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• This Is What American Fascism Looks Like | The Walrus

  FOR NEARLY A YEAR, Canadians have been discussing the danger posed by the United States. The anxiety shows up everywhere—online forums, polling questions, and in the unusually blunt asides from officials. This is good. We need to get in the habit of having hard conversations about who threatens us, the extent of that threat, and what we can and must do if we are to survive as an independent country. For CANADA, the diagnosis of the US administration is not academic. It is the difference betwee...

• When my sons with autism are sent home from school, they've learned the problem is them — not the system

  Within an hour of dropping my son off at junior kindergarten, I’m called to pick him up. The excitement of the first day of school quickly gives way to sadness and embarrassment. He was sitting on a chair in the office sucking his thumb while the secretary chastised him for misbehaving. I feel the need to chastise him, too; to signal we don’t condone whatever it is he did. But on the steps of the school after we leave the office, I kneel in front of him. I tell him he’s a wonderful boy. I promis...

• Trump administration to prioritise seeking death penalty, use firing squads

  The administration of United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to expand the use of the federal death penalty, including through the deployment of firing squads. The announcement on Friday was part of a policy document issued by the Department of Justice, setting out the legal argument for various methods of execution. It touted steps for “restoring and strengthening” the death penalty as integral to the pursuit of justice. “The Department of Justice acted to restore its so...

• A young reporter discovers a mysterious trove of data that exposes a global surveillance empire

  In June, a sharp-suited Austrian executive from a global surveillance company told a prospective client that he could “go to prison” for organizing the deal they were discussing. But the conversation did not end there. The executive, Guenther Rudolph, was seated at a booth at ISS World in Prague, a secretive trade fair for police and intelligence agencies and advanced surveillance technology companies. Rudolph went on to explain how his firm, First Wap, could provide sophisticated phone-tracki...

• Google warns quantum computers could hack encrypted systems by 2029

  Banks, governments and technology providers need to be prepared for quantum computer hackers capable of breaking most existing encryption systems by 2029, Google has warned. The tech company said in a blogpost that quantum computers would pose a “significant threat to current cryptographic standards” before the end of the decade and urged other companies to follow its lead. The company, owned by Alphabet, said: “The encryption currently used to keep your information confidential and secure c...

• Post #134656

  A year ago this month, President Donald Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 people responsible for the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. When Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor who studies domestic political violence, heard about the pardons, he says he immediately thought it was “going to be the worst thing that happened in the second Trump presidency.” The first year of Trump’s second term has been a blizzard of policies and executive actions that hav...

• Post #134619

  In Iran, millions of protesters have taken to the streets to protest the repressive religious regime that has ruled the country for more than four decades. The response of the government, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been swift and brutal, with thousands of protesters reportedly killed. All over the world, onlookers are cheering the courage of the Iranian people who are risking their lives to fight for their freedom. In a video posted on X, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the shah who led the cou...

• Post #134605

  The narrative put forward by the administration is largely disproved by available video evidence. And it has even been received with skepticism by some former ICE employees, who are condemning Ross’ use of force against the 37-year-old mother of three and warning that their one-time agency has lost its way. Former ICE chief of staff Jason Hauser recently wrote in USA Today: “When enforcement is driven by messaging instead of mission, when optics outweigh judgment and when leadership substitute...

• Post #134562

  A website dedicated to naming ICE and Border Patrol employees is coming under a “prolonged and sophisticated” cyber attack after the Daily Beast revealed it planned to make public 4,500 names of federal immigration staff. The founder of ICE List said the website was overwhelmed by malicious web traffic originating in Russia after the Beast reported that a huge cache of personal IDs had been leaked to the site by an alleged Department of Homeland Security whistleblower. The Direct Denial of S...

• Post #134551

  Archive link France has banned 10 British far-right activists for actions in France intended to stop migrants crossing to the United Kingdom on small boats, the French interior ministry said Wednesday, January 14. On Tuesday, following reports that members of the “Raise the Colours” movement had conducted anti-migrant actions in France, “territorial bans were issued against 10 British nationals, identified as activists within the movement and having carried out actions on French soil,” it sa...

• Post #132874

  British (veterinarians) have been forced to chase lorries down the motorway on their way to Dover due to the “pure hell” of Brexit paperwork needed by inspectors in Calais, MPs have been told. Toby Ovens of Broughton Transport told the business and trade committee that Brexit has been a costly and logistic nightmare, and hopes of a reset with the EU represented “light at the end of the tunnel”. Brandishing a wad of paperwork with 26 stamps compared with one sheet needed before Brexit, Ovens...

• Post #132862

  An ophthalmologist in Tehran has documented more than 400 eye injuries from gunshots in a single hospital, as overwhelmed medical staff struggle to cope with the toll of an increasingly violent crackdown on nationwide protests by Iranian authorities. Three doctors, in messages forwarded to the Guardian on Monday, described overwhelmed hospitals and emergency wings overflowing with protesters who had been shot. Medical staff said the gunshot wounds were mostly concentrated on protesters’ eyes a...

• Post #132854

  U.S. President Donald Trump says his country needs Greenland for national security. That has Greenlanders worried about their own national security. Inuit advocacy groups, as well as Greenlanders who live in Canada, are emphatically opposed to American designs on their homeland. And, they say, they’re tired of being used as geopolitical chess pieces by powerful people in faraway capitals. “We want to say loud and clear that there’s no such thing as a better colonizer,” said Sara Olsvig, chai...

• Post #132119

  What do a purple cartoon cat and abortion have in common? Nothing – and that is the point, say the women behind Jacarandas, a Colombian abortion helpline. Determined to set themselves apart from more traditional reproductive health organisations, Jacarandas commissions street and graphic artists to create eye-catching illustrations – most recently a cartoon feline called Gataranda, inspired by the team’s much-loved office pet. The aim is not to make light of abortion but to appeal to the teena...

• Post #132084

  Oversight committee chair James Comer said that he will move to hold former president Bill Clinton in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify as part of the ongoing investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein case. Speaking to reporters, the Republican lawmaker from Kentucky said that he will begin the proceedings during the committee’s markup period next week. This comes legal representatives for both Bill and Hillary Clinton sent an eight-page letter to Comer notifying him that they would no...

• Post #132075

  President Trump is expected to come under pressure to make rare disclosures about his properties and business interests as part of his $10bn lawsuit against the BBC, the Guardian understands. Trump is suing the BBC for defamation over a Panorama documentary that spliced together two parts of the president’s address to a rally on 6 January 2021. The BBC has already apologised and said the edit was misleading, but has denied it defamed Trump. In new documents submitted to the Florida court hea...

• Post #132069

  High-profile studies reporting the presence of microplastics throughout the human body have been thrown into doubt by scientists who say the discoveries are probably the result of contamination and false positives. One chemist called the concerns “a bombshell”. Studies claiming to have revealed micro and nanoplastics in the brain, testes, placentas, arteries and elsewhere were reported by media across the world, including the Guardian. There is no doubt that plastic pollution of the natural wo...

• Post #131998

  U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will end humanitarian protections that grant deportation relief and work permits to some 1,100 Somalis in the U.S., administration officials said on Tuesday, the latest restrictive move targeting Somali immigrants. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she would end temporary protected status for Somalis, arguing that conditions in Somalia had improved, even as fighting continues between Somali armed forces and al-Shabaab militants. With th...

• Post #131962

  Archive link Former US president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Tuesday, January 13, they will refuse to comply with a congressional subpoena for them to testify in an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. The Clintons slammed a Republican-controlled committee’s attempts as “legally invalid” as GOP lawmakers prepare contempt of Congress proceedings against them. In a letter released on social media Tuesday, the Clintons told the chair of the House Oversight Com...

• Post #131230

  The Swedish defense company Saab has released a promotional video showcasing the RBS-15 missile, which, much like the Ukrainian Neptune, has evolved from a purely anti-ship weapon into a versatile system designed to engage a wide range of targets. Although this capability is not new, as the RBS-15 Mk4 Gungnir was ordered by Sweden’s Ministry of Defence back in 2017 as an upgrade to a missile in service since 1984, the new video clearly demonstrates the types of adversaries the missile is inten...

• Post #131222

  Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces continue to systematically dismantle Russia’s air defense network deep behind the front line, demonstrating a growing ability to strike high-value targets at operational depth. On January 12, 2025, Ukrainian drone operators destroyed three key enemy systems across the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk directions in what was described as a single coordinated combat episode. The targets eliminated included Russian P-18 Prima early-warning radar, Tor short-range surface-t...

• Post #131088

  The public lands grazing system was modernized in the 1930s in response to the rampant use of natural resources that led to the Dust Bowl — the massive dust storms triggered by poor agricultural practices, including overgrazing. Today, the system focuses on subsidizing the continued grazing of these lands. The BLM and Forest Service, the two largest federal land management agencies, oversee most of the system. Combined, the agencies charged ranchers $21 million in grazing fees in 2024. Our ana...