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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bertha "Chippie" Hill

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features vaudeville singer and dancer Bertha "Chippie" Hill. Enjoy!

^{Bertha "Chippie" Hill w Louis Armstrong ~ Trouble In Mind}

"MAGA was an eleven-year practical joke where at the end the cameras come out and the prankster goes “Haha joke’s on you, we’re not making America great again, we’re going to war with Iran!”"

-- Caitlin Johnstone

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News and Opinion

The Warmongers Will Never Admit They Were Wrong And Will Never Learn From Their Mistakes

Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton has a tweet that’s got me absolutely fuming right now.

“In 2018–2019, I made the case for regime change in Iran as often as I could. Voices in Trump’s orbit often cited Iran’s capacity to close the Strait of Hormuz as a reason against regime change. Trump has been fully aware this is a possibility, and yet did not prepare,” Bolton posted.

Can you believe this shit? Dude’s like “Hey, Trump should have known this war would be hard because people tried to warn him not to listen to me!”

Motherfucker THIS WAS YOUR WAR. You were THE “bomb Iran” guy! You made it your entire personality for DECADES. Over the years I’ve used your name God knows how many times whenever I needed an example of a Beltway swamp monster who’s got a throbbing hard-on for war with Iran. Now you’ve finally got it and it’s going exactly as badly as everyone said it would, and you’re like “Yeah well he should’ve known better, people tried to warn him about the Strait of Hormuz”? Fuck you.

Got his regime change war and is still mad about it. https://t.co/iCbOcDOzcA

— Josiah Lippincott (@jlippincott_) March 18, 2026

These professional warmongers never, ever learn from their errors. Many years after the Iraq invasion turned out to be a disaster, John Bolton was still out there telling the media he believed it was a “resounding success,” conceding only “mistakes that were made subsequently” to the ousting of Saddam Hussein.

They never admit they were wrong. They never admit that their war was a bad idea. They only ever acknowledge that it didn’t happen in exactly the way they imagined it happening in their minds. They live in this fantasy world where all their war agendas would unfold beautifully so long as they could personally control every molecule of matter involved in how it happens, completely ignoring that this is impossible and any war is always going to have an unfathomable number of moving parts you can’t control.

In their eyes the wars are never wrong, they’re only ever executed incorrectly. US military interventionism can never fail, it can only be failed.

Bolton doesn’t even seem to have any idea what Trump could have done differently to stop Iran from closing the Strait of Hormuz. I listened to an NPR interview the other day where he slammed Trump for not having “done the planning in advance” to prevent the Iranian blockade, but he never at any time outlined what Trump could have done to accomplish this. He just said there was “a huge hole in the planning” and that “they apparently didn’t take as seriously as they should have the potential to mine the Strait of Hormuz,” without ever saying what they could have done.

John Bolton jumping ship. JOHN BOLTON. https://t.co/z1LTJcJusJ

— Ali Ahmadi (@AliR_Ahmadi) March 14, 2026

He doesn’t know. He himself, Mister Iran War, had no plan for how to carry out this war without disastrous consequences for the US and its allies. He’s spent his entire blood-soaked career pushing for a war he never had any idea how to actually carry out.

These are the kinds of minds they have spearheading the US empire’s wars.

All the worst people are getting exactly what they want, and it turns out they don’t even want it, like Elon Musk tweeting “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about” last month. They’re getting everything they asked for and it’s making everyone miserable, and it’s not even making THEM happy.

The imperial status quo elevates the worst among us. The least wise. The least insightful. The least compassionate. The least deserving. The least qualified.

We need drastic revolutionary change, and we need it now.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Iran War is the End of US Hegemony

Trump tells Iran it has 48 hours to open Hormuz or US will ‘obliterate’ its power plants

Donald Trump has given Iran 48 hours to reopen the strait of Hormuz to shipping or face the destruction of its energy infrastructure, as Tehran launched its most destructive attack yet on Israel. The ultimatum, made just a day after the US president said he was considering “winding down” military operations after three weeks of war, came as the key oil passage remained effectively closed and thousands more US Marines headed to the Middle East.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that the US would “hit and obliterate” Iranian power plants – “starting with the biggest one first” – if Tehran did not fully reopen the strait within 48 hours, or 23:44 GMT on Monday according to the time of his post. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Tehran had imposed restrictions only on vessels from countries involved in attacks against Iran, and would assist others that stayed out of the conflict.

Trump’s ultimatum came hours after two Iranian missiles struck southern Israel, injuring more than 100 people in the most destructive attack since the war began. The Israel prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed to retaliate “on all fronts”. The strikes, which slipped through Israel’s missile defence systems, tore open the facades of residential buildings and carved craters into the ground.

First responders said 84 people were injured in the town of Arad, 10 of them seriously. Hours earlier, 33 were wounded in nearby Dimona, where AFPTV footage showed a large hole gouged into the ground next to piles of rubble and twisted metal. Dimona hosts a facility widely believed to be the site of the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, although Israel has never admitted to possessing nuclear weapons. The Israeli army told Agence France-Presse there had been a “direct missile hit on a building” in Dimona, with casualties reported at multiple sites, including a 10-year-old boy in serious condition with shrapnel wounds.

Iran said the targeting of Dimona was retaliation for Israeli strikes on its Natanz nuclear facility, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) saying forces also targeted other southern Israeli towns as well as military sites in Kuwait and the UAE. After the Natanz attack, the UN nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Grossi, reiterated his call for “military restraint to avoid any risk of a nuclear accident”.

Trump Backs Down; Postpones Hormuz Ultimatum; Claims US Iran Talks Underway; Iran Defiant; NO Talks

It's important not to shy away from candidly discussing the President's increasingly erratic behavior. His worsening instability is a clear and growing threat, not only to the American people but to the world. https://t.co/eYn5hohwf8

— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) March 22, 2026

Ray McGovern: Iran Hits Targets Near Israel’s Nuclear Site

Iran vows to destroy Middle East water and energy facilities if US attacks power plants

Tehran has said it will “irreversibly destroy” essential infrastructure across the Middle East, including vital water systems, if the US follows through on Donald Trump’s threat to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants unless the strait of Hormuz is fully opened within two days. As Iranian missiles struck two southern Israeli cities overnight, injuring dozens of people, and Tehran deployed long-range missiles for the first time, the developments signalled a dangerous potential escalation of the war, now in its fourth week, with both sides threatening facilities relied on by millions of people.

The speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on Sunday that vital infrastructure in the region – including energy and desalination facilities – would be considered a legitimate target and would be “irreversibly destroyed” if his country’s own infrastructure was attacked.

Amnesty International said this month there was a substantial risk that attacks on systems providing essential services such as electricity, heating and running water would violate international law and “in some cases could amount to war crimes” because of the potential for “vast, predictable, and devastating civilian harm”.

The Iranian military’s operational command headquarters, Khatam al-Anbiya, said Iran would strike “all energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure” belonging to the US and Israel in the region. The statement also said that if Trump’s threat was carried out, the strait of Hormuz would be “completely closed, and will not be reopened until our destroyed power plants are rebuilt”.

Larry C. Johnson: Iran Missiles Smash Dimona & Tel Aviv - Just in: 3 Fighter Jets Downed

Netanyahu hopes destroying Iranian ‘axis of evil’ will rehabilitate his image

Over three weeks of war, Iranian missiles have killed at least 15 people inside Israel, and injured many more, including about 200 in overnight strikes near a nuclear facility in the country’s south, but they have not touched public support for the war. An overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis back the decision to start a new conflict, with the Israel Democracy Institute putting support at more than 90% in two wartime polls.

Undaunted by the regular wail of air raid sirens, shuttered schools, cancelled flights or warnings the campaign could last weeks, more than half also wanted the US and Israel to keep bombing Iran until its government falls. Opposition politicians set aside campaigning for parliamentary elections due this autumn, backing the decision to attack Iran in an almost unanimous display of national unity.

Enthusiasm for the war sparked speculation inside Israel that the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, might dissolve parliament early to capitalise on securing US backing for the conflict, and the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This year’s vote will be the first chance for Israelis to have a direct say on their government since the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023.

Netanyahu astonished political enemies and allies alike by hanging on to power after the bloodiest day in Israel’s history. He resisted taking personal responsibility for security failures that day, even as almost every other senior political, military and intelligence figure in office on that day apologised and stepped down. But even as he held a fractious coalition together, opinion polls showed that for most of the past two years, support stuck stubbornly below levels that would return him to power.

Many Israelis believe that he saw toppling the Iranian regime, or pummelling its military capacities, as his best chance of persuading voters to reconsider his legacy – even though last year’s 12-day war on Iran had only a negligible impact on support. “As far as Netanyahu is concerned, the road to the polling stations runs through Washington and Tehran,” a minister close to Netanyahu told the Haaretz newspaper soon before the war began. “Destroying the Iranian axis of evil is the move that Netanyahu assumed, after 7 October, would rehabilitate his image.”

Plunging into an ocean of death

IDF Threatens ‘Elimination’ of Russian Leaders

Israeli military spokeswoman Anna Ukolova has drawn outrage in Moscow after threatening that Russian authorities who “wish Israel ill” could be subject to “elimination,” while suggesting Israel could hack into Russian closed-circuit television cameras to identify and track targets.

Asked by a journalist with Russian radio broadcaster RBC whether Israel had access to Russian traffic cameras, Ukolova declined to answer directly but warned that “Khamenei’s elimination shows our capabilities are serious” and that “no one who wishes us harm will be left aside.” She added, ominously, “I hope Moscow does not wish Israel ill right now – I’d like to believe that.”

In response to a post by Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who wrote that the IDF spokeswoman threatened that “Russian authorities [will] be killed if they take [an] anti-Israel position,” Ukolova claimed Dugin was spreading “fake news.” But she declined to clarify how her remarks had been incorrectly interpreted.

Ukolova’s statements came just days after it was revealed that a large number of Russian CCTVs were potentially using BriefCam – an Israeli video analysis software that closely matches the description of a program the Netanyahu regime reportedly deployed to track Iranian movements outside the home of Iran’s Supreme Leader before they assassinated him during their February 28 sneak attack.

MASSIVE Damage In Israel After Iran Strikes Near Nuke Facility

5m tonnes of CO2 emitted in just 14 days of US war on Iran

The US-Israel war on Iran is a disaster for the climate, according to an analysis that finds it is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined. As warplanes, drones and missiles kill thousands of people, level infrastructure and turn the Middle East into a gigantic environmental sacrifice zone, the first analysis of the climate cost has found the conflict led to 5m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in its first 14 days.

The analysis, shared exclusively with the Guardian, adds another layer on to reporting of the catastrophic environmental harm being caused by attacks on fossil fuel infrastructure, military bases, civilian areas and ships at sea. “Every missile strike is another downpayment on a hotter, more unstable planet, and none of it makes anyone safer,” said Patrick Bigger, a research director at the Climate and Community Institute and a co-author of the analysis. “Every refinery fire and tanker strike is a reminder that fossil‑fuelled geopolitics is incompatible with a livable planet. This war shows, yet again, that the fastest way to supercharge the climate crisis is to let fossil fuel interests dictate foreign policy.”

The US-Israeli axis claims to have bombed thousands of targets inside Iran, and Israel has hit hundreds more targets in Lebanon. Reports from inside both countries show extensive destruction of infrastructure. Destroyed buildings constitute the largest element of the estimated carbon cost. Based on reports by the Iranian Red Crescent humanitarian organisation that about 20,000 civilian buildings have been damaged by the conflict, the analysis estimates the total emissions from this sector to be 2.4m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e).

In total, the first two weeks of the conflict led to emissions of 5,055,016 tCO2e, equivalent to 131,430,416 tCO2e in a year – roughly the same as a medium-size, fossil fuel-intensive economy such as Kuwait. But it is also the same as the 84 lowest emitting countries combined. As of June last year, climate scientists estimated humans could emit greenhouse gases equivalent to 130bn tonnes of CO2 to leave us with a 50% chance of stopping the climate from heating beyond 1.5C. At the present rate of 40bn tCO2e that budget will be exhausted by 2028.

OMINOUS: Bibi Claims Al-Aqsa THREATENED By Iran

‘Extremely ugly’: Maga media figures squabble among themselves over Trump’s Iran war

When the histories of the Iran war and Donald Trump’s “Make America great again” (Maga) movement are written, there may be a special place for the words of former US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene: “I wholeheartedly support Megyn Kelly telling the world that Mark Levin has a micropenis.” Greene’s social media post summed up how the media stars of the Trump coalition have turned on each other in a ferocious, bitter and – sometimes – vulgar brawl. Figures such as Kelly, Levin, Tucker Carlson, Laura Loomer, Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro have clashed over the meaning of “America first”, the role of Israel and whether Trump is breaking his promise to end forever wars.

I wholeheartedly support Megyn Kelly telling the world that Mark Levin has a micropenis.
It’s the most deserved insult and I don’t care if it’s vulgar.
And Trump’s gigantic defense of Levin only enraged the base more.
People are DONE.
MAGA destroyed by micropenis Mark Levin. https://t.co/FZCqlKlRxw

— Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) March 16, 2026

What is less clear is whether Maga’s identity crisis reflects a schism among the movement’s rank and file, with the potential for an anti-Trump revolt, or merely the incentives of clickbait-driven social media. Nine in 10 Maga-aligned Republicans back the war, according to an NBC News poll – but a prolonged war and high fuel prices could erode Trump’s support. “What makes this different is that, while most of these debates take place within alternative-reality silos, this is clearly breaking through,” said Charlie Sykes, author of How the Right Lost Its Mind. “If you’re part of the Maga movement you’re being exposed to this debate and criticism of Trump’s action in a way that rarely has happened in the past.”

A coalition forged in the crucible of “America first” populism is now visibly fracturing, torn between personal loyalty to Trump and fierce ideological opposition to a new Middle Eastern war. Joe Rogan, an influential podcast host, has said the war in Iran is “crazy” and left Americans feeling “betrayed” by Trump. This week’s resignation of Joe Kent, a top counter-terrorism director, laid bare internal strife that is spilling from the corridors of power into the chaotic arenas of rightwing podcasting and social media. “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran,” Kent, previously a Trump loyalist, wrote in a letter to the president that he posted on Tuesday.

This ideological whiplash has put key figures in Trump’s orbit in an uncomfortable position. His vice-president, JD Vance, who planted his political flag firmly in the isolationist wing of the party, and his national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, whose political identity was largely built on opposing military adventurism, have deflected questions by expressing faith in Trump. Yet while elected officials bite their tongues, the Maga media ecosystem has descended into extraordinary and often crude blood-letting. Kelly, a former Fox News host now running her own independent media group, said the war was sold to the US people by “Israel firsters, like Mark Levin”.

Cuba Aid Convoy ARRIVES Amid ANOTHER BLACKOUT

‘US Siege Is Warfare’: Cuba Faces Second Nationwide Blackout in Under a Week

Some Cubans got power back on Sunday after another nationwide blackout on Saturday—the second in less than a week and the third time the grid has collapsed this month after the Trump administration intensified the United States’ decades-long economic blockade, cutting off the island nation from Venezuelan oil.

“The Cuban Electric Union, which reports to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, reported that the total disconnection of the national energy system was caused by an unexpected shutdown of a generation unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camaguey province, without providing details on the specific cause of the failure,” according to The Associated Press.

Critics from around the world have condemned the US siege as “economic warfare,” which is notably occurring as President Donald Trump and his allies in Washington, DC repeatedly float a potential takeover of the country located just 90 miles south of Florida.

Havana this morning.

There might not be US missiles landing on this city.

But the US siege is warfare.

Cuba is being destroyed by an intensifying blockade. https://t.co/hmxtZHgl16 pic.twitter.com/J79pb4SwEW

— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) March 22, 2026

Saturday’s blackout came a day after The Washington Post reported that “the Cuban government this week refused a request by the US Embassy in Havana to import diesel fuel for its generators, calling the ask ‘shameless,’ given the Trump administration’s fuel blockade on the island, according to diplomatic cables” reviewed by the newspaper.

It also followed the arrival of some members of Nuestra América Convoy, which is bringing humanitarian aid to the island. The effort involves hundreds of people from over 30 countries and 120 organizations.

Highlighting the convoy on social media early Saturday afternoon, US Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.) declared that"Trump’s oil blockade in Cuba has caused a worsening humanitarian crisis—cutting Cubans off from power, food, healthcare, and clean water.”

“I am heartened by the solidarity and bravery of the courageous people on the Nuestra América Convoy, arriving in Cuba to bring critical aid directly to the people,” she said. “I stand with the global community demanding that the Department of State and Department of Defense ensure their safety and security.”

Another progressive in Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), similarly said later Saturday that “we must lift the US oil blockade on Cuba. This is economic warfare designed to suffocate an island. Food is spoiling. Water supply is compromised. Healthcare services are disrupted. End the blockade now. Grateful to all those helping deliver humanitarian aid!”

Current Affairs editor-in-chief Nathan Robinson is reporting on the convoy from Havana. On Sunday, he wrote that “when the power went, I was watching a concert held at the Pabellon Cuba, a delightfully strange Brutalist outdoor event space... People can live without music if they have to, I suppose. (The Cubans refuse to, though, and as I walked through the streets tonight I saw plenty of dancing in the dark.) What they cannot live without is healthcare, and the blackout is of course hitting hospitals hard. People aren’t able to get crucial surgeries, or even get to the hospital, which means Trump is simply killing the sickest Cubans. Late last night, a report came in that patients on ventilators at the Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital have died.”

There’s something supremely saddening and enraging about seeing a hospital running on bare minimum power. Thinking about dialysis patients, babies in NICU, and others tonight in Cuba. This is a blockade of death. pic.twitter.com/C9QDxPqhzV

— James (@GoodVibePolitik) March 22, 2026

“It has been tragic and depressing watching the effects of the blockade. This is already a poor country. People didn’t have much to start with. But now they can’t take buses, they can’t afford to run their cars (I have been told gas costs anywhere between 10 dollars a gallon and 40 dollars a gallon, if you can find it—this in a country where a nice meal will cost you about $20),” Robinson explained. “Food in restaurants is starting to run out. Garbage is accumulating in the streets. I had to sprint to get through a city block where the flies were so thick it was a struggle to breathe without ingesting one. The entire supply chain appears to be breaking down. Tourism is drying up—few want to come and experience shortages and sanitation crises. Taxi drivers can’t drive their taxis.”

“With the evaporation of tourists comes greater despair, since so many depend on this influx of foreign money. Everyone in Cuba is warm and friendly, but you can tell they’re desperate. At the large San Jose art market, sellers had booths overflowing with souvenirs, and hardly anyone was there to buy. The merchants were outcompeting each other on pushiness—it was obvious many of them would not make a single sale all day,” the American journalist added. “I cannot believe how cruel what my country is doing is.”

US man pleads guilty to defrauding music streamers out of millions using AI

A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to defrauding music streaming platforms and his fellow musicians out of millions in royalties by flooding the services with thousands of AI-generated songs – and using automated “bots” to artificially boost the number of listens into the billions. As part of a deal with federal prosecutors in New York’s southern district, 52-year-old Michael Smith pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

The case against the Cornelius, North Carolina, resident is one of the first successful prosecutions of AI-related fraud in the music business, which is being hammered by fake music that threatens to swamp streaming services and deprive earnings from human musicians and copyright holders. “Michael Smith generated thousands of fake songs using artificial intelligence and then streamed those fake songs billions of times,” US attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.

“Although the songs and listeners were fake, the millions of dollars Smith stole was real. Millions of dollars in royalties that Smith diverted from real, deserving artists and rights holders. Smith’s brazen scheme is over, as he stands convicted of a federal crime for his AI-assisted fraud.” Smith was charged in September 2024 with fraudulently obtaining more than $10m in royalty payments by amassing as many as 661,440 streams daily between 2017 and 2024, yielding annual royalties of $1,027,128.

As one X commentator by the handle of Tuki pointed out after the plea deal was announced, Smith had used “AI make the music AND the audience” and had made $1.2m a year “for music no human ever actually listened to”. Musicians and the music industry, the X user added, now has “to fight songs that don’t exist being listened to by people who don’t exist”.

Charges dropped against woman in anti-ICE church protest over mistaken identity

Federal prosecutors have dropped criminal charges against a woman accused of participating in a controversial January protest at a Minnesota church after the woman apparently did not attend the event at all. Prosecutors notified a federal judge they intended to drop charges against Heather Danae Lewis, who was one of 30 people charged in connection with an anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protest that disrupted a service at the Cities church in Saint Paul. Officials have charged the protesters with civil rights crimes, saying they interfered with the right of the congregants at the church to exercise their religious beliefs. The media professional Don Lemon, who was at the event reporting on the protest, was among those charged.

Charging documents filed in February say Lewis was among a group that gathered in the parking lot of a supermarket, Cub Foods, before the protest for a “pre-operation briefing”. The documents also say Lewis was one of the people who entered the church and participated in several chants. But a lawyer representing Lewis, Brock Hunter, told the New York Times that his client coincidentally was in the Cub Foods parking lot at the same time the protesters were meeting. She was there to pick up items she won at an auction, Hunter told the Times. He added that he thinks she might have been targeted because prosecutors obtained cellphone data to try to determine who everyone was in the parking lot at that time – and that Lewis also resembled a woman who appeared on video of the protest.

Prosecutors said they intended to drop the charges “with prejudice” – meaning they cannot be refiled.

ICE agents will be deployed to US airports on Monday to ease long lines

Donald Trump and his border czar, Tom Homan, have confirmed that the president’s administration is sending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to US airports beginning on Monday to assist with security amid extremely long lines – and to help airport security agents who have been working without pay since 14 February because of a partial government shutdown. Homan will lead the effort, Trump said on Sunday.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said “ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful [Transportation Security Administration] Agents who have stayed on the job despite” the shutdown resulting from a US Senate deadlock over stricter regulations on federal immigration enforcement.

Homan, meanwhile, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday and said: “We will be at the airports tomorrow.” It remained unclear what responsibilities ICE officers will have, and Homan said on Sunday that details were still being finalized. “There’s TSA agents covering exits. People that enter through the exits. Certainly a highly trained ICE law enforcement officer can cover an exit, make sure people don’t go through those exits, enter an airport through the exits,” he said on CNN.

“Stuff like that relieves that TSA officer to go to screening and to reduce those lines. I don’t see an ICE agent looking at an X-ray machine because they’re not trained in that. There’s certain parts of security that TSA’s doing that we can move them off those jobs and put them in the specialized jobs and help them move those lines.”

More than 400 TSA agents have left their jobs since the partial government shutdown began, according to NBC News, and others are calling out sick. There have been crippling, hours-long waits at security checkpoints run by the TSA across the US. Images showed lines out to the parking lot at New Orleans’ airport on Sunday and at New York’s LaGuardia airport earlier in the weekend.

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US farmers reeling as Iran war pushes fertilizer costs up

Rodney Bushmeyer has been farming as long as he can remember. Bushmeyer’s father was a farmer, as was his grandfather. But Bushmeyer’s farm, which he runs with his son and cousin, has felt the impact of “dramatically” increased fertilizer prices over the past five or six years. And while some fertilizers have doubled in cost, commodity prices for grain have dwindled. “There is really no profit right now,” Bushmeyer said, later adding: “It’s not sustainable in the long term. We can do that for a few years, but eventually it’ll put us out of business.”

American farmers have become casualties in the US-Israel war against Iran. Iran closed the strait of Hormuz, cutting off a key fertilizer production and transportation route, and efforts to reopen this crucial trade route have stalled. The closure has intensified pressure on farmers as it comes as during the US spring planting season. The price spike also comes as farmers are experiencing several years of losing money on growing crops. “It’s not a great time for the grower,” said Matt Bennett, CEO of AgMarket, a brokerage and farmer consulting firm. Bennett is also a seventh-generation grain farmer based in Shelby County, Illnois.

The Middle East is critical to global fertilizer trade, with 35% of global urea trade, a solid nitrogen fertilizer, coming through the region. Roughly 20% of the phosphate trade comes from Saudi Arabia, says Chris Yearsley, CEO and head of nitrogen at Profercy, a global fertilizer pricing, analysis and forecasting firm. The US imports about 25% of its total fertilizer use, including 18% of its nitrogen use, says the American Farm Bureau.

Fertilizer prices have been elevated since the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war, and nitrogen values were already rising in late 2025, but prices have nearly doubled since the shipping channel closed. Benchmark New Orleans nitrogen prices were at $350 a short ton in late December, and in late February, just before the conflict, had risen to $470, Yearsley says. As of 10 March, nitrogen prices were trading about $600, he says.

Fertilizer is the most volatile and significant non-land cost for most farmers. For corn, the US’s biggest production crop, it can account for 20% of total production expenses, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Farmers have struggled with their costs being higher than the prices they are paid for harvest for at least three years, and the USDA had forecast 2026 would be another year of lowered profits, even before the spike in fertilizer prices.

Weather extremes gripping US bear climate crisis ‘fingerprint’

The US is experiencing a striking mix of weather extremes this March. Flooding rains in Hawaii, rare snow in Alabama, flip-flopping temperatures in the north-east and, perhaps most concerning, a severe heatwave affecting the west coast are raising questions about how strange these patterns really are, and what role the climate crisis is playing.

The key driver behind these extremes is the jet stream – a fast-moving current of air high in the atmosphere that can sometimes become very wavy. These dips can cause different extremes to happen simultaneously in different parts of the country, such as a ridge of warm air in one region, and a trough of cold air in another.“The heatwave in the west, happening at the same time as we turn sharply colder in the east, those two things are related,” Jon Nese, associate head of the department of meteorology and atmospheric science at Penn State said.

But if March has always been a month of extremes, this year’s events suggest that those extremes, particularly on the warm side, are ramping up in severity. The intensity of the heat in the western US has frequently broken records in recent years, with this past week being no exception. California, Nevada and Arizona were all under heat warnings this week amid scorching temperatures. In California, the National Weather Service (NWS) said the Los Angeles area was facing “extremely rare heat for March”, warning residents of a high risk for heat illness. Palm Springs, about 100 miles (160km) east of Los Angeles, reached a high of 107F on Thursday. Heat alerts remain in effect through Sunday.

The heatwave scorching the west would have been “virtually impossible” if not for the climate crisis, according to a team of scientists. Global warming, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, has made this kind of heatwave four times more likely to occur over the last decade, according to a rapid analysis released Friday.

On Tuesday, half a million US homes and businesses were without power after a potent storm system brought a mix of snow, strong winds, cold temperatures and rainfall to areas from the midwest to the east coast. Nese said: “Snow in Alabama in March is pretty unusual.” The overlap between unusual snowfall and the climate crisis is complex and still being studied, but there is clearer consensus when it comes to heat. “It’s probably reasonable to say that this heatwave in the west in March will have a climate change fingerprint on it,” Nese added. While the climate crisis might have some effect on bringing unusually colder weather in certain regions, the number of record-breaking heatwaves is greatly outpacing the number of cold weather events as the planet continues to heat up.

Firefighting departments close in some US states amid lack of volunteers

Officials have warned of serious consequences after the number of volunteer firefighters, the bedrock of firefighting in the US, plunged, leading to entire departments closing in some states. About 65% of American firefighters are volunteers, serving in their free time alongside their regular jobs. In 2008 there were 827,000 volunteers nationwide, but that figure dropped to 635,000 in 2023, the last year data is available.

Some states have been hit particularly hard, including New York, where fire officials said the number of volunteers has fallen to its lowest level in 40 years, creating a “public safety crisis” in areas around the state. “It’s quite serious, to be perfectly honest with you,” said Ralph Raymond, second vice-president of the Association of Fire Districts of New York and a volunteer firefighter in Massapequa, 20 miles east of New York City. Raymond said volunteers provide 93% of “fire protection” across the state, but dwindling numbers forced six fire departments to close in New York communities in 2025 alone.

“It means that residents [in those areas] now have to wait for a fire truck to come from a neighboring fire department that’s further from the one that just closed. They’re still going to get the fire protection, but they’re not going to get it as quick,” Raymond said.

Volunteers used to flock to the role, but Raymond and other officials blame the cost of living for preventing people from becoming involved. With some people already working two jobs, it is difficult for them to find time to also serve as a firefighter. In New York, fire officials are lobbying the state government to amend laws to allow them to provide “nominal compensation” to volunteers, of about $100 per shift.

“It really would mean a lot to the individuals who are poor who are standing by. Because it takes that person, that guy or that girl who’s volunteering that time, who works two jobs to put food on their table. Now it takes that person and they say: ‘Hey, you know what? I don’t have to work that second job. I can volunteer my time down at the firehouse.’”

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Also of Interest

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

Craig Murray: Seeing Trump Clearly

Iran War: Trump Issues 48 Hour Unhinged Ultimatum to Iran; Iran Vows Mass Destruction Countermeasures; Israel Takes Hit to Dimona Area, Other Blows After Second Firing on Iran Nuclear Reactor Site ; More Warnings of Deep Damage from Strait of Hormuz Closure, LNG Reduction Effects

War on Iran: – Longer Range Missiles Threats – Fake Oil Release – Murray: “Seeing Trump Clearly”

This Is The End Of The American Empire. Period.

Israeli settlers rampage across West Bank torching homes and cars

As in Gaza, Israel’s Deliberate Bombing of Lebanese Civilians Takes Heavy Toll

Israeli DM Orders Destruction of All Bridges Over Lebanon’s Litani River

Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire elected mayor of Paris - French Local Election Results

Child labor violations rise in US – as Republicans still roll back protections

"It's a Disaster": European Countries Refuse to Take a Stand Against U.S. Violations of Int'l Law

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A Little Night Music

Bertha "Chippie" Hill - Some Cold Rainy Day

Bertha "Chippie" Hill w Louis Armstrong - Pratt City Blues

Bertha "Chippie" Hill w/ Richard M. Jones' Jazz Wizards - Do Dirty Blues

Bertha "Chippie" Hill - Low Land Blues

Bertha "Chippie" Hill w Louis Armstrong - Lovesick Blues

Bertha Chippie Hill - Georgia Man

Bertha "Chippie" Hill, Louis Armstrong & Richard M. Jones - Pleadin' For The Blues

Bertha "Chippie" Hill w Tampa Red & Georgia Tom - Hard Time Blues

Bertha Chippie Hill - Sport Model Mama

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