AUGUST 28, 2026

Fed up with Big Tech, communities turn to data collectives for control — Data collectives and cooperatives, which let creators control the collection and distribution of their data, are emerging as preferred alternatives to big tech companies. 

Data collectives, or cooperatives, offer a blueprint for the responsible use of data, and ensure the value goes to those generating the data, Astha Kapoor, co-founder and director of Aapti Institute, a tech research firm in India, told Rest of World. “Beyond consent and compensation, collective action around data gives communities the opportunity to direct data towards issues they may care about,” she said. “Communities can negotiate the terms on which their data is used at every stage of the AI lifecycle [with] mechanisms for accountability and redressal, in case their terms are breached.” Rest of World

6 Ways To Rebuild Unions at the State and Local Levels Now — The new crop of pro-worker legislators who have recently been elected at the state and local levels can pass laws that can rebuild the labor movement, even with Donald Trump as president. Here are six ways they can do it.
Whether we like it or not, laws — not just on the federal but also on the state and local level — shape the opportunities for and constrictions on union organizing. For unions to grow at the scale the moment demands, workers and policymakers must reshape those laws so that organizing can expand. Workers need to use every strategic option available. That includes using state and local policy and government action. Jacobin via Portside

Don’t Coddle For-Profit Insurers—Take Them On! — As a physician, my life’s goal is to practice medicine in a country where everyone has healthcare, everybody in and nobody out. Why not do battle with the insurance industry and their billionaire backers? There has to be a fight. Let’s have it.

The writer quotes the economist Paul Krugman: “The case for viewing insurers as parasites is strong. Many Medicare benefits are now delivered via Medicare Advantage, that is, plans paid for by the government but run through insurance companies. MedPAC, an independent advisory commission, estimates that last year Medicare Advantage plans were overpaid by $84 billion, thanks to practices such as ‘upcoding,’ in which patients’ health problems are overstated to get larger sums from Medicare.” Nevertheless, our author (an M.D.) notes, Krugman sees Medicare Advantage as a starting point for moving through a “public option” (blue-dogged out of the ACA) and then into universal coverage. The author says: Move faster, fight harder. Common Dreams via Portside

Trump’s energy policy could cost the US 540 GW of renewables, says NRDC — “We lose more than half of everything that we expected to be able to build with the combination of market forces and proactive policy,” said Amanda Levin, NRDC’s director of policy analysis.

Aspects of the Trump administration’s energy policy — such as the rollback of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits, the introduction of new tariffs and offshore wind lease buybacks — could cause the U.S to lose between 390 GW and 540 GW of new wind, solar and energy storage capacity over the next decade, according to projections from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“Crucially, these lost projects are not actually replaced with other sources of new power,” the NRDC said in a Wednesday report. Utility Dive

With ICC sanctions, Trump wants to make the world safe for war criminals — The US is engaged in a lawless quest to protect American and Israeli officials
The Trump administration has taken another step in its crusade against the International Criminal Court by imposing sanctions on two more senior ICC officials. The growing number of sanctioned jurists — now 13 — does not change the lawless nature of this quest. Donald Trump and his henchman, Marco Rubio, want to make the world safe for US and Israeli war criminals. No one should let them. We should never let Trump normalize these sanctions. Their main effect is to deprive the targeted person of the ability to use the international financial system — no credit cards, no access to banks, extreme difficulty navigating a modern economy. That is a tool once reserved for corrupt or violent officials who were otherwise beyond the law. Trump is using the sanctions to attack the public officials who would bring such heinous individuals to justice. The Guardian