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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Billy Wright

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Atlanta blues singer Billy Wright. Enjoy!

^{Billy Wright - Hey Little Girl}

“We humans are naturally disposed to worship gods and heroes, to build our pantheons and valhallas. I would rather see that impulse directed into the adoration of daft singers, thicko footballers and air-headed screen actors than into the veneration of dogmatic zealots, fanatical preachers, militant politicians and rabid cultural commentators.”

-- Stephen Fry

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News and Opinion

It’s Good To Bully Celebrities About Palestine

I strongly disagree with the idea that it’s unhelpful to bully celebrities about their position on Palestine. On the contrary, I think we should bully them more.

We tend to underestimate the consequences of the fact that all the most amplified voices in our society are millionaires. Under capitalism the people with the largest platforms and the biggest audiences are all wealthy enough to have a vested interest in preserving the status quo, so they’re reluctant to rock the boat politically in any major way.

When all the most influential voices in our society are creating the illusion that the system is more or less fine the way it is by what they say and what they don’t say, it cannot help but significantly influence public political opinion. In this way celebrities function as a kind of goalkeeper preventing dissident thought from reaching the minds of the masses.

Oh the victim, who’s crying for sympathy because he couldn’t afford to hire a band, so he’s all alone, the poor poor sod- who’s worth $400MIL - we need to give him all the sympathy in the world…

Nevermind the children in Gaza who are continually being bombed during a ceasefire and who have been left on the streets to die, forget them, we must gather around for Ed fucking Sheeran, the biggest victim in the world and his billionaire paedophile mate Kraft, I hope they’re doing ok.

— jelinaangel (@judgejellz) September 20, 2026

When you see Ed Sheeran bawling his eyes out onstage and playing victim because people are criticizing his muteness on the moral issue of our time, he genuinely does feel as though something is being taken away from him. He was enjoying being able to relax in the lap of luxury without having to go against the grain of establishment power in any way, never saying anything which upsets the Zionist billionaires or the media-owning class whose infrastructure he built his lucrative career on. Now that comfortable setup has been taken away from him a bit, and he feels victimized by the inconvenience this has caused him.

This dynamic is what holds the entire construct of celebrity in place in our society. If you make the billionaires happy you get to be a millionaire, and if you make the billionaires unhappy you get discomfort and loss. If you please the plutocrats you get the carrot, and if you displease them you get the stick. This is true whether you’re talking about pundits, news anchors, musicians or movie stars.

This system of carrots and sticks is the main adhesive holding the propaganda apparatus of the western empire together. As westerners we are taught that we live in a free society which is far superior to the “tyrannical regimes” of the global south, because under the tyrannical regimes the news is state propaganda and the entertainment is heavily censored. In reality westerners are consuming tightly controlled propaganda every day of their lives, because all their most influential voices are being aggressively regulated by the carrots and sticks of wealthy capitalists.

The only weakness in this system, apparently, is that it only works if the public plays along with it. If enough people decide to denounce and defund the empire’s celebrity goalkeepers for their complicity in imperial abuses, it turns out that we’ve got a stick of our own. Make it too uncomfortable to toe the imperial line and you’ll start seeing celebrities reluctantly follow the moral leadership of the public, thereby further weakening the vice-like grip of the imperial narrative control apparatus on our collective consciousness.

So we should do so happily and without hesitation. It is perfectly moral to ruin a millionaire’s day for both-sidesing a genocide. It is perfectly ethical to bully people with large platforms until they take a public stand against the abuses of the empire which has made them obscenely wealthy. It won’t solve all our problems, but it will weaken the power of the mass-brainwashing machine of the capitalist empire which has been manipulating the public into believing we don’t urgently need revolutionary change.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : REACTION to Trump's UN Speech & What Lies Netanyahu Will Tell the UN ?

Trump calls on allies to enforce ‘complete economic isolation of Iran’ in UN speech

Donald Trump has called on nations to unite to isolate Tehran and bring down global energy prices, as he gave a bellicose defence of his administration’s foreign policy and decision to strike Iran. “I call on all nations to help to enforce the complete economic isolation of Iran,” Trump said in a speech to the UN general assembly on Tuesday. “If we stand united, we will soon see a world free of the last 51-year menace of Iranian terror … and oil prices will come plummeting down even lower than they were at the start of the conflict.”

Trump’s call for international unity on Iran – he also said he may “annihilate” the country – comes as numerous US allies have complained about soaring energy prices and growing international instability during his US administration.

In an address that mostly rehashed his stump speech talking points, Trump announced that the US would build two new military bases in Greenland as part of an agreement with the government of Denmark, after a year of geopolitical haggling that has unsettled the Nato alliance. “We will have the complete ability to do what is necessary to defend the American continent, and also Europe and other places,” Trump said in announcing the two “major” military bases. “No US adversary will ever be permitted to establish a military presence in Greenland any more, or make sensitive investments there without our express written approval.”

He denied that the US was running short of critical munitions (“we have more munitions than we could ever possibly even think of using”), attacked the international criminal court as a “rogue organisation” and claimed once again that he was close to settling the war in Ukraine. During the speech, he repeated a threat to destroy Iran, which he has made dozens of times since the US and Israel launched joint strikes in February.

Trump defended the US move to arrest the former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro in a midnight raid, and the subsequent oil deal he struck with Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s successor, who has proved much more amenable to US demands and agreed to a deal sharing the country’s vast oil wealth with the US. “To the victor belong the spoils,” Trump said.

Trump's Foreign Policy Up Against a World That Won't Bend

Trump’s threat to annihilate Iran to UN general assembly is stunning, even for him

Donald Trump has a habit of discomfiting delegates to the United Nations general assembly. But this year, he may have upstaged the ghost of Nikita Khrushchev by openly contemplating the annihilation of a fellow UN member state. Eleven minutes into a 40-minute address, the US president announced he had “a big decision to make” over Iran, which has staged a much more determined resistance than Trump anticipated when he decided to go to war against the country in February.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild, and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” he asked. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”

Possibly not since Khrushchev, the late Soviet leader, brandished his shoe and allegedly banged it on a desk in 1960 in protest at a fellow delegate’s speech has the annual gathering witnessed such a display of bellicosity from a superpower leader. But this seemed more shocking.

The world may have become inured to Trump’s dire threats to send Iran “to the stone age” or end its civilization – so often have they been issued, only to sometimes be followed by a ceasefire or negotiations. But hearing them voiced in a forum created in the aftermath of the second world war, with the explicit aim of preventing future conflicts, was disconcerting.

This story from The Guardian sounds exactly like bs propaganda. It probably is.

Iran and US have held talks on sidelines of UN summit, says Donald Trump

Iranian officials held three hours of talks with US special envoy Steve Witkoff on the sidelines of the UN general assembly, Donald Trump disclosed on Tuesday. He said there would a further meeting in the very near future. Witkoff said he felt very good about the meeting, the first such contact since the US vice-president, JD Vance, met an Iranian delegation to agree a memorandum of understanding in Switzerland in June.

A senior Iranian official also indicated that the country was prepared to reopen the strait of Hormuz within a week, as long as the US took reciprocal steps to ease the military and economic pressure it is applying on Iran. Previously, Iran had set seven onerous preconditions for lifting its blockade on the strait, one of the world’s key oil shipping routes, including an end to the US war “on all fronts” and a commitment by the US to end all aggressive actions against Iran, including sanctions.

The new position, revealed amid frantic backstage negotiations at the UN general assembly in New York and set out by an Iranian official in Tehran to the Japanese news agency Kyodo and then to Reuters, would involve relaxing some of those preconditions.

The official claimed the position had been approved by Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, and the country’s supreme national security council, although some Iranian media close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) denied any new position had been adopted, reflecting disputes in Tehran.

Seyed M. Marandi: Why Pakistan Refuses to Join the Middle East War

Up to 169 killed in Yemen as Houthis battle for Red Sea coastal heights

As many as 169 people have been reportedly killed in Yemen in the last three days as Iran-aligned Houthis battle Saudi-backed government forces for control of strategic heights on the Red Sea coast, while thousands flee the violence.

Houthi military officials said at least 118 people had been killed in clashes as well as Saudi air and artillery strikes on Taiz, al-Jawf, Marib and Saada provinces since Sunday, Agence France-Presse reported. Yemeni government sources have said at least 36 people have been killed on their side of the conflict.

The Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of striking the port city of Mocha on Tuesday, killing six civilians, including two children. The group also said a Saudi strike on a prison in al-Jawf province, north-western Yemen, killed nine detainees.

The Saudi government, which backs Yemen’s UN-recognised government against Houthi forces, on Tuesday issued an alert in the south of the country before potential strikes, after the Houthis launched strikes at the Saudi capital, Riyadh, at the weekend for the first time in years.

The renewed fighting came after a dramatic offensive launched by the Houthis three weeks earlier in which the group seized control of much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast from government-aligned forces. They were the most significant territorial gains in the last four years of the civil war in the country.

Majority of Democratic Voters Want to Prosecute Both Biden and Trump Administration Officials Over Gaza

The majority of Democratic voters believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza for the past three years. And they want the American politicians in both parties who supported it to pay.

In a poll released on Monday by the Center for Strategic Politics and commissioned by the magazine Liberal Currents, 683 Democratic voters were asked whether the next Democratic administration should “pursue criminal prosecution of members of the Trump and Biden administrations for actions taken related to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”

More than half, 57%, of the Democrats surveyed answered “yes,” while only 22% answered “no” and another 22% said they “don’t know.”

Self-described “socialists” and “progressives” were most bullish on Gaza-focused prosecutions. But so were 52% of “liberals” and even 48% of Democrats who called themselves “moderate” or “conservative.”

It is one of several questions in the poll about a hypothetical Democratic administration prosecuting its predecessors over policies considered deadly and destructive.

About two-thirds, 66%, said they wanted to see Trump administration officials prosecuted for actions taken during its aggressive war with Iran, which has led to the deaths of more than 1,700 civilians and wrought economic turmoil.

Nearly three-quarters, 72%, believed Trump officials should face similar accountability for their campaign of extrajudicial strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which have killed more than 234 people in what a top United Nations official recently said may constitute “crimes against humanity.”

And more than three-quarters said they wanted to see Trump officials face legal penalties for actions committed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which have waged a violent mass deportation campaign that has entailed numerous documented due process violations, instances of racial profiling, and several shootings of immigrants and US citizens without clear justification.

The question about Gaza is the only one in the survey in which Democrats were asked about the prospect of prosecuting members of their own party as well as Republicans. And while fewer Democrats ultimately answered yes, it indicates that their ire toward the American politicians supporting the genocide transcends party loyalty.

The poll results come as some activists pursue accountability for the Biden administration in other ways. Last week, organizers launched a campaign to pressure universities and other prominent institutions to cut ties with what they called the “Genocide 20.”

These are officials like former Secretary of State Tony Blinken and former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan who crafted and defended the administration’s policy of unrestricted military aid for Israel despite mounting evidence that it was killing scores of civilians and enacting a campaign of starvation against the people of Gaza.

The United States provided Israel with at least $17.9 billion in military assistance between October 7, 2023, and the end of former President Joe Biden’s term in January 2025, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project. During that period, more than 47,000 Palestinians were confirmed killed, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.

Since President Donald Trump returned to office, the US has continued to provide Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance, including $3.8 billion in regular annual military aid, while the Trump administration has approved billions more in arms sales and expedited weapons deliveries. The death toll has risen to nearly 74,000, according to official figures, but independent experts have suggested this may be a significant undercount.

According to Monday’s poll, more than 4 in 5 Democrats said that “foreign policy (including Israel and Iran)” is important to them in deciding which candidates to support, compared with just 4% who said it is not.

Foreign policy has been a critical dividing line in several recent Democratic primaries, in which voters have revolted against candidates backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

This includes Democratic Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who was defeated by Abdul El-Sayed in a contest for the US Senate despite her more than $30 million in backing from AIPAC, which helped to turn it into the most expensive Democratic primary ever.

AIPAC-backed House candidates have similarly suffered high-profile defeats at the hands of progressives calling to cut off US funding for Israel. Some of the victors include Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, Brad Lander and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, and Aisha Wahab, who won a special election in California.

Ed Sheeran SHOWN UP By His "Free Palestine" Peers

Spain allows US extradition case against pro-Palestine aid donor to proceed

The Spanish government has decided to allow the Trump administration’s controversial extradition request to extradite wealthy activist James “Fergie” Chambers to continue in the country’s courts.

Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects, is currently imprisoned in Madrid. It is the first known case of the US seeking to extradite a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, an accusation tied to money Chambers has donated to support Palestinians, including the Sameer Project, in Gaza.

His legal defense team, an array of Spanish parliamentarians, and some celebrity supporters have publicly opposed the request, calling it political persecution, which would render it illegitimate under Spanish law.

The 22-member council of ministers could have rejected the US petition outright on Tuesday but instead opted to remand the request to the Spanish justice system, beginning a legal process which could now take months.

Meanwhile, Chambers has begun the process from prison of applying for asylum in Spain – which by law makes it impossible for the country to extradite him until the process is concluded, according to attorney Aitor Martínez, part of Chambers’ legal team.

Alex Krainer: Bond Market Collapse & the New Chinese Economic Order

‘Literally state-run TV’: Trump launches YouTube channel amid boycott by US networks

Donald Trump’s previous television career centred on his role on The Apprentice, but the US president’s latest media venture is a rather lower-budget affair: the launch of Trump TV in the wake of his ban on several outlets from covering the White House. With major US networks agreeing to not cover the president while the dispute continues, on Monday the White House announced the new 24/7 YouTube live stream, which it promised would feature “top past moments, announcements, and the latest and greatest from the administration all in one place”.

The anchor-less channel dispenses with traditional broadcast norms. With no schedule, no on-screen description of what is being shown, and zero context for where or when a clip was recorded, the effect of having the channel on in the background is less like watching a news network and more like installing Trump wallpaper – a 24-hour fever dream of self-soothing propaganda for the Maga faithful.

On Tuesday, the stream swung wildly between cinematic replays of Trump attending a UK state banquet, emotional footage of Laken Riley’s mother praising Trump as “a man of his word”, an 18-month-old clip of Melania Trump at an awards ceremony, and Trump delivering a long, rambling press conference in February 2025 in which he casually advocated for the US taking over Gaza and absorbing Canada as the 51st state.

Despite the channel boasting more than 3 million subscribers, the initial appetite for this unedited stream of consciousness appeared modest at best: live viewer counts hovered at around 1,500.

Trump says he backs diesel export ban to curb soaring energy costs

Donald Trump on Tuesday said he backed ⁠the idea of a ban on diesel exports, which some US politicians are calling for ⁠as a way ⁠to curb ​the soaring cost of energy. Diesel prices have rallied in Europe and the US to ⁠record highs as wars in Iran and Ukraine sharply cut exports from some of the biggest producers ⁠such as Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A gallon of diesel fuel in the US was $6.53 on Tuesday, the highest average on record and over 75% higher than a year ago.

“I’ve ​said let’s not send ‌out the diesel. ‌We make a lot of diesel … I’ve called for it. ‌I’ve called for it within my people,” Trump told reporters ahead of a meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, speaking at the same meeting, said: “We’re examining whether it’s feasible in terms of the overall refining capacity and whether a full or partial ban would work.”

On Sunday, Trump urged Zelenskyy to pause strikes on Russian oil refineries over concerns that they could further push up prices, the Financial Times reported. On social media, Trump wrote that Russia “unfortunately lost control of its Diesel Oil Industry”.

In a statement, the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers trade group said that an export ban would “backfire”, noting that domestic refiners would have to reduce production and “producing less diesel also means producing less gasoline”.

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Another Florida Republican distances himself from Donald Trump before midterms

Another prominent Florida Republican has publicly distanced himself from Donald Trump, days after María Elvira Salazar called out the US president’s immigration-enforcement policy targeting law-abiding undocumented immigrants. Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor in November’s US midterm elections, launched an updated campaign website on Tuesday that was stripped of almost every mention of Trump and removed a photograph of the congressman and his wife, Erika, posing with the president, the Miami Herald reported.

Until now, Donalds has proudly touted his close ties with the president, running a Republican primary campaign themed largely on Trump’s endorsement, and displaying a large banner on his website advertising his support. The move comes as Trump’s overall approval rating fell below 30% for the first time, dragged down by dissatisfaction over his handling of the US economy and the Iran war, and Republicans brace for heavy losses in November, including the possible loss of the party’s majorities in the US House of Representatives and Senate.

On Tuesday, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a top election prognosticator, moved the open Florida governor’s race from “likely Republican” to “leans Republican”. “The GOP is still favored in both, but close polling, a bad political environment, and possible exhaustion with long periods of Republican leadership may make both of these races fairly close,” the report’s author, Kyle Kondik, wrote.

Susan Collins CAUGHT In MASSIVE BRIBERY SCHEME

‘Corruption of the Highest Order,’ Says Troy Jackson After Explosive Susan Collins Report

Maine Democratic US Senate candidate Troy Jackson pounced on Tuesday after ProPublica published a damning story putting incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins at the center of what the publication described as a “sprawling pay-to-play operation.”

In a statement released shortly after the ProPublica story dropped, Jackson accused Collins of engaging in “corruption of the highest order.”

“Susan Collins delivered millions in taxpayer dollars for a corrupt donor bankrolling her campaign,” said Jackson, “and then [President] Donald Trump helped her cover it up.”

The ProPublica report unearthed internal records revealing an FBI investigation into defense contractor Navatek, now known as Martin Defense Group, for making campaign contributions to politicians in exchange for federal contracts.

According to ProPublica, former Navatek CEO Martin Kao told a group of FBI agents and federal prosecutors in 2022 about a 2019 meeting he’d had with the head of a pro-Collins super political action committee where he committed to cut a big check to the Maine Republican’s campaign if she steered federal cash to his company.

After the meeting, ProPublica wrote, Kao “sent an initial $150,000 to the Collins super PAC using the shell company” and then told Navatek executives in an internal email two months later that “Collins committed to getting the company $32 million in naval contracts.”

The alleged corruption outlined in the report went far beyond Collins, as Kao also provided FBI agents with a 50-page document that named “dozens of lobbyists, congressional staffers, and members of Congress who he said helped him trade cash for contracts.”

However, the probe into Kao’s alleged efforts to bribe politicians was shut down shortly after Trump returned to the White House in 2025, which Jackson said may explain why Collins “voted with him 96% of the time and has rubber-stamped his agenda to hurt Maine.”

“Susan Collins doesn’t care,” Jackson added, “that we’re losing our healthcare that ICE is killing people on the streets, and that we’ve been dragged into a pointless war—as long as her donors get their contracts and her coffers get filled. We deserve answers about every contract and every conversation that Collins and her team facilitated on the backs of taxpayers. The jig is up.”

Annie Clark, Collins’ deputy chief of staff, disputed the allegations made in the ProPublica story, and accused the publication of wrongly lending credibility to Kao, whom she said “began making outlandish charges about the Collins office, deflecting blame from himself” for his own criminal behavior.

“The seven-year-old allegations made against Sen. Collins and her staff in this piece are categorically false,” said Clark. “There have never been any allegations of wrongdoing by the Collins for Senator campaign, and the campaign was never the target of the FBI investigation.”

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California and New York sue over Trump push to halt wind energy projects

Democratic attorneys general from California and New York have sued the Trump administration over its plans to buy back offshore wind leases as Donald Trump seeks to discourage the expansion of wind energy in favor of fossil fuels. California attorney general Rob Bonta said he was suing over removal of a project off his state’s coast planned by Chicago-based Invenergy. The Trump administration said in June it was buying back the company’s US offshore wind leases for four wind projects on the east and west coasts.

New York attorney general Letitia James, meanwhile, led seven states in suits seeking to block the Invenergy deal and another proposal with Bluepoint Wind, which agreed in April to end a wind farm under development off the New York and New Jersey coast. The deals would hand energy companies $1.4bn in taxpayer dollars in exchange for the cancellation of multiple projects. In all, the Trump administration has pledged nearly $4bn to companies to walk away from projects across the country.

The Interior Department started buying back offshore wind leases in March after federal courts thwarted Trump’s efforts to stop offshore wind development through executive action. In exchange for reimbursements of lease fees, companies are investing in fossil fuel projects and geothermal energy. Interior secretary Doug Burgum has said that companies “are shifting investment back toward dependable, secure energy infrastructure that can power our economy and lower utility costs”.

James called the deals illegal and said they would ultimately increase Americans’ electricity bills by sabotaging states’ ability to meet growing energy demands.“Americans are facing increasing energy costs because this administration would rather pay off energy companies than let us build the new power sources we need,” James said in a statement. “These illegal backroom deals take money that should have gone toward lowering New Yorkers’ bills and hand it to fossil fuel projects in other states.”

Activists and leaders reflect on Standing Rock a decade on: ‘I would do it again’

Ten years after major demonstrations against the Dakota Access pipeline, tribal leaders and Native American organizers returned to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation this week to honor the movement and its lasting impacts. In the rural reservation area of Fort Yates, a four-day encampment that centered on the phrase “mní wičóni” – “water is life” – brought together about 150 tribal members and allies for meals, drum circles, sacred ceremonies and memorials.

It opened with the lighting of a sacred fire – “peta waken” – using coals preserved from a fire that burned at the 2016 camp. The tradition is a significant spiritual unification between the seven councils of the Oceti Sakowin, or Sioux Nation, tribes, typically done in times of historic and political efforts as a symbol of hope. In November 2016, after nearly two centuries had passed without the ceremony, Sioux tribal elders called for the fire to be relit after protesters – concerned that the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), which would run within a mile of tribal lands, might pollute the Standing Rock reservation’s water supply and encroach on Native lands and burial grounds – were maced, attacked by dogs and arrested en masse.

Later that winter, thousands more protesters or “water protectors” convened on the Great Plains, and outrage over the pipeline’s construction became a louder, global movement for Native rights and climate justice. But it did not stop Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners from building the project, and national guard and police cleared the last holdout of protesters in an early 2017 military-style takeover. The pipeline now transports up to 750,000 barrels of oil a day from North Dakota to an Illinois refinery.

Reunion attendees, at open mic sessions or around fire pits, reflected on how the often-violent standoffs between protesters and law enforcement in 2016 left many with lingering trauma, like for Candi Brings Plenty, a member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux nation. But, Brings Plenty said, while the event left scars, the community formed among camps has created lifelong strength. “I got the best knowledge and woksape, which is a Lakota word for wisdom, being at Standing Rock. I got so much empowerment and even though I got the worst-of-the-worst PTSD and everything that came along with it, you know, I would do it again,” Brings Plenty said.

Hurricane Polo, rapidly intensifying from strong El Niño patterns, rages off coast of Mexico

A tropical storm off the south-west coast of Mexico has intensified into a category 5 monster in fewer than 24 hours, fueled by stronger than usual El Niño weather patterns in the Pacific Ocean. Hurricane Polo was sending out maximum sustained winds of 165mph (266km/h) on Tuesday as its center churned about 215 miles (346km) south of the coastal city of Zihuatanejo, in Guerrero state.

On Monday, Polo was only a tropical storm with winds below 74mph (120km/h). Its rapid and sudden growth is testament to the dominance of this year’s so-called super El Niño, which set a record on Monday as the most extreme on record, and has amplified a number of extreme weather events globally.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Mexico was likely to avoid a direct hit, but warned that further intensification was likely, and that life-threatening flooding and mudslides were possible inland, along with dangerous surf and rip current conditions.

Hurricane Polo’s single-day intensification also fits into the assessment of University of Miami senior research associate Brian McNoldy on his tropical Atlantic blog that El Niño, which he said was only “moderate” towards the beginning of September, was “forecast to become very strong, likely the strongest on record, by later this fall and into winter”.

Polo is the 18th named storm, and seventh hurricane, of the 2026 Pacific season, which runs from 15 May until 30 November. By contrast, the Atlantic basin, which has a six-month season from June until November, has seen only six named tropical storms and no hurricanes so far. It is the first time in 112 years that no Atlantic hurricanes have formed by 21 September, and 2026 could join 1907 and 1914 as the only years without one being recorded.

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Also of Interest

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

The Houthis could tip the Iran war in Tehran's favor

Iran War: Trump Signs of Desperation Increase as Bessent Seeks to Bar Iran Airline Flights Right Before Official UN Visits; More on Strait of Hormuz Fuel Transits

The Urgency of Recognizing the Ansar Allah Government in Yemen

The Impeachment of Pete Hegseth

Trump’s Unconscionable UN Rant

New York Times Misreports Gen.Sec. Guterres’ UN Speech

Preparing For Bad Times, Trumpocalypse Edition

Bombshell Report Puts Susan Collins at Center of Massive Bribery Scheme

The Pentagon has unveiled its secret weapon: two idiotic influencers

Integrity Media 2026 Independent Journalism Awards : Judge Andrew P. Napolitano's Keynote Address

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A Little Night Music

Billy Wright - Live The Life

Billy Wright - Thinkin' Blues

Billy Wright - If I Didn't Love You

Billy Wright - Turn Your Lamps Down Low

Billy Wright - Let's Be Friends

Billy Wright - New Way Of Lovin'

Billy Wright - Married Woman's Boogie

Billy Wright - Man's Brand Boogie

Billy Wright - Don´t You Want a Man Like Me

Billy Wright - Wind It Up

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