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When U.S. President Donald Trump first suggested buying Greenland in 2019, people thought it was just a joke. No one is laughing now.Trump’s interest in Greenland, restated vigorously soon after he returned to the White House in January, comes as part of an aggressively “America First” foreign policy platform that includes demands for Ukraine to hand over mineral rights in exchange for continued military aid, threats to take control of the Panama Canal, and suggestions that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state. Why Greenland? Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and Trump wants to make sure that the U.S. controls this mineral-rich country that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America. Who does Greenland belong to? Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a long-time U.S. ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Denmark has also recognized Greenland’s right to independence at a time of its choosing.Amid concerns about foreign interference and demands that Greenlanders must control their own destiny, the island’s prime minister called an early parliamentary election for Tuesday.The world’s largest island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people who until now have been largely ignored by the rest of the world. Why are other countries interested in Greenland? Climate change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for international trade and reigniting the competition with Russia, China, and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources.“Let us be clear: we are soon entering the Arctic Century, and its most defining feature will be Greenland’s meteoric rise, sustained prominence and ubiquitous influence,” said Dwayne Menezes, managing director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative.“Greenlandlocated on the crossroads between North America, Europe, and Asia, and with enormous resource potentialwill only become more strategically important, with all powers great and small seeking to pay court to it. One is quite keen to go a step further and buy it.”The following are some of the factors that are driving U.S. interest in Greenland. Arctic competition Following the Cold War, the Arctic was largely an area of international cooperation. But climate change, the hunt for scarce resources, and increasing international tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are once again driving competition in the region. Strategic importance Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defense of North America since World War II, when the U.S. occupied Greenland to ensure that it didn’t fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect crucial North Atlantic shipping lanes.The U.S. has retained bases in Greenland since the war, and the Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Force Base, supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO. Greenland also guards part of what is known as the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Gap, where NATO monitors Russian naval movements in the North Atlantic. Natural resources Greenland has large deposits of so-called rare earth minerals that are needed to make everything from computers and smartphones to the batteries, solar, and wind technologies that will power the transition away from fossil fuels. The U.S. Geological Survey has also identified potential offshore deposits of oil and natural gas.Greenlanders are keen to develop the resources, but they have enacted strict rules to protect the environment. There are also questions about the feasibility of extracting Greenland’s mineral wealth because of the region’s harsh climate. Climate change Greenland’s retreating ice cap is exposing the country’s mineral wealth and melting sea ice is opening up the once-mythical Northwest Passage through the Arctic.Greenland sits strategically along two potential routes through the Arctic, which would reduce shipping times between the North Atlantic and Pacific and bypass the bottlenecks of the Suez and Panama canals. While the routes aren’t likely to be commercially viable for many years, they are attracting attention. Chinese interest In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in an effort to gain more influence in the region. China has also announced plans to build a “Polar Silk Road” as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative, which has created economic links with countries around the world.Then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s move, saying: “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?” A Chinese-backed rare earth mining project in Greenland stalled after the local government banned uranium mining in 2021. Independence The legislation that extended self-government to Greenland in 2009 also recognized the country’s right to independence under international law. Opinion polls show a majority of Greenlanders favor independence, though they differ on exactly when that should occur. The potential for independence raises questions about outside interference in Greenland that could threaten U.S. interests in the country. Danica Kirka, Associated Press
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Even though Tarana Burke is still correcting some past misconceptions about the #MeToo movement that went mainstream about eight years agoits not dead, for example, and it wasnt a witch huntshes focused on the future. Specifically, the movements founder said organizing has already begun for the 2026 U.S. midterm elections. Im really looking forward to what we can do to build on the campaign we started in 2024, Burke, chief vision officer of Me too. International, said Saturday during a discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. Im really excited about the idea of building a constituency; imagine us voting along the lines of our survivorship. One goal for the movements future, Burke said, is to help people see how sexual and gender-based violence is interwoven with so many other issues, including gun violence, homelessness, prison reform, food deserts, and maternal mortality. Part of our work is helping people to understand that there’s not an issue that you care about that does not touch on sexual and gender-based violence, she told the audience. We need to stop trying to silo these issues; theres so much work that we can do together. Working in tandem on social issues may elicit more attention from politicians or leaders who dont address issues of sexual and gender-based violence, according to Burke. We need to keep holding peoples feet to the fire. Solving a solvable issue That said, activists face new challenges. Funding for support work to end sexual and gender-based violence is at an all-time low, Burke said, while local rape crisis centers are at-risk of losing all of their federal funding. Writing a check, of course, is one solution, but the fight to end sexual and gender-based violence will require interventions on various frontssimilar to approaches taken to make America smoke-free. This is a solvable issue if we want to solve it, Burke said. There are still problems to be fixed, however, like the framing that a mans life is being ruined if hes accused of sexual violence and a frequent premise that the person making the accusation isnt telling the truth. Thats why its important for people to be given the respect and dignity of an investigation, Burke said. That helps everybody involved, she added. If you are the person being accused or you’re the person who has the accusation, everybody involved should be treated with respect and humanity. A focus on accountability Another misconception is that people who inflict harm on others must be banished, and theres no pathway back for them. Burke wants to see accountability from the people who have caused harm, rather than for them to disappear for a while and reemerge again as though nothing happened. What we’re saying is, if you want to be amongst civil society, we need to understand that you won’t cause harm again, that you understand that you caused harm in the first place, Burke told the audience. And the biggest problem with a lot of these men who have these accusations and have these things that have actually been proven is that we don’t see any of that. Without accountability, its tempting for voters to excuse past accusations by justifying some of the good work a politician did in the past. And theres a pertinent example right now that Burke, a New Yorker, weighed in on. New York City currently has a terrible mayor in Eric Adams, at least in Burkes opinion, but she feels a little angry that he could be replaced by another terrible politician. Thats because Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York who stepped down amid numerous sexual harassment accusations, recently announced hes running for mayor. I just want us to do better and dream better and think bigger, Burke said of this political situation. If we actually want these things to stop, if we want to make an impact on the issue of sexual and gender-based violence, we have to figure out where the line is and hold the line. A movement of everyday people Of course setbacks are inevitable, as Burke acknowledged, though when the pendulum swings back the other way, she said there are tangible signs of the movements progress since #MeToo went viral in 2017 that wont simply disappear. She points to law and policy changes in that time, along with the way people think and talk about sexual violence. There has been a cultural shift, said Burke, who coined the Me Too phrase nearly two decades ago while working with sexual assault survivors. This is a movement that has empowered so many survivors, that has helped so many find community, that has been such a catalyst for healing and action, which is what our organization is about. Still, she said there is more work to be done. And looking to the future, Burke is calling on the publics help. Movements are not just about the people with the microphone, the person with the bullhorn in the front, Burke said. Movements are built from everyday people.
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To billionaire Elon Musk and his cost-cutting team at the Department of Government Efficiency, Karen Ortiz may just be one of many faceless bureaucrats. But to some of her colleagues, she is giving a voice to those who feel they can’t speak out.Ortiz is an administrative judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission the federal agency in charge of enforcing U.S. workplace anti-discrimination laws that has undergone tumultuous change since President Donald Trump took office. Like millions of other federal employees, Ortiz opened an ominous email on Jan. 28 titled “Fork in the Road” giving them the option to resign from their positions as part of the government’s cost-cutting measures directed by Trump and carried out by DOGE under Musk, an unelected official.Her alarm grew when her supervisor directed administrative judges in her New York district office to pause all their current LGBTQ+ cases and send them to Washington for further review in order to comply with Trump’s executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two “immutable” sexes male and female.Ortiz decried management’s lack of action in response to the directive, which she said was antithetical to the EEOC’s mission, and called upon some 185 colleagues in an email to “resist” complying with “illegal mandates.” But that email was “mysteriously” deleted, she said.The next day, after yet another frustrating “Fork in the Road” update, Ortiz decided to go big, emailing the EEOC’s acting chair Andrea Lucas directly and copying more than 1,000 colleagues with the subject line, “A Spoon is Better than a Fork.” In it, Ortiz questioned Lucas’s fitness to serve as acting chair, “much less hold a license to practice law.”“I know I take a great personal risk in sending out this message. But, at the end of the day, my actions align with what the EEOC was charged with doing under the law,” Ortiz wrote. “I will not compromise my ethics and my duty to uphold the law. I will not cower to bullying and intimidation.”Ortiz is just one person, but her email represents a larger pushback against the Trump administration’s sweeping changes to federal agencies amid an environment of confusion, anger and chaos. It is also Ortiz’s way of taking a stand against the leadership of a civil rights agency that last month moved to dismiss seven of its own cases representing transgender workers, marking a major departure from its prior interpretation of the law.Right after sending her mass email, Ortiz said she received a few supportive responses from colleagues and one calling her unprofessional. Within an hour, though, the message disappeared and she lost her ability to send any further emails.But it still made it onto the internet. The email was recirculated on Bluesky and it received more than 10,000 “upvotes” on Reddit after someone posted it with the comment, “Wow I wish I had that courage.”“AN AMERICAN HERO,” one Reddit user deemed Ortiz, a sentiment that was seconded by more than 2,000 upvoters. “Who is this freedom fighter bringing on the fire?” wrote another.The EEOC did not feel the same way. The agency revoked her email privileges for about a week and issued her a written reprimand for “discourteous conduct.”Contacted by The AP, a spokesperson for the EEOC said: “We will refrain from commenting on internal communications and personnel matters. However, we would note that the agency has a long-standing policy prohibiting unauthorized all-employee emails, and all employees were reminded of that policy recently.”A month later, Ortiz has no regrets.“It was not really planned out, it was just from the heart,” the 53-year-old told The Associated Press in an interview, adding that partisan politics have nothing to do with her objections and that the public deserves the EEOC’s protection, including transgender workers. “This is how I feel and I’m not pulling any punches. And I will stand by what I wrote every day of the week, all day on Sunday.”Ortiz said she never intended for her email to go beyond the EEOC, describing it as a “love letter” to her colleagues. But, she added, “I hope that it lights a fire under people.”Ortiz said she has received “a ton” of support privately in the month since sending her email, including a thank-you letter from a California retiree telling her to “keep the faith.” Open support among her EEOC colleagues beyond Reddit and Bluesky, however, has proven more elusive.“I think people are just really scared,” she said.William Resh, a University of Southern California Sol Price School of Public Policy professor who studies how administrative structure and political environments affect civil servants, weighed in on why federal workers may choose to say nothing even if they feel their mission is being undermined.“We can talk pie in the sky, mission orientation and all these other things. But at the end of the day, people have a paycheck to bring home, and food to put on a table and a rent to pay,” Resh said.The more immediate danger, he said, is the threat to one’s livelihood, or inviting a manager’s ire.“And so then that’s where you get this kind of muted response on behalf of federal employees, that you don’t see a lot of people speaking out within these positions because they don’t want to lose their job,” Resh said. “Who would?”Richard LeClear, a U.S. Air Force veteran and EEOC staffer who is retiring early at 64 to avoid serving under the Trump administration, said Ortiz’s email was “spot on,” but added that other colleagues who agreed with her may fear speaking out themselves.“Retaliation is a very real thing,” LeClear said.Ortiz, who has been a federal employee for 14 years and at the EEOC for six, said she isn’t naive about the potential fallout. She has hired attorneys, and maintains that her actions are protected whistleblower activity. As of Friday, she still had a job but she is not a lifetime appointee and is aware that her health care, pension and source of income could all be at risk.Ortiz is nonetheless steadfast: “If they fire me, I’ll find another avenue to do this kind of work, and I’ll be okay. They will have to physically march me out of the office.”Many of Ortiz’s colleagues have children to support and protect, which puts them in a more difficult position than her to speak out, Ortiz acknowledged. She said her legal education and American citizenship also put her in a position to be able to make change.Her parents, who came to the United States from Puerto Rico in the 1950s with limited English skills, ingrained in her the value of standing up for others. Their firsthand experience with the Civil Rights Movement, and her own experience growing up in mostly white spaces in Garden City on Long Island, primed Ortiz to defend herself and others.“It’s in my DNA,” she said. “I will use every shred of privilege that I have to lean into this.”Ortiz received her undergraduate degree at Columbia University, and her law degree at Fordham University. She knew she wanted to become a judge ever since her high school mock tial as a Supreme Court justice.Civil rights has been a throughline in her career, and Ortiz said she was “super excited” when she landed her job at the EEOC.“This is how I wanted to finish up my career,” she said. “We’ll see if that happens.” The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Claire Savage, Associated Press
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