---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: James 'Son' Thomas

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta blues guitarist James 'Son' Thomas. Enjoy!

^{James Son Thomas - Standing at the Crossroads}

"Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures... There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it."

-- Sigmund Freud

---

News and Opinion

It Was Never About Hostages. It Was Never About Hamas.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that freeing the Israeli hostages in Gaza was not his top priority, suggesting instead that defeating Hamas should take precedence over a hostage deal.

“We have many objectives, many goals in this war,” Netanyahu said. “We want to bring back all of our hostages. That is a very important goal. In war, there is a supreme objective. And that supreme objective is victory over our enemies. And that is what we will achieve.”

Nothing the prime minister said here is true or valid — unless by “enemies” he means “all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.

Netanyahu Says Freeing Hostages Is Not His Priority
The Israeli leader said his 'supreme objective is victory over enemies'
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Netanyahu #Gaza #Israel #Palestinians #hostages https://t.co/jI1XBUkA9h

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) May 2, 2025

Netanyahu has been fairly transparent about the fact that Israel’s ultimate goal in Gaza is neither freeing the hostages nor defeating Hamas, but seizing Palestinian territory and removing its Palestinian inhabitants. He has openly said that Israel will occupy Gaza via military force, completely ruling out the possibility of any form of Palestinian government for the enclave. He has openly said he wants to enact President Donald Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza, which explicitly entails removing “all” Palestinians and never allowing them to return.

So they’ve made this perfectly clear. This isn’t about Hamas, except insofar as an armed resistance group will make it difficult to forcibly remove all Palestinians from Gaza. And it certainly isn’t about hostages.

And yet, bizarrely, this is how the western political-media class continues to frame this onslaught. They call it Israel’s “war with Hamas”, when it’s nothing other than an undisguised ethnic cleansing operation. They prattle on about October 7, hostages, and terrorism, even though it has already been made abundantly clear that this has nothing to do with any of those things. They act as though the admission was simply never made.

There is absolutely no excuse for continuing to babble about hostages and Hamas after the US and Israel said the goal is the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They told you what this is really about. They said it. With their face holes. They said it right to you. End of debate.

Israel has been seeking ways to purge Gaza of Palestinians for generations. That’s all this has ever been about. Not October 7. Not hostages. Not Hamas. Not terrorism. Everything about Israel’s operations in Gaza have indicated that their real goal is to remove Palestinians from a Palestinian territory and not to free hostages or defeat Hamas. And then when Trump took office, they started openly admitting it.

Trump Says No Right of Return for Palestinians in Gaza Under His Plan
Egypt has called an emergency Arab summit in response to #Trump's repeated calls for the permanent displacement of Gaza's #Palestinians
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #Gaza #Israel #Egypt https://t.co/Yg4hswznCU

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) February 10, 2025

How is this not the whole entire conversation every time Gaza comes up? How is this not the beginning, middle and end of every single discussion?

This is like a cop looking right into someone’s phone camera while strangling a black man to death and saying “I am killing this man because I am racist and I want to kill black people,” and then afterward everyone’s still saying “resisting arrest” and “we don’t know what happened before the video started recording”. He said what he was doing and what his motives were with his own mouth.

You don’t get to babble about Hamas, October 7 or hostages in defense of Israel’s actions in Gaza anymore. That is not a thing. If you want to defend Israel’s actions in Gaza, the sole topic of conversation is whether or not it’s okay to forcibly purge an entire population from their historic homeland by systematically bombing, shooting and starving them while destroying their civilian infrastructure, solely because of their ethnicity.

That is what the discussion is about. Not anything else. That and that only.

Alastair Crooke : Trump Can't Seem to Make a Deal

Netanyahu vows to act against Houthis after attack on Israel’s main airport

Benjamin Netanyahu has promised Israel will strike back against Yemen’s Houthis and “their Iranian terror masters” after a missile launched by the militia movement hit the perimeter of Israel’s main airport. On X, the Israeli prime minister said on Sunday that Israel would respond to the Houthi attack “at a time and place of our choosing”. On Telegram, Netanyahu said Israel had acted against the Houthis in the past and would act again in the future. “It will not happen in one bang, but there will be many bangs,” he said.

The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, and Israeli military confirmed that the missile was launched from Yemen. Local media reported that Israeli and US defence systems had failed to down the missile, which left a deep crater in an open field on the perimeter of the airport, and that an investigation was under way.

Most attacks from Yemen during the conflict in Gaza have been intercepted by Israel’s missile defence systems, apart from a drone strike that hit Tel Aviv last July. Sunday’s missile strike sent a plume of smoke into the air, caused panic among passengers in the terminal building and led to air traffic being suspended for an hour.

European and US carriers have cancelled flights for the next few days. Many had only recently begun to resume services to Israel after the Gaza ceasefire, which temporarily paused hostilities between mid-January and mid-March. This followed their suspension of flights for much of the last year and a half.

The missile attack came hours before Israel’s security cabinet was due to vote on plans to expand the fighting in Gaza with a new offensive. Military officials confirmed on Sunday that tens of thousands of reservists had been called up, though it was unclear when any new operations would be launched.

Houthis PIERCE IRON DOME, Strike Main Israeli Airport

Medea Benjamin: Why the Government Fears Peace

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 40 people in Gaza

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 40 people across Gaza during the past 24 hours, civil defence officials in the devastated Palestinian territory said, as Israel’s government prepared to order an expansion of its military offensive.

Nine people were killed when a strike hit a home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza; another six people died in a separate strike targeting a family home in the northern city of Beit Lahiya; six more died in a strike on a community kitchen in Gaza City, and an overnight attack on the Khan Younis refugee camp killed at least 11 people including three babies up to a year old, the officials said.

Asked to comment on the strikes, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said the military “takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.

As Israelis Blockade Food to Gaza, 9,000 Children Have Been Admitted for Acute Malnutrition

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said Friday that “Malnutrition is … on the rise. More than 9,000 children have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition since the beginning of the year.”

At least 10 NGO aid kitchens have closed in recent weeks for lack of food, and 25 UN bakeries haven’t been operational for a month. The Israeli military has for two months been committing a war crime in preventing shipments of food from entering Gaza.

Meanwhile, a medical source in Gaza told the Anadolu Agency that on Saturday, a child “died from malnutrition and dehydration at Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza City.” Gaza medical authorities have documented 57 deaths from malnutrition in Gaza during the current conflict.

UNICEF says that over 75% of households in Gaza have reported declining access to water. Russell explained that many families with children have to choose between drinking, bathing and cooking.

Because of the lack of clean water, Russell explained, “acute watery diarrhea … now accounts for 1 in every 4 cases of disease recorded in Gaza. Most of these cases are among children under five, for whom it is life-threatening.”

UNICEF’s Russell said, “For two months, children in the Gaza Strip have faced relentless bombardments while being deprived of essential goods, services and lifesaving care. With each passing day of the aid blockade, they face the growing risk of starvation, illness and death – nothing can justify this.”

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its weekly report on Gaza on Wednesday that “On 25 April, the World Food Programme (WPF) reported that its food stocks in Gaza have been depleted, as the agency delivered its last remaining supplies to kitchens preparing hot meals. WFP additionally highlighted the impact of deteriorating nutrition on vulnerable groups, including children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly, warning that the situation has again reached ‘a breaking point.’”

OCHA added that “Between 18 March and 27 April, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) recorded 259 attacks on residential buildings and 99 on IDP tents. Most of the attacks resulted in fatalities, including of women and children. Among the strikes on IDP tents, 40 reportedly took place in Al Mawasi area, in Khan Younis, where the Israeli army repeatedly directed civilians to seek refuge.”

Over 400 Palestinians seem to be being killed each week by Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip, the vast majority women and children. Thousands have been wounded in the two months since the government of Benjamin Netanyahu breached the January ceasefire.

OCHA writes, “On 27 April, at about 20:10, 13 Palestinians, including a woman and her six children, were reportedly killed and others injured when a residential building was hit in southern Khan Younis. On 28 April, at about 00:30, 10 Palestinians, including at least three children, were reportedly killed and others, including a seven-year-old girl, were injured when a residential building was hit in Al Fakhoura area, west of Jabalya refugee camp, in North Gaza. On 28 April, at about 00:30, 10 Palestinians were reportedly killed and others injured when a residential building was hit in Al Karmah area in northwestern Gaza city.”

Israeli forces have been firing on Palestinian fishing boats, as fishermen desperately attempt to bring in some protein for their families.

Humanitarian aid ship bound for Gaza hit by drones off Maltese coast, evidence points to Israel

Israel used drones to attack a humanitarian aid ship en route to Gaza in the early hours of Friday, while it was in international waters just off the coast of the Mediterranean island Malta. Amid a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, in which virtually all aid has run dry, the ship, Conscience, was organized by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), an international NGO. It set sail from the Tunisian port of Bizerte on Tuesday and was more than 1,600 nautical miles from Gaza when it was hit by drone fire.

The attack began just after midnight Thursday, at 00:23 local time. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement: “Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull. That there were no deaths or injuries was only down to chance. The FFC said that 30 people representing 21 nationalities were onboard the ship. The Turkish foreign ministry confirmed that Turkish nationals were among them.

Speaking to CNN by phone from Malta, Yasemin Acar, the FCC’s press officer, said, “There is a hole in the vessel right now and the ship is sinking.” This was confirmed by photographic evidence. He added, “Attacking international human rights activists in international waters is a war crime.” CNN reported, “Footage shared on social media and verified by FCC activists shows passengers on the boat walking through smoke that appeared to have filled the inside of the vessel. Photos onboard the ship also show large holes in the structure, much of which is charred and covered in soot.

“Trevor Ball, a former US Army senior explosive ordnance disposal team member, told CNN that the photos are consistent with two smaller blast munitions being used.”

The FFC said the drones appeared to have targeted the generator, leaving the ship without power. Conscience put out an SOS signal, answered by a ship from Cyprus which the humanitarian crew explained was unable to “provide the critical electrical support needed”. The fire was only brought under control by a Maltese tugboat more than an hour after the ship was first fired upon.

Israel Lobby HUMILIATING DEFEAT After Boycott Bill Pulled

Police disband pro-Palestinian camp at Swarthmore College and arrest nine activists

On the morning of 3 May, the Swarthmore borough police department disbanded a four-day pro-Palestinian encampment on Swarthmore College’s campus and arrested nine activists. The demonstration calling on the college to divest from the tech company Cisco due to its ties to the Israeli government was a rare uprising in an academic year where higher-education institutions have been quick to quash them. One current and one former Swarthmore College student were among those arrested, while the rest were from outside the college community, the college’s president, Valerie Smith, said in a statement.

“With rising concerns about safety and security on campus, a continued and growing presence of individuals unaffiliated with the college, warnings from outside law enforcement agencies and no signs that protestors were willing to engage in conversation that would bring the encampment to an end,” Smith said, “I felt we had no choice but to seek outside assistance from local law enforcement.”

Around 7.30am on 3 May, Q, a Temple University student who is using a pseudonym out of fear of legal repercussions, was outside his tent at a Swarthmore College pro-Palestinian encampment in Pennsylvania when he said that he received a call from Swarthmore College students. They told him that they had seen dozens of police cars approaching the campus entrance in the distance and that a sweep of the encampment was imminent. Q started filming the sweep on his phone as about 40 officers swarmed the campus. As nine students stood with their arms linked together, he said, he watched law enforcement grab the activists and pin them to the ground. ...

The sweep of Swarthmore College’s encampment comes as a total of nine Swarthmore College students – eight current and one former – were given notices of their interim suspension beginning on Thursday for erecting the encampment earlier in the week. Students on leave of absences are considered former students and the interim suspension could affect their eligibility to resume their enrollment, Swarthmore College spokesperson Alisa Giardinelli said in an email. The students in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, were suspended without due process and were told to evacuate from campus, said Swarthmore’s SJP in a 2 May statement.

Naomi Klein on Trump, Musk, Far Right & "End Times Fascism"

Trump says he ‘doesn’t rule out’ using military force to control Greenland

Donald Trump would not rule out using military force to gain control of Greenland, the world’s largest island and an autonomous territory within Denmark, a fellow Nato member with the US. Since taking office, the US president has repeatedly expressed the idea of US expansion into Greenland, triggering widespread condemnation and unease both on the island itself and in the global diplomatic community. Greenland is seen as strategically important both for defense and as a future source of mineral wealth.

In an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday, Trump was asked whether he would rule out using force against the territory. “I don’t rule it out. I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people, which we’ll take care of, and we’ll cherish them, and all of that. But we need that for international security,” Trump said.

The exchange came as part of wide-ranging interview following Trump’s first 100-days in office last week and he was also asked about the idea of using military force against Canada – an idea once unthinkable but now a subject of speculation amid Trump’s repeated assertion he would like to make Canada the US’s 51st state. “It’s highly unlikely. I don’t see it with Canada. I just don’t see it, I have to be honest with you,” Trump said.

Trump said he had spoke with Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, and confirmed that the pair had not spoken about making his country part of the US. But he said they could discuss the topic when Carney visits Washington DC “this week or next week”. Carney, along with around 90% of Canadians, oppose the idea of folding Canada into the US. But Trump said he was open to a discussion.

“I’ll always talk about that. You know why? We subsidize Canada to the tune of $200bn a year,” Trump said. “We don’t need their cars. In fact, we don’t want their cars. We don’t need their energy. We don’t even want their energy. We have more than they do. We don’t want their lumber. We have great lumber. All I have to do is free it up from the environmental lunatics.”

Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’

Donald Trump on Sunday announced on his Truth Social platform a 100% tariff on all movies “produced in Foreign Lands”.

In his post, he claimed to have authorized the Department of Commerce and the US trade representative to immediately begin instituting such a tariff, although he gave no details on how it would be implemented.

“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,” Trump said in the Truth Social post. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”

The film industry has already been feeling the effects of the tariffs as China in April responded to the announcements by reducing the quota of American movies allowed into that country.

US Port Update - May 4, 2025 | Trade Wars: Port of Los Angeles Says Imports are Dropping

LA’s bustling ports hit by Trump tariffs: ‘Everyone in the US will feel this’

For the past 25 years, the San Pedro Bay port complex – comprised of the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach – has been the celebrity of the shipping world and an economic driver of California’s massive economy. The busiest seaport in the western hemisphere and one of the busiest in the world, approximately 15,000 longshore workers usually pull shifts around the clock, moving billions of dollars’ worth of cargo in cars, agriculture, auto parts, toys, clothes and furniture.

This week, however, the port is shining a little less brightly. As a result of the Trump administration’s decision to subject imports to a minimum 10% tariff (and levies far higher for goods from 57 countries), roughly a third of the traffic at the port has ground to a halt, according to Eugene Seroka, the chief executive officer of the Port of Los Angeles.

With more than 70% of the port workforce living within a 10-mile radius of the complex, LA’s waterfront communities of San Pedro, Wilmington and Long Beach are expected to be the first hit by the slowdown, but they will certainly not be the last, said Gary Herrera, president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) local 13.

“One in every five jobs in southern California is tied to the ports – warehouse workers, truck drivers, logistic teams and more,” said Herrera, who has been a longshore worker since 1998. Herrera says LA’s Inland Empire, including Riverside and San Bernardino, which serve as warehousing centers for retailers such as Walmart and Amazon, as well as communities such as Bakersfield and Barstow, which have freight rail lines, will also be severely affected.

What happens in the port doesn’t stay in the port, echoed long-time labor activist and former Los Angeles harbor commissioner Diane Middleton. “One way or the other, cargo that comes in here goes to all 435 US congressional districts. Everyone in the US will feel this.”

Africa Screws U.S. & Shifts Trade To China After Tariffs! w/ Ibrahim Hussein

Republicans Set to Give Self-Described 'DOGE Person' Keys to Social Security Agency

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday is set to hold a confirmation vote for President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Social Security Administration—an ultra-rich former Wall Street executive who has aligned himself with the Elon Musk-led slash-and-burn effort at agencies across the federal government.

"I am fundamentally a DOGE person," Frank Bisignano told CNBC in March, amplifying concerns that he would take his experience in the financial technology industry—where he was notorious for inflicting mass layoffs while raking in a huge compensation package—to SSA, which is already facing large-scale staffing cuts that threaten the delivery of benefits for millions of Americans.

In an email on Saturday, the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works warned that Bisignano "is not the cure to the DOGE-manufactured chaos at the Social Security Administration."

"In fact, he is part of it, and, if confirmed, would make it even worse," the group added. "We're not going down without a fight. Republicans may have a majority in the Senate, but we're going to rally to send a message: A vote for Trump's Social Security Commissioner is a vote to destroy Social Security!"

Bisignano, the CEO of payment processing giant Fiserv, has been accused during his confirmation process of lying under oath about his ties to DOGE, which has worked to seize control of Social Security data as part of a purported effort to root out "fraud" that advocates say is virtually nonexistent.

As The Washington Post reported in March, Bisignano testified to the Senate Finance Committee that "he has had no contact" with DOGE.

"But Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the claim is 'not true,' citing an account the senator said he received from a senior Social Security official who recently left the agency," the Post noted. "The former official... described 'numerous contacts Mr. Bisignano made with the agency since his nomination,' including 'frequent' conversations with senior executives."

Wyden pointed again to the former SSA official's statement in a floor speech Thursday in opposition to Bisignano, saying that "according to the whistleblower, Mr. Bisignano personally appointed his Wall Street buddy, Michael Russo, to be the leader of DOGE's team at Social Security."

The Oregon Democrat said Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee refused his request for a bipartisan meeting with the whistleblower to evaluate their accusations unless "we agreed to hand over any information received from the whistleblower directly to the nominee and the Trump administration."

"All Americans should be concerned that a nominee for a position of public trust like commissioner of Social Security is accused of lying about his actions at the agency and that efforts to bring this important information to light are being thwarted," Wyden said Thursday. "If Mr. Bisignano can get away with lying before he's even in place as commissioner, who knows what else he'll be able to get away with once he's in office."

"He could lie by denying any American who paid their Social Security taxes the benefits they've earned, claiming some phony pretense," the senator warned. "He could lie about how sensitive personal information is being mishandled—or worse, exploited for commercial use."

Glenn Greenwald Reveals REAL FEELINGS On Trump 2.0

Trump says he doesn’t know if he needs to uphold constitutional due process

Donald Trump said “I don’t know” when asked if he needed to uphold the US constitution when it comes to giving immigrants the right of due process as he gave a wide-ranging TV interview broadcast on Sunday. At the same time the US president also said he saw himself as leaving office at the end of his current term and not seeking a third one – something he has not previously always been consistent on even though a third term is widely seen as unconstitutional.

But when it comes to giving immigrants full rights in US law in the face of Trump’s long-promised campaign of mass deportations, Trump was less clear on the need for due process and following US law and court decisions.

“I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know,” Trump replied when asked by Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker whether he agreed with his secretary of state Marco Rubio, who had previously expressed support for the idea that everyone had the right to due process. When pressed Trump continued: “I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the supreme court said. What you said is not what I heard the supreme court said. They have a different interpretation,” the US president added.

Father of teen fatally shot by Cincinnati police allegedly kills officer with his car

The distraught father of an 18-year-old shot and killed by police in Cincinnati allegedly killed a police officer with his car less than 24 hours after the death of his son. The double killing has shocked the Ohio city amid ongoing concerns about US law enforcement’s involvement in lethal encounters with citizens.

The incident began last Thursday with the shooting death of Ryan Hinton, 18, who police said had appeared to point a gun at an officer as he fled from a stolen vehicle with three other people. ... When Hinton’s family viewed the footage at a meeting with police, they became distraught, especially the young man’s father.

“Ryan Hinton’s family, including Ryan’s father, was present at the meeting and they were understandably distraught as they watched the bodycam video,” a statement from the family’s lawyers said. “After the meeting with the police department, Ryan Hinton’s father left in his own vehicle and that was the last we heard from him until learning about the tragic incident involving a law enforcement officer who was working a traffic detail near the University of Cincinnati.”

That incident happened on Friday afternoon when a police officer – who has not yet been named publicly – was hit by a car as he directed traffic at an intersection. Police identified the driver of that vehicle as the teen’s 38-year-old father, Rodney Hinton. He was later charged with aggravated murder. The slain police officer was not believed to have been involved with the killing of Ryan Hinton.

---

---

Trump feels tug of political gravity as economy falters and polls plunge

“Not just courageous” but “actually fearless”, said Doug Burgum. The “first 100 days has far exceeded that of any other presidency in this country ever”, said Pam Bondi. “Most” of the presidents whose portraits adorn the Oval Office – which include George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan – were mere “placeholders” who were not “men of action”, mused JD Vance.

Before the TV cameras on Wednesday, top cabinet officials took turns drenching Donald Trump with praise that some critics found evocative of politics in North Korea. Yet beyond the walls of the White House, the mood was shifting. New data showed the economy is shrinking. The national security adviser was about to be ousted. Opinion polls told of a president whose unpopularity is historic.

After a hundred days in which Trump at times appeared invincible, political gravity is exerting itself. A majority of Americans regard him as both a failure and a would-be dictator. From the courts to the streets, from law offices to college campuses, revolt is swelling. Republicans are eyeing next year’s midterm elections with nervousness.

“The honeymoon is over,” said John Zogby, an author and pollster. “He actually squandered his hundred days, perhaps you can argue, by doing too much, not succeeding with much of it and overplaying his hand. At the end of the 100 days his polling numbers reflect an unsuccessful quarter. Every poll that I know of, including mine, has him upside down.” ...

Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: “What Trump had going for him was he created this sense that he was an irresistible force, that resistance was futile, that everyone had to accommodate his whims and his agenda. But now you’re seeing the supreme court pushing back on him, the markets expressing alarm and his poll numbers going south. The shock and awe which seemed irresistible for so long now seems to be encountering much more resistance.”

---

---

Forecasts of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels soar in Trump’s first 100 days

Donald Trump’s ambitions for the US to “drill, baby, drill” for more fossil fuels have ironically been hampered by the economic chaos unleashed by his own tariffs, but the US is still on track to increase oil and gas extraction, causing a surge in planet-heating emissions, a new analysis shows.

The US was already the world’s leading oil and gas power, producing more of the fossil fuels than any country in history during Joe Biden’s administration. But Trump has sought to escalate this further, declaring an “energy emergency” to open up more land and ocean for drilling and launching an unprecedented assault on environmental regulations in his first 100 days back in the White House.

This new political climate means that the expected amount of greenhouse gas emissions from active and planned projects in US oil and gas fields has jumped under Trump, after previously dropping under Biden, forecasts shared with the Guardian show.

Despite awarding more drilling leases than Trump in his first 100 days, Biden also pursued policies to combat the climate crisis that saw oil and gas companies revise down their production estimates. That situation has now reversed, threatening a pulse of new pollution that will further add to the fever of a planet already suffering from heatwaves, floods, droughts and other disasters accelerated by global heating.

“The uptick in embodied emissions from forecast US oil and gas production is worrying,” said Olivier Bois von Kursk, policy adviser at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, which tracks emissions projections from the lifetime of projects, based on data from research consultancy Rystad Energy. “The world can’t afford more climate chaos.”

Sand groomers v turtles: how wildlife is falling foul of the demand for Insta-perfect beaches

In the summer months in Puglia, southern Italy, the battle for the beaches begins before dawn. Armed with tractors, beach owners flatten every imperfection from the sand, dragging it to sift out anything large enough to be considered waste. As the sun rises, tourists flood the coastline, often unaware of what lies hidden beneath their feet. Two feet below the surface, delicate eggs laid by loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) are waiting to hatch. For the turtles, the beach is not a beauty spot but a habitat.

As sand groomers have been transforming beaches from vital habitats into backdrops for photoshoots, their work has had an enormous impact on the turtle population. “Occupation of the beach by private owners reduces a vital living space for the turtle,” says Salvatore Urso, a naturalist and co-founder of Caretta Calabria Conservation, who has been monitoring and protecting loggerhead turtle nests since 2005. “There is still not much sensitivity to coexisting with this species.” Tractors not only crush or displace eggs – their mere presence can scare away female turtles, preventing them from nesting.

As tourism surges in the region, the nests are protected by a handful of committed experts and volunteers. Piero Carlino is director of the Sea Turtle Recovery Centre in Calimera, where staff dedicate their summers to rescuing turtle eggs. They monitor the beaches on foot and with drones to spot nests, and when a nest is identified, volunteers place a fence around it to protect it during incubation. Later, they provide support during hatching, helping to guide the turtles towards the sea. “People look at our dedication and think we’re crazy,” says Carlino.

The sand groomers versus the turtles is one of a series of conflicts between wildlife and tourists seeking picture-perfect locations that scientists and activists say are playing out around the Mediterranean as the holiday season looms. Across southern Europe, tourists driven by Instagram and TikTok are taking to remote areas in greater numbers, threatening local environments and biodiversity. Visitors to the region account for about a third of all the world’s tourists, or about 330 million people in 2024 – and are forecast to reach 500m by 2030.

---

Also of Interest

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

Israel Prime Suspect in Attack off Malta on Gaza Aid Ship

Illinois Man Gets 53 Years in Prison for Vicious Hate-Crime Killing of 6-Year-Old Wadee Alfayoumi

Trump Tops Tariffs On China With Sanctions

How Bob Parry Covered Odessa Fire That Sparked a War

Federal Cuts Gut Food Banks as They Face Record Demand

Wisconsin Governor Rips Arrest Threat From Trump Border Czar

Republicans Caught Copy-Pasting Koch-Funded Group's Letter Demanding Medicaid Cuts

Wisconsin Gov. Evers Pushes Back After Trump's Border Czar Threatens to Arrest Him

Luigi Mangione MUSICAL Already SOLD OUT, Opening In San Francisco

Mexican President REBUKES Trump's Insane War Mongering

EU PANIC. Simion wins BIG in Romania first round

h/t linda:

‘We’ve killed so many children — it’s hard to argue with that’

---

A Little Night Music

James Son Thomas - Catfish Blues

James Son Thomas - Steel Guitar Rag

James Son Thomas- Cairo Blues

James Son Thomas- It Hurts Me Too

James Son Thomas- Beefsteak Blues

James 'Son' Thomas - After The War

James "Son" Thomas - Highway 61 Blues

James Son Thomas - Stormy Monday Blues

James Son Thomas - Fast Boogie

---