President Donald Trump was upbeat about a new peace agreement negotiated between the foreign ministers of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in Washington. Yet, there’s a high degree of skepticism on the agreement since its vague, didn’t include the M23 rebels and doesn’t deal with accountability for human rights abuses like rape and torture. All previous peace agreements on conflicts in eastern Congo have failed.
(“Trump Eyes Mineral Wealth as Rwanda and DRC Sign Peace Deal,” Guardian, June 27, 2025; “DR Congo-Rwanda Peace Deal Met with Skepticism in Rebel Held City,” BBC, June 28, 2025)
Two years ago, Chicago progressives and movement leaders hailed the election victory of insurgent Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former union organizer who was joined by the largest progressive caucus ever on the Chicago City Council.
(“Two Years After Electing a Mayor, Chicago’s Left Keeps Contesting for Power,” In These Times, May 14, 2025)
New breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence, and the need for power hungry data centers has blown a huge hole in state budgets. Most states now grant generous tax breaks for new data centers being built by Big Tech companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, Apple and Microsoft. Demand for data center capacity was already soaring due to the artificial intelligence boom sparked by the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022. Data center investment is now projected to reach $1 trillion by 2027.
(“Cloudy With Loss of Spending Control: How Data Centers are Endangering State Budgets,” Good Jobs First, April 24, 2025; “In Race to Attract More Data Centers, States Can Forfeit Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in Tax Revenue to Tech Companies,” CNBC, June 20, 2025)
