IPS's Chris Mills Rodrigo writes in In These Times that the indictment of Raúl Castro follows a familiar script — from Iraq to Libya to Venezuela — of manufacturing pretexts for U.S. military aggression, warning that Americans need to push back before the invasion narrative takes hold.
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In These Times publishes a piece by Chris Mills Rodrigo, managing editor of Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies, arguing that the federal indictment of 95-year-old former Cuban president Raúl Castro is the latest in a string of escalations — from fuel blockades to aircraft carrier deployments — aimed at building pretext for a U.S. military invasion of Cuba.
Common Dreams cites a recent IPS report finding that the US military’s economic benefits to Hawaiʻi have been significantly overstated, with military demand for housing driving Oʻahu rents up 7.1% in 2024 alone and PFAS cleanup costs at just three military installations potentially reaching into the billions — in an opinion piece examining how RIMPAC 2026, the world’s largest naval war games, is deepening militarization of the Pacific at the expense of local communities.
The Travel cites IPS research in a piece on growing passenger frustration over fare evasion on Amtrak, noting that in most U.S. cities, public transit riders can be charged with a misdemeanor for failure to pay the full fare — a punishment on par with property theft, driving under the influence, or assault.
The Hill quotes Hanna Homestead, research analyst for the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, in a report on how Trump’s faltering Iran peace deal is threatening to derail Congress’s defense spending agenda. “Congress should not greenlight this war by continuing to fund it,” Homestead says. “They should listen to the American people, who want taxpayer dollars to be supporting families at home and not bombing them abroad.”
Fortune cites a 2025 IPS report on the Giving Pledge in a profile of billionaire philanthropists John and Laura Arnold, noting they are the only Giving Pledge signers technically in compliance with the promise to give away at least half of one’s wealth — a finding drawn directly from IPS’s research.
Mongabay covers a new IPS report finding that solar projects in southern Honduras have destroyed old-growth trees, contaminated waterways, and raised electricity prices for nearby communities — while doing little to reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, which still account for over 40% of national electricity generation. “The impact so far is eerily similar to the prevailing development model in Honduras, which concentrates benefits on the rich and externalizes impacts on the poor,” the report states.
WVUA23 covers a new joint report from IPS and Alabama Arise finding that a $25 million state investment in public transit could unlock $100 million in federal funding, create 2,561 jobs, and generate $207 million in new GDP — while helping close Alabama’s growing workforce shortage.
Khury Petersen-Smith, co-director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, is quoted in Salon on the long-term trajectory of the US war with Iran, warning that a low-boil, open-ended conflict is the default mode of American military operations. “The U.S. launches a set of military operations that begin with these spectacular large-scale operations,” Petersen-Smith explains, “and then, like in both Afghanistan and Iraq, they declare early victories of certain sorts, but then continue to involve themselves as these ongoing conflicts become much more complicated and the war just becomes really vague.”
CBS News cites IPS data finding that the nation’s 905 billionaires are now worth a combined $7.8 trillion — an increase of more than 25% in a single year — in a report on California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push to ban the “buy, borrow, die” tax strategy used by the ultra-wealthy.
Kate Hess Pace, executive director of Hoosier Action and IPS Wallace Rural Organizing Fellow, speaks with The New Republic about the growing grassroots backlash against data centers in rural communities. She highlights how public entities are pushing these unpopular projects through without much public review or community input.
“It did kind of open people’s eyes a little bit to local decision-makers, like, who decided this?”
The New York Times cites IPS's research on how many billionaire Giving Pledge signers have yet to live up to their promise to give away most of their wealth.
“When corporations can get away with shifting their employees’ basic living costs onto taxpayers, this is a form of corporate welfare,” the report said. “It means taxpayers are subsidizing business models based on poverty wages.”
“This is highly unpredictable and so we won’t know the cost of it until it’s over,” said Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute of Policy Studies, who said the conflict is “not necessary” and is taking away from other policies that could “make life more affordable for Americans."
"Our government should always put the best interests and well-being of children first in any policies, decisions, actions, or activities in which kids are impacted."
An in-depth article in Fast Company highlights IPS’s new report, which analyzes the CEO-worker pay gap at the 20 largest low-wage corporations, and spotlights how many of the workers they…
Más de 50 organizaciones nacionales e internacionales alertaron que la intención del gobierno de volver al CIADI podría facilitar la expansión de proyectos extractivos, la entrega de territorios a las ZEDE y otros megaproyectos, y subordinar decisiones estatales a tribunales internacionales.
