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“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.”

-- Frederick Douglass

News and Opinion

Zionism Is Strangling Free Speech In Australia

A Palestinian-Australian man has been criminally charged for voicing criticisms of Zionism during a protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. He could spend months in prison.

The Age reports that restaurant owner Hash Tayeh has been charged with four counts of “using insulting words in public” for repeatedly uttering the phrase “all Zionists are terrorists” at a pro-Palestine rally in Melbourne last year. According the The Age’s Chris Vedelago, the punishment for this crime of political speech is “up to two months in prison for a first offence and six months for three or more offences.”

“It is believed to be the first time that potential political speech has been deemed a criminal offence that breached the ‘insulting’ law,” Vedelago reports, adding, “The charges are normally levied for using abusive or obscene language against police officers.”

You really couldn’t ask for a better illustration of the authoritarian dystopia that Australia has become than a news report about a man getting criminally charged for normal political speech with a law that is normally used to jail people who speak impolitely to the police.

Deeply concerning that @VictoriaPolice is seeking to criminalise political rhetoric. Dangerous.https://t.co/dKNC1E9GqW

— Greg Barns SC (@BarnsGreg) March 8, 2025

These charges for speech crimes against Zionism follow a controversial assertion made last year by Australia’s attorney-general Mark Dreyfus:

“The label Zionist is used, not in any way, accurately. When critics use that word, they actually mean Jew. They’re not really saying Zionist, they’re saying Jew because they know that they cannot say Jew, so they say Zionist or words [such as] Zeo or Zio.”

Dreyfus might want to have a chat with outgoing Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who just made headlines by proudly proclaiming “I am a Zionist” at his final press conference on Thursday.

Trudeau is not Jewish, nor is genocidal war criminal Joe Biden, who is on record saying on numerous occasions some variation of “I’m a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist.”

Not all Jews are Zionists, and most Zionists are not Jewish. Zionism is a political ideology which upholds the western decision to drop an abusive apartheid ethnostate on top of a pre-existing civilization in historic Palestine and defend it by any amount of violence and tyranny necessary, and the majority of the people you see defending this status quo are westerners with no connection to the Jewish faith. The cult of Christian Zionism alone outnumbers the world’s Jewish population by about two to one.

It is therefore wildly incorrect to conflate Zionism with Judaism, and it is also highly immoral. People who do this are assigning all Jews the blame for Israel’s abuses, when the blame actually lies with the state of Israel and its western backers. As much as Israel apologists shriek and moan about “antisemitism” when they really mean supporting Palestinians, the real antisemitism problem in our society is the way our ruling institutions keep lumping all Jews in with the abuses of a genocidal apartheid state and the western empire which supports it.

PM Justin Trudeau says “no one in Canada should ever be afraid to call themselves Zionists, I am a Zionist”
pic.twitter.com/5xYkmvg4jc

— The Saviour (@stairwayto3dom) March 7, 2025

That’s all the imaginary “antisemitism” crisis is, in reality: people conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. If you declare that anti-Zionism is antisemitism and then Zionism starts butchering children by the tens of thousands in a genocidal onslaught, you are naturally going to see a rapid rise in “antisemitism” as you have defined it. It’s a fallacious narrative used to justify the strangulation of political speech we are seeing today.

We’re seeing that strangulation surge ahead in Australia with the McCarthyite witch hunt against pro-Palestinian voices, and in a decision by Australian universities to espouse a definition of “antisemitism” which is so speech-suppressing that it has been denounced by Amnesty International.

We are also seeing Zionism strangling free speech throughout the western world. German police are routinely assaulting pro-Palestine demonstrators. Pro-Palestinian journalists are being persecuted with increasing aggression in the UK and throughout Europe. In the US the Trump administration is working to stomp out pro-Palestine protests on university campuses while using AI to compile lists of people suspected of expressing support for Hamas on social media.

Almost every day we’re seeing some new escalation in the western empire’s efforts to stomp out speech that is critical of Israel. Westerners need to understand that we have moved far beyond the point where Israel is a threat only to middle eastern lives: it’s a threat to us all, because the western governments who support it are stomping out our basic freedoms with increasing aggression in order to silence all criticisms of its abuses.

Even if you didn’t have enough compassion to oppose Israel and its western backers because of their genocidal atrocities in the middle east, at this point you need to start opposing them out of sheer self-preservation. This isn’t just about foreigners overseas anymore: it’s about you. Your rights. Your freedom to voice your political opinions.

Zionism is a threat to civil rights everywhere. Zionism threatens us all.

Judge Napolitano w/ Prof. Aleksandr Dugin {Moscow, Russia} - pt.1

Israel to cut off electricity in Gaza in apparent effort to force hand of Hamas

Israel is to cut off any remaining electricity supplies to Gaza in an apparent attempt to ramp up pressure on Hamas amid increasingly chaotic multi-track negotiations over the fragile ceasefire in the territory. The potential consequences of the Israeli decision for the 2.3 million residents of the devastated Palestinian territory are unclear, as most rely on diesel-fuelled generators for power.

But humanitarian officials in Gaza contacted on Sunday afternoon said they thought the two functioning desalination plants would be forced to shut down, reducing the already meagre supply of clean water. Others have suggested the remaining sewage treatment plant could be affected.

In a video announcing the directive, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister, said that Israel would use “all means available … to ensure the return of all Israeli hostages” and that Hamas would not remain in Gaza after the war.

Hamas accused Israel of “cheap and unacceptable blackmail” over its decision. “We strongly condemn the occupation’s decision to cut off electricity to Gaza, after depriving it of food, medicine and water,” Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said in a statement, adding it was “a desperate attempt to pressure our people and their resistance through cheap and unacceptable blackmail tactics”.

Israel is seeking to force Hamas to accept an extension until mid-April of the first phase of the ceasefire, which came into effect in mid-January but ended formally last weekend. Israel has already cut off all supplies of goods to the territory, claiming that Hamas was stealing aid and profiting from its distribution. Israel has also intensified strikes in Gaza, while military officials have briefed local and international journalists that preparations for a major offensive are under way.

As Israel Pulls Plug on Gaza, Smotrich Says Trump's Ethnic Cleansing Plan 'Taking Shape'

Israel's finance minister said Sunday that U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is proceeding, remarks that came on the same day as Israel completely cut off electricity from the last receiving facility in the obliterated Palestinian enclave.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of the far-right Religious Zionism party told fellow Knesset lawmakers that "this plan is taking shape, with ongoing actions in coordination" with the Trump administration.

Smotrich said that he is working with Cabinet members including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to establish a "migration administration" that will oversee the removal of an indeterminate number of Gaza's approximately 2.1 million people, most of whom are descendants of Palestinians who fled or were ethnically cleansed from what is now Israel during the modern Jewish state's founding in 1948.

While Smotrich insisted that Palestinian removal would be "voluntary," it is highly questionable whether many Palestinians would leave what remains of their homeland of their own free will, or what kind of incentives it would take to convince them to go.

Last month, Trump—who on Wednesday threatened to kill everyone in Gaza unless Hamas handed over the dozens of remaining Israeli and other hostages it has held for over 500 days—vowed that the U.S. would "own" Gaza.

U.S. developers, the president said, will "level" Gaza and build the "Riviera of the Middle East" there after Palestinians—"all of them"—leave. Asked if his plan involved sending U.S. troops to Gaza, Trump replied, "If it's necessary, we'll do that."

Forced removal of people by an occupying power is a war crime according to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, under which Israel's apartheid settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are also illegal.

Smotrich said Sunday that the so-called Trump Plan "involves identifying key countries, understanding their interests—both with the U.S. and with us—and fostering cooperation."

"Just to give you an idea—if we remove 10,000 people a day, seven days a week, it will take six months," Smotrich said. "If we remove 5,000 people a day, it will take a year. Of course, this is assuming we have countries willing to take them, but these are very, very, very long processes."

Leaders of both Egypt and Jordan, where Trump has
proposed sending Gazans, vehemently oppose the plan. A counterproposal issued by Egypt and other Arab nations—which involves rebuilding Gaza without forcibly displacing its residents—has the support of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation and nations including China, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy.

Smotrich's remarks came on the same day that Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said that he "just signed an order for the immediate halt of electricity to the Gaza Strip" as part of a policy to use "all of the tools that are at our disposal to ensure the return of all the hostages."

GENOCIDE ALERT! Israel cutting off electricity supplies to Gaza means, among others, no functioning desalination stations, ergo: no clean water.
STILL NO SANCTION/NO ARMS EMBARGO against Israel means, among others, AIDING AND ASSISTING Israel in the commission of one of the… https://t.co/x2cX4MuP0K

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) March 9, 2025

Smotrich weighed in on the power cut, arguing that "the Gaza Strip must be completely and immediately blacked out as long as even one Israeli hostage is being held there."

Israeli officials believe 24 hostages are still alive in Gaza, including 22 Israelis, one Thai, and one Nepali. The bodies of 35 hostages who died or were killed after their abduction are also being held in Gaza.

"Israel must bomb the huge fuel depots that entered the strip as part of the unfortunate deal, as well as the generators operated by Hamas," Smotrich said, referring to the crumbling cease-fire that went into effect on January 19. Israel stands accused of nearly 1,000 violations of the truce.

In recent days, renewed but limited Israeli airstrikes and statements from Israeli leaders about resuming a full assault on Gaza have further imperiled the shaky cease-fire.

Electricity was first cut off to Gaza in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, as then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a "complete siege" of the coastal strip. The ongoing blockade has fueled deadly starvation, disease, and exposure.

Along with Israel's bombardment and invasion—which have left more than 170,000 Palestinians dead, maimed or missing in Gaza—the siege is cited in the South Africa-led genocide case currently before the International Court of Justice. Netanyahu and Gallant are also wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri is also a fugitive from the ICC.

Humanitarian groups warned that the suspension of electricity to Gaza could force the shutdown of the strip's two functioning desalination plants, reducing the already scarce supply of fresh water.

However, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem said Sunday that the electricity cutoff probably wouldn't have much impact, given the existing siege. But Qassem still called the move "behavior that confirms the occupation's intent to continue its genocidal war against Gaza, through the use of starvation policies, in clear disregard for all international laws and norms."

Hamas further slammed the Israeli move as "cheap and unacceptable blackmail."

In the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned what it called "Israel's latest act of genocide in Gaza."

"By openly trying to starve and freeze an entire civilian population to death, the far-right government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu has once again clearly demonstrated its genocidal intent in Gaza," CAIR said in a statement. "Banning food, water, fuel, medical supplies—and now electricity—threatens the lives of everyone in Gaza."

"The United States and other western nations must stop treating Palestinians as less than human and stop giving this one government impunity as it flagrantly violates international law," the group added.

Jonathan Cook: Israeli Hostages & the Ceasefire

Those of us who keep banging on about Israel’s use of the so-called Hannibal directive on Oct. 7, 2023, — in which Israel killed its own citizens to stop them being taken captive by Hamas — have been smeared as excusing Hamas crimes that day. That is not why we flag the issue. In part, it is because some of the most horrifying images from Oct. 7 of charred bodies and wrecked cars and homes in Israel — adduced as evidence of an especial barbarism that is supposedly typical of Palestinians — were almost certainly caused by Israel invoking its scorched-earth directive that day.

Those images became central to the propaganda blitz launched by Israel and its apologists to justify the mass slaughter of Gaza’s children over the subsequent 17 months. But there is also a far more urgent and pressing reason to keep our attention focused on the role of the Hannibal directive. And it relates to what is happening right now.

Israel and the U.S. are still applying the Hannibal directive — against the Israeli captives held in Gaza. The point of the directive has always been to stop the enemy being able to use Israeli hostages as leverage to draw Israel into negotiations — primarily to pressure it to hand over any of the thousands of Palestinian hostages it holds in its prison-torture camps. Many of them have never been charged or tried.

Israel and the U.S. tell us they need to carpet bomb Gaza — in what amounts to a “plausible” genocide, according to the world’s highest court — to force Hamas to return the Israeli captives. But in fact, Israel and the U.S. are recklessly killing those very same captives through their actions. Why? So they don’t have to negotiate over a ceasefire. So they can carry on with the genocide, without pressure to deal with the fate of the Israelis held in Gaza.

It was exactly the same reckless approach on Oct. 7, when Israel showed it was indifferent as to whether Israelis lived or died so long as they weren’t taken captive.

Mahmoud Khalil: ICE Detains Green Card Holder over Columbia University Gaza Activism

Ice arrests Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia protests, lawyer says

A prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s student encampment movement was arrested on Saturday night by federal immigration authorities who claimed they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card, according to his attorney.

Mahmoud Khalil was at his university-owned apartment, blocks from the private Ivy League university’s main campus in New York when several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents entered the building and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press.

One of the agents told Greer by phone that they were executing a state department order to revoke Khalil’s student visa. Informed by the attorney that Khalil, who graduated last December, was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card, the agent said they were revoking that too, according to the lawyer.

The arrest comes as Donald Trump vows to deport foreign students and imprison “agitators” involved in protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Zelensky House of Cards in KURSK crumbles

Entire families reportedly killed in fighting in north-west Syria, UN says

The UN has condemned what it called “extremely disturbing” reports of entire families being killed in north-west Syria as clashes between security forces and Assad regime loyalists resulted in the country’s highest death toll since the start of its revolution in 2011.

The UN commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, called on Sunday for investigations into the killings and for perpetrators to be held accountable. “We are receiving extremely disturbing reports of entire families, including women, children and hors de combat [surrendered] fighters, being killed,” he said in a statement. “The killing of civilians in coastal areas in north-west Syria must cease, immediately.”

Fighting began on Thursday after fighters loyal to the ousted Assad regime ambushed security forces in Jableh, in the coastal Latakia province, sparking a wave of revenge attacks, including against civilians belonging to the minority Alawite sect. Clashes erupted once again on Sunday after security forces were attacked by Assad loyalists at a power plant in Banias, Latakia.

To crush the rebellion, the Syrian government called for reinforcements, with thousands of fighters converging on Syria’s coast from all over the country. Though fighters are nominally under the auspices of the new Syrian government, militias still persist, some of which have been implicated in past human rights abuses and are relatively undisciplined.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that more than 1,000 people had been killed in the attack, including 745 civilians, 125 members of Syrian security forces and 148 Assad loyalists.

Alastair Crooke : European Elites In Trouble

Călin Georgescu barred from Romanian presidential election re-run

Romania’s central election authority has barred far-right pro-Russia [Pro-Russia, really Guardian? Sheesh! -js] candidate Călin Georgescu from running in May’s presidential election re-run. The rejection of his candidacy, which was announced on Sunday evening and was condemned by far-right party leaders as undemocratic, can be challenged at the constitutional court. ...

Members of US President Donald Trump’s administration called Romania’s cancelled election an example of European governments suppressing freedom of speech and political opponents.

Mark Carney to be next Canada PM after winning Liberal leadership race

Mark Carney, the former central banker who oversaw the response to financial crises in North America and the UK, will become the next prime minister of Canada after winning the race to lead the country’s federal Liberal party.

Carney, 59, takes on the role as Canada is locked in a potentially catastrophic trade war with the US, long its closest ally and largest trading partner. Last week Donald Trump announced a 25% tax on all Canadian goods, with a carveout for the automotive and energy sectors. The tariffs have the power to push Canada’s fragile economy in a recession.

“America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form,” Carney told supporters, laying bare the existential crisis that has outraged Canadians, riven the longstanding relationship with the US, and promises to be the overarching theme in his tenure as prime minister. ...

With 85.9% of the vote, Carney beat the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, the former government house leader Karina Gould and the former member of parliament Frank Baylis.

Trump REFUSES To Rule Out Recession: 'Period Of Transition'

Trump doesn’t rule out US recession amid trade tariffs

Donald Trump on Sunday refused to rule out the possibility that the US economy will head into recession this year and that inflation will rise, as his chaotic trade tariffs policy cause uncertainty and market turbulence. The US president predicted that his economic goals would take time and a period of transition to bear fruit. But when asked in an interview with the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures “are you expecting a recession this year?” he demurred.

“I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of, it takes a little time. It takes a little time, but I think it should be great for us,” Trump said.

When asked whether he thought his tariffs on US imports would fuel inflation, he said: “You may get it. In the meantime, guess what? Interest rates are down.”

He downplayed recent stock market volatility that followed his ducking and weaving over tariff policy on exports from Canada, Mexico and China and similar threats to other countries, despite his usual fixation with market performance in relation to the politics of the day and an appetite to claim credit when stocks rise on his watch. “You have to do what’s right,” he said.

Last week the Atlanta Federal Reserve suggested that the US economy is on course to contract in the first quarter, triggering fears a recession could hit the world’s largest economy if weakness persisted and fueling stock market jitters.

Vandalism, Gun Shots, Arson?! Protestors Across Country, Europe Target TESLA; Elon Musk RESPONDS

February job cuts hit highest monthly level in 5 years under impact of Trump’s mass firings

The Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers resulted in February being the worst month for announced job cuts since July 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a report released Thursday by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, February saw 172,017 job cuts, a 245 percent increase from the 49,795 cuts announced one month prior and the highest total for the month of February since 2009, in the wake of the Wall Street financial crash.

Federal workers accounted for the largest portion of February’s total, with 62,242 announced job cuts across 17 different agencies. The total of 221,812 job cuts so far this year is the highest year-to-date total since 2009. The technology sector continues to supply a large portion of the job cuts, with 14,554 announced in February and 22,042 for the year. However, retail eclipsed that number, experiencing a staggering 38,956 job cut announcements for a total of 45,375 for the year. This is a 572 percent increase from the 6,751 retail job cuts in the first two months of 2024. ...

The February numbers are only a fraction of the cuts in the pipeline. Trump’s plans to fire 200,000 federal probationary employees have been put on temporary hold by a court ruling.

The Challenger report came ahead of Friday’s monthly US Department of Labor jobs report, which showed a lower than expected 151,000 jobs created in February as compared to the predicted 170,000 and a rise in the unemployment rate from 4.0 percent to 4.1 percent. The report for February was compiled too late to reflect the real impact of Trump’s mass firings of federal workers.

FBI Due to Release List of Seth Rich Files Monday

According to a court order of August 2024, the F.B.I. is to release a list of the files it is holding from the laptops of slain DNC staffer Seth Rich on Monday.

Rich was murdered on a Washington D.C. street on July 10, 2016, 12 days before WikiLeaks released its DNC emails and 15 days before the start of the DNC convention on July 25, 2016. ...

The F.B.I. was sued in a FOIA case to release the contents of both Rich’s work and personal laptops. In November 2023 a federal court in Texas ruled that the F.B.I. had improperly withheld the contents of Rich’s computers.

In dismissing the bureau’s bid to dismiss the case, District Judge Amos L. Mazzant, III ordered on Aug. 15, 2024 that the F.B.I. must produce a so-called Vaughn Index, showing what files it has and the reason why they won’t be made public. The deadline is tomorrow, March 10. The F.B.I. had been originally told to hand over the list in November 2023.

Tim Walz SPILLS THE TEA On Kamala Failures

Republican leadership tells party to stop holding public events – what impact will that have?

After Roger Marshall, a senator from Kansas, was hounded out of his own town hall event last week, Republican party leaders had had enough. Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, and Richard Hudson, the chair of the GOP’s fundraising body, decided the embarrassment had to end, and they told Republicans to stop holding the public events.

But while that might save some Republican politicians from public humiliation, it could also deprive Americans of opportunities to interact with their elected officials, experts said, and prevent people from letting their representatives they are not happy with the increasingly divisive direction of the Trump administration.

“It’s certainly a unique view of representation that representatives should hear only from constituents who agree with them,” said Marjorie Hershey, professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University Bloomington.

“But it’s entirely in keeping with the recent direction of the Republican party: to become more and more extreme because they listen only to their far-right base.”

Johnson and Hudson’s edict came after several Republican town halls were interrupted in recent weeks. Scott Fitzgerald, a four-year congressman, faced an angry crowd at an event in West Bend, Wisconsin, in late February. Fitzgerald was repeatedly booed as he defended the role of Elon Musk, in particular.

Video PROVES Democrats Are Useless And Out Of Ideas!

‘A new phase’: why climate activists are turning to sabotage instead of protest

Five years ago, climate activists from Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the school strikes movement believed getting huge numbers of people on the streets could persuade the powerful to change course on the climate crisis. Then protesters from groups such as Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil (JSO) put their bodies and freedom on the line to disrupt business as usual, in an effort to concentrate minds. Now, with climate breakdown worsening and fossil fuel emissions showing no signs of peaking, let alone abating, some say it is time to escalate the campaign of disruption, by carrying out clandestine acts of sabotage against the corporations they see as responsible for the destruction of the climate. ...

The Guardian spoke over the Signal encrypted messaging service to an activist from STS [Shut the System]. He did not reveal his identity and the Guardian was unable to verify his claims. He said new laws further criminalising disruptive protests had made traditional, accountable methods of activism increasingly unsustainable, and a clandestine approach increasingly attractive. He pointed to the case of activists from JSO who received sentences of four and five years – reduced on Friday after an appeal – for organising road blocks on the M25.

“If you want to do anything that is disruptive, the penalty is pretty massive now, and so these draconian laws mean it is hard to get very much pressure … by following the kind of things that [Extinction Rebellion] and JSO have done in the past, because people will be arrested and put away for a long time,” he said. “You can’t just keep doing that … The actual number of people who are committed to risk jail time to do this are pretty small in number.”

STS is not the first group to take clandestine direct action against fossil fuel targets. In 2022, unknown activists targeted a pipeline being built to funnel jet fuel from Southampton to west London, cutting holes in the pipe and severing hydraulic cables on a construction vehicle. This month, another group claimed responsibility for drilling holes in the tyres of more than 100 SUVs parked at Land Rover dealerships in Cornwall – a repeat of an action carried out last year. ...

But it is in France that the tactic has been most widely used, with actions ranging from activists filling the holes in golf courses with cement to a full-scale riot when a crowd descended on the construction site of an agricultural reservoir in the country’s drought-stricken south, intent on dismantling it. Andreas Malm, an associate professor of human ecology at Lund University, said: “France really is the one case in recent years … where you’ve had a radical mass movement that has actually been quite successful – and this is the only movement that has also deployed sabotage consistently as a tactic.”

CRITICAL Free Speech Case Unfolding In N. Dakota! w/ Steven Donziger

Trump administration to drop case against plant polluting Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’

The Donald Trump administration has formally agreed to drop a landmark environmental justice case in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” region, marking a blow to clean air advocates in the region and a win for the Japanese petrochemical giant at the centre of the litigation. Legal filings made public on Friday morning reveal that Trump’s Department of Justice agreed to dismiss a long-running lawsuit against the operators of a synthetic rubber plant in Reserve, Louisiana, which is allegedly largely responsible for some of the highest cancer risk rates in the US for the surrounding majority-Black neighborhoods.

The litigation was filed under the Biden administration in February 2023 in a bid to substantially curb the plant’s emissions of a pollutant named chloroprene, a likely human carcinogen. It had targeted both the current operator, the Japanese firm Denka, and its previous owner, the American chemical giant DuPont, and formed a central piece of the former administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) efforts to address environmental justice issues in disadvantaged communities. A trial had been due to start in April 2025 following lengthy delays.

Community leaders in Reserve had expressed grave concerns about the case’s future following Trump’s return to the White House after the president moved to gut offices within the EPA and justice department responsible for civil rights and environmental justice. On Friday, 84-year-old Robert Taylor, a resident in Reserve who has lost a number of family members to cancer, described the move as “terrible” for his community. “It’s obvious that the Trump administration doesn’t care anything for the poor Black folk in Cancer Alley,” Taylor said. “[Trump’s] administration has taken away what protections we had, what little hope we had.” ...

In a statement released on Friday evening, the justice department said the dismissal was made in compliance with an executive order issued by Trump targeting “wasteful government” and “DEI programs” aimed to “eliminate ideological overreach and restore impartial enforcement of federal laws”.

Tree loss from hurricane leaves Asheville vulnerable to new climate shocks

The city of Asheville and its surrounding areas have been left vulnerable to floods, fires and extreme heat after Hurricane Helene uprooted thousands of trees that provided shade and protection from storms. Helene was catastrophic for the region’s trees – in part due to the heavy precursor rainstorm that pounded southern Appalachia for two days straight, drenching the soil before Helene hit, bringing yet more heavy rain and 60-100mph winds.

The category 4 storm caused severe damage to more than 400,000 acres of forest in rural areas of western North Carolina alone, stripping entire mountainsides bare, according to the latest assessment by the US Forest Service. Almost half the forest in Mitchell county was severely damaged, as was about 30% in Ashe and Watauga and 17% in Buncombe county. The extent of the tree damage is “extraordinary and humbling”, according to Steve Norman, a research ecologist who conducted the assessment using remote sensing satellites at the Forest Service’s Southern Research Centre.

The damage count does not, however, include urban areas like Asheville, a city in Buncombe county which suffered unprecedented large-scale tree failures leaving some streets and neighborhoods completely bare. Asheville is among the fastest-growing small US cities, with many drawn to the city’s art scene and claims that it was a climate haven. Yet tree cover was already declining even before Helene – the city lost 6.8% of its tree canopy between 2008 and 2018, according to one study, while the population grew by 10%.

Then Helene, the most powerful storm to hit southern Appalachia in decades, submerged Asheville’s River Arts District along the French Broad River, and Marshall, another artsy town, both in flood water. The river is now a silty eroded mess, with little vegetation to protect the land from future storms, flanked by piles of tree debris. In all, more than 800,000 acres of forestland were damaged, and in some cases flattened entirely, throughout 17 counties in western North Carolina. This includes about 20% of the state’s national forest, leaving lots of kindling-like vegetation on the ground that could fuel fires – and fewer trees to slow winds down, according to Norman, who was speaking at a public event in January before Elon Musk fired 10% – 3,400 – of US Forest Service staff.

“The fire risk is a huge concern,” warned Norman. Last week the North Carolina forest service listed 176 fires spanning more than 3,300 acres – the largest in Polk county in the western part of the state.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

America 2025

Atlantic: When We Ignore Its Attrition Ukraine Wins

How Trump’s $2B Court Battle Over Foreign Aid Could Reshape Executive Authority

Patrick Lawrence: The Epstein Follies

Elon - Rubio SHOUTING MATCH Over DOGE Power

Republican CIVIL WAR Over Trump Iran Negotiations

A Little Night Music

Billy Boy Arnold - I Ain't Got You

Billy Boy Arnold - I Was Fooled

Billy Boy Arnold - I Ain't Got No Money / Hello Stranger

Billy Boy Arnold - Going Back to Arkansas

Billy Boy Arnold - Goin' By The River

Billy Boy Arnold - My Little Machine

Billy Boy Arnold, Matt Guitar Murphy & Joe Louis Walker - Rebecca

Billy Boy Arnold - Just a little bit

Billy Boy Arnold ~ I Wish You Would

Billy Boy Arnold - Shake The Boogie