---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Lucky Peterson

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues multi-instrumentalist Lucky Peterson. Enjoy!

^{Lucky Peterson - Who's Been Talkin'?}

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

-- George Orwell

---

News and Opinion

Chris Hedges: Israel’s Assassination of Memory

As Israel ticks off its list of Nazi-like atrocities against the Palestinians, including mass starvation, it prepares for yet another – the demolition of Gaza City, one of the oldest cities on Earth. Heavy engineering equipment and gigantic armored bulldozers are tearing down hundreds of heavily damaged buildings. Cement trucks are churning out concrete to fill tunnels. Israeli tanks and fighter jets pummel neighborhoods to drive Palestinians who remain in the ruins of the city to the south. It will take months to turn Gaza City into a parking lot. I have no doubt Israel will replicate the efficiency of the Nazi SS Gen. Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who oversaw the obliteration of Warsaw. He spent his final years in a prison cell. May history, at least in terms of this footnote, repeat itself.

As Israeli tanks advance, Palestinians are fleeing, with neighborhoods such as Sabra and Tuffah, cleansed of its inhabitants. There is little clean water and Israel plans to cut it off in northern Gaza. Food supplies are scarce or wildly overpriced. A bag of flour costs $22.00 a kilo, or your life. A report published Friday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classifications (IPC) , the world’s leading authority on food insecurity, for the first time has confirmed a famine in Gaza City. It says more than 500,000 people in Gaza are facing “starvation, destitution and death”, with “catastrophic conditions” projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis next month. Nearly 300 people, including 112 children, have died from starvation.

European leaders, along with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, remind us of the real lesson of the Holocaust. It is not Never Again, but, We Do not Care. They are full partners in the genocide. Some wring their hands and say they are “appalled” or “saddened.” Some decry Israel’s orchestrated starvation. A few say they will declare a Palestinian state. This is Kabuki theater — a way, when the genocide is over, for these Western leaders to insist they stood on the right side of history, even as they armed and funded the genocidal killers, while harassing, silencing or criminalizing those who decried the slaughter.

Israel speaks of occupying Gaza City. But this is a subterfuge. Gaza is not to be occupied. It is to be destroyed. Erased. Wiped off the face of the earth. There is to be nothing left but tons of debris that will be laboriously carted away. The moonscape, devoid of Palestinians of course, will provide the foundation for new Jewish colonies. ... When I covered the genocide in Bosnia, the Serbs blew up mosques, carted away the remains and forbade anyone to speak of the structures they had razed. The goal in Gaza is the same, to wipe out the past and replace it with myth, to mask Israeli crimes, including genocide.

Grayzone Day: Where does Greater Israel end?

Entire UN Security Council Except US Says Gaza Famine 'Man-Made' as 10 More People Starve to Death

Every member nation of the United Nations Security Council except the United States on Wednesday affirmed that Israel's engineered famine in Gaza is "man-made" as 10 more Palestinians died of starvation amid what UN experts warned is a worsening crisis.

Fourteen of the 15 Security Council members issued a joint statement calling for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas, and lifting of all Israeli restrictions on aid delivery into the embattled strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have died from starvation and hundreds of thousands more are starving.

"Famine in Gaza must be stopped immediately," they said. "Time is of the essence. The humanitarian emergency must be addressed without delay and Israel must reverse course."

All members of the UN Security Council, except the US, jointly backed the IPC’s declaration on Wednesday that famine in Gaza is a ‘man-made crisis,’ despite Israel and the US condemning the findings. pic.twitter.com/BJilAJ9Awt

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 27, 2025

"We express our profound alarm and distress at the IPC data on Gaza, published last Friday. It clearly and unequivocally confirms famine," the statement said, referring to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's declaration of Phase 5, or a famine "catastrophe," in the strip.

"We trust the IPC's work and methodology," the 14 countries declared. "This is the first time famine has been officially confirmed in the Middle East region. Every day, more persons are dying as a result of malnutrition, many of them children."

"This is a man-made crisis," the statement stresses. "The use of starvation as a weapon of war is clearly prohibited under international humanitarian law."

Israel, which is facing a genocide case at the UN's International Court of Justice, denies the existence of famine in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Court of Justice for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation.

The 14 countries issuing the joint statement are: Algeria, China, Denmark, France, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Somalia, and the United Kingdom.

While acknowledging that "hunger is a real issue in Gaza and that there are significant humanitarian needs which must be met," US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea rejected the resolution and the IPC's findings.

"We can only solve problems with credibility and integrity," Shea told the Security Council. "Unfortunately, the recent report from the IPC doesn't pass the test on either."

Shea also repeated the debunked claim that the IPC's "normal standards were changed for [the IPC famine] declaration."

The Security Council's affirmation that the Gaza famine is man-made mirrors the findings of food experts who have accused Israel of orchestrating a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in the strip.

[https://www.commondreams.org/news/un-security-council-gaza-famine The UN Palestinian Rights Bureau and UN humanitarian officials also warned Wednesday that the famine in Gaza is "only getting worse."]

"Over half a million people currently face starvation, destitution, and death," the humanitarian experts said. "By the end of September, that number could exceed 640,000."

"Failure to act now will have irreversible consequences," they added.

Wednesday's UN actions came as Israel intensified Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, the campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from Gaza, possibly into a reportedly proposed concentration camp that would be built over the ruins of the southern city of Rafah.

The Gaza Health Ministry (GHM) on Wednesday reported 10 more Palestinian deaths "due to famine and malnutrition" over the past 24 hours, including two children, bringing the number of famine victims to at least 313, 119 of them children.

All told, Israel's 691-day assault and siege on Gaza has left at least 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to the GHM.

Starmer's spy flights for Israel linked to major massacre in Gaza

A third of outpatients treated for wounds at MSF’s Gaza hospitals in 2024 were children

Children under 15 years old made up almost a third of outpatients treated for wounds in field hospitals run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Gaza last year, statistics published in The Lancet reveal. The figures were released by MSF in correspondence with the respected medical journal and come from six health facilities in Gaza supported by the international medical NGO. The facilities are predominantly in the south and centre of the devastated territory.

More than 90,000 outpatient consultations involving wounds were carried out at the facilities in 2024. Bombs, shelling or shooting was involved in just under half of these, MSF said.

The death toll in the Israeli offensive launched following the Hamas raid into Israel in October 2023 has risen to more than 62,000, according to a count by the ministry of health in Gaza that is used by much of the UN, and which the British government says is a “reasonable figure”. Of these, more than half are women or children.

The proportion could be higher. Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, the Guardian revealed last week.

Huckabee GROVELS To Israeli Rabbis Who THANK TRUMP For Iran War

This crisis brings out all of the worst people:

Tony Blair attends White House meeting with Trump on postwar Gaza

The former British prime minister Tony Blair has attended a White House meeting with Donald Trump to discuss plans for postwar Gaza, the Guardian understands. After stepping down as prime minister in 2007, Blair took on the role of Middle East envoy until 2015 and spent time in Jerusalem trying to formulate a plan for a two-state solution.

The former Labour leader, 72, was in Washington DC on Wednesday for the meeting with Trump. The Axios website reported that Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser, Jared Kushner, was also in attendance. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said the US was putting together a “very comprehensive” plan for “the next day” after the war.

In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Witkoff said he believed the war in Gaza could be ended in the next four months. “We’re going to settle this one way or another, certainly before the end of this year,” he said. Asked about a plan for governing postwar Gaza, Witkoff said: “It’s a very comprehensive plan we’re putting together on the next day that I think many people are going to … see how robust it is and how well meaning it is, and it reflects President Trump’s humanitarian motives here.”

No details have been disclosed about the proposals under discussion.

Israel CAUGHT ADMITTING Hospital Bombing Was NO ACCIDENT

Israeli Anchor REVEALS LIVE Real Reason Israel Murders Gaza Journalists

Pope demands ‘collective punishment’ end in Gaza as 10 more die of hunger

Ten Palestinians including two children have died from starvation in the last 24 hours, health authorities in Gaza said on Wednesday, as Pope Leo XIV demanded that Israel stop its “collective punishment” of the population in the besieged territory.

At least 313 people have died from hunger, including 119 children, since the war in Gaza began and Israel intensified its siege on the Palestinian territory. Last week a UN-backed monitoring body confirmed that Gaza was in the throes of famine and warned that without more aid, increasing numbers of people would lose access to food. ...

The head of Save the Children said on Wednesday that starving children in Gaza were now so weak that they did not even cry. “When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully. This, in simple terms, is what famine is,” Inger Ashing told the UN security council in New York.

She went on to describe what happens when children die of hunger, as the body first consumes its own fat and then consumes its own muscles and vital organs. “Yet our clinics are almost silent. Now, children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony. They lie there, emaciated, quite literally wasting away,” Ashing said. She added: “Everyone in this room has a legal and moral responsibility to act to stop this atrocity.”

Despite calls for a ceasefire, Israeli tanks rolled into the outskirts of Gaza City overnight, destroying houses and displacing residents. Tanks shelled the Ebad al-Rahman neighbourhood on the northern outskirts of the city, causing injuries, as Israeli forces sought to clear a path into Gaza City before an expected offensive. Israeli strikes and fire killed at least 76 people throughout Gaza in the previous 24 hours, the Gaza health authorities said.

Israeli Government Social Media Urges Europe to 'Remove' Muslims

Israel faced backlash this week after its Arabic-language account on the social media site X published a message warning Europeans to take action against the proliferation of mosques and "remove" Muslims from their countries.

"In the year 1980, there were only fewer than a hundred mosques in Europe. As for today, there are more than 20,000 mosques. This is the true face of colonization," posted Israel, a settler-colonial state whose nearly 2 million Muslim citizens face widespread discrimination, and where Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories live under an apartheid regime.

"This is what is happening while Europe is oblivious and does not care about the danger," the post continues. "And the danger does not lie in the existence of mosques in and of themselves, for freedom of worship is one of the basic human rights, and every person has the right to believe and worship his Lord."

"The problem lies in the contents that are taught in some of these mosques, and they are not limited to piety and good deeds, but rather focus on encouraging escalating violence in the streets of Europe, and spreading hatred for the other and even for those who host them in their countries, and inciting against them instead of teaching love, harmony, and peace," Israel added. "Europe must wake up and remove this fifth column."

Nothing to see here, just the official account of the Israeli government inciting against Muslims in Europe.

Mosques are now colonization tools and Muslims are a fifth column in Europe.

What would the reaction would be if an Arab state wrote this about synagogues and Jews? 1/ https://t.co/SKfq8S4PW8

— Jasmine El-Gamal (@jasmineelgamal) August 27, 2025

Referring to the far-right Alternative for Germany party, Berlin-based journalist James Jackson replied on X that "even the AfD don't tweet, 'Europe must wake up and remove this fifth column' over a map of mosques."

Other social media users called Israel's post "racist" and "Islamophobic," while some highlighted the stark contrast between the way Palestinians and Israelis treat Christian people and institutions.

Others noted that some of the map's fearmongering figures misleadingly showing a large number of mosques indicate countries whose populations are predominantly or significantly Muslim.

"Russia has 8,000 mosques? Who would've known a country with millions of Muslim Central Asians and Caucasians would need so many!" said one X user.

Israel's post came amid growing international outrage over its 691-day assault and siege on Gaza, which has left more than 230,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and hundreds of thousands more starving and facing ethnic cleansing as Operation Gideon's Chariots 2—a campaign to conquer, occupy, and "cleanse" the strip—ramps up amid a growing engineered famine that has already killed hundreds of people.

Israel is facing an ongoing genocide case at the International Court of Justice, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, are fugitives form the International Criminal Court, where they are wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder and forced starvation.

European nations including Belgium, Ireland, and Spain are supporting the South Africa-led ICJ genocide case against Israel. Since October 2023, European countries including Belgium, France, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, and Spain have either formally recognized Palestinian statehood or announced their intention to do so.

France in BIG TROUBLE. Possible IMF/EU bailout

John Mearsheimer: DEADLY ATTACKS are RUSSIA's ANSWER to Sloppy Peace Strategies

Trump imposes 50% tariff on India as punishment for buying Russian oil

Donald Trump imposed 50% tariffs on most US imports from India, making good on a threat to punish one of the world’s largest economies over its purchases of discounted Russian oil. The tariffs, which came into effect just after midnight on Wednesday in Washington, risk inflicting significant damage on the Indian economy and further disrupting global supply chains.

US tariffs of 25% on Indian goods went into force earlier this month, but Trump announced plans to double the rate, citing New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, which the White House has argued are indirectly funding Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The US president has significantly increased US tariffs on goods from much of the world since re-entering the White House in January, straining relations with economies of allies and rivals and fueling fears of higher inflation. This latest move leaves Indian exporters facing among the highest US duties Trump has slapped on goods from overseas. Brazil is also grappling with 50% tariffs on its exports to the US.

Ministers in India argue the country has been unjustly singled out for its trade relationship with Russia and officials caution the country will likely work more closely with Moscow and Beijing – and drift further from Washington – as a result. Most Indian exports to the US (worth $87.3bn to the US last year, according to the US trade representative) now face steep duties, although some key products including smartphones are set to be spared, for now.

The action, confirmed in a notice by the US Department of Homeland Security earlier this week, prompted some economists to predict a precipitous fall in trade between the two countries. ... About 30% of India’s exports to the US – including pharmaceuticals, electronics, raw drug materials and refined fuels – worth $27.6bn, remain duty-free. But sectors like textiles, gems and jewellery, and seafood, long reliant on the American market, face shrinking order books. “At a 50% tariff, it is very difficult to export,” Sengupta said.

Trump Admin FAILS! Sandwich Guy FREE!

Grand jury declines to indict alleged Washington DC sandwich thrower

Grand jurors have rebuffed federal prosecutors by refusing to approve a criminal indictment against a man who allegedly threw a sandwich at a law enforcement agent in protest against Donald Trump’s deployment of armed troops on the streets of Washington DC. It is the second time in recent days that a grand jury had declined to vote to indict a person accused of assaulting a federal officer and signaled strong public objection to Trump’s decision to send national guard troops and federal agents onto the streets of the US capital, purportedly to crack down on violent crime.

The case of Sean Charles Dunn, who was accused of hurling the sub-style sandwich, became a cause celebre after video of the episode went viral on social media. Dunn, 37, a former justice department paralegal, was initially charged on 13 August after being accused of throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection officer who was patrolling an area of Washington’s north-west district known for its bars and restaurants with other agents.

Footage shows a man, presumed to be Dunn, confronting an officer as he stood on the kerbside. He then threw a soft object at point-blank range, hitting the agent in the chest, before running off with the officer and several of his colleagues in pursuit. The complaint against Dunn states that he stood close to the officer and called him and his colleagues “fascists” and shouted: “I don’t want you in my city.”

After the incident, the Trump administration posted footage of a large group of heavily armed officers going to Dunn’s apartment, heightening the attention the case attracted. Posters depicting Dunn lofting a sandwich have since appeared around the nation’s capital.

It is rare for federal prosecutors to fail to secure charges at a grand jury hearing, given that they control the information that jurors hear and defendants’ lawyers are prohibited from being in the courtroom. It is unclear if prosecutors will continue to seek to press charges against Dunn, which they could do by withdrawing the felony charge and refiling it as a misdemeanor, which does not need an indictment.

CDC director Susan Monarez ousted for refusing ‘to rubber-stamp unscientific’ orders, say lawyers

The US’s top public health agency was plunged into chaos on Wednesday after the Trump administration moved to oust its leader Susan Monarez, appointed less than a month ago, as her lawyers said she would not resign and was being “targeted” for her pro-science stance. Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was ousted on Wednesday evening, according to a statement from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that offered no explanation its decision.

“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” HHS said in an unsigned statement posted to social media. Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate just last month, appeared to have afoul of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, after she declined to support sweeping changes to US vaccine policies, according to reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times.

On Wednesday evening, her lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell told the Associated Press she had neither resigned nor been told she was fired.

Top CDC officials resign over ‘weaponization of public health’

The leading US public health agency faced a number of top-level resignations on Wednesday after its director was ousted from her job, with one departing official reportedly saying he was leaving “because of the ongoing weaponization of public health”.

US officials announced CDC director Susan Monarez had left her role just weeks after being sworn in. This was followed by the resignations of three senior CDC officials – Dr Debra Houry, the chief medical officer, Dr Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, and Dr Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Daskalakis told colleagues “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health”, according to an email obtained by STAT, a health news site.

Houry echoed his concerns and wrote that “ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency”, adding that science should “never be censored or subject to political interpretations”.

---

---

California Republicans propose ‘two-state solution’ to counter redistricting push

Republicans in California are proposing a “two-state solution” for the Golden state, in a move that is unlikely to go anywhere, but is reflective of partisan divisions amid a nationwide battle over control of Congress.

James Gallagher, the top Republican in the California assembly, on Wednesday unveiled a resolution that proposes to split the state vertically, carving the deep-blue coastal strip away from the more rural, red inland.

The provocatively named plan – borrowing a phrase more often used in reference to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – is a political nonstarter. But it underscores the new messaging Republicans plan to use as they rally opposition to a redistricting ballot initiative in November.

Framing it as a response to Democrats’ effort to temporarily override the state constitution and redraw congressional districts – itself a countermove to Republican-led redistricting plan sought by Donald Trump in Texas – Gallagher argued that the new maps in California would further “silence rural voices and rig the political system against them forever”.

“I have come to see that the only way we can obtain proper attention is by pursuing our own statehood,” he said in a statement on Wednesday. “With this measure, we will begin the first step of that process.” According to Gallagher, it would create a new state with a population of more than 10 million people – making it one of the 10 most populous states in the US.

Democrat flips Iowa state senate seat and breaks Republican supermajority

A Democratic candidate has defeated an extremist Republican in a state senate election in Iowa, claiming that voters are “waking up” to realise Donald Trump’s party “sold the working class a bill of goods”. Catelin Drey flipped Iowa state senate district 1, beating Christopher Prosch in a special election held on Tuesday to fill the seat of the late senator Rocky De Witt.

Prosch had aligned himself with Trump’s Maga movement, floating conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election and climate crisis. He also compared abortion access to the Holocaust.

But Drey, a 37-year-old marketing executive, won with 55% of the vote to Prosch’s 44%, representing a swing of more than 20 points from Trump’s performance last year in the district, which covers most of Sioux City.

Describing herself as “thrilled” with the result, Drey said on Wednesday: “We delivered a message that resonates with voters. People right now are frustrated with the way things are going. Iowa’s economy is last in the country, we’re last for maternal healthcare providers per capita, and people are ready for a change.”

Asked whether the outcome delivered a verdict on Trump’s Maga agenda, Drey said: “It speaks to the level of authenticity and transparency that’s necessary to win in this environment. People want to make a connection with their candidate and they want to believe that person is going to be looking out for their best interests.”

---

---

Wild bees visit different flowers to balance diet

Wild bees strategically visit different flowers to balance their intake of protein, fat and carbohydrates, a study has found. A team of ecologists observed eight species of wild bumblebees in the Colorado Rockies over eight years to develop a comprehensive nutritional map.

Focusing on pollen consumption, the team led by Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden tracked which flowers each bee species visited for pollen. They collected pollen samples from these plant species to understand their nutrient content.

At the lab, the team measured each pollen sample’s macronutrient content and calculated its concentration of protein, fat and carbohydrates. Clear patterns emerged when the researchers compared each bee species’ diet with their physical traits. The nutrient content of the pollen changed through the seasons, the study also found. This shift in protein would then influence the bees’ nutritional preferences across the seasons.

Researchers were surprised by the protein differences among the studied flowers. Some flowers consist of only 17% protein while others contained as much as 86%. The pollen’s nutrient content also changed throughout the season. For example, the study shared that spring flowers have more protein-rich pollen, while late-summer flowers are richer in fat and carbs.

Hurricane Katrina, 20 Years Later

Fema staff who signed letter criticizing agency under Trump placed on leave

Donald Trump’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has placed some agency staff on leave after they signed a public letter of dissent this week. The missive warns that federal officials’ sweeping overhaul of the agency puts the US at risk of another disaster like 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

“Dismantling the agency piecemeal while threatening to do so entirely will render such a tragedy, once again, inevitable,” Jennifer Forester, a Fema analyst who was placed on leave yesterday, told the Guardian.

Among those facing potential retaliation are staff who were directly responsible for relief efforts in Kerr county, Texas, which is still reeling from the deadly floods it faced last month, according to Stand Up for Science, the advocacy group that published the Monday letter.

“This situation is developing, but this decision underscores the many issues these public servants described in their declaration and their bravery in standing up for Americans in need,” said a Stand Up for Science spokesperson.

More than 180 current and former Fema employees signed the letter sent to the Fema Review Council and Congress on Monday critiquing recent cuts to agency staff and programs, and warning that Fema’s capacity to respond to a major disaster was dangerously diminished. Thirty-six signed their names while 141 signed anonymously for fear of retribution. Some reports say that up to 30 signatories have been placed on leave.

---

Also of Interest

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

Europe’s Final Descent

Trump Is Running the Standard Purge and Control Playbook To Install Decline

Venezuela Orders Naval Patrols as US Warships Head To Southern Caribbean

Denmark summons US diplomat over alleged Greenland influence campaign

The unlikely alliance pressing Trump to regulate Pfas on US farms: ‘This is a basic human right’

‘You had to fend for yourself’: Hurricane Katrina haunts New Orleans as Trump guts disaster aid

Why We Remember Katrina

Why does the Maga elite love conspicuous cosmetic surgery?

Cypriot Government Rolls Out The Red Carpet For Israeli War Criminals

---

A Little Night Music

Lucky Peterson - Every Day I Have The Blues

Lucky Peterson - Gonna Make My Move

Lucky Peterson - When My Blood Runs Cold

Lucky Peterson - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

Lucky Peterson - Nothing But Smoke

Wynton Marsalis & Lucky Peterson - C.C. Rider

Lucky Peterson - Hide Away

Lucky Peterson - Yer Blues

Lucky Peterson - Live Au New Morning 2004

---