Daily News 07/13

Trump’s mad dash back to warLess than a month after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that seemingly ended the war between the US and Iran, hostilities have recommenced. This time, US imperialism is dragging the whole world towards a precipice.

‘Don’t Talk About It’: Trump Tells Journalists to Stop Asking About Strait of Hormuz After Latest Closure

Nor would he ever want anyone to say to him, “You’re fired”—certainly not the six conservative (or do I mean deeply reactionary) Supreme Court justices who just allowed him by the usual 6-3 margin to freely fire the leaders of independent agencies or commissions any time he pleases. Or, as Justice Sonia Sotomayorput it in her dissenting opinion, “The Court gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws.” Give him another two and a half years and who knows what this president will be able to do—but the odds are that, by at least a 6-3 margin, he might indeed be able to take this planet down with him. And in doing so, he’ll give that phrase of once-upon-a-time New York Yankees announcer Mel Allen for a batter hitting a home run—“going, going, gone!”—a distinctly new meaning. — Trump: The Embodiment of American and Planetary Decline

Video: Chris Hedges: Trump ripped the mask off of US imperialismPulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges traces America’s history of military interventions and argues that, unlike past administrations, Washington’s imperial project now operates with no self-reflection, no accountability, and no ability to read its adversaries or its allies.

Video: Global warming pushes ocean temperatures off the charts: Study | WIONThe seas are the most obvious sign of global warming because they absorb 90% of the heat that is trapped by carbon emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels. Scientists said that in 2023, the oceans absorbed record amounts of heat, and the data indicated that over the previous ten years, the oceans had warmed significantly annually.

Video: STILL AT WAR — 250 YRSceFrom the first attack on Native Americans to the aggression on Iran, Americans have been at war, with perhaps the biggest one yet to come.LATER — McGovern & Lawren

Did wages keep up with inflation?Stats do show wages have kept up with inflation but when I convert the money directly it shows a different pictureAverage yearly wage in 1975: 13720 Average yearly wage in 1975 adjusted for inflation:$84,926.29Average yearly wage now:$66,000 (This a low estimate the current Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar in U.S. City Average is $.298 (1982-84 = 1.00, 1975 =$179.9- R.S.)

Experts warn of ways screwworm could spread in the US and new difficulties in keeping it at bay

Farm workers at higher risk amid screwworm outbreak in US south-west

No country on Earth fully respects workers’ rights, and it’s getting worse … The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has issued its 2026 Global Rights Index report, and as has been the case in past years, the annual report makes for grim reading. Once again, no country on Earth fully protects workers’ rights. In past years, there were only nine countries that met the qualifications for the best category, “sporadic violations of rights,” defined as where “Violations against workers are not absent but do not occur on a regular basis.” That was the case for the 2023 and 2022 reports. This year? Only eight countries were found to be merely “sporadic violations of rights.” Those countries are Austria, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Uruguay, with Uruguay newly promoted to this level from a year ago.

The oceans are full of heat, and it’s coming ashore The ocean absorbs 90 percent of the excess heat from global warming. It doesn’t all stay there It’s barely the middle of summer in the northern hemisphere, and heatwaves are once again breaking temperature records. In the United States, dozens of cities sweltered through their hottest Fourth of July celebrations, with temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In New Jersey alone, dozens died from the heat over the weekend. European authorities have linked thousands of deaths during the end of June to heat-related causes. And on Thursday, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that Western Europe had experienced the hottest June ever recorded in the region. The seas are running a fever, too. It was also the hottest June on record for the world’s oceans, according to Copernicus. Nearly 40 percent of ocean area worldwide is undergoing a marine heatwave, with intense hot patches in the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than usual. It’s the latest in a wave of ocean warming that began in 2023, fueling devastating cyclones and damaging the majority of the planet’s coral reefs. As humans burn fossil fuels, the oceans absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by the resulting greenhouse gases, causing them to warm. Waters at the surface also exchange heat and moisture with the atmosphere, helping to drive hotter temperatures and more extreme weather. A recent study found that at least a fifth of heatwaves on land begin in the ocean.

Dangerous heat wave is building, will bring oppressive temperatures to much of the United States A widespread and dangerous heat wave is building across the U.S., with triple-digit highs expected in the Southwest and Great Plains this weekend before spreading eastward under a dome of high pressure that meteorologists say could trap oppressive temperatures for a week or more. Forecasters are advising people to stay hydrated and find places to cool off, warning of temperatures 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (8 to 14 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal in many areas, including at night — especially bad for people’s health because their bodies won’t have a chance to recover. The heat dome is expected to affect as much as two-thirds of the continental United States. “The heat doesn’t necessarily stop when it’s dark out,” said Josh Adam, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Bismarck, North Dakota, where temperatures will surpass 100 F (37 C) until Tuesday. That is a dramatic spike for a state where summer temperatures are typically in the 80s, he said.

‘Super’ El Niño could cause global food price shock lasting into 2028, analysts say Weather cycle threatens harvests worldwide, adding to inflation already fuelled by the Iran war

Datacentres drive up big tech’s carbon emissions to a third of those of France Microsoft, Amazon and Google say they still aim to achieve net zero output despite construction boom

Sink the Superyachts! These toys of the ultrarich are environmentally destructive and multiplying fast. They should not exist. The timing could not have been more exact, or more damning.

Is the US trying to make scientists’ work so difficult that they simply give up A politician who aims to gradually privatize and ultimately destroy an institution funded by tax dollars – say, a public school system or public transportation network – may choose to do so by strategically disinvesting resources from that institution until it becomes barely functional, leading users to look elsewhere to meet their needs. Eventually, the user-base of the public system gets so low or frustrated that it seems reasonable to scrap the thing entirely, or re-direct public funds to private companies as contractors to provide the needed “service”. We’ve seen this strategy play out many times in states and city councils across America. … We must stop the gradual but persistent degeneration of the scientific research ecosystem. Contributing a public comment to oppose the new OMB rules is one crucial step that anyone may take to help. Contacting elected officials to fight these moves in Congress is another. In any case, to prevent the death of US science by a thousand cuts and incremental regressions, all of us should be vigilant to the seemingly boring or bureaucratic changes that the Trump administration aims to impose on funding and oversight of science to advance its anti-science agenda.