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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Magic Sam

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues songwriter and guitar player "Magic Sam" Maghett. Enjoy!

^{Magic Sam – Keep Lovin' Me Baby}

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."

-- John Lennon

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News and Opinion

Only Idiots Believe The War Propaganda About Iran

There is nothing you can say to me to convince me that US regime change interventionism in the middle east is a swell idea.

There is nothing you can say to convince me that the Trump administration is telling us the truth about Iran.

There is nothing you can say to convince me that the mass media are telling us the truth about Iran.

There is nothing you can say to convince me the people who just spent two years incinerating Gaza have kind-hearted intentions for the Iranian people.

There is nothing you can say to convince me that protecting Israel is a good and desirable thing that westerners should support.

There is nothing you can say to convince me that the empire-like globe-spanning power alliance that is loosely centralized around Washington should be in charge of our world.

There is nothing you can say to convince me that I should help the US and Israel manufacture consent for a regime change war by criticizing the Iranian government in the middle of a frenzied war propaganda campaign.

It is not okay to be a grown adult in the year 2026 and still believe US regime change interventionism in the middle east will lead to positive outcomes.

It is not okay to live in a post-Iraq invasion world and still not understand that we are being lied to about Iran.

It is not okay to have lived through what these monsters did to Libya and still believe forcibly toppling the Iranian government is a moral and just cause to get behind.

It is not okay to have just watched these freaks turn Gaza into a gravel parking lot pervaded by the smell of rotting corpses and believe they have noble intentions for the people of Iran.

I don’t care if you are making your pro-regime change arguments from a right wing anti-Islam perspective, from a liberal humanitarian pro-democracy perspective, from a left-wing “solidarity with our Persian comrades” perspective, or from an “oppose all tyranny equally” anarchist perspective. Your arguments are shit, and your position is wrong.

The agenda to oust the Iranian government is about dominating the planet in general and the middle east in particular. You might think it’s about something else, but you are wrong. It’s about power and control, and all your fanciful notions about freedom and democracy for the Iranian people will be instantly subordinated to those goals. If this isn’t obvious to you, you’re an idiot.

The goal is not to bring freedom and democracy to the Iranian people. The US and Israel do not permit democracy to thrive in the middle east unless they can control its outcomes, as they are working to do right now in Iraq. The US and Israel are not popular enough in the middle east for the people to be allowed to control their own government.

The goal is to either install a puppet regime in Tehran, or to balkanize the nation into multiple independent states which can be easily controlled, or to plunge the entire state into unmanageable chaos like they did in Libya. None of these plans advance the interests of the Iranian people.

If you support Trump’s regime change agendas in Iran, then you support inflicting this upon the Iranian people. That’s what you get under the best-case scenario. Under the worst-case scenario, you get a hot war between the US and Iran which unleashes horrors you cannot possibly imagine. It will make the Iraq invasion and all the fallout therefrom look like an episode of Spongebob.

Seyed M. Marandi: Iran Warns of Overwhelming Retaliation to ANY U.S. Strike

Iran seeks to avert US military action with talks in Ankara

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, will travel to Ankara for talks aimed at preventing a US attack, as Turkish diplomats seek to convince Tehran it must offer concessions over its nuclear programme if it is to avert a potentially devastating conflict. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, proposed a video conference between Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian – the kind of high-wire diplomacy that may appeal to the US leader, but would be anathema to circumspect Iranian diplomats. No formal direct talks have been held between the two countries for a decade.

Araghchi’s visit on Friday comes against the backdrop of urgent international diplomacy and increasingly aggressive threats from both sides. Senior defence and intelligence officials from Israel and Saudi Arabia were also in Washington for talks on Iran this week, Axios reported on Thursday.

The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said at a cabinet meeting on Thursday that his department would be able to deliver on any military instructions given by Trump. “They [Iran] have all the options to make a deal,” he said. “They should not pursue nuclear capabilities. And we will be prepared to deliver whatever this president expects.”

Trump has warned Iran that time is running out, vowing that any US attack would be violent and far more extensive than the US intervention in Venezuela. Speaking on Thursday night at the Kennedy Center, Trump struck a more concillatory tone, saying he was planning to talk to Iran. “We have a lot of very big, very powerful ships sailing to Iran right now, and it would be great if we didn’t have to use them.”

Iran has remained defiant, with army chief Maj Gen Amir Hatami announcing that since the 12-day war in June, Iran has revised tactics and built 1,000 sea and land-based drones. He said the drones and Iran’s extensive ballistic missile arsenal could provide a crushing response to any attack.

The US Will STRIKE Iran

Trump Considering Strikes on Iran to Reignite Protests

President Donald Trump is considering strikes on Iran, hoping the attack will restart anti-government protests. Reuters reported on Thursday that Trump was hoping strikes on Iran would reignite the protest movement. Earlier this month, the President was considering striking the Iranian government and security forces in response to the crackdown on demonstrators.

Trump initially asserted he would attack Iran for killing protesters, but decided against strikes because they lacked enough military assets in the Middle East to deliver a decisive blow to the Islamic Republic and protect American forces from retaliatory attack. The President has since ordered a massive military buildup in the Middle East.

In an effort to justify the major US military buildup in the Middle East, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US must be prepared for an Iranian strike on American troops in the Middle East. He asserted that President Donald Trump had the right to launch a “preemptive defensive” attack on Iran. ...

The President has reportedly been presented with options for causing regime change in Iran, including high-level strikes and a blockade of Iranian oil.

After 2 Years of Denial, IDF Confirms ​70,000+ Killed in Gaza​—But Denies Famine

After two years of denial and deception, the Israel Defense Forces acknowledged Wednesday for the first time that over 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, while continuing to deny the famine Israel caused by blocking humanitarian aid from entering the obliterated strip.

Israeli media including the Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, and others reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) accepts the accuracy of the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s (GHM) death toll, which currently stands at least 71,667, with more than 171,000 others wounded and 9,500 missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed buildings.

“How many years did we spend screaming, with checked and re-checked figures, lists showing names and ID numbers, being told the numbers were completely fanciful despite rigorous, transparent verification, and now the IDF quietly accepts that they were correct all along,” Beirut-based journalist Séamus Malekafzali said on X in response to the IDF admission.

Experts—including the authors of multiple peer-reviewed studies in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet—assert that the actual death toll in Gaza is much higher than reported. Last June, a study published in Nature reported 84,000 deaths in Gaza. Others say the toll could be even higher, with one Economist study estimating between 77,000-109,000 Gazans killed by Israeli forces.

“We should not care what the IDF accepts or not—they perpetrated the genocide,” said Jake Romm, the US representative for the Hind Rajab Foundation, which tracks suspected IDF war criminals and is named after a 5-year-old Palestinian girl massacred along with relatives and rescue workers by Israeli occupation forces on January 29, 2024. “Their communications are in service of that project.”

“This is, in any event, an admission that will only be used to discredit the real, much higher death toll as the scale of the atrocity becomes known,” Romm added.

After more than 2 years of Hasbara efforts to label journalists and NGOs as “useful idiots of Hamas” for using this data, the IDF has confirmed its accuracy. Yet with Gaza’s health system destroyed and long-standing aid restrictions, this estimate is only the tip of the iceberg. https://t.co/GDxppEr3ir

— Breaking the Silence (@BtSIsrael) January 29, 2026

Israeli academic Ori Goldberg was also skeptical of the IDF’s admission, asserting on “'Accepts’ means that even the vast network of lies no longer holds. If the IDF ‘accepts’ 70,000, it has killed innumerably more.”

While the IDF accepted GHM’s death toll, it argued that the famine in Gaza—which officially lasted from August-December 2025, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the standard international framework for classifying food insecurity and malnutrition—did not happen.

GHM says at least 453 Palestinians, including 150 children, have died of malnutrition in Gaza since October 2023. The IDF contends that the figure is a mix of lies and misleading reporting about people who had preexisting health conditions before they starved to death.

However, famine experts argue that Israel orchestrated a carefully planned campaign of mass starvation in Gaza.

Throughout the war, Israeli leaders, their supporters abroad, and mainstream US media attempted to discredit GHM casualty figures by casting aspersions upon the “Hamas-run” ministry. This, despite Israeli military intelligence deeming the figures accurate and historical confirmations of their reliability.

“The phrase *Hamas* Health Ministry was used as a slur for years to signal unreliability, even though it was pointed out again and again that its numbers had always held up,” noted journalist Jasper Nathaniel, adding sardonically that “I’m sure the ‘Pallywood’ crowd will be rushing to apologize today.”

The International Center for Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) said on social media that “every media outlet that cast doubt over these figures with dogwhistling phrases like ‘Hamas-run MoH’ is complicit in these killings.”

“In truth, the 71,000+ figure is conservative,” ICJP added. “Palestinian bodies are buried under the rubble and can’t be counted and many more have died from malnutrition due to Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians. Different tools, same outcome: Israeli genocide of Palestinians.”

In the United States—which has supported Israel’s annihilation of Gaza with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid and diplomatic cover including vetoes of numerous United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolutions during both the Biden and Trump administrations—the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment in June 2024 that banned US officials from using State Department resources to cite GHM casualty figures.

The amendment’s lead sponsor, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.)—whose all-time top campaign contributor is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—contended that “at the end of the day, the Gaza Ministry of Health is the Hamas Ministry of Health.”

Former President Joe Biden faced genocide denial accusations for casting aspersions upon GHM reports. President Donald Trump has also said he does not believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

A senior IDF official told the Times of Israel that the military is in the process of determining how many of the Gaza dead were members of Hamas or other militant groups.

While the Israeli government has claimed a historically low civilian-to-combatant kill ratio in Gaza, classified IDF intelligence data obtained last year during an investigation by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham of +972 Magazine and Local Call and Guardian senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison revealed that 5 in 6 Palestinians—or 83%—killed by the IDF through the first 19 months of the US-backed war were civilians.

Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi—who led the IDF through most of the war—acknowledged after retiring last year that “over 10%” of Gaza’s population, or about 220,000 Palestinians, had been killed or wounded as of September 2025.

“This is not a gentle war,” Halevi said at the time, “we took the gloves off from the first minute.”

Following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, the IDF dramatically loosened its rules of engagement, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.

The IDF’s use of massive ordnance, including US-supplied 1,000- and 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs capable of leveling entire city blocks, and utilization of artificial intelligence to select targets has resulted in staggering numbers of civilian deaths, including numerous instances of dozens or more people being massacred in single strikes.

Through it all, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli political and military leaders claimed that the IDF, “the most moral army in the world,” went to great lengths to avoid harming civilians.

Sharmine Narwani : The Slow Strangling of Syria and Lebanon

Canada separatists accused of ‘treason’ after secret talks with US state department

Covert meetings between separatist activists in the Canadian province of Alberta and members of Donald Trump’s administration amount to “treason”, the premier of British Columbia said on Thursday. “To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that – and that word is treason,” David Eby told reporters.

“It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to go and ask for assistance, to break up this country from a foreign power and – with respect – a president who has not been particularly respectful of Canada’s sovereignty.” The revelations that far-right activists met US state department officials first emerged in a Financial Times report outlining the efforts a group of increasingly emboldened separatists are taking in their attempt to secede from Canada.

A minority of residents of the oil-rich province have long argued that the province’s woes are due to the structure of payments to the federal government and a perceived inability to get their vast fossil fuel reserves to market.

Organizers of the Alberta independence movement, which still boasts only minority support, are now collecting signatures to trigger a referendum there. The pro-independence campaign has been travelling across the province as organizers try to collect nearly 178,000 signatures over the next few months. The group has publicly said it wants a $500bn credit facility from the US treasury to help fund the creation of a new country if their referendum is successful.

Alberta’s premier, Danielle Smith, who has rejected the idea of separation and said she “supports a strong and sovereign Alberta within a united Canada”, is facing mounting criticism that her government recently made it easier for residents to petition for a referendum.

"Hostile Takeovers": As U.S. Claims Venezuela's Oil, Trump Seeks "Vassal States" Across the World

Under Pressure From Trump, Venezuela’s Leader Signs Bill Opening Oil Industry to Privatization

Venezuelan scholars and a US watchdog group were among those expressing concern on Thursday after Venezuela’s government caved to pressure from President Donald Trump and signed a bill opening up the South American country’s nationalized oil industry to privatization.

After US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores—who have both pleaded not guilty to federal narco-terrorism charges—the Trump administration installed the deposed leader’s former deputy, Delcy Rodríguez, as acting president.

On Thursday, Venezuela’s National Assembly—which is led by the acting president’s brother, Jorge Rodríguez—approved and Delcy Rodríguez signed legislation that “promises to give private companies control over the production and sale of oil and allow for independent arbitration of disputes,” according to the Associated Press.

As AP reported:

Rodríguez’s government expects the changes to serve as assurances for major US oil companies that have so far hesitated about returning to the volatile country. Some of those companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the existing law two decades ago to favor Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.

The revised law would modify extraction taxes, setting a royalty cap rate of 30% and allowing the executive branch to set percentages for every project based on capital investment needs, competitiveness, and other factors.

It also removes the mandate for disputes to be settled only in Venezuelan courts, which are controlled by the ruling party. Foreign investors have long viewed the involvement of independent courts as crucial to guard against future expropriation.

Malfred Gerig, a sociologist from Central University of Venezuela, said on social media that the Rodríguez siblings’ United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) “has just approved the most anti-nationalist and damaging oil law since, at least, 1943. The absolute surrender of the state as an oil producer and a sudden conversion of the property rights of the Venezuelan nation into private rights of foreign companies.”

Victor Lovera, an economics professor at Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas, said that “it must be really fucking tough for the Rodríguez siblings to end up as the empire’s lapdogs and open up the oil sector, taking us back to the 1970s, before the nationalization of oil. All just to cling to power for a few more months.”

The Venezuelan parliament has approved a major reform of the country's Hydrocarbon Law. The new bill rolls out major incentives for corporations, from increased operational/sales control to reduced royalties and taxes. The law undoes the primacy of the state established by Chávez https://t.co/H5G0CmeLTh

— Venezuelanalysis (@venanalysis) January 29, 2026

Trump—who returned to office a year ago with help from Big Oil’s campaign cash—has made clear that his aggressive policy toward Venezuela is focused on the country’s petroleum reserves, which critics have blasted as a clear effort to further enrich his donors and himself.

“Trump is deploying drone and gunboat diplomacy to coerce Venezuela into serving up its oil resources to Big Oil,” said Robert Weissman, co-president of the US watchdog group Public Citizen, in a Thursday statement.

“Imperfectly, Venezuela has for most of the last century sought to manage its oil and gas reserves to advance its national interest, rather than that of outside investors,” he noted. “Brutal sanctions and the threat of still more military action from the Trump regime are now forcing Venezuela to turn from that history and make its oil available to Big Oil at discount rates and to agree that investor disputes should be resolved at corporate-friendly international tribunals.”

“This is imperial policy to benefit Big Oil, not Americans—and certainly not Venezuelans,” Weissman stressed. “Even still, US oil companies are likely to be reluctant to invest heavily in Venezuela without US government guarantees—a likely next step in Trump’s oil imperialism, unless Congress moves proactively to block it.”

Both chambers of the US Congress are narrowly controlled by Trump’s Republican Party, and they have so far failed to pass war powers resolutions aimed at stopping more military action in Venezuela and the administration’s bombings of boats allegedly smuggling drugs in international waters—all of which some American lawmakers and other experts have argued are illegal.

When Trump’s secretary of state and acting national security adviser, Marco Rubio, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—on which he previously served—on Wednesday, he insisted that the president wasn’t planning for any more military action in Venezuela, but would take it, potentially without congressional authorization, in “self-defense.”

Rubio also laid out how the United States intends to continue controlling Venezuelan oil and related profits, telling senators that Venezuela’s government will submit periodic budgets, and as long as they comply with preset restrictions, the Trump administration will release funds from a US Treasury blocked account.

After the legislation passed Thursday, the Trump administration began easing sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry, with the Treasury issuing a general license authorizing certain activities involving Venezuelan-origin oil.

"Cold-Blooded Murder": Families of Trinidadian Men Killed in U.S. Boat Strike Sue Trump Admin

Trump threatens tariffs on goods from countries that sell oil to Cuba

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday laying the groundwork to slap tariffs on goods from countries that provide oil to Cuba, the White House said. The order, which ratchets up Trump’s pressure to topple the Communist government, declares a national emergency and establishes a process for the US secretaries of state and commerce to assess tariffs against countries that sell or otherwise provide oil to the island nation. The White House has yet to specify tariff rates for violating its new policy of blocking Cuba from buying oil.

A White House statement cited Cuba’s ties to hostile powers to explain the new tariff policy, citing the Cuban government’s alleged ties to Russia, Hamas and Hezbollah. “These actions constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to US national security and foreign policy, requiring immediate response to protect American citizens and interests,” the White House said.

The Trump administration had pressured other countries to stop providing oil to Cuba in the lead-up to Thursday’s tariff announcement. Trump has tussled with Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum for weeks over the issue. Sheinbaum has insisted that Mexico’s state oil company, Pemex, will continue to fill contractual obligations with Havana and may offer oil for humanitarian reasons. “The humanitarian aid will continue, as it does to other countries,” Sheinbaum said at a press conference earlier this week. “Mexico has always shown solidarity with the entire world. They are sovereign decisions.”

Still, Sheinbaum acknowledged earlier this week that Mexican oil shipments have paused for the moment.

Mexico has been a major oil supplier for Cuba, providing 20,000 barrels per day through most of last year, according to NPR. That figure amounts to a little less than a third of the 70,000 daily barrels that Venezuela provided last year, according to the Miami Herald. Cuba reportedly resold much of its Venezuelan oil supply, however.

Trump sues IRS and US treasury for $10bn over leak of tax returns

Donald Trump on Thursday sued the US treasury department and Internal Revenue Service for $10bn over the disclosure of his tax returns to the media in 2019 and 2020.

In a complaint filed in Miami federal court, Trump, his adult sons, and his namesake company said the agencies failed to take “mandatory precautions” to prevent former IRS contractor Charles Littlejohn from leaking their tax returns to “leftist media outlets”, including the New York Times and ProPublica.

The plaintiffs said they suffered “significant and irreparable harm” to their reputations and financial interests, and may seek punitive damages because the leaks were either willful or resulted from gross negligence.

Thursday’s lawsuit puts Trump in the unusual position of suing government agencies that are part of the executive branch, which he leads.

Minneapolis mayor warns others to ‘speak up’ against Trump or ‘your city is next’

Jacob Frey, the embattled mayor of Minneapolis, has warned fellow mayors that their city will be next in line to be targeted by federal immigration agents unless they speak out against Donald Trump’s aggressive deployments. Addressing the US conference of mayors in Washington DC, Frey won loud applause as he accused the Trump administration of staging an “invasion” of his city and pursuing a “might makes right” philosophy, which he said was championed by Stephen Miller, Trump’s most powerful aide.

Speaking five days after last Saturday’s fatal shooting in Minneapolis of a protester, Alex Pretti, by two immigration agents, Frey called the the deployment of between 3,000 and 4,000 federal agents into the city “an invasion on our democracy, [and] on our republic”.

“I didn’t take this job to get into the business of defending democracy. I did it because being a mayor has always been my dream job. [But] we are on the front lines of a very important battle, and it’s important that we aren’t silenced. This is not a time to bend our heads in despair or out of fear that we may be next, because if we do not speak up, if we do not step out, it will be your city that is next.”

ICE ends surge in Maine as border czar pledges to keep operation in Minnesota

Federal authorities have ended their immigration enforcement surge in Maine, a state senator said on Thursday, even as Donald Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, insisted that the much bigger operation in Minnesota would continue. Susan Collins, a Republican, cited a conversation with homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, saying that the “enhanced operation” in her state of Maine had been wrapped up.

Nicknamed “Operation Catch of the Day”, it has targeted communities in Portland and Lewiston and led to the detention of more 200 people since last week. Most have already been removed from the state, sparking concerns among family members and attorneys who fear the detainees will face greater odds of removal outside Maine.

“There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here,” Collins said in a social media post, adding she had been “urging” the agency to reconsider its approach to enforcement, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection would continue their “normal operations”.

“We have noticed a dramatic downswing of enforcement [in Maine] since the week started,” said Jenny Beverly, an attorney with Haven Immigration Law who has been fielding legal aid requests since the ICE surge began.

Other legal advocates said that ICE’s retreat would only provide moderate relief. “The fear is reverberating across Maine, and so many people have completely withdrawn from public life,” Sue Roche, executive director of the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, said in a statement. “There is no guarantee an ICE surge or operation will not happen again, and the increased enforcement in Maine since the beginning of the Trump administration has been devastating in and of itself.”

Democrats EXPOSED For Secretly Funding ICE

Senate Democrats reach deal to avert partial government shutdown

Senators have reached a deal to advance a major package of spending bills to avert a partial government shutdown that was set to begin on Saturday.

The office of Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, confirmed the deal calls for splitting a funding bill for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from a package of other funding bills, and that the deal would fund DHS for two weeks at its current levels.

The deal would avert a partial shutdown that would have affected many of the government’s functions. The House, which is out of session, would have to approve the revised package. The government’s current spending authorizations expire after Friday, while the House in not back until Monday.

The Senate could vote on the deal as soon as Thursday evening. In the House, speaker Mike Johnson, told the Associated Press that he had been “vehemently opposed” to breaking up the funding package, but “if it is broken up, we will have to move it as quickly as possible. We can’t have the government shut down.”

“We may inevitably be in a short shutdown situation,” Johnson told reporters later, because the earliest the House will take floor action on funding bills could be Monday. “But the House is going to do its job.”

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This Is What Happens When Trump Targets You for Revenge — Former Official Speaks

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US leads record global surge in gas-fired power driven by AI demands, with big costs for the climate

The US is leading a huge global surge in new gas-fired power generation that will cause a major leap in planet-heating emissions, with this record boom driven by the expansion of energy-hungry datacenters to service artificial intelligence, according to a new forecast. This year is set to shatter the annual record for new gas power additions around the world, with projects in development expected to grow existing global gas capacity by nearly 50%, a report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found.

The US is at the forefront of a global push for gas that is set to escalate over the next five years, after tripling its planned gas-fired capacity in 2025. Much of this new capacity will be devoted to the vast electricity needs of AI, with a third of the 252 gigawatts of gas power in development set to be situated on site at datacenters. All of this new gas energy is set to come at a significant cost to the climate, amid ongoing warnings from scientists that fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out to avoid disastrous global heating.

The gas projects in development in the US will, if all completed, cause 12.1bn tonnes in carbon dioxide emissions over their lifetimes, which is double the current annual emissions coming from all sources in the US. Worldwide, the planned gas boom will cause 53.2bn tonnes of emissions over projects’ lifetimes if fulfilled, pushing the planet towards even worse heatwaves, droughts, floods and other climate impacts.

“Locking in new gas plants to meet uncertain AI energy demand means hard-wiring decades of pollution into a gambit that could be solved with flexible, clean power,” said Jenny Martos, project manager at GEM’s oil and gas plant tracker. “As the AI bubble inflates, the US must decide whether it will double down on a fossil future while the rest of the world pivots to renewables.”

‘Pesticide cocktails’ polluting apples across Europe

Environmental groups have raised the alarm after finding toxic “pesticide cocktails” in apples sold across Europe. Pan Europe, a coalition of NGOs campaigning against pesticide use, had about 60 apples bought in 13 European countries – including France, Spain, Italy and Poland – analysed for chemical residues.

Eighty-five percent of the samples contained several pesticide residues, the organisations said, with some apples showing traces of up to seven different chemicals.

Pan Europe advised consumers to buy organic apples or peel conventionally grown ones before eating them. In 71% of cases, Pan Europe detected pesticides classed among the most hazardous in the EU – so-called “candidates for substitution” that the bloc aims to phase out as soon as possible.

The analysis also found that 64% of samples contained at least one per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance, also known as Pfas or “forever chemicals”, which are found throughout the environment and everyday products.

Pesticide residues are permitted in the EU below certain maximum levels. But Pan Europe warned of the “cocktail effect”, when consumers are exposed to several pesticides simultaneously in a single product.

Experts Warn of ‘Disastrous’ Climate Impacts If Trump Seizes Control of Greenland

As warnings about the dangers of President Donald Trump’s Greenland threats mount, experts are sounding the alarm over what his takeover of the self-governing Danish territory that straddles the Arctic Circle would mean for a world that is already heating up due to humanity’s continued reliance on fossil fuels.

Since returning to office last January—in part thanks to campaign cash from fossil fuel giants—Trump has called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” in a UN speech and constantly prioritized big polluters over working people and the planet, including by ditching dozens of international organizations and treaties, such as the Paris Agreement. The president’s first year back in power was also among the hottest on record, according to his own government and various scientific institutions.

“His fixation on Greenland is an admission that climate change is real,” John Conger, a former Pentagon official in the Obama administration who is now an adviser to the Center for Climate and Security, a research institute, told the New York Times earlier this month.

The Arctic is warming 2-4 times faster than most of the Earth. As reflective sea ice melts and is replaced by darker land or water, more heat from the sun is absorbed, causing a temperature increase that further accelerates melting. Atlantic Council distinguished fellow Sherri Goodman recently told the Washington Post that “it’s partly the melting of sea ice making it more attractive for the economic development that he’d pursue in Greenland.”

Regional warming is opening up potential shipping routes and access to natural resources, from minerals needed for renewable energy technologies to oil. While the Trump administration is now engaged in talks with Greenland and Denmark, the president has said he wants the island—whose people don’t want to join the United States—because of “national security” concerns, claiming that if he doesn’t take it over, China or Russia will.

“Climate change is a significant national security risk,” said Goodman, who was deputy undersecretary of defense for environmental security during the Clinton administration. “The openings of sea lanes, the changing ice conditions, are contributing to the intense geopolitical situations we’re experiencing.”

Fears eased a bit last week, when Trump backed off threats to impose tariffs on European countries opposed to his Greenland takeover and potentially use US military force to seize the territory. While in Switzerland for the Davos summit, he also announced the “framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.”

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels on Thursday that negotiations between his country, Greenland, and the United States the previous day had a “very constructive atmosphere and tone, and new meetings are planned,” according to CNBC.

“It’s not that things are solved, but it is good because now we are back to what we agreed in Washington exactly two weeks and a day ago. After that, there was a major detour. Things were escalating, but now we are back on track,” Rasmussen said. “It’s not that we can conclude anything, but I am slightly more optimistic today than a week ago.”

Even so, Trump has made clear that the plans to deliver on his campaign pledge to "drill, baby, drill," and as Politico detailed:

According to an assessment by the US Geological Survey, Greenland “contains approximately 31,400 million barrels oil equivalent (MMBOE) of oil” and other fuel products, including around 148 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

“That’s the kind of reserves that if they were discovered in Saudi Arabia or Qatar, businesses would be jumping for joy,” said Ajay Parmar, a senior crude markets analyst with commodities intelligence firm ICIS.

“Of course, given it’s in Greenland, there would be technical challenges putting in place the piping to extract it and get it around the world,” he said. “But there’s still a major commercial opportunity there, even if it would require a lot of time and effort to make it work.”

However, in 2021, Greenland introduced a moratorium on oil and gas exploitation after the socialist, pro-independence Inuit Ataqatigiit party took power, vowing to “take the climate crisis seriously.”

It’s unclear whether that ban will survive current negotiations, or if Trump will return to threats of taking Greenland by force.

Paul Bledsoe a lecturer at American University’s Center for Environmental Policy who held various roles in the Clinton administration, wrote in a Thursday opinion piece for the Hill that “Trump’s energy and climate policies, including his heedless preoccupation with exploiting Greenland and the rest of the Arctic for oil and gas resources, risk a far more rapid meltdown of the Arctic, with disastrous consequences for nations and people around the world.”

“More than half of the Arctic’s reflective ice has melted in the last 50 years, and a recent study in the journal Nature found that the Arctic will be free of sea ice entirely for at least a day before 2030,” he noted. “Should Arctic sea ice be allowed to melt, which may happen within just two decades or even sooner, absorption of the sun’s heat by the newly open northern ocean will add the equivalent of 25 years of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions, pushing already dangerous global temperatures of 2.7°F above preindustrial levels toward climatic instability.”

“This loss of Arctic sea ice is just one of more than a dozen temperature-sensitive tipping points scientists have now identified, including in ocean currents and the Amazon rainforest, that risk unleashing super-heating around the globe,” Bledsoe continued. He also highlighted that “huge new shipping traffic in the Arctic and industrial development of oil and gas in the region will greatly increase the amount of climate pollution, including from carbon dioxide, methane, and especially black carbon soot, which is already washing out onto Arctic ice and increasing melting rates tremendously.”

US planet-heating emissions “are now rising again under Trump,” thanks to him abandoning key climate agreements and imposing policies on close coal-fired power plants, methane regulations, carbon dioxide standards, and more, the expert added. Given that the president’s “anti-climate policies have already been damaging to the Arctic and global climate protection,” Bledsoe warned against letting his quest for Greenland “increase the chances of disastrous, runaway climate change.”

Bledsoe’s warning coincided with a Thursday letter from over 120 civil society groups—including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace International, Oil Change International, Public Citizen, and Zero Hour—urging European Union leaders to resist Trump’s “fossil-fueled imperialism” in solidarity with Latin America and Greenland.

The coalition called on the bloc’s leaders to introduce a United Nations motion condemning Trump’s violations of international law, cancel the US-EU trade deal, renew the European Green Deal, end contracts for importing or financing US liquefied natural gas, create a roadmap to phase out gas, defend EU methane rules, and support for the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels.

“As long as the EU accedes to Trump’s demands,” the coalition wrote, “it will be switching one dangerous dependency for another, giving up its sovereignty bit by bit, losing the competitiveness battle, deepening the climate crisis which will be putting its own people’s lives at even higher risk from extreme weather, and jeopardizing its ambitions to be seen as a global climate leader.”

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Also of Interest

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

Spinning the Truth Until We Are All Dizzy

Why Iran Must Be Broken to Build the U.S.–Israeli Vision for a “New Middle East”

Israeli counterterrorism tactics are showing up in Minnesota

Schumer Accused of ‘Downright Complicity’ as ICE Reform Plan Draws Backlash

Father detained by ICE with five-year-old tells US congressman his son has been ‘depressed’

Minneapolis ICE watchers face violence, teargas and arrests. They keep showing up

Despite Vows on ‘Affordability,’ Trump Proclaims: ‘I Want to Drive Housing Prices Up’

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A Little Night Music

Magic Sam – Feeling Good

Magic Sam – Every Night About This Time

Magic Sam Blues Band - Every Night And Every Day

Magic Sam ~ You Belong To Me

Magic Sam Blues Band - That's All I Need

Magic Sam – Look Out Sam

Magic Sam ~ What Have I Done Wrong

Magic Sam – You Don't Have To Work

Magic Sam – Looking Good

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