According to notification, new prices will be applicable on September 2.

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In this story for MIT Technology Review, Sara Harrison explores the field of social robotics and the growing use of robot companions as therapy for autistic and other neurodivergent kids. These playful machines show promise: Research suggests that they can help children practice social skills and offer something overworked therapists and exhausted parents can’t—a patient companion, available 24/7. But Harrison also reports on their limitations and risks. Does this approach truly work? What about all the data gathered on the child? And what happens when a robot friend suddenly stops working and “dies”? A fascinating and unsettling look at tech that has moved into the most intimate corners of a family’s home.

While Moxie found herself in more and more people’s homes, Embodied still struggled to make money. In 2024, the company announced it would cease operations. Its robots—which depended on external servers that the company could no longer pay for—would descend into a deep slumber. 

Videos of bereft children who seemed to have become deeply attached to the blue bot began to circulate online. “I don’t want her to leave,” wailed one child in a TikTok video. Desperate parents posted on TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit looking for solutions. “My autistic child is devastated and I’m pissed,” wrote one parent. “Hope Embodied gives us a couple days to say goodbye,” wrote another. 

L'Allemagne a annoncé mardi des mesures de rétorsion contre la Russie, après l'avoir officiellement accusée d'avoir envoyé un drone chargé d'explosifs début août à l'aéroport de Leipzig, une plateforme militaire clé pour l'armée allemande et pour l'Otan.

Soixante-quatorze ans après Peau noire, masques blancs, un nouvel essai déplace la question de l’aliénation noire vers le terrain religieux. Dans Peau noire, Dieu blanc : Essai sur l’aliénation spirituelle des Noirs, le journaliste ivoirien Axel Illary critique l’adoration, par les populations noires, de divinités étrangères, sans lien culturel avec leurs sociétés, dont les cultes […]

L’article Du « masque blanc » au « Dieu blanc » : Axel Illary veut décoloniser le spirituel est apparu en premier sur .

Author and community organizer Dominque Conway has transformed a house at the epicenter of the 2015 Baltimore uprising into “Eddie’s Front Porch,” a people’s museum dedicated to preserving the remarkable legacy of her late husband, Eddie Conway. To mark the opening of the museum, this special episode of Rattling the Bars features host Mansa Musa sitting down with Dominque to discuss the project and Eddie’s enduring impact.

The conversation also highlights perspectives from formerly incarcerated organizers who worked alongside Eddie inside Maryland prisons and are now building community power on the ground in West Baltimore. Together, they share powerful stories celebrating the man, the myth, and the legend behind the movement. 

Credits:

• Production: Maximillian Alvarez
• Post-production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Mansa Musa:

So we are here at Eddie Conway’s front porch, which is, we call it People’s Museum. I’m here with Dominque Conway, the wife of Eddie Conway. Tell our audience what Eddie Conway meant to you or who was Eddie Conway to you?

Dominque Conway:

That’s really, that’s hard to sum up, to be quite honest. Eddie was so many things to me and so many other people, but Eddie was, quite honestly, he was my hero as he was to many other people. He was a Black Panther. He was somebody who also served 44 years in the Maryland prison system and didn’t allow that time to break him. During that time, Eddie worked with hundreds of men in the prison system, many of whom have come out and done their own programming and continued to do really great things in the community. So at the end of the day, Eddie was just a man. But he loved people. He loved humanity and he exuded that. He loved nature. He loved animals. He exuded that pretty much in everything that he did. And I wanted to capture some of that. I wanted to capture his legacy.

I feel like it’s very important for us to own our narratives and to give those proper narratives because it’s easy for many people to just see Eddie the icon. I want them to see Eddie the man.

Mansa Musa:

Talk about how this came about in your mind and how it became a vision for people who could see.

Dominque Conway:

Well, I wasn’t even planning to come back to Baltimore. You know this, right? But I don’t know. I woke up one day, I saw this house online and thought about all the things we’ve talked about, what we want to do, and it was the perfect place. Also, I think at that time I felt like we need to do something to really preserve his legacy. I have a lot of documents, a lot of papers, a lot of things that need to be archived. And I’m like, we need to do that. It would be easy to say, oh, maybe they should go to a university. But I think we need our own people’s archives. We need our own spaces where we not only celebrate and remember, but we tell accurate histories of resistance, of black liberation in particular, but not even limited to that, the experience of indigenous people, the experience of Latino people.

We need to be able to own our narratives and share those stories with youth, with people in the community. One of the young men who’s going to perform today, he’s doing spoken word. We’ve been telling him, Hey, this is your space. Host spoken word events here. So we’re looking to get people in to just do what they want to do. We have a small theater group that meets here at times and just comes together to do storytelling. So we’re just opening the space up and wanting the community to come in.

Speaker 3:

So this is real news. So let me give you some real events. Mr. Conway, I call him Mr. Conway. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that. From day one, we met inside a prison. I was doing youth work and he was doing outreach work inside the institution and someone had a good idea for us to come together. And right off the top, when I met him, immediately we connect. Immediately, he was everything that I read about, everything everyone told me about real charismatic, real intelligent and planning. And our first encounter was straight away about the people. And day one, we established a curriculum called Friend of Friends, which was a grassroots program inside the institution that developed outside here to where we at today.

Mansa Musa:

And you said that Eddie was instrumental in helping people constantly go in prison. And that’s where I met Eddie at. And to a point, as you’ll talk to some other brothers today to resonate this point, Eddie was responsible for a lot of us getting political education. And when you look at the time that he came into the Maryland prison system, what was going on in this country, a lot of people was resisting the establishment in society and they were putting him in prison. When Eddie came in the prison system, he didn’t come in the prison system. I’m Eddie Conway. I’m here to change. I’m the natural of the Maryland prison system. No, he came in, I’m trying to get out of prison. But the conditions made him be who he is. He responded to the conditions. Condition was so horrendous that he started educating. And one thing he said in his book, COINTELPRO, the greatest threat ever say agitate, educate, organize.

This is what he’s saying that this was a model that he want people to understand how they look at things. So I’m an example of the impact that Eddie had on people. When I got out, it was no brainer for me to fall in ranks, to become a part of this process. This house right here, if I got out tomorrow, I would be in. If I got out a year from tomorrow, I would be here. Wherever we at in this space, wherever Eddie or Dominique is doing something, we in that space. So that’s what Eddie pretty much, like Dominiqu said, it’s hard to sum up for Eddie, but we try to get people to understand that Eddie was a human being and a man and our hero always got different views on him. But at the end of the day, Eddie was a person that loved our people and did everything humanly possible to get our people to understand their right to self-determination.

Speaker 4:

I was working in the library. He comes up to get science fiction books like Star Track and stuff like that. I used to be like, “That’s nothing revolutionary.” He says, “It is. These are the things that’s going to come. This is information that was redone, replayed and put into a book.” He said, “It’s a lot of information inside fiction and it’s the history wrapped up in fiction.”

Speaker 5:

So let me first start off by saying friend of a friend. When I first learned about Friend of a Friend and I asked where the name came from, I was taught that the name came from the times of slavery and underground railroad with Harriet Tubman. People just couldn’t go knock on anybody door because the Underground Railroad was a group of people or a system of people that helped people along the road on the way to freedom. So when people would knock on the door, they just couldn’t say anything random. So when they would ask who was it, you would say a friend of a friend. And that’s how we knew that the people were official. That was the secret code. So when we say a friend of a friend, we speaking about family, we speaking about unity. We speaking about a safety net, a safety system where we could come to and be whole as family and put ideas together, think tanks, so to speak.

Speaker 4:

Eddie Conway was like a mentor and a father to me. I came in the Maryland Penitentiary Act the age of 22 years old, stayed in prison for 28 years. And during that time, Eddie Conway gravitated to me and pulled me in tight and gave me some things that I could actually make better decisions with. And ever since then, he had me under his wings.

Speaker 3:

So our experiences have always been from four different institution. Me and Eddie Conway had a different relationship. I think everybody would say the same thing had a different relationship. Him and I shared a mutual common ground about young individuals and the growth and development of young guys in prison as well as society. So our relationship was trying to build that gap between prison and society. And everything that he represent was about the community.

Mansa Musa:

So we was doing libation in Gilmore Projects and honor Eddie and our ancestors. And a guy rolled up that was on a bicycle and he was a little kid when they first moved down Gilmore and Dominique said, “Man, he was a pain.” And this is what he said. He rolled up, he seen Ms. Dominique. And this is what I said. I sai, “What she means?” Now Ms. Dominique was good. So this is an example. This guy just came out, he’s still in the neighborhood, but his memories of what we was doing in Gilmore Projects is memories of us recognizing him and saying, “You got worth, so what do you want to do with your worth? We’re here to help you maximize on your worth.”

Speaker 4:

So from that, I paid a lot of close attention to Eddie and he showed me. During that time I was already a member of the Black Gorilla family and field marshal. So I had a real good rapport inside the prison with every organization, every gang. And Eddie gave me a way to construct a unified effort of prisoners to keep down the trouble, the violence, keep down a lot of the unnecessary stuff that take place in prison with a lot of our youth. So when I got released. Well, he got released first and I was a facilitator in the program in which he created him and Ms. Dominique, friend of a friend. I was a facilitator. And it was from the facilitation that led me to college, from college out here in the street into college and to running my own business. If it wasn’t for Eddie, I’d probably still be in prison acting crazy.

So I loved him for that and he guided me all the way until his last breath. So I respect it and here I am doing the work that he taught me to do.

Speaker 5:

Oh man. So Mr. Conway was, he was one of a kind. He was exceptional. It is such a blessing when you can learn from people who experience historical times, who lived through the movement, to be able to garner that wisdom, to be able to be blessed with that type of information. I know that I was totally blessed. It’s sad to say, but I found my best leaders inside of prison. Mr. Conway was definitely one of the best of them. I learned a lot from Mr. Conway. He was a leader. He was a man. He was moral. He was principled. He was exceptional in his walk. He was consistent. He had values. He had knowledge to distill. Whenever you ask, he was ready to give a blessing. He was always strong. He always stayed 10 toes down. So nothing but mad love and much respect for Mr.

Conway, a living legend. Well, he’s passed, but he’s still a living legend. His spirit lives on through all of us.

Speaker 3:

He was genuine how his approach and how he did things and how he organized, how he was able to organize people was one of the things that stuck out a lot about Mr. Conway, right? How he was able to organize. Me, myself, I was still in prison when we lost Eddie, so I didn’t get an opportunity to work with him while he was out there, but I was still working beside him while I was still incarceration because he still kept his hands inside the institutions while he was flying throughout the country, building up the communities. I still was inside holding it down for him and his name along with his wife, Dominique. But I would like to say our experiences and he left a lasting impression on me about how we should build, how we view education and how we view our community and the young people just growing up in it.

And that last impression he left, man, is really profound, if I could say the least. He impart a lot of information on me and a lot of history. That’s one of the things I will say as well, that know your history so it won’t repeat itself, but if it does repeat itself, it repeats itself in a proper way. So that’s some of the things that I would like to say he imparted on myself personally is history and how to deal with the people based upon that. You know what I’m saying? Yeah. But I miss him. I really do miss him. I wish he was here now to view some of the things that all of us collectively as a group, because we was a family. And now that we all out here together and we building together, we missing our hierarchy. We really missing our hierarchy out here.

Even though the sister here, she holding down on his presence, we holding down his presence, but we could feel the emptiness of his not being here, although we do feel like he’s here with us.

Dominque Conway:

Right now in particular, obviously I miss Eddie every day. That’s personal, that’s love. But politically, I miss Eddie because he had such a keen analysis about everything and just the information he would provide about what’s happening in the present. But also because he had that history, he had that history of being part of the resistance, being part of a movement that was the vanguard of the revolution at the time. He had so much information, but I think it is critical. So many people are passing away. Ward Churchill, for example, was a giant. Ward is gone. So it’s really more important, I think now than ever for us to be engaging and working in multi-generational ways, which is really a very traditional way of working in say black, indigenous, and Latino communities. We have to really return to that and not see young people as a separate group.

Age is real, but generation is a social construct too. So we have to break that down and really engage, like I said, in a more multi-generational.

Mansa Musa:

And we look at all revolutionary. Malcolm was young. Huey, Bobby, Lou Bobby Hunt, they was young. These were young people that had big ideas and got together and organized their thinking around changing social conditions. And I’m with Dominique on that.

Speaker 5:

So of course I got to acknowledge and honor Ms. Dominique Conway as well, the matriarch, who is our Harriet Tubman in these days and time, who is one of my teachers. I’ve learned from a lot of women, but I would say that Ms. Conway, Ms. D taught me a lot just about self and acknowledging and having race pride and being a linchpin and a leader and what it takes and means to be a leader. So I couldn’t go do this brief interview without saying, thank God for Ms. D, because Ms. D was angel in my life and still continue to be. So much respect to her, Eddie First Lady, and thank you for having me.

💾

The small self-proclaimed state of Somaliland is aiming to become a regional player: it is now an ally of Israel and has commercial and security agreements in the Gulf. Now it's hoping for US support.

- 2026/09 / article, 2026/09 Somaliland

Greek Police is set to mobilize all possible modern means in order to solve the one problem that torments not only commuters twice per day but anyone trying to move within the 4-million-people capital Athens: the endless traffic jams. The new “integrated operational system for traffic management”, developed by the Hellenic Police and termed “Traffic […]

The post Drones, cameras and AI to help manage traffic across Athens appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

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Olhão é uma cidade com muitas lendas.

Uma das mais conhecidas das gentes locais é a do Menino dos Olhos Grandes, que até já ganhou um monumento em sua honra.

A escultura faz, inclusivamente, parte do Caminho das Lendas, um percurso pedonal que liga cinco dos principais largos da zona histórica de Olhão.

Conta essa lenda que, nas noites escuras de Olhão, os pescadores do Bairro da Barreta costumavam encontrar um menino misterioso sentado no Largo do Carolas.

A criança vestia uma camisa simples, usava um gorro vermelho, trazia um cesto de vime no braço e chorava sem parar.

O que mais impressionava eram os seus olhos pretos, gigantes e muito brilhantes. Com pena do miúdo, os pescadores tentavam pegá-lo ao colo para o ajudar, mas levavam um grande susto.

Assim que o levantavam, o menino começava a ficar cada vez mais pesado, como se fosse feito de chumbo. Sem forças para aguentar tanto peso, os homens eram obrigados a largá-lo e, mal tocava no chão, o rapaz desaparecia por encanto.

Com o tempo, o povo ganhou tanto medo que deixou de sair à noite, até que um dia a criatura desapareceu para sempre.

Hoje, quem passeia por Olhão pode ver uma estátua de metal que recorda esta famosa lenda algarvia.

Leia aqui as notícias do Algarve

A senior official within Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP), Yiannis Papadopoulos, on Tuesday filed a criminal complaint with the Athens First Instance Court Prosecutor’s Office over the targeting of his phone using Predator spyware. In this, he accuses the four business executives convicted at first instance over the phone surveillance case with a series of […]

The post Greece’s National Intelligence officer files criminal complaint following Predator spyware surveillance appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

An international study published in Nature Communications reveals that minimal changes in solar radiation were enough to relocate the dominant winds of the North Atlantic and permanently alter the pulse of glacial cycles. The work, authored by scientists from the Environnements et paléoenvironnements océaniques et continentaux (EPOC) laboratory, under Bordeaux INP, CNRS, EPHE–PSL, and the […]

Princess Eugenie is seen holding her baby girl in her arms with caption, “4 weeks of you!!”

The post Princess Eugenie breaks silence as Sarah Ferguson plans UK return appeared first on BOL News.

Murad Ali Shah said greater use of electric vehicles would help reduce reliance on imported fuel.

The post Sindh Cabinet approves new electric vehicles tax relief package appeared first on BOL News.

A Syrian refugee residing in the German city of Leipzig has drawn widespread public attention following revelations regarding the extensive state financial support directed to his massive household, alongside an established pattern of criminal behavior among several of his adult sons, including offenses that resulted in the deaths of multiple victims.

The case highlights the enormous costs of mass immigration in Germany and how many migrants have found creative ways to game the welfare system for their benefit.

Syrian crime family voluntarily leaves Germany with state payout after racking up over 160 offenses

According to data cited from Saxony’s Ministry of the Interior, the Syrian patriarch maintains a clan consisting of three wives married under Islamic custom, 32 children, and 25 grandchildren. State child support payments generated by the family structure have approached roughly €100,000 each year. Even with five offspring having reached adulthood, annual disbursements for the remaining 27 minor children still total approximately €84,000, according to Hungarian outlet Mandiner.

Family is closely tied to organized crime

Beyond the financial aspect, state law enforcement authorities have closely observed the family clan network, noting that approximately two-thirds of its members have prior criminal records. While the identity of the family’s head remains undisclosed under privacy regulations, judicial records outline a history of serious offenses involving his adult sons.

The most prominent case involves 21-year-old Bilal A., who drove a high-performance Mercedes without a driver’s license in March 2023. He struck a group of people near Eilenburg, killing four individuals before fleeing the scene unharmed. Although a juvenile court handed down a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence, he remained free pending an appeal, during which time authorities arrested him for driving illegally a second time.

Germany: Foreigners vastly overrepresented in violent crimes in 2025 criminal data, 72% increase in rape since 2018

Jan Siebenhüner, a lawyer representing victims’ families, stated that the convict “never showed remorse.” The elder brothers, Mohamed and Rami, are also well known to police for their criminal history. Mohamed received a four-and-a-half-year prison term for participating in an assault on a streetcar passenger and arranging a deal involving nearly five kilograms of methamphetamine in 2022. Rami faces charges spanning violent crime, narcotics distribution, and fraudulent welfare claims linked to employment at the family-operated “Golden Lion” establishment, which authorities later shut down after a drug raid.

The family uses the German legal system to avoid deportation

Addressing the legal barriers preventing the deportation of convicted family members, attorney Siebenhüner pointed out that clan members systematically insulate themselves through naturalization and family expansion.

“Article six of the Family Protection Act is a very effective weapon,” the lawyer noted, explaining that if a family already has children, it cannot be separated and minors cannot be expelled under any circumstances.

Syrian family terrorizes Germany with at least 154 crimes, including robberies, attempted murder, and assault in Stuttgart

Bilal A. entered Germany as an unaccompanied minor in 2015 to join his father. Despite his convictions, his official refugee protection remains active throughout the ongoing judicial appeal, as confirmed by provincial immigration office spokesperson Mandy Peschang. Additionally, multiple court proceedings against members of the family were ultimately dismissed after key witnesses failed to appear during trials.

Remix News has reported on such cases extensively in the past, involving large criminal clan networks and the costs they impose on German society, both financially and in terms of security, including in other cities like Stuttgart.

Other cases highlight how some migrants use fake paternity claims to obtain huge amounts of public money while sometimes claiming paternity of two dozen or more children. This practice is particularly common from sub-Saharan African men.

7 men with 122 children: Organized paternity fraud from foreigners is costing Germany tens of millions

The post Germany: Syrian clan boss with 32 children earns €100,000 from taxpayers every year appeared first on Remix News.

A 27-year-old Moroccan construction worker in an irregular immigration situation in Spain was released from custody on Monday after being caught in the act of raping a 22-year-old woman on Valencia’s Malvarrosa beach. The duty judge cited the victim’s failure to appear in court to formalize a complaint as the reason for granting him provisional liberty — a Spanish procedural requirement that is relatively unusual compared with many other Western countries.

The incident took place around 6:45 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 30, near the Akuarela night club. According to Spanish media reports drawing on police sources, the young woman had been in the sea and was lying on the sand when the man approached her. He initially made complimentary remarks before suddenly lunging at her, violently tearing off her dress and forcing penetrative sex while covering her mouth with his hand to stifle her screams. She resisted and cried for help.

Spain: Women flee Ceuta after 15 rapes recorded since end of July, 10-year-old sexually assaulted by 3 Moroccans

A passerby walking along the shoreline spotted the assault from a distance and alerted authorities. Four officers from the Valencia Local Police’s Security, Support and Prevention Unit (USAP), two of them in plain clothes, were already patrolling nearby, according to Spanish news outlet OKDiaro.

They heard the screams and arrived quickly. The suspect tried to flee across the sand. Officers caught him after a short chase. He resisted arrest and punched one officer several times in the face, causing injuries that required medical attention. The officers handcuffed him and handed him over to the National Police. The victim’s mobile phone, found nearby, was also recovered.

‘I feel violated’ – Spanish woman describes moment of terror after Moroccan nearly naked migrant snuck into her bed in Ceuta

Several reports noted the victim was in a state of intoxication, with one account describing her as having left a nearby nightclub for fresh air. Police later found her showing clear signs of alcohol consumption. She was taken to Hospital La Fe, where she received gynecological care and gave an initial statement to officers from the gender-violence victim assistance unit.

The man, identified as a 27-year-old Moroccan construction worker living in Spain without legal papers, was charged with sexual assault involving penetration and assault on an agent of authority. Authorities have confirmed his irregular status.

On Monday, the duty magistrate of the Violence Against Women section of Valencia’s Court of First Instance ordered his provisional release. The decision, taken in agreement with the public prosecutor, followed the police’s inability to locate the victim so she could appear and ratify a formal complaint.

Spain has some rather unusual rules in regards to this criminal charge. Under Article 191 of the Spanish Penal Code, a complaint from an adult victim is required to pursue sexual offense of this type. Other European nations, like France and Germany, do not require a victim to file a criminal complaint to move forward with criminal proceedings.

Remarkably, even in a case where the woman gave a police statement about the rape and the fact that officers caught the man in the middle of penetrative rape, authorities still released the suspect.

The court opened preliminary proceedings and instructed police to continue searching for the woman. Officials said her situation could change immediately if she is found and decides to proceed. The assault on the police officer is being handled separately and can still be pursued criminally.

Meanwhile, the case has drawn attention on social media due to the man being released within hours and the unique procedural requirements involved in the case.

The post Spain: Judge frees Moroccan illegal migrant who police officers caught raping a young woman on Valencia beach appeared first on Remix News.

After years of organizing, residents in Howard County, Maryland, say they’re running out of options to find out what their plastic recycling corporate neighbor, W.R. Grace, is emitting. 

The multinational chemical company and the state’s main permitting agency have fulfilled state and federal permitting and regulatory requirements for W.R. Grace’s pilot program to recycle plastic.

“As long as the facility meets local zoning and land-use requirements, MDE is obligated to review an air quality permit application for activities related to the facility,” the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) said in its final determination letter, granting the necessary air permit. While MDE required the company to control and monitor for volatile organic compounds and “forever chemicals,” an environmental impact assessment was not required given the scope of the pilot project. MDE’s air quality control regulations prohibit a source from causing a nuisance or odor. 

In recent weeks, residents have reported foul odors emanating from the W.R. Grace facility, which initiated the pilot program in 2023. Residents told Prism that they don’t know whether the air is toxic; W.R. Grace has claimed that some of the information about the process is proprietary, limiting what the public can learn about its operations and emissions. 

Residents of Cedar Creek and River Hill, two communities in Columbia, Maryland, that sit as close as 240 feet from the chemical facility, said the company can legally leave the public in the dark. This isn’t just an issue for Maryland residents, but should ring an alarm bell for communities across the country.

“Even in this very Democratic city … no one’s listening,” said Shamieka Preston, a community organizer with the Stop Grace Coalition who said she lives 400 feet outside the facility’s fenceline. Preston ran for Howard County Council to represent District 4 and lost her primary election in June. She ran on a platform to hold W.R. Grace accountable after other attempts failed, including a court challenge to the company’s operations permit and trying to change zoning rules about how far industrial facilities have to be from residential areas.

In 2022, Preston moved her family from California for a better quality of life and safety. In Maryland, her family could live in a larger house and access high-quality public schools. Soon after the family’s move to Cedar Creek, W.R. Grace applied for its permit. 

Plastics recycling

Advanced chemical recycling, or “pyrolysis,” refers to the process of applying extreme amounts of heat to plastic without the presence of oxygen, turning it into pyrolysis oil. Once that oil is refined, it can be used as transportation fuel. W.R. Grace disputes that its experimental technologies conduct pyrolysis.

“Grace scientists have developed a new way of recycling plastic that has the potential to reduce emissions, save energy, and lower costs compared to other plastic recycling options such as pyrolysis,” a W.R. Grace spokesperson told Prism in an email.

The company “followed the proper MDE process, including participating in a public hearing and a 120-day comment period,” the spokesperson said, adding that the “pilot research project will not impact the health or wellbeing of our local community or the employees who work at the facility every day.” 

Plastics recycling, pyrolysis, and chemical recycling are the latest forms of so-called solutions to the climate crisis, said Rita O’Connell, a staff organizer at Beyond Plastics, a research and advocacy organization housed at Bennington College in Vermont. She told Prism that people should be wary of the narrative that plastic is recyclable and its consumption relatively harmless. O’Connell has consulted with the Stop Grace Coalition. 

About 6% of all plastics that have ever been produced have been successfully recycled, she said.

“The promise of chemical recycling for legislators and municipal leaders is, ‘Oh good, we don’t have to worry so much about this plastic crisis because we can just send it off to be turned back into plastic,’” O’Connell said. “That essentially functions as an incredibly effective public relations campaign for the plastics and the petrochemicals industries to keep making as much plastic as they want.”

Maryland residents are also concerned that W.R. Grace has claimed many of the components of its research are proprietary, including information about feedstock sources and composition, fuel, and what chemicals are used in the heating process. The company has repeatedly stated that atmospheric emissions from the pilot program will be “low,” despite the thermal oxidizer running 16 hours per day, 250 days per year.

Lisa Krausz, who lives in River Hill near the W.R. Grace facility, told Prism that the emissions aren’t any less of a concern just because the pilot program engages in less chemical recycling than a commercial operation might. In fact, “pilot projects can actually be more risky because they’re testing stuff,” Krausz said. “It’s all experimental.”

W.R. Grace isn’t required by the state to make public what catalyst it uses to break down plastic feedstock. But, Krausz said that some catalysts, like chromium, can become toxic after exposure to high heat. 

Who does plastics recycling really benefit?

The Biden administration ushered in a wave of experimentation with advanced chemical recycling. In 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that its New Chemical Division would “streamline” the review of “environmentally friendly chemical substitutes” in order to bring new fuels to market that would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sources of fuel that are derived from “waste” such as plastic are included in this effort.

Despite the lofty goals of chemical recycling to meet the moment of unprecedented plastic pollution, environmental advocates caution that plastic pyrolysis is a way to offer the oil and gas industry a public relations lifeline and convince the public that recycling is an effective means of waste management. 

Scott Throwe, vice president of the consulting organization Throwe Environmental, worked at the EPA for three decades, including helping to lead development and enforcement of Clean Air Act regulations. 

Throwe said there is almost no federal guidance or leadership on the subject of pyrolysis. Without a risk analysis for the industry, specific regulations addressing air pollutants that result from this process, or understanding the manifold and complex risks of emissions, companies simply have to make sure their emissions don’t violate the current Clean Air Act regulations—even if those regulations were written prior to pyrolysis facilities starting to operate.

Deregulation and destabilization at the EPA have a filter-down effect on states. “There’s a very strong laissez-faire attitude at EPA with the states right now, and the state agencies basically, for all practical purposes, have carte blanche,” Throwe said. The problem, he said, is that state agencies might not have the breadth of experience or institutional knowledge to establish and maintain robust monitoring schemes. 

“This is a pilot plant, so things are going to go wrong—that’s the nature of pilot operations,” Throwe told Prism.

Correction, Aug. 31, 2026: This story has been updated to correct where two residents live: Lisa Krausz live in River Hill, and Shamieka Preston lives in Cedar Creek.

Editorial Team:
Sahar Fatima, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Stephanie Harris, Copy Editor

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Agosto já lá vai, mas no mês de setembro ainda há muitos festivais e grandes concertos para ver no Algarve.

Leia também: Os eventos que animam o Algarve em setembro

Um deles é o Festival F, que, entre os dias 3 e 5, leva a Faro grandes nomes da música nacional, como D.A.M.A, Bárbara Tinoco, The Gift e Moonspell, entre muitos outros.

Pode conferir aqui o cartaz, com todas as atuações agendadas.

Um outro grande evento que está quase a abrir portas é a Feira da Dieta Mediterrânica, que decorre entre os dias 3 e 6, em Tavira.

Os principais destaques vão para os concertos do grupo Vizinhos (dia 3, quinta-feira), Carolina Deslandes (dia 4, sexta), Marco Rodrigues (sábado) e Diogo Piçarra (domingo).

Mas há muitos outros motivos de interesse para visitar este certame. Pode saber mais sobre a programação aqui.

Outro nome forte da música portuguesa que tem concerto agendado no Algarve é José Cid. O popular cantor e compositor atua no domingo, dia 6, na Praça dos Pescadores, em Albufeira, no encerramento das Festas do Pescador, cujo programa pode consultar aqui.

Outros grandes concertos vão ter lugar em plena serra algarvia. A Festa de Tôr (concelho de Loulé) vai contar com as atuações dos Bandidos do Cante (sexta, dia 5) e Xutos & Pontapés (sábado, 6). Saiba mais aqui.

As Festas de Alcoutim vão contar com espetáculos de Tony Carreira (dia 11), David Antunes (dia 12) e Ivandro (dia 13). Mais informações aqui.

Em Vila do Bispo, no dia 12 realiza-se a primeira edição do festival “Há Música na Vila”, com um concerto de Richie Campbell. Saiba mais aqui.

Os irmãos Pedro e Hélder Moutinho têm um concerto marcado para o dia 13, no Cineteatro Louletano. Os bilhetes custam 12 euros e estão à venda aqui.

No mesmo dia, a popular cantora Rosinha encerra o Festival do Berbigão, na Figueira, concelho de Portimão. Confira aqui todo o programa.

Mas há muitos mais espetáculos musicais que pode ver, ao longo do mês, na região algarvia. Consulte aqui a agenda completa.

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