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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Lester Williams

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Texas blues guitarist Lester Williams. Enjoy!

^{Lester Williams - Wintertime Blues}

"There are Polymarket ads in fortune cookies.
There are pop-ups in our prayers.
There are paywalls on the monasteries,
and the monks are millionaires.

Well little Johnny’s gone to war.
He joined the McMarines.
The Iranians must be liberated
and blown to smithereens.

Light a candle in the chapel, John,
and pray to Western God,
and listen to the homily
the preacher wrote with Claude.

“Oh Western God, please guide our drones,”
the pious Johnny prayed.
“That we may safely bomb their schools
and turn their children gray.”

The candle disappeared from sight
a minute into Johnny’s prayer,
and was replaced with hologram ads
for DraftKings and Wayfair.

Johnny placed his hand upon his heart
with reverence and love
and worshipped the blood-soaked, hungry god
in the great big bank above."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

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News and Opinion

Tech bro loses in Brazil despite best efforts to cheat

A judge in Brazil’s top electoral court ruled on Thursday that Meta has been algorithmically favoring right wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, instructing the social media titan to cease its election interference and begin providing equal treatment to both candidates.

Meta’s own employees have acknowledged election interference favoring Bolsonaro over Lula, as Reuters reports:

“Meta employees acknowledged in internal communications that the Instagram accounts of Brazilian ​President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were hindered by ‌restrictions during the country’s election, newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported on Friday, citing messages it reviewed.

“The messages also acknowledged the platform recommended the profile ​of challenger Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, as well as his ​WhatsApp channel, according to the report.”

A judge of Brazil’s top electoral court rules that Meta must adopt measures to immediately secure equal treatment of the two presidential candidates ahead of an Oct. 25 runoff. https://t.co/weJPaH0YJG

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 16, 2026

This Zuckerberg scale-tilting is a reminder of why right wing “populism” has been so successful: it is able to posture as a revolutionary anti-establishment movement while still retaining the backing of western oligarchs and empire managers. It gets the votes that come with opposing the status quo without actually opposing the status quo. It gets the popularity of revolutionary politics with none of the cost.

Capitalism leads to dissatisfaction, so some charismatic wingnut stands up and goes “You know, the problem is that we haven’t capitalismed hard enough! Those fat cats at the top don’t want you do know this, but what we actually need is MORE capitalism! MORE wealth for the wealthy! MORE authoritarianism! MORE abuse of the marginalized! And we should probably also send way more money to Israel for some reason!”

It’s a complete scam from top to bottom, but it works. It exacerbates all the problems we’d already been seeing because doing more of the same stuff that created the problems isn’t going to solve the problems, but the human mind is very hackable, and people are easily duped. These Trumpian fraudsters are able to ride popular sentiments of discontent into elected office with the backing of all the plutocratic parasites who’ve been leeching off the voters this entire time. We’ve been seeing it in the United States, we’ve been seeing it in Brazil, we’ve been seeing it in Argentina, Italy, India, and in surging iterations of the same scam in various political factions all around the world.

The question is, what comes next? What comes after people see through the scam and realize their beloved Trumps and Bolsonaros were working for the same establishment they despised and bolstering the status quo they’d been suffering under this whole time? Whatever the backlash is, we can be sure the empire will try to find some way to manipulate it and steer yet another generation back into support for the capitalist world order.

Israel and US preparing for a third assault on Iran

Israel SHOCKED After Bibi Iran Plot REVEALED

Netanyahu reportedly pressured military to attack Iran in run-up to election

Benjamin Netanyahu has resorted to increasingly alarmist rhetoric and reportedly put pressure on Israel’s military to take action against Iran as his far-right coalition narrowly trails in the polls ahead of Tuesday’s close-run elections. The Israeli prime minister posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear mushroom cloud destroying Tel Aviv, telling Israeli voters to choose him or risk nuclear annihilation. “Anyone who cares about their own physical existence, that of their family, and their loved ones should have a trembling hand before voting for [the opposition],” he wrote in a social media post about Iran’s nuclear programme.

Israel’s Channel 12 news reported that the prime minister and the armed forces chief of staff, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, clashed in recent days over a directive to the military which could “potentially spark an immediate conflagration with Iran at a very sensitive juncture”, by provoking a miscalculation by Iran. Zamir is reported to have requested the directive, the details of which were not specified, to be presented to him in writing.

Netanyahu denied the report, and the defence ministry later denied any intention to carry out military operations against Iran. On Monday however, CNN reported that Netanyahu had tried to convince Donald Trump to launch a renewed assault on Iran in recent weeks, renewing the war both men started in February. The report, confirming an earlier account in the Financial Times, said Trump had ruled out any such action until US congressional elections next week.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued a statement on Monday that stopped well short of a denial of the press reports. It simply insisted that its decisions were based exclusively on “security, professional, objective and national considerations”.

Saudis BEG IRAN For MERCY: OFFER $1 BILLION To Houthis

‘It’s collective punishment’: nearly 2,000 Palestinians in Hebron displaced as Israeli forces take over homes

Hebron, the biggest city in the West Bank, had paid little attention to Israel’s looming elections until it found itself suddenly in the midst of them, a proving ground for Benjamin Netanyahu’s security credentials in the run-up to Tuesday’s vote. A gun attack on an Israeli military checkpoint on Friday in which two soldiers were killed brought immediate televised visits from Netanyahu and his finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, whose ruling coalition is narrowly trailing with two days of campaigning left.

They vowed abrupt and sweeping retribution, and the prime minister warned of imminent military operations on a scale the West Bank has not seen in nearly 60 years of occupation. Within hours, the whole city of 250,000 people had been sealed off and the neighbourhood of Farsh al-Hawa, closest to the site of Friday’s attack, had been flattened. By Sunday morning, there was nothing left but rubble of an industrial area that had been full of car workshops, a big ceramics plant and other enterprises.

As the bulldozers were at work there, another district a few kilometres away was being systematically emptied. Ein Deir Baha was allegedly home to at least one of the two men involved in the attack (both of whom were killed on the spot), and on Friday its residents paid the price.

The imam from the local mosque, Fahed Ahmaro, was woken at about midnight by the loudspeakers from military vehicles patrolling the street, telling homeowners to vacate their homes immediately for their own safety. Ahmaro had 30 members of his family living in his house. He rushed his frail mother and some of his grandchildren to his daughter’s house in another part of Hebron, and was on his way back in the hope of picking up some of his possessions when his neighbour phoned him. “He told me not to come back, and the army had blown up the gates to the house. I don’t know what they have done to it by now. I heard they destroyed the furniture,” Ahmaro said. “You don’t know what you have until you lose it. Now I realise how devastating it is to lose your home.”

The Hebron municipality said that 370 families, nearly 2,000 people, had been displaced by the army sweep through Ein Deir Baha. In its official comments, the Israeli army had said that the displaced population had left voluntarily, that “civilians who wished to evacuate were permitted to temporarily leave the area”. Ahmaro was outraged at the suggestion that he had any choice about fleeing. “Never, never, never. Why should I leave my house?” he asked. Abdul Halim al-Tamimi tried to stay put when the military came at 1.30am. The 77-year-old was told his family had only 10 minutes to vacate their home. “An intelligence officer told me if we didn’t go, they would displace us the same way they have done it in Gaza,” he said.

Seyed M. Marandi: BREAKING: Mecca Pact Changes it All —Yemen Hits Saudi Tanura, Israel Breach Iran?

Middle East peace held back by US insistence that Iran is a threat, Oman’s foreign minister says

The Middle East’s ability to solve its problems has been held back by America’s 50-year insistence that the Gulf states should view Iran as a security threat, Oman’s foreign minister said on Monday in a significant speech designed to break the deadlock over the region’s future. Badr Albusaidi called for a non-aggression security pact involving all six Gulf states as well as Iran and Iraq. The US would in future no longer be the primary provider of security, he said.

He was speaking on the day high-level defence and intelligence officials from Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia travelled to Tehran in an attempt to prevent a renewed outbreak of fighting between the US and Iran. Tehran said the meeting also explored future security arrangements in the region. The high stakes were underlined by the sight of the Saudi defence minister, Khalid bin Salman, in Tehran weeks after Iran had struck Saudi infrastructure and as Iran-backed Houthis continue to send missiles towards Riyadh.

Albusaidi is the first Gulf leader to break ranks so explicitly by calling for the mainly Sunni Gulf states to form a security alliance with Iran, a long-term aspiration of Tehran’s. Speaking at Girton College, Cambridge, he said the talks might be difficult and the proposal appeared counterintuitive, but “issues such as the strait of Hormuz have become impossible to resolve because external powers continue to define the terms of engagement, while regional powers are unable to take collective responsibility for making their own security arrangements and reach a consensus on them”.

He added: “What holds us back is that issues which ought to be handled at a regional level by the states of the Gulf themselves, are made more complex, more intractable and sometimes simply impossible to resolve because the region’s security arrangements are insufficiently developed. And they are insufficiently developed because they have relied for too long on the involvement of external powers.”

He said that for half a century Iran “had been systematically excluded from playing any meaningful role in the security arrangements of the region”. This had led to “profoundly negative consequences, not just for Iran, but for the region as a whole”, including the imposition of priorities on the region by external powers such as “the entirely false perception that there is a fundamental regional antagonism between Iran and the Arab states of the Gulf”. He added: “Perhaps the most damaging of the priorities imposed on the region from the outside has been the requirement that Iran be excluded. Not just excluded. Worse. Positioned as the threat against which regional security had to be organised.”

Yemeni Resistance Strikes Saudi's East-West Pipeline Again

Prof John Mearsheimer : America’s Addiction to War

Israel Bars International Delegation From West Bank Amid Attacks on Palestinian Olive Harvesters

Amid international outcry over escalating settler terrorism against Palestinian farmers, the Israeli government on Monday blocked a group of European legislators seeking to observe the olive harvest in the occupied West Bank.

The group denied entry to the West Bank from Jordan included British Labour Member of Parliament Clive Lewis, Scottish National Party MP Lara Bird, Scottish Green lawmaker Kate Nevens, former Labour MP Sam Tarry, and Spanish Sen. Josu Estarrona Elizondo of EH Bildu, along with other international activists.

The lawmakers were set to join Palestinian olive harvesters on October 31 at the Qamar al-Balad Farm in the village of Farkha in the central West Bank. Earlier this month, Israeli settlers attacked the farm and attempted to burn its poultry shed before being repelled by local residents.

“I came to stand alongside Palestinians being attacked for harvesting olives on their own land. Instead, we were turned away at the border with no reason given,” Bird said. “More than ever, Palestinians are being subject to terror and violence by the [Israel Defense Forces] and illegal settlers. Increased blockades, demolitions, and unthinkable violence have become the norm for Palestinians in the West Bank.”

The United Nations has documented at least 272 attacks since September 1, eclipsing the full-season totals for 2024 and 2025, including assaults by armed Israeli settlers against farmers, journalists, and European diplomats. Last week, Israeli authorities detained around 80 volunteers accompanying Palestinian farmers, including US House candidate Brad Lander, a Jewish New York Democrat.

“For more than eight hours, we were held, interrogated, and made to feel as though we had done something wrong simply by attempting to enter,” Lewis said. “The simple truth is we had done nothing wrong. We went to show our support for the Palestinian people and highlight the terrible injustice and violence being perpetrated against them. We want to ensure that people back home do not look away from the reality of what is happening.”

The Israeli government has promised to crack down on violence by settlers, but the military has often aided them. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Israel Katz has pursued removal orders against activists seeking to protect Palestinian olive harvesters.

“We are dismayed that Israel has barred our entry to Palestine,” said Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, which participated in the delegation. “But this is clearly part of a much wider campaign in which Israel is increasingly stopping politicians, observers, and even aid workers from entering the West Bank to witness or provide support to Palestinians.”

The Israeli Army just issued a Closed Military Zone order stopping an olive harvest in Hawara, Nablus.
It was organised by @rabbis4HR and only lasted 20 minutes before soldiers stopped it. https://t.co/XjIi8BkzB4

— Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine (@ucpinpalestine) October 26, 2026

In retaliation for a UK policy cutting off trade with the settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, Israel placed 11 members of the UK Parliament on a “ban” list—including Your Party MP Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP Diane Abbott, and Green MP Carla Denyer.

American activists who’ve traveled to Israel and the occupied territories to provide support for Palestinians at risk of settler attacks have also had their legal status revoked, including several Jewish Americans—even though Jewish Americans are generally encouraged to migrate to Israel.

The exclusion of international observers comes just before a highly visible national election on Tuesday, in which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is at risk of having his government toppled.

Netanyahu has ramped up military assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank in recent days, particularly after an attack that killed two Israeli soldiers Friday in Hebron. In what has been decried by the United Nations human rights office as “collective punishment,” nearly 4,000 Palestinians have been forced from their homes while houses and businesses have been raided and demolished by the military.

While the surge in settler violence has drawn global condemnation and heightened Israel’s pariah status, Netanyahu has praised Israel’s “heroic settlers” in the final days of his campaign and vowed to expand settlements.

“It is clear that Israel is trying to erase Palestinian life in the West Bank and Gaza with minimum fuss and attention—cutting off support and solidarity from the outside world,” Dearden said. “In this context, it is more essential than ever that the UK and other governments act with extreme urgency and courage to deter Israel’s attacks on Palestinians. This can’t wait.”

Yanis Varoufakis: US-Russia Reconciliation & European Vassalage

Protest leaders urge French pupils to keep barricading their schools

French children should continue to barricade their schools and take part in street protests, a student union said on Monday after the government announced a package of education measures to try to stem the crisis. “Today we’re at the negotiating table, we’re able to negotiate with the government,” Pierre Sourzat of Les Lycéens told France Info television. “We’re in a power struggle and we still need to call for continued mobilisation to meet a maximum of our demands.”

The government told high school student representatives it would cap some class sizes and review the university application system. But Sourzat said: “We want measures, not half measures.” More than five weeks after the start of high school blockades in September, the government made the proposals to address the demands of what has become the biggest youth protest movement in years. It has been joined by trade unions and cost-of-living protesters in regular mass street demonstrations on Saturdays.

High school pupils had demanded an end to teacher and staff shortages and for repairs to decrepit school buildings that had collapsing ceilings, mould, broken toilets, a lack of chairs and windows that did not shut. The education minister, Édouard Geffray, said some schools were so dilapidated they were “not fit” for teaching. He announced a government loan of €4bn to regional authorities to begin repairs.

Responding to complaints of overcrowded classes, Geffray said class sizes for 15-year-olds in the first year of high school would be capped at 28 in the 50% of schools in the lowest-income areas, increasing to all high schools next year. He said more teaching posts would be created and there would be a review of the French baccalaureate system.

Louis Letoublon, who attended a meeting with the prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, on behalf of Les Lycéens, said: “Bravo to the high school students who have demonstrated. We’ve got something: the government is afraid and knows it must do something and listen to us. “Not all our demands were ⁠met. We’ll go on for as long as it takes.”

‘Democracy always’: Lula vows no return to dictatorship in Brazil after election win

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian president, has vowed that dictatorship and fascism will never return to Brazil after winning a historic fourth term in power by defeating his far-right opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro. A few hours earlier, Lula pulled off the most stunning political fightback in modern Brazilian history, bouncing back from a first-round defeat in early October to trounce Bolsonaro by more than 4m votes in the runoff.

“Today is a historic day,” Lula declared, before telling a sea of elated supporters: “Democracy always, dictatorship never again. Democracy always, fascism never again.” Never, since the return of democracy after the 1964-85 military regime, had the first-round loser managed to win the second vote.

While Bolsonaro initially refused to concede, his party acknowledged the election results on Monday, nearly a full day after Lula’s win. “We recognize the presidential ​election ​results,” Liberal party head Valdemar Costa ​Neto said. “But we ​believe ‌the issues ​raised ​need to be properly clarified.“

Lula’s health minister, Alexandre Padilha, told the Guardian shortly after the result was confirmed: “This is a huge victory for the Brazilian people who in the second round had the chance to think about what President Lula means for the environment, for the defence of our national health service and our education system and the Brazilian constitution. And the risks that the extreme right candidate entailed.

Japanese prosecutors charge US marine suspected of robbing and killing woman

Prosecutors in Japan have filed formal charges against a US marine suspected of murdering and robbing a woman while stationed on the country’s island of Okinawa, according to Japanese media. Devin Jacob Ballard, a 20-year-old lance corporal assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa, is charged with fatally strangling Anna Yagi, 39, at a hotel in the city and stealing from her a backpack containing a wallet, the public broadcaster NHK reported.

Ballard had initially been arrested in Yagi’s killing on 4 October, about a day after she was found dead in Naha, Okinawa’s capital. Prosecutors indicted him in the case on Sunday, and he has reportedly denied the charges. NHK and other Japanese media outlets had previously reported that Ballard was arrested after surveillance camera footage from near the scene of Yagi’s killing showed a man entering a room with a woman and later leaving the scene with her belongings.

Ballard evidently matched the description of the suspect seen in the footage, was confronted and agreed to accompany investigators voluntarily to a local police station, Japanese media reported. While being questioned by police, Ballard denied having a hand in Yagi’s killing, saying, “I don’t know anything about it,” NHK reported. But during subsequent questioning Ballard was alleged to have “made statements that partially hinted at his involvement”, the broadcaster reported.

Yagi’s killing prompted protests in Okinawa and the Japanese capital of Tokyo, with political leaders publicly condemning her killing. It also triggered a curfew and alcohol ban for US military members stationed in Okinawa, where most of the 54,000 US troops in Japan are based. Crimes committed by US troops in Japan – including rape, assault, hit-and-run and drunk-driving – have long strained relations between the countries, which are close military allies.

FTC and 20 states sue Dollar General, accusing bargain chain of overcharging customers

The Federal Trade Commission and 20 states have sued Dollar General, the nation’s largest dollar-store chain, for persistently overcharging customers at its more than 20,000 stores across the United States. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Nashville, cites a Guardian investigation published last December. “Dollar General has for years engaged in deceptive conduct that harms the very consumers it claims to serve,” the 95-page legal complaint claims.

“Although Dollar General promises convenience, low prices, and value, the company has routinely charged customers more at the register than the prices displayed on shelves, price tags, and advertisements. This pattern of inaccurate pricing has persisted for years and affects millions of purchases across the country.” The lawsuit says the scope of the retail chain’s “pricing misconduct” is “staggering”.

The FTC is the federal agency charged with protecting consumers from deceptive, unfair and anticompetitive business practices. State authorities from Mississippi to Ohio to Nebraska to Utah have joined the case as plaintiffs.

Justice department charges ex-FBI director James Comey for third time

The justice department charged former FBI director James Comey on Monday with two counts of leaking information related to national defense, the third time the Trump administration has filed criminal charges against one of Donald Trump’s most despised foes. The charges, filed in federal court in Washington DC, provide few details about what Comey is alleged to have leaked. The government alleges that the former FBI director leaked the information in 2016 and conspired with an unnamed person to give the information to a national news outlet.

Patrick Fitzgerald, Comey’s attorney, said the charges were related to a 5 October 2016 New York Times article that had already been investigated by prosecutors. The case was filed through a criminal maneuver known as an “information” – meaning it was not approved by a grand jury. While prosecutors will eventually have to have the charges approved by a grand jury, filing the charges through an information appears to have been an effort to quickly get the criminal charges in against Comey before the 10-year statute of limitations expires.

In a court filing unsealed on Monday, Comey’s lawyers argued the indictment should be dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired and it had been twice investigated and determined no charges should be filed. They also argued that the law required an indictment, not an information, within the 10-year statute of limitations.

Court blocks bid by Trump DoJ to stop California from counting mail-in ballots

A US federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration’s move to block California from counting the ballots of 20,000 registered voters that the justice department claims are non-citizens. The court on Monday ruled 2-1 against Donald ⁠Trump’s ​justice department in the dispute, denying the administration’s demand that election officials segregate the thousands of ballots until people on the list could verify their citizenship. The justice department had given the California secretary of state 48-hours to carry out the order, which state election officials refused – leading to the lawsuit.

The decision by ‌the San Francisco-based ninth US circuit court of appeals marks a setback in Trump’s attempts to assert ⁠a greater federal role in ​overseeing ​elections in ​the run-up to the 3 ​November midterms. Voting rights groups and Democrats have criticized the effort, saying the Trump administration is attempting to create uncertainty around the upcoming election results as Republicans vie to retain control of Congress.

The ruling is also the latest development in a conflict between California and Trump’s justice department. The DoJ additionally filed criminal charges against 28 green-card holders in California earlier this month over alleged voter fraud – including several people who court papers suggested were confused about their eligibility and agreed to voluntary interviews with investigators.

There is uncertainty over how the justice department developed its list of 20,000 non-citizen registered voters and its accuracy. Court filings from last week showed that Los Angeles election officials analyzed a sample of 200 people on the list and found that a “high percentage” were born in the United States.

The justice department claims about non-citizen voting in California have also faced backlash from state officials, who have said that the DoJ has not provided data or methodology to back up its allegations. California secretary of state Shirley Weber called the department’s claims “vague and unsubstantiated” in a letter earlier this month. Weber also stated that the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year claimed that California had 190,000 registered voters that “may be” non-citizens, but provided no further details on how it reached that number.

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Discontent with Trump buoys Democrats in Ohio: ‘People are disgusted by the corruption’

Democrat Kim McCarthy is canvassing in a middle-class Ohio neighborhood of four-bedroom, three-bathroom homes. There are $70,000 trucks in the driveways and robot lawnmowers at work. “This is a neighborhood of two incomes and young families; people working hard,” says McCarthy, who is running against a three-time Republican incumbent for a seat in Ohio’s house of representatives.

Despite the manicured lawns, these are the very Ohioans struggling from the fallout of many of the Trump administration’s policies. They live in a district that includes the largest single-site employer in Ohio – the Wright-Patterson air force base – whose civilian contractors and employees have been hit hard by federal workforce cuts. Rising mortgage interest rates and wider affordability concerns are top of mind for many.

McCarthy’s opponent, Brian Lampton, beat her in a previous election by 15 points. In the presidential election two years ago, Trump won 60% of the vote here in Fairborn. But having knocked on thousands of Greene county doors, she says she’s noticed something different this year: people are telling her on the doorstep that they are planning to vote Democratic down the ballot for the first time.

For more than a decade, Ohio has been considered a firm Republican stronghold, but after 20 months of extreme Trump administration policies, signs of discontent with the status quo are appearing here. That could be critical for Democrats at every level on the ballot – the party is trying to reclaim a US Senate seat, the governor’s mansion, and a host of competitive house seats around the state.

Early voting indicators in Ohio suggest that participation among affiliated Democrats is higher this year when compared with 2024, especially in predominantly Republican districts. According to the Ohio secretary of state’s data portal website, by 13 October more early voting ballots were returned in rural Defiance county by Democratic-affiliated voters than by Republicans, despite Trump winning 69% of the vote in the county in the 2024 presidential election. The county also had the highest ballot return rate in the state, at 19%, suggesting a high level of motivation.

EL-SAYED: I get that the President takes personal offense to my first name. He doesn't mind as much when it's the Saudis who are funding his son-in-law's private equity. Doesn't seem to mind as much when it's the Qataris who are giving them a $400 million private jet. He just seems to have trouble pronouncing it when it's my name. 

I don't care how he pronounces my name. I don't even care that he remembers my whole name. Because he can just go on and call me senator after November.

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 26, 2026

Feds Prepare For 'ELECTION DOOMSDAY' If Republicans Lose

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Koalas are cute, furry, iconic – and dying of chlamydia

At wildlife hospitals across eastern Australia, many koalas brought in have distinctive brown patches on their bottoms – a sign of urinary incontinence and a painful inflamed bladder. Others have red, weeping eyes, pointing to a bacterial disease that can cause blindness in the endangered marsupials. Chlamydia infection, also known as chlamydiosis, is the most significant disease affecting the animals. The culprit is most commonly the bacterium Chlamydia pecorum, which is spread via mating or close contact.

“Relatively inevitably, infected females will become infertile, and quite rapidly,” says Mark Krockenberger, a professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Sydney. Dr Freya Russell, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), add: “In the animals that are heavily diseased with chlamydia, they can also be quite emaciated too … more boney rather than the robust kind of koala we’re used to seeing.”

Infection rates vary geographically but in some koala populations the prevalence of chlamydia is as high as two in three. Populations in northern regions tend to be worse affected than those in the southern states.

Since 2022, koalas in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have been listed as endangered by the Australian government. Chlamydia is only one of a handful of threats facing the emblematic species, along with land clearing, habitat fragmentation, vehicle strikes and other disease such as koala retrovirus, which causes an Aids-like illness. In humans, chlamydia infections – caused by Chlamydia trachomatis – are easily treatable, usually requiring a single dose of antibiotics.

In koalas, antibiotic treatment is less straightforward – and often less successful. “We can kill the chlamydia … but the problem is that in the process, you can easily kill the koala as well,” Krockenberger says. The animals are highly dependent on gut microbes to digest toxic eucalypt leaves. Antibiotics – which kill bacteria – result in a “shift in the abundance of good microbes that help the koalas digest eucalypt”, says Dr Lyndal Hulse, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland.

Coastal California braces for flooding amid forecast of ‘record-breaking tides’

Coastal communities across California were preparing for days of flooding amid potentially “record-breaking tides” this week, as water levels began rising on Monday.

The National Weather Service warned that significant coastal flooding was expected in San Diego and Orange counties through Thursday that could close roads and inundate homes, businesses and critical infrastructure. A wide swath of the coast from San Luis Obispo county to Los Angeles county could see “minor to moderate” coastal flooding with tides as high as 8ft. Further north in the Bay Area, officials advised there could be as much as 2.1ft of inundation, primarily in low-lying coastal areas.

The effects could be seen in the Marin county community of Mill Valley where footage captured cars stuck on a flooded road, as paddleboarders moved past. By Monday morning, the NWS office in Los Angeles reported that it was already seeing record tides. Preliminary observations from the agency’s San Pedro tide gauge were at 8.02ft, the highest seen in data dating back to November 1923.

Due to El Niño and the Kelvin wave, ocean water levels in the region have already been about 15 to 22in higher than expected, the Newport Beach city manager, Seimone Jurjis, said in a statement. “A foot and a half may not sound like much, but in a coastal community like ours, it can mean the difference between water staying below a seawall and water spilling into streets, garages and homes, especially during some of the highest tides of the year,” Jurjis said.

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Also of Interest

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

Alastair Crooke: The ‘War of Grand Design’

Three Times Netanyahu Failed To Reignite War – Saudi-Iran Negotiations

UN Report Details Israeli Crimes Against Humanity in Palestine, Including Extermination, Rape, and Torture

Israeli Quadcopter Drones Set Fire to Gaza Tent Camp, Displacing 800 Palestinians

CNN: US Forces Ready To Launch Major Attacks Against Iran Within 96 Hours of Receiving an Order From Trump

Lebanese Officials Claim Iran Helping Hezbollah Prepare for ‘New’ Israel War

Lula’s ‘Miracle’ Victory in Brazil

Lula Wins In Brazil, His Opponent Has His Passport Seized

Trump Doesn’t ‘Give a Damn’ About Iran War Price Hikes—His Oil and Gas Holdings Are Up to $81.6 Million

DOJ ‘Appears to Be Covering Up’ Trump-Epstein Connections, Dems Say in New Report

Is universal healthcare finally becoming a vote-winning issue in US elections?

‘My death was reported in Rolling Stone’: how the Zombies made Time of the Season

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A Little Night Music

Lester Williams - Lost Gal

Lester Williams - If You Knew How Much I Love You

Lester Williams - I Can't Lose With The Stuff I Use

Lester Williams - Sweet Lovin Daddy

Lester Williams Don't Take Your Love From Me

Lester Williams - Hey Jack

Lester Williams - Brand New Baby

Lester Williams - Dowling Street Hop

Lester Williams - Let's Do It

Lester Williams - Crazy 'Bout You Baby

Lester Williams - I'm So Happy I Could Jump And Shout

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