---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Geno Delafose

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features zydeco accordianist and singer Geno Delafose. Enjoy!

^{Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie - Duralde Stomp}

"It takes a lot to get tens of thousands of people to riot. For it to happen simultaneously across several countries points to a supranational underlying cause, as opposed to local grievance at an egregious state injustice. ... There is a reason that, in every Western democracy during the last 20 years, neoliberal politicians have campaigned under the slogans “Hope,” “Change,” or their various synonyms and translations. It is because very highly paid PR consultants have told them that what the people lack, what the people need, what the people desperately crave, is hope and change. Riot and rebellion are acts of extremely high risk which are the resort of the otherwise hopeless."

-- Craig Murray

---

News and Opinion

Military-Industrial Complex Assures Investors That Wars Will Be Endless

Today in dystopia, the military-industrial complex is reassuring investors that the wars will indeed be endless.

Asked about concerns over falling defense stocks in a recent interview on CNBC, Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet replied, “Investors need to know and understand that this demand is not fleeting — it’s permanent.”

In 2023 Taiclet called Washington’s soaring military budget “as good an outcome as our industry or our company could ask for.”

These people are such evil freaks. War profiteering should be fucking illegal.

@kenklippenstein Weapons were once manufactured to be able to wage war.

Nowadays, wars are manufactured to be able to sell weapons.

@JulianAssange: https://t.co/V0jhPrvgBs

— jchlistalla (@jchlistalla) October 17, 2026

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : US Cannot Beat or Isolate Iran

Heidi Levine recounts how Palestinian youths helped save her in settler attack

The Washington Post photojournalist who was attacked and seriously injured by Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Friday has described how she was saved with the help of local Palestinians. Heidi Levine sustained four fractured vertebrae, two broken ribs and four puncture wounds when she was knocked to the ground and repeatedly beaten by a crowd of masked settlers while she and other journalists were covering the olive harvest in the Palestinian village of Abu Falah, north of Ramallah.

It is unclear whether the puncture wounds were caused by knives or other weapons. Levine said a witness to her attack had seen nails sticking out of some of the wooden clubs wielded by her attackers. Levine, 64, has covered multiple wars and had just returned from an assignment in Ukraine before Friday’s attack. She said she would most likely have been killed had she not been wearing protective body armour and a helmet. “I probably would have been dead, because for sure it doesn’t take much to kill a person with blows to the head,” she said shortly before being discharged from hospital on Wednesday in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva.

Levine pointed out that Palestinians did not have such protection and more than 20 had been killed in settler attacks so far this year, in the course of an escalating campaign of aggression – described as terrorism by Israeli security leaders – across the West Bank, aimed at driving Palestinians from their land. “Every single journalist who looked at [the attack on me] are thinking they and I have gone to so many funerals of Palestinians killed by settlers,” Levine said.

She said the olive harvesting at Abu Falah had begun peacefully but at some point a group of young masked settlers appeared on a nearby hilltop watching the group of Palestinian villagers, journalists and human rights activists accompanying them. Levine said the attack began only after the Israeli army arrived on the scene. “Then all hell broke loose. Some of the farmers started to gather their tarps and bags of olives that they had picked,” she said. “Then all of a sudden I hear a machine gun, and then saw teargas in the distance. I started to run … It was just like a lot of commotion and then all of a sudden I see a dozen of them and they started charging at me.

Witnesses said the beating only ceased when young Palestinian men used slingshots to aim stones at settlers forcing them back, allowing another American journalist, Jasper Nathaniel, to reach Levine and, with other reporters, help her to safety. “The shabab [Palestinian youth] put themselves in front and were trying to keep them [the settlers] away, keep a protective shield, which was amazing. It was like a biblical battle,” Levine said. After the attack, Nathaniel wrote: “Had the shabab not stepped up to protect her, she might well be dead. It is no exaggeration to say that young Palestinians armed only with stones risked their lives to save Heidi Levine’s.” He said the army pursued the young Palestinians after the incident, rather than the settlers.

TROOPS EVACUATED As Massive New Iran Strikes Planned

Professor Pape: Trump's Iran Strike Gamble SHATTERS Presidency

Israeli military detain US and UK volunteers in West Bank including Democratic NY politician Brad Lander

The Israeli military has detained about 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers helping Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem, including the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, several rabbis and Israel’s former deputy attorney general. “I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis and volunteers,” Lander posted from a bus taking him to a police station. “We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nahalin in the West Bank. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”

Lander, who is Jewish and an outspoken critic of the Israeli government, describes himself as a liberal Zionist. He believes in the vision of Israel as a safe, Jewish home, but argues that it cannot be a true democracy while it denies Palestinians their human rights and freedom. An ally of the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, Lander’s critical approach to Israel was a key factor in his resounding primary victory against Dan Goldman, a prominent supporter of Israel.

He condemns Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, supported the restriction of US military aid to Israel and believes that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks amounts to genocide. Settler militants have unleashed extreme violence on Palestinians attempting to harvest olives from their trees across the occupied West Bank, and anyone accompanying them.

Wednesday’s olive-picking from trees outside the village of Nahalin was uneventful until a large contingent of Israeli security forces arrived, the organisers Protect the Harvest said in a statement. “All volunteers were peacefully harvesting on the private land of a Palestinian family who had invited them. For reasons that remain unclear, the Israeli army showed up and detained approximately 80 people who were present.” Soldiers said the area had been declared a closed military zone, separated the group by nationality and drove them to a nearby police station in minibuses for the Israelis and a larger bus for Americans.

Lander was released with a warning but all the others were still being held, Protect the Harvest said. Detainees include Jill Jacobs, the chief executive of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, and 11 other American rabbis affiliated with the group.

You’re a liar and an occupier. Palestinians don’t need permission from a foreign invader to harvest their own land. https://t.co/CVLSaEVONs

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) October 21, 2026

Fifth foreign firm pulls out of controversial Israeli cable car project to East Jerusalem

A fifth foreign company has pulled out of a plan to build a cable car from West to East Jerusalem that threatens to involve the seizure of land and property rights from dozens of Palestinian families along its route, but local authorities insist the scheme is proceeding as planned.

The project appeared to have stalled for four years until late September, just weeks before Israel’s 27 October elections, when the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA) issued a notice of intent to award a contract without a public tender to ROPES, a cable car engineering consultancy based in South Tyrol, Italy. However, Stephan Obexer, chief executive of ROPES told the Guardian his company had declined the consultancy work because of another commitment in India.

The 1.4km cable car route, approved by the Israeli government in 2019 and upheld by the high court in 2022, would connect West Jerusalem to a planned 16,000 sq metres tourist complex promoted by Elad, a settler organisation seeking to consolidate Israeli control over Palestinian areas of occupied East Jerusalem.

The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories began in 1967 and the Old City and the rest of the eastern half of Jerusalem were fully annexed in 1980, although they are still considered occupied under international law.

At least four foreign companies – three French and one Swiss – have expressed interest in the project, but several have withdrawn over its political sensitivity, according to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper. In 2015, the French government urged one company not to participate. Another French company, CNA, pulled out less than a year ago, followed more recently by Switzerland’s Histec Engineering.

Max Blumenthal : If Netanyahu Loses Next Week …

Some US diplomats told to leave Saudi Arabia amid Houthi attacks

The US state department has ordered some diplomats and the families of US government employees to leave Saudi Arabia, as the gulf kingdom faces a barrage of near-daily attacks, with at least three people killed at an airport and oilfield on Wednesday evening.

Attacks on “civilian airports and other critical infrastructure” by the Iranian-supported Houthis in Yemen were highlighted as the reason for the drawdown. State department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said: “The safety and security of department personnel and their families remain our highest priority.”

The state department said the order covered its embassy in Riyadh and its satellite consulates. The embassy had been badly damaged at the start of the US war on Iran and had been operating with only a skeleton staff for months, although in recent weeks some diplomats had returned.

The announcement comes as some media – including NBC and AFP – reported that families of US embassy personnel were also being withdrawn from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain, while the New York Times said the Trump administration was developing plans to restart the war on Iran.

Putin Rejects Oslo Plan; Russia Escalates Kiev Bridge Destruction

‘A powerful warning’: will Europe’s angry protests lead to real political change?

In France, it was the piles of wheelie bins stacked up against school entrances that first hinted at the scale of student anger over crumbling classrooms and teacher shortages. In Spain, it was a tent camp that steadily grew in the heart of the capital as residents railed against soaring housing costs. Similar scenes have since sprung up in Belgium, Italy and Portugal, and clashes have convulsed Albania’s capital of Tirana, hinting at an autumn of protests across Europe.

Much of the news coverage in recent days has focused on the violence that played out on the fringes of the protests in France and Italy. The protests themselves, however, point to what seems to be a diverse response to a common crisis: the growing perception, particularly among younger generations, that governments are unable, or unwilling, to deliver when it comes to affordable housing, social equality and robust public services.

“This is the most powerful warning from Europe’s angry youth today, in France and across the continent,” the policy analyst Alberto Alemanno said. Alemanno, a professor of EU law at the HEC business school in Paris, said he had received an unprecedented number of calls from right-wing, xenophobic outlets in recent days, many of them seeking to fuel the idea of the protests as some sort of “pan-European revolt”. It is a narrative that he describes as misleading. “The demonstrations have different causes and do not necessarily share political objectives,” he wrote this week. “Yet their rapid spread hints at a common weak point: too many young Europeans doubt that existing institutions can deliver the security, opportunity and voice they expect.”

The head of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Célia Belin, said some of those doubts were currently being reinforced in France. “Faced with the high discontent of young people in high school, the government has no answer for them,” she said, citing an administration squeezed financially by a high deficit and debt-to-GDP ratio and limited politically by the country’s deadlocked parliament. “Basically the answer is: ‘There’s no money, there is nothing we can do.’ And that’s a huge problem.”

Arancha González, the dean of the Paris School of International Affairs and a former Spanish foreign minister, went a step further when asked this month about the similarities between the housing protests in Spain and the school protests in France. “The reasons are different, but they share the same spark: the breakdown of the social contract,” she told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. “Young French people are protesting for education, young Spanish people for housing, but in Europe, the idea that economies generate wellbeing and social equality has been shattered.”

France Bond Collapse Implodes EURO; China Russia Gas Deal Stuns; Japan Begs For Rare Earths

Europe’s far right seizes on protest violence to push authoritarian anti-immigration agenda

Europe’s far-right leaders have jumped on the violence that rocked numerous cities last weekend, framing it as the inevitable consequence of failed liberal governance and open-border policies and insisting only they can restore law and order. Months away from key elections in Spain, France and Italy, authoritarian nationalists are eager to weaponise the wave of street unrest, originating in peaceful protests over the cost of living and deteriorating public services but hijacked by violent rioters.

Those in opposition have not held back. In France, where cities such as Paris, Marseille and Lyon faced widespread rioting and looting, the far-right National Rally (RN) has denounced centrist incompetence and promised a crackdown. The party’s president, Jordan Bardella, said the government was “impotent”. The RN leader, Marine Le Pen, said on Wednesday the state was “collapsing” and had “lost control of everything” amid “migratory, budgetary and security chaos”. Ahead in presidential polls and seeking voters beyond her base, Le Pen has resisted explicitly racialising the unrest, but has framed it more broadly as a result of state and policy failures leading to “anarchic immigration” and “a total loss of authority”.

In Germany – where there were no major protests – the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has stoked fears rioting could spill over the border. Its co-leader Alice Weidel said France’s “violent excesses” were a “warning for Germany”. Weidel also linked the unrest to immigration, posting: “The dangerous mix of mass migration and leftwing extremism threatens to lead to civil war-like conditions here too … There will only be a turnaround on migration with the AfD!”

In Spain, where the housing crisis has led to huge protests and a Madrid encampment, and prompted the socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to call a snap election next month, the far-right Vox party has sought to demonise the protesters. “They’re not defending the right to housing, or asking for work, they’re serving Pedro Sánchez,” the party’s leader, Santiago Abascal, said. “They’re Sánchez’s militias.”

Vox has also attempted to link the housing issue to migration. In a message posted on social media last month, the party falsely suggested that the 87-year-old woman whose eviction sparked the mammoth protests would have had a home had she been an immigrant from north Africa.

More Weapons, Fewer Teachers: France’s Youth Fight Back | Yanis Varoufakis and Rokhaya Diallo

Macron accuses Trump and other foreign leaders of ‘stupid comments’ about France unrest

Emmanuel Macron has accused Donald Trump and other foreign leaders of making “stupid comments” about France’s street unrest for political gain, as the country prepared for more protests this weekend. Speaking during a visit to Qatar, the French president did not name names but said “manipulation of information” after Saturday’s riots had led to “comments that are as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders”.

Asked if he was referring to Donald Trump, Macron replied: “Among others.” The US president has blamed France’s violence on “migrants, jihadists and communists” as he campaigns for his Republican party before midterm elections. Macron told reporters in Doha that some leaders “in the middle of election campaigns, whether here in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic” were “naively spreading narratives that certain circles are clearly trying to promote”.

They were “using our country for their own political campaigns”, the French president said. “And we don’t need that. We already have difficulties to deal with.” He said AI-generated images were circulating “depicting scenes that never actually happened in France. We’ve had people claiming that we were invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is completely false.” The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces elections next weekend, has also said that France had been hit by an “invasion of extremist Islam”. Analysts have dismissed claims that migrants were the main factor in France’s protests.

Macron pledged to prevent any repeat of last weekend’s convulsions, as the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) grassroots protest movement formally filed plans for a march through the centre of Paris ⁠on Saturday that is likely to be the ⁠government’s next big test. Student groups have also called for protests on the same day to push demands for greater investment in education. The gilets jaunes activists aim to revive their nationwide 2018 campaign against rising living costs and declining public services.

France’s main trade unions have separately called a nationwide mobilisation for 5 November. Sophie Binet, the head of the CGT union, said: “There is huge and legitimate anger, and the answer to that situation is not repression. It is a political response.”

Democrats' "Affordability" Agenda is Just Another SCAM (w/ Isabella Weber)

’Hunted like animals’: inside Trump’s war on the people who build America

Every morning long before dawn, while America sleeps, legions of Texas construction workers grab their fluorescent vests and hard hats, sling ladders and tools into their trucks, and head down the highway for another day of grueling labour under the blistering sun. Elsewhere, before the first flush of daylight settles over Texas’s concrete sprawl, a separate army gets on the move in a fleet of shiny unmarked SUVs. They hover at gas stations, prowl around bodegas, pounce on the highways. They’re on their way to work too. But the federal agents who form this second army are on a different mission.

Unlike the builders, they are not forging the US’s future one new starter home at a time. Their job is to pursue those who do the building: they follow the framers, track down the roofers, chase the cement masons and concrete finishers. They are hunters. “In Texas, you go deer hunting in the early morning,” said Jacob Monty, an immigration lawyer in Houston. “That’s what they are doing. They are hunting for construction workers, early in the morning, like you would an animal.”

Texas and its construction workforce are the ground zero of Donald Trump’s latest mass deportation effort, dubbed ICE 2.0. As the US president has pivoted from last year’s militarized “invasions” of Los Angeles and Minneapolis to this year’s less visible but no less devastating stop-and-search tactics, he has found rich pickings in Texas. Texas is seeing by far the greatest number of ICE arrests in the country. More than 12,000 in July alone, almost double the number in the next most affected states, Florida and California.

But there is a price to pay for ICE casting its dragnet through Texas barrios and building sites as it seeks to meet its new target of 3,000 immigration arrests daily. The street-level apprehensions are roiling the state, distorting its economy, forcing up house prices and the cost of groceries. With the midterm elections just days away, and hugely consequential congressional races as well as the gubernatorial contest hanging in the balance, there are also political costs. Trump appears to be digging a hole for himself with Texas’s Hispanic voters.

Latino Texans who were born in the US or have naturalised, and thus can vote, are increasingly angry and confused. Many of them voted for Trump two years ago, attracted by his promise of a stronger economy and a fortified border that would keep out “criminal” immigrants. A poll last month from Equis Research found that disapproval of Trump had risen to 63% among Texas Latinos. In the critical US Senate race, which could determine which party holds the upper chamber during Trump’s final two years in office, 58% of likely Latino voters intend to back the Democratic candidate James Talarico, while only 33% support the scandal-ridden Republican, Ken Paxton. This, in a state that last returned a Democrat to the US Senate in 1988. Latinos make up a third of Texas’s registered voters, the second-highest number in the country. And they know it. Construction workers among them.

Meta ordered to pay $25bn to New Mexico in Cambridge Analytica data-privacy case

A judge in New Mexico ordered Meta Platforms to pay $25bn on ⁠Wednesday after a jury found the company had misled consumers in a case arising from allegations that a political consulting firm involved in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign obtained data from millions of Facebook users ⁠without their consent.

“Facebook’s wrongdoing – ⁠over the course of ​years and systematically broadcast to the public – goes to the heart of Facebook’s core business practices,” Judge Francis Mathew wrote in his order following the verdict. Mathew found that a penalty of more than $219bn was warranted, based on state law, but he reduced the figure to $25bn.

Settlements over the social networks’ safety are growing so large that Meta is reporting significant drags on its business. In its quarterly earnings report, issued the same afternoon as the announcement of the judge’s order, the company said its net income came in significantly below Wall Street analysts’ expectations because of a $9.9bn settlement payment in the US. In August, the social media giant agreed to pay $17bn to settle a nationwide lawsuit by dozens of state attorneys general, who alleged it intentionally designed addictive products that harmed children. Despite the hefty payments, Meta still reported a 26% increase in quarterly revenue up to $64.6bn.

New Mexico’s attorney general had sued Meta in 2021 following revelations that Cambridge Analytica, ⁠a British political consulting firm, had harvested personal data from as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app.

The state accused Meta ​of lying to Facebook users in New Mexico about who had ‌access to their data, how the ‌company handles hate speech and misinformation posted on the platform, and other internal policies. The company knew that third parties had broad access to ‌users’ personal data, and it tolerated hate speech or other harmful content when it benefited the company’s bottom line, the state said.

Epstein’s attorney and accountant accused of ‘facilitating and concealing’ his crimes in lawsuit

The attorney general of New Mexico on Wednesday filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime attorney, Darren Indyke, and Epstein’s longtime accountant, Richard Kahn, accusing them of having “facilitated and concealed” Epstein’s crimes, and is seeking to stop them from being paid by Epstein’s estate while the litigation plays out. The lawsuit, filed in the US district court for the district of New Mexico, names Kahn and Indyke as defendants both in their individual capacity, and in their capacity as co-executors of Epstein’s estate. The complaint also names Epstein’s estate, and the 1953 Trust, which holds the estate’s assets.

“Epstein, with the help of his associates, trafficked, isolated, and abused survivors at alluring locations” including at Epstein’s ranch in Stanley, New Mexico, known as Zorro Ranch, the complaint claims. It goes on to allege that “in exchange for furthering Epstein’s criminal project and remaining silent about it, his associates received generous salaries, access to elite social circles, and lavish gifts, including being named beneficiaries of his multimillion-dollar estate”.

In a statement on Wednesday, an attorney for Indyke shared a statement on behalf of both Indyke and Kahn saying that they “emphatically reject the New Mexico Attorney General’s allegations that they were complicit in or in any way knowingly facilitated Mr Epstein’s sexual abuse or trafficking – conduct that by all accounts occurred behind closed doors, in secluded locations, and at times when neither Mr Indyke nor Mr Kahn was present. “Not a single woman has ever accused Mr Indyke or Mr Kahn of committing sexual abuse or witnessing sexual abuse, nor claimed at any time that she or anyone else reported to them any allegation of Mr Epstein’s abuse,” the statement added. “The New Mexico Attorney General’s complaint does not allege anything to the contrary.”

The complaint alleges that both men profited personally from their relationships with Epstein. It alleges that from 2011 to 2019, Indyke received more than $16m from Epstein and related entities and that Kahn received more than $10m. In a statement on Wednesday, Raúl Torrez, New Mexico’s attorney general, said that Epstein “did not operate alone, and his death does not end the pursuit of accountability for the people who helped make his crimes possible”.

“The allegations in this lawsuit describe a network of people and financial arrangements that helped sustain and conceal the abuse of vulnerable girls and young women, including here in New Mexico,” he said. “Those who allegedly enabled this exploitation should not be allowed to profit from it while survivors continue to live with its consequences.” In the complaint, Torrez wrote that “through this action, the State seeks to hold these individuals accountable to the fullest extent possible and to ensure that Epstein’s assets are distributed to the survivors of his horrific crimes”.

---

---

Elon Musk’s Super Pac spends $500,000 to back New York Republican in midterms

Elon Musk’s Super Pac has spent more than $500,000 in New York’s highly competitive 17th congressional district race to help Mike Lawler, the Republican incumbent, hold on to his seat. Lawler, a moderate Republican, is fending off a challenge from Democrat Cait Conley in the Hudson valley. It is among the most-watched races that could determine whether Republicans hold on to their majority in Congress.

America Pac, the Super Pac founded by Musk, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last year to boost Lawler’s campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Most of that spending has funded voter outreach efforts such as texting, printing, and postage and digital media-related services. Gothamist was the first to report on Musk’s spending.

Musk, the Republicans’ largest donor so far this midterm cycle, has spent millions of dollars on conservative candidates. Since the beginning of July, Musk has funneled $276m into Republican groups and America Pac, the New York Times reported earlier this month.

America Pac’s spending on Lawler’s race is notable because Musk’s Pac spent more than $2m to help re-elect Lawler in 2024. Conley, Lawler’s Democratic opponent, and the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, has accused Lawler of protecting Musk rather than regulating artificial intelligence.

MAGA POLLSTER: 'ITS OVER' GOP Doomsday Is Here

Trump’s approval rating drops to 36% two weeks before midterms, poll finds

Donald Trump’s approval rating sank to 36% just two weeks before the midterm elections, the lowest recorded in a poll by the New York Times/Siena College, with most respondents expressing frustration over his handling of the US economy, cost of living and Iran war. In an October survey of approximately 3,494 likely voters, 59% said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of his job, and 52% said they planned to vote for the Democratic candidate in the upcoming election.

Much of the disapproval toward the US president was associated with frustrations over Trump’s handling of economic and cost-of-living-related issues. On gas prices, 73% of registered voters said they disapproved; on the cost of living, 69% said they disapproved, and on the economy, 64% said they disapproved.

Approximately 65% said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the Iran war, which has dragged on for nearly eight months and pushed gas and oil prices up.

In 2024, Trump promised to lower everyday costs for Americans, keep inflation low and to keep the US from starting more wars abroad.

---

---

Officials confirm flesh-eating New World screwworm parasite found in US wildlife

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Wednesday it had ⁠confirmed the ⁠first detection ​of flesh-eating parasite the New World screwworm in US wildlife in an ⁠elk in Pecos county, Texas.

The elk was located on a game ⁠ranch and was reported after being harvested by ​a hunter, the ‌USDA said ‌in a statement.

The Texas animal health ‌commission will modify a previously established infested zone, and the USDA and the Texas parks and wildlife department is conducting additional wildlife surveillance in the area, the USDA said.

Michigan residents fight potential $6.4bn datacenter bill: ‘That is insanity’

Michigan utility customers may pay $6.4bn for two new gas plants to meet datacenter demand, drawing outrage from residents. The potential burden on ratepayers, especially residential customers, is a microcosm of similar tensions nationwide, highlighting how the utility industry benefits from unchecked datacenter growth. The proliferation of energy-hungry datacenters in the state of Michigan is driving a DTE Energy proposal to double its electric grid capacity over the next 20 years. DTE is Michigan’s largest energy provider, and among the nation’s biggest utilities. It has asked regulators to approve a long-term energy delivery plan that includes developing a combined 2.1 gigawatts of gas plants in 2031 and 2032, in counties just outside metro Detroit.

The company has already contracted with Google and Oracle to provide a combined 2.4 gigawatts of electricity to hyperscale datacenters – enough to power more than 1.8m homes. It is also poised to announce two more hyperscale contracts, and a potential total of roughly 6 gigawatts’ worth of datacenters could be contracted by the year’s end. If all came to fruition, DTE could need more than two gas plants.

About 2.3 million electric customers in south-east Michigan could be affected. Any plan to saddle residential customers with datacenter costs was “deeply unjust”, said Yousef Rabhi, a public power advocate and former state representative who in August won the Democratic nomination for mayor of Ann Arbor.

“People who are struggling to feed their kids, to put diapers on their babies, to keep the lights on – those people are going to be subsidizing the wealthiest people on the planet to help them make more money, and that is insanity,” Rabhi continued.

The Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), which regulates the state’s private utilities, has drawn fire over its previous decisions about whether residential customers should effectively subsidize datacenters. The commission’s leadership is filled with appointees of Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, a pro-business, big tech ally who has seen her popularity in the state fall in part over her support for datacenters, which are unpopular.

World must cut emissions by 18% in four years ‘to find our way back’, UN says

The world needs to cut carbon emissions by nearly a fifth in the next four years, and by close to half within a decade, to avoid overshooting climate targets by a disastrous margin. Although the “window has closed” on holding temperature rises to 1.5C, in line with scientific advice, limiting the “overshoot” of that target is still possible, according to the UN Environment Programme (Unep).

But countries are failing to translate their long-term targets on reducing emissions into short-term actions, a report on the “emissions gap” between climate goals and policies has found.

Global carbon output appears to have stalled: the emission levels in 2025 were broadly similar to those of the previous year. But Unep analysts were wary of calling it a peak or plateau, given the vast uncertainties of geopolitics and an increased reliance on fossil fuels, despite strong growth in renewable energy.

Cutting greenhouse gases by 18% by 2030, and by 45% by 2035, would yield a good chance of limiting temperature rises to 1.7C above preindustrial levels. This would still allow events such as the record heatwaves of the last few months to become frequent and common, but could help prevent them from getting drastically worse.

Governments were warned for years that time was running out, said Inger Andersen, the executive director of Unep. “[We used to say] there’s still an opportunity if we make this herculean effort [to stay within the 1.5C limit],” she said. “It’s now clear the herculean effort was not made. We procrastinated, and now we are saying this window has closed.”

---

Also of Interest

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

Iran War: Iran Hardens Position as Israel Promises Strikes on Energy Infrastructure, US Moves in New Carrier Group; Will Saudis Get Mecca Accord Help?

Netanyahu Says His Directive to the Israeli Military Is to ‘Overthrow the Iranian Regime’

Israel Flew Dozens of Fighter Jets Near Iran’s Border on Monday: Axios

FBI Subpoenaing Pro-Palestine US Activists

Majority of Swing State Voters Say Stop Sending US Bombs to Israel

Evidence of a Russian 'hybrid war' in Europe is vanishingly thin

Craig Murray: ‘France Has Never Been Richer’

The World Continues To Seek Alternatives To American Tech

Report Warns AI Bubble Is ‘Primed to Pop’

Nikon’s Small World photomicrography competition winners – in pictures

---

A Little Night Music

Geno Delafose & French Rockin' Boogie - Dance All Night, Stay a Little Longer

Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie - Hey, Geno!

Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie - `Quo Faire / Jolie Bassette

Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie - One Step Des Cameaux

Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie - Une Autre Soir Ennuyante

Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie - French Rockin' Boogie

Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie - Tennessee Whiskey

Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie -Chicken On The Run

Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie - He-Haw Breakdown

Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie - Eunice Two Step

Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie at Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Fest 2026

---