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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Ann Peebles

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features soul singer Ann Peebles. Enjoy!

^{Ann Peebles - I Can't Stand the Rain (Live)}

"Monarchs ought to put to death the authors and instigators of war, as their sworn enemies and as dangers to their states."

-- Elizabeth I

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News and Opinion

Not Even Israelis Are Willing To Die For Israel

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said during a conference on Tuesday that Israel “has no interest” in participating in the ongoing military exchanges between the US and Iran, asserting that “the current situation is the best one for us.”

While Smotrich is certainly correct that it is to Israel’s benefit to stand aside and let the Americans do all the fighting and dying in this conflict, this is a noteworthy admission about a war that the US State Department says the White House ordered “at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally.”

There are three groups of people who consistently say “I’m not fucking dying for Israel”:

1. US soldiers,

2. Americans at risk of being drafted into a large-scale war, and

3. Israelis.

Israel right now: https://t.co/hOrEpJSLIT pic.twitter.com/kySmiR0Mwv

— Pericles (@PerryALPHA) March 30, 2026

You see this all the time. Back in March when the US was contemplating a ground invasion of Iran, the Israeli press were churning out reports assuring their audiences that government officials said the IDF would not be participating in any such operations. Israelis are happy for Americans to die for Israel, but they are unwilling to put their own lives on the line for the Zionist project.

You know who would lay down their lives for their homeland? The Palestinians.

The Palestinians have made it clear that they are willing to die for Palestine, while the Israelis have made it clear that they are unwilling to die for Israel. For the Israelis, Israel is merely a nice-to-have which they would happily give up if it became too dangerous.

For the Palestinians, that land is home.

Trump Threatens Iran Civilian Targets /Larry Johnson & LT Col Daniel Davis

Houthis threaten to attack shipping tankers if they use Saudi Arabian ports on Red Sea

Yemen’s Iranian-aligned Houthis have warned shipping companies that their tankers risk being attacked if they use Saudi Arabian ports, as the militia moved quickly to enforce a blockade announced the previous day. The Houthi warning for the Red Sea, coming on top of Iran’s threat to shipping on the other side of the Arabian peninsular in the Gulf, could affect the substantial Saudi oil exports that have so far been unscathed by the months-long conflict and deepen the rapidly escalating crisis in the region.

Underlining how seriously the Houthi threat is being taken, two oil tankers that had loaded Saudi crude ⁠this week for China and India made U-turns on Tuesday away from Houthi-controlled coast at the mouth of the Red Sea and headed towards the Suez canal. The Houthis claimed six ships had changed course.

Donald Trump on Tuesday said the US would “​just have to ​take ‌care ​of ​business” if the Houthis followed through on their threats. “You know, we’ve done that with the Houthis before, and we haven’t heard from them in a while since we did what we did originally,” he said at White House meeting with the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun.

Shipping companies were told in an email from the Houthis on Monday that they should not load or ⁠discharge cargo at Saudi Arabian ports and such ⁠activity may result in ⁠being ​targeted “in any location” within its reach. “We strongly recommend that your company exercise due diligence and the utmost care in all its dealings,” ‌the email said, which was sent to multiple ​companies shortly after the Houthis said Monday they were imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia.

US retreats from bases - Max on Judging Freedom

Trump Suggests He Could Restart Yemen Bombing Campaign in Response to Red Sea Blockade

President Trump on Tuesday suggested he could restart a bombing campaign in Yemen in response to the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, enforcing a blockade on the Red Sea.

“If something like that happens, we take care of it. You know, we’ve done that with the Houthis before, and we haven’t heard from them in a while since we did what we did originally,” he said.

Trump launched a bombing campaign in Yemen on March 15, 2025, a few days after Ansar Allah announced it was renewing its blockade of Israeli-linked shipping in the Red Sea in response to Israel violating the January 2025 Gaza ceasefire deal by imposing a full blockade on the Palestinian territory.

The US bombing campaign lasted about a month and a half and involved major civilian casualties, including the bombing of the Ras Issa Fuel Port in Hodeidah, which killed 84 people, all civilians, according to the monitoring group Airwars. A few days after the strike, the US bombed a migrant detention facility in Saada, killing 68 African migrants.

Airwars recorded more than 250 civilian deaths in Yemen as a result of the bombing campaign, which ended on May 6 with a ceasefire between the US and Ansar Allah as the US failed to end the blockade on Israeli-linked shipping and the Yemeni missile and drone attacks on Israel that began after Israel restarted its full-scale bombing campaign in Gaza.

Matthew Hoh: Iran’s “Untouchable” Mountain - Hegseth Says the U.S. Can Reach Anything

BREAKING: Iran has announced that Cruise Missiles have Struck Amazon's Central Data Station in Bahrain

The facility hosts the daily cloud data for Persian Gulf Countries, Telecom Networks, and Major Banking Applications pic.twitter.com/gZsES8nW2F

— Iran Observer (@IranObserver0) July 21, 2026

Hegseth tells Senate war on Iran has so far cost $37.5bn at hearing to request more funds

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth told the Senate on Tuesday that the US-Israel war on Iran had cost $37.5bn so far, as he faced lawmakers furious over the conflict’s soaring price tag and the deaths last week of three American service members.

During an appearance before the Senate appropriations committee, Hegseth, whose opening remarks were repeatedly interrupted by protesters, provided an updated account of the war’s cost – up from previous estimates – and defended the Trump administration’s roughly $88bn supplemental funding request, calling it “urgent, necessary”.

Alongside the chair of the joint chiefs, Gen Dan Caine, Hegseth argued that the Pentagon was running low on cash to keep the fight going. Of the total request, as much as $67.1bn is earmarked specifically to cover the costs of the Iran war effort.

“Without these funds, we face critical shortfalls,” Hegseth told the Senate panel, warning that it would threaten the defense department’s ability to “pay our service members, rapidly replenish equipment and munitions, and sustain vital operations without disruption”.

It was the defense secretary’s first sustained public questioning since a brief ceasefire collapsed and the war roared back to life. At least two US soldiers were killed in an Iranian attack on Friday, and another died in Iraq destroying an Iranian drone, pushing the American death toll since February to 17. Nearly 100 troops have been wounded in the conflict, officials confirm, though most injuries were minor.

‘Nowhere Is Safe’: Israel Kills Gaza Families and Bombs Hospital Despite Ceasefire

Palestinian officials said an Israel Defense Forces drone strike burned a family of six alive in their Gaza City home on Tuesday, a bombing that followed the massacre of another Palestinian family over the weekend and other attacks—including one on a hospital—as the Israeli genocide continues amid a nominal ceasefire.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that rescue workers initially recovered the charred bodies of a mother, later identified as Salsabeel el-Masri, and her four children from their home in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City. Husband and father Firas el-Masri was later confirmed killed in the same strike.

The couple’s three daughters and son—Faryal, Salma, Amira, and Naeem—ranged in age from 6 to 13.

At least some members of the family—who were sleeping when their home was bombed—were apparently not killed by the blast.

“They were all burned so much that our crews couldn’t reach them,” said Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal. “They were screaming and begging us to get them before they were martyred, but all attempts failed.”

Video recordings of the airstrike’s aftermath show first responders desperately trying to extinguish the blaze caused by the attack and retrieving the burnt victims’ bodies.

Ahmed el-Masri told the Emirati newspaper The National that his brother’s “entire family was wiped out from the civil registry.”

"Martyred child Ameera Al-Masri, a charred corpse"

Today, from Gaza City, Israel has wiped out the Al-Masri family in a targeted airstrike on their flat. pic.twitter.com/XmLL3Rde0M

— Abubaker Abed (@AbubakerAbedW) July 21, 2026

The el-Masri family is one of approximately 2,700 erased from the registry since Israel launched its war on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, according to an Al Jazeera analysis published in January.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the bombing, claiming the strike was targeting a Hamas member. The IDF dramatically loosened its rules of engagement following the October 7 attack, effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.

Reuters reported at least six more Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes later on Tuesday, including one targeting a vehicle in the central Gaza Strip.

On Monday, an IDF missile attack on the al-Yemen al-Saeed Hospital in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp killed at least two people and wounded 16 others, including women and children.

“The children were having fun and playing football, and suddenly they started screaming,” eyewitness Youssef Akasha told Drop Site News contributor Mohamed Ahmed. “We found many children lying on the ground, women screaming, and young men running to rescue the wounded.”

Graphic video footage shows children, including infants, being treated for shrapnel embedded in their bodies.

Israel’s attack on the el-Masri family followed a Saturday IDF airstrike on the home of the Nasman family in the al-Nasser neighborhood of Gaza City that killed five people. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Adham Nasman, 42; his wife, Marwa, 40; and three of their children—Arwa, 8, Ibrahim, 16, and Yahya, 18—were killed, and that Adham was apparently the intended target.

The couple’s 13-year-old son, also named Adham, was not home at the time of the strike. Video footage published by photojournalist Nahed Hajjaj shows the grieving boy beside the bodies of his slain family.

Ayham Nasman, the sole survivor of his immediate family, returned to find his father, mother, and three siblings killed after an Israeli strike hit their residential apartment in Gaza's Al-Nasr neighborhood.

Ayham survived because he was not inside the apartment when it was… pic.twitter.com/86Co3JlI4r

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) July 19, 2026

In another massacre on Saturday, an Israeli drone bombed a funeral in the Nuseirat refugee camp for a man who was allegedly a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who had been killed earlier the same day in another IDF strike. Eight people were killed and 20 others wounded in the second attack, according to Palestinian, Israeli, and international media reports.

Israel’s US-backed assault on Gaza has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing since October 2023 and around 2 million people forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Over 21,500 children—1,022 of them babies—are among the more than 73,000 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during the war that scholars, jurists, human rights groups, a panel of United Nations experts, and others say is a genocide.

Israel is facing a genocide case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice and supported by nearly 20 nations, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant—his former defense minister who ordered the “complete siege” on Gaza that fueled famine and disease—are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder and forced starvation.

The IDF’s continued attacks come despite a US-backed ceasefire that went into effect last October. Since then, more than 1,160 Palestinians—most of them civilians—have been killed and over 3,750 others wounded by Israeli forces, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

“Nine months after the announcement of a ceasefire, still nowhere is safe for Palestinians in Gaza,” UN human rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. “The killing of civilians in these attacks raises concerns of continuing violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and other possible atrocity crimes in Gaza. Under international law, deliberately attacking civilians is a war crime.”

Akasha, who witnessed the Jabalia hospital bombing, told Drop Site News, “I don’t feel like there is a ceasefire at all.”

Official Reports ‘Unprecedented’ Rise in Gaza Miscarriages Amid Israeli Genocide

A senior medical official in the Gaza Strip sounded the alarm on Tuesday over a dramatic rise in miscarriages in the Palestinian exclave, with nearly 4,000 cases reported during the first half of 2026 amid Israel’s ongoing genocide.

Gaza Medical Relief Director Bassam Zaqout said that 3,958 miscarriages were recorded in Gaza during the first half of this year—an increase the doctor called “unprecedented,” and a serious risk to the health of pregnant women and their unborn fetuses.

Zaqout cited the soaring miscarriage rate to factors in Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, including the destruction of the strip’s infrastructure, unsanitary living conditions in camps for forcibly displaced Palestinians—where numerous babies have died of hypothermia—lack of hot water and hygiene supplies, and relentless terror caused by Israel Defense Forces bombing.

Reproductive genocide that western feminists can't be allowed to ignore: https://t.co/LkoPo2ddrz

— Kylie Cheung (@kylietcheung) July 21, 2026

text continues:

constant terror from Israeli bombardment, sleeping on the ground, lack of hot water and hygiene supplies, and unsanitary conditions in displacement camps.

He said Gaza’s health crisis is worsening amid severe shortages of medicines, equipment, diagnostic tools, and laboratory supplies, with the health system still operating in emergency mode under severe Israeli restrictions and siege.

The Gaza Health Ministry documented 921 miscarriages and 2,004 live births in April. This staggering ratio—460 miscarriages for every 1,000 live births—is more than double that in neighboring nations Israel and Egypt.

Live births have also dropped dramatically in Gaza this year, from 5,210 in January, to 3,433 in February, 3,233 in March, 2,004 in April, and just 1,701 in May 2026, according to the ministry.

Last month, the Gaza Center for Human Rights said that the alarming rise in miscarriages is due to

the systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, repeated attacks on hospitals, and widespread deprivation of food, medicine, and essential medical services amid 33 months of what United Nations experts and others have described as a genocide.

The Gaza Center for Human Rights said the following factors are the most significant drivers of the miscarriage crisis:

The widespread destruction of hospitals, primary healthcare centers, maternity wards, and fertility clinics;

Repeated attacks on medical personnel, including the killing, detention, and targeting of healthcare workers;

Mass malnutrition caused by Israel’s siege;

The collapse of maternal and child healthcare services; and

Restrictions on the entry of essential medicines and medical supplies needed by pregnant women and newborns.

The center also noted that Article II of the Genocide Convention—the legal basis for the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice—includes “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group” in its definition of the crime.

United Nations officials and other experts have accused Israel of “systematically” using reproductive, sexual, and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians in Gaza and committing “genocidal acts” by deliberately destroying reproductive and healthcare facilities in the strip.

There has also been a documented surge in birth defects among Gaza newborns. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, congenital anomalies doubled in 2025 compared with 2022.

Successive medical warnings of a long-term health catastrophe in the Gaza Strip, with a notable increase in fetal deformities and miscarriages resulting from the harsh conditions of war. pic.twitter.com/T2rN6XQec6

— Eye on Palestine (@EyeonPalestine) June 25, 2026

Experts attribute the increase to many of the same factors driving miscarriages, pointing to contaminated water and widespread malnutrition, including the former famine that killed at least hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza, many of them children and infants.

Zaqout warned that Gaza’s health crisis is worsening as severe shortages of medicines, equipment, diagnostic tools, and laboratory supplies persist amid the strip’s heavily damaged healthcare infrastructure and ongoing siege. He also noted the epidemics of diseases such as chickenpox, waterborne illnesses, and respiratory infections.

20 day-old Osama Sahloul is just one infant in #Gaza affected by the rapidly spreading chickenpox outbreak where infections are increasing pic.twitter.com/oiWs7amdJx

— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) July 17, 2026

Numerous Palestinian women have lost their pregnancies due to direct acute trauma inflicted by Israeli bombs and bullets, which have often also killed would-be mothers. Israeli invaders have also ordered the evacuation of Gaza’s hospitals, forcing staff to leave prematurely born babies to die and decompose in incubators.

A United Nations commission of inquiry reported last month that approximately 30% of the more than 73,000 Palestinians killed during Israel’s 33-month war on Gaza were children—many of whom were deliberately targeted. Israeli forces have killed more than 21,500 Gazan children, including 1,022 babies, since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack, according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

The United Nations Children’s Fund has called Gaza “the most dangerous place in the world to be a child.”

Traitorous scum one step closer to success:

House Rule Advances 2027 NDAA With Section to Integrate US and Israeli Militaries

The House on Tuesday approved a procedural vote to advance the $1.15 trillion 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes a section to further integrate the US and Israeli militaries, a plan that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said was his idea.

The rule to allow floor debate and a vote on the NDAA and several pieces of legislation passed in a 214-211 vote, and a final vote on the House’s version of the NDAA is expected to take place on Wednesday. The procedural step came after the House Rules Committee denied a vote on an amendment introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to strip Section 219, the Israeli integration plan, from the bill.

“Unfortunately the Rule passed just now and no debate or vote was allowed on section 219, integration of US military technology and supply chains with Israel’s,” Massie wrote on X. “The NDAA will receive a recorded vote tomorrow with section 219 in it. I’ll vote no.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who has supported Massie’s efforts, said that he will now fight to strip Section 219 in the conference between the House and Senate, when the two chambers negotiate the final version of the NDAA.

Russia Strikes Odessa 24/7 Reaches Kramatorsk; Zelensky Panics Sacks Syrsky; EU Short Of Winter Gas

Trump defends 50% tariffs on Canada, saying ‘they need us to survive’

Donald Trump has defended his new 50% tariffs on most Canadian goods, claiming the country cannot survive without the US.

The White House announced the sweeping round of import duties – due to come into effect next month – on Monday, igniting fresh tensions between Washington and Ottawa.

Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, said his country was “united” in the face of such threats. He spoke with Trump earlier on Tuesday.

“Canada has been very, very tough on us over the years, for many years, and no other president’s done anything about it,” the US president said in the Oval Office. “In all fairness to them, they need us to survive. Without us, there’s no way they can survive.”

“And every single thing that I promised, I produced…”

Trump promised to cut electricity rates by 50% within the first 18 months of taking office. Time’s up, and so is your bill.

In the most recent 12 months alone, rates climbed 7.3%, roughly double the rate of inflation. pic.twitter.com/1VhEJtGUvD

— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) July 21, 2026

Muslim leader speaks out after more than 80 days in ICE detention: ‘It brought back memories from Palestine’

The president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque said he was subjected to “dehumanizing” treatment during more than 80 days in federal immigration custody – treatment that reminded him of the time he spent in Israeli military prisons in occupied Palestine nearly four decades ago. “It all brought back old memories of things that happened to me when I was tried in Palestine,” said Salah Sarsour in his first interview since being released last month. “The humiliation, the treatment by guards, the way they talk to people, the way they try to put people down.” He said he lost more than 30lb while in immigration detention.

Sarsour, who was born in the West Bank and has been a US permanent resident for nearly three decades, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March and released after a federal judge found he had probably been detained in retaliation of his advocacy for Palestinian rights – a likelihood the judge said would render his detention unlawful. The Trump administration is continuing to seek his deportation and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, personally signed off on a memo last year describing Sarsour as deportable, because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world”.

Sarsour believes his detention was a blatant attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate people out of denouncing Israel’s actions in Gaza. “They thought that by arresting me they would scare people fighting for justice for Palestinians, but it’s the opposite,” he said. Sarsour, 53, is the owner of several businesses, the father of six US citizens and grandfather of nine – with a 10th grandchild on the way. He is also a prominent community leader in Milwaukee, where he has lived since moving to the US in 1993 with his wife to build a family in a place where he could “live freely”, he said.

In a statement issued shortly after his arrest, the DHS cited Sarsour’s decades-old military court convictions in Israel for, it said, “throwing a Molotov cocktail at the homes of Israeli armed forces and illegally attempting to possess weapons and ammunition”. Sarsour says those accusations stem from an arrest as a teenager by Israeli soldiers in 1989, during the first intifada. He also says he was forced, under torture and threat of rape, to sign documents in Hebrew without understanding them. He ultimately spent two years in an Israeli prison after being convicted in a military court system for Palestinians that has a conviction rate of over 96%. Sarsour was again detained by Israeli authorities for nearly three months when he last visited Palestine in 1995.

US immigration agents arrested a record number of people in June

The Trump administration arrested a record number of immigrants last month, according to newly released government data that reveals how US immigration agents are quietly but steadily ramping up operations across the country.

A Guardian analysis of the latest data published by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) found that federal immigration agents arrested 43,138 people in June – the highest number since Donald Trump took office in January last year and promised a campaign of mass immigrant deportations.

The number of people in detention has also ticked up by 5,450 since early April, when ICE last provided a count of its detained population. There were a total of 65,765 people in ICE detention as of 11 July – slightly below a record 70,770 people who were in detention in January.

As has been the case since last summer, the number of people in ICE detention without any criminal history remains higher than the number who have pending charges or convictions.

In total, the Trump administration has deported more than 590,600 since January 2025, the latest figures show.

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Troy Jackson Says He Wouldn’t Support Schumer as Senate Democratic Leader

In Maine, endorsements have poured in over the past several days for former state Senate President Troy Jackson after county-level committee votes over the weekend, where the fifth-generation logger secured the support of more than two-thirds of the delegates who will attend a statewide convention to nominate the Democratic US Senate candidate on July 25.

But while welcoming the support of labor unions and his former opponents in the contest to replace Graham Platner, Jackson said the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is not something he’ll pursue. Jackson also said that, if elected to the Senate, he would not support Schumer as leader of the chamber’s Democratic caucus.

“The Democratic Party needs to have a different approach—getting people back in the party, getting working-class, everyday people back in the party—and I don’t believe it’s going to happen with Sen. Schumer,” Jackson told The New York Times in an interview published Tuesday.

Regarding support from Schumer and the national party, Jackson said there would “have to be no strings.”

“I’d have to find out what that entailed,” added Jackson, a former logger with strong labor ties. “I mean, if his help comes, absolutely no strings.”

Like progressives who have won recent primary races in New York and Colorado and are running in states including Michigan and Florida, Jackson is a supporter of expanding Medicare to everyone in the US and has denounced US military aid for Israel. He has recently expressed support for abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the agency’s killing of Biddeford, Maine resident Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero and has called for new taxes on billionaires and “greedy corporations,” echoing Platner, who ended his campaign earlier this month after being accused of sexual assault.

Last year, Schumer pushed Democratic Gov. Janet Mills to run against Platner as the political newcomer was mobilizing voters from across the political spectrum all around the state with his working-class-focused platform.

Schumer is a strong supporter of continuing to provide Israel with military aid, even as leading Holocaust scholars and human rights organizations say the attacks the country has waged in Gaza since October 2023 amount to genocide.

Jackson told the Times that “obviously” progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would be his first choice to succeed Schumer as Senate leader, but expressed doubt that the Democratic establishment would support the Vermont senator, who is consistently ranked as the most popular member of the Senate among voters.

“If I am lucky enough,” Jackson said, “I guess I’ll have to survey the field.”

WHITMER CAUGHT On HOT MIC Plotting With Data Center CEO

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Report Exposes Decades of Climate Polluters Pushing the ‘Fraud of Clean Natural Gas’

Gas companies knew about the climate harms of natural gas much earlier than previously thought and downplayed them to the public, according to a new trove of documents unearthed by an environmental activist group on Monday.

A report released Monday by the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) found that—much like Big Oil had deceived the public about the planet-heating impact of oil—gas companies that pushed their product as a “clean” alternative had downplayed natural gas’ production of methane, a greenhouse gas that is about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over the first 20 years.

The report, which was created through an examination of newly discovered documents and confidential reports, as well as expert interviews, determines that the industry was aware of these harms as far back as 1968, when a report commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute found that methane in the atmosphere was connected to “oil fields” and “[gas] distribution system leakage.”

“Big Oil and the gas industry knew decades ago that methane was a harmful climate pollutant, but they manufactured the myth of ‘clean’ natural gas in order to protect and expand their business, with no regard for public health or the climate impacts that they knew would result,” said Richard Wiles, president of CCI.

The report examines how the American Gas Association (AGA), an industry group representing many industry giants, hired top public relations firms to change the nation’s perceptions of gas as a dangerous pollutant.

Despite acknowledging behind the scenes that they lacked “clear, simple, substantiating facts” to vouch for its safety, industry ad campaigns sought to associate gas with nature, simplicity, and cleanliness. One campaign emphasized that it was “cleaner than coal” and created “virtually no emissions.”

The industry also created its own research institute to peddle studies to the public that disrupted a growing consensus around the dangers of methane by emphasizing the uncertainty of the findings and casting doubt on their connection to natural gas.

All the while, internal industry research was finding that methane was not only a major driver of the greenhouse effect, but was being released in far greater quantities than previously known, to the point where it was just as dirty, if not dirtier than coal.

Despite this, the industry helped to keep the “myth” of clean natural gas alive for decades. In the 1990s, the industry funded and provided much of the underlying data for an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study concluding that the amount of methane produced by natural gas was low enough that it could be considered a “bridge fuel” to reduce emissions.

Though later research would demonstrate that the study had vastly underestimated the amount of methane being emitted by gas producers, the damage had been done, and the number was cited by the industry for decades to promote its product as a green alternative.

According to a poll conducted by CCI with Data for Progress, 50% of likely voters still believe that natural gas is a form of “clean energy.”

“The fraud of clean natural gas has been essential to the industry’s success in the marketplace, and the idea that gas is climate-friendly has been at the heart of the rapid expansion of gas infrastructure over the last two decades,” the report says.

The Center for Climate Integrity has argued that fossil fuel companies should be required to compensate the public for decades of deception that has contributed to the climate crisis.

“Officials who continue to justify expanding natural gas reliance by still claiming it’s clean or safe for the climate are using the same script and manipulated science that gas executives and their PR teams concocted decades ago,” Wiles said. “It’s time that these profoundly dangerous lies are finally put to rest. By exposing the gas industry’s deception, we can get one step closer to accountability.”

We received no alert, say leaders of First Nations communities razed by Canadian wildfires

Fast-moving wildfires have burned two First Nations communities in Canada to the ground, as members said they were left to self-evacuate without government help or emergency alerts. Thirteen communities in Ontario province have been ordered to evacuate because of wildfires, most of them First Nations. The Ontario premier, Doug Ford, told reporters on Monday that close to 2,000 people had been evacuated so far to cities including Toronto and Niagara Falls.

There are nearly 1,000 wildfires burning across Canada, with about 200 in Ontario. The prime minister, Mark Carney, said heatwaves and dry weather had combined to create “one of the most intense wildfire seasons in Canadian history”.

Namaygoosisagagun First Nation, located north of Thunder Bay in north-western Ontario, was engulfed by fire on 15 June. About two dozen people quickly boarded boats packed with their possessions and raced across the nearby lake. “If this community waited for a mandatory evacuation process, we’d be doing a recovery mission for the bodies of children, of elders, of men and women,” said Linda Debassige, grand council chief of the Anishinabek Nation, which represents 39 Ontario First Nations.

All members safely escaped but the community’s buildings and other infrastructure were completely destroyed. The Namaygoosisagagun people evacuated to Thunder Bay, where the Anishinabek Nation has been providing assistance. Debassige said that Namaygoosisagagun’s chief, Helen Paavola, had made inquiries to the federal government in the days leading up to the fire, but the community had been assured there was no imminent threat.

Millions face long-term coastal flooding risk in UK without climate action

Up to 13 million people in the UK face the long-term risk of coastal flooding due to the climate crisis, scientists have warned, with a “reasonable worst-case scenario” suggesting the need for the large-scale movement of populations away from a dramatically reshaped coast. Even if today’s global pledges to cut carbon pollution are met, about 1.4 million more people will be exposed to coastal floods in 2200 and 1.7 million in 2300 due to the sea level rise driven by melting ice caps and warming oceans.

While this is far in the future, action today to cut emissions and plan future settlements and flood defences could prevent such leaps in flood risk becoming inevitable, the experts said. Keeping within the Paris agreement targets would cut the number of people exposed in 2300 by 1 million, they said.

Sea level has risen by about 20cm around the UK in the last century and is accelerating. A further 40cm to 60cm by 2100 is already baked in, meaning about half a million more people will be at risk of their homes being flooded, on top of the 2.5 million already in danger near the coasts. Lincolnshire and the Humber estuary are most in danger.

However, scientists are concerned that the gradual rise in sea levels seen so far could change rapidly if ice sheets start a runaway collapse into the oceans, instead of just melting slowly in place. In this scenario, the UK could suffer 15 metres of sea level rise by 2300, swamping large parts of London and many other places, the researchers found.

“[Planners] who only consider changes over the coming century may have a false impression of the true risk landscape given the potential for post-2100 acceleration of sea level rise,” the researchers concluded in their study published in the journal Nature Communications. “It is inevitable that a combination of additional or enhanced flood defences and managed retreat will be necessary to mitigate against post-2100 flood risk.”

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Also of Interest

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

Iran War: Washington Post, Telegraph Confirm US Inability to Sustain War; Ansar Allah Closes Bab el-Mandeb Amid Reports of MBS Dethronement; Possibility of Nuclear Attack on Pickaxe Mountain

“Wash Me, But Don’t Get Me Wet”*

Ukraine: America’s Enduring Proxy War on Russia

Everyone Is a Foreign Agent Now

Craig Murray: Where Are We Going?

‘Buy-cott’ boosts Memphis pizza shop after owner refuses to serve national guard

US claims of Cuba’s ‘unique threat’ jar with reality of hunger and blackouts

Bill Gates foundation met with Jeffrey Epstein about 30 times, external review finds

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A Little Night Music

Ann Peebles - I Pity the Fool

Ann Peebles - I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down

Ann Peebles - Part Time Love

Ann Peebles - Come to Mama

Ann Peebles - Steal Away

Ann Peebles & Hi Rhythm Section - I Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody's Home Tonight

Ann Peebles - 99 Pounds

Ann Peebles - Old Man With Young Ideas

Ann Peebles ~ Slipped, Tripped And Fell In Love

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