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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Lee "Shot" Williams

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues and soul singer Lee "Shot" Williams. Enjoy!

^{Lee Shot Williams - Hello Baby}

“There are times in life when people must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children this.”

-- Terry Pratchett

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News and Opinion

Assange Returns To Public Commentary

Julian Assange is officially back on Twitter, restoring to the world an important voice we were robbed of by the US empire’s years-long campaign to silence the WikiLeaks founder via lifelong imprisonment for forbidden acts of journalism.

Not everyone will remember it but there was a time when this was almost impossible to imagine. It seemed almost certain that this man was going to die in Belmarsh Prison or spend his remaining years in some hellhole in America.

Now whenever my nephew catches me or my husband expressing pessimism about something working out, he tells us “Hey. Assange is free now.” It’s become our family code for “Anything’s possible. Don’t give up hope.”

We should really try to appreciate this. Never let hope die. A better world is possible. Anything can be.

I'm back.

— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) September 17, 2026

Trump’s Exit Strategy Disappearing in Ukraine & the Middle East /Col Lawrence Wilkerson

Middle East braces for more violence as Iran claims US is planning to renew bombing campaign

Governments across the Middle East are bracing for an escalation of violence after Iran claimed it had received intelligence that the US was preparing for a renewed bombing campaign against the Islamic Republic. In a potential sign of growing tensions before the UN general assembly in New York this week, Donald Trump cut short a weekend visit to the Camp David presidential retreat on Sunday with no official explanation, and a new security alert was issued by the state department to all US citizens in the Middle East.

Keeping his options open, Trump reportedly told a Fox News reporter “very big things are going to be happening in the not-so-distant future” and that the options he was considering were “wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically or making a deal”. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that if an attack does take place, “all US bases and interests in the region will become targets of continuous, effective and painful attacks without any limitations or considerations”.

Iran’s leaders also pledged some of the reprisals could extend as far as US naval forces in the Indian Ocean, and accused some Gulf leaders of “double-dealing” by allegedly giving a green light to the US attacks. The outburst of sabre-rattling appears to have been prompted by attacks on the Saudi capital, Riyadh, by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. The barrage on Saturday marked the first time the capital’s Aramco oil facilities had been subject to such a sustained attack since the Saudi-Houthi ceasefire broke down in June. Riyadh insisted it had intercepted the missiles, but local photographs show smoke pouring from the Aramco facility. The port of Yanbu, vital for Saudi oil exports, was also targeted.

In a lengthy statement to parliament on Sunday, Mohammad Ghalibaf, Iran’s chief negotiator, insisted that Iran was not interested in waging a forever war with the US. But the new secretary of the supreme national security council, Mohsen Rezaei, a hardliner, told Al Jazeera that Iran’s seven preconditions for peace – which include the US lifting its blockade of Iran oil ports, the restoration of its frozen assets and the lifting of sanctions on Iranian oil exports – remained.

Rezaei also expressed his anger with the Gulf states, saying they had been invited to a meeting in Salahah in Oman last week to approve the agreed Oman-Iran plan for a new authorised shipping route through the strait of Hormuz, but Saudi Arabia rejected attendance. He said: “We invited them to the Salahah meeting and they reciprocated with a secret meeting in Germany with US Central Command and Israel.”

Seyed M. Marandi: Saudi Arabia is BEGGING Iran (Yemen's Masterstroke)

Trump PANICS After Houthis BLOW MAJOR Saudi Airport

‘Do I Blow the Entire Nation Up?’: Trump Says He’s in ‘Deciding Mode’ on Iran War

Three days after saying that he’s weighing whether or not to “annihilate” Iran in a bid to end his increasingly unpopular and protracted war against the Middle Eastern nation, US President Donald Trump on Sunday again said that he is deciding if he should destroy the entire country of over 90 million people.

Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reported he “just spoke with President Trump about the situation with Iran” and that the US leader said he’s “in a deciding mode and that very big things are going to be happening in the not-so-distant future.”

Trump said he is considering three strategies for ending the 204-day war: “wiping Iran out, letting them rot economically, or making a deal.”

“My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up, they better behave,” Trump added, according to Yingst.

Fox correspondent: "The president said the US is in constant communication with the Houthis, and that they've agreed not to fight the United States. But the big headline here is the president said he's in a deciding mode as it relates to Iran, adding that the Iranians better behave and he's making a decision as to whether or not to blow up their nation."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 20, 2026

On Saturday, Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told Al Jazeera that Tehran has conveyed its conditions for ending the war to Qatari mediators and is “awaiting President Trump’s response.”

“Our conditions are an end to the war on all fronts, the release of our frozen funds, and an end to the naval blockade,” Rezaei added. “It is in Washington’s interest to accept these conditions. Trump’s threats will not achieve any results. We are prepared for a decisive war.”

Iran’s military responded to Trump’s latest threat by warning US allies Sunday that they will be considered “complicit” if American strikes resume, vowing “painful attacks” in retaliation.

Trump—who has been threatening to destroy Iran since at least 2019—is facing pressure on multiple fronts to end his highly unpopular and illegal war of choice, in which at least 23 US troops have died and tens of thousands of Iranians have been killed or wounded.

Americans are feeling the pain of higher consumer prices, especially for gasoline and diesel fuel, for a war that many say is making the country less safe. Six in 10 US voters queried in a new Fox News poll said Trump was wrong to wage war on Iran, while 7 in 10 respondents believe that his administration has no clear strategy for ending the conflict.

Republican lawmakers are also increasingly expressing dissatisfaction with the war and distancing themselves from the conflict ahead of November’s midterm elections, with some going as far as helping to pass a war powers resolution directing Trump to withdraw US forces from hostilities with Iran, and one—outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky—supporting the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

TRUMP FLIP-FLOPPED FIVE TIMES BEFORE CALLING OFF THE YEMEN STRIKE - w/ Trita Parsi

US Strike IMMINENT, Iran Masses 420,000 Troops Against Invasion | Col. Daniel Davis

Human Rights Group Urges Congress to Block ‘Illegal’ Sale of 2,000-Pound Bombs to Israel

A human rights organization on Friday called on members of Congress to block the Trump administration’s proposed $2.8 billion transfer of 40,000 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, warning that approving the massive weapons package could violate US law and expose lawmakers to potential liability for complicity in war crimes.

In a letter to congressional lawmakers, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) urged legislators to introduce joint resolutions of disapproval under the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) once the administration formally notifies Congress of the sale.

“Forty thousand of the bombs that flattened Gaza is not a defense package, it is a down payment on the next round of atrocities,” DAWN executive director Omar Shakir said in a statement. “Every member of Congress now has the law and the evidence in front of them. A vote to let this sale proceed is a decision to help Israel commit more war crimes.”

The proposed package includes 20,000 MK-84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117s, along with 20,000 I-2000 penetrator warheads, according to reporting by The Washington Post. The weapons would be purchased largely through Foreign Military Financing, meaning US taxpayers would pay for Israel’s acquisition of the munitions.

The MK-84 is among the largest conventional bombs in the US arsenal. The Post reported that its blast can propel metal fragments thousands of feet, penetrate thick concrete and metal, and create large craters.

“Munitions experts [said] that US forces almost never drop bombs of this size in populated areas,” DAWN wrote in its letter. “Israel has used them hundreds of times in Gaza and Lebanon. The Biden administration paused a shipment of these bombs in May 2024 precisely because of the risk of mass casualties in Rafah; President [Donald] Trump released it within days of taking office.”

Loosened rules of engagement implemented by the Israel Defense Forces following the Hamas-led attack of October 2023, combined with the IDF’s use of artificial intelligence technology to select targets far more rapidly than humans, resulted in a staggering loss of civilian life in Gaza when 2,000- and 1,000-pound bombs were dropped.

“Israel’s assault has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 21,000 children, and the killing has not stopped,” DAWN said on Friday, adding that the United Nations Children’s Fund “said last month that at least 300 children had reportedly been killed since the October 2025 ceasefire, an average of one child every day.”

DAWN argued that the proposed transfer would violate multiple US laws, including provisions of the AECA and Foreign Assistance Act governing how American weapons may be provided and prohibiting assistance to governments engaged in consistent patterns of gross human rights violations. The organization also invoked the Leahy Laws, which prohibit certain assistance to foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights abuses.

The group further warned that knowingly providing weapons that are subsequently used to commit war crimes could also be “illegal” under the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although Israel and the US are not signatories to the Rome Statute, the treaty stipulates that people from nonsignatory nations who commit crimes in states that are party to the treaty—as Palestine is—can be held criminally accountable for their acts.

The ICC has issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation. The Hague-based court also ordered the arrest of three senior Hamas leaders; all three were extrajudicially assassinated by Israel.

The proposed sale has already encountered some congressional resistance. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced Wednesday that he would not clear the transfer, citing the absence of sufficient assurances that the weapons would be used consistently with US and international law and concerns about civilian protection in Gaza and Lebanon. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has also vowed to block the sale in the upper chamber.

However, DAWN cautioned that a congressional hold is not necessarily sufficient to stop the transfer. The organization noted that the Trump administration has previously invoked emergency authorities to bypass congressional review of arms sales to Israel.

Under the AECA, Congress can attempt to block a major arms transfer through a joint resolution of disapproval. DAWN is urging lawmakers to bring such resolutions to recorded votes in both chambers and to hold public hearings examining the administration’s use of emergency authorities to circumvent congressional oversight.

“The administration is betting that Congress will do what it always does: complain, then look away,” DAWN advocacy director Raed Jarrar said on Friday. “Congress should show the administration that it’s no longer the rubber stamp it long has been on arms to Israel and block this sale.”

Trump Greenland Deal Panned as ‘Largely a Rebranding of the Status Quo to Claim a Win’

Danish and international commentators dismissed President Donald Trump’s claim that the deal he announced Friday gives the United States “permanent control” over Greenland’s security as what one journalist called a “repackaging” of long-standing agreements spun as a foreign policy win.

Trump—who has repeatedly threatened to gain control of the autonomous Danish territory, including by military force—said on his Truth Social network: “I am pleased to announce that the United States of America has entered into an Agreement with The Kingdom of Denmark, and Greenland, that gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many US concerns. There will be NO COST to the United States!”

“Additionally, from now on, no US adversary can EVER have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland, without our express written approval,” the president continued. “This is an ‘Infinite Life’ Agreement, there is no end!”

“We look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland toward a magnificent future with respect to this large, and highly strategic, parcel of land,” Trump added. “We will be very protective of it! This is a dream come true for the United States of America, one that is very important, historic, and special.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed what he called a “historic deal” and “a huge win for the United States and the American people.”

A joint statement released by the office of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who chairs the Naalakkersuisut—Greenland’s governing body—confirmed that “Greenland, Denmark, and the United States are expected to sign an agreement on strengthened security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic area next week” at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Frederiksen stressed that the agreement “recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom [of Denmark] and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination,” while Nielsen said the pact “is to the benefit of us all.”

While the official text of the deal is not yet public, observers said it is unclear how it differs from the terms of a Cold War-era agreement that already gives the US broad military access to Greenland.

“In terms of rights, they were already allowed quite a lot under the original agreement,” Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, said of the United States in a Saturday interview with The New York Times. “Is there anything here that one could not have achieved without this crisis?”

University of Maryland government and politics professor David Karol said on Bluesky that “this seems to be largely a rebranding of the status quo to claim a win.”

Karol likened the Greenland deal to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that replaced the Clinton-era North American Free Trade Agreement—which Trump called the “worst trade deal ever made”—during the president’s first term. Critics noted that differences between the two pacts were “mostly cosmetic,” as one expert put it.

As the illegal US-Israeli war of choice against Iran dragged on with no end in sight, the US president also pursued a deal to end the conflict that observers noted was broadly similar, and even more favorable to Tehran, to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—better known as the Iran nuclear deal—signed during the Obama administration and unilaterally abandoned by Trump during his first term, despite Iranian compliance.

Sofie Pultz, an international policy research fellow at the progressive UK think tank Institute for Public Policy Research, told LBC on Saturday that “it does sound like the Americans have accepted a repackaging of all deals and agreements, maybe with Denmark footing some of the defense bill. But overall, there’s not a lot of new stuff in here.”

“Don’t tell Trump, the Kingdom of Denmark won.”

Danish commentator Sophie Pultz told LBC the Greenland agreement largely repackages rights Washington already held under its 1951 defense treaty: broad basing rights, exclusion of adversaries and an effectively permanent pact. Denmark and Greenland, meanwhile, retain sovereignty and territorial integrity. She says what President Trump actually wins from this is a face-saving foreign-policy spectacle as the Iran war weighs on him ahead of the midterms.

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) September 19, 2026

Some Danish commentators were more blunt in their assessment of the deal. Henrik Højgaard Sejerkilde wrote for Jyllands-Posten that “everything suggests that Donald Trump’s agreement on the military presence in Greenland is a flea market find, found in diplomatic recycling.”

Other Danish observers expressed relief that what many viewed as an utterly unnecessary clash between two NATO allies has seemingly been defused.

“One can hope that the crisis of Greenland ends here—but one can never be sure,” Jacob Heinel Jensen of the Danish daily newspaper Berlingske said. “There is reason to be cautiously optimistic that this nonsense of taking over Greenland is now over. But with Trump, you can never be sure.”

Alex Christoforou: Massive Attack on Moscow - EU Prepares for War

Friedrich Merz vows to stay in office after CDU ‘disaster’ in German state elections

Germany’s embattled chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has vowed to stay in office and fight for future-proofing economic changes despite heavy losses for his conservatives in two state elections, one to the far right and the other to a leftwing party. Preliminary results indicated Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) tallied just 4.9%, below ⁠the 5% threshold needed to enter the state parliament and indicating they may be excluded altogether. It would be the CDU’s worst-ever state score, which Merz called a “disaster”.

The anti-immigration, Kremlin-friendly Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party extended a streak of strong showings by coming in first in the former communist region with 38.3%, more than doubling its previous score, according to projections on ARD public television. In the capital, Berlin, one of Germany’s 16 federal states, the far-left Die Linke looked on course to win with about 25% of the vote, ahead of the incumbent CDU by a five-point margin. The AfD made headway there too, with a clear double-digit result.

The deeply unpopular Merz has been fighting for his political survival after a humiliating series of setbacks with voters this year. In a rare speech on a state election night, Merz admitted the CDU had been bitterly deprived of “tailwinds from Berlin” in both of Sunday’s races. But he said he would remain chancellor and party chair and continue a reform drive on fronts including taxes, healthcare, pensions and reducing bureaucracy. Merz said the German economy was facing “profound upheaval”, while public discourse had become “harsher and more irreconcilable”.

“Trust in our country’s institutions is waning and is being actively undermined by radical parties on both the left and the right,” he said. The stinging blows from the latest elections had been expected to put pressure on Merz at a minimum to cede the CDU leadership, which would have in effect ruled out a run for re-election at the next national poll, due in 2029. Merz’s eroding support has created a sense of instability in Europe’s top economy, which is struggling with deindustrialisation, sluggish growth and soaring energy costs.

The AfD is the biggest opposition force in parliament and is leading national opinion polls with about 30%. It has called for Germany to quit the euro, end support for Ukraine and carry out mass deportations of “irregular” migrants, while citing the “destruction” of the CDU as one of its central goals.

NEW: Congress' inaction on AI comes as more than 100 members hold investments in AI stocks. Analysis and full list at @Sludge, including lawmakers buying AI stocks this year that they oversee on committees. https://t.co/FktpvsPikz

— David Moore (@ppolitics) September 18, 2026

‘Elite Crime Spree’: AI Execs Admit Scraping of News Outlets Was ‘Largest Theft of Labor’ in History

Publicly, billionaire artificial intelligence executives have denied that their product will ultimately replace people in jobs they’ve spent decades working at, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declaring that “AI won’t replace humans, but humans who use AI will replace those who don’t,” in one effort to convince the public to embrace the deeply unpopular expansion of the technology.

But internal documents from OpenAI and Microsoft, unsealed as part of a lawsuit The New York Times and other news outlets filed against the two companies over their scraping of news content in order to train their AI models, tell a different story—one in which executives and workers at the tech giants were fully aware that the practice was meant to result in a “substitutive” product to replace journalists, after stealing millions of articles they’d written.

As the Times reported, employees at Microsoft wrote that by scraping the news content, they were committing the “largest theft of labor in human history.”

Nick Turley, the head of OpenAI’s AI chatbot, ChatGPT, wrote that the technology posed an “existential threat” to news publishers and that the goal was for AI products to get “more and more substitutive”—although other employees said the stealing of news content could ultimately negatively impact the quality of the large language models (LLM) they were creating.

“It is highly unusual that an end-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers, but that is the situation we have created for our LLM business with respect to its ‘content supply chain,’” one document says.

Executives painted a picture of the companies gathering up news content from across the internet, ultimately leaving nothing behind.

Brent Hecht, Microsoft’s director of applied science, wrote in an internal memo that eventually, an LLM is “a product that destroys its supply chain.”

“Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” Hecht wrote.

Although officials at the two companies expressed these views privately from 2020-24, in response to the lawsuit filed in late 2023 by the Times they have claimed that their use of news content is covered by “fair use” rules pertaining to copyrighted material, and that the articles were turned into new work and are therefore not substitutes for the original articles.

But the unsealed documents, said reporter Shawn Setaro of Complex, show that OpenAI and Microsoft “KNEW they were stealing, and KNEW they were destroying news outlets.”

Surprise surprise these LLM motherfuckers KNEW they were stealing, and KNEW they were destroying news outlets. I mean, of course they did. But good that it’s proven all of them should be destroyed.

https://t.co/13kyxF9xze

— Shawn Setaro (@SameOldShawn) September 18, 2026

Hecht wrote in one memo that the companies’ practice was making “a complete mockery of the idea of ‘fair use.’”

The internal memos were unsealed by Judge Sidney H. Stein of the District Court for the Southern District of New York, who is considering motions for a summary judgment in the lawsuit.

The Times and 11 other outlets that have joined the suit argue that OpenAI and Microsoft violated copyright laws.

One document showed that the companies even developed “a hack” to circumvent paywalls in order to collect paid content.

OpenAI President Greg Brockman replied, “Ah nice” to a note from a staffer telling him about the tool, but Microsoft DEO Satya Nadella said in a deposition that had he been aware that AI teams were scraping paywalled articles, he would have required that OpenAI retrain the models.

“If a foreign government or terrorist group did the kind of hacking and IP theft being done by AI giants, America would declare a national security emergency and start a war,” said David Sirota of The Lever. “But because the crime is being done by Silicon Valley billionaires, we’re told by politicians and corporate media that it’s fine, that it should be accelerated, and that we should consider granting them new legal protections/exemptions, as well as new tax subsidies.”

In 2020, then-OpenAI policy director Jack Clark wrote to Brockman and Altman that he was concerned the company’s AI development practices would “increasingly lead to us creating systems that substitute for the labor of the people that define the ‘culture’ of society.”

While tech executives have spent recent years extolling the virtues of AI—and, recently, threatening that their technology has the capacity to wipe out humanity—Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project said the documents exposed AI as “an elite crime spree.”

“From copyright violations to hacking to monopolization to sex trafficking, the companies behind AI violate the law,” he said. “The problem isn’t a lack of regulations, it’s that the law doesn’t apply to the powerful.”

Larry Johnson : US Running Out of Oil

Truckers, Farmers FURIOUS Over Trump Diesel Prices

Trump claims triumphal arch will serve as a ‘top grade military complex’ to store weapons

Donald Trump is proffering a new argument for building his triumphal arch in Washington DC: it will be converted into a “top grade military complex” replete with drone and ammunition storage space and customised sniper facilities on the roof and plaza.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday morning, Trump claimed that his new plan came at the “strong request” of the US military. He said the 250ft structure would be able to “house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage”.

With the hyperbole that is his trademark, the president added that the arch would be unique. “There will be no facility like this anywhere in the world.”

The White House ballroom, which Trump has also been calling a “military complex”, was beset by legal wrangling until the US supreme court last month said the project could go ahead.

The ground breaking that will kick off construction of the arch is expected to begin this month. Trump has linked it to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and said in Sunday’s post that it would be “by far the greatest” triumphal arch in any of the world’s top cities and capitals.

House Republican doubles down on jab at Trump’s immigration enforcement

María Elvira Salazar, the Republican congresswoman who has accused the president of going too far on immigration enforcement, doubled down on her criticism of the administration Sunday, warning Donald Trump that some of his advisers were “compromising his legacy”.

In an interview with CBS News’s Face the Nation, the Florida representative who is locked in a tight race for re-election pleaded with the US president not to “squander” his relationship with Hispanic voters. Though she couched her remarks as criticism of top administration advisers, it was clear that her focus was on Trump’s much-vaunted ambition to carry out the largest mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in US history.

“I’m forewarning him and advising him as a member of Congress from the south Florida area that some of his advisers are just not presenting the whole picture,” she said.

Asked by Face the Nation whether she were referring to Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, or Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff who has spearheaded the removal of undocumented children, Salazar placed the onus on Trump. “He is the only elected official in the White House. He is the one who has to determine who he listens and who he does not listen to. He is the president.”

Last week Salazar became a rare voice of internal criticism within the Republican party towards Trump when she released a 30-second advert pointing out that even law-abiding undocumented immigrants were getting caught up in the aggressive federal sweep. The ad said: “In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisers are telling you about immigration policy … The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”

ICE agent shoots and wounds man at traffic stop in Austin, Texas

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and wounded a man on Sunday afternoon in Texas’s capital of Austin, local authorities said, and anti-ICE protesters quickly gathered at the scene. The unnamed man was in serious but stable condition at a hospital after being shot once in the torso on the city’s north side, Austin’s police chief, Lisa Davis, said at a news conference with the mayor and other city officials.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not participate in the news conference and didn’t immediately respond to requests for details. Austin police officers were not involved in the operation or the shooting, which occurred after a traffic stop, Davis told reporters.

Kirk Watson, Austin’s Democratic mayor, said he wants the city’s police department to be involved in the investigation so it can provide “clear, third-party eyes” in the process. Watson said he does not think it would be appropriate for ICE to conduct an investigation on its own. Austin residents have “a right to feel safe in their city”, Watson said. A proper investigation will only enhance credibility, he added.

A large law enforcement presence was at the scene, along with a crowd of about a hundred protesters. Some demonstrators cursed at police officers holding riot shields, while others yelled out as passing cars honked in support of the protest. One man held a sign saying “Nobody is safe” and on the other side, “ICE Nazi”.

Asked if Austin authorities knew where the involved federal agent is, given that agents have left states after previous shootings nationwide, the mayor said: “We do not know that. But my hope would be that, an agent that’s involved in an officer-involved shooting would not leave the city. Certainly not leave the state.”

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US environment agency let Bayer pick regulations for destructive weedkiller, documents show

The EPA allowed pesticide giant Bayer to pick from a menu of regulation options for the controversial and destructive weedkiller dicamba, newly released internal agency documents show. The documents provide an unusually clear look into the process of developing pesticide regulations, which is typically done out of public view. It shows in detail how the EPA asked Bayer which regulations it wanted, received a response from Bayer, then put Bayer’s choices into a proposed federal rule.

Dicamba is drift prone and kills vegetation and crops for miles around fields where it is sprayed, and is linked to liver cancer and Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Courts have twice ordered it off the market because of its drift problems, but the EPA has re-approved it. The EPA solicited Bayer’s input on the level of restrictions to limit dicamba volatility and runoff, ranging from more protective to less protective, records released in ongoing litigation over the substance show. The EPA concluded one presentation with a slide entitled “Registrant response needed” which posed the question “Which mitigation option to go forward with?”

Bayer chose the least protective for one regulation, and the middle of three levels of protection for another regulation. It also got one other change it requested into the rule. Pesticide regulations are typically a negotiation between industry and the EPA, but the exchange that the documents reveal is “crossing a line”, said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director with the Center for Biological Diversity, which is litigating on the issue. “The EPA is allowing Bayer to choose its preferred measures to limit dicamba’s damage as if it was ordering up a late-night dinner à la carte from Chili’s,” Donley said. “It becomes troublesome when the EPA allows them to regulate themselves by choosing the mitigations.”

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety brought the lawsuit. The documents come as the EPA has faced criticism for stacking its leadership with industry veterans. The top four toxics office positions at the EPA are held by former chemical industry leaders, including Kyle Kunkler, a former pesticide industry lobbyist who is now a deputy assistant administrator and oversees the pesticides program.

Despite repeated assurances from the EPA that it has put effective protections in place, dicamba drift has damaged millions of acres of farmland and caused damage to orchards, vegetable farms, home gardens, native plants, trees and wildlife refuges across the country since its first approval in 2016. Experts have found dicamba drift damage to be the worst of any herbicide in the history of US agriculture. Still, the current approval provides even fewer protections from dicamba drift and damage than past approvals, the lawsuit alleges.

US wheat farmers navigate uncertainty amid drought and geopolitical chaos

Wheat prices are at their highest level in three years, which means farmer Merrill Nielsen should be getting more for his crops out of his 2,500-acre (1,010-hectare) Kansas farm. Yet even as future prices for bread-type wheat are up 39%, Nielsen is unsure whether increased prices will raise his bottom line. The price of diesel fuel, which he needs to run his tractor, has hit record highs. Then there’s the erratic weather that made him lose his entire wheat crop in the spring, and drought has overtaken the southern Great Plains. “We’re not looking to plant any more wheat than we probably normally would, or maybe we won’t even plant that much. I don’t know. Really, we’ll have to see what the weather does for us,” Nielsen said.

The combination of high costs, poor weather and geopolitics leave US farmers such as Nielsen with an uncertain growing season despite higher prices for their yields. It also leaves consumers, from millers and bakers to restaurants and grocery shoppers, at risk of feeling the pinch. Droughts across the US and Europe have been shriveling harvests, and weather forecasts for a “super” El Niño this year means “there are some alarming signals” about the impact of weather on wheat crops, said Joao Lampreia, a market strategist at the Lisbon-based Freedom24.

The weather phenomenon, exacerbated by the climate crisis, causes warm waters to rise to the surface across the equatorial Pacific Ocean, along the coast of South America, and is known to imperil agriculture in the southern hemisphere significantly. Experts say wheat supplies in key exporting countries are at their second-lowest levels on record. Already, Australia’s wheat plantings are down 12% due to expectations of dryness and increased fertilizer costs.

The good news for farmers and consumers is that El Niño can also bring wetter conditions for the southern Great Plains in the fall and spring. During the last big El Niño in 2015 and 2016, the US set an all-time record-high winter wheat yield, said Mark Welch, an economist who researches grain marketing at Texas A&M University.

Even if the weather impacts turn out better than expected, recent Russian attacks on port facilities in the Black Sea [which The Guardian neglects to mention were caused by Ukronazi missile attacks on Russian grain shipments in the Black Sea - js], where one-third of the global wheat trade passes through, have also disrupted grain shipments. Black Sea farmers, who were some of the few global wheat exporters to experience a bumper crop, had just wrapped up their harvest before the attacks. Because of the fighting, supply is largely inaccessible, which has pushed prices up, Welch said. But if Black Sea farmers and shippers can find alternative routes, prices will backtrack somewhat. At best, about 35% to 50% of that wheat could find a way out, but it will take longer and cost more to get, Lampreia said.

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Also of Interest

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

How Saudi Arabia's anti-Houthi strategy crashed and burned

Saudi Airstrikes Hit Yemen After Ansar Allah Attack on Riyadh

Macklemore & Zionist Gatekeeping

Jonathan Cook: AI, Billionaires & Human Extinction

Ella Baron on our evolving relationship with AI – cartoon

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A Little Night Music

Lee Shot Williams - You're Welcome To The Club

Lee Shot Williams - Love now pay later

Lee Shot Williams - I Like Your Style

Lee Shot Williams - Mark My Words

Lee Shot Williams - When you move you lose

Lee Shot Williams - I'm Trying

Lee Shot Williams - Our Thing Is Through

Lee Shot Williams - You Gotta Have Soul

Lee Shot Williams - You Hurt Me so Good

Lee Shot Williams - Get Some Order

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