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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Albert Ammons

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features boogie woogie and blues pianist Albert Ammons. Enjoy!

^{Albert Ammons - Albert's Special Boogie Woogie}

"...we all know that in all matters of mere opinion that [every] man is insane-just as insane as we are...we know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours....All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it. None but the Republicans. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane."

-- Mark Twain

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News and Opinion

We Are Duped Into Blaming Our Problems On Everyone Except Our Rulers

Muslims are not a threat to you.

Russia is not a threat to you.

China is not a threat to you.

Trans people are not a threat to you.

Immigrants are not a threat to you.

If you find yourself resisting anything I just said, that’s where they hooked you. That’s where your rulers duped you into blaming your problems on something other than them.

You will notice that I am not saying there are no enemies and nobody poses a threat to us; there absolutely are, and they absolutely do. It’s just that people are tricked and manipulated away from seeing the real enemies and the real threats where they are.

What poses a threat to you is the political status quo which robs your country of riches and resources to inflict military violence on innocent people overseas while strangling your civil rights and poisoning your planet. What poses a threat to you are the oligarchs and empire managers who uphold this status quo which is driving our species to authoritarian dystopia and extinction via environmental disaster or nuclear annihilation.

They want you blaming your problems on anyone else besides the actual source of your problems. They prefer to get you freaking out about their primary targets — the disobedient groups and nations they want to destroy to advance the interests of the empire — but if they can’t accomplish that then they’re happy to get you hating powerless groups who pose no real threat to you. Anything they can do to keep your eyes off your real oppressors: the billionaires, bankers, media barons, intelligence agencies, warmongers, ecocidal capitalists, military-industrial complex plutocrats, and all the empire lackeys in your official elected government.

They want us fighting each other, but we only pose a threat to each other if we buy into their bogus narratives of hostility and division. An immigrant is only threatened by a right winger because the right winger has been successfully duped into blaming his problems on the immigrant, and therefore elects empire lackeys who will make the immigrant’s life more difficult. But without that artificially manufactured enmity, it’s just two people being abused by the same pricks at the top.

Whenever I say stuff like this I’ll get people voicing objections like “No no Caitlin you don’t understand, we really truly ARE seriously dangerously threatened by The Trans Agenda” or whatever. But you’re not. That’s just you doing the thing I’m describing here. You’re just buying into the exact scam I’m talking about. You’re allowing your crosshairs to be moved from your oppressors to some irrelevant diversion in order to protect your oppressors.

At some point we need to stop falling for the scam. We need to wake up to the fact that we’re all just a bunch of normal people living in a highly abusive society, and that our abusers are benefiting immensely from our inability to see through their divide-and-conquer manipulations and unite against them.

Muslims are not a threat to you.

Russia is not a threat to you.

China is not a threat to you.

Trans people are not a threat to you.

Immigrants are not a threat to you.

The US empire is a threat to you.

Your own government is a threat to you.

Oligarchs are a threat to you.

Nuclear brinkmanship is a threat to you.

Ecocide is a threat to you.

War and militarism are a threat to you.

Tyranny is a threat to you.

Propaganda is a threat to you.

Your enemies are not in Moscow, Beijing and Tehran. Your enemies are in Washington, Virginia, New York and Los Angeles. Your enemies are in London, Paris, Brussels and Tel Aviv. Your abusers are not some far away nation your own government doesn’t like, nor are they some marginalized group your government doesn’t care about. Your abusers are your government itself, and all its allies and assets around the world, and the network of oligarchs and empire managers who call the shots in this globe-spanning power structure from behind the scenes.

The sooner we get this straight, the sooner we can sort out all these problems we’re currently being duped into blaming on the wrong people.

Aaron Maté : Putin’s Endgame in Ukraine: What No One is Telling You

Israeli Cabinet Minister: 'Only Solution for the Gaza Strip Is to Empty It of Gazans'

Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman argued Tuesday for ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip of its Palestinian population so that the Jewish people can "inherit the land" many of them believe their deity promised them in biblical times.

"The only solution for the Gaza Strip is to empty it of Gazans," Silman—a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud party—said during an interview with Reshet Bet radio, according to a translation by Haaretz. "God has sent us the U.S. administration, and it is clearly telling us—it's time to inherit the land."

Last month, Republican U.S. President Donald Trump proposed that the U.S. "take over" Gaza, remove it's approximately 2.1 million Palestinian inhabitants, and transform the coastal enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East."

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday that the so-called "Trump Plan" is currently "taking shape."

Silman said during Tuesday's interview that "Gush Katif will return, there's no question about it," referring to a former block of 17 Israeli apartheid settlements in southern Gaza that were abandoned 20 years ago. "It could be in single-family homes or Trump-style towers, but we will definitely go back there. I see no other solution to terrorism. The answer to terrorism is sovereignty."

While proponents of the plan insist that Palestinians will leave Gaza voluntarily, critics counter that this notion is utterly divorced from reality, as most Gazans are descendants of people who fled or were ethnically cleansed from other parts of Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948, and are loath to be subjected to yet another expulsion. Many elderly Gazans are survivors of what Palestinians call the Nakba, or "catastrophe," of 1948.

This isn't the first time that Silman has called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. She made similar comments during a recent rally, and last September she also said that Israel is "on a path to inherit" the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Israel has illegally occupied the territory since 1967, and hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers have steadily usurped Palestinians by building and expanding apartheid colonies on their land.

"We will not 'conquer,'" Silman asserted last year. "Conquer is a progressive word that the progressives brought upon us. We inherit. Inheritance from the lord."

Silman rose to prominence after abandoning the previous Israeli coalition government, prompting a crisis leading to the 2022 election that gave rise to the current far-right administration.

Numerous Israeli politicians, military leaders, journalists, entertainers, and others have called for genocide in Gaza or the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the territory. Statements from Netanyahu, members of his Cabinet, Knesset lawmakers, and others have been entered as evidence in the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

More than 170,000 Palestinians are dead, maimed, or missing, and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened following 15 months of Israeli bombardment and invasion and more than 17 months of "complete siege" of Gaza, according to local and international agencies.

Palestine defenders argue the mass slaughter and annihilation of Gaza meet the definition of genocide under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. However, according to the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, "To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

"The intent is the most difficult element to determine," the agency stressed. But critics say that comments like Silman's could make the ICJ's final decision much easier.

"Bolstered by the hubris of settler colonial power and the knowledge that it has killed, maimed, destroyed, expelled, humiliated, imprisoned, and dispossessed with more than seven decades of impunity and by the continued material and moral support of the United States, Israelis are explicit and unashamed about their genocidal intent because they have imagined and prosecuted a war against people who they see as colonized 'savages,'" Israeli Holocaust scholar and British law professor Penny Green wrote last year.

Tulsi Gabbard VINDICATED?! Syria Violence Against Religious Minorities ERUPTS After Assad's Ouster

The irony and the hypocrisy. No need for your irony supplements tonight. I guess this is setting the grounds for Israel to absorb all of Syria.

Israel Condemns Syria Government as ‘al-Qaeda Terrorists,’ Demands Global Denunciation

After a weekend of fighting between the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government and Alawite militias in northwestern Syria, and the subsequent massacres of Alawite civilians that left well over 1,000 people dead, Israel is expressing newfound outrage against the HTS.

Israel Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar is taking credit for predicting acts of revenge by the HTS, condemning them as “pure evil” because of the barbaric murder of civilians, and demanded the global community unite to deny Syria’s government any legitimacy, and further denounce their killings.

Defense Minister Israel Katz offered his own take earlier in the weekend, calling HTS leader Ahmed Sharaa (formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) an “al-Qaeda terrorist.” He further condemned early reports of killings as horrifying acts, and vowed Israel would defend itself militarily from the HTS. ...

Israel was relatively hostile to the Alawites in Syria for years at any rate, owing to their ideological ties to Shia Islam and the notion that they made up part of a “Shia crescent” across the Middle East. Israel also carried out airstrikes against the exact same region where the HTS massacres were carried out just days before that situation began. Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes across Syria since the HTS took power in December.

Syria and Erdogan's control of the regime

Columbia University ‘refusing to help’ identify people for arrest – White House

The Trump administration said on Tuesday that Columbia University was “refusing to help” the Department of Homeland Security identify people for arrest on campus, after immigration authorities detained a prominent Palestinian activist and recent Columbia graduate over the weekend.

The Trump White House’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday the administration had given the university names of multiple individuals it accused of “pro-Hamas activity”, reiterating the administration’s intention to deport activists associated with pro-Palestinian protests.

“Columbia University has been given the names of other individuals who have engaged in pro-Hamas activity, and they are refusing to help DHS identify those individuals on campus,” Leavitt said in a press briefing. “And as the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday, he is not going to tolerate that.” ...

As of Tuesday, Mahmoud Khalil had not been charged with any crime. However, two people with knowledge of the matter told the New York Times that the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was relying on a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that gives him broad power to expel foreigners if they give him “reasonable ground to believe” their presence in the US has “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences”. Zeteo also reported that Rubio himself “personally signed off on the arrest”. ...

On Monday evening, a federal judge in Manhattan barred his deportation pending a hearing in his case set for Wednesday. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights have joined Khalil’s legal team, led by his attorney, Amy Greer. Greer stated on Monday that she had spoken with Khalil and that he was “healthy and his spirits are undaunted by his predicament”.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Ceasefire or Surrender?

Ukraine agrees to 30-day ceasefire as US prepares to lift military aid restrictions

Ukraine said it was ready to accept an immediate 30-day ceasefire in the war with Russia, as the US announced it would immediately lift its restrictions on military aid and intelligence sharing after high-stakes talks in Saudi Arabia. Donald Trump said he now hoped Vladimir Putin would reciprocate. If the Russian president did, it would mark the first ceasefire in the more than three years since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Hours after Ukraine’s declaration, Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv, with mayor Vitali Klitschko saying air defences were engaged in repelling the strikes. ...

“That’s a total ceasefire,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Tuesday after the talks. “Ukraine has agreed to it. And hopefully Russia will agree to it.” US officials said they hoped the agreement would help lead to talks to end the war. Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected to travel to Moscow in the coming days to propose the ceasefire to Putin.

It is not clear if Putin is ready to accept the ceasefire in its current form. Trump said he is expecting to speak with Putin later this week. Russian media have reported that their conversation could take place on Friday.

Trump continued: “We’re going to meet with them [the Russians] later on today and tomorrow and hopefully we’ll be able to [work] out a deal. I think the ceasefire is very important. If we can get Russia to do it, that’ll be great. If we can’t we just keep going on and people are gonna get killed, lots of people.” Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said the ball was “now in Russia’s court” after the negotiations concluded. “If they [Russia] say no then we’ll unfortunately know what the impediment is to peace here,” he said.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov - w/ Judge Napolitano, Larry Johnson, & Mario Nawfal

Romanian court rejects appeal by far-right politician to lift candidacy ban

Romania’s top court has upheld a decision to ban presidential election frontrunner Călin Georgescu from standing in a rerun of the vote in May, sparking protest in Bucharest and leaving the country’s far-right parties four days to find a candidate.

Georgescu, an anti-EU, Moscow-friendly populist, surged from almost nowhere to win the first round of the country’s presidential election last year, but the result was annulled by Romania’s top court because of suspected Russian interference.

Amid claims of “massive” social media manipulation, he was placed under criminal investigation last month on six charges including false statements about his campaign financing, fraudulent use of digital technologies and promoting fascist organisations.

He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Romania’s central election bureau said on Sunday it had decided to bar Georgescu’s candidacy for the rerun of the first-round vote, due on 4 May, ruling it “unacceptable” that he should stand after the constitutional court’s annulment of the November vote.After deliberating for two hours, the constitutional court rejected Georgescu’s appeal against that decision on Tuesday in a unanimous ruling that cannot be challenged. It would publish its reasoning at a later date, the court added.

[And... though the Guardian won't tell you, it was determined that the "digital technology manipulation" (tiktok) was fraudulent activity by one of the mainstream parties, not Georgescu. If you want to talk about anti-democratic fascists, it seems that the Romanian courts, government and its Eurocrat overlords are acting far more like fascists than Georgescu or the far-right in Romania. -js]

USAid employees told to destroy classified documents

Officials at the US Agency for International Development (USAid) have begun a large-scale destruction of classified documents at their headquarters in the Ronald Reagan building in Washington DC including with shredders and using “burn bags”, according to an internal email seen by the Guardian. ... The timing of this document purge comes amid ongoing controversy over what is essentially the shuttering of USAid following the Trump administration’s attempts to reshape the independent agency through the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge). ...

When federal agencies are dissolved or restructured, their records are typically transferred to successor agencies or the National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) in accordance with the Federal Records Act (FRA). During the US’s hasty exit out of Afghanistan in 2021, Nara sent a reminder to safely and lawfully discard sensitive documents.

But compliance with the FRA in this situation is deeply in question, since the law explicitly prohibits the destruction of government records before their designated retention period – typically a minimum of three years. There’s also lingering concern that it risks permanently eliminating evidence needed for ongoing Freedom of Information Act (Foia) requests and future oversight investigations. ...

It’s unclear whether proper records management protocols are being followed during this process, or if documents that should be preserved are being destroyed.

Trump BLINKS On Canada Tariffs After Markets FREAK

US-Canada trade war sparks chaos as both sides escalate threats

The looming trade war between the US and Canada escalated on Tuesday as Donald Trump threatened to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum after Canadian threats to increase electricity prices for US customers.

On Tuesday morning Trump announced plans to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% and once again threatened to annex Canada as retaliation for the province of Ontario’s imposition of a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to several US states, in a dramatic escalation of the trade war between the two ostensibly allied countries.

The news set off another stock market sell-off on Wall Street that was tempered when Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, said he made a deal with the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, to suspend Canada’s 25% tariff on exports of electricity to Michigan, New York and Minnesota after Lutnick agreed to discuss renewing existing trade relations.

New tariffs of 25% on all imported steel and aluminum are still scheduled to take effect at midnight on Wednesday, including against allies and top US suppliers Canada and Mexico, the White House confirmed to Reuters.

Incorrectly calling Canada “one of the highest tariffing nations anywhere in the world”, Trump said he had instructed his secretary of commerce to increase levies on the metals due to start on Wednesday morning. He also threatened more tariffs on 2 April on the car industry that would “essentially, permanently shut down the automobile manufacturing business in Canada”.

Federal judge orders Doge to release internal records for transparency

A federal judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) must comply with transparency laws and release its internal documents, finding the secretive operation exercises “substantial independent authority” that cannot be shielded from public scrutiny.

In a 37-page opinion issued on Monday, US district judge Christopher Cooper ordered Doge – which took over what used to be the White House’s US Digital Service (USDS) – to begin a “rolling” production of records within weeks, rejecting the Trump administration’s attempts to position it beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act. “The authority exercised by USDS across the federal government and the dramatic cuts it has apparently made with no congressional input appear to be unprecedented,” Cooper wrote in his decision on a lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew).

The ruling undercuts both Musk’s claims about the operation’s transparency and the White House’s characterisation of the billionaire as merely a presidential adviser with limited decision-making power. Cooper cited evidence that Doge has terminated government employees, dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAid) and granted outsiders access to sensitive government databases.

Musk is himself a “special government employee” – meaning that he was not vetted or appointed for a position which the White House has said requires no financial public disclosure. While Musk defends the Doge operation by saying it posts its receipts on social media, the Trump ally has gone to great lengths to conceal his employees, calling for a Wall Street Journal reporter who linked a Doge staffer to anonymous racist remarks to be fired, and banning an X user who posted the contact information for dozens of others.

The judge’s decision could still face appeal but stands as a significant setback to the administration’s efforts to limit public visibility into how decisions affecting federal agencies and employees are being made. The court criticised the administration’s legal approach, noting government lawyers provided virtually no evidence and took inconsistent positions on Doge’s status. “[It] becomes, on defendants’ view, a Goldilocks entity – not an agency when it is burdensome but an agency when it is convenient,” Cooper wrote.

House Republicans pass Trump-backed bill to avoid shutdown and send it to the Senate

House Republicans pulled off a near party-line vote on Tuesday to pass their controversial funding bill to curb the looming government shutdown, shipping it off to the Senate, where it still will face an uphill battle to pass.

The Trump-backed bill passed 217 to 213, with the Kentucky representative Thomas Massie casting the sole Republican “no” vote, joining all almost all House Democrats who had come out hard against it for slashing social programs and granting the Trump administration broader federal powers. The Democrat Jared Golden of Maine joined Republicans in backing the measure.

The stopgap bill, revealed by House Republican leadership over the weekend, would fund the government through September and carves $13bn from non-defense spending while adding $6bn to military budgets and preserving a $20bn IRS funding freeze – priorities embraced by Donald Trump but denounced by Democrats as an assault on vulnerable Americans.

The vice-president, JD Vance, in a Tuesday huddle with Republicans on the Hill said the blame would fall squarely on the Republicans should they fail to pass the measure, according to Politico. ...

The Senate presents another hurdle, where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority but need 60 votes to pass the legislation. At least eight Democratic senators would need to cross party lines for the bill to advance, assuming all Republican senators except Rand Paul, from Kentucky, who is expected to oppose it, vote in favor.

Trump's Trade War: Why Lack of Universal Healthcare Makes U.S. Less Competitive

Wow! In TrumpWorld (tm), boycotts are illegal.

Trump calls Tesla boycott ‘illegal’ and says he’s buying one to support Musk

Donald Trump said he is buying a “brand new Tesla” and blamed “Radical Left Lunatics” for “illegally” boycotting Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company. The announcement came a day after Tesla suffered its worst share price fall in nearly five years.

Later, the president also said he would label violence against Tesla showrooms as domestic terrorism. Trump was responding to a question during a Tuesday press conference, in which a reporter said, “Talk to us about some of the violence that’s been going on around the country at Tesla dealerships. Some say they should be labeled domestic terrorists.”

“I will do that. I’ll do that,” Trump said. “I’m going to put a stop to it. Because they’re harming a great American company.”

Trump spoke on the White House driveway, alongside Musk and Musk’s young son. Several Tesla vehicles were parked in the driveway for Trump to pick which vehicle to buy. In August 2024, a podcaster gifted Trump a Cybertruck. On Tuesday, Trump selected a red Model S, which he said he would pay for by check.

“Elon Musk is ‘putting it on the line’ in order to help our Nation, and he is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! But the Radical Left Lunatics, as they often do, are trying to illegally and collusively boycott Tesla, one of the World’s great automakers, and Elon’s ‘baby,’ in order to attack and do harm to Elon, and everything he stands for,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday morning.

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Democratic ex-congresswoman Katie Porter enters California governor race

The former Democratic House member Katie Porter announced on Tuesday that she is entering California’s 2026 gubernatorial contest, joining a crowded field of candidates that could be upended if former vice-president Kamala Harris joins the race.

Porter, who became a social media celebrity by brandishing a whiteboard at congressional hearings while grilling CEOs, promised in a campaign launch video to be an aggressive counterweight to Donald Trump’s administration at a time when the heavily Democratic state has clashed with the White House over issues from water management to immigrant rights.

“In Congress, I held the Trump administration’s feet to the fire when they hurt Americans. As governor, I won’t ever back down when Trump hurts Californians – whether he’s holding up disaster relief, attacking our rights or our communities, or screwing over working families to benefit himself and his cronies,” Porter said.

The contest to replace the term-limited incumbent Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has already lured a large scrum of announced and likely candidates.

Harris, a former state attorney general and US senator, has not ruled out seeking the governorship since she left Washington in January after a failed presidential bid. Porter is friendly with Harris and has indicated she would step aside if the former vice-president joins the race. In 2012, Harris, then California’s attorney general, appointed Porter to be the state’s independent bank monitor in a multibillion-dollar nationwide mortgage settlement.

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Controlled-release fertilizers can spread microplastics on US cropland

Fertilizers that shed microplastics are increasingly spreading on America’s cropland, research shows, raising new worry about the soil contamination and safety of the US food supply. A peer-reviewed University of Missouri paper found common types of controlled-release fertilizers are often encapsulated with plastic and can be so small that they could be considered microplastics. Those are designed to break down into even smaller pieces of plastic once spread in fields.

The tiny bits of plastic can end up in water and soil at alarming levels, the paper’s lead author said, and the substance is likely taken up by crops. Until now, controlled-release fertilizers have been thought to be safe, said Maryam Salehi, a lead author and researcher with the University of Missouri. “We need to inform farmers,” Salehi said. “When they choose their products, they need to know that these have some potential risks.

Salehi said it is unclear which other chemicals are in the fertilizer plastic. Testing has found microplastics in a wide range of foods, including produce.

Trump orders likely to drive species’ extinction, wildlife advocates warn

Donald Trump’s administration, backed by House Republicans and Elon Musk’s Doge agency, are carrying out an attack on the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and federal wildlife agencies that, if successful, will almost certainly drive numerous species into extinction, environmental advocates warn. The three-pronged attack is designed to freeze endangered wildlife protections to more quickly push through oil, gas and development projects, opponents say.

In recent weeks, the US president has said he will assemble a “God squad”, or committee empowered to effectively veto ESA protections for species on the brink of extinction. Meanwhile, in part at the behest of Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, hundreds of US Fish and Wildlife staff have been laid off, and hiring freezes implemented on hundreds more seasonal workers whom advocates say are critical to ensuring some species’ survival.

In the US House, Republicans recently held a hearing on the ESA and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, claiming the legislation needs to be revised to allow industry projects to be approved more quickly. Wildlife advocates are girding for a fight in which species’ existence hangs in the balance.

“Scientists warn that we’re in an extinction crisis, and we ignore that at our own peril,” said Noah Greenwald, the endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “As America’s wildlife dwindles, Elon Musk is swinging his wrecking ball at the skilled and dedicated people fighting to save our plants and animals from extinction. It’s beyond idiotic.”

Congress passed the ESA in 1973, and it has saved bald eagles, grizzly bears and American alligators from extinction, among other species. Some environmentalists say it’s among the nation’s strongest environmental laws because it’s explicit, and sets clear deadlines for federal agencies to act to protect species. The law also requires most federal initiatives to ensure the action or project doesn’t threaten protected species. Nearly 99% of species listed as endangered under the law have survived, Greenwald said, and the law rarely derails energy or development projects.

‘Global weirding’: climate whiplash hitting world’s biggest cities, study reveals

Climate whiplash is already hitting major cities around the world, bringing deadly swings between extreme wet and dry weather as the climate crisis intensifies, a report has revealed. Dozens more cities, including Lucknow, Madrid and Riyadh have suffered a climate “flip” in the last 20 years, switching from dry to wet extremes, or vice versa. The report analysed the 100 most populous cities, plus 12 selected ones, and found that 95% of them showed a distinct trend towards wetter or drier weather.

The changing climate of cities can hit citizens with worsened floods and droughts, destroy access to clean water, sanitation and food, displace communities and spread disease. Cities where the water infrastructure is already poor, such as Karachi and Khartoum, suffer the most. Cities across the world are affected but the data shows some regional trends, with drying hitting Europe, the already-parched Arabian peninsula and much of the US, while cities in south and south-east Asia are experiencing bigger downpours.

The analysis illustrates the climate chaos being brought to urban areas by human-caused global heating. Too little or too much water is the cause of 90% of climate disasters. More than 4.4 billion people live in cities and the climate crisis was already known to be supercharging individual extreme weather disasters across the planet. Rising temperatures, driven by fossil fuel pollution, can exacerbate both floods and droughts because warmer air can take up more water vapour. This means the air can suck more water from the ground during hot, dry periods but also release more intense downpours when the rains come.

“Our study shows that climate change is dramatically different around the world,” said Prof Katerina Michaelides, at the University of Bristol, UK. Her co-author, Prof Michael Singer at Cardiff University, described the pattern as “global weirding”.

“Most places we looked at are changing in some way, but in ways that are not always predictable,” Singer said. “And given that we’re looking at the world’s largest cities, there are really significant numbers of people involved.” Coping with climate whiplash and flips in cities is extremely hard, said Michaelides. Many cities already face water supply, sewage and flood protection problems as their populations rapidly swell. But global heating supercharges this, with the often ageing infrastructure in rich nations designed for a climate that no longer exists, and more climate extremes making the establishment of much-needed infrastructure even harder in low income nations.

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Also of Interest

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

Mahmoud Khalil and the Criminalization of Anti-Zionism

Is This the Beginning or the End of a New Cold War?

The Pipeline Raid Of Sudzha

Ray McGovern: Gabbard Defangs Ex-Intel Officials

FBI Redactions on Seth Rich Index Leave No Answers

Duterte flown to The Hague after arrest over Philippines drug war killings

Musk’s Empire Is Looking Even More Shaky

USDA cuts more than $1bn in local food purchases for schools, food banks

Astronomers discover 128 new moons orbiting Saturn

"Impeach Trump Again": John Bonifaz on Fighting Trump's Lawlessness, Corruption & Attacks on Judges

TECHNOFASCISM?! Gil Duran Explains How Tech Giants Set Their Sights On The Nation's Capitol

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A Little Night Music

Albert Ammons - Swanee River Boogie

Albert Ammons - Shout For Joy

Albert Ammons - Boogie Woogie Blues

Albert Ammons - The Boogie Rocks

Albert Ammons - Chicago In Mind

Albert Ammons - Monday Struggle

Albert Ammons - Deep in the heart of Texas Boogie

Albert Ammons - Suitcase Blues

Albert Ammons - Backwater Blues

Albert Ammons & His Rhythm Kings - Roses of Picardy

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