The Evening Blues - 5-27-26
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues organ player Jmmy McGriff. Enjoy!
Jimmy McGriff - Ain't That Funk For You
"The fact is that when you make the other suffer, he will try to find relief by making you suffer more. The result is an escalation of suffering on both sides."
-- Nhat Hanh
News and Opinion
Yet Another Escalation In The Empire’s War On Activism And Journalism
The empire’s war on activism and journalism continues to escalate as the Trump administration targets left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and antiwar activist Medea Benjamin for the crime of bringing humanitarian aid to Cuba.
This is yet another act of aggression in the same onslaught that has seen inconvenient truth-telling and expressions of moral clarity attacked and undermined throughout the western world at every juncture in recent years.
Taking medical supplies to pediatric hospitals in Cuba is now a crime? Saving the lives of babies is a crime? This administration is beyond grotesque. https://t.co/xsvQGEYzb8
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) May 24, 2026
It is not separate from the persecution of Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes.
It is not separate from the steadily increasing escalations of internet censorship we’ve seen in the wake of Gaza, Ukraine, Covid, January 6, the 2016 US presidential election, and any other excuse the imperial narrative managers could find.
It is not separate from the Trump administration’s efforts to deport non-citizens for criticizing the state of Israel.
It is not separate from the efforts to stomp out pro-Palestine protests and university campus demonstrations.
It is not separate from the arrests of activists in the UK on terrorism charges for saying the words “I support Palestine Action”.
It is not separate from activists facing criminal charges for saying “From the river to the sea” in parts of Australia and Germany.
It is not separate from imperial efforts to crack down on BDS activism and outlaw boycotts of Israeli products.
It is not separate from Israel’s ban on foreign press from entering Gaza, nor is it separate from Israel’s systematic extermination of Palestinian journalists within Gaza.
It is not separate from the artificially manufactured hysteria about “antisemitism” in western society and the efforts of western governments to silence criticism of Israel in the name of protecting Jews.
It is not separate from Israel’s massive increase in its hasbara budget this year and the armies of paid trolls we’ve seen swarming online discourse.
It is not separate from the nonstop barrage of imperial propaganda we see every day from the plutocratic press justifying every war and slandering every dissident.
It is not separate from the way imperial oligarchs like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Larry Ellison buy up news outlets like The Washington Post and CBS and social media platforms like TikTok and Twitter in order to manipulate the way the public thinks, acts, and votes.
It is not separate from the way tech platforms have been manipulating algorithms to hide dissident sources of information from the public and using bogus “fact checking” firms to suppress unauthorized facts.
It is not separate from government secrecy measures which forbid the public from knowing what their rulers are doing, and which aggressively punish anyone who tries to reveal inconvenient facts.
the american govt would rather try to criminalize delivering aid to a country we’ve starved, than punish the epstein class. https://t.co/h19HPsOc9m
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) May 24, 2026
The empire is waging a relentless war on intellectual clarity and on moral clarity, because truth and morality are its enemies.
They do not want us to have unobstructed vision, lucid minds, functioning empathy centers and well-formed consciences, because if we did, we would instantly dismantle the empire brick by brick.
This is why they go after anyone who tries to expand the consciousness of western society using activism and journalism. In an empire built on lies and fueled by human blood, telling the truth is seen as treason and doing the right thing is seen as insurrection.
The only sane response to such a dystopian situation is to join in the revolution. Help spread unauthorized ideas and information. Take action to spread awareness of the abusive nature of the empire. They’re trying to keep it all in the dark, so we need to bring it all into the light.
They wouldn’t be fighting so hard to suppress truth and compassion if it didn’t present an immediate existential threat to their power structure.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs : Trump Has No Lifeline Out of Iran
Iran remains in peace talks despite ‘bad faith’ US bombings of Iranian targets
A proposed peace agreement between Iran and the US seemed to remain on the table on Tuesday despite US bombings of Iranian targets. The Iranian foreign ministry denounced the US attack – aimed at missile launchers and efforts to lay fresh mines in the strait of Hormuz – as “an act of bad faith” and “a definitive violation of the ceasefire” and said it would not leave aggression unanswered. But it did not pull out of the talks that were continuing under the joint mediation of Pakistan and Qatar.
The Iranian military announced no specific reprisals, suggesting it did not want the attack – which killed four Iranian soldiers – to disrupt the delicate last steps towards an agreement that it intends to hail as one of the great milestones in Iran’s history of resistance. Brent oil futures climbed 4% after news of the renewed fighting.
In a sign that Donald Trump recognises the conflict has reached a decisive point, he had been due to convene a rare cabinet meeting at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, but on Tuesday he said on Truth Social that this had been postponed due to bad weather.
Iran’s parliamentary speaker and chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, remained in Doha for a second day on Tuesday trying to agree the means by which more than $12bn (£9bn) in frozen Iranian assets could be unlocked and sent to an Iranian account. He is also seeking sanctions relief for Iran’s oil and petrochemical exports for the 60-day period set aside to negotiate fresh constraints on Iran’s nuclear programme. A separate 30-day timeframe has been allocated in the agreement for the US to lift the blockade of Iranian oil ports and for Iran to allow commercial shipping through the strait of Hormuz, restoring maritime traffic to levels from before Israel and the US started the war on 28 February.
The brief agreement, which would end the war but not delineate the peace, is fraught with political sensitivity as all sides know they must try to emerge with one they can exhibit to their respective constituencies as proof that the sacrifice was worthwhile. Hardliners in Washington, Tehran and Jerusalem are all putting pressure on their negotiators not to make more concessions.
Brian Berletic: The New Great Game - War Against Iran, Russia & China
Iran Says US Violated Ceasefire and Vows It Will ‘Leave No Act of Aggression Unanswered’
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the US committed a “flagrant violation” of the ceasefire between the US and Iran, a statement that came a day after the US military said that it launched strikes against targets in southern Iran.
The statement said that the US committed ceasefire violations over the past 48 hours in Iran’s Hormozgan province. US Central Command said that it struck Iranian missile launch sites in southern Iran after Iranian media reported explosions in Bandar Abbas, a port city on the Strait of Hormuz in Hormozgan.
The Iranian ministry said that it “strongly condemns” the US attacks and “holds the American regime fully responsible for all consequences arising from these aggressive acts.” The ministry also suggested Iran would respond.
“Without any doubt, the Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered and will show not the slightest hesitation in defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran,” the statement said. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement that its air defense forces shot down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Persian Gulf and also fired on an RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone and an “intruding” F-35 fighter jet.
Aaron Maté : Netanyahu Will Reject Peace
Matthew Hoh: The US Just Ran Out of Cruise Missiles – What Happens Next?
Pakistani war chief rejects Trump's demands to normalize ties with Israel
On 26 May, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif rejected US President Donald Trump’s demands for Arab and Muslim nations to normalize ties with Israel, stressing that this contradicts Islamabad's “fundamental ideologies.”
“Personally, I don't think we should join any such accord that clashes with our fundamental ideologies,” Asif said in an interview with Samaa TV.
Asif reiterated that Pakistan’s position on Israel remains unchanged despite US pressure and the attempts to attach the Iranian peace negotiations to broader regional normalization with Israel. “We have a very clear stance that this is not acceptable to us,” he said, adding that Pakistan does not recognize Israel and continues to maintain a passport policy that excludes Israel’s name.
Asif added, “How will you sit down with those people whose word cannot be trusted even for a single day?”
The defense minister referred to Pakistan's longstanding position on Israeli recognition, stating that any move toward normalization remains strongly opposed domestically. Asif reiterated established policy lines during the interview, with Pakistan historically linking any recognition of Israel to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
Israel Intensifies Attacks in Lebanon and Gaza: Eyad Amawi Reports from Gaza
Global Sumud Flotilla Urges Probe of US Complicity in Members’ Abduction and Torture by Israel
Testimonies published Tuesday from activists, journalists, medical professionals, and others who took part in the latest international flotilla attempting to break Israel’s genocidal siege of Gaza called for an investigation into US complicity in their illegal high-seas abduction and alleged torture, sexual assault, and other abuse by Israeli forces.
“As testimonies from the 428 participants illegally kidnapped by the Israeli regime continue to surface, the United States’ critical role in the abuses and torture of humanitarian volunteers and journalists has become undeniable,” Global Sumud Flotilla’s (GSF) media team said in a statement.
“This role goes beyond the State Department’s diplomatic shielding and the US Embassy’s refusal to assist American families seeking information,” GSF continued. “It includes the very ship on which volunteer participants were illegally detained and tortured, and the weapons used to inflict life-threatening trauma against them.”
That vessel, the amphibious landing ship INS Nahshon, was built by Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding in Louisiana and was fully financed by the US government. GSF activists first became aware of what they now call the “torture boat” when it was used to detain members of the previous Gaza-bound flotilla, dozens of whom required medical attention for broken ribs, noses, and other injuries inflicted by Israeli forces.
This time, according to GSF, “detained humanitarians, doctors, and journalists were processed one by one through a darkened shipping container. Inside, groups of three to five soldiers systematically brutalized each person who came through the door while those waiting outside listened to the screams.”
Flotilla participant Yassine Benjelloun described his mistreatment by his Israeli captors.
“All of a sudden I hear, ‘Welcome to Israel.’ And I start getting hit, like first hit on the head, second hit in the ribs, then I fall, then they kick me,” he said. “What lasts maybe three or five minutes seems like a lifetime. You don’t know that the door is going to open, and they’re going to kick you out.”
Dr. Jihan Alya Mohd Nordin, a Malaysian physician aboard the flotilla, documented 35 GSF members with fractured or dislocated bones, as well as severe head injuries including concussions and eye or ear trauma, and 14 cases of sexual assault.
“Being a doctor, the main aim is to reduce the sufferings of people,” Jihan said. “But when we cannot do anything to help them, it was the worst and most horrible feeling that I have. It was so devastating.”
Jihan said she was shoved, struck, punched, kicked, and choked by her captors, who forcibly stripped off her hijab.
In addition to the ship, the weapons used against the civilian flotilla members were also made in the USA.
“Stun grenades and metal-bearing projectile rounds were identified by manufacturer markings as products of Combined Tactical Systems (CTS), a brand of the Jamestown, Pennsylvania-based weapons manufacturer Combined Systems Inc. (CSI),” GSF said. “These weapons were fired at close range in enclosed spaces against participants who were sitting down or trying to sleep, a direct violation of the manufacturer’s own usage guidelines.”
GSF argues that “none of this was accidental.”
According to former State Department official Josh Paul—who resigned in protest in 2023 over US arms transfers to Israel as it began waging a genocidal war against Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack of October 7 of that year—“Under US law, arms transfers must only be made for purposes authorized by law.”
“INS Nahshon‘s use by Israel to conduct an illegal seizure in international waters, and then to act as a base for the torture and sexual assault of foreign civilians, including Americans, who had broken no laws, and were acting from conscience to serve an urgent humanitarian need, plainly and grievously violates those terms,” he continued.
“When this sale was authorized, US officials will have asked themselves how Israel might use this platform,” Paul added. “The basis on which they should have denied this transfer has been there since at least the Mavi Marmara incident... but is now more clear than ever, and the lesson here is a simple one: that anything we transfer to Israel, Israel will find a way to misuse—whether it is a bomb, a bulldozer, or a boat.”
Paul was referring to the May 2010 raid on one of the first Gaza Freedom Flotilla convoys, during which Israeli forces killed nine volunteers aboard the MV Mavi Marmara, including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan.
“While international law has been flagrantly violated and legal proceedings are now active in Turkey, Italy, and Spain, with Italian prosecutors opening an investigation into kidnapping and sexual assault, the US government continues to look away,” GSF said in regard to the latest flotilla.
Americans aboard past Gaza flotillas said the Trump administration failed to provide any consular support during their abduction and abuse.
This time, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee—a Christian Zionist who has denied the very existence of the Palestinian people—joined
senior officials from other countries in condemning Israel’s abuse of abducted flotilla members.
GSF said Tuesday that “the Israeli regime continues to commit genocide using US-built ships and US-made weapons. The torture of US citizens and humanitarian volunteers with American-made tools is not an anomaly. It is the direct outcome of unconditional US support for a regime continuously committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
That support includes tens of billions of dollars in armed aid during the Biden and Trump administrations, which both also provided diplomatic cover for Israel, including vetoes of numerous Gaza ceasefire resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council.
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians in Gaza—including thousands of people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble—while forcibly displacing, intentionally starving, or sickening around 2 million others.
Israel’s actions are the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 other nations. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
Last year, a UN panel of experts said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a conclusion also reached by numerous governments, human rights groups, jurists, and scholars—including prominent Israeli and other Jewish Holocaust experts.
Flotilla participants have stressed that their ordeal pales in comparison to the plight of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children imprisoned by Israel, often without charge or trial under the country’s administrative detention regime. Israeli authorities are investigating the deaths of dozens of Palestinian prisoners, some of whom were allegedly tortured to death and executed. Others have allegedly been subjected to widespread rape and sexual abuse in Israeli detention.
“What GSF participants survived for days, many Palestinians endure indefinitely without lawyers or consular access,” the flotilla organizers said.
GSF is calling on the US government to take actions including the investigation of Israel’s use of US-origin arms and other equipment to abuse American citizens, a suspension of arms transfers to Israel pending the outcome of the probe, and “end unconditional military and diplomatic support for a regime committing genocide.”
Saudi-Pakistan-Turkey Bloc: Is an ‘Islamic NATO’ Emerging?
Oil price rises back above $100 a barrel as energy market may be past ‘point of no return’
Oil rose back above $100 a barrel on Tuesday, after fresh US strikes on Iran dashed hopes of a Middle East breakthrough, with experts saying that whatever the outcome of peace talks, the global energy market may now be past the “point of no return”. News of the US attacks on missile launch sites and mine-laying vessels pushed the price of Brent crude past the key threshold on Tuesday, as a peace deal remained elusive.
The conflict and resulting blockade of fossil fuel shipping through the strait of Hormuz have sent oil soaring, topping $126 at the end of last month. However, in recent weeks prices have remained significantly below predictions as traders have continued to bet on a diplomatic solution to hostilities that could allow Gulf states to restart production and exports of crude. On Monday, Brent had been trading at about $97 a barrel.
Analysts at HFI Research said last week that the market had “reached the point of no return” and could be due a “rude awakening” by the start of next month.
“It just seems to be this endless loop of Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football,” said Michael Every, a global strategist for economics and markets at the Dutch lender Rabobank.“Every single time, it’s ‘oh, this time is the breakthrough. This time, the energy will flow.’ And at any one given time, it could be right. But so far, repeatedly, it hasn’t been.”
The head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, said last week that the world could hit a “red zone” in July and August by using far more oil than countries were producing, meaning further emergency measures may be required.
As US Drivers Suffer High Gas Prices, Big Oil Celebrates and Plans Big Payouts for Shareholders
A Tuesday report from Groundwork Collaborative reveals how fossil fuel companies are not merely scoring windfall profits from President Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran, but also using that money to reward shareholders rather than providing relief to consumers.
The price of gas has soared since Trump attacked Iran without any congressional authorization in late February, going from an average of under $3 per gallon at the start of the war to $4.49 per gallon as of Tuesday.
As US drivers have paid more at the pump, however, fossil fuel firms have been concerned with paying out dividends and conducting stock buybacks expanding production to lower prices, Groundwork Collaborative’s report finds.
Among other things, the report notes that ExxonMobil is on pace to deliver $20 billion worth of stock buybacks in 2026, even as CEO Darren Woods has insisted that the company’s decisions on production will be “grounded in value, not volume.”
Additionally, the report documents how Shell recently announced “another 5% dividend increase and more than $3 billion in buybacks,” with CEO Wael Sawan describing the company’s commitment to paying shareholders as “sacrosanct.”
Chevron has pledged roughly $3 billion in quarterly stock buybacks, while also saying increasing dividends for shareholders is its “first and foremost” priority.
Chevron CFO Eimear Bonner, the report adds, recently revealed that the company has no plans to boost output in response to high energy prices, stating that “capital spending and production outlooks are consistent with previous guidance.”
Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, accused Big Oil of using Trump’s illegal war as cover to keep prices high without taking any steps to reduce pain at the pump.
“These companies want Americans to believe price spikes are simply the unavoidable result of global events,” said Owens, “but their own executives are openly telling investors that volatility, conflict, and supply disruptions are good for business. They are choosing buybacks over production, shareholder payouts over affordability, and corporate profiteering over the economic security of working families.”
The high fuel prices aren’t being felt just in the US, but across the world.
Karthik Sankaran, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, explained in a Tuesday analysis how oil prices are hitting nations in the Global South particularly hard.
“A recent story in The New York Times described how the price for transporting corn into refugee camps in Somalia had doubled or even tripled, as had the price of water at diesel-powered public tubewells,” Sankaran wrote. “Meanwhile, protests this week in Kenya against fuel price hikes have led to four deaths, and political and financial stresses are mounting across the continent.”
Sankaran also pointed to problems in India, where “sharp jumps in the price of liquid petroleum gas have hit urban households hard, particularly those whose breadwinners work in small-scale industrial establishments.”
Despite the acute global economic pain, energy experts who spoke with CNN on Tuesday expressed skepticism that the crisis would abate anytime soon, despite Trump’s regular hyping of a deal to end the conflict.
Rory Johnston, an oil market researcher and founder of Commodity Context, told CNN that he wasn’t buying optimism from commodities futures markets after Trump claimed to have made significant progress on an agreement with Iran.
“Nothing has fundamentally changed,” Johnston said. “The strait remains closed.”
Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, said that a deal to end the war wouldn’t instantly bring energy prices back to where they were before the war began, estimating it could take months just to get 80% of the pre-war oil supply flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Woman fired from Indiana university over Charlie Kirk post wins $225,000 settlement
A woman fired by an Indiana university over her Facebook post criticizing far-right commentator Charlie Kirk after he was killed will receive $225,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused her former employer of violating her free speech rights, the woman’s attorneys said on Tuesday.
The American Civil Liberties Union announced the settlement in a federal lawsuit it filed last year on behalf of Suzanne Swierc against the Ball State University president, Geoffrey Mearns.
Swierc worked as director of health promotion and advocacy at Ball State’s campus in Muncie, Indiana, before she was fired last September. Ball State cited Swierc’s private Facebook post about Kirk as the sole reason for her termination, saying it caused “significant disruption” to the campus.
Swierc’s firing violated her constitutional rights because she was “speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern”, said Stevie Pactor, an ACLU attorney in Indiana.
“The First Amendment does not allow government institutions to retaliate in those circumstances, and this settlement reflects that,” Pactor said in a statement.
Appeals court temporarily blocks re-detention of Mahmoud Khalil
A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked the re-detention of Mahmoud Khalil as his legal team prepares to petition his case with the US supreme court. The decision on Tuesday from the third circuit court of appeals gives the 31-year-old activist and US green card holder a temporary reprieve as the broader legal fight over his detention and immigration status continues.
In a statement following the ruling, Brett Max Kaufman, senior counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Center for Democracy, said: “We’re grateful that the court recognized the irreparable harm Mahmoud would face if he were re-detained before the supreme court has a chance to review his case.
“Detention would serve only to cruelly separate him from his family and further chill his speech. We look forward to asking the supreme court to make clear that the government cannot use the threat of detention and deportation to silence dissent,” Kaufman added.
An appeals court last Friday upheld an earlier panel ruling from January, which reversed a lower court’s order that had released Khalil on bail. The decision opened the door for the government to once again detain and ultimately deport him.
US senator says he was pepper-sprayed by federal agents during protest at ICE facility
Protests continued on Tuesday outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey where US senator Andy Kim said he was pepper-sprayed by federal agents the day before during a demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outside the facility.
Video posted on social media showed Kim, a Democrat representing New Jersey, receiving help from a volunteer on Monday, who is seen pouring water in his eyes outside Delaney Hall in Newark, where detainees have said they are staging a hunger strike against poor conditions and the denial of medical care.
Demonstrators had clashed with immigration officers who used batons and pepper spray over the weekend as they attempted to transfer a detainee who organized the hunger strike to another facility. On Tuesday, masked ICE officials forced people out of the way as vehicles moved in and out of the facility.
Kim, a senator from New Jersey, had joined the state’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, also a Democrat, at the protest to speak with relatives of some of those detained. He told USA Today that the incident in which he was sprayed by a chemical substance came shortly after he had been inside Delaney Hall to see conditions for himself.
I saw chaos inside and outside of the ICE detention center Delaney Hall today. Detainees protesting the lack of due process, the disgusting food and poor treatment while their families and advocates stood outside calling for help. Instead of engaging with me and others about the… pic.twitter.com/5XSeZWzoky
— Senator Andy Kim (@SenatorAndyKim) May 26, 2026
He said he emerged to a “standoff” between protesters and agents from ICE, who he said had deployed an armored vehicle as a barricade, and that he “kind of lined up in front of them” to try to de-escalate the situation. “ICE officials told me that they were going to push through the crowd with their vehicle and they wanted to get some vehicles out of there,” Kim said. “I tried to arrange a situation where people would not get hurt, where there wouldn’t be a confrontation. Unfortunately, ICE just continued on.”
Trump-backed Ken Paxton ousts John Cornyn in heated Texas race after scandal-plagued campaign
Ken Paxton, the Donald Trump-backed Texas attorney general, triumphed over incumbent John Cornyn in the Republican primary runoff for senator. His victory signals that even a scandal-plagued candidate can win over the deep red state with the support of the president.
The race had wide implications for Trump’s strength heading into November’s midterm elections, where Paxtonwill now face James Talarico, a Democratic pastor and state legislator whose message of peace and populism has attracted much attention. If he wins, Talarico would become the first Democrat in more than 30 years to win statewide office in Texas.
Midterm elections often serve as a referendum on the sitting president and tend to help the opposing party. This year Democrats are favored to win the House of Representatives, though a supreme court decision that decimated the Voting Rights Act could allow for more Republican-leaning districts and complicate the picture. The race for Senate remains in flux, though candidatessuch as Talarico, Graham Platner in Maine, as well as purple states such as Ohio and Michigan, could upset the Republican lead.
Texas, which Trump won in 2024 by a gaping 14 percentage points remains a conservative state, and the Republican primary was a testament to hot button issues – from religion to economy – that animate the base.
Paxton comes with significant political baggage, and national Republicans worry they will have to spend significantly more with him as the nominee. Paxton was impeached in 2023 after being accused of corruption, and reported to the FBI. He was later acquitted in a trial in the Texas senate, where his wife was a state senator but not allowed to cast a vote. Paxton was also indicted on charges of felony securities fraud that could have led to a prison sentence, but the case was dismissed after a 2024 pre-trial diversion agreement. And last year his wife of 38 years, Angela Paxton, filed for divorce “on biblical grounds”, citing adultery.
Dem Establishment WILLING TO LOSE Maine To BLOCK PLATNER
South Carolina Republicans defy Trump again to reject rapid redistricting drive
Republican lawmakers in South Carolina have defied Donald Trump and rejected a breakneck bid to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of November’s US midterm elections.
In a 26-18 vote, state senators rejected mid-decade redistricting in a special session of the legislature, ending hope in Washington to split up congressman Jim Clyburn’s district and add to the list of gerrymandered gains for Republicans.
The proposal would have canceled the congressional election under way – early voting began on Tuesday morning – and rescheduled it with new district lines that would have significantly reduced the number of reliably Democratic voters in Clyburn’s district.
The South Carolina state senate is composed of 34 Republican senators and 12 Democratic senators. Fourteen Republicans voted with Democrats blocking passage of the redistricting bill, days after a supermajority of the South Carolina state house of representatives voted to send it to the senate.
Vermont becomes first US state to ban paraquat herbicide over Parkinson’s fears
Vermont is the first US state to ban the weedkilling pesticide paraquat, backed by lawmakers who cited concerns about research showing the chemical substantially increases the risk of the incurable brain ailment known as Parkinson’s disease.
Phil Scott, the governor, signed the legislation on Tuesday. The new law takes effect on 1 November, though it contains a provision allowing state regulators to issue special permits for paraquat use on fruit-producing tree orchards, berries and other “small fruit” crops up until 31 December 2030.
The law also calls for annual data reporting on any use of paraquat in the state, and a state-funded study on recommendations for alternatives to the use of paraquat for farmers.
Some lawmakers expressed concern that a ban will hurt the competitiveness of Vermont farmers if the chemical is still allowed for use in other states, and said more research is needed to fully prove a link between paraquat and Parkinson’s. But others said the scientific research was well established and the risks of not banning the chemical outweigh the risks of keeping it on the market.
Early versions of the law pointed to multiple studies by the National Institutes of Health have demonstrated that paraquat exposure substantially increases the risk of Parkinson’s disease in those exposed to the herbicide. Lawmakers also noted that other NIH studies have linked paraquat to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and childhood leukemia.
Why Trump administration’s plan to attempt to destroy Pfas is ‘nonsensical’
A new Trump administration plan to ditch Pfas drinking water regulations and instead attempt to destroy “forever chemicals” on a wide scale tears a page from the fossil fuel industry’s carbon capture playbook, and will benefit the industry while harming public health. The US Environmental Protection Agency last week announced it is moving to kill strong Biden-era drinking water limits around four Pfas compounds, and delaying implementation for two more. It represented a blow to public health – advocates say strong limits and a dramatic cut in the production of the dangerous chemicals are imperative.
Still, the press conference was billed as a “Pfas destruction event”, and administration leaders largely spent their time touting an “explosion in destruction technology”, and EPA investment in industry efforts to protect public health by eliminating the chemicals. They were, in effect, suggesting they had a solution to a crisis that did not require the drinking water regulations. The problem with the Trump plan: technology that fully destroys Pfas does not exist, and while progress is being made in its development, it is unclear when – if ever – it may be deployed on an industrial scale.
The idea that the administration is going to destroy its way out of the Pfas problem is “nonsensical”, said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist. It parallels fossil fuel industry attempts to use unreliable carbon capture technology as a solution – both offer the appearance of meaningful action while allowing industry to continue to profit and pollute at the expense of public health. “No one has said they can destroy Pfas on a large scale,” said Bennett, who is now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit. “From what we know about Pfas, this is not going to work, and to say ‘We’re going to destroy it so we don’t need to regulate it’ is bullshit.”
Climate crisis is accelerating antibiotic resistance across world
The climate crisis is accelerating a global increase in antibiotic resistance that poses a serious threat to human health, experts have said as figures show a rise in salmonella antibiotic resistant genes. Antibiotic resistance is one of the fastest-growing threats to global health. It can affect people of any age in any country and already kills more than 1 million people a year, according to estimates.
Now a study, led by researchers from the UK, France, Australia, Switzerland and China, has revealed how climate change is linked to rising antibiotic resistance in salmonella, one of the world’s most common bacterial diseases. Climate change is associated with a 10% global increase in salmonella antibiotic resistance genes between 1940 and 2023, according to the first-of-its-kind study, which has been published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal.
The main drivers of antibiotic resistance are still the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, which are used to treat infections. But the research suggested the problem is being worsened by climate change. “The accumulated evidence suggests that climate change is an accelerating force behind the global spread of antimicrobial resistance,” the study authors wrote.
“Our findings provide supporting evidence that rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns non-linearly amplify the abundance and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance genes in bacterial pathogens such as salmonella. These findings reinforce the idea that climate change alters microbial ecological stability and accelerates resistance evolution across human, animal, and environmental reservoirs.“
“Urgent integration of climate change-mitigation policies, particularly those aligned with the Paris agreement – with enhanced antimicrobial stewardship and One Health surveillance – is essential to curtail the future burden of antimicrobial resistance.” Antimicrobial resistance is mainly driven by the overuse and misuse of antibiotics, which allows resistant bacteria to survive and spread. However, rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns can influence how bacteria survive, mutate and spread, potentially increasing the exchange of antibiotic resistance genes, the researchers said.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.
Rape, Assault & Abuse Reflect Israeli Goverment Values
War On Iran: – There Isn’t Going To Be Another Ceasefire Deal
Don’t Believe Weekend “Peace Deal” Leaks
Van Hollen Says Democratic Party Must End Whitewashing, Admit ‘Complicity’ in Gaza Genocide
Patrick Lawrence: The Cokehead of Kiev, Exposed
U.S. Natural Gas Prices Surge On Lower Output, Higher LNG Flows
A Little Night Music
Jimmy McGriff, Junior Parker – Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong
Jimmy McGriff - Keep Loose
Jimmy McGriff - A Thing For Jug
Jimmy McGriff Trio - M.G. Blues
Jimmy McGriff & Hank Crawford Quartet - Everyday I Have The Blues
Jimmy McGriff - Black Pearl
Jimmy McGriff - All About My Girl
Jimmy McGriff - Root Down (And Get It)
Jimmy McGriff, Junior Parker – Pretty Baby
