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BOSTON — Climate change has been the backdrop to Charles Hughes’ entire life, from kindergarten lessons about disappearing habitats to wildfire smoke billowing through the air he breathed while growing up in Colorado. But now that he’s a college student in Massachusetts, he said global warming is rarely a top issue.

“Honestly, it doesn’t come up as much,” said Hughes, who chairs the state’s chapter of the College Democrats.

What a difference six years makes.

During President Trump’s first term and especially during the Democratic primaries to determine who would run against him in 2020, Democrats spoke constantly about climate change. They used it to rally young voters such as Hughes, fueling protests and sweeping demands to remake the economy with proposals like the Green New Deal.

But there has been a national shift in the conversation that is sharp enough for some researchers to coin the term “climate hushing” to describe it. The Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank, urged the party to stop mentioning climate change because it is not a priority for voters. The Sunrise Movement, a left-wing group that pushed global warming as a top issue for young people, switched its mission last fall to a broader mandate of fighting the Republican president.

The shift was encapsulated by the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts on Tuesday as the incumbent, Ed Markey, 80, fended off a challenge from U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, 47. Markey still talked about sponsoring the Green New Deal, but focused more on other issues to burnish his left-wing bona fides and prove to voters that he is not too old for the job.

It was the latest example of how climate change has been eclipsed by issues such as affordability, U.S. support for Israel and, above all, how to confront Trump.

“Six years ago, Green New Deal was every phrase out of Ed Markey’s mouth every chance he got,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a veteran Democratic strategist in Massachusetts. That wasn’t the case this cycle. “It’s about who’s best to fight. Period, full stop. Everything falls under that.”

‘People are increasingly freaked out about other issues’

Even if the political discussion on climate change has quieted, the planet has not. Scientists say there is an increasing chance that by the end of the year, 2026 could be the hottest year on record, or at least come close. A strengthening El Nino is forecast to be off the charts, spiking global temperatures.

Some advocates expect the issue to return to center stage if Democrats retake the U.S. House in November and climate-sparked disasters dominate the winter.

U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a prominent Democratic voice on climate change, said in an interview that ignoring the issue is a major strategic “blunder.”

“Climate change has moved from the science department into the economics department,” he said. “It’s now battering people’s home insurance, property values, pocketbook concerns. So I think it’s a very powerful argument.”

Trump has falsely claimed climate change is “a hoax,” and his administration has undone policies one by one that would make it less damaging in the future.

The Sunrise Movement, founded in 2017 to mobilize young voters over climate issues, announced in October that it was shifting to a broader fight against “fascism.” The group’s executive director, Aru Shiney-Ajay, said that was a prescient move because of reports that federal agents infiltrated protest meetings during Trump’s immigration raids in Minneapolis.

“We just live in a significantly more authoritarian country. Because of that, a lot of the Democratic primaries are about more existential questions,” Shiney-Ajay, whose network generally backs left-wing Democrats, said in an interview. “It has felt less like people care less about climate and more like people are increasingly freaked out about other issues.”

About 6 in 10 Democrats say climate change is “a very big problem” for the country, according to a Pew Research Center poll from April. That is roughly the same as in 2016. Still, climate has often taken a back seat to other issues in Democratic voters’ priorities, such as inflation, healthcare affordability and the role of money in politics.

Affordability concerns have dominated the political debate this year.

McKenzie Wilson of Blue Rose Research, a Democratic data firm, said voters have called for sweeping changes in response to economic discontent, demonstrating a level of anger not seen in years.

“In that kind of environment it’s hard to think about long-term, existential problems,” Wilson said. “If we don’t talk and focus our attention on the number one thing the electorate wants to talk about, as we saw in 2024, we’re not going to be connecting with the electorate.”

‘Don’t say climate change’

That view was summed up by the Searchlight Institute, a Democratic think tank that last year released a provocative suggestion: “The First Rule About Solving Climate Change: Don’t Say Climate Change.”

It contended that voters saw it as such an intimidating, complex issue that Democrats were more likely to win by focusing on other subjects — thus enabling them to regain power and tackle the crisis that they were not talking about.

Leah Stokes, a political scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of “The Carbon Wave,” a book about Democratic President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda, said it was “galling” when politicians made the issue less of a priority.

“The climate crisis is accelerating and we can’t really not talk about it for like a decade, because the planet will be even more on fire if we do that,” she said.

Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, agreed with those concerns.

“What happens over the course of the next decade will profoundly shape the habitability of the planet for literally thousands of years to come,” he said.

Some are making climate an affordability issue

Climate has come up as part of the national backlash to data centers, but it is only one part of the conversation about the projects’ impact. Many climate advocates are adjusting how they talk about the issue, stressing how green energy can lower prices and ease insurance costs.

“What we’re seeing right now is, whether you’re advocating for healthcare reform or climate action or some niche tech issue, everything is filtered through some cost frame,” said Jared Leopold, a veteran Democratic strategist who has long focused on climate change.

That is how the Green New Deal came up at a recent debate between Markey and Moulton, when a voter asked how each candidate would reduce energy prices. Notably, the questioner asked about increasing nuclear or gas generation, not clean energy, to deal with cost. Markey turned the opportunity into a slam against the president.

“There was a plan in place in order to have a strong, clean affordable energy future for our commonwealth,” Markey said, “and Trump attacked it.”

Tatishe Nteta, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said that is how Markey has used climate change this election — to signal his willingness to fight Trump as well as his alliance with the left flank of the Democratic Party, which has run up a series of primary wins this year. But other issues have become even more useful in doing that.

“The definition in where you’re at in terms of a progressive candidate and a progressive elected official is your viewpoint on Israel,” Nteta said. “You’re not hearing this in most races, that I’m the candidate who’s going to protect and save our planet.”

Massachusetts’ summer has been the hottest that Eileen Cefail can recall in the 30 years she has worked in the Roofers Local 33 office. “The roofers are tough as nails, and they work so hard, and their work is so grueling,” she said. “This heat has been horrendous for them.”

Cefail is backing Markey in the primary, but climate, she said, was not the main reason.

“He’s always been a union guy,” Cefail said. “He’s just for the labor.”

Riccardi, McDermott and Willingham write for the Associated Press. Riccardi reported from Denver and McDermott from Providence, R.I. Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.

Tunis, Tunisia – More than 15 years after Tunisians rose up to topple longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, familiar grievances are again being heard on the streets from north to south.

A slogan from the 2011 revolution is being heard again: “employment, freedom and national dignity”.

This time, those demands are being fuelled by water cuts, electricity outages, rising prices, medicine shortages and a struggle to make ends meet, problems increasingly affecting Tunisians across social and economic divides.

But the anger is unfolding in a very different political environment.

The discontent comes as Tunisia marks five years since President Kais Saied suspended parliament, dismissed the government and began ruling by decree, moves he described as necessary to end years of political paralysis and corruption.

Many Tunisians welcomed the move at the time, frustrated with a political system that had failed to address the country’s economic problems after the 2011 revolution.

Five years later, many of those grievances remain while the political space for challenging those in power has narrowed sharply.

Old demands, new anger

The decade that followed Ben Ali’s ouster brought competitive elections and greater space for political parties and civil society, but it also brought frequent government changes, political disputes and little improvement in the lives of many Tunisians.

Unemployment remained high, particularly among young people and in the country’s interior. Public services remained weak while rising prices continued to put pressure on household incomes. By the end of 2020, unemployment stood at 17.4 percent, according to the World Bank.

Tunisia also faced serious security threats, including attacks and political assassinations, adding to economic pressures and hitting sectors such as tourism.

Those frustrations helped Saied build support as an outsider promising to break with the traditional political establishment and what many Tunisians saw as a dysfunctional system.

On July 25, 2021, Saied suspended the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, dismissed Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and lifted parliamentary immunity. He said he was acting to address a national crisis.

His opponents described the move as a coup.

Saied later dissolved parliament and oversaw the adoption of a new constitution in 2022 that significantly strengthened presidential powers.

Since then, opposition figures, journalists, lawyers and activists have been jailed or prosecuted in cases that rights groups describe as politically motivated. Civil society has faced increasing restrictions while critics have said institutional checks on presidential power have been weakened. Human Rights Watch, for example, has described the “conspiracy case” as part of a broader crackdown on dissent.

What is the “conspiracy case”?

The case centres on allegations by Tunisian authorities that opposition politicians, lawyers, activists and other public figures were involved in a conspiracy against state security and sought to destabilise the country and undermine the government. The defendants included figures from different parts of the political spectrum.

In April 2025, a Tunis court sentenced 37 defendants to prison terms ranging from four to 66 years. Human Rights Watch described the case as politically motivated and criticised the trial for failing to provide adequate due-process protections.

On November 27, 2025, a Tunis appeals court upheld convictions against 34 of the 37 defendants, sentencing them to between five and 45 years in prison, and acquitted three.

Human Rights Watch and other rights groups continued to criticise the proceedings and describe the case as part of a wider crackdown on dissent.

The authorities reject those accusations and maintain that the defendants were prosecuted for serious offences against state security.

But the political transformation has yet to produce the economic turnaround Saied promised.

Unfulfilled promises

Many of Tunisia’s economic problems predate Saied. Years of underinvestment, financial pressures and ageing infrastructure have left public utilities and other state services struggling to meet demand.

But those failures have become harder to separate from Saied’s record because he came to power promising that a stronger state could overcome the weaknesses of the old political system.

This summer, temperatures approached 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of Tunisia, pushing electricity demand to record levels. Kairouan reached 49.8C (121.6F) on Thursday, according to the Tunisian Observatory for Weather and Climate. The Tunisian Company of Electricity and Gas introduced rotating power cuts in several regions, and the outages affected water-pumping stations in some areas.

Some people reported going days without running water. Bottled water shortages added to the pressure. Long queues formed outside shops and water trucks delivering supplies to some areas.

For Rebh, a 40-year-old cleaner from Tunis, the demands are not about luxuries but about being able to afford and access the basics of everyday life.

“People are tired. They are choosing to cross the sea and die [trying to reach Europe] instead. I hope we can stand together and find a solution now,” she told Al Jazeera. “We are not asking for the impossible. This is about water and electricity. We want to live as humans. We are feeling dead while we’re still alive.”

For many Tunisians, the shortages are part of a broader squeeze on purchasing power that has made it increasingly difficult to afford basic necessities.

The extreme heat has also put pressure on an already strained health system as doctors warned of increased pressure on emergency departments.

The point, however, is not that Saied created Tunisia’s economic problems. He did not.

The question is whether the more centralised system he built has delivered the more effective government he promised.

A shrinking space for dissent

For journalist Manel Derbali, the change has been visible not only in the media but in the wider public space.

After the 2011 revolution, she said, Tunisians gained a new ability to speak openly and access information. Despite the protests and political turmoil of the period, journalists felt they were not alone in challenging those in power.

“After years of censorship and police repression, everything opened up. The journalist felt that the street was with you in one way or another,” Derbali said.

She said journalists also had channels to raise concerns about their working conditions and make proposals to officials, including through parliament and ministries, while access to decision-makers remained possible.

“After July 25, all of these spaces became closed,” she said.

Derbali said journalists now struggle to obtain even basic responses from government institutions with official bodies sometimes leaving requests unanswered for months.

“Unfortunately, history is repeating itself, and we have returned to relying on citizens’ videos to investigate and verify information,” she said.

Her account reflects a broader concern among critics of Saied that the institutions and public spaces that emerged after the revolution have been steadily weakened.

Could economic anger become political?

The current protests are not limited to Tunisia’s traditional opposition.

The Nafas movement, which has organised recent demonstrations in Tunis, seeks to bring together political parties and independent figures beyond the country’s established opposition to Saied. Its protests have also attracted citizens who had not previously taken part in political demonstrations.

Rabii Qassem, a member of the Nafas collective, said comparisons between the past five years and the decade after the revolution should not be reduced to whether Tunisia was simply better or worse before Saied.

“I’m not saying that Tunisia between 2011 and 2021 was paradise,” he said. “There were very serious crises: unemployment, corruption, economic fragility, political conflicts and a failure to achieve a large part of the revolution’s goals.”

But according to Qassem, that period also brought gains, including greater freedom of expression and protest, a stronger civil society, a more diverse media and elections that allowed for peaceful transfers of power.

“After July 25, the economic and social problems that already existed were not solved,” he said. “They were joined by a decline in political checks and balances, freedoms and the space for civil society.”

For Qassem, many of the demands raised in 2011 remain unresolved.

“Where is employment? Where is the water? Where are the public services? Where is the dignity?” he asked.

He said economic hardship and political repression have been increasingly feeding into each other as people struggling with rising prices and deteriorating services have also found fewer avenues to express their frustration.

That does not mean Tunisia is experiencing another 2011.

Many Tunisians remain wary of the political parties and politicians who dominated the decade after Ben Ali while Saied continues to have supporters who blame that period for years of economic stagnation and political instability.

Nor does every person angry about a water cut, electricity outage or rising price necessarily oppose the president.

But the protests show how economic and political grievances can increasingly overlap.

Before 2021, Tunisians could blame a democratic political system they saw as ineffective for failing to improve their lives.

After 2021, Saied dismantled much of that system and promised that a stronger presidency would deliver better government.

Five years later, many of the same grievances remain.

The difference is that the avenues for challenging them have become narrower.

“Employment, freedom and national dignity” was a demand of the revolution that ended Ben Ali’s rule.

Fifteen years later, Tunisians are again asking for jobs, basic services and greater freedoms – but now from a president who came to power promising to address the failures of the system that followed the revolution.

A much-loved BBC favourite is making a surprise return to screens after spending a lengthy break away

A much-loved face is returning to the BBC.

Master woodworker Norman Wilkinson is set to make a surprise return to television today after a lengthy break from the programme.

Sarah Moore revealed that her former co-star Norman will be back on screen when the new series returns on Monday (August 31) afternoon.

Speaking alongside fellow co-star Jacqui Joseph, Sarah was asked about her standout moments from the upcoming series, during which she revealed that Norman’s comeback was one of the things she was most excited about.

She explained that he had been away from the programme for “like eight, nine series”, despite being a firm favourite with viewers.

She said: “I think the standout item was Norman, who was off our screens for like eight, nine series. And he was absolutely the favourite of so many people who watched the series, and we couldn’t really comment on why he wasn’t on it anymore or anything like that.”

Now, however, Norman has returned to the show for a very different kind of project. According to Sarah, he was brought back to carry out an impressive transformation involving an old organ.

“But he came back to do an amazing transformation of an organ, a sort of small church organ,” she explained. Sarah admitted she was delighted to see him back and praised the work he had done on the unusual piece.

“I think it’s just so lovely that he’s back on, he made a great job of it. So I think people would be really pleased to see him.” She went on to describe the finished creation as one of the standout pieces from the new series. Sarah said: “The standout moment was Norman; he did such a solid job.”

The restoration involved transforming a smashed-up 1920s organ into a bespoke writing desk, with Sarah particularly impressed by how timeless the finished item looked.

“It just looks like the kind of furniture that you know in 200 years’ time people will be using it,” she said. “And it was a beautiful desk made out of an organ, and people won’t even know that it was ever anything else. It’s just such a great makeover.”

Norman’s return is set to be one of the talking points of the new series, particularly after such a long absence from the programme. He will appear in the first episode of the 19th series.

Money for Nothing broadcasts Monday – Thursday at 2pm on BBC One and is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.