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Trump takes 500 actions to weaken cancer protections, new report says

Amid a surge in early onset cancer, the Trump administration has taken
more than 500 actions to systematically dismantle protections against
carcinogens once in place across the federal government, an October report
alleges.

The Natural Resources Defense Council report, and comments from
current and former officials from the Environmental Protection Agency,
bring into focus how myriad changes in federal rules or protocol will
dramatically increase the public’s exposure to carcinogens.

These are
taking effect at a time when some forms of early onset cancer are spiking
by about 30% per decade. Some of the changes have drawn widespread outrage
and backlash, including the administration delaying new protections around
asbestos, or siding with Bayer in its fight to keep the carcinogenic
pesticide glyphosate on the market. But most changes lie in the nuts and
bolts of the federal government.

These include alterations to important
scientific processes that determine the level of risk people face in
exposure to carcinogens. With a few minor adjustments, once-problematic
levels of exposure to carcinogens, like formaldehyde, are no longer
considered a danger in the federal government’s eyes.

Nuclear regulators
are also eliminating the obligation to reduce exposure to radioactive
carcinogens to the lowest reasonably achievable level, despite decades of
scientific evidence that any level of radiation poses a cancer risk, the
report states.

Guardian 5th Nov 2026,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/nov/05/trump-cancer-carcinogen-regulation

November 11, 2026 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

Walt Zlotow – Turn Veterans Day into Peace Day

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 8 Nov26

Started 107 years ago November 11, Armistice Day was established in the UK to commemorate the armistice that ended WWI a year earlier. In 1926 Congress signed on for the US to “perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations…a day dedicated to the cause of world peace.”

The US national security state, working through Congress, changed it to Veterans Day in 1954, the same year they put ‘under god’ in the Pledge. ’For a country dedicated to peace and secularism, 1954 was a bad year indeed.

Since then it has largely become a commercial for promoting American militarism and perpetual war round the world which today sees 200,000 soldiers deployed in 80 nations. To a country engaged in perpetual war worldwide, peace is a word that dares not speak its name.

America provoked, enabled and prolonged the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine killing hundreds of thousands, turning Ukraine into a failed state with no chance of victory. Not satisfied with that bloodbath, the US funneled tens of billions in weapons for Israel to largely obliterate Gaza, killing over 100,000 while leaving the remaining 2.2 million Palestinians with little food, water, medicine, electricity or hope. Just this year America attacked Iran killing over 3,400 in a failed war to collapse the hated Iranian Islamic regime. Instead, the war is collapsing the world economy and current administration.

We regularly bomb innocents in a number of countries; Somalia alone over 100 times killing thousands under the Biden and Trump administrations. Senseless US warfare is about the only issue both parties agree upon.

While every decent function of government uplifting the commons loses funding, our defense budget has soured to over $1 trillion with $1.5 trillion proposed for next year. The annual increase alone is larger than most countries spend yearly on their entire military.

All vets but the dwindling centenarians of WWII fought in undeclared wars which slaughtered millions while doing nothing to promote peace…and they know it. After 72 years it’s time for another name change. How about Peace Day, to honor people of peace like Dr. Martin Luther King and a true American war hero , Pvt. Chelsea Manning, who spent seven years in prison for outing American war crimes in Iraq? Peace Day would return the focus to peace November 11, not endless war. No better way to honor veterans.

It’s time once again, as we did in 1926 to “perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations…a day dedicated to the cause of world peace.”

As John Lennon famously sang, ‘Give peace a chance.’

November 11, 2026 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Clamshell Alliance returns to the barricades

by beyondnuclearinternational

Anti-nuclear protesters from the 1970s were back in force at Lowell, MA to protest a pro-nuclear gathering of northeastern governors who didn’t turn up, reports David Detmold

In a protest vaguely reminiscent of the 70s, three dozen antinuclear, pro-democracy activists from New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts gathered in front of the Meehan Center at UMass Lowell on September 30 to tell the governors of the six Northeastern states, “No Nukes.” The governors had been invited to attend a conference promoting the advantages of next generation nuclear power in the Northeast.

Outside the conference hall, the small crowd of protestors seemed a bit dazed by the circularity of time and circumstance since they first got together to stop the construction of the Seabrook nuke in the mid-70s, and to decommission the Vermont Yankee reactor in the early 80s………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Reactors for war?

This summer, in a further attempt to jumpstart the moribund domestic nuclear power industry, the White House ordered the Department of War to construct nuclear reactors on five Army bases, at an estimated cost to the taxpayers of $2.5 billion. In an end-run around the rickety regulatory framework that once tried to prevent workers and the general public from being exposed to excessive radiation from the daily operation of civilian nukes, these military nukes would be exempt from even the nominal oversight of the neutered Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Under the current regime, all pretense of protecting the public has been tossed overboard at the NRC, which is ditching its ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) radiation standard and going all out to make nuclear power profitable for its balky investors, public health be damned.

The governors of the six Northeastern states can read the nuclear tea leaves as well as anyone, and Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts is the chief culprit here. She was the one who invited her five neighboring chief execs for the pronuclear booster day rally on September 30 in Lowell.

None of the governors bothered to show up, including Healey, but they sent their aides to declare to the media: “We’ve all Gone Fission.”

The real action was outside the canned conference where members of antinuclear groups like CAN and the Clamshell Alliance held a lively press conference under the overarching umbrella of the Coalition for Democracy and Safe Energy……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Cancer cluster evidence

Dr. Peter Moyer, chair emeritus at Boston University’s School of Medicine, spoke on behalf of Physicians for Social Responsibility, citing two recently published epidemiological studies by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, evaluating the human health impact of living within 20 miles of a nuclear reactor.

“I was not surprised to find an increase in cancer fatalities statistically correlated to living in proximity to nuclear reactors,” said Moyer, who added the worst area for excess cancer fatalities in Massachusetts is Plymouth County, near the mothballed Pilgrim reactor site.

The Harvard studies found that around the country, since the year 2000, 115,000 excess cancer deaths were statistically associated with living in proximity to nuclear reactors, according to data published in Nature Communications in February of this year.

Drawing on statistics from the Massachusetts Cancer Registry, a second Harvard study (published in December of 2025) found an excess of 20,600 cancer deaths in Massachusetts linked to nuclear reactor proximity in the same time period, with a spike around Plymouth.

Dr. Moyer urged everyone in the audience to read a book published by a nuclear physicist named M.V. Ramana called Nuclear Power is Not the Solution, which details the high costs, slow deployment, and radioactive hazards of this uniquely unforgiving technology. Perhaps a collection could be taken up to buy a copy for each of the Northeastern governors…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2026/11/08/clamshell-alliance-returns-to-the-barricades/

November 11, 2026 Posted by | opposition to nuclear, USA | Leave a comment

Fears of ‘serious nuclear accident’ in Ukraine as atomic experts beg ‘stop’

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency is pleading with Russia and Ukraine to halt military operations at key nuclear facilities, fearing continued strikes could lead to a disaster

Ethan Blackshaw , , 07 Nov 2026,
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/nuclear-power-plants-ukraine-russia-37853621

Russia launched a fresh wave of strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities overnight, with people in the Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Kharkiv regions without power, according to Ukraine’s Energy Ministry.

Officials said there was “extensive damage” to transmission and distribution networks, while power lines that transmit electricity from nuclear power plants to Kyiv and central regions of Ukraine “were also damaged”. There was also an attack on the substations connecting the Rivne and Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plants, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

This follows the death of an employee at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s largest nuclear plant – following a strike in October. The Zaporizhzhia plant, in southern Ukraine, was the centre of intense fighting when Russia first invaded.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is pleading with both sides of the conflict to halt military operations at nuclear sites, warning of the potential for a “serious nuclear accident”.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi: “Military activity near Ukraine’s nuclear power sites is a stark reminder of the constant threats to nuclear safety and security. Plant personnel must be able to carry out their essential work without fear of attacks, including in the towns where they live.

“I once again call on all sides to exercise maximum military restraint and to refrain from attacks that could endanger nuclear facilities, their staff or the infrastructure essential to their safety.”

The IAEA said its team at the Zaporizhzhia plant “continues to hear explosions” following the death of the staff member on October 29. And in recent days, following reported strikes on substations, “grid instability also forced the temporary suspension of nuclear safety related activities at one nuclear facility and an unplanned power reduction at a different facility”.

Director General Grossi stressed a reliable external power supply is “essential for nuclear safety”. He added: “Every power line lost weakens a plant’s connection to the grid and increases the risk of a complete loss of off-site power.

“The power supply situation at Ukraine’s operating nuclear power plants must not be allowed to deteriorate to the level seen at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Attacks on infrastructure essential to nuclear safety must stop.”

The IAEA says a total of 123 air raid alerts were reported in the last week across the Khmelnytskyy nuclear power plant, Rivne nuclear power plant, South Ukraine nuclear power plant and Chernobyl nuclear power plant sites.

November 11, 2026 Posted by | safety, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Hot fridges, a fake nuclear alert and a $6bn heist: are we in the foothills of a hacking epidemic?

The official message after the fridge attacks is: expect more disruption.
We are in the “foothills” of a new hacking landscape, the head of the
UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said this week. Referring to flaws in
IT systems that are being exposed by AI technology, the NCSC boss, Richard
Horne, said: “There are so many vulnerabilities out there that … you
could say are waiting to be exploited.”

He added: “The most serious
risk we face in the short term is just a huge rise in the volume of
incidents … and I think you could probably point to the last few months
and say we’ve started to see that.” Websites around the world were
temporarily taken out of service as a precaution last month when AI
technology from the ChatGPT developer OpenAI helped discover a flaw in PHP,
a computer language used to build much of the world wide web. French
supermarket fridges were also attacked last month in what could have been a
trial run for the more expansive foray this week.

Guardian 8th Nov 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/nov/08/hot-fridges-a-fake-nuclear-alert-and-a-6bn-heist-are-we-in-the-foothills-of-a-hacking-epidemic

November 11, 2026 Posted by | technology | Leave a comment

Sellafield safety incidents revealed in new ONR report


Whitehaven News 8th November, By Darren Shield

The incident was among a series of safety concerns and near misses detailed by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) in its latest report covering the nuclear site between April and September 2026.

The regulator also revealed that heavy lead shielding blocks fell approximately six metres, a container holding special nuclear material was found damaged, and a steel crane rope fell from height near workers.

Breathing-air failure

The ONR said: “In September, Sellafield Ltd reported failure of a mobile breathing-air compressor during work involving an air-fed suit entry.

“The back-up air supply also failed and the operators carried out an emergency evacuation.

…………………………………………………………….The findings appear in the ONR’s site report for the six months ending September 30, published in November 2026.
https://www.whitehavennews.co.uk/news/26698692.sellafield-safety-incidents-revealed-new-onr-report/

November 11, 2026 Posted by | safety, UK | Leave a comment