Financialized Water and Class-Bound Medicine Undermine Care Infrastructure
May 14, 2026
Ontario's water financialization and the class-based criminalization of cannabis expose how market logic and algorithmic governance are converting public goods and health into proprietary privileges. Border enforcement, diagnostic shifts, and media fragmentation compound this by eroding the social commons, forcing communities to rely on mutual aid and care networks as institutional authority fractures under the weight of structural inequality.
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A Noncitizen Says She Was Told She Could Vote. Then Customs Detained Her at the Airport and Threatened to Deport Her.
The post A Noncitizen Says She Was Told She Could Vote. Then Customs Detained Her at the Airport and Threatened to Deport Her. appeared first on ProPublica.
- structural power
- OSINT methodology
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New Ontario water and sanitation law could pave the way for the financialization of public water
In November 2025, the Ontario government rushed through new legislation to dramatically restructure public drinking water and wastewater services without any public consultation. The Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act (WCA) authorizes the province’s minister of municipal affairs and housin…
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“Affiliation, not just access”: Newsrooms try to move beyond membership to a focus on “belonging”
Facing declining trust, unreliable social platforms, and search traffic weakened by AI summaries, the media industry is looking for a deeper way to hold onto audiences. Could the answer be a sense of “belonging”? “I think belonging is trying to figure out ways for the audiences to feel heard and see…
- media and technology
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What’s Driving the K-Shaped Economy?
Uneven wealth distribution in the United States has political—and global—implications.
- geopolitics
- structural power
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Minnesota — and its public radio station — kept everyone’s attention at the start of 2026
Minnesota Public Radio’s coverage of ICE put it at the top of the traffic rankings for public media websites in the last quarter of 2025. That trend continued in the first quarter of 2026; according to our regular rankings derived from Similarweb data, MPR saw 7 million more visits in January than i…
- media and technology
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Cannabis: it’s medicine if you’re rich enough – a crime if you’re not
elenavolf/Shutterstock.com In Britain, whether cannabis is treated as medicine or a crime may depend less on medical need than on the ability to pay. In 2018, the UK government changed drug policy, allowing specialist doctors to prescribe cannabis-based medicinal products. The decision was presented…
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The class politics of modern outbreaks
The MV Hondius hantavirus scare revived debates about luxury travel, public health and unequal vulnerability to disease.
- geopolitics
- structural power
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370 billion crickets are farmed for food every year. Scientists have discovered they may feel pain
House Cricket (_Acheta domesticus_). mani_raab/iNaturalist, CC BY-NC You’re cooking dinner, distracted, and your hand brushes a hot pan. Nerve signals race to your spinal cord and back to yank your arm away in a fraction of a second, with no thought required. Then comes the pain. A sharp, spreading…
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As the definition of autism expands, are we losing sight of those with the greatest needs?
Martin Adams/Unsplash Thinking about autism has evolved. Just three decades ago, autism was a relatively rare and clearly defined condition, diagnosed in people with limited verbal language and highly repetitive behaviour. Today, autism is diagnosed along a spectrum of a wide range of abilities, fro…
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