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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Nina Simone

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features jazz and blues singer Nina Simone. Enjoy!

^{Nina Simone - Feeling Good}

"You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows"

-- Bob Dylan

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News and Opinion

Jeffrey Sachs to UN: No US War on Iran

Distinguished Members of the Security Council,

The president of the United States is issuing grave threats of force against the Islamic Republic of Iran if it does not accede to U.S. demands. His actions risk a major regional war that would be devastating.

Asked if he wanted regime change, he responded that it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” When asked why a second U.S. aircraft carrier has been sent to the region, President Trump answered “in case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it … if we need it, we’ll have it ready.”
These threats are in violation of Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, which declares that

“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

These threats come in the context of Iran’s repeated calls for negotiations. Moreover, on Feb. 7, Iran’s foreign minister delivered a speech in Doha proposing comprehensive negotiations for regional peace, following a round of talks in Oman supported by the diplomacy of the Arab states and Türkiye. Even as a second round of negotiations has been announced, the U.S. is resorting to escalating threats of force.

The issue facing the U.N. Security Council in these perilous days is whether any member state, by force or threat of force, may place itself above the United Nations Charter that governs us all. At stake is the integrity of the U.N.-based international system.

One of the crucial roles of the Security Council is to call on member states to settle disputes by peaceful means such as negotiation, mediation, arbitration, or judicial settlement, without the threat of force or resort to force. Today, the world is in urgent need of a renewed commitment to diplomacy.

The current threat of an attack by the U.S. did not begin with any failure by Iran to negotiate. On the contrary, it began with the United States’ repudiation of negotiations that had already succeeded.

On July 14, 2015, after years of extensive diplomacy, Iran and the P5 countries plus Germany concluded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program would remain exclusively peaceful. In return, economic sanctions on Iran were to be lifted.

The JCPOA placed Iran’s nuclear activities under strict and continuous scrutiny by the International Atomic Energy Agency and thereby ended the risk of a nuclear-arms breakout by Iran, a risk that Iran had consistently denied.

On July 20, 2015, the UNSC unanimously adopted Resolution 2231. That resolution “endorses the JCPOA” and calls upon all states to take the steps “necessary to support the implementation.” It terminated previous sanctions resolutions and incorporated the JCPOA into international law.

The Security Council explicitly recognized Iran’s “right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and established a robust verification regime.

Yet on May 8, 2018, three years after the successful UNSC Resolution, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA. This withdrawal was actively lobbied for by the Israeli government.

Since the late 1990s, Israel’s leadership has repeatedly, falsely, and hypocritically claimed that Iran was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon, even as Israel itself had secretly acquired nuclear weapons outside the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and has until today refused to join the treaty and subject itself to its controls.

When President Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the JCPOA, the U.S. reimposed wide-ranging sanctions in direct contradiction of Resolution 2231 and launched a campaign of economic warfare designed to cripple Iran’s economy that continues to this day.

The current threats by the U.S. are therefore part of a long-standing pattern of feigning interest in negotiations while in fact pursuing economic warfare and military force. In June 2025, following the renewal of negotiations earlier that year, the United States and Iran entered a sixth round of talks.

The U.S. had characterized the negotiations as constructive and positive. The sixth round was set for June 15, 2025. Yet on June 13, 2025, the U.S. supported Israel’s bombing of Iran.

A week after that, the U.S. attacked Iran under Operation Midnight Hammer.

The U.S. assault on the U.N. Charter has now escalated once again to the brink of war, with U.S. threats of force and acts of economic warfare proceeding daily.

The U.S. has been escalating its military presence near Iran and has repeatedly threatened to launch an imminent attack.

The administration has also been candid about its strategy of economic warfare.

On Jan. 20, in an interview in Davos, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described how the U.S. had deliberately engineered the collapse of the Iranian currency, a dollar shortage, and a collapse of imports, all with the goal of fomenting economic suffering and mass unrest.

Bessent described the resulting unrest as “moving in a very positive way here.”

The most striking aspect of the U.S. campaign for regime change in Iran is the repeated U.S. insistence that Iran must negotiate. Iran has negotiated, repeatedly.

The JCPOA was negotiated and ratified by the U.N. Security Council. Even after Iran engaged in renewed negotiations last summer, it faced large-scale air strikes on its territory. Now, the U.S. openly avows the policy of economic collapse and regime change.

No country is safe if the United States can make brazen threats against Iran and indeed several other states in recent weeks, including Cuba, Denmark, and others.

It is both sad and poignant to recall that the United Nations was the brainchild of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He envisioned an era of great-power cooperation and multilateralism under international law as the basis of international peace and security.

His wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, oversaw the drafting and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The U.S. at that time envisioned an era in which diplomacy would prosper, and a time in which law and justice rather than brute force would prevail, a time when we would honor the words of the Prophet Isaiah inscribed on the wall on First Avenue facing the United Nations.

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war any more.”

To allow the U.N. Charter to be ruthlessly violated, no less by its host country, is to invite the return to global war, this time in the nuclear age. In other words, it is to invite humanity’s self-destruction.

On behalf of We the Peoples, the U.N. Security Council carries the authority and heavy responsibility to keep the peace.

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : How Escalation Turns Into World War

Pepe Escobar : China and Russia Won’t Sit This Out !

Rep. Ro Khanna To Force a Vote on Iran War Powers Resolution Next Week

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said on Wednesday that he will force a vote on a War Powers Resolution meant to prevent President Trump from attacking Iran without congressional authorization, as required by the Constitution.

The resolution was introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Khanna, and several other Democrats back in June 2025 amid the 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran, but a ceasefire was reached before a vote was held. Massie was the original sponsor, and the legislation currently has 77 co-sponsors, all Democrats.

Americans can contact their House representative and urge them to support H.Con.Res.38 to prevent a disastrous war with Iran, which appears imminent amid the major US military buildup in the region.

'90% CHANCE' Of IRAN War As Iraq War Level Mil Equipment Deployed

Gaza death toll in early part of war far higher than reported

More than 75,000 people were killed in the first 16 months of the two-year war in Gaza, at least 25,000 more than the death toll announced by local authorities at the time, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Lancet medical journal. The research also found that reporting by the Gaza health ministry about the proportion of women, children and elderly people among those killed was accurate.

A total of 42,200 women, children and elderly people died between 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched a surprise attack into Israel that prompted a devastating Israeli offensive into Gaza, and 5 January 2025, the study found. These deaths comprised 56% of violent deaths in Gaza.

“The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4% of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently and there have been a substantial number of non-violent deaths caused indirectly by the conflict,” the authors of the study, a team including an economist, demographer, epidemiologist and survey specialists, wrote in the Lancet Global Health.

The exact death toll in Gaza has been bitterly disputed, although last month a senior Israeli security officer told Israeli journalists that figures compiled by health authorities in Gaza were broadly accurate, marking a U-turn after years of official attacks on the data.

Gaza health authorities now say the direct toll from Israeli attacks has exceeded 71,660 people, including more than 570 killed since a ceasefire came into effect in October 2025.

COL. Douglas Macgregor : Bombing Iran Won’t Fix This

Major European allies decline to join first meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace

Dozens of world leaders and national delegations will meet in Washington DC on Thursday for the inaugural meeting of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, as major European allies declined to join the group and criticised the organisation’s murky funding and political mandate. The White House has indicated that the summit for his new ad hoc council at the renamed Donald J Trump Institute of Peace will heavily function as a fundraising round, with Trump announcing on social media that countries have pledged more than $5bn toward rebuilding Gaza, which has been devastated in the war with Israel and remains in a humanitarian crisis.

The US president claimed that the member states had also “committed thousands of personnel to the International Stabilization Force and Local Police to maintain Security and Peace for Gazans”. The board was initially formed with the reconstruction of Gaza as its stated primary goal, though its mandate has since been widened by Trump to include responding to other global conflicts. But, despite Trump’s characteristic bombast, the Board of Peace summit will open to heavy scepticism, with expectations limited both for Thursday’s meeting in Washington and in the Middle East, where the 100-day peace and recovery plan announced by Jared Kushner in Davos has stalled and aid into Gaza remains at a trickle.

Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former US diplomat, said that the Board of Peace would have difficulty resolving the key questions in the Israel-Gaza conflict: who will govern the territory, who will provide security on the ground, and how to deal with the immediate needs of the Palestinian population. There also was little indication how a Board of Peace could break a key deadlock in negotiations between Israel and Hamas, he added. “The board is a convenient way for a president who’s interested in quick wins, transactions and a lot of motion in lieu of serious movement as a way to project that things are somehow … not dead,” he said, referring to diplomacy. “So you could get some impressive pledges. But pledges are one thing, delivering is another.”

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has declined her invitation, and the leaders of key US allies including the United Kingdom, Germany and France have also said they won’t join the Board of Peace. Trump rescinded an invitation to Canada’s Mark Carney following a critical speech by the Canadian prime minister at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. The White House initiative received another blow this week as Pope Leo XIV announced that the Vatican would not join the board, which critics have said is an attempt to usurp authority from other major international organisations including the United Nations and may allow Trump to remain as its chair even after his presidency ends.

Mac Blumenthal : Netanyahu Tries to Ambush Tucker Carlson

As Trump Marches US Toward Iran War, Critics Ask: Where’s the ‘Pushback’ From Dems and Media?

Amid reports that President Donald Trump is pushing the US toward a “massive” war in Iran, critics have found themselves shocked by the lack of “pushback” from top Democrats and mainstream media institutions.

Barak Ravid reported for Axios on Wednesday that, with a deal between the US and Iran appearing increasingly out of sight, “the Trump administration is closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize” and “It could begin very soon.”

Sources told the outlet that “A US military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weeks-long campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela.”

“Such a war would have a dramatic influence on the entire region and major implications for the remaining three years of the Trump presidency,” Ravid wrote.

However, with Congress on recess and the media largely distracted by a whirlwind of other issues, he noted, “there is little public debate about what could be the most consequential US military intervention in the Middle East in at least a decade.”

As columnist Adam Johnson pointed out on social media, Trump’s sabre-rattling toward Iran was underway well before Congress left town.

Despite this, Johnson said, the “two most powerful Democrats in the country,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), “have once again not leveled a single word of substantive pushback,” as was the case when Trump conducted strikes against Iran over the summer.

He said the top Democrats have only acknowledged Trump’s threats “when asked by reporters” and have made only “process criticisms” rather than criticizing the merits of the war itself.

Last month, as Trump threatened to carry out massive strikes in retaliation for Iran’s brutalization of protesters, Schumer limited his criticism to the fact that Trump had not consulted Congress.

“It has to be debated by Congress. Something like that, the War Powers Act, the Constitution, requires a discussion in Congress. We’ve had no reach-out from the administration at this point,” he told reporters.

More recently, Jeffries—a member of Congress who is briefed on national security matters—was asked on CBS’s Face the Nation what he knew about the war plans or what he would want to know.

He did not answer that question, but vaguely lamented that Trump “has been slow to provide information... to the Gang of Eight members of Congress” and “hasn’t provided a significant amount of information to Congress in general.”

“When it comes to sanctions, perma-war, and bombings, we do not have an opposition party,” Johnson said. “We have sleepy AIPAC-funded hall monitors paid to get wedgies and vaguely object after the craters are smoking in the ground.”

New York Times columnist David French agreed: “It’s astonishing that we’re building up for a significant military clash, and Congress isn’t involved, no real case is being made to the public, and the average American has no clue. If this gets serious, it will be a shock for lots of people.”

No legal basis and no debate in Congress about what could be a major war with no clear sense of what the objective is or what comes next. https://t.co/P3pYpxNr0n

— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) February 18, 2026

There is little hunger in the American public for a war with Iran. A YouGov survey from early February found that 48% said they strongly or somewhat opposed military action in Iran, compared with just 28% who supported it and 24% who weren’t sure.

Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said in an interview with Democracy Now! on Wednesday that, despite the public’s broadly anti-interventionist attitudes, “their voices are more or less not being heard in the mainstream media.”

“We’re seeing exactly what we saw during the Iraq War, in which a large number of pro-intervention Iraqi voices were paraded through mainstream media in order to give the impression that not only is this something that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi society, but also that this is the morally right thing to do,” Parsi said.

Drop Site News founder Ryan Grim said that when compared with the invasion of Iraq, which was built up over the course of more than a year through persistent propaganda to get the public on board, the Trump administration’s effort to sell a war with Iran is laughable.

“We don’t even get the respect of being lied into war anymore,” he said. “He’s just going to do it.”

US Military Movements Spike Fears of Imminent Attack on Iran

As an adviser to President Donald Trump told Axios that “I think there is 90% chance we see kinetic action” against Iran in the next few weeks following nuclear talks in Switzerland, US military movement on Wednesday fueled fears of an imminent attack on the Middle Eastern country.

Multiple open-source intelligence accounts on social media shared images of what OSINTdefender called “one of the busiest days for the US Air Force in Europe that I have seen in recent history, with close to a dozen KC-135R/T Stratotankers airborne across the Mediterranean and off the coast of Spain, while a steady line of C-17A Globemaster IIIs can be seen heading towards and returning from bases in the Middle East.”

Sharing a similar image showing North America, Europe, and the top of Africa, intelligence analyst Oliver Alexander declared on X that “the tankers just keep coming.”

Greek economist and Progressive International co-founder Yanis Varoufakis responded to that post with a clear message directed at Trump—who notably abandoned the United States’ previous nuclear deal with Iran during his first term.

“Looks like an imminent US strike is in train as US tanker planes are heading eastwards. HANDS OFF IRAN Mr. TRUMP,” he said. “And to the rest of us: Let’s do whatever it takes to oppose another war crime—this time against the Iranian people.”

The observed military movements came just hours after Axios not only published the Trump official’s remark about a 90% chance of war, but also reported that “a US military operation in Iran would likely be a massive, weekslong campaign that would look more like full-fledged war than last month’s pinpoint operation in Venezuela,” according to unnamed sources who “noted it would likely be a joint US-Israeli campaign.”

In the Middle East, “Trump’s armada has grown to include two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships, hundreds of fighter jets, and multiple air defense systems. Some of that firepower is still on its way,” the outlet highlighted. “More than 150 US military cargo flights have moved weapons systems and ammunition to the Middle East. Just in the past 24 hours, another 50 fighter jets—F-35s, F-22s, and F-16s—headed to the region.”

Appearing on Democracy Now! Wednesday, Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an expert on US-Iranian relations, warned that “we have a very dangerous situation, because both sides actually believe that a short, intense war may improve their negotiating position. The Trump administration, of course, believes that because of its overwhelming military power that it has now gathered in the vicinity of Iran, it will be able to take out Iran militarily rather quickly and then force it to capitulate.”

“The Iranians have a different calculation,” Parsi continued. “They believe that they have the ability to inflict significant damage on the United States in the short term, including on civilian oil installations in the region, closing down the Strait of Hormuz, that would shoot up oil prices, and the initial cost of this to the United States would be so immense, and the United States would recognize that it would have to go for a longer war, which it cannot afford, and as a result, it would get the United States to back off.”

Parsi previously led the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), which said in a Wednesday statement that the anonymous Trump official’s comment about a 90% chance of an armed conflict with Iran “should trigger immediate action from Congress, the branch of government legally and constitutionally charged with deciding when the US goes to war.”

“With extensive military deployments underway and public signals that diplomacy may soon be abandoned, the risk of a large-scale, prolonged, and senseless conflict is immediate and real,” NIAC argued. “A war on Iran would not help Iranians demanding change in the face of government repression but instead kill innocent people, create instability inside Iran, and ignite a regionwide conflict.”

The Republican-controlled Congress has so far shown an unwillingness to stand up to Trump’s violence abroad, with multiple war powers resolutions about Venezuela and his boat bombings on high seas failing. Still, NIAC pressured lawmakers to act now, emphasizing that “a war with Iran would carry enormous regional consequences, endanger American service members and Iranian civilians alike, destabilize global markets, and risk spiraling escalation across the region and diminished civil liberties at home.”

Lashing Out at Starmer, Trump Says ‘It May Be Necessary’ to Use UK Bases to Attack Iran

President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that the United States could launch attacks on Iran from British territory with or without the permission of the UK government.

Trump opened a characteristically rambling post on his Truth Social network by disparaging last year’s deal under which the UK is ceding sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, with the exception of Diego Garcia, an island from which the Indigenous Chagossian people were forcibly expelled over half a century ago to make way for one of the world’s largest and most important US military bases, which is jointly operated by Britain.

“I have been telling [UK] Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the United Kingdom, that Leases are no good when it comes to Countries, and that he is making a big mistake by entering a 100 Year Lease with whoever it is that is ‘claiming’ Right, Title, and Interest to Diego Garcia, strategically located in the Indian Ocean,” Trump wrote.

BREAKING -- Donald Trump says "it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford" to attack Iran.

He seems to be suggesting that UK bases could be used in an attack on Iran with or without Britain's consent. pic.twitter.com/tPxVGP1xss

— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) February 18, 2026

“Our relationship with the United Kingdom is a strong and powerful one, and it has been for many years, but Prime Minister Starmer is losing control of this important Island by claims of entities never known of before,” the president continued. “In our opinion, they are fictitious in nature.”

“Should Iran decide not to make a Deal, it may be necessary for the United States to use Diego Garcia, and the Airfield located in Fairford, in order to eradicate a potential attack by a highly unstable and dangerous Regime—An attack that would potentially be made on the United Kingdom, as well as other friendly Countries,” Trump added, referring to the critical US Air Force forward operating base at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.

Trump’s post came as an advisor to the president said there is “a 90% chance” of a US attack on Iran in the coming weeks after nuclear talks end in Switzerland. Administration rhetoric and US movements suggest that Trump may soon resume bombing of Iran following last summer’s bombing and assassination campaign targeting the country’s nuclear scientists and infrastructure.

The president’s Truth Social post concluded: “Prime Minister Starmer should not lose control, for any reason, of Diego Garcia, by entering a tenuous, at best, 100 Year Lease. This land should not be taken away from the UK and, if it is allowed to be, it will be a blight on our Great Ally. We will always be ready, willing, and able to fight for the UK, but they have to remain strong in the face of Wokeism, and other problems put before them. DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA!”

Trump’s post stood in stark contrast the State Department, which said Tuesday that the US “supports the decision of the United Kingdom to proceed with its agreement with Mauritius concerning the Chagos archipelago”.

Another Trump foreign policy headspinner:

Yesterday: State Department says US "supports the decision of the United Kingdom" on Diego Garcia/Chagos islands

Today: Trump says this land should not be taken away from the UK and "it will be a blight on our Great Ally" pic.twitter.com/rt0LMJ0Fln

— Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) February 18, 2026

Under the UK-Mauritius deal, Mauritius authorities will facilitate Chagossians’ eventual resettlement of their archipelago, with the apparent glaring exception of Diego Garcia. While some Chagossians welcomed the agreement, others denounced it, largely due to the exclusion of the Chagossian community from the negotiations.

Diego Garcia was once home to around 1,500 Creole-speaking Chagossians and their beloved dogs. However, in the 1960s the US convinced Britain to grant it full control there and subsequently began to “sweep” and “sanitize” the atoll of its Indigenous population, in the words of one American official.

“We must surely be very tough about this,” a British official privately wrote, adding that “there will be no Indigenous population except seagulls.”

Many Chagossians were tricked or terrorized into leaving. US Marines told them they’d be bombed if they didn’t evacuate, and Chagossians’ dogs were gassed to death with fumes from military vehicles. The islanders were permitted to take just one suitcase with them. Most were shipped to Mauritius, where they were treated as second-class citizens and where many ended up living in poverty and heartbreak in the slums of the capital, Port Louis.

Meanwhile, the US and Britain used Diego Garcia as a base for attacks on countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq during the so-called War on Terror, while despoiling the atoll’s water with human sewage.

Britain’s High Court of Justice twice ruled that the Chagossians’ removal was illegal. In 2019, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory opinion that the UK was exercising “illegal” sovereignty over Diego Garcia and urged the British government to “decolonize” the atoll by handing sovereignty to Mauritius, whose government long contended it was forced to cede control in order to secure its own independence.

Richard D. Wolff & Michael Hudson: Oil Prices About to Surge? Persian Gulf & Red Sea Threat

Trump’s immigration siege is rattling hospitality industry

Donald Trump’s immigration policies are having a chilling effect on the hospitality industry, where nearly a third of workers are immigrants, according to the largest hospitality union in the US. The number of employed hospitality workers dropped by 98,000 from December 2024 to December 2025, according to a report from Unite Here, which represents 300,000 workers across the hospitality, food and tourism industries in the US and Canada.

Union leaders say the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown has not only scared workers but has also discouraged international tourism. The US saw a decline of $1.2bn, or a 5.5% drop, in tourism revenue from September 2024 to September 2025, according to the report. ...

Even as Minnesota seeks to recover from Operation Metro Surge, Trump’s immigration policies – from cancelling temporary protected status, expanding travel visa bans, to having tourists detained – have driven a slump in tourism across the US. International visitors to the US declined by 2.5 million in 2025, even as international tourism increased around the world, according to Unite Here’s report.

Regional declines of Canadian tourism to Minnesota drove a 15% decline in overall international air travelers to Minnesota in 2025 and a recent plunge in Canadians attending the World Junior Hockey championships. Small businesses in Minneapolis reportedly lost up to $81m in revenue in January 2026.

The slowdown is being felt in other cities. In 2025, a record number of restaurants closed in Washington DC while restaurant openings slowed by 30%. Meanwhile, tourism in Las Vegas dropped 7.5% in 2025.

Conservative Georgia town pushes back against ICE detention center

On a recent morning Eric Taylor, city manager for a small Georgia town of about 5,000 residents called Social Circle, was contacted by a staffer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “They asked me to turn on the water,” he said of a 1m sq ft warehouse nearby that the federal government recently purchased for $128m, with plans to use it for locking up as many as 10,000 detainees as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan. “I told them I’m not going to do it,” Taylor said. “Not until they come and talk to me.” ...

Officials and residents alike only learned of the Trump administration’s plans to buy the empty warehouse from a 24 December Washington Post report – and since then have been clamoring for the federal government’s attention, to no avail. Taylor contacted Jon Ossoff, a Democratic senator who has also opposed ICE’s plans for the town, and Mike Collins, a Republican congressman who has told Taylor that the federal government will be in touch.

Taylor’s concerns include: loss of property tax revenue and insufficient water, sewage, police, ambulance and hospital infrastructure, in a town that could soon triple in population. The city manager said the town’s sewage system dated to 1962, was built to handle 660,000 gallons a day, and was “already maxed out”. Social Circle had taken out a $65m bond to fix the system before ICE’s plans had materialized, he said. With thousands of detainees at the edge of town, “you’ll have poop on the ground over there”.

The town’s water system was also stretched, Taylor added. State permits allowed Social Circle to draw one million gallons a day from nearby Alcovy River, and its residents had come close to that figure last summer. Not only that, the federal government pays no taxes on its property; former warehouse owners, PNK Group, paid about $300,000 in taxes last year, he said. Despite these and other concerns, as of Thursday morning, not a single ICE or homeland security official had contacted Taylor or anyone else in the local government to talk about such details, even as plans appeared to be moving forward to transform the warehouse into a prison. “It’s frustrating,” the city manager said.

Town officials announced ICE’s $128m purchase 8 February on Social Circle’s Facebook page. The price paid was nearly five times the property’s assessed value of $29m last year, Taylor said. The Facebook post had nearly 1,000 comments as of Friday – more than any in recent history, said John Miller, a local business owner. Meanwhile, despite being located in a county where nearly 75% voted for Donald Trump, a coalition of strange bedfellows appears to be as steadfast as Taylor, who for now at least controlled the water at the warehouse. “This is a close, tight-knit community,” Taylor said. “I can tell you there is unity around this issue.”

Epstein Billionaire Wexner Says NEVER Interviewed By FBI

Billionaire Les Wexner testifies before Congress about ties to Epstein

The former boss of the Victoria’s Secret lingerie brand, Les Wexner, said he has “done nothing wrong” and has “nothing to hide”, as he testifies on Wednesday before a congressional committee in relation to his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Wexner is one of several Epstein associates subpoenaed to testify before the House oversight committee in their continued investigation of the late financier’s crimes. In a prepared statement, provided by his team, Wexner called himself “naïve, foolish, and gullible to put any trust in Jeffrey Epstein”.

“I completely and irrevocably cut ties with Epstein nearly twenty years ago when I learned that he was an abuser, a crook, and a liar,” he said. Wexner, who hired Epstein in 1991 to manage his money, has insisted that he was not aware of Epstein’s abuse when he worked with the financier.

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2019 that Wexner was integral to Epstein’s success in finance, with Epstein reportedly earning $200m from the deal. “To my enormous embarrassment and regret I, like many others, was duped by a world-class con man,” Wexner continued.

California representative Dave Min said that Wexner had claimed not to know about Epstein’s crimes. “I can basically say that he has basically alleged that he saw no evil, heard no evil, despite being in the room with Jeffrey Epstein over and over and over – and it’s really just not credible,” Min said. “I realize he’s an elderly gentleman. Memories fade, but the reputation of Jeffrey Epstein is very clear. Everyone around Jeffrey Epstein knew exactly what he’s up to, and to spend that much time, to give that much trust, to Jeffrey Epstein, and then to say, ‘I don’t remember seeing any young girls. I didn’t hear anything about Jeffrey Epstein,’ it really is just not plausible,” Min said.

Wexner has insisted that he cut ties with Epstein in 2007, before Epstein pleaded guilty to Florida state-level prostitution charges in 2008, and claimed that Epstein “misappropriated” $46m of his assets.

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Mamdani floats New York City property tax raise if state won’t tax millionaires

Zohran Mamdani, New York’s democratic socialist mayor, has unveiled two new budget proposals for the city – one to raise income and corporate taxes, or another to raise property taxes – triggering resistance from some political figures in and out of the state. Mamdani’s two proposals include either raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents – which would require approval from New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul – or a “last resort” measure of a 9.5% property tax increase, which could affect “more than 3 million single-family homes, co-ops and condos and over 100,000 commercial buildings”, according to the New York Times.

“The first path is the most sustainable and fairest: raising taxes on the wealthiest and corporations, and ending the drain by fixing the imbalance between what the City provides the State and what we receive in return,” said Mamdani. “If we do not go down the first path, the City will be forced to go down a second, more harmful path of property taxes and raiding our reserves – weakening our long-term fiscal footing and placing the onus for resolving this crisis on the backs of working- and middle-class New Yorkers … The second path is painful. We will continue to work with Albany to avoid it.”

The threat to raise property taxes puts pressure on Hochul, who is seeking re-election this year, to move toward Mamdani’s campaign promise to make the city’s top earners and corporations pay more to fund an ambitious slate of programs that includes free childcare, free buses and rent freezes for 1m rent-stabilized apartments.

Mamdani’s message comes as Hochul, who has ruled out income tax rises, said the state would contribute $1.5bn to help reduce the city’s budget deficit, which is expected to rise to a $7bn gap from $5.4bn over the next two years. Mamdani notably inherited a larger deficit than expected from his predecessor, Eric Adams.

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Extinction Rebellion says FBI is investigating it for terrorism

Environmental group Extinction Rebellion said on Wednesday it was under federal US investigation and that some of its members had been visited by FBI agents, including from the agency’s taskforce on extremism, in the last year. Asked for comment, the FBI said it could neither confirm nor deny conducting specific investigations, citing justice department policy.

“On the evening of 6 February, a former member of [Extinction Rebellion NYC] was visited by two special agents from the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force at their residence, 200 miles outside of New York City,” the environmental group said in a statement. The agents asked the former member about their involvement in the environmental group’s New York City chapter, the statement said, adding the former member referred questions to their attorney.

The group also said that in March 2025, agents identifying themselves as part of the FBI attempted to speak with six different activists affiliated with Extinction Rebellion Boston and that there was no follow-up communication.

The statement by the activist group did not have further details, and the FBI did not comment on the nature and scope of its actions. Rights advocates have raised free speech concerns under Donald Trump’s administration, citing his crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza, and his threats against liberal non-profits and groups opposed to his agenda, including his immigration and climate policies.

Plug-in hybrids use three times more fuel than manufacturers claim

Plug-in hybrid electric cars (PHEVs) use much more fuel on the road than officially stated by their manufacturers, a large-scale analysis of about a million vehicles of this type has shown.

The Fraunhofer Institute carried out what is thought to be the most comprehensive study of its kind to date, using the data transmitted wirelessly by PHEVs from a variety of manufacturers while they were on the road.

The cars involved were all produced between 2021 and 2023. The data transmitted enabled analysts to determine their precise and real-world fuel consumption, as opposed to that stated in the vehicles’ official EU approved certification.

PHEVs, cars which combine a petrol or diesel engine with a battery-powered electric motor that is charged from an external energy point, give drivers the flexibility to be able to switch between the ecologically safer power source, and the more conventional, but environmentally more damaging one, as and when conditions allow. Manufacturers typically market the vehicles as energy efficient. On paper at least, the vehicles are said to use much less fuel, between one and two litres per 100km, than conventional cars. However environmental groups have long since voiced scepticism over the claims.

According to the study, the vehicles require on average six litres per 100km, or about 300%, more fuel to run than previously cited. ... Patrick Plötz of the Fraunhofer Institute told German broadcaster SWR they suspected that the combustion engine in PHEVs is triggered to turn on far more frequently than previously thought.

Illinois governor proposes cancelling tax breaks for datacenters

The Illinois governor JB Pritzker proposed a two-year break from offering tax incentives for datacenters, a reflection of increasing public pushback against the massive, resource-hungry facilities used to power the modern AI boom.

Pritzker made the proposal, which will need the backing of state lawmakers, during his annual state of the state address, which covers Illinois budget and policy plans. The plan was first reported by NBC News.

“In the face of rising demand and surging prices, I’m proposing a two-year pause on authorization of new datacenter tax credits,” Pritzker said. “With the shifting energy landscape, it is imperative that our growth does not undermine affordability and stability for our families.”

Concern over how datacenters affect nearby residents and drain resources has become a growing political issue around the world, as companies frequently invest huge sums into building sprawling facilities against the wishes of local communities. Several big tech firms such as Microsoft and Anthropic have claimed that they will cover rising power costs related to demands from their datacenters, amid bipartisan pressure before midterm elections later this year.

Illinois has been one of the earlier and more active states in pursuing legislation and policymaking surrounding the AI boom. In 2024, Pritzker signed a series of bills related to AI replicas and artists’ rights, employment discrimination and the use of deepfakes for child sexual abuse material. State lawmakers and Pritzker also vowed to oppose Donald Trump’s executive order last year that aimed to prevent states from creating their own regulations on AI. The state has also enacted more stringent biometric privacy laws than the rest of the US.

Study finds global increase in hot, dry days ideal for wildfires

The number of days when the weather gets hot, dry and windy – ideal to spark extreme wildfires – has nearly tripled in the past 45 years across the globe, with the trend increasing even higher in the Americas, a new study shows.

And more than half of that increase is caused by human-caused climate change, researchers calculated.

What this means is that as the world warms, more places across the globe are prone to wildfires because of increasingly synchronous fire weather, which is when multiple places have the right conditions to go up in smoke.

Countries may not have enough resources to put out all the fires, and help will not be as likely to come from neighbors busy with their own flames, according to the authors of a study in Wednesday’s Science Advances.

In 1979 and for the next 15 years, the world averaged 22 synchronous fire weather days a year for flames that stayed within large global regions, the study found. In 2023 and 2024, it was up to more than 60 days a year.

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A Little Night Music

Nina Simone - Nobody's Fault but Mine

Nina Simone - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

Nina Simone - My Baby Just Cares For Me

Nina Simone - Go To Hell

Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddam

Nina Simone - Work Song

Nina Simone - Backlash Blues

Nina Simone - Blues For Mama

Nina Simone - Baltimore

Nina Simone - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

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