....Climate change is our Yalta, a potential turning point in world history. A new American Century requires the administration to understand that the climate's challenges also present transforming opportunities.

First, the United States can aggressively strive to own the next generation in technology. For instance, Silicon Valley is witnessing breakthroughs in launching the next “green” revolution. A great example is Impossible Foods out of California which is developing plant-based meats that have the texture, taste and experience of real meat. Add dramatic changes in meat production with advances in the power, water and agriculture nexus, and we can envision a new eco-friendly agricultural revolution. Small-holder farmers with access to off-grid, renewable power, water desalination and treatment will have the resilience to better cope with climate stress. Finally, the United States could be the leader in new financial technologies that mitigate climate's impact — including through peer-to-peer currency exchange, new insurance instruments and climate impact bonds.

Second, the administration can consider the history of prior power competitions. Like the U.S.-USSR Cold War, or the 19th century's "Great Game" between the Russian and British empires in Central Asia, great powers consistently deployed economic, political and social capital abroad in concert with military strength. Today, our competitors are on the move while America is in retreat. China's "Belt and Road Initiative" is developing infrastructure in frontier markets with the aim of creating trade and connectivity favorable to Beijing; Russia has challenged or overtaken U.S. leadership in Syria, aiding dictator Bashar Al Assad and foreclosing U.S. interests in the heart of the Middle East. In Djibouti, America, China, Russia, France and the Gulf States are in a race for ports and military bases in the Horn of Africa. While the rest of the world is preparing for the next round of competition, the Trump administration is seeking to reduce its international aid and projecting near disdain for historic alliances and post-WW II multilateral institutions established in the U.S. image.

Third, the United States has other attractive tools that President Trump could use to blunt climate change. The administration is quick to impose tariffs — but it may make environmental and political sense to impose "green" tariffs on "dirty" producer nations, as a tax to access large, "clean" markets and protect possibly more-expensive clean manufacturing. Further, the United States is likely to remain attractive to global talent and capital; a merit-based immigration system could favor environmental science and technology talent. We should open our doors to leading thinkers, scientists, entrepreneurs and investors in new green markets....

Washington (CNN)Former late night host and 9/11 first responders advocate Jon Stewart said Sunday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has never been compassionate in his congressional dealings when it comes to passing health care packages for first responders.

"In terms of getting the 9/11 bills passed, Mitch McConnell has been the white whale of this since 2010," Stewart said on "Fox News Sunday." "This has never been dealt with compassionately by Sen. McConnell." Stewart appeared to reference the character Capt. Ahab's inability to capture the notoriously hard-to-catch albino whale in Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick."

"He has always held out until the last minute, and only then after intense lobbying and public shaming has he even deigned to move on it," he said.

Stewart's comments follow his viral confrontation with lawmakers on Capitol Hill days earlier. There, Stewart, surrounded by first responders, slammed members of the House Judiciary Committee for not showing up for the hearing on reauthorizing the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which compensates first responders and other individuals who file claims connected to injuries, deaths and and health problems related to 9/11.

....O’Connell saw opportunity in the abandoned Civil War-era warehouses in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty and wasn’t intimidated by the lawlessness and drug use. He acquired properties for next to nothing—“Nobody wanted them,” he said—and now owns about 1.3 million square feet of buildings and another 385,000 square feet of undeveloped land in Brooklyn, mostly in Red Hook. O’Connell, 77, said he doesn’t track the value of his holdings, but Bloomberg estimates they’re worth at least $400 million.

His success in helping to revive one of New York’s grittiest neighborhoods has also created new challenges for the area, as well as for the one-time narcotics cop. While O’Connell attempts to balance the scales by subsidizing some rents, many residents are being priced out of an area that was briefly an affordable enclave in an increasingly expensive city....

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund is preparing to leave fossil fuels behind. Last week, Norway’s parliament confirmed by unanimous vote that its $1tn sovereign wealth fund would dump $13bn of fossil fuel investments – and start investing billions in renewables.

The move is designed to protect Norway’s state-owned investment fund from the decline in fossil fuels that will be vital if full-blown climate catastrophe is to be averted.

But fossil fuels are by no means in terminal decline, according to a recent review of the global energy industry. BP’s annual energy review revealed only days before the Norwegian vote that carbon emissions rose at the fastest rate in almost a decade last year.

The figures revealed that the unexpected spike was caused by a growing appetite for energy, that was being met by fossil fuels. And the biggest offender in climate terms is coal.

IN 2011, as Arab Spring protests swept across the Middle East, demonstrations also kicked off in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province. Members of the kingdom’s repressed Shiite minority took to the streets, calling for equal rights and a fairer distribution of oil revenues. The protesters included a group of around 30 kids on bicycles. As a video released last week by CNN shows, those children were led by a smiling 10-year-old in flip-flops named Murtaja Qureiris.

“The people demand human rights!” the young boy can be seen shouting through a megaphone.

Here’s the problem: Demanding human rights in Saudi Arabia lands you in prison. Even if you’re a kid.

Three years later, in September 2014, 13-year-old Murtaja was arrested while on his way to neighboring Bahrain with his family.

“At the time,” reports CNN, “he was considered by lawyers and activists to be the youngest known political prisoner in Saudi Arabia.

Over the past four years, say human rights groups, this teenager has been subjected to torture and intimidation, as well as a spell in solitary confinement. He has been denied access to a lawyer while interrogators try to get him to confess to the trumped-up charges against him. These include “participating in anti-government protests, attending the funeral of his brother Ali Qureiris who was killed in a protest in 2011, joining a ‘terrorist organization,’ throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station, and firing at security forces,” according to Amnesty International.

Last week, we learned that Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for 18-year-old Murtaja, who is being tried in an anti-terror court. CNN reports that the prosecutors want to “impose the harshest form of the death penalty, which may include crucifixion or dismemberment after execution.”

The New York Times is reporting that the United States is cyber attacking Russia's electric power grid and other targets—and that President Donald Trump is being kept out of the loop.

"The American strategy has shifted more toward offense, officials say, with the placement of potentially crippling malware inside the Russian system at a depth and with an aggressiveness that had never been tried before."

Trump has not been briefed on the operation because of “the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials.”

The U.S. defeat in Vietnam caused a cataclysmic shift in its strategy of warfare, which today has morphed into hybrid warfare. To avoid another embarrassing defeat, the United States would need to win over hearts and minds. Blowing people to bits would not be enough. This strategy combines “conventional” warfare—namely military force—with “unconventional” warfare—such as covert campaigns to destabilize the economy of targeted nations; misinformation campaigns that spread fake news and pave the way for intervention; and violent attacks taking the form of targeted assassinations, road blockades, and the incitement of violence.

The result of these hybrid wars is seen clearly today as a series of right-wing governments sweeps across Latin America. Venezuela, however—which borders both Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Iv?n Duque’s Colombia—has remained a sharp thorn in the side of U.S. imperialism and, consequently, at the center of U.S.-led hybrid wars. It is the domino that will not fall.

The unconventional war waged against Venezuela and its neighbors is a war that seeks to win over the hearts and minds of the people, convincing them to voluntarily (and often enthusiastically) align with the interests of global capital at their own expense....