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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Pink Anderson

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Piedmont bluesman Pink Anderson. Enjoy!

^{Pink Anderson - Ain't Nobody Home But Me}

"The erosion of a nation's concern for life and for individual rights, has always preceded the intrusion of tyranny."

-- Gerry Spence

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News and Opinion

It would sure be nice to have an enforceable Constitution again.

Australia’s Lack Of Speech Protections Means We Should Be MORE Hostile To Speech Regulation

A normal, healthy person would look at Australia’s lack of free speech protections and say “Hmm, Australian leaders should be extremely resistant to new laws and policies which restrict speech then, because it would be very easy for those restrictions to become abusive.”

Australian leaders look at our lack of free speech protections and say “See? This means we get to take away your right to protest genocide!”

Nowhere is this more clearly exemplified than the repeated statements from New South Wales premier Chris Minns saying it’s fine to silence Australians because we don’t have free speech rights.

Over and over again Minns has defended his promotion of authoritarian speech crackdowns in his state by claiming it’s okay to stomp out dissident speech of Australians because Australians don’t have the same speech protections as Americans, saying “we don’t have the same free speech rules that they have in the United States and I make no apologies for that” and similar statements in recent weeks.

NSW Premier Chris Minns says that you will get the freedom of speech opportunities that the government affords you, not what you think you’re entitled too. pic.twitter.com/nkxtfyPUyB

— Australians vs. The Agenda (@ausvstheagenda) January 21, 2026

To be clear, Minns is being repulsively tyrannical when he says this, but factually speaking he isn’t wrong.

As Joe Lauria wrote for Consortium News following the passage of Australia’s frightening new “hate speech” bill:

“Unlike the United States, Australia has no Bill of Rights in its Constitution protecting freedom of speech, assembly and other rights. Much as Israel would want it, a law such as this adopted in Australia would still be difficult to pass in the U.S. on paper, despite the Israel Lobby’s hold over the U.S. Congress.”

If Australians had the same speech protections that they have in the United States, we could appeal tyrannical new laws on First Amendment grounds. Because we have no such protections, it is much harder to oppose authoritarian speech restrictions once they are in place.

As I often remind readers, Australia is the only so-called democracy in the world which has no national charter or bill of rights of any kind. A tremendous amount of faith has been placed in state and federal legislators to simply do the right thing, which has proved foolish and ineffective. Professor George Williams wrote for the Melbourne University Law Review in 2006:

“Australia is now the only democratic nation in the world without a national bill of rights. Some comprehensive form of legal protection for basic rights is otherwise seen as an essential check and balance in democratic governance around the world. Indeed, I can find no example of a democratic nation that has gained a new Constitution or legal system in recent decades that has not included some form of a bill of rights, nor am I aware of any such nation that has done away with a bill of rights once it has been put in place.”

A mentally disabled Australian woman is being prosecuted for antisemitic hate crimes after accidentally pocket-dialing a Jewish nutritionist, resulting in a blank voicemail the nutritionist found frightening. We're being told we need MORE of this. There's "hate speech"… pic.twitter.com/hoTihNRE89

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) January 16, 2026

It has been clearly and conclusively established that this system does not work. State and federal governments are working frenetically to shred the right of Australians to oppose the actions of the state of Israel, with their assault on our civil rights disguised as an effort to fight “antisemitism” in our country and help Jewish Australians feel more safe. The fact that this happens to advance the information interests of the western power alliance, we are told, is purely coincidental.

The evidence is in and the case is closed. The Australian system does not work. We need a national bill of rights, and we need free speech to be enshrined in our constitution.

In the meantime, we need to be aggressively opposed to laws and policies which assault our freedom of speech. We need to be more aggressive in our opposition than Americans would be, because we have fewer safeguards against tyrannical abuses.

It’s so disgusting how these freaks are telling us right to our faces “Yeah well you guys don’t have any rights, so I’m going to silence you and oppress you and I make no apologies about that.”

That kind of arrogant, abusive authoritarianism deserves nothing but ferocious defiance.

Scott Ritter: US-Iran War Imminent as Military Buildup Peaks

Iranian government braces for possible attack as US navy arrives in region

The Iranian government is bracing itself for a fresh US and Israeli missile assault after it was announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group has now deployed key assets to the region, observers have said. It is thought that Washington has the firepower in conjunction with Israeli aircraft to mount an attack designed to topple the government accused of brutally suppressing protests and killing thousands of Iranians.

The US fleet including several guided-missile destroyers are not yet in final position but are already in striking range of Iran. It is by no means certain that further US attacks on Iran will reignite the street protests, as many Iranians opposed to the clerical leadership in power since 1979 are also opposed to externally imposed regime change.

With no signs of a diplomatic breakthrough imminent, the Iranian stock market suffered a record daily fall on Monday. Regional powers including the United Arab Emirates declared they will not allow their airspace or territorial waters to be used to mount an attack on Iran but the presence of the carrier strike group in the Mediterranean means permission will not be needed from many third parties for an attack. Over the weekend, the US military announced that it would carry out an exercise in the region “to demonstrate the ability to deploy, disperse, and sustain combat airpower”.

Any such attack will not be designed to weaken Iran’s already shattered nuclear programme, the chief target of the 12-day war in June, but to target Iran’s political leadership and bring the protesters angered by falling living standards back into the streets. Inflation in the last month reached 60%, new official figures showed.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, claimed the US was trying to destroy Iran’s social cohesion before an attack. He said Donald Trump’s effort to portray “the country as being in a state of emergency is itself a form of warfare, and this is exactly what the enemies are seeking to achieve. The rioters constitute an urban group with terrorist-like characteristics. When they rush toward military and police centres to obtain weapons, it indicates that they are seeking to provoke a civil war. This time, the US tactic is to first break public cohesion and only then carry out a military attack.”

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Using the Economy as a Weapon — Trump and Iran

Trump Weighing Options for Iran, Including Blockade and High-Level Strikes

President Donald Trump is considering a range of options to force regime change in Iran.

According to Middle East Eye, Arab officials said that Washington is considering strikes against high-level targets in Tehran. A former US intelligence official familiar with the White House’s internal debate explained that President Donald Trump was still pushing for regime change.

The Jerusalem Post reports that a second option is to impose a blockade on Iranian oil shipments. Trump ordered a similar embargo on Venezuelan oil last year. The US then seized several tankers carrying Venezuelan oil and kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro.

Other members of Trump’s Cabinet, including Vice President JD Vance, have pushed the President to launch strikes targeting the Iranian government and military. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favors military action if it leads to the fall of the Iranian government.

USS Abraham Lincoln Aircraft Carrier Strike Group Arrives in the Middle East

The USS Abraham Lincoln and its support ships have arrived in the Middle East as President Donald Trump is mulling strikes on Iran.

A US official told CBS News that the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group had arrived in US Central Command’s (CENTCOM) area of control. On Tuesday, CENTCOM posted on X that the Lincoln was in the Indian Ocean and crews were performing routine maintenance.

The US force presence in the Middle East is now similar to the American military footprint in the region when Israel attacked Iran in June, starting a war that lasted 12 days.

Leaked Document Outlines Trump’s Plan to Rule Gaza

Remains of last Israeli held in Gaza after 7 October 2023 returned

The remains of the Israeli police sergeant Ran Gvili, who was killed fighting Hamas-led militants on 7 October 2023, have been returned to Israel. Militants took Gvili’s body to Gaza to use as a bargaining chip. He was the last of 251 people captured that day still held in the territory.

“With this, all hostages have been returned from the Gaza Strip to the state of Israel,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

Gvili, 24, a member of an elite police unit, was killed defending Kibbutz Alumim. He was on medical leave after dislocating his shoulder in a motorcycling accident but when news of the attack began filtering out he put on his uniform and went to support the military.

The handover of the body marks the completion of a key initial demand of Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza. It should open the way for progress in its second stage, which the US announced was under way earlier this month.

Richard Wolff & Michael Hudson: Davos 2026: The New World Order Isn’t About Peace—It’s About Power

CBS Refuses to Denounce Israel for the Killing of CBS Cameraman

Three Palestinian journalists – including longtime CBS News freelance cameraman Abed Shaat – were killed on Wednesday, January 21, when an Israeli airstrike hit their vehicle in the Al-Zahra area southwest of Gaza City, according to Gaza’s civil defense agency. The Israel Defense Forces said troops struck “suspects” operating a drone “affiliated with Hamas,” while the Egyptian Relief Committee said the targeted vehicle was on a marked humanitarian mission. CBS mourned Shaat, but its published story did not denounce Israel for the strike.

Civil defense officials identified the other two journalists killed as Mohammed Salah Qashta and Anas Ghneim. An eyewitness said the journalists were using a drone to take images of aid distribution connected to the Egyptian Relief Committee when a vehicle accompanying them was hit. The aid group confirmed one of its vehicles was targeted and said its cars “bear the committee’s logo,” calling it a criminal attack on a humanitarian mission.

Shaat’s reporting was part of the daily logistics of covering Gaza from inside Gaza. CBS said he filmed video from Khan Yunis throughout the war, including from an ambulance after he was wounded. He was 30 and had married two weeks before he was killed. After the ceasefire began in October, he joined the Egyptian humanitarian committee to document relief operations.

'Imperial Boomerang': How US War Tactics Abroad Are Now Used at Home

Nearly 3 Days After Killing of Alex Pretti, Feds Have Still Not Released Name of Shooters

It has been more than 55 hours since an immigration officer’s fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis on Saturday, and still the US government has refused to provide the public with answers about the identity of the agent, or agents, who shot him.

Just as in the case of Renee Good, who was shot by an agent earlier this month, the Trump administration has circled the wagons around the narrative that Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse, was a “terrorist” planning to “massacre law enforcement” a claim they have provided no evidence for aside from the fact that he was carrying a handgun, which local police have said he owned legally.

Video of Pretti’s killing, recorded from multiple angles, directly contradicts the claims of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who alleged that Pretti was “brandishing a weapon” and that agents fired “defensive shots” after Pretti “violently resisted” arrest.

The Department of Homeland Security has not released any identifying information about the people who shot Pretti. Video evidence appears to show two agents firing at least ten shots at Pretti as he lay on the ground. One of the agents appeared to fire shots using an identical handgun to the one federal law enforcement later said Pretti was carrying.

Pretti had been shoved to the ground after attempting to film officers with a cellphone. Video shows him being shoved and later pepper-sprayed by officers, even after holding up his hands in an apparent attempt to signal that he was not a threat.

In what was described as a stunning break from the usual protocol for a law enforcement-involved shooting, Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino said during a press conference on Sunday that all of the agents involved are “still working,” though they had been moved out of Minneapolis. Bovino himself is reportedly expected to leave Minneapolis soon, along with other top agents.

David J. Bier, the director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, described the fact that the agents were still on duty one day after a shooting as “unreal.”

“Bovino spirited the murderer out of Minnesota’s jurisdiction, yet they are still ‘working,’” he said. “I’ve never heard of that in any real police department. Never heard of that in the federal government either.”

He added that “cops shot at people in seven different jurisdictions this year,” and that, “in every case, the jurisdiction put the officers on admin leave as part of standard protocol.”

During the same press conference, told reporters that the agents had been moved out of Minneapolis “for their safety.” He then explained: “There’s this thing called doxxing.”

Legally speaking, the term “doxxing” refers to the public disclosure of private information like addresses, phone numbers, and other sensitive information with the intent to harm the subject.

However in an effort to justify keeping the identities of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal officers a secret, including through the wearing of masks to hide their identities, the Trump administration and Republican members of Congress have adopted a much broader definition of the term that considers any attempt to identify an agent, even one involved in a shooting, as doxxing.

Last week, Noem harangued a CBS News anchor for even speaking the name of Jonathan Ross, the man who reporters identified as the shooter of Renee Good, live on the air, saying “we shouldn’t have people continue to dox law enforcement.”

She has previously pledged to prosecute those who reveal the identities of federal agents to the “fullest extent of the law,” though so far no charges have been filed.

According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), publishing the name of a law enforcement officer is generally considered First Amendment-protected speech under Supreme Court rulings that protect the publishing of truthful information.

S.V. Date, a White House correspondent at HuffPost, said that the federal government’s refusal to identify the agent who shot Pretti essentially “means we have an unaccountable secret police force that answers only to Trump.”

“This person has still not been identified,” he said, referring to the agent who shot Pretti while wearing a mask to obscure his identity. “In a real police force, that piece of information is released in the very first incident report.”

Members of Congress have called for a transparent investigation into the shooting, including some Republicans who are otherwise supportive of ICE.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is not running for reelection in this year’s cycle, called for a “thorough and impartial investigation” and said “any administration official who rushes to judgment and tries to shut down an investigation before it begins is doing an incredible disservice to the nation and to President Trump’s legacy.”

Of course, the Trump administration itself has already shut down an investigation into the shooting of Good, stating repeatedly that it would not pursue a probe into wrongdoing by Ross, while freezing out state-level investigators from information.

Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) said that the Trump administration has ignored a court order that would allow state investigators to access evidence in Pretti’s killing.

“Our state investigators had to get a warrant to have access to the evidence of the shooting of Alex Pretti,” Smith said. “And even then, the federal agents refused to give them access to the evidence. So this looks very much like another cover-up.”

I've been a gun owner my entire adult life.

The leaders of a political party that claims to care about the Second Amendment say that because Alex Pretti was carrying a firearm at a protest, he deserved to be executed. pic.twitter.com/Wd1aT2m2XY

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) January 26, 2026

“Feels Like a Cover-Up”: Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Slams Trump Admin over Deadly ICE Crackdown

Minneapolis court considers whether Trump’s deployment of ICE agents violates constitution

A federal court in Minneapolis heard arguments on Monday on whether the Trump administration’s deployment of 3,000 immigration agents to Minnesota has crossed the line from law enforcement into unconstitutional occupation.

Hours later, Kate Menendez, the Biden-appointed US district judge overseeing the case, ordered the federal government to respond to the assertion that the Trump administration’s so-called “Operation Metro Surge” enforcement campaign was intended to “punish plaintiffs for adopting sanctuary laws and policies”. She gave the Trump administration lawyers until Wednesday evening to respond, suggesting a ruling was not imminent.

The extraordinary legal question centers on the 10th amendment, which reserves to the states all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government in the constitution. Lawyers for Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul claim in their suit that Operation Metro Surge has become so intrusive and dangerous that it amounts to an illegal occupation of the state.

They are asking Menendez to immediately halt the operation, which they say has terrified residents, put public safety at risk, and made it nearly impossible for local officials to do their jobs, from policing neighborhoods to keeping schools running normally. Menendez declined to rule immediately following the arguments. ...

Much of the hearing, according to reporters, has focused on a letter from the attorney general, Pam Bondi, which the state characterizes as an extortion attempt that violates the 10th amendment. Minnesota’s lawyers argue the Trump administration is using Operation Metro Surge to force policy changes rather than letting courts resolve disputes. “They are not letting the courts work this stuff out,” the state said. “What they’re trying to get in court … they’re trying to get that same thing by putting 3,000 heavily armed agents on the streets of Minnesota.” The Bondi letter explicitly linked ending the surge to three demands: access to voter registration records, welfare program data, and the repeal of sanctuary policies, none of which the state argues have anything to do with immigration enforcement.

MAGA Can NEVER Pretend To Support The Second Amendment Again

White House backtracks initial claims about Alex Pretti after intense backlash

White House officials sought to rapidly distance Donald Trump and top officials from their initial portrayals of the man fatally shot by federal officials in Minnesota as a gunman, as they faced a deepening backlash after video footage was widely seen to undercut their assertions. The move came as Trump advisers appeared to realize that the caustic portrayals of the man, Alex Pretti, who was reportedly licensed to carry a gun, had turned the killing into an even larger political liability for the president.

Over the weekend, senior administration officials including Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, called the victim “a domestic terrorist who tried to assassinate law enforcement”, while Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, accused him of perpetrating “the definition of domestic terrorism”. The characterizations were undercut by video footage that showed Pretti was shot in the back roughly 10 times after being tackled to the ground by a group of US border patrol agents whom he had been filming, and disarmed of his gun.

At a briefing on Monday, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, sidestepped questions about the remarks against Pretti and insisted the administration would not comment pending the outcome of multiple investigations into the shooting. “I have not heard the president characterize Mr Pretti in that way,” Leavitt said. “However, I have heard the president say he wants to let the facts and the investigation lead itself.”

Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, separately tried to backpedal on behalf of the administration, telling Fox News: “I don’t think anybody thinks that they were comparing what happened on Saturday to the legal definition of domestic terrorism.” The evolving positions at the White House were notable for how quickly they were changing and how reactive the administration was to a sudden free fall in support of ICE and US border patrol tactics across Washington, most notably among Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Capt. Matt Hoh : The Execution of Alex Pretti

Trump’s ICE crackdown faces reckoning as outrage mounts over Alex Pretti shooting

Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy militarized immigration agents in US cities may finally be reaching a reckoning as he faces widespread opposition across the US, dissenting lawmakers in his own party, and impending court rulings after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal officers in Minneapolis. While there is no sign the aggressive tactics used by immigration enforcement are coming to an end, the mayor of Minneapolis said the administration will begin to scale back the number of federal agents in Minneapolis starting on Tuesday, as the president and his team soften their harsh rhetoric about the incident.

Trump and Minnesota governor Tim Walz – an otherwise regular target of the president’s ire and ridicule – said they had a call to discuss the federal immigration surge on Monday morning, which the president described in positive terms.

“It was a very good call, and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Walz’s office issued a statement that hinted at signs of a future de-escalation of the situation as well. It said the governor and the president had held a “productive” call where Trump “agreed to look into reducing the number of federal agents in Minnesota and working with the state in a more coordinated fashion on immigration enforcement regarding violent criminals”.

Later on Monday, Trump said he had a “very good telephone conversation” with Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, who has been sharply critical of the administration’s deployment: “Lots of progress is being made!” In a statement, Frey said he conveyed to Trump that the current deployment, known as Operation Metro Surge, “needs to end”.

“The president agreed that the present situation cannot continue,” Frey said, adding: “Some federal agents will begin leaving the area tomorrow, and I will continue pushing for the rest involved in this operation to go.”

Judge SHOWDOWN: Orders ICE Head To MN After Lies

Critics slam Pam Bondi’s demand for Minnesota voter rolls amid ICE surge

There was widespread outrage after the attorney general, Pam Bondi, pushed for access to Minnesota’s voter rolls as the state reeled from the killing of Alex Pretti over the weekend. Bondi included the demand for voter rolls in a letter she sent to the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, on Saturday urging him to “change course” in the state. In addition to turning over the voter rolls, Bondi also said the state should turn over data on those receiving public assistance and repeal sanctuary city policies in the state.

The request for voter rolls stood out because it has nothing to do with immigration enforcement – the Trump administration has not presented evidence of widespread voter fraud by non-citizens in Minnesota or elsewhere. In a court hearing on Monday as part of a request to end the surging federal immigration enforcement presence in Minnesota, an attorney representing the state described Bondi’s request as a “ransom note”.

Minnesota is one of nearly two dozen states the justice department is suing for its full, unredacted voter file, including partial social security numbers, full dates of birth and driver’s license numbers. Experts say the legal rationale behind the suits is flimsy and it is a thinly veiled effort to sow doubt about the administration of elections ahead of the midterm elections.

The justice department has not said exactly what it plans to do with the voter rolls. It is widely believed one purpose will be to share it with the Department of Homeland Security so that officials can run it through an upgraded database to identify non-citizens on the rolls. A handful of Republican-led states that have voluntarily run their voter rolls through the database have come up with very few examples of non-citizens being registered.

Bondi’s letter and the broader request for voter information is part of a “shakedown”, said Joanna Lydgate, CEO of States United Democracy Center, a non-profit organization that works on election issues. “Trump wants that state voter data so that he has the ability to interfere with the upcoming midterm elections,” she said on Monday.

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Republican ends bid for Minnesota governor, citing ‘unconstitutional’ ICE surge

A top Republican candidate for Minnesota governor has dropped out of the race, sharply criticizing what he called a “federal retribution on the citizens of our state” amid the Trump administration’s intensified immigration enforcement operations – which sparked public outrage after US agents’ killings ofAlex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis.

On Monday, the Minneapolis-based attorney Chris Madel made his announcement, saying in a video online: “I cannot support the … stated retribution on the citizens of our state, nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so.”

Donald Trump, like Madel, is a Republican. Madel expressed support for federal immigration agents’ purported original aim of deporting undocumented immigrants involved in major criminal activity. But he said Operation Metro Surge had “expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats”.

“United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear,” Madel said, referring to the immigration enforcement operation, in which roughly 3,000 federal agents have been deployed in and around Minneapolis since December, reportedly carrying out thousands of arrests. “United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong.”

Madel had launched his gubernatorial bid in December and provided legal counsel to the ICE agent Jonathan Ross after he shot Good to death on 7 January while she drove away from an encounter with him. ... Madel said ICE’s Operation Metro Surge would hurt Republicans statewide after large street protests met the killings of Pretti and Good, along with widespread criticism beyond Minneapolis. “National Republicans have made it nearly impossible for a Republican to win a statewide election in Minnesota,” he said.

Cruz reportedly says Trump yelled and cursed over warning of midterm election ‘bloodbath’

Ted Cruz warned Donald Trump, his fellow Republican, that he would face a “bloodbath” in the November midterm elections if prices continued to rise, prompting the president to respond, “fuck you, Ted,” the US senator told donors, according to a secret recording of the private conversation obtained by Axios.

Cruz reportedly delivered the reality check to the president in a phone conversation after Trump presented sweeping tariffs a few months after returning to the Oval Office in early 2025. The president was unhappy, Cruz said – and yelled and cursed in a conversation with Republican senators.

“Mr President, if we get to November of [2026] and people’s 401(k)s are down 30% and prices are up 10–20% at the supermarket, we’re going to go into election day, face a bloodbath,” Cruz said he told the president, according to Axios. “You’re going to lose the House, you’re going to lose the Senate, you’re going to spend the next two years being impeached every single week.”

Only 34% approve of how Trump has handled the cost of living while 64% disapprove, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll. There is also evidence the economy may be motivating those who voted for Trump in 2024 but now disapprove of him, according to the Times.

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Number of people living in extreme heat to double by 2050 if 2C rise occurs

The number of people living with extreme heat will more than double by 2050 if global heating reaches 2C, according to a new study that shows how the energy demands for air conditioners and heating systems are expected to change across the world. No region will escape the impact, say the authors. Although the tropics and southern hemisphere will be worst affected by rising heat, the countries in the north will also find it difficult to adapt because their built environments are primarily designed to deal with a cooler climate.

The new paper, published in Nature Sustainability, is the most detailed study yet of how far and how fast different regions will encounter temperature extremes as human-driven global heating rises from 1C above preindustrial levels 10 years ago, towards 1.5C this decade, to 2C, which many scientists predict could occur around mid-century unless governments make rapid cuts to emissions from oil, gas and coal.

This will change the pattern of energy demand for temperature management. Over the coming decades, the northern hemisphere’s heating bill will decrease, while the cooling bill of the southern hemisphere will increase. Separate studies have confirmed that by the end of the century, global energy demand from air conditioning will overtake and then far outstrip that from heating.

If the 2C threshold is breached, the new dataset indicates the number of people experiencing extreme heat will increase from 1.54 billion people (which was 23% of the world population in 2010) to 3.79 billion (41% of the projected world population in 2050). The majority of those affected will be in India, Nigeria, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines. But the most significant increase in dangerous temperatures will threaten Central African Republic, Nigeria, South Sudan, Laos and Brazil.

In a surprise to the authors, the computer models also found that the greatest shift will occur early in the warming trajectory – near the 1.5C phase, which is where the world is now. This adds urgency to the need to adapt areas such as healthcare, the economy and the energy system.

Health groups sue EPA over insecticide that causes testicular damage in rats

Public health groups are suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its approval of a Pfas “forever chemical” insecticide that industry research found likely reduces testicle size, lowers sperm count and harms the liver in rats.

The pesticide, isocycloseram, is used on food crops and could especially threaten children and developing fetuses, but the EPA did not factor those risks into its safety assessment, said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director with the Center for Biological Diversity, a plaintiff in the suit. The lawsuit marks the latest flare-up in an ongoing controversy over the use of forever chemicals in pesticides, which public health advocates discovered under the Biden administration, and has accelerated under Trump.

The pesticide program has also caused friction between the Robert F Kennedy Jr.-aligned Make America Healthy Again (Maha) movement, which broadly opposes pesticide use, and Maga elements atop the Trump administration aligned with pesticide and chemical industries. Environmental groups pin blame for the decision to greenlight the pesticide on leadership in the EPA’s chemical safety office, which is now includes former industry lobbyists. Donley said the groups are “going to fight like hell to make sure these forever pesticides aren’t allowed to poison our grandchildren’s grandchildren”.

“Approval of this dangerous pesticide spotlights how the industry puppet masters running the EPA chemicals office are making a mockery of chemical oversight,” Donley said.

Georgia leads push to ban datacenters used to power America’s AI boom

Lawmakers in several states are exploring passing laws that would put statewide bans in place on building new datacenters as the issue of the power-hungry facilities has moved to the center of economic and environmental concerns in the US. In Georgia a state lawmaker has introduced a bill proposing what could become the first statewide moratorium on new datacenters in America. The bill is one of at least three statewide moratoriums on datacenters introduced in state legislatures in the last week as Maryland and Oklahoma lawmakers are also considering similar measures.

But it is Georgia that is quickly becoming ground zero in the fight against untrammelled growth of datacenters – which are notorious for using huge amounts of energy and water – as they power the emerging industry of artificial intelligence. The Georgia bill seeks to halt all such projects until March of next year “to allow state, county and municipal-level officials time to set necessary policies for regulating datacenters … which permanently alter the landscape of our state”, said bill sponsor state Democratic legislator Ruwa Romman.

It comes at a time when Georgia’s public service commission – the agency that oversees utility company Georgia Power – just last month approved a plan to provide 10 additional gigawatts of energy in the coming years. It was the largest amount of electricity sought for a multi-year plan in the commission’s history, was driven by datacenters and will mostly be supplied by fossil fuels.

The 10-gigawatt plan – enough to power about 8.3m homes – in turn comes as the Atlanta metro area led the nation in datacenter construction in 2024. This accelerated growth has already led at least 10 Georgia municipalities to pass their own moratoriums on datacenter construction, with Atlanta suburb Roswell becoming the most recent earlier this month. Municipalities in at least 14 states have done the same, according to Tech Policy Press.

Datacenter concerns in Georgia also include water use and lost tax revenue. Republicans in the state legislature have introduced bills this year to protect consumers from increases in their utility bills and to end tax breaks for the centers. A Democrat has proposed that datacenters make public how much energy and water they use each year.

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Also of Interest

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

Israel Replicating a Genocidal Mindset

DHS Turns Warehouses into Mass Detention Camps

Wife of oil tanker captain captured by US in North Sea starts legal action to free him

Why Is Trump Causing His Own Downfall?

How To Drive Domestic Production and Reindustrialization

Fraud focus: why is Trump granting clemency to convicted fraudsters?

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A Little Night Music

Pink Anderson - Greasy Greens

Pink Anderson - I've Got Mine

Pink Anderson - Weeping Willow Blues

Pink Anderson - Meet Me In The Bottom

Pink Anderson - Baby, I'm Going Away

Pink Anderson - I Got A Woman

Pink Anderson & Simmie Dooley - Papa's 'Bout To Get Mad

Pink Anderson - I Will Fly Away

Pink Anderson - She Knows How to Stretch It

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