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The Evening Blues - 5-29-26

Submitted by joe shikspack on Fri, 05/29/2026 - 4:19pm

eb1pt12

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: The Dirty Dozen Brass Band

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans brass band The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Enjoy!

^{The Dirty Dozen Brass Band – My Feet Can't Fail Me Now}

"All war propaganda consists, in the last resort, in substituting diabolical abstractions for human beings. Similarly, those who defend war have invented a pleasant sounding vocabulary of abstractions in which to describe the process of mass murder."

-- Aldous Huxley

News and Opinion

Warmongers Keep Generating AI Atrocity Propaganda About Iran

Another AI atrocity propaganda project about Iran has been unleashed, this time in the form of a movie titled “Dreams of Violets” at the Tribeca film festival.

Variety calls the flick “the first full-length, live-action film generated by AI to be accepted by a major film festival,” describing the plot as follows:

“The film, which will premiere June 10 during the festival’s 25th anniversary, is a 75-minute docudrama inspired by the protests that swept Tehran in January, highlighting five Iranians who meet in a Tehran alley before they’re executed, all witnessed from a window by Amir, a 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy. The clashes reflect the real-world protests between Iranian authorities and civilians, which left at least 7,000 people dead and more than 50,000 people arrested, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.”

The film’s trailer depicts sympathetic protagonists being brutally victimized by Iranian authorities, and concludes with the image of fighter jets soaring overhead while an English-captioned Persian voiceover says “If Iran gets liberated, celebrate for me. Enjoy it for us!”

Tribeca Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal gushed enthusiastically about the so-called “docudrama” and its implications, telling The Hollywood Reporter that “At this time in history when both artificial intelligence and Iran are central to global conversation, this film offers audiences a rare and intimate perspective into a conflict many have not been able to fully see or understand.”

Well hey, now they can see and understand the conflict! They can see and understand it with the help of completely fake AI video footage! Golly gosh, isn’t that deliciously convenient?

This follows our discussion last month about another project using AI-generated atrocity propaganda to manufacture consent for war with Iran called Generative AI for Good, which creates deepfakes of supposedly real women who say they were sexually assaulted by Iranian government forces.

The Canary reports:

“An Israel-based AI firm, Generative AI for Good, claims to be using deepfake technologies for positive ends. ‘Positive’ appears to mean creating deepfake videos to help the illegal US-Israel war on Iran.

…

“Generative AI for Good claims that it uses AI to ‘help survivors testify safely — in their real voice, without revealing their identity’. But Israel and its mouthpieces have been shown to have used false allegations of rapes and other atrocities on 7 October 2023 to justify its genocide in Gaza.”

The Canary notes that Generative AI for Good is staffed with Israelis who have very conspicuous agendas, including a creative director who pushes the discredited narrative about mass rapes on October 7, a marketing manager who served in the IDF’s “Psychotechnical Headquarter”, and a founder who said in early 2024 that “Artificial intelligence is a secret weapon of ours” in using the revolutionary technology to bolster the military’s efforts both online and on the ground in the information war being waged alongside the military battlefields in Gaza.

It is unsurprising that generative AI is being used to churn out atrocity propaganda to manufacture consent for imperial war projects, because these new technologies lend themselves perfectly to the task of creating realistic-looking video footage of events which never transpired. If you want to tug at people’s heart strings and push them toward anger at an empire-targeted government, generative AI is a cheap and easy tool for doing so.

We are only just beginning to catch the first glimpses of the ways in which AI-generated videos will be used to manipulate the minds of the public to advance imperial agendas. The projects we are seeing today are just the first droplets of ocean mist from a tsunami that is roaring to shore.

Larry Johnson & Col. Wilkerson: 4 US Warships Tried to Enter Strait of Hormuz – Then Iran Launched

Netanyahu orders Israeli army to seize ‘70% of Gaza Strip’, violating ceasefire deal

Benjamin Netanyahu has said he has given orders to the Israeli army to seize control of 70% of the Gaza Strip in a move that threatens to torpedo an already fragile ceasefire and create catastrophic humanitarian conditions in the already devastated territory.

Under the US-brokered ceasefire in October, the Israeli army withdrew to a demarcation line which gave Israel direct control of 53% of the occupied territory. Since then, Israeli forces have steadily advanced their positions westward into the Hamas-controlled half of the strip, and declared an ever-expanded no man’s land west of that, within which they claim the right to decide who can enter and open fire on anyone perceived as a threat.

In recent days, Israeli-backed armed militias have taken a leading role in emptying the territory along the ceasefire line, telling residents to vacate their homes or shelters. Throughout the eight months of the ceasefire, Israeli forces have continued to open fire on Palestinians within range of the “yellow line” splitting the strip, and carry out airstrikes deeper inside western Gaza, killing more than 900 Palestinians since the truce began.

Speaking at a conference in an occupied West Bank settlement, Netanyahu, who is struggling for his political survival before elections in the next few months, spelled out the extent of Israel’s territorial goals. The Israeli prime minister said: “We are currently squeezing Hamas. We now control 60% of the territory in the strip. You know, we were at 50, we moved to 60. My directive is to move to … 70%.”

The expansion of Israeli military control would be a direct violation of the October ceasefire, the UN security council resolution that endorsed it, and Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which laid out a temporary “yellow line” splitting Gaza into Israeli- and Hamas-run halves pending further peace negotiations.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Why Is Israel At War With Its Neighbors?

Israeli minister confirms goal of large-scale expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza

Israel’s defence minister has said he is committed to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through large-scale migration of Palestinians as part of Israel’s long-term plans for the territory. Israel Katz said the government would implement a plan for large numbers of Palestinians to leave Gaza “at the right time and in the right manner”, in a statement on Wednesday marking the targeted killing of Mohammed Odeh, Hamas’s most recent military commander.

Pushing for mass departures violates Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan for Gaza, which Israel signed last year. The second point of the plan states: “Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough.” Israel’s government has promoted the prospect of Gaza without Palestinians since Trump suggested early last year that hundreds of thousands of people should leave to “clean out” the strip for reconstruction.

Last year Israel set up a bureau for “voluntary emigration” and eased travel restrictions for Palestinians who wanted to make a one-way journey out of the strip. The forced transfer of civilian populations is a war crime and a crime against humanity. Israeli officials, including Katz, use the term “voluntary migration” to describe their plans for large numbers of Palestinians to leave Gaza.

Israel-based human rights organisations and lawyers have warned that the conditions Israel has imposed on Gaza mean no departure can be considered voluntary and the policy constitutes planning for ethnic cleansing. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel said last year: “Creating living conditions that do not allow for survival, freedom and dignity, and subjecting civilians to them until they say they want to leave is not a plan for ‘encouraging voluntary emigration’ but a plan for forced evacuation and expulsion.”

Israel Is Trying to Ignite Civil War in Lebanon

Donald Trump shares draft Iran peace agreement with Israel and other allies

Donald Trump has circulated a draft peace agreement for the war with Iran among allies including Israel as both sides try to prevent fresh breaches of the ceasefire escalating out of control and scuppering any deal. In an attempt to speed up the negotiations, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, will fly to Washington on Friday to meet his US counterpart, Marco Rubio.

Tehran targeted a US airbase in Kuwait on Thursday after Washington struck what it described as an Iranian drone operation near the strait of Hormuz, highlighting the fragile situation as both sets of negotiators refuse to cede ground on final points of disagreement. Trump’s Wednesday cabinet had been expected to discuss the deal, but Axios reported the US president as saying he needed a few more days to think about it.

The draft Trump has shared is not vastly different to the one that has been circulating across the Middle East for days, under which the strait of Hormuz would be opened to commercial shipping, the US blockade of Iranian ports would be lifted and Iran would be given access to as much as $12bn (£9bn) in frozen assets.

The aim would be for commercial shipping in the strait to return to pre-war levels within 30 days and for negotiations envisaged to last as long as 60 days to commence on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme. This would include discussions about its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, a time-limited suspension of further enrichment and supervision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog. Iran would renounce the use of nuclear weapons.

The draft is less specific than Tehran’s version about lifting sanctions on Iran’s oil and petrochemical exports. It also asserts toll-free navigation in the strait of Hormuz. Iran is trying to negotiate an agreement with Oman separate to any memorandum of understanding that would result in fees imposed for “navigational services”. In remarks that produced no official response from Muscat, Trump threatened on Wednesday to “blow up” Oman if it tried to reach a deal with Tehran that included the imposition of tolls.

Iran HITS BACK at US Warships & Drones, Trump’s 'Deal' Sets WW3 Trap | Brian Berletic

Israel Pressing the US To Assassinate Iran’s Lead Negotiator

Israel is pressing the US to restart heavy airstrikes on Iran that would involve the targeted killing of Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of Tehran’s lead negotiators, and attacks on the country’s oil infrastructure, Capital & Empire reported on Thursday.

The report, which cited US sources familiar with a classified report circulating within the US intelligence community, said Israel is aggressively pushing for the US to abandon talks with Iran and insisting that destroying oil infrastructure in the country could bring about regime change while also downplaying the impact the renewed full-scale war will have on the global economy.

The Capital & Empire report said that Israel has made the case to kill Ghalibaf directly to the US Department of War, and has focused on him since Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s whereabouts are unknown. The US intelligence report also determined that Israel wouldn’t target Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Zelensky Leaves Kiev After Russian Strike Warnings; Oreshnik Capabilities; Konstantinovka Collapsing

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern + Scott Ritter : Weekly Wrap 29-May

As Pentagon Mobilizes US Forces, Dems Move to Block Illegal Trump Attack On Cuba

With US military forces prepared to launch an unprovoked attack on Cuba, a group of congressional Democrats on Wednesday introduced a new war powers resolution in a bid to block President Donald Trump from launching yet another illegal war of choice.

Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Gregory Meeks, both of New York, introduced the resolution, which would bar US forces from hostilities within or against Cuba without congressional authorization, as required under the 1973 War Powers Act. The measure is cosponsored by Reps. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts and Joaquin Castro of Texas.

“Donald Trump’s belligerent foreign policy is creating new wars and conflicts across the world. As our country is already embroiled in a new war with Iran, the president has now set his sights on regime change in Cuba,” Velázquez said in a statement. “This administration is rushing toward another disastrous war, putting countless American and foreign lives at risk. Congress must reassert its constitutional authority if the president continues down this illegal path.”

Trump is marching us toward another unauthorized war, this time in Cuba.

Congress must reassert its constitutional authority if the President continues on this illegal path.

Today, @RepGregoryMeeks & I introduced a War Powers Resolution to stop this conflict. No war with Cuba. pic.twitter.com/GUyTmBnNb1

— Rep. Nydia Velazquez (@NydiaVelazquez) May 27, 2026

Meeks, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that “the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are hellbent on starting another war, this time with Cuba, to distract from the president’s failure in Iran, weak economy, and mass deportation of 500,000 Cubans legally in the United States.”

It is the second Cuba war powers resolution introduced by lawmakers since Trump began threatening to attack and “take” the island earlier this year. Last month, senators voted 51-47—with Democratic Sen. John Fetterman joining all but two of his Republican colleagues, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky—to block a war powers resolution introduced in March by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.).

The new resolution’s introduction follows months of escalating aggression against Cuba by the Trump administration, including preparation and threats to attack, an oil blockade that critics say is causing the deaths of infants and sick people, and last week’s Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment of former President Raúl Castro for his alleged role in the 1996 shoot-down of planes operated by a hostile US-based counterrevolutionary group following repeated warnings that they had violated Cuban airspace.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio—who has falsely claimed that his parents fled communism in Cuba when they actually emigrated during an earlier US-backed dictatorship—said that the island is “in a lot of trouble.”

“Having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States,” Rubio added.

An article published Wednesday by Politico highlighted US military preparations for various war scenarios for Cuba, including bombing, an invasion, or a mission to enforce the DOJ indictmebnt by kidnapping Castro in a manner similar to January’s illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

According to Politico’s Paul McLeary:

The armada in the region is slightly smaller than it was in January when the US captured Maduro. But the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group entered the Caribbean in May, along with several guided missile destroyers and cruisers that can launch precision missiles at targets onshore. An array of advanced American drones and surveillance aircraft have also circled Cuba for months, according to flight tracking sites. The USS Kearsarge amphibious ships and escorts, which carry 2,500 Marines, are off the coast of Virginia preparing for a new deployment, and could replace some ships heading home.

The surge provides a variety of military options, although the Pentagon would need additional troops for a massive ground invasion.

The Politico piece drew fierce rebuke from Havana.

“There are politicians in the United States pushing the drumbeat of war against Cuba, trying to fabricate excuses, trying to portray Cuba as a threat, and trying to push the US president to take military action, even with the understanding that military action would lead to bloodshed, mostly of Cubans, but also of Americans,” Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told The Los Angeles Times.

“The question is: How does a government convince American citizens that it is in their interest to cause death, cause destruction and suffering to a neighboring nation simply to satisfy the ambitions of a small cabal of wealthy, influential people who enjoy the ear of politicians and powerful people in Washington?” Fernández added.

Cuba has been shoring up international support amid the growing threat of US attack. On Tuesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez met with United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, who said earlier this month that “there is no military solution to be sought for Cuba.”

On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a meeting with Rodríguez at United Nations headquarters in New York that “China will continue to uphold justice and speak up for Cuba, support the Cuban people’s just cause, and contribute to Cuba’s economic development and people’s livelihood.”

Chinese FM Wang Yi met with Cuban FM Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla in New York.

The Cuban people, standing united and firmly defending their rights, have demonstrated a firm resolve to oppose external blockade and interference, earning the respect of the international community.… pic.twitter.com/yTtMb9WnET

— Lin Jian (@SpoxCHN_LinJian) May 28, 2026

Also on Wednesday, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Council for Foreign and Community Relations issued a statement affirming “Cuba’s sovereign right to import and receive fuel” and condemning “the obstruction of energy supplies to Cuba, which has precipitated a grave humanitarian crisis.”

“Cuba poses no threat to any nation... it stands as a peaceful and cooperative member of the international community... [and] the continued application of these unilateral coercive measures constitutes an unjustifiable violation of human rights, the principles of free trade, and the fundamental norms governing relations among sovereign states,” the council stated.

If the US launches military action against Cuba, it will be the 12th country attacked during Trump’s two terms in office. The president—who has repeatedly said that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize—has ordered attacks on Afghanistan, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen, and has bombed dozens of boats accused without evidence of transporting drugs in international waters in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

Last week, tens of thousands of Cubans rallied in Havana to denounce the indictment of Castro and US aggression against their homeland, which dates back to the revolution that overthrew Fulgencio Batista, one in a series of dictators backed by the United States after it granted Cuba conditional independence after conquering the island along with Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam during an 1898 war against Spain waged on a dubious pretext.

Since then, the United States has tried to assassinate former Cuban President Fidel Castro, backed the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion , served as a base for perpetrators of some of the hemisphere’s worst terror attacks, and even hatched a plan to detonate a nuclear bomb high above the island to convince its people that the return of Jesus Christ was nigh and the only thing standing in the way of the long-awaited “Second Coming” was Castro.

Cuba has endured this aggression and more without retaliating against the United States. Despite this, the Trump administration has responded by inflicting more and more pain upon people it claims it is trying to liberate from oppression.

“If Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are serious about a new relationship with the Cuban people,” Meeks said Wednesday, “they would reverse 65 years of failed US policy toward Cuba, end the oil blockade and the humanitarian crisis it caused, and work with Congress to modify the draconian and outdated US sanctions that disproportionately harm the Cuban people.”

US inflation rose at fastest pace in three years in April as Iran war hikes up prices

US inflation increased at its fastest pace in three years in April, driven by higher energy prices amid the war with Iran, and cementing economists’ views that the Federal Reserve could hold interest rates unchanged well into next year.

Surging price pressures are eroding household income and could restrain consumer spending and economic growth this quarter. Income at the disposal of households after adjusting for inflation dropped for a third straight month in April, other data showed on Thursday. Given the soaring cost of living, Americans are growing frustrated with Donald Trump’s handling of the economy. A Reuters/Ipsos survey last week showed the president’s approval rating fell to nearly its lowest level since he returned to the White House, hit by a drop in support among Republicans. Trump won the 2024 presidential election in large part because of his promise to lower inflation.

The government on Thursday also revised down the growth pace in consumer spending in the first quarter to 1.4% from the previously reported 1.6% annualized rate. Overall gross domestic product (GDP) growth was slashed to a 1.6% rate from the 2.0% pace estimated last month.

Inflation threatens his Republican party’s congressional majority in the November midterm elections. “The inflation picture is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for the Fed,” said Olu Sonola, head of US economics at Fitch Ratings. “Price pressures are likely to persist over the next few months, and while the Fed cannot fix a supply shock, it cannot ignore one that is feeding into underlying inflation.“

The personal consumption expenditures price index jumped 3.8% in the 12 months through April, the largest rise since May 2023, the commerce department’s bureau of economic analysis said. PCE inflation advanced by an unrevised 3.5% in March. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast PCE inflation increasing 3.8% year-on-year. The PCE price index rose 0.4% month-on-month in April after shooting up 0.7% in March.

Bipartisan group of ex-federal judges challenges Trump’s $1.8bn ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

Dozens of former federal judges have joined the push to thwart Donald Trump’s creation of a $1.776bn “anti-weaponization fund” that would funnel taxpayer dollars to the president’s political allies. The bipartisan group of 35 judges filed a lawsuit in the southern district of Florida on Wednesday seeking to reopen Trump’s legal case against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the leaking of his tax information by a whistleblower who was later sentenced to five years in prison.

Trump, who had been seeking $10bn in damages, settled that case earlier this month in exchange for a financial agreement with the IRS allowing him to set up what critics have called a “slush fund” for his allies. This could include those convicted of violence during the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot he incited when trying in vain to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Trump pardoned those convicted after returning to the White House last year.

The former judges said the settlement fund was “a product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the Court”, and urged the Miami-based federal judge Kathleen Williams, appointed by Barack Obama, to reconsider her 18 May decision to approve it. Reopening the case would, the lawsuit said: “Allow the Court to commence an inquiry into whether the Court was deceived, including with respect to the existence of an underlying case or controversy and any purported arms-length negotiations undertaken to resolve.”

Democrats, and other critics, believe Williams was undercut by the deal days before she was set to rule on whether Trump’s IRS lawsuit had merit. The judges argue that she may have been hoodwinked by the settlement, which was not yet a matter of public record, and had the authority to reopen the case because it was a product of fraud. “The parties here dismissed this case before the Court could complete its inquiry into whether there was an actual case or controversy, and then cited their ‘settlement’ of this case as the legal justification for looting the federal treasury of $1.776bn,” the filing said.

The jurists behind the lawsuit include former appellate judge J Michael Luttig, a conservative longtime Trump critic, and former district court judges Nancy Gertner and Shira Scheindlin, CBS News reported. The move follows a week of growing opposition to the settlement, and at least one other lawsuit seeking to block it.

Federal jury finds army veteran and two other ICE protesters guilty of conspiracy

A federal jury has found three protesters, including a US military veteran of the war in Afghanistan, guilty on felony conspiracy charges on Thursday for their part in a June 2025 protest against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Legal experts have said the Spokane, Washington, case marked a serious escalation in the Trump administration’s attack on first amendment rights. The demonstrators now face potential sentences of up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

They are expected to appeal. All three defendants have also filed a rarely used motion asking US district court judge Rebecca Pennell to set their guilty verdicts aside. The motion, known as Rule 29, allows defense attorneys to argue the prosecution’s evidence is so weak that no rational juror could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Robert Chang, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law and executive director of its Fred T Korematsu Center for Law and Equality called the verdict “frightening”. “By this logic, any protest could be a conspiracy,” he said. “The goal posts keep moving.” The case has drawn national attention. The acting US attorney for Eastern Washington state, Richard Barker, resigned rather than sign the indictment, telling the Guardian: “None of the agents were hurt and none of the protesters were hurt either.”

In February, a federal judge ordered the release of a Venezuelan migrant whose transportation for deportation the protesters sought to block, ruling his arrest violated the constitution. But the jury, drawn from conservative Eastern Washington state, did not hear those facts at trial, thanks to rulings by Judge Pennell. Pennell, a former federal public defender and appointee of Democratic president Joe Biden, also ruled the protesters on trial could not use the first amendment as a defense, though they were allowed to state their reasons for demonstrating.

Instead, the jury watched hours of law enforcement body camera video and heard from a parade of ICE agents, a federal contractor and local law enforcement, one of whom, ICE agent Jared Tomaso, said he was “concerned for the safety of the officers”.

Alarming surge in suicides among ICE detainees, investigation reveals

Brayan Rayo Garzón was distraught. Detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), he was on his fourth day of isolation in a Missouri jail as he battled the fevers and chills of Covid. His request for mental health treatment had been put off, records show, and staff had forbidden Rayo from making his nightly call to his mother, as a precaution intended to prevent the spread of illness.

He pleaded with his jailers in handwritten notes to arrange a conversation with her. “I feel in my heart that she’s very worried about me,” he wrote in Spanish. A guard collected the note and walked away. Within an hour, jail records show, he was found unconscious in his cell. An autopsy determined he killed himself.

Rayo’s April 2025 death was the first suicide in a surge among ICE detainees that has alarmed public health officials and jail experts. They said the unprecedented number of suicide deaths was an indication that authorities are failing to properly oversee the detention of tens of thousands of immigrants swept up in the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation strategy.

An Associated Press investigation found that at least 10 detainees, all men, have died by suicide since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, a pace that far exceeds the growth in the detainee population, according to a review of ICE data, autopsy reports, coroners’ rulings and police records. Since October, seven deaths have been classified as suicides, a number that is already the most for any fiscal year in the agency’s history. ICE has usually recorded one or no such deaths annually.

“Something is going profoundly wrong from any kind of public health or mental health perspective,” said Dr Sanjay Basu, a University of California-San Francisco epidemiologist who co-wrote a study documenting the increase in mortality and suicide rates among ICE detainees. “This is one of those alarming, sudden increases.” Nine of the deaths were of Hispanic men who had arrived in the US from four countries, the AP found. One man was a Chinese citizen. Their average age was 32. While Trump has characterized those facing deportation as the “worst of the worst”, seven of the 10 had no record of violent crimes in the US.

Trump’s Memphis crime taskforce accused of using ‘immense force’ in intimidation campaign

An anti-crime taskforce ordered by Donald Trump on to the streets of Memphis has been accused of targeting community observers with widespread intimidation including “immense force”. Agents have been “retaliating against, intimidating, and harassing” observers attempting to monitor the federal taskforce’s activity, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee, which alleges that officials have tailed cars, surveilled homes and even “falsely arrested” a community observer.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit this month against Tennessee state and federal officials administering the anti-crime initiative. Additional declarations filed on Thursday by six community observers detail “cowboy tactics” they say have been used in recent months, from bumper-riding their cars in unmarked vehicles and pretextual traffic stops to an arbitrary arrest.

The taskforce was launched last September by Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, following an executive order by Trump, who cited the persistently high rate of violent crime in Memphis. Lee promptly activated the national guard and flooded his state’s second-largest city with more than 2,000 state and federal police officers.

Tennessee lawmakers passed the Halo law in 2025, which made intentionally approaching a police officer within 25ft an arrestable offense – a class B misdemeanor – for failing to withdraw after the instruction of an officer. The ACLU lawsuit contends that taskforce officers have weaponized this law, pushing witnesses far beyond a 25ft perimeter by walking toward them to back them away from a scene, refusing to define where the 25ft buffer begins, telling them they must stay 25ft away from the furthest agent – or from an empty, parked cruiser – or saying “it is where I say it is” and “25ft isn’t a thing – you have to get back to where I want you”.

In a filing earlier this month, the ACLU claimed that taskforce agents “are issuing verbal threats, including threats of arrest” in response to “constitutionally protected” information gathering: “They are taunting Plaintiffs by name when they arrive at scenes of Task Force activity, tailing Plaintiffs in their vehicles, and sitting outside Plaintiffs’ homes – often after photographing Plaintiffs’ faces and license plate numbers and presumably placing their personal information into databases for the purpose of enabling further surveillance and retaliation. And they have used excessive force against and falsely arrested, to date, one of the Plaintiffs.”

Platner Hits Back After Collins Shirks Responsibility for Votes That Sent Troops Like Him to War

Republican US Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was widely dragged Thursday after she responded to upstart Democratic challenger Graham Platner’s criticism of her vote for the Iraq War by trying to make the issue about him.

Platner—a Marine Corps combat veteran turned staunch opponent of illegal wars of choice—told The New York Times earlier this month that “we destroyed Iraq and we destroyed Afghanistan, and all the suffering, all the killing, all the dying, all the displacement—we, the United States, did that.”

“The anger that I feel is for the people that sent me, who are frankly still the same people who are sending people off right now to be in harm’s way so we can have this stupid war with Iran,” the presumptive Democratic nominee continued. “Susan Collins voted to send me to Iraq, and she’s also there to help [President] Donald Trump continue this absolutely insane conflict in the Strait of Hormuz.”

“If I have any anger, it is reserved for the political system itself and the people in it who view war not as a thing that has a human toll but as a political game,” Platner added.

Collins, who is trailing Platner by nearly double-digits in head-to-head polling, told The Maine Wire on Thursday that the Democrat “not only enlisted twice after the war was started, but he also went to work for a security company, a controversial one, named Blackwater, after his term in the service was over.”

“So I respect anyone who steps forward to serve their country,” Collins added, “but the fact is, that was Platner’s decision to serve. He was not drafted.”

Collins has voted for US wars fought in countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. The Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs estimates that more than 940,000 people—including over 432,000 civilians—were killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001 and 2023.

More than 7,000 US service members died in the post-9/11 wars, which cost American taxpayers more than $8 trillion.

Collins has also backed the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and supported the invasion of Venezuela and abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The senator faced immediate backlash for her remarks.

There hasn’t been a draft in over 50 years. Every single one of the 7,000 young men and women Susan Collins sent to die in Iraq and Afghanistan enlisted.

What a disgusting slap in the face to their families and a callous disregard for their sacrifice. https://t.co/Q2bN2Vpdgt

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 29, 2026

“It was your decision as a senator to send Americans to fight in a dumb and pointless Iraq War,” Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) said on social media. “You voted for it. Do you tell the kids and widows of the Iraq War dead that it was their fallen hero’s fault for enlisting?”

Independent journalist Nathan Bernard said on X that “voting to send thousands of soldiers to die and then blaming them for dying doesn’t seem like a great way to win over voters, especially veterans.”

David Sirota, founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, also took to X, writing: “While [Platner] was deployed in Iraq in 2007, Collins cast one of the deciding votes to block legislation to create a timetable for ending the war and bringing Platner and other troops home. She literally voted to keep Platner in Iraq.”

Sam Seder, host of “The Majority Report With Sam Seder,” accused Collins of “a stunning abdication.”

“If she regrets her support of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, she should say so instead of pretending the all-volunteer military owns all responsibility,” he wrote.

Platner responded to Collins’ attack by noting that the senator “voted to support starting the war in Iraq.”

There's nothing more Orwellian than voting to send 18-year-olds to die in another forever war – and then blaming them for it.

Real leadership is admitting when you were wrong, not doubling down for decades. pic.twitter.com/m8jTvpzEij

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 28, 2026

He continued:

On three occasions after that, she voted against withdrawing troops. On at least two occasions, she voted to fund the war. Now, all these years later, instead of acknowledging that she was wrong, she’s decided that she’s going to blame those of us, who in our late teens and early 20s, signed up to serve our country. That somehow it’s our fault that she and establishment politicians like her wanted to abuse our willingness to serve, to go send us off to fight in stupid wars that did nothing but make some people very, very rich at the expense of American taxpayer dollars.

“It’s no surprise to me, because even today, she continues to not stand up against the stupid war in Iran,” Platner said. “She continues to not stand up against any of the abuses or the idiocy coming out of the Trump administration.”

“This is very, very expected from establishment Republican politicians who love to talk about supporting the troops, but in the end, will always desert us,” he added.

the evening greens

Global heating is making hajj ever more dangerous

Global heating has “fundamentally altered” the climate of Mecca and is exposing millions of hajj pilgrims to extreme and dangerous heat even in months outside summer, new analysis has found. Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels means scorching temperatures of 40C (104F) are now regularly experienced in May, the study showed. In past decades, such peaks would only have occurred in summer. The researchers said that hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, would take place amid dangerous heat almost all year round by the end of the century without a rapid transition away from fossil fuels.

Saudi Arabia, which hosts hajj, is the world’s second biggest oil producer and a long-term obstructer of climate action. Muslims around the world are now celebrating the start of Eid al-Adha as devotees in Mecca finish their rituals during this year’s pilgrimage. Hajj follows the Islamic lunar calendar, which means it falls earlier each successive year. All Muslims able to do so are expected to make the pilgrimage at least once in their lives, which involves walking long distances outside over five days.

More than 1,300 pilgrims died due to extreme heat and humidity in 2024, when hajj was in June. May has historically been cooler, with 40C temperatures rare. However, the analysis found that 40C is now expected in May once every two to three years as a result of the climate crisis.

The hajj pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the five pillars of Islam. The Islamic lunar calendar is 10–11 days shorter than the solar Gregorian calendar used in most of the world. As a result, the dates of hajj shift earlier each year relative to the seasons and, over a cycle of about 33 years, hajj moves through every season.

If global temperatures rise by 3C by the end of the century, in line with the trajectory current of the world’s climate policies, about 97% of all hajj pilgrimages would endure dangerous levels of heat in Mecca, a 2022 study found. “Thus, a rapid transition away from fossil fuels is essential to avoid ever more dangerous hajj,” the Imperial researchers said.

What is killing Sumatra’s elephants? The battle to save one of our rarest animals

The two elephants were found dead in the Indonesian province of Bengkulu, in an area of “production forest” in southern Sumatra. The mother and her calf were lying side by side with their tusks still intact. Unlikely to be poachers, the cause of their deaths – and that of a tiger nearby – at the end of April is still being investigated but conservationists say this is not an isolated case. It is estimated that seven wild elephants have died in Bengkulu since 2018.

The population of Sumatran elephants (Elephas Maximus Sumatranus) around the Seblat district of Bengkulu once thrived, but poaching and deforestation of the animal’s habitat, driven by farming and palm oil plantations, pushed it on to the IUCN’s critically endangered list in 2011. According to wildlife conservationists in Bengkulu, the population has since plummeted even further. “In 2010, its population was still at an average of 100-150 individuals,” says Ali Akbar, director of the environmental organisation Kanopi Hijau Indonesia. Today, the total population in Seblat Landscape is “not more than 50, making it very critical”.

Increasingly pushed out of their habitat, there are a growing number of incidents of human-elephant conflict, with the animals encroaching on farmland and wandering into settlements. Prof Burhanuddin Masyud, at the Bandung Technology Institute, estimates that at least 1,585 hectares (4,000 acres) of Sumatran elephants’ habitat were lost between January 2024 and October 2025. “What is happening in Bengkulu is not just the loss of forests, but a direct attack on the ecology, reproduction and balance of interaction between elephants and the environment. The impact will be multilayered and long-term,” he wrote in a recent post.

Elephants are known as ecosystem engineers because their movements and behaviour help shape forest structure, open natural pathways, create space for new vegetation and play a crucial role in seed dispersal.