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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Wilbert Harrison

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features r&b singer Wilbert Harrison. Enjoy!

^{Wilbert Harrison - Let's Work Together}

"In show business the key word is honesty. Once you've learned to fake that, the rest is easy."

-- George Burns

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News and Opinion

US Politics Is Just Nonstop Fake Revolutions Now

Millions flooded the US streets for the “No Kings” protests over the weekend to oppose a monarchy which does not exist without making a single tangible demand. Power was not challenged in any meaningful way. The status quo wasn’t disrupted in the slightest. People held up some signs saying the president is orange and that if Kamala were president they would be at brunch, and then went home.

The whole thing was just one big pep rally for the Democratic Party, designed to accomplish nothing beyond getting American liberals excited about the prospect of someday voting for Gavin Newsom. A bunch of boomers showed up to dance around and hold signs and feel as though they are fighting the power in their feely bits, while drumming up support for the same status quo which gave rise to Trump in the first place.

Liberals are openly telling you how they don't care about the issues American people face so they can go back to brunch.

Demand better opposition than Orange man bad. https://t.co/bZOuSG2rge

— Modern Rome in Freefall (@ljmontello) October 18, 2025

You see the same fake revolutionary astroturf zeitgeist on the Republican side. American rightists are constantly pretending they’re fighting some kind of populist rebellion against an oppressive establishment even while their party controls every branch of the US government. They act like Trump is ending the wars and fighting the Deep State even as he stomps out free speech on behalf of Israel, rolls out a Palantir surveillance system, pours weapons into facilitating Israel’s genocidal atrocities, bombs Iran and Yemen, ramps up for war with Venezuela, and perpetuates the horrific proxy war in Ukraine.

It’s two plutocrat-owned warmongering imperialist parties whipping their respective bases into the mass delusion that they are participating in a heroic act of revolutionary defiance by voting Democrat or Republican. They get everyone fighting a fake revolution so that nobody thinks about fighting a real one.

It didn’t used to be this way, for the record. The US has been a murderous and tyrannical oligarchic bloodbath for its entire existence as a nation, but up until fairly recently its politics looked more or less like the politics of other western nations. Politicians had campaigns where they’d try to argue that they have the best policies, there’d be an election, and then they’d spend their time in office philandering and pretending to make themselves useful. There wasn’t this constant LARPing about how voting for one of the two mainstream parties is participating some kind of a courageous insurgency against monarchy or communism or the Deep State or whatever.

#NoKings pic.twitter.com/biroZ9oyLE

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) October 18, 2025

That’s changing because public discontent with the status quo is soaring to all-time highs as Americans get poorer and everything gets shittier. The establishment order is no longer accepted and people are starting to push for real change, so their outrage needs to be harnessed and corralled into politically safe directions.

Donald Trump’s entire political career has been all about this. He introduced a new WWE-style kayfabe theatrics into American politics where both Democrats and Republicans feel as though they are fighting the power in a very important and relevant way — Republicans because they believe Trump is a populist rebel and Democrats because they believe Trump is an unprecedented threat to freedom and democracy. Really his whole thing is about protecting the status quo of the US empire, but both mainstream factions are duped into seeing the exact opposite.

Now you’ve got the two main strands of American political thought falling all over themselves to be the first in line to support the establishment, all while being told that they are fighting the power. They remain mollified because they think they are doing something, and the powerful get to keep everything they’ve stolen.

It’s truly a brilliant scam. Evil, destructive and tyrannical, to be sure, but you’ve got to admire the skill with which this psyop has been pulled off.

No Kings Had NO DEMANDS

"The War Has Not Really Ended": Gaza Reporter on Israeli Attacks & Reuniting with Imprisoned Brother

Scramble to shore up ceasefire as Israel hits Gaza with deadly raids

Israel launched waves of lethal airstrikes on Sunday and cut off all aid into Gaza “until further notice” after a reported attack by Hamas, in escalations that marked the most serious threat so far to the increasingly fragile ceasefire in the devastated territory. Two Israeli soldiers, including an officer, were killed in the Hamas attack. Palestinian officials said dozens died in the retaliatory airstrikes.

A senior Egyptian official said “round-the-clock” contacts were under way to de-escalate the situation as regional powers scramble to shore up the ceasefire, though hopes rose that a complete collapse could be avoided when both Hamas and the Israeli military issued statements saying they were committed to the agreement.

Senior US officials, possibly including the vice president, JD Vance, were expected to arrive in Israel in the coming days for what observers said was a clear effort to hold Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, to the deal signed in Sharm-el-Sheikh earlier this month.

Even before Sunday’s violence, tensions had been running high in recent days with a dispute between Hamas and Israel over the return of the remains of 28 deceased hostages held by the militant Islamist group. Israel has said Hamas is delaying the return of some hostages’ remains in violation of the ceasefire deal. Palestinian officials in Gaza accused Israel on Saturday of violating the ceasefire 48 times and killing dozens of Palestinians since the deal brokered by Trump was signed 10 days ago.

There was no official confirmation from Israel of the move to suspend all aid, which was widely reported in Israeli media as well as by international news agencies citing security officials. Earlier on Sunday, Israel announced that the crucial Rafah crossing with Egypt would remain shut “until further notice”. Moves to delay the opening of Rafah last week prompted widespread international condemnation.

And now, a fact that the Guardian article above did not deign to include in its coverage in the article above:

Israel Launches Wave of Heavy Airstrikes Across Gaza, Killing at Least 45

The Israeli military launched heavy airstrikes across Gaza on Sunday, killing at least 45 Palestinians, marking the deadliest day of Israeli attacks in the Strip since the ceasefire went into effect on October 10.

The IDF stepped up its attacks on Gaza after alleging its troops were attacked by Palestinian militants in Rafah, southern Gaza, though some reports indicate an explosion was caused by an Israeli vehicle running over an unexploded bomb.

Hamas denied responsibility for the incident in Rafah on Sunday, saying it hasn’t been in contact with its fighters in the area. “We confirm our full commitment to carrying out everything that was agreed, first and foremost the ceasefire in all areas of the Gaza Strip,” Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.

Israeli officials said later in the day that two IDF soldiers were killed in the attack. According to Haaretz, Israeli military officials said they thought militants fired on Israeli troops after exiting a tunnel, but other reports contradict the claim.

Curt Mills, the Executive Director of The American Conservative, wrote on X that a senior Trump administration official told him: “Hamas did nothing. Israeli tank hit an unexploded IED that has probably been there for months.”

Israel BLOWS UP Ceasefire Based On Lies: Reined In By Trump

Soon after the explosion in Rafah, I’m told by a source familiar, the White House and Pentagon knew that the incident was caused by an Israeli settler bulldozer running over unexploded ordnance — contradicting Netanyahu’s claim that Hamas had popped up from tunnels.

After… https://t.co/Xwy63sEL3M

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) October 19, 2025

Palestinians in Gaza fear ceasefire ‘could collapse at any moment’

For two years, Ismail Baba had dreamed of a ceasefire. The father of four had been displaced 11 times during the war in Gaza and was struggling to find adequate food for his children amid a worsening hunger crisis. When a ceasefire was announced last week, Baba thought he could finally relax. Though his home was still plagued by chaos, at least he knew his family would not be struck by an Israeli bomb.

The fleeting peace, however, was shattered on Sunday morning by a wave of Israeli airstrikes across Gaza, after Israel claimed Hamas militants targeted its troops in southern Gaza. “I felt the end of the false sense of safety we were clinging to. We had barely started to move freely between areas again, and now we are back to fear and caution,” said the 48-year-old from Beit Lahiya in north Gaza.

Nine days into the ceasefire, Palestinians in Gaza are increasingly worried that the fragile truce could collapse and full-scale war will restart. They have been here before; in March a ceasefire ended after Israel resumed bombing and declined to move to a second phase of a ceasefire that would have permanently ended the war.

There are parallels with last March. Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire to facilitate the return of Israeli hostages, but deep disagreements remain over how to implement the second phase of the US-drafted plan to move to a permanent truce.

On Sunday, residents wondered if there was even still a ceasefire. Israel unleashed a wave of airstrikes targeting south, north and central Gaza in what it said was a response to an attack on its soldiers by Hamas militants earlier in the day. “I fear that the ceasefire could collapse at any moment, especially now. Since the ceasefire began, not a single day has passed without attacks or casualties. And yet, we cannot say a word,” said Baba.

Nutjob Israeli right-wingers today are blocking aid trucks on their way to Gaza by placing their babies on the highway. They are willing to risk their children to stop Palestinian children from being fed. pic.twitter.com/uYmJxYZjq9

— Shaiel Ben-Ephraim (@academic_la) October 17, 2025

Netanyahu Just ATTACKED Trump, Israel is OVER | Mohammad Marandi & Ali Abunimah

Israel Massacres 11 Members of Palestinian Family in Deadliest Gaza Ceasefire Violation

Israeli forces killed 11 members of a Palestinian family attempting to return to their home in the flattened Gaza Strip on Friday evening in what local officials said was the deadliest violation of the shaky weeklong ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops fired a tank shell at a bus transporting members of the Abu Shaaban family, who were trying to return to inspect their home in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Among the 11 victims were three women and seven children ages 5-13.

The IDF claimed the "suspicious vehicle" crossed the so-called "yellow line," beyond which Israeli forces withdrew in accordance with the ceasefire agreement, and that warning shots were fired at the bus before troops acted to "remove the threat."

However, according to the Palestine Chronicle, Basal asserted that “the family could have been warned or dealt with in a way that did not lead to murder.”

“What happened confirms that the occupation remains thirsty for blood and determined to commit crimes against innocent civilians,” he added.

In Pictures | Palestinians bid farewell to Abu Shaaban family, killed when Israeli occupation forces disregarded the ceasefire agreement and struck their vehicle in Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, Gaza City.

The massacre claimed the lives of 11 family members, including 7 children and… pic.twitter.com/N65bm9b9lI

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) October 18, 2025

In the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement:

The Israeli government's massacre of a family traveling to assess the remains of their home is the latest deliberate and blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement. The Trump administration must demand that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu stop using American taxpayer dollars and American weapons to sabotage the ceasefire agreement that America brokered so that he can restart the genocide in Gaza.

The State Department and the United Nations must also investigate horrific signs of torture and extrajudicial killing found on the bodies of returned Palestinian hostages. Torturing people to death after kidnapping them and holding them without charge is another example of [breaking] not only international law, but also US law related to foreign aid recipients.

Gaza's Government Media Office said Saturday that Israeli forces have broken the truce 47 times, killing 38 people and wounding 143 others "in clear and blatant violation of the ceasefire decision and the principles of international humanitarian law."

Israeli forces have killed at least 68,116 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose figures are likely a vast undercount. Leaked IDF data suggest more than 80% of those killed were civilians. More than 170,200 other Palestinians have been wounded, with approximately 9,500 others missing and believed dead and buried beneath rubble.

What Israel HID About Hamas “Executions” | Useful Idiots

Worth a full read:

Trump Admits Complicity in Genocide

As Donald Trump congratulates Israel for its conduct of the genocide in Gaza, he should be charged with aiding and abetting genocide, not given the Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech on Monday to the Israeli Knesset, Trump spent an hour bragging about how he ended the “war” in Gaza and “an age of terror and death,” declaring, “This is the historic dawn of a new Middle East.” ...

Trump boasted about the weapons he furnished to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and praised Israel’s use of them to massacre Palestinian people:

“We make the best weapons in the world, and we’ve got a lot of them. And we’ve given a lot to Israel, frankly. I mean, Bibi would call me so many times, ‘Can you get me this weapon, that weapon, that weapon?’ Some of them I never heard of, Bibi, and I made them. But we’d get them here, wouldn’t we, huh? And they are the best. They are the best. But you used them well.”

With those words, Trump admitted his complicity with Israel in its commission of genocide in Gaza.

Larry C. Johnson: Israel’s Fall Deepens — Can Trump & Putin’s Budapest Meeting Change Everything?

Trump Urged Zelensky To Accept Russia’s Terms for a Peace Deal

During a meeting at the White House on Friday, President Trump urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to accept Russia’s terms for a peace deal, warning Russian President Vladimir Putin could “destroy” the Ukrainian leader if he didn’t make the concessions, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

People familiar with the matter told the outlet that the meeting descended into a “shouting match” multiple times and that Trump was telling Zelensky to give up control of territory in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. The president also tossed aside a map of the Ukrainian frontlines, saying he was “sick” of seeing it. “This red line, I don’t even know where this is. I’ve never been there,” Trump reportedly said. ...

Trump also told Zelensky during the meeting that Ukraine was losing the war and that the Russian economy was doing “great,” contradicting recent public comments he made about the conflict.

Trump Zelensky Furious Row; US Tells Kiev Accept Moscow's Terms Or Be Destroyed; Pokrovsk Falls Fast

Landslide win for pro-EU Turkish Cypriot candidate raises hopes for peace

Turkish Cypriots have handed the pro-European leftwing leader Tufan Erhürman a resounding victory in a presidential poll likely to inject renewed vigour into the deadlocked peace process on Cyprus. Erhürman, 55, who campaigned on reviving stalled UN-brokered talks to reunify the island, defeated the incumbent nationalist, Ersin Tatar, by nearly 27 percentage points – a landslide win that surprised even his most ardent supporters.

Tatar, whose five-year tenure had been dominated by the rallying cry of “a two-state solution” to the Cyprus problem, picked up 35.8% of the vote against 62.8% for his opponent. In contrast to the moderate Erhürman, the hard-right nationalist had been openly backed by Ankara. News of the result was met with scenes of euphoria in the Turkish-occupied north. Analysts described the electoral win as a potential gamechanger on an island that has been ethnically split for more than 50 years between Greeks in the internationally recognised south and Turks in the north. ...

The scale of Erhürman’s victory showed that the decidedly secular Turkish Cypriots were tired of isolationist policies that had seen the territory become increasingly aligned with the Islamist leadership of the ruling AKP party in Ankara, as well as wanting a shift towards Europe. The community has long complained of its identity being eroded under the influence of Turkey, the only country to acknowledge the breakaway republic.

“Supporters of Erhürman see themselves as an autonomous ethno-political community, not as Turks of Cyprus, and they want to keep it that way,” said Kızılyürek, adding that the children of Turkish settlers born in the north had been especially appalled by what they perceived as the “anti-democratic turn” of Turkey in recent years. “They voted for Erhürman in a big way because they want their future to be in the European Union,” he said.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when a coup aimed at union with Greece – engineered by the military junta then in power in Athens – prompted Turkey to invade and seize the island’s northern third. Ever since, as many as 45,000 mainland Turkish troops have been stationed in the north.

Nicolas Sarkozy to enter prison for criminal conspiracy over Libyan funding

The former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will go to prison on Tuesday after a court sentenced him to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to obtain election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

Sarkozy, who was the rightwing president of France between 2007 and 2012, will become the first former head of an EU country to serve time in prison, and the first French postwar leader to be jailed.

“I’m not afraid of prison. I’ll keep my head held high, including at the prison gates,” Sarkozy told La Tribune de Dimanche. He has been ordered to present himself at the gates of La Santé prison in the south of Paris early on Tuesday morning. He said he had asked for “no privileges” in his treatment behind bars.

He is expected to be held in solitary confinement for his own security, in an individual cell of about 9 metres squared. He will have no mobile phone, but will have a small television. A security-controlled phoneline will allow him contact with his lawyers and family. He is expected to have the right to two visits a week from family. He told Le Figaro that he’d been advised to take earplugs. “At night you hear lots of noise, shouting, screaming,” he said. ...

Sarkozy was found guilty last month of criminal conspiracy over a scheme to seek funding from the regime of Gaddafi for his victorious 2007 French presidential election campaign.

Rand Paul SHREDS Trump For Venezuela Regime Change

Trump calls Colombia president ‘illegal drug dealer’ as US says it hit another ship

Donald Trump on Sunday accused Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, of being an “illegal drug dealer” and threatened to immediately cut US funding to the country, as a Republican senator said the US would soon announce “major tariffs” on the country. It comes after the US defense secretary confirmed in a social media post an attack on a vessel associated with a Colombian leftist rebel group. Pete Hegseth said “three terrorists were killed” in the operation, which was “conducted in international waters”.

“These cartels are the Al Qaeda of the western hemisphere,” Hegseth said. “The United States military will treat these organizations like the terrorists they are – they will be hunted, and killed.”

In a post on his Truth Social platform just hours earlier, Trump had blamed Petro for encouraging the mass production of illegal drugs, saying the leftwing leader “does nothing to stop it, despite large-scale payments and subsidies from the US”.

“Petro, a low rated and very unpopular leader, with a fresh mouth toward America, better close up these killing fields immediately,” Trump wrote, “or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely”. The remarks come after Petro said the US committed “murder” following a strike on an alleged drug boat in Colombian territorial waters in September, adding “we await explanations from the US government.”

The victim of the strike was identified by Petro as Alejandro Carranza, a Colombian fisherman from the coastal town of Santa Marta. He was allegedly killed when US forces fired at his boat on 15 September. “Carranza had no ties to the drug trade and his daily activity was fishing,” Petro wrote. “The Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure.”

‘Empty shelves, higher prices’: Americans tell of cost of Trump’s tariffs

As a mother of two, Paige Harris has noticed a change in the way she shops for her family. “Items that I have bought regularly have gone up in price steadily,” she said. “From hair dye to baby formula, our grocery list has gotten smaller while our budget has had to increase. Meats like steak are a no-go for our household.” ...

On Thursday, a study from S&P Global revealed that companies were expected to pay at least $1.2tn more in 2025 expenses than was previously anticipated. But the burden, according to the researchers, is now shifting to US consumers. They calculated that two-thirds of the “expense shock”, more than $900bn, will be absorbed by Americans. Last month, the Yale Budget Lab estimated tariffs would cost households almost $2,400 more a year.

Harris says the tariffs’ impact on her daily life contradicts promises from the Trump administration to “cut prices and make living affordable for everyone”. She said: “You see prices soaring. It has become very clear that this administration did not and does not care about the everyday lives of Americans.”

“Prices are way too high. I mostly shop at Costco and buy as little as possible anywhere else,” said Jean Meadows, a 74-year-old retiree who lives in Huntsville, Alabama. “I can’t imagine that stores haven’t noticed the change. I think people are really afraid of what is coming.” That sense of apprehension is reflected in a recent poll, exclusively conducted for the Guardian, where respondents identified the tariffs as the second biggest threat to the economy. ...

Trump shows few signs of backing away from his tariff policy – a move the White House maintains will reinvigorate American manufacturing and increased revenue from trade partners.

Trump to pay Ice and border agents amid shutdown as other federal workers go unpaid

The Trump administration has promised tens of thousands of federal agents carrying out his immigration crackdown that they will be paid during the government shutdown, according to emails seen by Reuters, even as other federal workers go without pay.

The pay plan was communicated to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) staff on Wednesday in separate internal emails seen by Reuters.

After the story was reported, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said in a statement that more than 70,000 law enforcement officers across DHS including those at CBP, Ice, the Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will be paid.

They are to receive by 22 October a “supercheck” covering pay for all hours worked during the shutdown period and the next pay period, she said.

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Schumer SABOTAGES Anti-AIPAC Democrat in Maine Senate Race

Millions across all 50 US states march in No Kings protests against Trump

Americans across all 50 states marched in protests against the Trump administration on Saturday, aligning behind a message that the country is sliding into authoritarianism and there should be no kings in the US.

Millions of people turned out for the No Kings protests, the second iteration of a coalition that marched in June in one of the largest days of protest in US history.

People in communities big and small came together nationwide with signs, marching bands, a huge banner with the US constitution’s preamble that people could sign, and inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance beginning in Portland, Oregon.

The rallies are a turnaround from just six months ago, when Democrats seemed at a loss as to how to counter Republicans’ grip of the White House and both houses of Congress after stinging national election losses.

“What we are seeing from the Democrats is some spine,” Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, a key organizing group, told the Associated Press. “The worst thing the Democrats could do right now is surrender.”

Pelosi Challenger: Dem Tea Party Wave IS HERE

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World’s oceans losing their greenness through global heating

The world’s oceans are losing their greenness owing to global heating, according to a study that suggests our planet’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide could be weakening. The change in the palette of the seas is caused by a decline of phytoplankton, the tiny marine creatures that are responsible for nearly half of the biosphere’s productivity.

The findings, which also have alarming implications for oxygen levels and food chains, are based on a groundbreaking study of daily chlorophyll concentrations in low- to mid-latitude oceans from 2001 to 2023.

Chlorophyl is a green pigment responsible for photosynthesis, the process by which plants, algae and phytoplankton convert sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. It is one of the foundation blocks of life on Earth.

Using deep-learning algorithms, the authors of the new paper compiled data from satellites and monitoring ships to assess the change in the oceans’ hue. They found a significant decline of greenness – about 0.35 micrograms per cubic metre each year – over the more than two decade period of the study. The trend was twice as high in coastal regions and more than four times greater near river estuaries.

They associate this with a reduction in the ecological functioning of the ocean, finding a 0.088% annual decrease in carbon sequestration capacity, equivalent to 32 million tons. “The decline in surface phytoplankton’s carbon sequestration capacity has profound implications for the carbon cycle,” said one of the authors, Di Long of Tsinghua University in Beijing.

The Trump Admin PURPOSELY Killing Off Small Farms!?

Mississippi residents sue UK-owned biomass firm granted permit for more emissions

Residents of a small Mississippi town are suing Drax Biomass after the company won a permit to become a “major source” of hazardous air pollution at a local wood pellet production plant. The subsidiary of the FTSE 250 energy company was previously denied permission to increase emissions in the 900-person town of Gloster, Mississippi, after local residents warned that they had already suffered serious adverse health consequences because of the operation.

But in a reversal of the April decision, the Mississippi department of environmental quality (MDEQ) permit board on Wednesday granted Drax’s Amite county wood pellet production facility a permit. The plant in Gloster converts trees sourced from southern US states into wooden pellets, which are burned as biomass fuel in Drax’s huge power station in Selby, North Yorkshire, England.

Drax is expected to receive more than £10bn in UK renewable energy subsidies between 2012 and 2027 for its biomass generation, according to the thinktank Ember, despite criticism from green groups and climate scientists which claim that the wood it uses to manufacture biomass pellets is not sustainably sourced.

The company was found to have supplied inaccurate data relating to its sourcing of biomass, leading to a £25m ($33m) fine which was paid to the UK energy regulator. The company is currently being investigated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and lawmakers in the UK have been reviewing the billions in renewables subsidies the North Yorkshire plant receives.

The new lawsuit against Drax alleges that the Amite county facility – which shares a fence line with the larger community – has unlawfully exposed locals to excessive levels of chemicals and pollutants. It says those in turn have coated people’s homes and put them at greater risk of diseases such as cancer and respiratory illness.

World’s landscapes may soon be ‘devoid of wild animals’, says nature photographer

Margot Raggett has spent the past decade raising money for conservation efforts around the world but now she feels nervous about the future. “It does feel like we’ve taken a backward step,” she said. The wildlife photographer has raised £1.2m for the cause in the past 10 years through her Remembering Wildlife series, an annual, not-for-profit picture book featuring images of animals from the world’s top nature photographers. The first edition was published in 2015, when the Paris climate agreement was being drafted but, in the years since, efforts to tackle the climate crisis have been rolled back.

Under Donald Trump, the US withdrew from the agreement in 2020. Joe Biden reversed the decision the following year but, on the first day of his second presidential term, Trump announced the US would be withdrawing yet again. In the UK, both the Conservatives and Reform UK have pledged to scrap the 2050 net zero target should they win power. “Compared to a few years ago, there was a desire for renewables instead of drilling for oil across the world. I think the importance of nature is something for us all to cling on to,” said Raggett.

In a timely reminder of how fraught the outlook is for wildlife at the moment, this year’s release, titled Ten Years of Remembering Wildlife, is being published alongside original and altered images of animals including polar bears, cheetahs and pangolins living in, and then scrubbed out of, their natural habitats.

Raggett said these images were intended to be “provocative” and to give a glimpse of the future if we remain on our current track. “The rate of wildlife decline is so rapid across the world and there’s a lot of work to be done to reverse it. We really could be looking at a future where these landscapes would be without these wild animals,” she said. “That’s why we created it, to make people pause and realise what could happen if we don’t take action.”

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Also of Interest

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

Chris Hedges: Edward Said Lecture, ‘Requiem for Gaza’

Video Shows Israeli Settler Clubbing Elderly Palestinian Woman Harvesting Olives

Outcry after Israel returns Palestinian bodies in 'horrific condition' to Gaza

Iran, Russia, China Send Letter to UN To Mark Official End of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal

A Preemptive Putin-Trump Call And The Prospects Of A New Summit

Trump’s Military Occupation of America

Bolivia to vote in presidential runoff that will turn it to the right

The Forgotten Captives: Israel Still Imprisoning 9,000 Palestinians Even After Hostage Deal

John Bolton INDICTED: Haunted Julian Assange Comments

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A Little Night Music

Wilbert Harrison - 1960

Wilbert Harrison - Listen, My Darling

Wilbert Harrison - Baby Don´t You Know

Wilbert Harrison - Stagger Lee

Wilbert Harrison - Near To You

Wilbert Harrison ‎- Pretty Little Woman

Wilbert Harrison - Darling Listen to This Song

Wilbert Harrison - Tell on Yourself

Wilbert Harrison - Kansas City

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