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"Whenever someone talks about antisemitism these days you need to ask them to clarify what kind of antisemitism they mean: the “I hate Jews” kind or the “I don’t want my son to die invading some place called Kharg Island” kind."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

A Country Which Cannot Be Named Is Stealing Our Free Speech Rights

The Jerusalem Post just ran an opinion piece on Zohran Mamdani which includes the sentence, “It is time for the mayor of New York City to stand in solidarity with Muslim leaders who eschew antisemitic tropes, such as ‘genocide’ and ‘occupation,’ and are committed to a new and broader regional alignment in the Middle East.”

It’s been fun watching Israel apologists invent “antisemitic tropes” in real time. The words “genocide” and “occupation” are antisemitic tropes now, apparently. According to pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League and B’nai Brith, the phrases “Epstein class” and “Operation Epstein Fury” are also recent additions to the no-no list.

In reality these so-called “antisemitic tropes” are just effective talking points used to highlight facts that are inconvenient to Israel and its allies. Every relevant human rights group on earth agrees that Israel is an occupying force in the Palestinian territories. Every relevant human rights group on earth has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. The phrase “Epstein class” makes the rich and powerful people who rule our society look as creepy and suspicious as they should look. “Operation Epstein Fury” highlights President Trump’s place in the Epstein Files, which a majority of Americans believe played a role in his decision to attack Iran.

We see this all the time. Effective pro-Palestine political slogans like “Globalize the intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” are labeled antisemitic not because they express hatred toward Jews but because they are effective.

That’s all it ever is. Israel apologists see a phrase or slogan hurting Israeli information interests and go “Uh, okay so you can’t say those words anymore. Those words make Jewish people feel unsafe.”

And then the phrases get banned. Here in Australia we just saw the state of Queensland ban the phrase “from the river to the sea” on penalty of two years in prison. For no other reason than because it’s something people chant at pro-Palestine protests.

Antisemitism isn’t the target of these laws; the protests themselves are the target. They’re designed to shut down pro-Palestine demonstrations by making so many speech suppression laws that nobody would attend one without a lawyer present to advise them on what they may and may not say.

The very first time someone told me “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” was a hateful genocidal chant I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard, and to this day I still feel that way. It’s a completely counter-intuitive claim that makes no sense on first hearing it. It is only by the constant repetition of the assertion that it’s an antisemitic slogan that people began accepting this transparently absurd idea. They just said it over and over again in an authoritative tone until people started to buy it.

Nobody actually believes these words and phrases are hateful toward Jews, they’re just pretending to believe that to promote the information interests of a genocidal apartheid state. That’s all we’re ever looking at with this nonsense.

Iran WINS as Trump SURRENDERS, Tel Aviv Under Heavy Fire | Col. Larry Wilkerson & Dave DeCamp

What Will This CeaseFire Lead To? Pepe Escobar & Lt Col Daniel Davis

US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire with Tehran saying it will reopen strait of Hormuz

The US and Iran agreed to a two-week conditional ceasefire on Tuesday evening after a last-minute diplomatic intervention led by Pakistan, canceling an ultimatum from Donald Trump for Iran to surrender or face widespread destruction. Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire agreement came less than two hours before the US president’s self-imposed 8pm Eastern time deadline to bomb Iran’s power plants and bridges in a move that legal scholars, as well as officials from numerous countries and the Pope, had warned could constitute war crimes.

Just hours earlier, Trump had written on Truth Social: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” B-52 bombers were reported to be en route to Iran before the ceasefire agreement was announced. But by Tuesday evening, Trump announced that a ceasefire agreement had been mediated through Pakistan, whose prime minister Shehbaz Sharif had requested the two-week peace in order to “allow diplomacy to run its course”.

Trump wrote in a post that “subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks”. In the two weeks, Trump said, he believed the US and Iran could negotiate over a 10-point proposal made by Tehran that would allow an armistice to be “finalized and consummated”.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, issued a statement shortly after Trump’s announcement saying Iran had agreed to the ceasefire. “For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via coordinating with Iran’s Armed Forces,” he wrote.

The sudden about-face will allow Trump to step back as the US war in Iran has dragged on for five weeks with little sign that Tehran is ready to surrender or release its hold on the strait of Hormuz, a conduit for a fifth of the global energy supply, where traffic has slowed to a trickle. Israel will also agree to the two-week ceasefire, Axios reported, citing an Israeli official, adding that the ceasefire would enter effect as soon as the blockade of the strait of Hormuz ceased.

THE CEASEFIRE IN IRAN 'WON'T LAST' IF ISRAEL CONTINUES ATTACKS ON LEBANON – Prof. Mohammad Marandi

Democrats react to Iran ceasefire deal

Chris Murphy, the senior senator from Connecticut, said it does not appear the United States has actually reached a ceasefire agreement with Iran, since both countries are sharing different terms of the agreement. But, if the agreement that Iran believes it has entered into is true, that would be “cataclysmic for the world”.

In an appearance on CNN shortly after Donald Trump announced the ceasefire in a social media post, Murphy said: “Who knows what’s going on. Donald Trump lies every single day.”

But Murphy raised concerns about Iran’s explanation of the 10-point plan it shared with the United States, which suggests the strait of Hormuz would be regulated “under the coordination of the Armed Forces of Iran.”

Murphy added that the Iranian National Security Council claims “that Trump has also agreed to Iran’s right to enrichment, to suspend all sanctions against Iran, and to allow Iran to keep their missile program, their drone program and their nuclear program.”

“Now, who knows if any of that is true, but if, at the very least, this agreement gives Iran the right to control the strait that is cataclysmic for the world, and it is just stunning that that’s where we have gotten to that Donald Trump took a military action that has apparently, at least for the time being, given Iran control over a critical waterway that they did not have control over, before the war began.”

Laith Marouf: Hezbollah’s Position on US-Iran Ceasefire: What You’re Not Being Told

Retired military officers call Trump’s threats against Iran ‘likely war crimes’

Donald Trump’s Tuesday morning comments threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” in Iran have raised alarms among military observers and retired officers, who called them “likely war crimes”.

“I have to hope that this is bluster, and a negotiating tactic on his part,” said retired admiral Michael Smith, who commanded a carrier strike group in the US navy. “He must understand that those types of threats themselves are likely war crimes.” Trump’s post on Truth Social came on the heels of a profane tirade over the weekend, in which he referred to the Iranian regime as “crazy bastards” while demanding that it cease blocking oil transshipment through the strait of Hormuz. On Monday, Trump threatened to bomb infrastructure in Iran if his demands were not met.

“While his comments previously on the bridges and electric power plants might have had military utility that would make it a justifiable target, his current claims have no legal standing,” Smith said. “And yet, we have to have faith that the current military leaders will do what is legal.” Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump said he was “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes, and again threatened to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants if Tehran did not meet his Tuesday deadline to reopen the strait. He also refused to say whether civilian targets were off limits.

Congress has incrementally surrendered its prerogative to declare war and direct military spending, said Gary Corn, a retired army staff attorney who teaches national security law and the law of armed conflict at the American University Washington College of Law and directs the technology, law and security program for the Center for a New American Security, a bipartisan thinktank in Washington DC. “When you have the efforts in Congress failing, one can interpret it as an implicit acquiescence if not endorsement to what’s gone on in the last 30 days,” he said.

By narrow margins, the House and Senate rejected measures in early March to require congressional approval for military operations against Iran. Corn noted that Richard Nixon effectively ignored the repeal of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and continued waging war in Vietnam 55 years ago. The firing of three generals last week by the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, suggests that there may have been internal pushback from senior military leaders against Trump’s war plans. None of the fired officers have made public comments since their forced retirements.

Seyed M. Marandi: Israel Breaks Ceasefire, Iran Retaliates With Missile Strikes

Rania Khalek Recounts ‘Terrifying Massacres’ in Beirut w/ Vijay Prashad

Republicans silent as Democrats call on US cabinet to oust Trump over Iran

As Donald Trump unleashes curse-filled threats against Iran, Democrats are raising alarm over his mental stability and calling for his removal from office – while Republicans remain conspicuously silent.

Democrats are escalating their rebukes as the 79-year-old president delivers rambling, incoherent speeches, hurls puerile insults at US allies and brazenly threatens to commit war crimes. He used an Easter Sunday social media post to warn Iran to “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell”. The president followed up by insisting that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Tehran does not meet his latest deadline to agree to a deal that includes reopening the strait of Hormuz.

By Tuesday afternoon, more than 20 Democratic members of Congress had called for Trump’s cabinet to invoke the 25th amendment to the constitution to remove a president who is deemed unfit for office. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan wrote on the X social media platform: “After bombing a school and massacring young girls, the war criminal in the White House is threatening genocide. It’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment. This maniac should be removed from office.”

Ilhan Omar of Minnesota wrote that Trump is an “unhinged lunatic” and demanded: “When will it be enough for my Republican colleagues to grow spines and remove him from office?” Mark Pocan of Wisconsin added: “25th Amendment RIGHT NOW! Trump is too unhinged, dangerous, and deranged to have the nuclear codes!”

Larry Johnson : Iran Took Trump to the Cleaners!

As Trump Threatens Genocidal Attack, House Democrats Rebuked for Dragging Feet on War Powers Vote

Democratic leadership in Congress has been quick to condemn President Donald Trump after his genocidal threat to wipe out Iranian civilization on Tuesday. But critics are wondering why they didn’t take stronger action when they had the opportunity weeks ago.

Trump pledged Tuesday morning that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran refuses to open the Strait of Hormuz—a threat to carry out widespread destruction and mass slaughter across a nation of more than 90 million people.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) referred to the president as “an extremely sick person” and said “each Republican who refuses to join us in voting against this wanton war of choice owns every consequence of whatever the hell this is.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) joined in, agreeing that “Congress must immediately end this reckless war of choice in Iran before Donald Trump plunges us into World War III” and that “it’s time for every single Republican to put patriotic duty over party and stop the madness.”

Journalist Adam Johnson, however, noted that Democrats had a chance to “stop the madness” weeks ago, when it seemed they may have had the votes to pass a war powers resolution in the House at the end of March that would have limited Trump’s ability to further strike Iran. But instead, said Johnson, “ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) delayed the House War Powers vote until mid-April.”

At the time, Meeks contended that Democrats did not have enough votes to ensure the measure would pass and that he’d bring it to the floor only if it could be guaranteed that Democrats would win.

However, news reports indicated that at least three Republicans—Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Warren Davidson (Ohio), and Nancy Mace (SC) were all likely on board to pass the resolution, as were most or all of the four Democrats who voted against the one that fell just short in February.

Meanwhile, some Democrats whose absences were cited to justify delaying the vote reportedly returned to town in time for one to be held.

Even if there were indeed not enough votes, it was unclear why Meeks believed additional votes would be there over two weeks later.

In the days since Democrats balked at bringing the resolution to the floor, Trump has moved thousands more US troops to the Middle East, and his threats against Iran have grown markedly more extreme.

Over Easter weekend, he threatened on Truth Social to launch attacks against civilian infrastructure, including power plants and bridges, actions that Amnesty International said could amount to war crimes and “would unleash catastrophic harm on millions.” Asked about his comments during the White House Easter celebration, Trump said that if Iran does not open the strait by Tuesday, he is “considering blowing everything up.”

He has also reportedly mulled committing ground troops to several operations to occupy parts of Iranian territory in hopes of securing the strait or to carry out a mission to seize Iran’s enriched uranium, both of which experts have warned would likely prove catastrophic and put American troops in danger.

In a statement issued Tuesday, Meeks joined the chorus of Democrats condemning Trump’s comments, saying that “threatening to destroy Iranian power plants and bridges is not a strategy, it is a war crime.”

However, his statement did not mention any plans to re-launch a war powers resolution once Congress returns to session.

Meeks’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether he plans to bring the resolution back to the floor next week or whether he regretted not pushing harder to bring the vote before the recess.

Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, described Trump’s actions as a predictable result of Meeks and other House Democratic leaders “refusing to hold a vote to have Congress go on record about Trump’s impending escalation.”

“They knew escalation would entail genocidal war crimes and/or ground troops,” he said, “and still let the House stay silent.”

Iran has remained steadfast that it will not negotiate a ceasefire unless the US agrees to completely end hostilities, lift sanctions, and compensate Iran for the war’s damage.

A former Iranian diplomat briefed on negotiations between Iran and Omani mediators told The New York Times that the plan called on the US Congress to formally end the war and that any compensation would have to be guaranteed by the legislative branch.

According to a CNN poll released last week, disapproval of Trump’s war in Iran has risen over the past month, with 66% of Americans saying they somewhat or strongly oppose it and just 34% in approval.

Independent journalist Aída Chávez, who has covered previous attempts by Democrats to drag out war powers votes, said that the party “could position themselves as the ones ending this historically unpopular war.”

“They could force war powers vote after war powers vote,” she said. “They’re choosing not to.”

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) is planning a press conference with around two dozen other groups outside Jeffries’ office in New York on Thursday to protest what it called “a dangerous act of political negligence” by House Democrats, “that continues to leave the illegal US-Israel war on Iran unchecked.”

“Inaction from House Democratic leadership is complicity,” said Etan Mabourakh, NIAC Action’s organizing manager. “Our Iranian American community will not let Democrats repeat previous mistakes out of political fear... we demand leaders with the courage to act boldly and take votes in the House to stop this war now.”

But as Trump’s threats grow more “unhinged,” some in Congress are saying merely reining in his war powers is no longer enough and many Democrats have called for him to be impeached or removed by his Cabinet via the 25th Amendment.

“Yes. We need to assert congressional authority and stop this illegal war in Iran, said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). ”But, Trump is clearly an unstable warmonger at odds with the will of the people. Removal is the top priority.“

'BULLSH*T': Trump Pre-WARNED On Israel LIES Before Iran War

Western Media Called Out for ‘Misleading’ Portrayal of Iranians Defending Infrastructure as ‘Human Shields’

After US President Donald Trump made his genocidal declaration on Tuesday that the “whole civilization” of Iran “will die tonight,” reports began to roll in of people across the country standing outside the power plants, bridges, and other civilian infrastructure the president promised to bomb.

Photos shared to social media by the government-affiliated Mehr news agency showed scene after scene of Iranians forming human chains outside power plants in Tabriz and Kermanshah.

A video showed dozens of students assembled on the Dezful bridge in southwestern Iran, which is more than 1,700 years old and is believed to be one of the oldest functioning bridges in the world.

Human chains have been formed at power plants in Tabriz and Kermanshah after US President Donald Trump’s threats to target Iran's civilian infrastructure, and following US-Israeli attacks on railway lines, bridges, and energy sites.

(Mehr News Agency) pic.twitter.com/eHX7iMGCKy

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) April 7, 2026

Over the weekend, Trump said that unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane that it has used as a chokepoint against the Western economy, by Tuesday, he would bomb infrastructure relied upon by tens of millions of Iranians, which Amnesty International said could amount to a “war crime.”

“We’re giving them till tomorrow, eight o’clock eastern time, and after that, they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants,” Trump said on Monday, reiterating his plans to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages.”

According to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, more than 14 million people in the country responded to the threat by volunteering to put their bodies on the line and defend the infrastructure at risk. He said they’d “declared their readiness to sacrifice their lives in defense of Iran.”

The government has encouraged Iranians, including children and young students, to take to the streets to form human chains around infrastructure that may come under threat, leading some Western media outlets to raise the fear that people were being used as “human shields.”

This is a deeply misleading framing.

Iranians are not being placed in front of targets. Many are voluntarily showing up to defend the infrastructure that keeps their society alive.

You have famous artists like Ali Ghamsari at a power plant and Benyamin Bahadori at a bridge in… https://t.co/nEutorjUhh pic.twitter.com/6wau3wFdgv

— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) April 7, 2026

Sina Toossi, a fellow at the Center for International Policy, however, said this “is a deeply misleading framing.”

“Iranians are not being placed in front of targets,” he said, referencing several videos of the demonstrations. “Many are voluntarily showing up to defend the infrastructure that keeps their society alive.”

He noted the participation of Iranian celebrities in the human chains, including the composer and Tar player Ali Ghamsari, who stationed himself outside a power plant, and the pop singer Benyamin Bahadori, who filmed a video of himself walking along a bridge that had come under threat.

“This is about people trying to safeguard electricity, water, and basic civilization under open threat,” Toossi said. “The real legal and moral question is why civilian infrastructure is being targeted at all.”

Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said on Tuesday that Trump’s threats could prove “apocalyptic” to millions of Iranians, plunging the “entire country into darkness and depriv[ing] millions of their fundamental human rights to life, water, food, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living.”

“Power plants, water systems, and energy infrastructure are indispensable to civilian life, underpinning access to clean water, medical care, hospital electricity, food supply chains, and basic livelihoods,” she added. “Attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime.”

UK government urged to act over proposed illegal Israeli settlement

A group of leading former UK ambassadors and high commissioners has called on the UK government to threaten action against any companies bidding to build an illegal Israeli settlement “designed to divide the West Bank in two and destroy Palestine’s viability”.

In a letter published in the Guardian, the 32 former diplomats said tenders for the planned E1 settlement, which would involve the construction of 3,400 houses on “Palestinian soil” as part of Israel’s “systemic West Bank annexation”, were due to be issued on 1 June. The letter called for a UK trade ban on settlements products and services, as well as “suspending trade concessions with Israel for its breach of the human rights provision in the UK-Israel trade and partnership agreement”.

Criticism of the E1 plans by Britain, Germany, France and Italy, “does not deter this Israeli government, grown used over decades to rhetorical condemnation without consequences”, said the letter, whose signatories include Sir David Manning and Sir Peter Westmacott, former ambassadors to the US; Sir David Richmond, the former Foreign Office director general; and Sir Vincent Fean, the former British consul-general to Jerusalem.

Last month Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Israel’s new West Bank settlement initiative was a “big mistake”, describing it as “annexation moves” and called for a unified European response to the E1 project, which some officials have said poses an “existential threat” to the future of the two-state solution. Keir Starmer told parliament last month the “Israeli settlements, including the E1 settlement, are a flagrant breach of international law and threaten the viability of a two-state solution”.

US seeks to deport Kilmar Ábrego García to Liberia despite new Costa Rica deal

US government attorneys on Tuesday told a federal judge the Department of Homeland Security still intends to deport Kilmar Ábrego García to Liberia, despite a new agreement with Costa Rica to accept deportees who cannot legally be returned to their home countries.

The Salvadorian national’s case has become a focal point in the immigration debate after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last year. Since his return, he has been fighting a second deportation to a series of African countries proposed by homeland security officials.

US district judge Paula Xinis, of Maryland, previously barred ICE from deporting him or detaining him. She has written that the agency has no viable plan to actually deport Ábrego García, referring in February to “one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success”.

Ábrego García has argued that if he is going to be deported, it should be to Costa Rica, which previously agreed to accept him. But Todd Lyons, the acting head of US Customs and Immigration Enforcement, said in a March memo that deporting Ábrego García to Costa Rica would be “prejudicial to the United States”. Ábrego García should be sent to Liberia because the US has spent government resources and political capital negotiating with the west African nation to accept third-country nationals, Lyons wrote.

US soldier’s wife released after arrest by ICE agents at military base

The wife of a US soldier who was detained last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at her husband’s Louisiana military base was released from federal custody on Tuesday.

“All I have ever wanted is to live with dignity in the country I have called home since I was a baby,” Annie Ramos said in a statement following her release. Ramos, a Honduran immigrant, arrived in America as a toddler. In 2005, after her family missed an immigration hearing, a removal order was issued for her, the New York Times reported. In early April, Ramos, who is now 22, was detained days after her nuptials to Matthew Blank, 23, a US army staff sergeant who is preparing to train for deployment.

The pair had previously tapped a lawyer to aid Ramos in her path to citizenship, according to the Times. She had applied for protection from deportation in 2020 under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), but her application was not processed. Ramos’s focus is on obtaining legal status, according to her Tuesday statement.

Video undermines ICE account of officer shooting a man in Minneapolis

The city of Minneapolis released a video on Monday that undermined the initial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) account of a shooting involving an agency officer and two Venezuelan men in January.

The video, from a city-owned security camera, captured federal officers chasing one of the men to his residence. Another Venezuelan man who lives there was shot during the confrontation, which eventually led to the suspensions of two federal officers involved in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, the so-called Operation Metro Surge.

Meanwhile, federal authorities in February dropped all charges against the two immigrants and opened a criminal investigation into whether the officers lied under oath about what had happened.

The city released the video after the New York Times, which obtained a copy earlier, reported that the footage raised questions about why it took weeks for the federal government’s case against the two men, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna and Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, to collapse. Among other things, though the ICE officer at the center of the case claimed at first that he tussled with both men for about three minutes before firing, the video released on Monday depicted a confrontation lasting about 12 seconds.

The Times reported that federal investigators had access to the video within hours of the 14 January shooting – but did not watch it until nearly three weeks after they had charged the two men. “The video makes it crystal clear that, just like in other situations during Operation Metro Surge, the federal government’s account of what happened simply does not match the facts,” Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, said in a statement.

‘A blatant political ploy’: California sheriff’s seizure of referendum ballots sets off alarm bells

A California sheriff’s decision to seize about 650,000 ballots based on specious allegations of fraud has raised considerable alarm bells that similar efforts to undermine confidence in the electoral system could materialize this fall.

The episode underscores how sheriffs and other officials can transform shoddy claims about voter fraud into law enforcement actions. Executing a warrant to seize ballots disrupts the chain of custody that is critical to maintaining ballot integrity, and also plants the idea in the public’s mind that a crime has occurred.

Chad Bianco, the sheriff in Riverside county, California, obtained warrants in February and March to seize the ballots related to a special election last year in which voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum to redraw California’s congressional districts. The warrants remain sealed, but Bianco had said he was investigating claims by a citizen activist group that there was difference of 45,896 in the number of ballots cast and counted. The referendum, Proposition 50, passed by nearly 30 points statewide. In Riverside county, which stretches from just east of Los Angeles to the Arizona border, it passed by more than 82,000 votes, a nearly 13-point difference.

Art Tinoco, the registrar of voters in Riverside county, has said the county investigated those allegations and determined they were untrue, telling the county’s board of supervisors in February that the analysis underlying those claims was misleading. Activists used a raw tally of the number of ballots submitted to make their claim. The activists also failed to consider that the county first verifies the signature and other information on a ballot before it is cast to make sure it can be counted before submitting them for counting. When the data is compared correctly, there are 103 more ballots counted than voters recorded, a minimal discrepancy that is in line with what other counties saw, and within what is allowed in California, Tinoco told the officials.

Bianco’s efforts closely mirror actions the justice department has taken in conducting an investigation into the 2020 election in Fulton county, Georgia, where the FBI has relied on disproven claims touted by citizen activists to convince a magistrate judge to sign off on a search warrant to seize ballots from the 2020 election.

Chris Taylor wins Wisconsin state supreme court election giving liberal judges a 5-2 majority

Wisconsin voters sent another liberal justice to the state supreme court, with Chris Taylor beating conservative Maria Lazar and giving liberals a 5-2 edge on the high court. The retirement of Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative, gave liberals a chance to further consolidate their hold on the high court ahead of the next presidential election, when the swing state is sure to see challenges to election results.

Taylor, a liberal judge on the state’s court of appeals who previously served as a Democratic lawmaker, was running against Lazar, who is also on the court of appeals and a former deputy state attorney general.

Taylor’s win gives liberals a 5-2 bloc on the bench. Taylor is seen as friendly to voting rights, while Lazar’s views aligned more closely with Republicans, pushing for policies that could hinder voting access and impact. Lazar had continued to defend maps in Wisconsin that were gerrymandered to lead to more Republican victories, which have since been overturned.

“Wisconsin has been in the crosshairs of extensive litigation in terms of the way the state runs its elections,” Victoria Bassetti, a senior adviser to States United Democracy Center, told Bolts, a news website. “While this supreme court race may seem like a sleeper contest, from the democracy perspective, it’s anything but low-stakes … These issues never go to sleep in Wisconsin.”

Though the high court’s justices are officially non-partisan, liberals held a 4-3 majority after flipping the court in 2023 in what was then the most expensive judicial election in US history, according to the Brennan Center. In 2025, Elon Musk got involved, and the supreme court race topped $100m, with Musk himself throwing in several million and groups he supported spending heavily. Susan Crawford, a liberal, ultimately won. This year’s race was much quieter – and significantly less expensive – than the previous two state supreme court elections.

World held hostage by reliance on fossil fuels

Countries are being “held hostage” by their reliance on fossil fuels, a former UN climate chief has warned, describing the health impacts of climate change as “the mother of all injustices”. Christiana Figueres, an international climate negotiator who helped deliver the Paris agreement signed in 2016, made the comments as she was announced on Wednesday as co-chair of a Lancet Commission examining how sea-level rise is reshaping health, wellbeing and inequality.

Lancet Commissions are international collaborations that analyse major global health issues and influence policy. This commission will examine legal frameworks to hold countries accountable for the health harms of sea-level rise. It will report by September 2027. While the timing of the announcement – amid the US-Israel war on Iran – is coincidental, Figueres said the fuel crisis was “dramatic proof” of the global dependence on fossil fuels that is driving geopolitical instability and the health impacts the commission will examine.

The commission comes after Pacific island health ministers called for greater global focus on sea-level rise as a health and justice issue, as well as an environmental challenge. Rising seas contaminate drinking water, damage food supplies and force entire communities from their homes.

Sea-level rise is not uniform and is influenced by weather patterns, ocean currents and changes in gravity as ice sheets melt. The rise is larger in the oceans furthest from the ice sheets, and is higher than global averages in the Pacific. It means island nations including Tuvalu, Kiribati and Fiji may become uninhabitable within decades. Many low-lying cities are also under threat, including New Orleans in the US, Cardiff and London in the UK, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

In March, research published in the international science journal Nature found that ocean levels had been underestimated due to inaccurate modelling. In some areas of the global south, including south-east Asia and the Indo-Pacific, they may be 100cm to 150cm higher than previously thought.

As Iran war exposes global dependence on fossil fuels, the biggest emitters are reaping the rewards

Oil stands at about $110 a barrel and some forecasts have predicted it could reach $150. Food prices are on the rise and are expected to leap further owing to the fertiliser supply crunch, leading the World Food Programme USA to warn that global food insecurity could reach record levels, with 45 million more people pushed into acute hunger. Industries from steel to chemicals have alerted markets that they face shortages and soaring costs, while households across the world are feeling the pinch – people have been told to turn down their thermostats, take the bus or cycle, and cut their speed on motorways.

The impact of the US-Israel war on Iran – the third global shock in six years, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic – has laid bare how reliant our economies still are on fossil fuels. Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief, said in March: “Fossil fuel dependency is ripping away national security and sovereignty and replacing it with subservience and rising costs.”

In the past year, the Guardian has examined the 10 countries most responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. They divide broadly into two camps: those wedded to fossil fuels and determined to wring every last drop from them; and those pursuing a low-carbon future to remove the yoke of oil dependence and stave off climate catastrophe. They are the vanguard of a global realignment: the electrostates of the future v the petrostates of the past. “We are at the dawn of the electrostates versus petrostates, and electricity is the holy grail right now for everybody,” John Kerry, the former US secretary of state, said in an interview with the Guardian. “The future is being able to harness the power of electrons and send them where we need them, and use them where and when we need them.”

The Iran war has thrown the divergence into sharp relief and shown which of the 10 biggest emitters can expect to emerge stronger from the crisis. Global trends already favoured renewables: last year, the amount of electricity generated from low-carbon sources overtook that produced from coal for the first time. Investment in clean energy now outstrips that into fossil fuels by two to one. Coal-fired power generation fell in China and India for the first time since the 1970s.

But the war in Iran, and the Ukraine war before it, have also exposed a sobering reality. Many of the world’s most powerful countries and biggest emitters are beneficiaries of high fossil fuel prices. The US oil and gas sector is set for a $60bn windfall from the war; soaring commodity prices have been a lifeline for Russia, whose economy was floundering under the strain of maintaining war in Ukraine but which has now had some sanctions lifted; Saudi Arabia has been struck by Iranian missiles and was forced to shut its biggest refinery but the share price of its national oil company, Aramco, has surged and its easily accessible reserves are reaping bumper returns. Iran’s oil revenues have increased, despite attacks on its infrastructure that have sent toxic acid rain pouring down on its people. High prices boost petrostates, generating bonanzas they can pour into further expanding their hydrocarbon extraction.

Also of Interest

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

Iran's Supreme National Security Council Issues Statement about Iran’s Victory over Enemies

NYT: Trump Launched Iran War After Being Briefed by Netanyahu at the White House

Trump and U.S. Hubris Undid the Plan for Iran's Destruction

DAY 39: CEASEFIRE!

US-Israeli Strikes Destroy Jewish Synagogue in Iran

Twenty-One Simple Facts About the Iranian War

War On Iran: – Trump Threatens Genocide – More Tit-for-tat Bombing

Top 1% to Get $117 Billion in Trump Tax Cuts This Year as Bottom 95% Pay More

Oil slick from bombed Iranian ship threatens protected wetland

First Nation asks court to block Alberta referendum on seceding from Canada

A Little Night Music

Eddie Shaw – When The Rabbit's Got The Gun

Eddie Shaw - Dunkin' Donut Woman

Eddie Shaw And The Wolf Gang – Sitting On Top Of The World

Eddie Shaw – Blues For The West Side

Eddie Shaw - 300 Pounds Of Joy

Eddie Shaw - For You My Love

Eddie Shaw - Riding High

Eddie Shaw - I've Got To Tell Somebody

Eddie Shaw – Lookin' Good