by Katya Schwenk | Feb 2, 2026 | Article, east palestine, Economy and Inequality, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, sacrifice zones
This article was first published by The Lever, an investigative newsroom. Click here to get The Lever’s free newsletter.
On a balmy evening last September, Michael Fowler stumbled out to the south rail line in East Palestine, Ohio, and sat down in the middle of the tracks. His dog, a white Chihuahua, was beside him. The sun was setting. He waited perilously for the next oncoming train.
He wouldn’t have to wait long. Dozens of times a day, freight trains blare through East Palestine, cleaving the small Ohio town in two. The stretch of tracks on which Fowler sat was just a few hundred yards west of the site where two and a half years earlier, a Norfolk Southern train carrying tank cars full of toxic chemicals derailed and burned. The accident sent dark plumes of smoke over the town, leached toxins into local creeks and soil, and ignited a national reckoning around rail safety, one that has since delivered few reforms.
Fowler, 54, was upset with Norfolk Southern, an East Palestine police officer later reported in a sworn affidavit. He had not received the money he was promised from the $85 billion rail company — his cut of the $600 million settlement that Norfolk Southern had agreed to pay to resolve residents’ class-action lawsuit over the derailment. Eighteen months after the settlement’s announcement, still no check had arrived.
That September night, Fowler had decided to take matters into his own hands. He hoped to “cost the railroad money,” the police officer wrote, by putting himself in the path of the trains, which ran so close to his home that he could see the tracks from his front lawn.
Fowler was not the only East Palestine
by Maximillian Alvarez | Feb 2, 2026 | Climate Crisis, east palestine, Economy and Inequality, Podcast, sacrifice zones, video
It’s been three years since a Norfolk Southern “bomb train” carrying toxic chemicals derailed in the small town of East Palestine, OH, on the night of Feb. 3, 2023. Three days later, Norfolk Southern pressured local authorities to make the disastrous and completely unnecessary decision to empty five giant carloads of vinyl chloride into a ditch and set the contents on fire. The “controlled burn” of vinyl chloride released a massive black chemical plume into the air and exposed residents in East Palestine and the surrounding areas to deadly toxins in one of the worst industrial disasters in US history. Three years later, residents in East Palestine and the surrounding area are still suffering the toxic fallout.
While Norfolk Southern, opportunistic politicians, sensationalist media outlets, and most of the public have moved on and forgotten about the mass poisoning of these residents, we at TRNN have not forgotten them, and we won’t give up on them. I’ve been interviewing and filming reports with residents in and around East Palestine for the past three years, including for our Izzy-Award-winning documentary Trainwreck in ‘Trump Country’: Partisan politics hasn’t helped East Palestine, OH. To commemorate the three-year anniversary, I have compiled here all of my original reporting for TRNN on the Norfolk Southern train derailment and chemical disaster in East Palestine.
Please I beg you, don’t forget about the people affected by this disaster. Listen to their testimonies, share their stories everywhere you can, keep fighting to hold their poisoners accountable. Because what happened to them is a national tragedy and a humanitarian outrage. Because they are working people just like you and me, they
by Chris Walker | Jan 28, 2026 | Article, Economy, Economy and Inequality, ICE, Minneapolis, Politics and Movements: US, Prisons and Policing, Reprint, Trump
by Maximillian Alvarez | Jan 13, 2026 | baltimore, Economy, Economy and Inequality, Politics and Movements: US, video
As the unaffordability crisis deepens across the US, poor and working-class residents are struggling to pay for rent and food along with exorbitant monthly utility bills charged by gas and electric monopolies that control local power grids. In Baltimore, MD, local residents’ inability to pay skyrocketing utility bills from energy giant Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) has sparked a grassroots “public power” campaign to establish a publicly owned energy alternative. In this on-the-ground report, TRNN takes you to the front lines of a Dec. 20 Public Power rally held in downtown Baltimore.
Additional links/info:
Baltimore Public Power campaign Instagram
Aaron Wright, Baltimore Beat, “BGE and DPW rate increases create financial woes for city residents”
Credits:
Production: Maximillian Alvarez
Post-Production: Maximillian Alvarez, David Hebden
Transparency disclaimer: Maximillian Alvarez’s spouse is a volunteer participant in the Baltimore Public Power campaign.
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Rev. Annie Chambers: Last week I went into a home and a lady had an infant that we had to get out of her house because her utilities was cut off and she had no way to keep that baby warm. Along with four other children.
Mark Conway: We had folks who were deciding between their rent and their energy bill. We had folks who were deciding between their medication and their energy bill. We had a senior roll her oxygen tank up and tell us that she was unable to refill her oxygen tank because of her energy bill.
Bobby LaPin: Last night, more than 250,000 Maryland children went to bed freezing and this morning they woke up freezing. But BG&E, but BG&E, they made $2.4 billion last year.
Taylor Smith-Hams:
by Brad Reed | Jan 12, 2026 | Article, doj, Economy, Economy and Inequality, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Trump
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 12, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
The US Department of Justice’s decision to open a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has ignited a major backlash that even has some Republican senators drawing a line in the sand.
Shortly after Powell released a video on Sunday accusing the Department of Justice (DOJ) of waging an “intimidation” campaign against him on behalf of President Donald Trump, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) blasted the administration, accusing them of trying to compromise the independence of America’s central bank.
“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none,” said Tillis, who further vowed to “oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved.”
On Monday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) backed up Tillis’ pledge to oppose any nominees for the Federal Reserve until the criminal probe of Powell, whose term as Fed chair is due to end in May, has been resolved.
Murkowski also revealed that she spoke with Powell and determined that “it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion” aimed at affecting his decisions on US monetary policy.
“The stakes are too high to look the other way,” Murkowski emphasized. “If the Federal Reserve loses its independence, the stability of our markets and the broader economy will suffer.”
Trump can only afford to lose the support of four Republican senators in a vote for a new Fed chair, which means Tillis and Murkowski’s vows not to support any nominee until the case
by Brad Reed | Jan 12, 2026 | Article, Economy, Economy and Inequality, labor, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Unions
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 12, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
Thousands of nurses are hitting the picket lines in what will be the largest nurses strike in the history of New York City.
The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) on Monday announced that nearly 15,000 nurses at Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai Morningside and West, Montefiore, and NewYork-Presbyterian are going on strike after “greedy hospital management at these wealthy private hospitals have given frontline nurses no other choice.”
The NYSNA posted a long list of sticking points on contract negotiations, including “safe staffing for our patients, protections from workplace violence, and healthcare for frontline nurses.”
NYSNA president Nancy Hagans said that any patients in need of care at these hospitals should enter them, emphasizing that “going into the hospital to get the care you need is not crossing our strike line.” She also encouraged patients to join the picket line with the nurses after receiving care.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke out in solidarity with the striking nurses, while also emphasizing the importance of “ensuring New Yorkers have the care they need… especially during flu season.”
“No New Yorker should have to fear losing access to healthcare,” Mamdani wrote in a social media post. “And no nurse should be asked to accept less pay, fewer benefits, or less dignity for doing lifesaving work. Our nurses have kept this city alive through its hardest moments. Their value is not negotiable.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also expressed support for the striking nurses, while denouncing “NewYork-Presbyterian, Montefiore, and Mount Sinai hospitals for being willing to spend millions on replacement nurses rather than bargain for a fair contract.”
The NYSNA also got a boost from
