The Pacifica Evening News Weekdays – August 15, 2026

Good evening. It's Saturday, August 15th, with Sharon Sabota. I'm David Rosenberg. And this is the KPFA evening news. The Lebanese Ministry of Health said that Israeli strikes have killed at least 11 people and wounded 19 in southern Lebanon. Early morning attacks today struck Ansar in Der Azarani in the Nebatia district. Seven were killed in Ansar, including three children and two were wounded. The attack in Derazirani killed four and wounded 17. Hezbollah urged the Lebanese government to abandon what it called humiliating direct negotiations and to stop relying on U.S. mediation. The group said that Washington backs Israel's interests over Lebanon's sovereignty. It also warned that the Israeli attacks would be met with an appropriate response. Meanwhile, Nabi Bari Weiss, Lebanon's parliamentary speaker, called the Israeli attacks a massacre and said they represented the continuation of a war aimed at extermination in southern Lebanon. We know that's a ruling spot we'll do. anything to keep the working people of the world under its booth. How is why the U.S. government raises the Pentagon's budget and blackmailed suffering over terrorists to increase its own the best spending. My name is Yangsu. I'm a member of Dolitikor. Doloport is an anti-inferialist organization of Koreans based in the U.S. that are fighting for a world free of U.S. who are free of U.S. imperialism. Thousands of people across the U.S. and South Korea today marched to demand an end to what they say is President Trump's warmongering in the Pacific. In the U.S., mobilizations took place in New York, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Minneapolis. In the local area, the rally took place at the San Francisco Federal Building. August 15th marks National Liberation Day in Korea. That's a celebration of the liberation of Korea from Japan 81 years ago. But since then, critics of the U.S. say that Washington has built one of its largest military occupations in the world. The U.S. now has more than 28,000 troops on the Korean Peninsula. This month, the U.S. and South Korean militaries will participate in Olchee Freedom Shield. That's a series of military exercises practicing for war with North Korea. And as the Trump administration has recently admitted, war with China. We don't believe the U.S. government has the right to assassinate people in the world. We don't believe our government has the right to do surveillance over communities around the world. We want the militarization of the earth to stop. Jay Jones not only can kill people in faraway countries, but they also can be used to infringe on our privacy. the privacy that's guaranteed by the Constitution. The War Industry Resisters Network today hosted a webinar entitled Refused to Fly Killer Drones. The network says that modern warfare has come to rely more and more on drones, making war increasingly insulated from direct human contact. They say the technology has made it easier to engage in so-called forever wars without causing too much popular outrage.

there has been organized resistance to the use of military drones mostly aimed at the pilots and support personnel who operate them protesters have often called on those personnel to refuse to fly those drones but they have a deeper goal that goes beyond ending the use of those weapons they would like to see our society demilitarized from the ground up Brazil's Supreme Federal Court is set to deliver a series of rulings that could fundamentally reshape indigenous territorial rights and environmental safeguards throughout the country. The cases involve the Marco Temporal Land Rights Doctrine, Brazil's new general environmental licensing law, challenges involving the Amazon Soy moratorium, and the regulation of mining on indigenous lands. Indigenous groups and environmental organizations say the cases are part of a broader conflict over Brazil's development model. The cases come in the midst of growing pressure in Congress and state legislatures to weaken territorial rights environmental oversight and restrictions on extractive industries and large-scale infrastructure projects. KPFA spoke with Amazon Watch Legal Advisor Anna Alfonito. We asked her how big a deal these cases are. It's a very big deal in terms of Brazilian environmental and socio-environmental regulation and indigenous rights. I think it's important to put into context what these cases are. So over the past 14 years, there has been a very systematic and ongoing movement in in Brazilian Congress, national Congress, to weaken if not dismantle environmental protections and indigenous rights. As of 2010, the Agro Business Caucus in Brazilian Congress decided that environmental legislation and thereafter indigenous rights and the rights of traditional communities were the main obstacles towards the unlimited expansion of agro business in Brazil. So from the 2010s, we saw a series of legislative changes taking place. So this is regardless of whether the Workers' Party or Jair Bolsonaro's party is in power, right? What happens in the legislature... In this field of environmental protection, social environmental regulation, indigenous rights, I wouldn't say that it's independent of the administration because what's approved in Congress needs to be sanctioned by the executive branch. So it will be sanctioned by the president. And the president of the workers party, or any president that believes in indigenous rights and environmental protection, unlike Jair Bolsonaro did, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has tried to veto these laws, or a big part of these laws, which have been approved, dismantling legislation and rights. Jair Bolsonaro would not have done this. The problem is that the majority of the Agro Business Caucus in Congress,

is so strong today that they can overrule the vetoes of the presidency. So what happens is legislation is approved in Congress, and then it goes to the presidency to be vetoed or approved, vetoed or sanctioned, and then these vetoes go back to Congress for voting. And of course, in general diplomacy, like a legislature, executive diplomacy, Congress will not overrule or dismiss the vetoes of the presidency. This is rare. But in these specific laws, this is exactly what has been happening. So Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been vetoing, not trying to stop these changes to legislation, and then Congress votes again and decides to overturn or to dismiss the vetoes, and then they enact the legislation. So there is a war, there is a struggle going on between. The left-leaning Workers Party government and the agro-business caucus majority in Congress. And this battle would not take place under a far-right government. That's Amazon Watch Legal Advisor, Anna Alfonito. Abdel Fata El-Burnon, Sudan's sovereign council chief and army coordinator, has pledged temporary immunity and legal, political, and security. guarantees for participants in a Sudanese dialogue to be managed by an independent national mechanism. Speaking early today during celebrations marking the 72nd anniversary of the Sudanese Armed Forces, El Bernan said criminal proceedings against participants facing charges would be temporarily suspended while they take part in the dialogue. He said the national dialogue should be conducted in a public space that allows people to express opinions and criticism without fear or restrictions. L. Burhan said a group of Sudanese figures had proposed the initiative independently and would oversee the dialogue. He emphasized that the government would not organize the process or determine its agenda or outcomes. As far as the Sudanese civil war goes, El Burhan said the army was ready to engage with any serious peace initiative but would not accept what he called an incomplete peace that returned the rapid support forces and its supporters to power. Some of the climate rescue rhetoric coming from large corporations says that in order to save the planet, we must do faster and deeper. Extracting from the earth minerals like cobalt, lithium, and copper needed for solar panels and electric vehicles. But researchers say that much of the global demand for critical minerals doesn't do anything to support the energy transition. They say these resources end up being used in aerospace, communication technologies, and most of all, for weapons. Andy Courier is a research associate at the Oakland Institute, which just came out with a report about the relationship between critical minerals, artificial intelligence, and military production. He talked about the issue in a way that goes beyond the struggle for critical minerals between China and the U.S.

First, as you mentioned, there's a lot of headlines, a lot of kind of popular discourse around this mineral competition between the U.S. and China. The other main kind of narrative is that we need to rapidly expand mining in order to make the energy transition happen. So that's sort of the dominant narrative. So with this report, we took a close look. actually at the data and to look at what's actually driving this massive mineral rush. And first, what we found is that this rush of deals, these mineral deals being made with the Trump administration in Africa, in other countries around the world. It's not about making the United States safer. It's really being driven by wars of aggression, geopolitical competition with China, and the interests of powerful political and corporate actors who are just using national security as a justification. So where does AI fit into all this? Yeah, so right now the Pentagon is very openly trying to become an AI-first war-fighting force is what they call it. And so you're seeing, you know, these AI tech kind of defense firms like Palantir and Daryl being rapidly integrated into the military. You see this being already used in from Gaza to Iran with targeting, you know, AI systems used for targeting what they say is for targeting enemy combatants. What's happened in reality is a lot of civilians have paid the price of this kind of very opaque. very rushed technology that's being just put into very powerful positions. So you see AI interests who are kind of increasingly interconnected with the government, with the military, and all three of them kind of united to access critical minerals necessary for the technology and for military capabilities. Is it true, do you think, as Elon Musk and others have suggested that the future of warfare is really AI warfare? You know, it's... It's hard to say exactly, but I think that's what the U.S. is trying to accomplish. You're seeing it integrated all throughout military operations. You're seeing AI executives being appointed to different positions in the military. So it's definitely being much more rapidly used. And unfortunately, there's very little oversight into how it's used and what the consequences of its use are. How much of this is tied to the Trump family, as we've seen in other areas where he will try to make as much money as possible from whatever the deals the government is involved in? The report really highlights how this mineral rush is really defined right now by corruption and cronyism. There's several...

Ventures tied to the Trump family and his political allies that have been made. We see, yeah, in Central Asia, you've seen several in different countries around the world where Trump's family is directly benefiting from Pentagon contracts. There's, there's. tons of money being put into this. And if the U.S. government gives you a contract to supply them with a critical mineral, it's an incredibly lucrative venture. But how these contracts are being given out is pretty shocking. And there's been some great reporting done by ProPublica, the New York Times, that's all summarized in the Oakland Institute report. That's Andy Currier of the Oakland Institute. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said his country have largely eliminated a Maoist rebellion that it battled for decades. But he said India still faces a threat from the nexelite movement. Speaking on India's independence day to day, Narendra Modi said intellectual naxels are looking for opportunities to create violence. and that they need to be identified and isolated. Narendra Modi's remarks come weeks after the youth-led cockroach Jantha Party movement emerged as a rare challenge to the government and helped force the resignation of the country's education minister. The next elite movement began in 1967 with an uprising in the village of Naxalbari in eastern India and grew into a decades-long armed revolt, championing the rights of landless farmers, the rural poor, and indigenous communities. Indigenous groups and environmental activists rallied in support of Jackson Demonstrations State Forest in Fort Bragg today. They say that calfire, which is in charge of the forest, broke its word. After protest at Jackson Forest from 2020 to 2022, Calfire promised to pause new logging until the forest management plan was updated. But in December of last year, they broke that promise. Approving the Amex timber harvest plan for almost 500 acres near Chamberlain Creek before the 2026 Forest Management Plan is finalized. This comes at a time when a co-management agreement with indigenous tribes is in place. Activists are hoping that the governor will sign Assembly Bill 2494. The bill would prioritize ecological restoration, climate resilience, and traditional ecological knowledge over industrial timber production. Polly Gervin is a tribally appointed member of the government-to-government consultation team between the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the state. We asked her for her assessment of Cal Fire's actions in regard to the Jackson Forest issue. Well, Cal Fire... for many years has been in control of the logging practices at the demonstration, our local demonstration forest, 45,000 acres, which is the ancestral territory of the northern Pomo and Coast Yuki. So they were used to managing the forest to cut it down because their salaries are paid by the trees that are cut at the demonstration forest.

And you are listening to the evening news on 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, and online at KPFA.org. With Sharon Sabota, I'm David Rosenberg. In the weeks after the February 2020, East Palestine, Ohio train wreck, which culminated in a towering fireball and chemical release in the small Ohio town, Residents were seriously exposed to a stew of compounds emitted from the derailment site. A recent peer reviewed pilot study that checked blood samples of residents suggested that some of their immune systems were still responding to toxic chemical exposures by fighting off an attack or repairing their bodies. The research did not look for particular diseases. According to the University of Kentucky study, compared with a control group, East Palestine residents showed higher numbers of red blood cells, higher hemoglobin levels, inflammation, and an increase in the number of cells the body dispatches to attack and eat chemicals in order to remove them from the body. When dozens of cars on the Norfolk Southern train derailed and burned, the fire burned near tankers carrying vinyl chloride. And two days later, because they feared a major explosion, officials conducted a controlled burn of the chemical as a prevention measure, a potent chemical odor hung in the air for weeks. The levels of dioxin were as much as 14 times higher than what U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientists had found to be saved. Some residents have since reported a range of health issues, including headaches, respiratory problems, rashes, and hormonal disruptions. KPFA spoke with Jamie Wallace, the founder of the Chemically Impacted Communities Coalition and the Unity Council for the East Palestine train derailment. When we spoke with her last year, we asked her if the community had gotten much help from government agencies. We asked her the same question this year. There are some research studies that are going on on the second anniversary. JD Vance awarded $10 million for research. Part of the issue is it's not near enough money to do all the studying. I feel like if a researcher wants to go down a rabbit hole to see if it's relevant to the multiple chemical exposure, they should have the money to do that. They've already poisoned us. So use us. You'll never be able to poison another community like this and have them, you know, to do this research on. And it benefits everyone else. Not so much us because we've already had the exposure. But. I never want another mother and another community to go through this without having their answers for health. You know, as far as any other type of help from our government, I have been to the White House recently as two months ago to speak with people in the office of the White House and no response, no follow-up. You know, the politicians pretend like they care. And they never take action. And it's not just Republicans or Democrats. It's both parties. Like I'll talk to anybody that will talk to me when I'm in D.C. The people that are dying of cancer are not just Republicans or Democrats. Right now we have 77 people with cancer right now in the immediate vicinity of East Palestine and 14 are brain cancer. So it's getting scary. Definitely getting scary.

Do you think that the situation in terms of the government getting involved is worse because of the budget cuts the Trump administration has made to federal agencies? I mean, it can't be any worse than Biden. He did absolutely nothing. You know, as far as I'm concerned, neither president has done a thing for East Palestine. I had faith in JD Vance because he was from Ohio. He was a country, country folk like we are. you know, and in Near East Palestine. And he also showed so much interest. When he hired a new state director as senator, he had the guy come to my house for two hours, and I filled him in on the derailment. We were updating his staff almost weekly. He called, we took him to the creeks. He came down to meet with Unity Council the day before the first anniversary. I was at D.C. four times talking to him. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. came in to do interviews and to talk to independent scientists, did a whole video on what he would do as president when he was running for president. The last time I heard from JD Vance was right after he got elected in November. And his chief of staff said, if everything goes as planned, I want you to meet with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after the first of the year. And I've never heard from them again. That's Jamie Wallace of the chemically impacted communities coalition. Five people have been wounded in a shooting at a university campus in Virginia. The shooting early this morning took place near Virginia State University's quad annexes. According to the university, multiple suspects were involved and all five who were injured were taken to the hospital, including one in critical condition. The shooting happened just two days before the university's fall semester is due to start. Virginia State University is a historically black university in Etric. That's around 24 miles south of the state capital of Richmond. It has approximately 5,700 students and was the first fully state-supported four-year college for black Americans. Gun violence at colleges and universities in the United States is not uncommon. The Gun Violence Archive recorded 100 incidents where individuals were wounded or killed in shootings at higher educational institutes in 2025. conservation groups are suing the trump administration over changes to rules protecting endangered species on july tenth the department of the interior rescinded the definition of harm from the endangered species act before the department's change harming an endangered animal included modifying or degrading its habitat in a way that caused the animal death or injury and it was a federal crime interior secretary Doug Burgum said the changes restore common sense Respect private property, provide much needed certainty for landowners, and follow the statute Congress actually passed. But the Center for Biological Diversity calls the move a cynical attempt to open species habitats to logging, mining, oil and gas drilling, and other destruction. Diana Cap Cabin reports. Lawyers for several conservation groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, have announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

Over the two rule changes to the Endangered Species Act, Trump's Department of Interior Doug Burgum said the Endangered Species Act had previously been weaponized to stop almost any new project in America. The Center for Biological Diversity said the rules gave undue weight to corporations and landowners. Staff attorney Tara Zawardo of the Center for Biological Diversity says the Endangered Species Act establishes. Years of legal precedent. About 90% of the species that are listed, that is their primary threat. That is the one thing that's going to drive them to extinction. So the Endangered Species Act is essentially nullified without including counting habitat modification and degradation when you consider harm to a species. So that was recognized in 1995 by the U.S. Supreme Court. This exact issue that's come up now has already been decided by the Supreme Court. She says the Trump administration changed its definition of harm to take advantage of opportunities to exploit land. So what these agencies have done being politically interfered with and not following best available science or the statute that they are instructed with implementing and enforcing is they've just done away with all definitions of harm and basically said without putting a new definition in place, they've essentially said, We're getting rid of the definition, and we personally feel that harm only counts if you are directly killing the animal. Protecting habitat is how we protect species, and this is reflected in decades of regulatory enforcement, recovery plans. All of it has implemented this particular definition of take. So really what this administration has done is just thrown a lot of chaos into the enforcement of the Endangered Species Act and violated Supreme Court precedent and violated the law itself. the Endangered Species Act protects and benefits human habitats since land and humans like wildlife are integrated parts of ecosystems. Why the Endangered Species Act is such an amazing thing is precisely because it recognizes that you can't just ban murder of an animal. You have to kind of look bigger at the bigger picture and in terms of preventing extinction and, frankly, protecting human habitats as well. In Berkeley for Pacifica, KPA, this is Diana Kept Kevin. A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake that caused widespread damage has killed at least 38 people after it struck off the coast of Indonesia's Flores Island. The U.S. Geographical Survey said the quake struck early today at 5.58 a.m. local time, with an epicenter about 42 miles north of the city of Ande in East Nusa-Tangara province. The geological... Survey put the depth of the quake at 6.2 miles. Officials are concerned that the death toll will rise as emergency teams continue working. And the weather for the Bay Area, temperatures ranging from the mid to high 50s tonight, partly sunny on Sunday, highs in the low 80s. In the central San Joaquin Valley, lows in the low 60s tonight, mostly sunny on Sunday, highs around 97 degrees. And that's it for the news tonight. Thanks for joining us. And thanks to Diana Camp Cabin for helping to prepare tonight's news with Sharon Savoda. I'm David Rosenberg. Good evening.

Marxian economist and host of economic update, Richard Wolfe. We allow, by the way, other countries don't, but we allow our news. and our TV stations and all that to be private capitalist enterprises. And what that means is they are governed by what's profitable. They will tell you that's no big secret. It's nothing they hide. They're in the business to make money. So they're not going to challenge the profit system. When they see profit... leading to a really bad outcome, like a pollution and so on, they're not going to be eager to make the connection in their reporting between this bad event and the profit that made it happen. Because profit is what they're doing. Profit is why they cover one story and not another. Get learned only on KBFA.