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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Jerry McCain

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues harmonica player Jerry McCain. Enjoy!

^{Jerry McCain - She's Tough}

"Saddam Hussein, influenced by fascism, ordered the deaths of tens of thousands of people, fought two disastrous wars, turned his nation into an international pariah and ruined his country’s economy. In other words, his record is identical to George W. Bush’s."

-- Ted Rall

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News and Opinion

They just can’t seem to stop themselves from doing evil things in broad daylight.

A Washington Post photojournalist was savagely beaten by a gang of Israeli settlers who were attacking Palestinian villagers on Friday, reportedly with the support of the IDF.

The reporter, Heidi Levine, said her assailants “just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times” while she was wearing a clearly marked PRESS vest.

This is why everyone hates Israel now. They just can’t seem to stop themselves from doing evil things in broad daylight.

The western political/media class are always making up bogus excuses for Israel’s plummeting worldwide approval rating, from antisemitism to TikTok to Iranian propaganda, but ultimately public opinion of Israel is falling because there’s a glaring contradiction between Israel’s PR interests and the way Israelis actually conduct themselves.

The IDF provided cover, with tear gas and machine guns, while the settlers beat @washingtonpost journalist Heidi Levine nearly to death. Then the IDF shot a Palestinian bystander, and aimed their guns and shoved the paramedics who were trying to treat him. All of this documented.

— jasper nathaniel (@infinite_jaz) October 16, 2026

In other words, Israel’s PR problem is caused by Israeli behavior. They can increase their propaganda budget as much as they like and western hasbarists can churn out all the narrative spin in the world, but it still won’t cancel out what happens when you just film Israelis doing Israeli things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToksxXw0e_Q

Heh, that moron Mike Huckabee has finally got around to criticizing Israel for brutally attacking a journalist... but notice that nobody is talking about the settler attack on Palestinians and the destruction of the olive harvest.

US ambassador to Israel calls West Bank settler attack on American photojournalist ‘terror’

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has denounced the settler attack that left the Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine badly beaten and needing surgery as a “despicable act of terror” and called for the arrest and prosecution of those responsible. Levine, 63, an award-winning journalist who lives in Israel, was set upon last Friday by masked Israeli settlers who used clubs and other weapons to attack Palestinian people attempting to harvest their olives in occupied West Bank towns.

The photographer, who is in a hospital in Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv recovering from hand surgery, broken ribs and other injuries she sustained in the attack, said she was beaten for more than 10 minutes by the settlers, who also stole her camera, passport and phone. “I was attacked, pushed to the ground,” Levine said. “Luckily, I had my flak jacket and helmet, otherwise I probably wouldn’t even be here, because they just kept kicking and kicking me.” She said the attack ended when her Palestinian colleagues intervened to save her.

Huckabee, a rightwing ally of President Donald Trump with a track record of hardline, pro-Israel rhetoric, was notably blunt in his condemnation of what he called the “vicious and cowardly attack” on Levine. In a post on X on Saturday, he noted that she was a US citizen who had been clearly identifiable as a journalist. “We have called for a full investigation, arrest, and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law to whoever participated in this,” Huckabee added. “Attacking a female photographer is despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards. Dishonorable act of senseless violence.”

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been ambiguous in addressing Levine’s assault, condemning “violence against anyone” but referring to the attack as “alleged” and saying its circumstances remain unclear. In an interview with the Associated Press on Sunday, Levine said she had been “shocked and insulted” to hear that Netanyahu referred to the attack on her and others as “alleged”, adding that the prime minister “had all the evidence on the table”. Levine blamed “Jewish terrorists” for Thursday’s attack and added: “I’ve been covering this region for over 40 years, and I have never seen this country in such a state as it is today.”

WaPo Journalist ATTACKED by Israeli Settlers in West Bank

Israeli Settlers ASSAULT Euro Diplomats After Beating US Journalist

Israeli settlers attack European diplomats in West Bank

Israeli settler militants have attacked European diplomats, a French mayor and the archbishop of Cambrai in Taybeh, in the occupied West Bank, injuring three people and damaging a car, in the latest violent attempt to prevent Palestinians from harvesting olives on their own land. Bernard Baudoux, mayor of Aulnoye-Aymeries, was wearing his red, white and blue sash of office and attempting to enter a vehicle with diplomatic plates when he was assaulted and knocked to the ground on Saturday. The masked militant shouted “Vive la France” as he launched the attack, a witness said. Badoux’s wife, and Vincent Dollmann, archbishop of Cambrai, were also threatened by the group of seven men, some armed with clubs.

The group had joined the olive harvest on lands belonging to the Christian town of Taybeh, along with the French consul general in Jerusalem, his wife and other diplomats, and the Belgian and Polish consuls. Settlers first attacked a group working on the lower slopes of hills near Taybeh. As well as stealing olives, they kicked, abused and assaulted a Palestinian woman in her 70s and beat a man so badly he needed six stitches for a head injury. Then they approached the diplomats and Badoux, who was in Taybeh for the launch of a twinning agreement with his town in northern France. During the attack, the militants smashed the window of an armoured car belonging to the Belgian mission.

Maxime Prévot, Belgium’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, condemned the violence against Palestinians, foreign diplomats and journalists, and said his country would continue to push for European Union sanctions on settlers. “Harvesting olives, reporting the news or carrying out diplomatic duties should never put anyone at risk of attack,” he said. “This violence cannot be separated from Israel’s illegal settlement policy … the occupation of the Palestinian territory must end.”

Palestinian residents of Taybeh have lived with years of escalating attacks from Israeli militants, but settlers had never targeted foreign diplomats there, said Father Bashar Fawadleh, the town’s parish priest. “What happened today is not an isolated incident. It represents a deeply disturbing escalation in settler violence,” Fawadleh said. Since the start of the annual olive harvest in late September, Israeli militants have used violence to stop Palestinians bringing in a crop that is economically and culturally vital to their communities.

Col. Larry Wilkerson: BREAKING: Iran's 'Father of Missiles' Responds to Trump's MOAB Threat

‘There’s a lot of racism, a lot of hatred’: Far right gains predicted as Israel heads to the polls

Four decades ago, when the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane won a single seat in Israel’s Knesset, other legislators passed a law to prevent him running again, left the chamber when he rose to speak and worked together to block discussion of his ethnonationalist proposals. These ranged from mass expulsions of Palestinians to apartheid provisions such as segregated beaches and the criminalisation of sex between Jews and gentiles.

This month, Kahane’s political heirs may claim more Knesset seats in national elections than the remains of the once mighty Labor party, home of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Golda Meir. At an election rally this week, Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, mixed calls for ethnic cleansing and jokes about starving Palestinian prisoners with a proud anecdote about his conviction in 1998 over bumper stickers that read “Rabbi Kahane was right”.

A poll for the Israel Hayom newspaper, published on Friday, forecast his Jewish Strength party would win nine seats in the 27 October election. The Democrats, successor to the Labor party led by former general Yair Golan, were predicted to claim eight seats. Ben-Gvir’s rise is one of the more extreme manifestations of a broad shift to the right among Jewish citizens of Israel. It is particularly pronounced among the young and will shape the country’s next government, regardless of who becomes prime minister after closely fought elections.

More than 500,000 Israelis have reached voting age since the last election in 2022, and three-quarters of first-time Jewish voters define themselves as right or centre-right, a recent poll for Channel 12 television found (it did not survey Palestinian citizens of Israel). The generation voting for the first time came of age after the Oslo process collapsed, when the prospect of negotiating a political resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict seemed to be fading. “There’s a lot of people, especially young people, who think that there is no solving the conflict, that we’ll always be at war. There’s a lot of racism, a lot of hatred, but most of all, there’s fear,” said Erez Uzan, vice-chair of the Young Democrats.

Bucking global trends, young Israelis are more rightwing than older generations and are likely to vote in a new Knesset with more rightwing members than the current chamber, said Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst and public opinion researcher. “All Israelis, and particularly younger people, have been living in a political environment where not only is the government rightwing but the general terms of debate are really populist and ultra-nationalist. That’s all they know. They’re socialised into it,” Scheindlin said. “There’s been a real downplaying of anything to do with democracy, universal values or human rights. Those are seen as weak, if they’re discussed at all, possibly as bad as betrayal. And very few politicians talk about peace, concessions, negotiations, Palestinian self-determination, or even Palestinian wellbeing.”

[More at the link. - js]

Egypt's Soldiers Will Be Cannon Fodder For The Saudi Dictatorship

Scott Ritter: BREAKING: U.S. Strikes Iranian Naval Base on the Gulf of Oman

In Endorsement Message, Trump Says He Wants a Netanyahu-Led Israel To Help ‘Finish the Job’ Against Iran

President Trump on Sunday issued a strong endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the upcoming October 27 Israeli elections and said that if Netanyahu lost, the US would have to “finish the job” against Iran without Israeli support.

Trump concluded the post by saying it should serve as his “Complete and Total Endorsement of Bibi Netanyahu in his upcoming Race for Re-Election as Prime Minister of Israel,” adding that “BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!”

Israeli opposition figures expressed criticism of Trump’s attempt to influence Israel’s election, with Gadi Eisenkot, the leading opposition candidate, saying he tried to prevent it. “There were a number of meetings I don’t want to elaborate on. I requested that there be no intervention in Israel’s internal election. But I’ll deal with it,” he said.

Dobropillia Falls; Kramatorsk Cauldron Looms; Ukraine Out of Air Defense

This is from The Guardian which has no press freedom and is undoubtedly required by the UK government and intelligence services to promote the Ukronazi propaganda. Read for facts only.

Zelenskyy thanks Trump for resumed intelligence sharing after US Starlink ‘message’

Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday thanked the Trump administration for resuming intelligence sharing between the two countries, but maintained the US had intentionally throttled its Starlink satellite internet access so that Donald Trump could send a “message” in his ongoing feud with the Ukrainian president. In an interview on NBC, Zelenskyy said the US had “unblocked” intelligence on impending Russian ballistic missile strikes, which have pounded the country’s energy infrastructure as winter draws in.

“It was blocked for some period of time. And then it was deblocked by the American side. We are very thankful for this. Now it works,” Zelenskyy told NBC’s Meet the Press. “Only [the] United States has this unique intelligence to tell our side when Russia uses ballistic missiles. And we didn’t get it during ballistic attacks during three days.” Zelenskyy also said that Elon Musk’s SpaceX was responsible for suddenly limiting the speed at which Starlink terminals worked in Ukraine, hampering drone operations on the frontlines as well as some air defence missions.

Trump has increasingly sought a detente with Moscow, inking a deal to import diesel fuel from Russia and waiving sanctions voted for overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress. Zelenskyy has become increasingly critical of Trump’s actions as the US has piled pressure on Ukraine to cease striking refineries in Russia and end the war quickly on Putin’s terms.

On Sunday night Trump said Zelenskyy did not want his nation’s more than four-year war with Russia to end, writing on his Truth Social platform that he was in the process of negotiating a peace between Russia and Ukraine and making “great progress” but claimed: “Zelenskyy doesn’t care, and frankly, with all of the money that Europe is famously giving him … he doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.”

Ukraine has resumed striking refineries in Russia and on Sunday attacked one of the country’s main oil terminals.

ON THE GROUND: FRANCE Erupts In Riots, Protests

Macron criticises ‘unbridled violence’ after days of unrest and 2,400 arrests across France

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has criticised “unbridled violence” after one of the most violent days of unrest in years left public buildings burned, hundreds of shops destroyed and looted and at least 2,400 people arrested in cities across the country. “Watching these images, we have all asked ourselves how could French people do this to France?” he said in a televised address. Macron said “nothing justifies” violence and that local state officials would be able to ban certain street gatherings if they deemed it necessary.

He said a distinction must be drawn between what he called genuine, peaceful demonstrators making demands over the cost of living and the education system, and others who “destroy, ransack and loot”. He criticised what he called “factious groups from the ultra-left, joined by numerous delinquents”.

Politicians on the left and right called for the resignation of the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, after the government appeared to have been caught by surprise by the scale of violence on Saturday as state buildings were stormed and torched, bus stops smashed, roads barricaded and shops broken into and destroyed. Protests also took place in Spain, Italy and Portugal.

Police and officials faced challenges of different types on Saturday. First, tens of thousands of peaceful protesters attended calm marches through major cities including Paris, supporting schoolchildren’s demands for more teachers and repairs to decrepit schools. Those marches, which came after four weeks of street marches and barricades of schools, were attended by parents, teachers and grandparents as well as students and workers protesting over the high cost of living. The demonstrators carried banners saying the government was not listening to them and calling for more money for public services.

But separately to those peaceful demonstrations, different groups caught police and officials by surprise with moving gatherings, sporadic burning, the barricading of streets and clashes with police in cities including Paris, Bordeaux, Nice and Marseille. Finally, masked looters took advantage of what French media called the “chaos” on the streets to smash shopfronts and grab goods. In Paris, groups of looters, some of whom appeared to be children, were seen running through the night with clothes and shoeboxes after masked adult men smashed shopfronts.

CBS reporter apologizes and deletes post praising Abdul El-Sayed heckler

CBS’s chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford has apologized for and deleted a social media post praising a man who questioned Democratic Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed about the Muslim Brotherhood during a town hall on Saturday. On Sunday, Crawford, who initially joined CBS in 2009, wrote on X, “Earlier, I tweeted a video from an Abdul El-Sayed town hall. I deleted that tweet because it was a violation of CBS News standards. I apologize.”

Crawford’s deleted post had thanked a man named Tommy while also saying: “I had to watch this twice to catch Dr Abdul El-Sayed’s nanosecond, ‘yeah, absolutely,’ response. His subsequent uninterrupted three-minute diatribe proving your exact point is the kind of spectacular self own most [people] only dream about triggering. Congrats.”

The video to which Crawford referred showed the man who identified himself only as Tommy asking El-Sayed: “Will you disavow the Muslim Brotherhood?” In response, El-Sayed said: “Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Why are you asking the question?” Tommy replied: “Well, because they’re a terrorist group.” El-Sayed then rejoined, “But what are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t? You’re asking the question because implicitly you assume that I’ll have dual loyalties, right? You assume that somehow I wouldn’t disavow, or that I’ll have some higher order allegiance than the constitution.”

Crawford’s tweet evidently generated substantial backlash from within CBS and among other members of the news media.

Crawford’s apology and post deletion comes as CBS has faced intense scrutiny over allegations of political bias after conservative commentator Bari Weiss was appointed as the network’s editor-in-chief in October 2025.

Trump plans to begin DC golf course renovation in defiance of judge’s order

Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Sunday that “restoration work will begin” on 15 November to a historic public golf course in Washington DC despite a federal judge’s court order to pause his plans over environmental and historic preservation concerns. US district judge Ana Reyes had ruled earlier this year that the federal government must give notice before any substantive construction work on the East Potomac golf course could proceed, and last week issued an order halting the removal of trees at the site, which she called “inexcusable”.

Trump said Sunday in a post on Truth Social that work on the golf course would begin on 15 November and that ⁠it would reopen in about 15 months. He wrote that the facility would be transformed into “one of the Best and Most Spectacular Golf Courses anywhere in the World”. Trump did not acknowledge the legal fight in his post, which included an artist’s rendering for the course redesign.

The judge in the case took notice of Trump’s online message and ordered the government to notify her by 8pm ET on Sunday whether its position had changed from a court filing Friday that said “at most” Trump has given “preliminary thought” to the rebuilding plan and “there is no final agency action”.

In an 9 October court filing, the Trump administration had asked Reyes to dismiss the litigation, saying it was premature because the “proposed project remains at an early and conceptual stage”. The following day, however, ⁠the government removed about 500 trees from the site, which it said would improve safety at the park and restore its original design, and was part of a 2019 plan that predates Trump’s ambitions ‌for the course. Reyes ordered a halt to the removals.

On Friday, the government filed a motion to disqualify Reyes and move the case to another district judge, saying her actions had shown “deep-seated and unequivocal antipathy” and “open hostility” toward the Trump administration, according to court records. The plaintiffs in the case oppose the motion.

Obama condemns comments by ‘border czar’ that Ilhan Omar could ‘of course’ be denaturalized

Former US president Barack Obama condemned comments by Donald Trump’s “border czar” that the Republican presidential administration could “of course” strip Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of her citizenship and deport her. Obama wrote Sunday morning, on X, that “the full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president.”

He urged all Americans to defend Omar, regardless of their political beliefs, adding: “if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her – or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.” Obama, too, has had his citizenship scrutinized by Trump, who more than a decade ago fueled false conspiracy theories that Obama was born in Kenya and therefore not eligible to be president.

Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar”, was asked on Saturday by a Fox News host whether the investigation into Omar could involve “denaturalizing and then deporting her”, Homan answered: “Of course”.

“If you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody,” Homan said. “We’ve done it before. It’s a long, tedious process, but it’s been done before. And certainly, if the evidence points that way, that could happen.” Homan’s comments were the first remarks explicitly mentioning denaturalization and deportation in connection with Omar that were attributed by name to a top Trump administration official since federal agents raided the Minnesota US House representative’s home on 12 October.

The search of Omar’s home sparked major backlash and accusations that the Trump administration was weaponizing the federal government to target a political rival whom the president and his supporters have openly fantasized about denaturalizing and deporting.

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GOP Operatives ‘Taken Aback’ As Rural Voters Blame Billionaires for Economic Woe

Rural voters who have long been the Republican Party’s core base are expressing major discontent with the current state of the US economy, which has been hurt by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his illegal war with Iran.

While it’s not clear that rural voters are ready to abandon the GOP to support Democrats, a recent focus group showed they appear receptive to populist economic appeals.

According to a Sunday CNN report, Republican operatives were recently “taken aback” when they spoke with rural voters who blamed “billionaires” and “corrupt politicians” for the country’s economic woes.

These operatives were surprised, CNN wrote, because they had “never seen government corruption emerge as a top issue for so many Republican voters in congressional races.”

This comes as Republicans across the country have increasingly come to rely on contributions from billionaires, and in particular SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has funneled at least $276 million to GOP groups and his own super political action committee (PAC) since July alone.

Democrat Sam Forstag, who is making a populist economic pitch in his campaign in Montana’s 1st Congressional District, told CNN that voters’ concerns about corruption are now “all out in the open,” and he said many of Trump’s current political troubles stem from his broken promises to fix a rigged system.

“Trump told everybody one singular truth,” said Forstag. “He said the system is broken... and unfortunately, it turned out that he was lying about all the ways they were going to fix these things.”

Forstag’s comments were echoed by Arthur Ray Lambert, a Colorado horse trainer who explained his disappointment with Trump in an interview published by The New York Times on Sunday.

“We thought that the president was going to come in with his team and fix stuff,” Lambert said. “And at first, he sounded good. But now, I hate to say it, but I think it’s time for him and his team to get out of there and somebody else come in.”

Joseph Kennedy, a Colorado cattle and sheep farmer, told the Times he felt “bamboozled” after voting for Trump, and would instead sit out the upcoming election.

“I’m over politics,” Kennedy explained. “I’ve dropped out.”

Journalist Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, in a story published by The Atlantic last week, wrote that residents she spoke with recently in rural Arizona are both disappointed with Trump’s economy and disgusted by political corruption.

“Almost all told me they are angry about Trump’s decisions to start a war and spend hundreds of millions of dollars ornamenting a capital city they will never see,” Sanchez wrote. “They lamented the corruption they see as endemic in the government and in large corporations, and denounced billionaires, whom they view as capitalizing on their pain.”

A Fox News poll released last week found that 60% of voters say they are “extremely concerned” about government corruption, which is higher than the 58% who are extremely concerned about inflation and the 50% who are extremely concerned about gas prices.

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EPA quietly backtracks on claims US has phased out toxic Pfas compounds

The Environmental Protection Agency has quietly backtracked on a claim that the US has phased out two of the most dangerous Pfas compounds – Pfoa and Pfos. The EPA has found that virtually no level of exposure to either in drinking water is safe, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies Pfoa as “carcinogenic to humans” and Pfos as “possibly carcinogenic”. Still, the EPA is allowing Houston-based Inhance to produce containers from which Pfoa has been found to leach at high levels into the containers’ contents. The company makes up to 200m barriers annually for plastic containers used across the US economy.

The containers present an “ongoing serious and ongoing threat to public health,” said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist who is now science policy director with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit. Inhance has denied that the chemical leaches out in measurable levels, and told the Guardian in a statement that any Pfoa from its products are an “impurity”. The EPA has written that the company is “manufacturing“ PFAS.

The “phase-out” was put in place after documents made public during landmark early 2000s litigation on DuPont’s Pfas pollution in West Virginia laid bare the ubiquitous chemicals’ dangers and serious health risks. In 2015, facing intense pressure to act, the EPA reached an agreement with eight Pfas producers to “phase out” production of Pfoa and Pfos, a similar chemical produced by 3M. Though the agency stopped short of a ban, the “phase out” was viewed as major progress on reining in Pfas pollution. Officials often repeated the claim that the chemicals had been phased out, giving the impression that they were no longer produced or used in the US.

Last month, the EPA quietly changed wording on its website that claimed Pfoa and Pfos had been phased out.. In fact, both have been produced in the US this whole time, and at levels that independent science suggest are quite high. The EPA site previously stated: “The manufacture and import of Pfoa has also been phased out in the United States.” It now reads: “Quantities of Pfoa may be produced, imported, and used by companies … ”

The change was made in response to a complaint filed by Peer, which pointed out that the EPA was allowing Pfoa to be produced in the US. Under the Information Quality Act, data and information made public by federal agencies be complete and accurate. “They were giving the false impression and saying, ‘Nothing to see here because Pfoa is not being produced in the US,’” Bennett told the Guardian. “But that was demonstrably false, and now they have admitted it.” Inhance in its statement to The Guardian stressed that there was never a ban in place and it was not one of the eight companies that agreed to stop producing Pfoa. The reversal underscores why phase-outs are inadequate, and the EPA needs to put in place bans, Bennett said. “If you have a chemical and there’s no safe level of it, then why on earth would you allow it to be manufactured?” she said. “This all makes perfect sense if you understand the reality that the EPA is an arm of industry, especially under the Trump administration.”

A California town’s beaches are washing away. Can its residents turn the tide?

San Clemente is one of southern California’s most picture-perfect beach towns – a capital of American surf culture since the 1950s. In two years, 2028 Olympic surfers will compete at Lower Trestles, a world-class surfing beach. But the town’s longtime cultural and economic driver, its beaches, are now under threat. As pounding waves driven by late-summer storms in the Pacific devour chunks of the California coastline, some of San Clemente’s beaches are growing narrower, the sand increasingly eaten away.

Beach erosion has become a crisis all along the southern California shoreline this year, with towns from Dana Point and Long Beach to Malibu sustaining dramatic damage. But San Clemente is a particular flash point. It’s the place where the major regional train line, which carries $1bn in freight a year and is the nation’s second-busiest passenger line, runs right along the edge of the Pacific Ocean. Severe waves and high tides during big storms at the beginning of September forced the repeated closure of the tracks.

Experts say California’s current season of extreme weather is just getting started. “We’re in for a run of pretty exceptional erosion events if this Super El Niño develops as it’s expected to,” said Sean Vitousek, an oceanographer with the US Geological Survey (USGS). As the potentially historic El Niño season overlaps with a massive surge of warm water called a Kelvin wave, residents worry it will leave coastal infrastructure in pieces, beachfront properties leveled and more beaches carved away to crumbling slivers of gravel and bare rock.

Donald Trump has continued to deny climate change as a “hoax”, “con job” or scam”. But in southern California, a historically conservative area, the effect of extreme weather events linked to the climate crisis have suddenly become very, very real. “We’ve been anticipating rising sea levels 50 years from now,” said Hallie Jones, the mayor pro tem of Laguna Beach, California. “This summer proved that sea level rise is already here.”

There’s no relief ahead. Once considered a gradual problem, coastal erosion is now being discussed more urgently, as the risk of California’s beaches simply disappearing, said Charles Lester, a former head of the California Coastal Commission who now leads an ocean policy center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. California scientists warned in 2023 that sea level rise sped up by the climate crisis threatens to erase between 25% and 75% of California’s beaches by 2100.

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Also of Interest

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

The Death Of Democracy

West Asia Wars: Egyptian Parliament Weighs Defense of Saudi Arabia, Why Ansar Allah’s Missile Accuracy Has Improved

Dropping MOAB On Iran?

Iran's new defence minister threatens 'enormous damage' if US attacks

In Southern Lebanon, Israeli Troops Strictly Limit Olive Harvest, Expel Workers

‘We are suffocating’: protests spread to Lisbon and Milan as housing and living cost tensions intensify

‘If we burn, you burn’: hundreds arrested at protests across France – in pictures

Patrick Lawrence: Honoring Frances Stonor Saunders

How Trump’s justice department is shattering practice of political neutrality as midterms loom

US workers facing deadly heat borrow from tomato pickers to win key protections

Arizona – Let The Desert Be Desert

Farmers SHOCKED ICE Raids Hurt Their Business

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A Little Night Music

Jerry McCain - That's What They Want

Jerry McCain - 728 Texas

Jerry McCain - Courtin' In A Cadillac

Jerry McCain - A Cutie Named Judy

Jerry "Boogie" McCain - Wine-O-Wine

Jerry McCain - Juicy Lucy

Jerry McCain - Red Top

Jerry McCain - The Jigs Up

Jerry McCain - Steady

Jerry "Boogie" McCain - Alabama Blues

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