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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Mound City Blue Blowers

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features kazoo-driven jazz group Mound City Blue Blowers. Enjoy!

^{Mound City Blue Blowers - St. Louis Blues}

"Right wingers are like “No no you don’t understand, Israel is protecting western civilization. If we don’t help Israel genocide the Palestinians and starve their children and burn their babies and bomb their hospitals and demolish their cities, one day we could wind up ruled by evil murderous savages.”"

-- Caitlin Johnstone

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News and Opinion

Only Liars And Manipulators Say Gaza Isn’t Starving

Israeli news outlet Haaretz has published a harrowing report on starvation in Gaza which further discredits the Israeli narrative that the photos of skeletal children we’ve been seeing are antisemitic Hamas propaganda, for anyone who’s still clinging to delusions about such things.

Haaretz reporters were taken by doctors on video tours of hospitals in Gaza, conducting interviews with numerous medical personnel and obtaining many photos of civilians showing signs of extreme starvation. Throughout the report we encounter story after story of severely emaciated children, mothers unable to breastfeed starving babies because of their own starvation, people with preexisting conditions severely exacerbated by malnutrition, diseases spreading due to crippled healthcare infrastructure and ruined immune systems, and wounds failing to heal due to inadequate food intake.

The article is one of the more uncomfortable things I’ve seen throughout the entirety of this genocide, and that’s saying something.

“What we saw there left no room for doubt about the scale of the horror,” write Haaretz reporters Yarden Michaeli and Nir Hasson.

“Seventeen youngsters had deteriorated into a state of severe malnutrition without preexisting health conditions; 10 suffered from previous illnesses,” they write, saying “Anyone who claims that the images of starvation in the Gaza Strip are a result of acute genetic or other diseases, and not due to a grave shortage of food, are lying to themselves.”

The tour of Nasser Hospital lasted about an hour. Dr. Ahmed al-Farra went from bed to bed, while another member of the hospital staff held the camera. We saw children whose bodies were blighted by hunger, with bones jutting out @YardenMichaeli & @nirhasson https://t.co/gBTGdvjLea

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) August 23, 2025

This comes as the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) formally declares that the people of Gaza are suffering from a famine that “is entirely man-made”, which must be halted and reversed with extreme urgency.

Israel has of course denounced the IPC’s findings as antisemitic Hamas propaganda, with the Israeli Foreign Ministry saying that “The entire IPC document is based on Hamas lies laundered through organizations with vested interests,” and Benjamin Netanyahu branding the report “a modern blood libel, spreading like wildfire through prejudice.”

You might find this response ridiculous, and of course it is, but really, what else does Israel have left? When all major human rights institutions are accusing you of horrific crimes, your only options are either (A) admit the obvious fact that there’s no way every single mainstream humanitarian organization is lying about your actions, or (B) claim that they’re all in on a giant globe-spanning conspiracy because of a nefarious prejudice against your religion.

Of course they’re going to go with (B). This is Israel we’re talking about, after all.

YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST WATCH THE FULL 3min!

UN emergency coordinator @TFletcher says people should read the IPC report about the Israeli-made famine in Gaza "in sorrow and in anger."

"Be in no doubt that this is irrefutable testimony. It is a famine that we could have prevented."… pic.twitter.com/tEGfV3e0gC

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) August 22, 2025

When a nation keeps having to publish denials that it is intentionally starving civilians, you can safely assume it’s because that nation is intentionally starving civilians. If you saw someone on social media loudly denying the latest allegations that they are a child molester over and over again for two years, you probably wouldn’t let them babysit your kids.

I have never once felt the need to publish a denial that I am intentionally starving people, because I have never intentionally starved anyone. It’s not something I’ve ever found myself needing to say even one time, let alone many many times constantly.

You don’t see the government of Ireland constantly denying that Ireland is intentionally starving civilians, because Ireland is not intentionally starving civilians.

You don’t see pro-China spinmeisters frantically churning out propaganda denying that China is intentionally starving civilians, because China is not intentionally starving civilians.

You don’t see Brazilian internet trolls aggressively swarming the comments of anyone who says Brazil is intentionally starving civilians, because Brazil is not intentionally starving civilians.

You don’t see the Pakistani government paying social media influencers to assert on their platforms that Pakistan is not intentionally starving civilians, because Pakistan is not intentionally starving civilians.

You see an intense campaign of narrative management aimed at denying that Israel has been intentionally starving civilians because Israel is intentionally starving civilians. That’s why all the constant government denials, the endless propaganda and spin pieces and PR stunts, and relentless online trolling operations have been necessary.

An "antisemitic famine libel" -- The Free Press of Israel has sunk about as low as you can sink when it comes to atrocity and genocide denialism. They belong on trial at the Hague.

Actual journalists at Haaretz today extensively document mass child famine: https://t.co/rrLhf5X0a4 pic.twitter.com/odaZ4DBWAz

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) August 22, 2025

Most Israel apologia at this point is just people pretending to believe things they don’t really believe. Palestinians aren’t really being starved. Gaza looks like a gravel parking lot because Hamas put explosives in all the buildings. The IDF has a low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio. Gaza’s entire healthcare infrastructure was destroyed because Hamas was hiding under all the hospitals. Nobody actually believes these things. They’re just pretending to believe them in order to justify genocidal atrocities and help ensure that they continue.

They’re really the worst people in the world.

Krystal EXPOSES Israel's Modern Day Holocaust Denial

U.N. Declares Famine in Gaza, UNICEF Demands Aid Access

‘No place is safe’: families flee Gaza City as Israel vows to press on with offensive

Israeli aircraft and tanks have pounded the eastern and northern outskirts of Gaza City, destroying buildings and homes, as Israeli leaders vowed to press on with an expanded large-scale offensive on the city. Witnesses reported the sound of continuous explosions overnight from Saturday night into Sunday morning in the areas of Zeitoun and Shejaia. Meanwhile, tanks shelled houses and roads in the nearby Sabra neighbourhood and several buildings were blown up in the northern area of Jabaliya.

Fire lit the skies from the direction of the explosions, causing panic and prompting some families to stream out of the city. Other residents said they would prefer to die and not leave. About half of Gaza’s roughly 2 million people currently live in Gaza City. A few thousand have already left, carrying their belongings on vehicles and rickshaws. ...

Israel approved a plan earlier this month for an expanded military offensive to seize control of Gaza City. It is not expected to move forces into the largely destroyed city centre for a few weeks, leaving room for mediators Egypt and Qatar to try to resume ceasefire talks. Still, Israeli forces have bombed the city and surrounding areas, and said on Sunday that forces had returned to combat in the Jabaliya area in recent days.

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, on Sunday vowed to press on with the offensive, which has raised alarm abroad and objections at home. On Friday, Katz said that Gaza City would be razed unless Hamas militants agreed to end the war on Israel’s terms and release all the hostages it still holds. Hamas said in a statement on Sunday that Israel’s plan to take over Gaza City showed it was not serious about a ceasefire. It said a ceasefire agreement was “the only way to return the hostages”, holding the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, responsible for their lives.

UN-backed experts declared on Friday that an “entirely man-made” famine is taking place in Gaza’s largest city and its surrounding area amid deteriorating conditions that threaten increasing deaths across the devastated territory. “This famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed,” the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said. “The time for debate and hesitation has passed, starvation is present and is rapidly spreading … If a ceasefire is not implemented to allow humanitarian aid to reach everyone in the Gaza Strip, and if essential food supplies and basic health, nutrition and [sanitation and water] services are not restored immediately, avoidable deaths will increase exponentially.”

Israel Bombs Another Hospital, Kills 5 More Journalists in Gaza

Palestinian Boys Allege Sexual Assault, Torture by Israeli Jailers

Palestinian teenagers kidnapped and imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces during the genocidal war on Gaza accused their jailers of torturing and sexually assaulting them in a report published Saturday by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"They took me from the aid distribution site and transferred me to a hospital in Rafah, where I was interrogated for an hour," one 16-year-old boy identified by his first name Sami, who was abducted on June 29, told ABC. "They stripped me and conducted a body search. Then, they loaded me into a jeep and transported me to a prison in Israel."

"During the interrogations, they tortured us—handcuffing us, beating us with sticks, and using electric shocks," the teen continued. "They did countless things to break us."

"I was tortured for a week until I lost all sense of time and awareness," Sami said. "They put me in a one-square-meter cell, where I spent the entire week. I never saw daylight, never stepped outside. They only came to deliver food."

The tide is finally turning in the struggle to get stories like this on air.

‘Palestinian teenagers allege they were sexually abused and tortured in Israeli custody’ - ABC News https://t.co/MSKyRBYkbi

— Peter Cronau (@PeterCronau) August 24, 2025

"They asked if I knew anyone from Hamas, and whether I had crossed over on October 7," Sami recounted. "They kept pressing me about who I knew and who I had seen. I told them I was just walking down the street—I didn't know anything."

"They would beat me. Each person that talked to me would beat me," the teen alleged. "I was handcuffed, blindfolded, and they put electricity in my legs."

Mahmoud, age 17, said that his Israeli abductors "began hurling insults, cursing at us, and accusing us of being with Hamas."

"They stripped us of our clothes and took us to Kerem Shalom, completely naked, with nothing," he continued. "There, the beatings and torture began."

"The Israeli women soldiers beat us. They stripped us and 'played' here, and here, and there," Mahmoud said, indicating his genitals. "They beat us with sticks. Got on us while we were lying on the ground. We were handcuffed like that and naked."

Mahmoud said his captors wanted to humiliate him and other teenage boys in custody, accusing the troops of taking nude photos of them and sending female soldiers to mock and touch his body—an especially shameful ordeal for Muslims.

"When I was released from prison, I had a breakdown," Mahmoud said. "I felt mentally exhausted and deeply disgusted. What I witnessed—no one should ever have to see."

"I was tortured, we are children," he added. "What have we done?"

ABC published photographs showing signs of torture on the teens' bodies, including from shackling.

What sexual violence against Palestinians?

When evidence of the rape of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was given to the Israelis they responded by sending the IDF to raid the charity who made the claim, steal their PC's and declare them a terrorist group.pic.twitter.com/O4lBeGRWdi https://t.co/RuMOkjerW6

— Steve W (@StevenGWalker74) February 20, 2024

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) categorically rejected the teens' accusations, saying that "this includes allegations of electric shocks during interrogations, strip-searching detainees for humiliation purposes, or sexual assaults."

However, there have been numerous documented cases of such abuse, most notably at the notorious Sde Teiman torture prison. Israeli physicians who served at Sde Teiman have described widespread severe injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations.

Palestinians taken by Israeli forces have described being raped and sexually assaulted by male and female soldiers, electrocuted, mauled by dogs, soaked with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep, and blasted with loud music. Dozens of detainees have died in Israeli custody, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.

Last year, nine IDF reservists were arrested for allegedly gang-raping a Sde Teiman prisoner, who suffered severe internal injuries in the attack, which was caught on video. Far-right Israelis including government officials subsequently stormed the facility in a bid to free the reservists, and Israeli leaders including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demanded a probe of the video—not to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find and punish whoever leaked it.

Survivors of Israeli abuse have also accused their jailers of bringing Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowing them to watch and record prisoners being tortured.

Gazan doctor Khaled al-Sir told ABC that Sami and Mahmoud's accounts mirrored his own abuse at the hands of Israeli soldiers who imprisoned him for six months last year.

"I witnessed many prisoners who were sexually assaulted using batons in their buttholes and also using the pepper spray over their private parts," al-Sir alleged, adding that there was an area of Sde Teiman that guards called the "hell section," where abuse was particularly severe.

A pair of recent United Nations reports detailed sexual violence, including reproductive and gender-based crimes, perpetrated by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians. The UN has also reported rape and other sexual violence committed by Hamas militants against Israelis during the October 7, 2023 attack and against hostages kidnapped that day.

In January, Israel blocked a request from UN sex crimes experts to probe alleged sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas fighters during the October 7, 2023 attack, reportedly to avoid scrutiny of rapes and other abuses allegedly committed by Israeli forces against imprisoned Palestinians.

Israeli strikes hit Yemen’s capital in retaliation for earlier Houthi attacks

Israeli strikes have hit the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in retaliation for Houthi missiles fired towards Israel, with Houthi health officials saying the attack had killed six people. The strikes on Sunday were the latest in more than a year of direct attacks and counterstrikes between Israel and Houthi militants in Yemen, part of a spillover from the war in Gaza.

The Israeli military said its targets included a military compound housing the presidential palace, two power plants and a fuel storage site. A Houthi health ministry spokesperson said 86 people were also injured, in a final toll posted on X. The Israeli military said: “The strikes were conducted in response to repeated attacks by the Houthi terrorist regime against the State of Israel and its civilians, including the launching of surface-to-surface missiles and UAVs toward Israeli territory in recent days.”

On Friday, the Houthis said they had fired a ballistic missile towards Israel in their latest attack, which they said was in support of Palestinians in Gaza. An Israeli air force official said on Sunday the missile most likely carried several submunitions “intended to be detonated upon impact”.

“This is the first time that this kind of missile has been launched from Yemen,” the official said.

Florida Forcing Local Governments To Give Money To Israel!

France summons US ambassador Charles Kushner over antisemitism allegations

France summoned the American ambassador Charles Kushner after he wrote a letter to President Emmanuel Macron alleging France had failed to do enough to stem antisemitic violence, a French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Sunday. Kushner, who is Jewish and whose son is married to US President Donald Trump’s daughter, published the open letter in the Wall Street Journal amid deep divides between France and the US and Israel. ...

He wrote: “I write out of deep concern over the dramatic rise of antisemitism in France and the lack of sufficient action by your government to confront it... In France, not a day passes without Jews assaulted in the street, synagogues or schools defaced, or Jewish-owned businesses vandalized,” he added.

In the letter, he urged French president Emmanuel Macron to more urgently enforce hate-crime laws and tone down criticism of Israel, saying French government statements about recognising a Palestinian state have fuelled antisemitic incidents in France. While “antisemitism has long scarred French life”, the ambassador argued that hatred of Jews “has exploded since Hamas’s barbaric assault on October 7, 2023,” which triggered the ongoing war in Gaza.

“France firmly refutes these latest allegations,” said a foreign ministry statement in response, hours after the letter’s contents were made public. The Ambassador’s allegations are unacceptable,” the ministry said, adding Kushner would be due to appear on Monday. The ministry said the 1961 Vienna Convention meant ambassadors were not permitted to interfere in a country’s internal affairs. Kushner would be summoned to the foreign ministry on Monday, it added.

Kushner’s letter follows another sent to Macron by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week in which Netanyahu accused Macron of contributing to antisemitism by calling for international recognition of a Palestinian state, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Ray McGovern : Will Trump Say No to Netanyahu?

Russia accuses Ukraine of strike on nuclear plant in wave of drone attacks

Moscow has accused Kyiv of launching dozens of drone attacks, including one that sparked a fire at a nuclear power plant, as Ukrainians marked 34 years since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union.

The drone attack on the Kursk nuclear power plant in western Russia, 37 miles (60km) from the border with Ukraine, caused damage to an auxiliary transformer and forced a 50% reduction in the operating capacity of a reactor, Russian authorities said. Ukraine did not immediately comment on the alleged attack.

The fire sparked by the drone, which was shot down, had been extinguished and there were no casualties or increased radiation levels, the plant said on Sunday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, reported that radiation levels were “normal” near the Kursk plant. The IAEA has repeatedly warned of the risks of fighting near nuclear plants after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Russia’s defence ministry said at least 95 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted across more than a dozen Russian regions on Sunday, when Ukraine celebrated its 1991 declaration of independence.

Larry Johnson : Will Trump Permit More War in Ukraine?

Russia says Europe’s leaders don’t want peace in Ukraine as Vance says US will keep trying

Russia accused western European leaders on Sunday of not wanting peace in Ukraine, as Moscow’s most senior diplomat praised efforts by Donald Trump to end the war, while Vice-President JD Vance said the US would “keep on trying” to broker talks in the absence of a deal. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, made the comments during a sometimes contentious interview on NBC on Sunday morning, during which he denied his country had bombed civilian targets in Ukraine.

Trump, he said, had set himself above European leaders who accompanied Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at the White House last week, immediately after the summit between the US president and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on 15 August. “We want peace in Ukraine. He wants, President Trump wants, peace in Ukraine. The reaction to [the] Anchorage meeting, the gathering in Washington of these European representatives and what they were doing after Washington, indicates that they don’t want peace,” Lavrov said. ...

Lavrov brushed aside Trump’s apparent frustration at the outcome and the US warning of “massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both” against Moscow. He said “yes” when asked if Putin wanted peace and said Putin and Trump respected each other, while assailing the alliance of leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz, Britain’s Keir Starmer and European Union president Ursula von der Leyen who came to the White House last week to bolster Zelenskyy’s visit.

European leaders in recent days have pledged to support security guarantees as part of a peace agreement, although Russia has flatly rejected the prospect of troops from countries in Europe being positioned in Ukraine.

Trump has ruled out sending the US military, and on Friday it was reported that his administration had blocked Ukraine’s use of US-supplied long-range missiles to attack Russia.

Trump diplomacy with Russia w/ Dennis Kucinich

Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from striking deep inside Russia

US defense officials have blocked Ukraine from using US-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia since late spring as part of a Trump administration effort to get Vladimir Putin to engage in peace talks , according to a report on Saturday. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from using US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, or Atacms.

Two US officials told the outlet that on at least one occasion, Ukraine had sought to use Atacms against a target but was denied under a “review mechanism” developed by Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy, that governs how US long-range weapons or those provided by European allies that rely on American intelligence and components can be used. The review process also applies to Britain’s Storm Shadow cruise missile because it depends on US targeting data, according to two US officials and a British official, the Journal said.

The review system reportedly gives US defense secretary Pete Hegseth approval over the use of the Atacms, which have a range of nearly 190 miles (305km). Ukraine was previously given authority by the Biden administration to use the missile system against targets inside Russia in November after North Korean troops entered the war.

Before the inauguration in January, Trump told Time magazine that the decision to allow Ukraine to use US weapons systems to attack targets inside Russia had been a mistake. “I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done,” he said.

It is unclear whether the US defense department’s review process amounts to a formal policy change. But it comes alongside increasing control of munitions to Ukraine as US stocks are themselves depleted.

Alastair Crooke : Trump: The Self-Made Myth

Saagar DEBUNKS Ghislaine Maxwell Transcript LIES

Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s memoir to be published posthumously

The posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most prominent accusers, will be published in the autumn, a publisher has announced. Giuffre had been working on Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice, with the award-winning author and journalist Amy Wallace before her death earlier this year. The 400-page book will be released on 21 October, according to the Associated Press.

Giuffre, who alleged she had been trafficked for sex to Prince Andrew, had completed the manuscript before she took her own life in April, the publisher Alfred A Knopf said. Prince Andrew has denied Giuffre’s allegations. In 2022, Giuffre and the prince reached an out-of-court settlement after she sued him for sexual assault.

Knopf’s statement includes an email Giuffre wrote to Wallace 25 days before her death, stating that it was her “heartfelt wish” the memoir be released “regardless” of her circumstances. “The content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders,” the email reads. “It is imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic are addressed, both for the sake of justice and awareness.”

Giuffre had been hospitalised after a serious accident on 24 March, Knopf said, and sent the email on 1 April. She died on 25 April at her farm in Western Australia, where she had lived for several years. “In the event of my passing, I would like to ensure that Nobody’s Girl is still released. I believe it has the potential to impact many lives and foster necessary discussions about these grave injustices,” she wrote to Wallace.

Knopf’s statement says the book contains “intimate, disturbing, and heartbreaking new details about her time with Epstein, Maxwell and their many well-known friends, including Prince Andrew, about whom she speaks publicly for the first time since their out-of-court settlement in 2022.”

U.S. Citizen & Army Vet Sues Trump Admin over ICE Raid Arrest

Trump ‘manufactured crisis’ to justify plan to send national guard to Chicago, leading Democrat says

Planning is underway to send national guard troops to Chicago, an official at the Pentagon confirmed to ABC News on Sunday. “We won’t speculate on further operations. The Department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel,” a Department of Defense official said, according to ABC.

Earlier on Sunday, Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader and New York Democratic congressman, said Donald Trump has “manufactured a crisis” to justify sending federalized national guard troops into Chicago next, over the heads of local leaders. Jeffries, appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, accused the US president of “playing games with the lives of Americans” with his unprecedented domestic deployment of the military, which has escalated to include the arming of troops currently patrolling Washington, DC – after sending troops into Los Angeles in June.

The mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, said any such plan from Trump was perpetrating “the most flagrant violation of our constitution in the 21st century”.

Late on Friday, Pentagon officials confirmed to Fox News that up to 1,700 men and women of the national guard were poised to mobilize in 19 mostly Republican states to support Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown by assisting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice) with “logistical support and clerical functions”.

Jeffries said he supported a statement issued by the Democratic governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, that Trump was “abusing his power” in talking about sending the national guard to Chicago, and distracting from the pain he said the president was causing American families. The national guard is normally under the authority of the individual states, deployed at the request of the state governor and only federalized – or deployed by the federal government – in a national emergency and at the request of a governor.

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Elise Stefanik LITERALLY BOOED OFF STAGE at Local Event

Zohran Mamdani leads in fundraising for New York City mayoral contest

Zohran Mamdani pulled in almost double the funds of his nearest rivals for New York City mayor between early July and mid-August, as the candidates prepare for the crucial post Labor Day push to the November poll.

New York’s City’s campaign finance board said on Saturday that the democratic socialist, who won the Democratic party nomination in June against former state governor Andrew Cuomo, raised $1,051,200, with an average donation of $121 recorded equally from donors in and outside the state.Cuomo raised $541,301, with an contribution size of $646. The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, running as an independent, raised $425,181, with an average donation of $770. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa brought in $407, 332.

Mamdani’s fundraising dominance is mirrored in a polling advantage. Last week, a Siena poll placed him at 19 points ahead of Cuomo, his nearest rival, who is also running as an independent. A 12-poll average from Decision Desk HQ puts Mamdani ahead of Cuomo by 13 points. Mamdani, who has proposed rent freezes on almost a million rent-stabilized apartments in the city, free buses and childcare, city-run grocery stores, and elevated taxes on Columbia and New York University to subsidize city colleges and trade schools, has been consistently ahead in fundraising over rivals.

In March, he asked his campaign’s grassroots supporters to stop donating, and directed his primary campaign staff to encourage supporters’ focus to volunteering efforts. His campaign funds on hand are put at $4.4m, and his campaign is eligible for $2.2m more in matching public funds.

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States vow to fight Trump official’s stop-work order on offshore wind farm

The Democratic governors of Rhode Island and Connecticut promised on Saturday to fight a Trump administration order halting work on a nearly complete wind farm off their coasts that was expected to be operational next year. The Revolution Wind project was about 80% complete, with 45 of its 65 turbines already installed, according to the Danish wind farm developer Ørsted, when the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sent the firm a letter on Friday ordering it to “halt all ongoing activities”.

“In particular, BOEM is seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests in the United States,” wrote Matt Giacona, the agency’s acting director, adding that Ørsted “may not resume activities” until the agency has completed a review of the project. Giacona said that the project, which had already cleared years of federal and state reviews, now needs to be re-examined in light of Donald Trump’s order, on the first day of his second term, to consider “terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases”.

Giacona, whose prior work as a lobbyist for the offshore oil industry alarmed consumer advocates, also said that the review was necessary to “address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States”. He did not specify what those national security concerns are.

Rhode Island’s governor, Dan McKee, criticized the stop-work order and said he and Connecticut’s governor, Ned Lamont, “will pursue every avenue to reverse the decision to halt work on Revolution Wind”, which was “just steps away from powering more than 350,000 homes”. Senator Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, connected the decision to Trump’s reported pitch last year to oil industry executives to trade $1bn in campaign donations for regulatory favors. “When the oil industry showed up at Mar-a-Lago with a set of demands in exchange for a $1 billion of campaign support for Trump, this is what they were asking for: the destruction of clean energy in America,” Murpy said in a statement.

“This is a story of corruption, plain and simple. President Trump has sold our country out to big corporations with the oil and gas industry at the top of the list,” the senator added. “I will work with my colleagues and Governor Lamont to pursue all legal paths to get this project back on track.”

Wildfires in California and Oregon grow, prompting evacuations and warnings

Wildfires in California wine country and central Oregon grew overnight, prompting hundreds of evacuations as firefighters worked on Sunday to try to contain the blazes amid dry, hot weather.

The Pickett Fire in Napa county had grown to more than 10 sq miles (26 sq km) and was 11% contained as of early Sunday, according to the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection. About 190 people were ordered to leave their homes, while another 360 were under evacuation warnings as the fire threatened about 500 structures near Aetna Springs and Pope Valley, said Jason Clay, spokesman for Calfire Sonoma Lake-Napa Unit.

More than 1,230 firefighters backed by 10 helicopters were battling the fire, which began Thursday after a week of extremely hot weather. Air assets have also been deployed, including multiple helicopters for targeted water drops and air tankers for fire retardant. The cause of the fire was still under investigation. ...

In Oregon, the Flat Fire in Deschutes and Jefferson counties had grown to almost 34 sq miles (88 sq km), with no containment, and threatened nearly 4,000 homes, according to the state Fire Marshal’s Office. About 10,000 people were under some sort of evacuation notice. The fire began Thursday night and grew quickly amid hot, gusty conditions. Fire officials were keeping an eye on isolated thunderstorms in Southern Oregon that could drift north on Sunday, spokesman Chris Schimmer said in a video posted to Facebook. ...

Sunday’s conditions of fighting fires in Oregon include an extreme heat warning, as well as low relative humidities, an unstable air mass as well as temperatures expected to reach triple digits. “Today we’re looking much better, we have high hopes that we can stop the forward progression of this fire,” Perkins said in a Facebook video, adding: “Having said that, we are in a fire fight and the weather’s not that favorable … It’s more favorable for the fire than the firefighters today.”

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Also of Interest

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

Declaration of famine in Gaza lays bare Israel’s disregard for humanitarian duty

Dutch foreign minister quits over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

'Stop the Genocide': Thousands of Israelis Rally Against War and Famine in Gaza

Turkish ports asking ships to declare they are not linked to Israel

More Countries Condemn Trump's 'Imperialist' Saber-Rattling Against Venezuela

This Maine oysterman thinks Democrats are doing ‘jack’ about fascism. So he’s running for US Senate

Will Trump Finally OVERTHROW Maduro?

Putin To China; EU Pledges Ukraine Billions; Merz German Welfare Unaffordable; Kiev Kupiansk Retreat

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A Little Night Music

The Mound City Blue Blowers - I Ain't Got Nobody, My Gal Sal

Mound City Blue Blowers - Deep Second Street Blues

Mound City Blue Blowers - Hello Lola

Mound City Blue Blowers - Red Hot

Mound City Blue Blowers - San

Mound City Blue Blowers - Indiana

Mound City Blue Blowers - Girls Like You Were Meant for Boys Like Me

The Mound City Blue Blowers Wah-Hoo !

Mound City Blue Blowers - Darktown Strutters Ball

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