commit domestic terrorism.

The memorandum claims that political violence originates with “anti-fascist” groups that hold the following views: “support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

The strategy includes preemptive measures to disrupt groups before they engage in violent political acts, empowering multiagency task forces to investigate potential federal crimes related to radicalization and the groups’ funders. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s December 2025 implementation memo went further, ordering a five-year review of agency files on antifa. A task force staffed with counterterrorism and organized-crime prosecutors is carrying out these investigations.

‘Domestic terrorist organizations’

The memorandum directs the Department of Justice to focus FBI resources from approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces on investigating “acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons” for the purpose of “political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; and the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights.”

NSPM-7 also allows the attorney general to propose groups for designation as “domestic terrorist organizations.” That includes groups that engage in “organized doxxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder.”

Existing laws allow the secretary of state to designate groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” that are then subject to financial sanctions.

But these laws do not permit the president to label domestic groups this way.

That gap hasn’t stopped prosecutions. In Texas, eight defendants tied to a “North Texas Antifa Cell” were sentenced in June 2026 for a 2025 armed confrontation at the Prairieland immigration detention center. One man received 100 years, and others who never fired a weapon still drew decades in prison under terrorism sentencing guidelines.

In Minnesota, 15 members and associates of a group called Direct Action Minnesota were indicted in June 2026 on conspiracy and assault charges. A 94-page indictment cited behavior such as wearing an “I’m Antifa!” sweatshirt, possessing a bullhorn or including a devil emoji in a Signal message.

Defining terrorism

NSPM-7 marks a major conceptual shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, departing from approaches that primarily targeted foreign threats.

Earlier directives, dating to Ronald Reagan’s presidency, treated terrorism as a global menace countered through military power and diplomacy. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration reframed it as a domestic challenge after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

After 9/11, the Bush administration fused counterterrorism with national defense through the global war on terrorism. The Obama administration later tried to narrow those powers, asking whether targeted individuals “pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons” — a standard focused on tactics and capture feasibility, not ideology.

The first Trump administration used a “travel ban” against several “terror-prone” countries, while President Joe Biden redirected focus toward weapons of mass destruction.

Notably, the “domestic terrorist” label itself has rarely produced actual charges. The State Department designated four antifa-aligned groups as foreign terrorist organizations. But antifa is a decentralized movement, not a formal group with a roster.

This designation lacks any real legal weight because U.S. law has no formal domestic terrorist organization category. Creating one risks infringing on First Amendment protected speech. Domestic terrorism itself is not a chargeable offense.

Prosecutors have instead leaned on older statutes such as material support for terrorism and conspiracy laws, tools originally built for cases like the ones above, not protest movements.

First Amendment rights at risk

There is no single official definition of terrorism in U.S. law; definitions vary by purpose – criminal law, intelligence collection, civil liability.

Definitions in all those areas typically focus on identifying violent or dangerous acts done with the intent to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy.

But more than redefining terrorism, NSPM-7 reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief.

The First Amendment generally prevents the government from punishing people for unpopular opinions. It also protects the ability for people to associate to advance public and private ideas in pursuit of political, economic, religious or cultural goals.

The directive’s emphasis on ideological orientations – “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism” and “anti-American” views – as indicators of domestic terrorism potentially jeopardizes First Amendment rights.

Thirty-one members of Congress sent a letter to Trump in October 2025 expressing “serious concerns” about NSPM-7, warning that it poses “serious constitutional, statutory and civil liberties risks, especially if used to target political dissent, protest or ideological speech.”

As the ACLU warns, any definition of terrorism that includes ideological components risks criminalizing people or groups based on belief rather than based on violence or other criminal conduct.

Congress has declined to create a domestic complement to the foreign terrorist designation in large part because of the potential for impinging on First Amendment–protected association and speech.

But I fear that chilling speech may be the point.

Silencing dissent

NSPM-7 does not criminalize previously legal conduct.

Rather, it states that the Trump administration will focus investigations around the identity and ideology of supposed perpetrators. Prioritizing investigations into this broad swath of ideologies serves to instill fear, silencing anti-fascist and other messages in opposition to the Trump administration.

Law professor Steve Vladeck frames this chill as “obeying in advance,” in which organizations self-censor rather than risk investigation, prosecution or defending against the “domestic terrorist” label. Federal judges in the Prairieland case have shown little sympathy for that distinction: One judge described the protest itself as “an assault on democracy,” even for defendants who never touched a weapon.

Although left-wing violence has risen in the past decade, empirical evidence shows it remains far below historical levels of right-wing or jihadist violence.

Most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, accounting for the vast majority of domestic terrorism fatalities.

Yet NSPM-7 focuses disproportionately on left-wing ideologies. NSPM-7 departs from prior U.S. counterterrorism frameworks by prioritizing the suppression of ideologically motivated dissent, even where, as in Minnesota, judges have already dismissed roughly half of similar federal cases for lack of evidence.

This is an updated version of a story originally published December 3, 2025.

Melinda Haas 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/rubios-international-antifa-summit-takes-place-after-trumps-national-security-policy-has-already-sent-left-wing-us-activists-to-prison-for-decades/

A dip in the sea can provide welcome relief after long stretches of hot weather – especially when the water is an inviting 20°C or more, as it has been recently across southern parts of the UK. But such sea temperatures are unusually warm, with UK waters being hit by the third major marine heatwave in four years.

Aside from obvious negative consequences for people, such as more drownings in open water, marine heatwaves can affect sea life of all sizes, from microscopic plankton to huge whales.

Around the world, such instances of unusually warm sea temperatures for five days or more have caused die-back of key species such as kelp, seagrass and corals.

Marine heatwaves have also caused death or changes to the life cycles of marine mammals and shellfish, as well as other species that depend on them, such as seabirds. They have caused species to migrate or shift their geographic range. These changes all disrupt ecosystems, with disastrous ramifications for oceanic food webs.

The UK’s first major marine heatwave, in June 2023, has been followed by another in May 2025 and the current heatwave in July 2026. Evidence of the impacts of these marine heatwaves is still quite limited, because some consequences can be subtle or take years to detect.

Extreme heat has been linked to harmful algal blooms around the UK. A surge in growth of microscopic algae develops when nutrients, warm temperatures, abundant sunlight and calm water combine to create ideal growing conditions.

Algal blooms can produce harmful toxins that accumulate in filter-feeding shellfish, causing severe illness or death in people who eat them. For that reason, the UK government works with food safety authorities to actively monitor marine biotoxins.

Warmer waters may have caused the influxes of octopus to the south coasts of Devon and Cornwall. Their predation on crab and lobster from pots has altered local fishery dynamics, with some fisheries now focusing on catching octopus.

A surge in jellyfish sightings has been suggested as another possible consequence of the latest marine heatwave. But early evidence suggests this may be due to more people at the beach reporting their observations.

Anecdotally, fishers have reported cold-water species such as cod shifting northward. Aside from affecting catch, such shifts may also affect seabird breeding and survival.

Seagrass beds and kelp forests have their own microclimates which can provide sanctuary from extreme heat. But they are also under threat from marine heatwaves, as warmer waters hinder their ability to provide refuge for marine species.

Because of changes to fisheries and ocean health, marine heatwaves have huge social and economic consequences.

In Western Australia, the consistently warm seas led to the coining of the term “marine heatwave” in 2011. This caused decimation of seagrass meadows, along with die-back of kelp, corals, fish, abalone, prawns and crabs. Some parts of that marine ecosystem took years to recover; other parts have never bounced back.

Forty questions

Now, the race is on to understand the knock-on effects of marine heatwaves and which marine species are most threatened.

Management interventions, such as harvest strategies or catch quotas, can protect breeding populations and young fish, helping to maintain healthy fish and shellfish numbers. The earlier these interventions are implemented, the better.

There is still so much that marine scientists need to understand about the effects of marine heatwaves. A diverse range of experts recently identified the 40 priority questions to advance understanding of the risks and opportunities of UK marine heatwaves. These questions centre on heatwaves’ effects on marine ecosystems, the services they underpin, the blue economy and society.

The UK’s 2023 and 2025 marine heatwaves did not occur during the month of August, when UK waters are at their seasonal warmest and added heat could tip conditions past critical thresholds.

Should the current marine heatwave continue into August, the consequences could be dire, giving these priority questions new urgency.

Jules Kajtar receives funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Zoe Jacobs receives funding from UK Research & Innovation (UKRI).

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/in-hot-water-what-happens-to-marine-life-during-heatwaves/

If you or someone you know has a baby or a child under 18, you’re likely wondering if they should get a “Trump Account.”

The U.S. government started giving babies born during President Donald Trump’s second term a US$1,000 gift on July 4, 2026. This money goes into the accounts, which are named after the president. To get the free money, the babies’ parents or guardians just have to submit the required paperwork.

I am a business school professor who studies wealth, savings and spending. Additionally, I am expecting another grandchild soon. While other members of our family are picking out decorations for the baby’s room, my task is deciphering Trump Accounts.

While these accounts clearly could help boost savings, they come with many restrictions that limit their usefulness for important expenses young Americans incur, such as paying for college and buying their first home.

IRAs for jobless babies

Trump Accounts are a traditional individual retirement account, or IRA, for children. Currently, all money deposited in these savings vehicles will be invested in State Street Bank’s SPDR Portfolio – which mirrors the S&P 500 stock index.

They will function somewhat like traditional IRAs for grownups, for which contributions can be deducted from your taxable income in the year they’re made. However, withdrawals before or after retirement are taxed.

These new accounts come with three small twists:

First, the government is kicking in $1,000 for babies born in calendar years 2025 through 2028. Congressional funding for this gift expires Sept. 30, 2034, so procrastinators have six years beyond 2028 to create an account for their kids.

Second, some states, big companies and foundations are pledging extra money to the accounts. Additional contributions from, say, a child’s grandfather, are limited to $5,000 a year; the employer of a child’s parent and charities may kick in up to $2,500 annually.

To be clear, not all recipients of this money have to be babies. For example, tech executive Michael Dell and his wife, Susan Dell, are providing $250 for the first 25 million kids under age 10 who sign up for Trump Accounts and live in middle-to-lower-income neighborhoods.

Third, to contribute to these new plans, a child does not have to earn money from working, which is required for traditional and Roth IRAs.

Many people and media outlets are comparing and contrasting 529 college savings plans and Trump Accounts, However, Congress designed these plans with different goals.

These new accounts are really not designed to help families save for college costs. Instead, they are supposed to give children an early head start on saving for their retirement.

How much they could grow

A big idea behind Trump Accounts is that a small sum can turn into a big one, if left alone in an investment account with no withdrawals for a long time.

The main website for the accounts, trumpaccounts.gov, highlights the magic of compounding. While you may be mainly familiar with compound interest, compounding refers to anything growing over time.

The website estimates if the government’s $1,000 is left untouched with no further contributions, then by the time a child with a Trump Account turns 18, it would be worth $6,000. At age 27, their account would be worth $15,000, and at age 55, it would be worth $243,000.

Many financial planners do not believe that these simulations, which assume the stock market’s value increases by more than 10% a year, are realistic – even if past performance suggests this is reasonable to expect. That quarter-million dollars turns into a bit less than $9,000 if stock prices only grow by 4% annually over the next half-century or so.

That’s why there is a disclaimer in tiny type below the eye-popping numbers. It reads: “Actual results may differ and are not guaranteed.”

Trump Accounts also have another important limitation.

The only option available at this point is a fund that owns shares in the 500 largest U.S. publicly traded companies. Currently, this means about one-fifth of this money will be invested in Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon since they’re the most valuable publicly traded companies today. In the future, there will be other options, but like the current choice, they mirror the stock market’s overall performance.

These accounts will support and boost the value of U.S. stocks, since a growing number of people – well, children – will be putting significant sums of money into the market that won’t be easy or cost-free to withdraw.

I believe that accounts like these are needed because they’ll boost Americans’ saving rate.

In 1975, Americans were saving over 13% of their disposable income, but by 2025, it was under 4%. This reduction in the savings rate means many Americans don’t have enough to cover emergencies, pay for a child’s college education or be ready for retirement.

5 downsides

Although Trump Accounts may help boost saving, they have some downsides.

First, no money can be taken out until the child turns at least 18, even with a penalty. After that point, the accounts can be rolled into another IRA.

Second, unless the account holder is withdrawing their money to help pay for their education, to buy a home or deal with disaster recovery, any withdrawals are subject to ordinary income tax rates.

Third, while traditional IRA contributions reduce your taxable income, any contributions you, your relatives or others make to Trump accounts do not. So they are not a way to reduce your tax bill.

Fourth, at age 18, all parental oversight disappears and the child has complete control of the money. Not all parents believe their child is capable of responsibly handling large amounts of money at that age.

Last, the accounts are not opened automatically. Parents or guardians have to request an account by dealing with the IRS.

Where Trump Accounts come from

The idea for these accounts did not come out of thin air.

In 1991, social scientist Michael Sherraden wrote a book proposing Individual Development Accounts. They offered a model for today’s Trump Accounts.

His idea: Provide low-income people with some assets – especially when they were young. These accounts were designed to boost people out of poverty by helping them afford a college education, buy a home and save for retirement. A variety of Individual Development Account programs were funded as pilot projects by states and foundations.

While the scope of these experiments were limited, evaluations of those pilot programs showed that providing funds early boosted home ownership and increased participants’ savings years later. These positive outcomes made it seem worth expanding what Sherradan and his team tried on a much larger scale.

Unfortunately, it’s also clear that attaching Trump’s name to the concept is rendering it less popular than it might have otherwise been.

However, there’s a clear precedent for this. Roth IRAs, after all, are named after Sen. William Roth Jr.. Roth, a Delaware Republican, championed the creation of retirement accounts when he served in Congress. Roth IRAs are the opposite of traditional IRAs. You can deposit some of your income after paying taxes on it into a Roth IRA and then take money out tax-free later.

As for me, I still don’t know how the new baby’s room will be decorated. However, I do know that creating an account is a smart idea, since it will give this child a financial boost down the line. I’ll even kick in extra money during the account’s first year to ensure the baby gets a bigger boost.

Jay L. Zagorsky 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/what-are-trump-accounts-for-they-are-more-likely-to-help-newborns-start-building-nest-eggs-than-help-pay-for-their-college-education/

The current state of democracy in the world is fragile. According to the V-Dem Project, which measures global democracy, 41% of the world’s population live in autocratizing countries — that is, those becoming more authoritarian.

In fact, a “third wave of autocratization” has seen democracy pushed back to levels not seen since 1978, the authors of the 2026 V-Dem report conclude. Worse, many of the 92 autocracies around the world are becoming more repressive.

And all this is happening while the economy has globalized — something that many political economists thought would encourage democracy among previously undemocratic nations.

So what’s going on? We spoke to Arizona State University’s José Kaire, whose book, “The Road to Repression,” explores the link between economic liberalization and the slide into deeper authoritarianism.

Walk us through your theory

The book starts from a simple puzzle: Dictatorships today are as repressive as ever. This is surprising because 40 years ago, many believed that economic liberalization would push autocracies toward democratic politics.

The logic was straightforward: Take away the state’s economic power, and you limit its ability to repress. The theory was that economic liberalization did this by privatizing state-owned enterprises, deregulating markets and opening economies to trade and investment. As people became less dependent on the government for jobs, credit and economic opportunity, they would gain the autonomy to organize, oppose authoritarian rulers and demand greater political freedoms.

This idea, associated with Nobel laureates Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, remains influential among many scholars and even served as part of the founding mythos of the Washington Consensus, a policy agenda championed by international financial institutions and leading world powers. It helped make economic liberalization the default prescription for countries across the developing world.

But reality has been much messier. The book documents how countries like Mexico, Malaysia and Senegal saw human rights abuses increase after embracing liberalization. About half of all autocracies have experienced similar trajectories after opening their economies. Why did a policy meant to weaken authoritarian rule sometimes make it more violent instead?

My answer focuses on the role of autocratic political elites – that is, the party officials, military officers and other regime insiders who control the state. For them, liberalization not only brings economic change, but it also represents a fundamental political threat. It can empower regime outsiders, such as an emerging business class or opposition leaders, who may later force their way into the system, diluting the influence of the old guard.

Dictators who liberalize then risk alienating their ruling coalition. When elites are strong, dictators cannot afford to lose their support, as they would risk a potential coup. Leaders with strong elites must then find ways to appease insiders, and one way they do that is through repression.

By cracking down on opposition groups, leaders signal that they remain committed to protecting elite interests. Repression, in this sense, is not just about silencing dissent — it’s about managing elite politics. The book documents, for example, how Mexico’s presidents used repression against the same opposition they had long tolerated to compensate the party elite for accepting reforms that threatened their political influence.

When dictators deploy repression in this way, they solve a broader political dilemma. On the one hand, they must contend with a political elite that sees liberalization as a threat to its influence. But, on the other, they also need to avoid alienating international actors, such as the United States, that are quick to punish governments that abandon the Washington Consensus. Repression allows leaders to retain elite backing while adhering to international demands for economic liberalization.

How does your theory apply to Cuba or Venezuela today?

Both are cases where the details of the argument really matter. In recent months, Venezuela has been forced down the road of economic liberalization by the U.S., while Cuba has embarked on economic reforms – also under pressure from Washington.

A key distinction in my theory is that the effects of liberalization depend on how strong the regime’s elites are relative to the leader.

When elites are strong, dictators need to accommodate them, often by repressing outsiders to shield insiders from potential challenges. When elites are weak, leaders do not need to make those concessions.

The question then comes down to which of these two camps Venezuela and Cuba currently occupy.

In the case of Cuba, we have seen some of the power flow from the leader to the party. Former leader Raúl Castro extended and institutionalized the role of the party in the late 2010s. The military also gained more autonomy during that period, having secured economic privileges that are more resilient to the whims of the leader.

This all suggests that elites have extended their capacity to make demands on the leadership. In that context, further economic liberalization could trigger the dynamics I describe, pushing the regime toward more repression. There is a good argument that we have already started to see some of that.

Venezuela is in a similar situation. It is too early to say for sure, but the removal of Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. raid in January 2026 might create an opportunity for regime insiders to carve out some more independence and influence. If that is the case, then future deregulation may hurt, rather than help, human rights.

Ultimately, outcomes will depend on how these regimes evolve. But if current dynamics persist, external pressure for economic reform is unlikely to improve human rights – and may well make them worse, if my theory holds.

What surprised you when researching for the book?

I got the idea for this book from listening to my father’s stories about how the liberalization of the automobile industry in Mexico in the 1970s affected the factory where he worked. It was all very specific, so I assumed it would not apply more generally to more countries. But the more cases I looked at, the more I realized this pattern of liberalization leading to repression was not uncommon.

In the book, I ended up statistically estimating that most dictatorships who have liberalized have displayed this pattern.

Another thing that surprised me was how the implications of the core argument kept extending to new areas.

For example, I expected that leaders pushed to liberalize their economies would become especially repressive if they also faced the threat of international prosecution. These leaders want to avoid ending up in front of institutions like the International Criminal Court, so they go to greater lengths to stay in power. That often means keeping their elites satisfied at all costs.

Where else are you seeing the dynamic play out?

One area I’m watching is the rise of artificial intelligence. My book focuses on economic liberalization, but it really is about how autocratic regimes adapt to a shifting economic structure. When new sources of wealth or influence emerge, they can give leaders an opportunity to bring in new allies and, in the process, weaken established elites.

China is probably the most relevant case for how these dynamics might play out in AI. Under Xi Jinping, there has been a clear push to centralize control over the AI sector. For example, the new Central Science and Technology Commission is led by one of Xi’s closest allies, placing oversight of this key sector closer to his inner circle. At the same time, the state has been heavily involved in promoting AI firms aligned with priorities associated with Xi’s leadership, while disciplining more independent tech entrepreneurs.

What I find interesting is what this might mean politically. If these sectors are producing new elites whose success depends on their relationship with the leader, they could become an alternative base of support.

That, in turn, could give leaders more room to maneuver in dealing with established elites. I do not think we know yet how far that goes, but I suspect it may very much fall in line with the dynamics the book highlights.

José Kaire 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.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/autocracies-get-more-repressive-when-opening-up-their-economies-a-political-scientists-explores-why/

About 100,000 babies were born through in vitro fertilization in 2024, according to the most recent U.S. data. But IVF commonly involves trying to create multiple embryos, because success is never guaranteed. If unused, those embryos can be frozen, discarded, donated to research or donated to another fertility patient.

In the eyes of some anti-abortion activists, those frozen IVF embryos are already children – children who need to be “adopted” into families. And that idea now appears in a federal document: grant guidelines announced by the Department of Health and Human Services in June 2026.

The department’s Embryo Adoption Awareness and Services program has existed since 2002. But this year’s funding notice describes IVF embryos as “children who already exist and are in need of a family.” Rather than presenting “embryo adoption” as one option among many for patients with remaining embryos, the document describes the practice as centered on embryos’ “rights” and “best interests.”

This language draws from a decades-long movement to give personhood status to fetuses and embryos, including those made in fertility clinics. The personhood movement is rooted in a belief embraced by many conservative Christians: that human life begins at fertilization and should receive legal protection from that moment.

Embryo adoption occupies a niche corner of U.S. fertility care. But the notice brings far-reaching questions about reproductive politics into sharper focus, including the future of IVF – a fertility treatment that many of those same conservative Christians support.

In my 2023 book, “Conceiving Christian America: Embryo Adoption and Reproductive Politics,” I show how embryo adoption developed as a Christian pro-life response to the accumulation of embryos remaining after IVF, recasting embryos as vulnerable children requiring rescue. Once a fringe view even among anti-abortion activists, that claim is now moving closer to the mainstream of reproductive politics.

Donation vs. adoption

Some fertility patients who no longer plan to use their frozen embryos donate them to other patients in the United States. An embryo is transferred through contracts and clinic consent forms, after which it can be transferred into a recipient’s uterus.

The small network of agencies, nonprofits and churches that offer embryo “adoption,” on the other hand, recast the donation process as one that saves “pre-born children.” Modeled on domestic adoption, many programs require home studies that assess prospective parents and their households. Many also allow donors to select who receives their embryos and encourage families to get to know each other rather than remain anonymous.

Legally, though, embryos in the U.S. generally are not adopted, because states do not classify them as children under adoption law. Instead, they are often transferred by contract as personal property.

The distinction between donation and adoption is not merely semantic, however, but part of a larger political project. Advocates seek to change how the public understands embryos and, ultimately, how the law classifies them.

As one advocate for embryo personhood told me in 2008, “What we call things matters.” Adoption language gives the process “some meaning and some dignity,” he said, by recasting IVF embryos as children deserving protection rather than as surplus tissue or research material.

Pushing for personhood

The world’s first embryo adoption program was launched in 1997 by Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which also facilitates traditional domestic and international adoptions. But the idea emerged from a longer effort that began taking shape in the 1960s, led largely by conservative Christian organizations, to establish legal personhood from the moment of fertilization onward.

In 1973, the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling found that the Constitution protected the right to have an abortion – a decision grounded in the right to privacy, stemming from the 14th Amendment’s due process clause. But the majority’s opinion also observed that the case for abortion rights would “collapse” if a fetus were recognized as a person under the 14th Amendment, with a constitutional right to life.

It was a watershed moment for personhood politics, and anti-abortion strategists responded quickly. One week later, Maryland Rep. Lawrence Hogan proposed the Human Life Amendment, which sought to extend constitutional personhood to “the moment of conception.” Similar efforts repeatedly failed in Congress and at the ballot box, including a prominent 2011 measure that Mississippi voters rejected.

As IVF advanced, the treatment raised new questions about when and where personhood begins. Some anti-abortion advocates extended claims about life beginning at fertilization to embryos created outside the body, but IVF was not one of the movement’s main targets.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, debates over human embryonic stem cell research drew national attention to what happens to embryos that remain after IVF. Scientists and patient advocates viewed embryos remaining after IVF as valuable materials for research that might lead to treatments for serious diseases.

To anti-abortion activists, however, using embryos in research destroyed human life. Embryo adoption entered the debate as a “life-affirming alternative” to discarding them or donating them to research.

President George W. Bush brought families from Nightlight’s embryo adoption program to White House press conferences opposing expanded federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. These children helped convey Bush’s message that “there is no such thing as a spare embryo.”

From margins to mainstream

Embryo politics changed dramatically in 2022, when a new Supreme Court ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturned the constitutional protection for abortion.

Before Dobbs, persuading courts to recognize embryos and fetuses as persons had been a potent but divisive goal among anti-abortion groups. Some embraced it, while others favored a different strategy – in part because public support for IVF is so strong.

After Dobbs, however, activists intensified efforts to extend legal rights to embryos and fetuses. Personhood arguments now surface in not only abortion restrictions but also disputes involving pregnancy loss, child support and taxes. Fertility care, in particular, has moved toward the center of anti-abortion politics.

Alabama became a bellwether in 2024 when its Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created during IVF treatment qualified as “children” under the state’s wrongful death law, which allows parents to sue over the death of a child. The case arose after a patient entered a fertility clinic’s cryogenic storage area and dropped a container holding frozen embryos. Concerned about liability, clinics paused services, and the state quickly passed a law giving providers immunity for embryo damage or death during IVF services.

New territory

Today, the Health and Human Services funding notice signals a shift toward the personhood movement’s central premise: that embryos are children.

To be sure, embryo adoption occupies a small corner of U.S. fertility medicine. Few people choose to donate remaining embryos for procreative use. Nor is embryonic personhood a popular idea: Only 39% of Americans support laws declaring that human life begins at fertilization. A majority of white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Protestants and Latter-day Saints support that view, yet majorities of these religious groups also oppose banning IVF.

But embryo adoption’s political power has never depended on widespread participation or public support. It lies in the story the movement tells about what embryos are, and advocates’ efforts to embed that story in institutions, policies and law.

I would argue the funding notice is one sign that the personhood movement is gaining force after the Dobbs decision. The question it raises is what legally recognizing embryos as children would mean for reproductive health and rights.

Risa Cromer has received research funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and served as a Public Religion Research Institute Fellow in 2025-2026.

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/embryo-personhood-once-on-the-margins-of-abortion-debates-is-moving-closer-to-the-center/

Three weeks after Venezuela was struck by twin earthquakes on June 24, the scale of the devastation is still growing. The death toll is approaching 5,000 people, with 18,000 homeless and 21,000 more in shelters.

The worst-hit state is La Guaira on the Caribbean coast – an area that had already been the site of one of Venezuela’s worst natural disasters. In December 1999, the state, then called Vargas, saw several days of torrential rain which flushed mud and rock down the slopes of the Ávila mountains.

Hillside houses were swept away, entire neighbourhoods were buried under landslides, and buildings collapsed near the shore. Tens of thousands of people were thought to have perished, though the precise number is still unknown.

As I recounted in my 2003 book, Venezuela: The Crossroads of Hugo Chávez, the armed forces were central to that disaster response. As part of Plan Bolívar 2000, a programme that deployed around 70,000 troops across Venezuela for civic tasks such as infrastructure and road building, the military was sent to Vargas in large numbers. Soldiers pulled many survivors from the mud and rubble in the first days.

But as the relief effort dragged on, it soured into a dispute over who was in charge. In one incident, the then-governor of Vargas, Alfredo Laya, ordered a unit of paratroopers to deliver food and water to stranded families. The officers replied that they had no such orders and, following an argument, Laya was arrested.

In other incidents, military and civilian leaders disagreed over where to evacuate affected families and whether to house them in military or civilian facilities. Pablo Medina, an ally of Venezuela’s president at the time, Hugo Chávez, accused the army of acting “as if an atomic bomb had been dropped”, instead of responding to a natural disaster.

That episode was an early indication of how embedded in Venezuelan public life the military would become in the following years.

First under Chávez and later his successor Nicolás Maduro, who was removed from power by a January 2026 US military operation, the Venezuelan armed forces expanded well beyond the barracks. Military figures took senior posts across government ministries and state companies, gaining a direct stake in the running of the country.

Twenty-seven years on, after the same coast was struck by earthquakes, the military’s role in the disaster response has again been surrounded by controversy.

As in 1999, the armed forces are deeply involved in the operation. Visiting La Guaira in late June 2026, human rights NGO Provea reported that the government appeared to be prioritising military and police control of the territory over basic relief.

Provea criticised the “excessive military presence” near camps for affected people, and flagged the presence of intelligence and counter-espionage bodies with no legal role in disaster management. It warned that saturating the zone with armed agents was slowing aid delivery and could constitute a mechanism of social control.

The Venezuelan government has told a different story. It claims the militarisation of the disaster zone is necessary to allow relief to move in and reach the affected families.

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez – who spent much of the first two weeks after the earthquakes battling criticism that the state’s response had been too slow – said her government wanted to stop what she called media “labs” from spinning negative narratives.

As the relief effort turned into reconstruction, Rodríguez launched a rebuilding plan called Venezuela Renace (Venezuela Reborn). The government says that, under this plan, nearly 5,000 buildings across La Guaira and the capital, Caracas, have been inspected. The plan has also provided economic support to help the worst-affected families.

The rebuilding is being run through a mix of civilian and military bodies. On the coast, however, the works are coordinated by a single military figure, Major General Juan Ernesto Sulbarán Quintero, with army engineers taking on the rebuilding in several La Guaira neighbourhoods. More than 30,000 security personnel are still deployed in the worst-affected states.

The next phase

The military’s prominence in the recovery effort raises questions about what comes next. It also offers a glimpse into the future of civil-military relations in post-Maduro Venezuela.

Before the earthquakes, there were signs that Rodríguez was keen to reduce the visibility of the Venezuelan armed forces in politics, while bringing them more tightly under her control.

She replaced the long-serving defence minister, General Padrino López, with a more discreet and loyal insider called Gustavo González López.

Rodríguez also appointed a new general staff, regional commanders and heads for each of the five individual branches of the armed forces – the army, navy, air force, national guard and Bolivarian Militia.

At the same time, she has returned several government ministries from military to civilian hands, while relaunching welfare programmes aimed at troops. These changes suggested a move towards a less overt political role for the Venezuelan armed forces.

But despite this rebalancing, the military remains influential in Venezuela. The Rodríguez government still leans heavily on it for political support, as well as to contain the opposition and help secure oil and mining areas for private investors – a strategic US interest in Venezuela.

In some contexts, humanitarian response and civic action can provide a legitimate internal mission for a professional military – provided it is bound by clear prerogatives away from governance.

Given the military’s history in Venezuela, however, the recent disaster is more likely to reinforce its broad role in decision-making and influence over how the country is run.

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

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/venezuela-earthquakes-create-opening-for-militarys-return-to-public-life/

Andy Burnham has won on his third attempt to be Labour’s leader. In 2010, as a rising star associated with the Blairite wing, he made his first bid for the leadership. In truth, he had little prospect of success: he was merely placing a marker. Five years later, he stood again but could do little to derail the Jeremy Corbyn bandwagon.

Yet fast-forward 11 years and his ascent seemed unstoppable. Next week, he will become the UK’s 59th prime minister.

To understand why and how this happened, the circumstances that created this opportunity for Burnham are key. In 2024 Labour returned to power with a thumping majority, but with little more than a third of the total vote. Within months the new government was lurching from crisis to crisis; its standing in the polls collapsed and Keir Starmer became the most unpopular prime minister since modern records began.

At the same time, the party faced powerful challenges from opposite ends of the political spectrum – the radical-right Reform UK and the left-wing Greens. Labour’s electorate was visibly disintegrating, its plight made stark by the disastrous local and devolved parliamentary elections of May 2026 when it shed huge numbers of local councillors and lost Wales for the first time in over a century. The message for the parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) was stark: virtually all of them were at risk of losing their seats.

In these circumstances speculation around a challenge to Starmer mounted. But why should a man twice rejected by the party so rapidly emerge as the sole contender for the crown? The key (though not sole) factors are Labour’s system for electing its leader, the balance of internal party alignments, the structure of competition and the personal factor.

In terms of the election procedures, in 2010 Labour’s leader was selected by an electoral college divided into three sections: MPs, party members and trade union political levy-payers.

This was replaced in 2013 by direct membership voting, with three categories of members – ordinary members, affiliated (trade union) members and registered supporters. (This is discussed in detail in my book, Order and Rebellion: Labour’s Managerial Politics from Miliband to Starmer, co-authored with Emmanuelle Avril). This was the system in 2015 when Corbyn swept the board across all three categories.

But by 2026 there had been two significant changes. First, the class of registered supporters had been abolished. Second, the nominations threshold for leadership contenders had been raised from 12.5% to 20% of the PLP. It is unlikely the former had much effect but the latter certainly did, by effectively blocking anyone from the hard left from entering. This benefited the soft left, where Burnham positions himself.

Soft-left membership

There are no really reliable estimates of the shifting balance of alignments within Labour’s membership. Gauging this is difficult because of massive turnovers in membership between 2010 and 2026. Most observers would agree that the membership shifted after 2015 and then to the right after 2020.

Paradoxically, the centre of gravity among the rank and file did not change dramatically. Close observers of the party agreed that the mean party members tended to be soft left. This is why Starmer contested the 2020 race on a soft left platform (soon abandoned). If Burnham had done likewise in 2015, he might have won.

The structure of competition in Burnham’s three contests differed considerably. In 2010 he was not a serious contender, with the race effectively between the Miliband brothers Ed and David. In 2015 there were four contestants: Burnham, Corbyn from the hard left, and Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper from the right.

As a member of the shadow cabinet under Ed Miliband, Burnham had shifted to the left and was initially seen as the frontrunner. However, he made a fatal miscalculation in assuming that in response to the 2015 election defeat the party would move to the right and so he did so himself.

In fact, the party swung left and Corbyn was able to sweep up the leftwing vote – including those broadly on the soft left.

Burnham learned his lesson. After quitting parliament and winning the newly created post of mayor of Greater Manchester, he increasingly adopted a soft left posture. In the race to succeed Starmer, there were only three other plausible candidates: Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband from the soft left, and Wes Streeting from the right.

Here, chance intervened on Burnham’s side. The popular Rayner was forced to resign as deputy prime minister and deputy leader over a tax issue. Otherwise, she would probably have been in pole position. Like Rayner, Miliband, who worked closely with Burnham, was unwilling to stand against him since both shared his soft left stance. This left Streeting. His problem was simple: even if he mustered the 81 nominations he required, as a right-winger he had no chance of beating Burnham in a leadership contest. Streeting knew this, so opted not to stand.

Finally, among Burnham’s personal qualities, two are worth noting. The first is his undoubted popularity among those who know him best – his Greater Manchester constituents. More broadly, he normally receives a better net rating than any other Labour politician.

The second is his willingness to take a major risk by standing for a constituency, Makerfield, that he could easily have lost. Every one of its wards were won by Reform in the local elections and its demographics rendered it a top target for the party.

But Burnham’s unexpectedly decisive victory in the byelection demonstrated his mass appeal. For hundreds of beleaguered Labour MPs fearful of losing their seats, he was seen as their one and only lifeline. Burnham had staked his career on Makerfield and won.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Eric Shaw is a member of the Labour party..

Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/07/17/andy-burnham-is-the-labour-leader-third-time-lucky-for-the-uks-prime-minister-in-waiting/