When Ellen first moved from New York to Los Angeles, she decided not to own a car as a “test”, she says. “I grew up without car culture in Vancouver, and I wanted to try it out for a year.”

Five years on, she still has no plans to buy one. “It’s certainly a stereotype that you can’t not drive [in LA], but a lot of people do get around without them. I sometimes dream of getting one for road trips, but I think I’ll just rent for now.”

…while some cities with world-class public transport are debating how to tackle the stubborn minority of journeys still made by car, others – particularly in the US – have become so dependent on driving that opting out is almost impossible.

From connecting commuter suburbs to persuading royals to use buses, here are four expert-backed ways for tackling car culture.

1. Expand and improve public transport

2. Share space with pedestrians and cyclists

3. Focus on suburbs

4. Understand why people drive

Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature passed redistricting maps on Thursday, eliminating the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district a week after the US supreme court effectively gutted a major section of the Voting Rights Act.

The move cracks Tennessee’s ninth congressional district, which covers Memphis, into three pieces, each of which contains almost exactly a third of the city’s Black voters. The new maps mean that all nine of Tennessee’s congressional districts are Republican-leaning.

“…everyone around the world can suddenly see the utter folly of relying on a fuel that not only is destroying the planet’s climate, but also that can be bottled up behind a 20-mile-long waterway. Sunlight has to travel 93 million miles to reach the Earth, but none of those miles go through the Strait of Hormuz,” says [activist Bill] McKibben. “That makes it a very appealing alternative, especially now that it’s cheaper than burning coal and gas and oil.”

A pair of progressive Democrats unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour, considered the bare minimum a single adult needs to meet the cost of living in much of the US.

The Living Wage For All Act is the first bill to be introduced by the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-NJ), who won a special election earlier this month after helping to lead the fight for a $15 minimum wage in her home state of New Jersey.

On Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he had become “disillusioned” with the U.S. and Israel over the war on Iran, and said the Trump administration is being outwitted and “humiliated.”

Chancellor Friedrich Merz: “The Americans clearly have no strategy. And the problem with conflicts like this is always that you don’t just have to go in, you also have to get out again. We saw that all too painfully in Afghanistan for 20 years. We saw it in Iraq. … An entire nation is being humiliated by the Iranian state leadership.”

The case in front of the [US Supreme] court centers on whether Bayer, the German company that now owns Monsanto, can be shielded from lawsuits that have been filed in state courts over claims that the company failed to warn consumers about the cancer-causing effects of glyphosate.

The Trump administration's decision to back the pesticide maker in the case, coming on the heels of an executive order supporting the expansion of domestic production of glyphosate, has angered the MAHA movement…

Just last month, leading scientists in the field of environmental health issued a consensus statement, saying that glyphosate can cause cancer and called for urgent action. Bayer disputes this.

Donald Trump has wielded the full might of his administration to crush the progress of clean energy, which he has called a “scam” and “stupid”. But there are signs this assault is not going to plan.

In March, the US generated more of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind than it did via gas, the first time clean energy has surpassed the planet-heating fossil fuel for a full month nationally, according to data from the Ember thinktank.

While this was just one month, it follows a record 2025 for renewable energy. The pipeline of new power coming online in the US is overwhelmingly green this year, too, with 93% of all electricity capacity added in 2026 set to come from solar, wind and batteries. Just 7% will come from the fossil fuels that are dangerously overheating our world.

Labor unions, democratic organizations and community groups are organizing an economic blackout this year to commemorate May Day, International Workers Day, inspired by the economic blackout in Minnesota during the massive ICE operation in the state.

May Day Strong events are being planned across the US, with organizers calling for “no school, no work, no shopping”, in protest of government policies they say put billionaires’ needs above those of workers.

“May Day has to become bigger in this moment,” said Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and Illinois Federation of Teachers. The unions have backed the economic blackout planned for May Day. “This is about building a more popular united front.”

][Pope] Leo wears the shoes of the fisherman, not the black Florsheim models that Trump insists his underlings wear…

…The most despised American in the world cannot bear the judgments of the most admired American in the world.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday once again suggested the international community should show gratitude for President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran, which has led to a global oil supply shock and created the potential for food shortages in the coming months.

Speaking with reporters at the Pentagon, Hegseth defended the president’s decision to launch a war of choice with Iran that so far has cost US taxpayers an estimated $60 billion.

Nearly half of children in the United States are breathing dangerous levels of air pollution, according to a new report, as experts warned Donald Trump’s expansive rollback of protections will make the situation worse…

…The report further found that communities of color are disproportionately exposed to unhealthy air. As a result, they are more likely to live with one or more chronic health conditions that make them more vulnerable to pollution, including asthma, diabetes, and heart disease…

…Since returning to office last year, the Trump administration has initiated at least 70 actions to roll back environmental and climate protections. Among them is the loosening of regulations on power plants that limit mercury and other hazardous air toxics.