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“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

-- H.L. Mencken

News and Opinion

Empire Managers Invent Fake Threats So We Won’t Fight The Real Monsters

Western politics is mostly just empire managers making up fake problems to fight so they don’t have to address the real problems.

Can’t stop waging wars or the western empire will collapse. So they make up fake threats from dictators and tyrants and take action to stop them.

Can’t stop inflating the military budget and circling the planet with more and more war machinery or the military-industrial complex will stop reaping profits. So they tell you to be afraid of Muslims and “terrorists” and Russia and China and take action to protect you from them.

Can’t stop polluting the world and destroying the biosphere or capitalism will perish. So they split us into two mainstream warring factions arguing about culture war wedge issues and promise to protect each faction from the other side.

Can’t stop supporting Israeli atrocities or they’ll hamstring their hegemonic agendas in west Asia and make an enemy of the Zionists. So they create a boogie man of “antisemitism” and set up envoys, inquiries and task forces dedicated to stopping it.

Can’t get money out of politics and stop wealthy oligarchs from using their riches to manipulate western politics to their advantage, because the oligarchs run the empire. So they fearmonger about “communism” on the right and tell the centrists that the leftists are costing them elections.

Can’t stop ramping up authoritarianism and eroding the civil liberties of the citizenry or else they won’t be able to suppress future revolutions. So they cite unpopular people and groups as reasons why the authoritarianism is necessary to protect the public while constructing a giant cage of surveillance and control around everyone.

Can’t stop coercively extracting resources and labor from the global south because that’s the whole reason the empire was set up in the first place. So they tell everyone the immigrants are the source of all their problems and make western politics revolve around immigration policy.

The empire managers make up fake problems to solve because the empire is the source of all the real problems.

They make up fake monsters to protect us from because they themselves are the real monsters.

They make up imaginary ghouls and goblins lurking around every corner because they don’t want us looking up and seeing the real bastards who are poisoning our world.

Matthew Hoh: Iran & US Hit Absolute ROCK BOTTOM

Iran accuses US of violating peace agreement after strikes target sites around strait of Hormuz

Iran has accused the US of violating the agreement aimed at ending the war between the two sides, after the US military launched strikes around the strait of Hormuz and revoked a temporary sanctions waiver for Tehran to export oil. The US military said the attacks launched in the early hours of Wednesday were in response to Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels that were ⁠transiting through the strait of Hormuz on Tuesday.

“Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of ‌the ceasefire,” US central command said, referring to the three tankers, including a Qatari LNG vessel, that were struck within hours in the strait.

Wednesday’s attacks were the latest in a string of ceasefire violations between the two sides, despite a truce that came into effect in April, and the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) last month that began 60 days of negotiations to resolve the issue of Iran’s nuclear program and bring a permanent end to hostilities. US officials speaking to multiple media outlets said Wednesday’s attacks targeted Iranian weapon launch sites, air defences and coastal surveillance system, and the operation was expected to “last for hours”.

Iran’s foreign ministry accused the US of repeated violations of the MOU and warned that it would take “decisive measures” in response. Among the breaches of the agreement the ministry cited, was the US treasury decision on Tuesday to ⁠revoke the ⁠temporary ​suspension of sanctions on Iranian oil ⁠sales. The US lifted sanctions on Iranian oil exports last month after signing the MOU, but re-imposed them on Tuesday after the attack on ​vessels in the strait ​of ‌Hormuz.

Iran said on Tuesday that Washington’s efforts to open up new routes through the strait constituted a breach of the memorandum of understanding the two parties had signed. Tehran claims the memorandum is specifically worded to leave it, in consultation with Oman, to manage the reopening of the strait with the aim of commercial traffic returning to prewar levels within 30 days. Experts have said that the vague wording of the MOU has left both sides interpreting the agreement in different ways, with the repeated misunderstandings a continuing threat the ceasefire.

Trump Says CEASEFIRE OVER After Iran Hits 5 Ships In Hormuz

Araghchi: No Talks on Final US-Iran Deal If Threats Continue

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday that there will be no talks between the US and Iran under the Memorandum of Understanding on a final deal if President Trump continues to make threats against Iran.

The statement from Araghchi came a day after President Trump said that he would “finish the job” in Iran if no final deal was reached and threatened strikes on the country’s bridges and power plants.

“Millions of proud Iranians rallied in unity to honor Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and his legacy. Neither them nor our Brave Armed Forces are moved by any threats,” Araghchi wrote on X, referencing the massive crowds that attended funeral ceremonies for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Para 13 of the MoU is clear: Negotiations on final Deal will not commence if threats continue Honor your signature,” he added.

Can Iran Bleed Out the US / Joe Kent & Lt Col Daniel Davis

US Strike on Iranian School Came After Commanders ‘Bypassed Warnings’ About Outdated Target Info

US military commanders “bypassed warnings” indicating that their database of strike targets inside Iran was badly out of date shortly before launching a deadly attack on an Iranian primary school in the city of Minab, according to a Tuesday report from CNN.

Three sources told CNN that senior military officials received messages informing them that the intelligence behind the target list had been gathered years ago and “needed to be re-vetted.”

Regardless, the proposed Iranian targets were added to a strike list shortly before the US launched an attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School, killing more than 150 schoolchildren along with over a dozen teachers.

Two of CNN’s sources said senior commanders ignored the warnings out of “expediency,” as they did not want to significantly delay providing target lists during the outset of the war, which Trump illegally launched in February without any authorization from the US Congress.

For months, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly dodged questions about the strike on the school, insisting that he didn’t want to comment on an ongoing Pentagon investigation.

However, one of CNN’s sources said that US military officials “knew within days how the mistake happened,” as the school was targeted based on “obviously old info.”

CNN noted that old satellite images showed the school once belonged to the same compound as an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facility. However, as recently as 2016, images showed “that a fence had been erected to separate the school from the rest of the base, and that a separate entrance to the school had been built.”

Rutgers Law School Professor Adil Haque, noting that intelligence on many of the targets was more than a decade old, called the US decision to proceed with attacks “inexcusable.”

The US Department of Defense has still not released its investigation into the bombing, drawing criticism from Palestinian-American policy analyst Yousef Munayyer, who reacted to the CNN report by describing the US military as being “quick to bomb, slow to investigate.”

The slow pace of the investigation has also drawn criticism from Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.

During a May congressional hearing, Smith grilled Adm. Brad Cooper about why the US hasn’t taken responsibility for the school strike despite clear evidence that it was at fault.

“In the past, when we’ve had these type of mistakes, they’ve been quickly acknowledged,” Smith said, “even if a further investigation is necessary to figure out prevention methods.”

Smith also criticized Hegseth for showing a “callous disregard for any sort of rules of engagement or protecting of civilian life” during his tenure as defense secretary.

Last month, President Donald Trump brushed off responsibility for the strike on the school, stating that “mistakes are made” and “war is nasty.”

US Crude Oil, Product Inventories Fall Even As Hormuz Traffic Begins to Flow

The American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 399,000 barrels in the week ending July 3. In the week prior, US crude oil inventories fell by 6.072 million barrels.

Although commercial crude oil inventories excluding the SPR have been falling rapidly for more than two months, shedding almost 60 million barrels over the last twelve weeks, US crude inventories are only down 8.6 million barrels so far this year, according to API data, kept in check by draws from the SPR.

For the week ending July 3, another 6.2 million barrels left the SPR, bringing the new total to 325.7 million barrels—lower than the 2023 low reached during the Biden Administration’s huge drawdown and the lowest level in over four decades. SPR inventories are now 405 million barrels shy of maximum capacity.

Gasoline inventories fell this week, by 2.929 million barrels in the week ending July 3. In the week prior, gasoline inventories decreased by 2.106 million barrels. In the week prior, gasoline inventories were already 7% below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the latest EIA data.

Diplomacy, Deception and War: Gaza Faces Multi-Front Attack — Diana Buttu

Amid Gaza Water Crisis, Israel Bombs a Critical Facility

As Gaza is gripped by a water crisis, Israel has reportedly attacked a facility that provided safe drinking water to thousands of families in Gaza City.

Tamer Nahed, a journalist and activist with the recently created humanitarian group Sake For Gaza, reported via social media on Monday that his group had been forced to suspend its efforts to provide clean water to some of Gaza’s most dangerous areas after the facility they partnered with was “directly struck, resulting in the deaths of several people and injuries to others working there.”

Middle East Eye reported on Monday that the attack, east of Gaza City, “struck a gathering of displaced people in front of a water refilling station” and killed two people as Israel shelled the city early on Monday.

The Palestinian outlet Al-Quds said the attack “directly targeted civilians as they stood in front of a water filling station” in the Al-Samar area, and was “part of a series of attacks launched by the occupation forces against civilian gatherings and vital facilities in the besieged areas of the Gaza Strip, exacerbating the already deteriorating humanitarian crisis.”

Under international law, deliberately attacking civilian facilities or those that are essential for survival, like water facilities, is considered a war crime.

Israel has destroyed or damaged nearly 90 percent of water and sanitation infrastructure in Gaza, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which says the military has used water as a “weapon” in its genocidal war against Gaza.

The group has documented the military firing upon clearly marked trucks and destroying boreholes and desalination plants relied on by thousands of residents. The group has also documented attacks on civilians accessing clean water.

A late-May report from the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) found that around 82 ppercent of families in Gaza remain water insecure, and up to 70 percent are unable to collect even six liters of water per person each day. A person needs between 50 and 100 liters of water per day to meet their most basic needs, according to the World Health Organization.

Monday’s attack came less than an hour after Nahed announced that the group’s 11th truck had “reached one of Gaza’s most dangerous areas, carrying 5,000 liters of fresh drinking water.”

The group had been attempting to send one truck per day to families living in tent cities, many of whom have been forced to rely on groundwater and contaminated water in order to survive, leading to serious illness.

Nahed said he and his team “truly risked our lives to reach this place, as it is located very close to military deployment areas, and the road was extremely dangerous at every moment.”

He called the attack on the water supply facility “very heartbreaking news” and said as a result, “we have been forced to suspend our water distribution project until further notice.”

“This station was one of the most important remaining sources of clean water in Gaza City and served as a lifeline for thousands of families, especially after most other water stations had stopped operating,” he said. “We are deeply saddened by the loss of life and by the suspension of a project that was providing clean drinking water to people enduring these extremely difficult conditions.”

Monday’s attacks were some of the latest of Israel’s near-daily strikes despite October’s ceasefire agreement. Israel has expanded its control over the Gaza Strip in recent months, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying last week that the military “will not withdraw from the territory” as the agreement requires.

He added on Sunday that unless Hamas fully disarms, there also would be “no reconstruction in Gaza without dismantling and demilitarizing the strip.”

Netanyahu described the occupation zone as a “new Gaza envelope inside of Gaza,” a term that could refer to permanent occupation or annexation, as the term “Gaza envelope” refers to the communities inside Israeli territory near the Gaza border.

Other ministers in Israel’s far-right government, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have called for Israel to complete the “conquest” of Gaza and move Israeli settlers to replace the Palestinian population.

A recent proposal by the “Board of Peace,” led by U.S. President Donald Trump, conditioned the entry of basic humanitarian supplies, including shelter-building material, reconstruction aid, and other life essentials, on the total disarmament of Palestinian militant groups.

Last week, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that “the continued expansion of areas under Israeli control in Gaza since the ceasefire agreement in October 2025 is intensifying risks to civilians and further constraining humanitarian efforts.”

“Humanitarian access remains severely constrained due to restrictions on movement, which results in delays or pauses in lifesaving activities,” the statement said. “Some partners have had to scale down or temporarily suspend lifesaving activities, particularly following the killing of service providers in those areas. This has affected up to thousands of families in the vicinity.”

‘Unspeakable Horror’ in Gaza Sends Democratic Voter Support for Israel Plummeting: Survey

A survey published Tuesday offered the latest evidence of US public opinion souring on Israel, with more than half of Democratic voters and a nearly third of all American adults saying they believe the 1,000-plus-day assault on Gaza amounts to genocide.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, conducted between June 11 and June 17 of this year, found that 52% of Democratic voters “say Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians.” Thirty-one percent of all US adults—and 30% of Jewish adults—believe the Israeli military has committed genocide in Gaza, which has been obliterated with the help of American weaponry and diplomatic support from both a Democratic and Republican administration.

Harold Kalmus, a 69-year-old Democratic voter from Arden, Delaware who is Jewish, told The Associated Press that the Israeli military has inflicted “unspeakable horror” on the Gaza Strip, where Israel’s massive bombing campaign and ground attacks have killed more than 70,000 people—including tens of thousands of children—since October 7, 2023.

“They’re trying to wipe out a civilization as far as I’m concerned,” said Kalmus.

The new survey found that nearly 60% of Democratic voters—including 51% of Jewish Democrats—now believe the US government is “too supportive” of Israel, up from 45% percent in a January 2024 AP-NORC poll.

AP described Americans’ increasingly negative views of Israel as a “dramatic erosion of support for the longtime US ally, with rising opposition from Democrats and signs of division among Republicans.”

“Younger Democrats—those 45 and younger—are still more likely than older ones to say that the United States is ‘not supportive enough’ of the Palestinians, but older Democrats are catching up to their younger counterparts,” the outlet noted. “About 57% of older Democrats now say the US should do more for the Palestinians, up from 39% two years ago.”

The findings came amid internal Democratic Party turmoil over a House amendment that aims to strike $3.3 billion in US military aid to Israel from annual defense policy legislation. Leading progressive lawmakers, including top members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, have spoken out in support of the amendment, with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) calling it “a no-brainer.”

But top Democrats, including the ranking members of the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, have expressed opposition to the amendment, which stands little chance of passing the Republican-controlled House.

“I don’t want Israel to be without what they need,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said last week.

In the Senate, a small number of leading Democrats—including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)—joined Republicans in April to block resolutions aimed at preventing the Trump administration from transferring more bombs and bulldozers to the Israeli government.

A poll released last month found that 82% of Democratic voters in New York oppose US weapons transfers to Israel, leaving Schumer and Gillibrand far out of step with their constituents.

The Ukraine war is not what it seems - Yanis Varoufakis & Wolfgang Munchau | The Econoclasts

Trump renews call for US to take over Greenland as he arrives for Nato summit

Donald Trump has revived his bid for the US to acquire Greenland, threatening to pull all American armed forces out of Europe after the continent repeatedly pushed back. Arriving at the Nato summit in Ankara on Tuesday, the US president also suggested his commitment to defending Europe had been tempered by political decisions by leaders on immigration and energy.

Keir Starmer and European allies have been determined to avoid another public bust-up with Trump over defence spending after a bruising year for Nato, in which the Iran war once again exposed cracks in the alliance. The UK has already pushed back on criticism from the US that some allies are “lagging behind” on funding, with Trump expected to rebuke countries, including the UK, for not making enough progress on hitting the target of spending 3.5% of GDP by 2035.

Reviving an earlier row, Trump also suggested that the disagreement about the ownership of Greenland – which is part of Denmark, a fellow Nato member – had “hurt” his relationship with the military alliance. “Denmark doesn’t spend money to really help Greenland, but it’s an important part for the US, and it’s surrounded by China ships and Russian ships … [It] should be controlled by the US, not by Denmark. And when they wouldn’t go along with it, and with all the money we spend to help them with Russia,” he said.

“We don’t have to spend any money; we could remove all of our soldiers out of Europe because, as you probably noticed, Europe’s a very different place than it was 20 years ago … they better be careful with immigration and energy. If they’re not careful with those two things, you’re not going to have a Europe any more."

New York man sues ICE for sending officers to his house after he emailed agency head

An upstate New York resident sued US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for sending federal officers to his house with a warning over an email he sent to the agency’s one-time head.

David Streever, who is a US citizen, was on a trip to Finland when two officers showed up to his Rochester home in June and presented his wife with a warning notice informing him that the email he sent months earlier was considered a threat, his attorneys said. Streever sent the email in January to Todd Lyons, then the acting director of ICE, after an immigration officer fatally shot Minneapolis resident Renee Good in a confrontation caught on video during an anti-ICE demonstration.

In the email, Streever called Lyons “a monstrous human being” who “will never know peace”. He said the agency violated his rights under the US constitution’s first amendment – which include free speech – in a lawsuit filed on Monday in Washington DC.

Streever is one of at least two residents of upstate New York who was served with a federal warning in June in the wake of criticizing ICE online. The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is representing Streever – and said it filed the lawsuit because Streever’s right to free expression was violated. “This is very clearly within the protection of the first amendment,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the foundation. “It was in the context of political speech.”

ICE agent fatally shoots motorist during traffic stop in Houston

A federal immigration agent fatally shot a driver in Houston on Tuesday morning, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has said. Agents stopped Lorenzo Salgado Araujo at around 6.50am and tried to arrest him, according to ICE, which described Salgado Araujo as a Mexican national and an “illegal alien” whom the agency was seeking as part of a “targeted enforcement operation”.

His son, Ronaldo Salgado, told Telemundo Houston that his father had been out that morning looking for workers in the area. According to ICE, Salgado Araujo “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer”. The confrontation resulted in “our officer firing his weapon in self-defense”.

The agency said that the FBI will be taking over the investigation of the case.

ICE did not provide any evidence corroborating its account, which echoes descriptions of other ICE shootings, including the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis and the shooting of two Venezuelan men in Oregon earlier this year. In those cases, the government descriptions of the incident were later contradicted by video evidence. In April, the federal government said a California man whom they fired upon during a traffic stop “weaponized his vehicle”, though no officers were hit by his car.

Platner Assault STORY LEFT KEY DETAILS OUT

Troy Jackson Files to Explore Senate Bid as Graham Platner Faces Growing Calls to Exit

Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson filed federal paperwork on Tuesday to explore a US Senate bid after a sexual assault allegation against current Democratic nominee Graham Platner prompted a torrent of calls for him to drop out of the race.

Jackson, a fifth-generation logger who lost Maine’s Democratic gubernatorial primary last month, was among those urging Platner to end his Senate campaign following Politico’s reporting late Monday, writing on social media that “there is no place in our politics for sexual violence.”

In an interview with the Bangor Daily News, which first reported the news of Jackson’s filing, the former gubernatorial candidate said that “if Graham’s stepping away, I am very, very interested and think I’m the best person to replace him.”

Platner denied the sexual assault allegation and, as of this writing, has yet to drop out of the race, though his departure is widely seen as a foregone conclusion as his most prominent supporters—including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—push him to exit. One unnamed source told The New York Times that Platner is seeking a “guarantee” that he “would be replaced by someone in agreement with ‘the values and vision and policy agenda’” that he articulated throughout his campaign.

Jackson, like Platner, was endorsed by Sanders and has expressed support for Medicare for All, stronger union protections, wage increases, and other progressive priorities. In recent months, Jackson has joined Sanders and Platner at “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies where the former Maine Senate leader said American workers are being robbed by a billionaire class bent on enriching itself no matter the societal costs.

“I am running for the people who worked their entire lives and still can’t afford to retire because the economic system in this country is rigged against them,” Jackson said during a Labor Day rally last year. “And I’m running for all the workers... who’ve been told that they’re replaceable and that their lives are disposable.”

Platner, who backed Jackson’s gubernatorial bid, can be replaced as the Democratic nominee in the US Senate race against Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins if he withdraws by July 13. By a process yet to be determined, the Maine Democratic Party would have until July 27 to select a replacement.

The New York Times reported that “the options under discussion include a convention or a statewide caucus in late July.”

AZ Candidate Says ISRAEL BUYING HIS ELECTION

Men’s average testosterone levels have halved in last 50 years, say scientists

Men’s average testosterone levels have halved over the past 50 years, according to scientists, who say society is facing a male fertility crisis. Total testosterone levels in men declined by 54% between 1972 and 2019, according to data presented at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in London on Tuesday.

Rising levels of obesity and diabetes are expected to play a part, but the team behind the work suggest that environmental factors such as endocrine-disrupting chemicals – which can be found in various household items – and global heating could also be factors in the apparent striking decline.

“I think that we have a major crisis in male reproductive health and it’s currently not given enough attention,” said Prof Hagai Levine, of the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine in Israel. “We saw an over 50% decline in total testosterone over this time period,” he said. “It reflects a more than 1% decline each year, so this is not a fluke, this is not a statistical error. It’s very strong trend.”

“Reproductive health is a very important signal of general health,” said Levine. “We live in an environment that is not ideal for our health in terms of our exposure to chemicals in terms of climate and in terms of health behaviours.”

The meta-analysis combined six previous longitudinal studies tracking testosterone, each of which included at least three time points. Together, they included data from 118,593 individuals from Israel, the US, Brazil, Finland and Denmark, from 1972 to 2019. Each of the studies, individually, found a decline in testosterone and when the data was combined, the overall drop was estimated at 54%, with the decline appearing to accelerate after 2000.

Lake Powell, a vital reservoir, plunges toward unprecedented low levels as water crisis deepens in US west

Lake Powell, the US’s second-largest reservoir, threatens to plunge to unprecedentedly low levels this year after a historically bleak snowpack failed to raise its water level, scientists and water experts have said, adding renewed urgency to stalled talks over how to conserve a water source depended on by tens of millions of people in the US south-west. The 185-mile Colorado River reservoir currently stands at about 22% of its capacity, or roughly 5.6m acre-feet. Lake Powell fell below that level for a few months three years ago. But those 2023 levels were recorded in the winter, when the reservoir, which straddles the Utah-Arizona border, hits its lowest ebb. Spring runoff carried the level back up to 9.6m acre-feet by June, according to data from the US Bureau of Reclamation.

Not this year. After a winter of historically low snowpack in the mountains and a heatwave that broke records across the south-west in March, water levels at Lake Powell barely rose this spring at all. Even after supplemental releases from Flaming Gorge Reservoir upstream, it ended the month of June below the annual low it hit the month before, and could keep dropping. Except for those few months in 2023, Lake Powell’s water level has not been this low since June of 1965 – two years after US authorities first started filling it.

“What’s unique this year is that there was no recovery at all,” said Jack Schmidt, the director of Utah State University’s Center for Colorado River Studies. “What we expect to happen is that Lake Powell will go to unprecedented low conditions some time this fall.” With the spring runoff season passed, the lake’s water level is projected to keep dropping for the next eight months. The consequences could be wide-ranging – imperiling hydroelectric power and throwing more uncertainty into an already contentious negotiation over how to divvy up an increasingly unreliable water supply used by 40 million people across seven states, dozens of tribal nations and two countries. Lake Powell stands at just 37ft above the level at which electricity-generating turbines start to fail, according to Inc. Nearly 6m households and businesses rely on the power generated by Lake Powell’s Glen Canyon power plant.

For more than two decades, Lake Powell and its downriver sister, Lake Mead, have dwindled in capacity, even as the tens of millions of people who rely on them for fresh water have cut back their use. Negotiators from the seven US states with legal rights to water from the Colorado River – California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming – have so far failed to make an agreement over how to conserve the region’s most important source of surface water. The US Bureau of Reclamation could resolve the impasse by imposing its own plan for cuts as soon as next month.

Now, experts say, the system is careening toward a long-feared breaking point as the US west’s climate warms and dries. “In the 21st century, the ultimate cause of the problem is declining runoff,” said Schmidt. “There’s less water in the system. It’s caused by a warming climate, period.”

Washington records world’s worst air quality for a city after 850,000 Fourth of July fireworks

Washington DC residents breathed in “unhealthy” air for hours after a 40-minute Independence Day fireworks show over the National Mall on Saturday night, with the country’s capital briefly recording the worst air quality of any major city in the world. The highly emitting display, which the president called “spectacular”, came as the Trump administration rolls back an unprecedented number of pollution controls.

Hourly concentrations of particulate matter rose to 6.7 times their pre-fireworks levels, according to a Tuesday analysis from the company Clarity Movement based on its network of 26 air quality sensors throughout the city in partnership with the local department of energy and environment. Every one of those sensors reached air quality levels which the Environmental Protection Agency deems “unhealthy for sensitive groups” during the event, the researchers found, with some recording even worse levels of emissions.

Levels of particulate matter peaked at 4am on Sunday, approximately five hours after the display concluded, according to the new analysis. It remained elevated for approximately five hours after reaching its peak, the authors found, with city officials issuing a Code Red alert.

The Fourth of July fireworks show, organized by the Trump-backed non-profit Freedom 250, began at 11pm on Saturday evening. It involved more than 850,000 fireworks launched from 10 sites across the capital, the organizers said. (A typical Independence Day show in DC involves just 17,000 shells.) Trump on social media called the show “the Most Spectacular Fireworks Show I have ever seen, and I’ve seen them all”.

Also of Interest

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

Iran War: Expected Hardening of Iran Posture in Wake of Funerals for US-Israel War Martyrs; Iran Hits Two Tankers Transiting on Oman Side; China Buying Non-Iran Gulf State Oil, Opposes Iran Control Plans; Yet More on Oil Price Anomalies as Crack Spreads Widen Further

Iran's Ghalibaf vows to punish those behind assassination of supreme leader Khamenei

Unintended Consequences: Germany Sick Leave Edition

Why A U.S. Wealth Tax Is Needed

A Little Night Music

Johnny Fuller - All Night Long

Johnny Fuller Black Cat (Bad Luck Overtook Me)

Johnny Fuller - You Got Me Whistling

Johnny Fuller - Haunted House

Johnny Fuller - I Walk All Night

Johnny Fuller - Fools Paradise

Johnny Fuller - Train Train Blues

Johnny Fuller - Cruel, Cruel World

Johnny Fuller and His Band - Roughest Place in Town

Johnny Fuller - Don't Slam That Door