The ICE-tracking service says it doesn't store usernames or addresses

ICE-reporting service StopICE has blamed a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent for attacking its app and website and sending users text messages warning them that their information had been "sent to the authorities."…

ASUS ROG just announced the Kithara gaming headset, which is a device intended to bring "audiophile-grade sound" to gaming. It was developed in conjunction with manufacturer HiFiMan, a company that specializes in high-end audio devices.

The Kithara is the company's first open-back planar magnetic gaming headset. ROG says it was designed to please gamers who "demand absolute clarity, precision and realism." The headphones feature 100mm planar magnetic drivers that have been "tuned specifically for gaming."

The company says this results in a wide frequency response, low distortion and a "level of detail that reveals subtle positional cues such as footsteps, reloads and distance movement." ROG boasts that these audio cues remain distinct even during moments of chaotic gameplay, potentially making the headphones a great choice for competitive gamers.

The open-back design allows for clear separation across bass, mids and treble, which should also make the headphones great for listening to music. It features a full-band boom microphone with a high signal-to-noise ratio. There are separate signal paths for audio and microphone inputs, which significantly reduces crosstalk.

ASUS ROG

The headphones have been built for maximum versatility, so there's a balanced headphone cable with swappable plugs. They support various connection types, including 3.5mm, 4.4mm and 6.3mm. They also ship with a USB-C to dual 3.5mm adapter.

These are gaming headphones, so comfort is also a priority. The metal frame features an adjustable fit and there's a multi-layer padded headband and two sets of interchangeable ear cushions. The ROG Kithara headphones are available now and cost $300.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/rog-made-a-gaming-headset-for-audiophile-nerds-184737937.html?src=rss

Since last spring, OpenAI has offered Codex. What started life as the company's response to Claude Code is becoming something more sophisticated with the release of a new dedicated macOS app. At its most basic form, Codex is a programming agent capable of writing code for users, but now it can also manage multiple AI assistants that can work together to complete more complex tasks.

OpenAI gives an example of how this could work in practice. The company used Codex to create a Mario Kart-like racing game, complete with a selection of different playable cars, eight tracks and a collection of powerups players can use against the competition. For a single AI agent, generating a game from scratch, with all the needed visual assets, would be a tough ask, but Codex was able to complete the task because it could delegate the work of making the game to different models with complementary capabilities. 

For example, it turned to GPT Image for the visual assets, while a separate model simultaneously coded the web game. "It took on the roles of designer, game developer and QA tester to validate its work by actually playing the game," OpenAI says of the process. 

If that sounds complicated, OpenAI has tried to make it more approachable with a section of the app titled Skills. The feature bundles "instructions, resources, and scripts so Codex can reliably connect to tools, run workflows, and complete tasks according to your team's preferences," the company explains. "The Codex app includes a dedicated interface to create and manage skills. You can explicitly ask Codex to use specific skills, or let it automatically use them based on the task at hand."

As you might imagine, Codex can also automate repetitive tasks. A dedicated Automations section of the app allows you to schedule tasks, which the software will complete in the background. "At OpenAI, we've been using Automations to handle the repetitive but important tasks, like daily issue triage, finding and summarizing CI failures, generating daily release briefs, checking for bugs, and more," the company said. 

The release of the Codex macOS app comes as AI startups explore what a group of AI agents working in parallel can accomplish. At the start of the year, Anysphere, the company behind Cursor, found it was possible to build a working web browser from scratch using such an approach, though it did encounter problems along the way. 

For a limited time, OpenAI is making Codex available to ChatGPT Free and Go users so they can see what's possible with this new software. At the same time, the company is doubling rates for Plus and Pro subscribers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-brings-its-codex-coding-app-to-mac-with-new-multi-agent-abilities-included-183103262.html?src=rss

Ukraine's CERT says the bug went from disclosure to active exploitation in days

Russia-linked attackers are already exploiting Microsoft's latest Office zero-day, with Ukraine's national cyber defense team warning that the same bug is being used to target government agencies inside the country and organizations across the EU.…

While it's important to stay informed about what's going on in the world, endlessly scrolling through your social media feeds and absorbing what's likely to be a largely negative influx of information can't be great for your mental wellbeing. Perhaps with an eye on stopping you from doomscrolling, developer Lyra Rebane created Xikipedia, a social media-style feed of Wikipedia entries.

The web app algorithmically displays info from Simple Wikipedia. "It is made as a demonstration of how even a basic non-[machine learning] algorithm with no data from other users can quickly learn what you engage with to suggest you more similar content," the Xikipedia landing page reads. "No data is collected or shared here, the algorithm runs locally and the data disappears once you refresh or close the tab."

You can opt to see entries from certain categories (including custom ones) and you can like "posts," each of which is a summary of the relevant Simple Wikipedia entry. Liking a post makes it more likely for posts from the same category, parent categories and linked articles to appear in your feed, Rebane explained.

You can click or tap on a post to visit the full article. It's important to note that, since Xikipedia pulls text and images from random articles, you'll probably see some NSFW material if you scroll for long enough, so be warned. You'll also likely need to wait a beat for Xikipedia to load its 40MB of data.

As someone who has a bookmark that takes me to a random Wikipedia article whenever I click it, I love the idea of Xikipedia. The Simple English Wikipedia has more than 278,000 articles, so there are hundreds of thousands of posts available to scroll through. However, it doesn't seem to be updated as often as the main version of Wikipedia. The discography section of one musician's page I ended up on was missing their two most recent albums. Still, it's worth treating this like Wikipedia proper: as a starting point for discovering new things (sort of in the tradition of StumbleUpon).

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/a-developer-turned-wikipedia-into-a-social-media-style-feed-174924280.html?src=rss

We called bullshit when Republicans tried to order websites to carry content. We're calling bullshit now when Democrats are trying to do the same.

We spent years explaining to politicians across both parties why the government can't dictate how private platforms moderate content. During the Biden admin, GOP governors seemed most aggressive about trying to tell platforms they couldn't moderate. We wrote many thousands of words words about why Texas's HB20 and Florida's SB7072 were flagrantly unconstitutional. We cheered when courts, up to and including the Supreme Court, agreed.

And now California Governor Gavin Newsom has decided to… do the exact same thing, just from the other direction.

Cool. Cool cool cool.

Here's Newsom, announcing that he's launching a review of TikTok's content moderation practices:

That's Newsom's "press office" announcing:

NEW: Following TikTok's sale to a Trump-aligned business group, our office has received reports — and independently confirmed instances — of suppressed content critical of President Trump.

Gavin Newsom is launching a review of this conduct and is calling on the California Department of Justice to determine whether it violates California law.

We could save a lot of taxpayer dollars by just giving him the answer: no, it does not violate California law. It cannot. Because of the First Amendment.

It's even worse if you dig down one level and see what Newsom is responding to:

That's a rando X account with just a few thousand followers tweeting that "you can't even mention epstein lmao" showing a TikTok warning that her trying to post the word "epstein" "may be in violation of our community guidelines."

Newsom is quote tweeting this saying:

It's time to investigate. I am launching a review into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content.

There's so much wrong here.

Let's start with the obvious: these "reports" are sketchy as hell. Beyond it coming from some rando account, TikTok has already explained that there was a data center power outage that caused "a cascading systems failure" affecting content posting and moderation. This happens! Content moderation systems fail all the time. Also, moderation systems make mistakes. All the time! As we've discussed approximately ten thousand times, even with 99.9% accuracy, you're going to have hundreds of thousands of "mistakes" every single day on a platform the size of TikTok. That's just math.

For the Governor of California to jump from "some rando users reported upload problems during a technical outage" to "we must investigate whether this violates California law" is… not how any of this should work.

But, who even cares about that? There's a bigger issue here: even if every single one of these reports were accurate—even if TikTok were deliberately, systematically moderating content to favor Trump—that would be totally legal under the First Amendment.

Content moderation decisions are editorial decisions. They are protected speech. A private platform can legally decide to promote, demote, or remove whatever content it wants based on whatever criteria it wants, including political viewpoint. It can decide what it doesn't want to host. It can do so for ideological reasons if it wants.

This is the same thing we've been saying for years when Republicans howled about "anti-conservative bias" on social media. And, arguably, Newsom merely investigating TikTok for its editorial choices creates chilling effects that themselves raise First Amendment concerns.

When Texas passed HB20, which tried to prohibit large social media platforms from moderating based on "viewpoint," we pointed out that this was flagrantly unconstitutional because it would compel platforms to host speech against their will. The Supreme Court agreed, with Justice Kagan noting during oral arguments that Texas's law would mean "the government can force you to have certain speech on your platform."

When Florida passed SB7072 with similar provisions, we said the same thing. The Eleventh Circuit agreed, calling it "an unprecedented attempt to compel private platforms to host speech," which violates "the First Amendment's long-held protection for the editorial discretion of private businesses."

So now Newsom wants to do the exact same thing, just from the other direction? He wants California to investigate whether a platform's content moderation choices—choices protected by the First Amendment—somehow "violate California law"?

What California law would that even be? The state has attempted a variety of social media laws, which keep getting thrown out as unconstitutional (just like we warned Newsom).

Is he just making up new theories now about how a state can control the editorial decisions of private platforms based on which political direction those decisions allegedly lean?

How is this different from when Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz threatened to strip Section 230 protections from platforms they accused of "anti-conservative bias"? How is this different from when Ron DeSantis tried to punish Disney for political speech he disagreed with?

The answer is: it's not different. It's the same unconstitutional impulse to use government power to control private editorial decisions, just wearing the other team's jersey. We've detailed time and time again that both Republicans and Democrats are super quick to reach for the censorship button whenever they see online speech they don't like, but it's particularly egregious here because the courts have already ruled on this exact issue.

The Supreme Court already made it quite clear that Newsom can't do what he's doing just a couple years ago in the Moody ruling, directed at the governors of Texas and Florida:

But a State may not interfere with private actors' speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance. States (and their citizens) are of course right to want an expressive realm in which the public has access to a wide range of views. That is, indeed, a fundamental aim of the First Amendment. But the way the First Amendment achieves that goal is by preventing the government from "tilt[ing] public debate in a preferred direction." Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., 564 U. S. 552, 578-579 (2011). It is not by licensing the government to stop private actors from speaking as they wish and preferring some views over others. And that is so even when those actors possess "enviable vehicle[s]" for expression. Hurley, 515 U. S., at 577. In a better world, there would be fewer inequities in speech opportunities; and the government can take many steps to bring that world closer. But it cannot prohibit speech to improve or better balance the speech market.

TikTok could, tomorrow, announce that they're going to remove every single piece of content critical of Trump and promote only pro-Trump material. That would be stupid. It would probably be bad for their business. Users would likely flee to competitors. But it would be legal, because private platforms have the First Amendment right to make their own editorial choices, even bad ones.

Newsom knows this. Or he should. We've been explaining it to politicians of both parties for years: the First Amendment protects against government control of speech, including a platform's editorial decisions about what to host. It doesn't guarantee anyone a right to have their preferred content amplified on someone else's platform.

We called bullshit when Republicans tried this. We're calling bullshit now when Democrats like Newsom are doing the same thing.

The state has no role in dictating editorial practices of any media entity. Period.

Users happy with 19c as experts question AI lock-in

Last week, Oracle announced the general availability of Oracle AI Database 26ai Enterprise Edition for Linux x86‑64, but 13-year support for 19c and the prospect of AI lock-in might make users think twice about upgrading to it.…

Your favorite menu item might be easy to remember but it will not secure your account

Change Your Password Day took place over the weekend, and in case you doubt the need to improve this most basic element of cybersecurity hygiene, even McDonald's - yes, the fast food chain - is urging people to get more creative when it comes to passwords. …

It looks like Grok is still being gross. Elon Musk says his chatbot stopped making sexualized images without a person's consent, but The Verge recently discovered this is not entirely true. It maybe (and I say maybe) stopped undressing women without their consent, but this doesn't seem to apply to men.

A reporter with the organization ran some tests with Grok and found that the bot "readily undresses men and is still churning out intimate images on demand." He confirmed this with images of himself, asking Grok to remove clothing from uploaded photos. It performed this task for free on the Grok app, via the chatbot interface on X and via the standalone website. The website didn't even require an account to digitally alter images.

The company recently said it has taken steps to "prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis." However, the reporter had no problem getting the chatbot to put him in "a variety of bikinis." It also generated images of the subject in fetish gear and in a "parade of provocative sexual positions." It even generated a "naked companion" for the reporter to, uh, interact with.

He suggested that Grok took the initiative to generate genitalia, which was not asked for and was visible through mesh underwear. The reporter said that "Grok rarely resisted" any prompts, though requests were sometimes censored with a blurred-out image.

This controversy started several weeks ago when it was discovered that Grok had generated millions of sexualized images over a period of 11 days. This includes many nonconsensual deepfakes of actual people and over 23,000 sexualized images of children. This led to investigations in both California and Europe. X was actually banned in both Indonesia and Malaysia, though the former has since lifted that ban.

X claimed it has "implemented technological measures" to stop this sort of thing, but these safeguards have proven to be flimsy. In other words, the adjustments do stop some of the more obvious ways to get Grok to create deepfakes, but there are still methods to get around this via creative prompting.

It's also worth noting that journalists asking for a comment on the matter get slapped with an autoreply that reads "legacy media lies." Going with the fake news thing in 2026? Yikes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/grok-which-maybe-stopped-undressing-women-without-their-consent-still-undresses-men-170750752.html?src=rss

It's become cliche to say that we live in a golden age of board games, but to paraphrase the great stoic philosopher Andy Bernard, it's great to know you're in the good old days before you've left them. Great titles are still coming out by the thousands every year, from crowd-pleasing party games to genre-bending, theme-heavy Euros. Whether the gamer in your life is looking for a mind-warping challenge, a fun evening with friends or something in-between, we've got new releases or old favorites they'll love.

Best board games to gift and play

Check out the rest of our gift ideas here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-best-board-games-to-gift-and-play-this-year-125529271.html?src=rss

Israel has sprayed chemicals into Lebanon, according to UN forces in the region. United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a press release:

the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told UNIFIL that they would be carrying out an aerial activity dropping what they said was a non-toxic chemical substance over areas near the Blue Line.

The 'blue line' is a 120km strip which marks the line of withdrawal after Israeli military withdrawal in 2000. UN troops monitor the zone.

Israel attacks Lebanon AGAIN

Despite the claims the chemical were non-toxic, UNIFIL were told:

peacekeepers should stay away and remain under cover, forcing them to cancel over a dozen activities.

UNIFIL complained their peacekeepers could not "perform normal operations" near the Blue Line for over nine hours. Later, UN troops helped the Lebanese military collect "samples to be tested for toxicity".

UNIFIL called the move "unacceptable"  in their press release:

The IDF's deliberate and planned actions not only limited peacekeepers' ability to undertake their mandated activities, but also potentially put their health and that of civilians at risk.

Israel did not disclose what the chemical was or why it as being deployed. UNIFIL said it had

concerns about the effects of this unknown chemical on local agricultural lands, and how this might impact the return of civilians to their homes and livelihoods in the long-term.

Southern Lebanon has remained under Israel attack despite a ceasefire with Israel. Israel killed eight journalists in 22 January, as well as wounding nineteen civilians.

UNIFIL called on the Israeli forces:

to stop all such activities and work with peacekeepers to support the stability we are all working to achieve.

The Republic of Ireland currently has 350 troops deployed as part of the peacekeeping presence. Irish troops were not affected but the country's defence forces condemned:

any violation of airspace or conducting of activities which prevent UNIFIL personnel from carrying out their duties.

The IDF has not commented, but the unexplained use of unknown chemicals in a febrile area is a cause for major concern for UN troops and locals alike.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Journalist Sulaiman Ahmed has exposed a deliberate agenda between Palantir's Peter Thiel and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein to destabilise the Middle East. The latest Epstein File releases included emails referencing Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt, suggesting coordinated attempts to advance Western interests in the region.

This follows widespread reporting on Palantir weeding its way into our NHS, with the help of their privileged ally and Labour peer Peter Mandelson. This latest revelation strengthens wider calls to block Palantir's advances into our state infrastructure through our healthcare system.

BREAKING: Jeffrey Epstein & Palantir's Peter Thiel were discussing a Plan that would destabilize Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt.

"The more of a mess, with just lots of bad guys on different sides, the less we will do." pic.twitter.com/ZCoMjV2CGP

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) February 1, 2026

Epstein Thiel: billionaires pulling the strings of global chaos

The email correspondence released shows Epstein and Thiel state their intention to destabilise the over-policed region. Confirming a long-suspected Western agenda, Epstein is alleged to have said 'the more of a mess, with just lots of bad guys on different sides, the less we will do'. This is no secret, of course, with the West having a long history of interfering in the Middle East. Our own Steve Topple wrote in 2017 about the correlation between the unhappiness of the region's citizens with the levels of western interference:

The World Happiness Report 2017 manages to highlight the never-ending chaos and suffering that comes with failed Western intervention. And the reason is generally because such interference is driven by one thing: money. So while Western nations enjoy the fruits of past colonial plunder and modern neoliberal policies, people in far-off, forgotten lands continue to suffer the consequences of those greed-driven Western exploits.

The latest batch of files on Epstein further demonstrate what is the lived reality for Arabs - understanding so-called 'destabilisation' in the region can only happen through understanding Western interventionism carried out by powerful elites.

Palantir, Epstein and mass murder

Public calls to limit Thiel's influence in the UK are likely to gain weight from journalist Ryan Grim's X post. Grim has shared an audio clip in which Epstein links Israel's former PM Ehud Barak to Palantir. Where Palantir operates, morality does not appear to follow:

As Ehud Barak was leaving official govt service in Israel, he turned to Jeffrey Epstein for guidance. Epstein told him he needed to look at a Peter Thiel company called Palantir. Rare audio of Epstein and Barak from the latest DOJ release: pic.twitter.com/bSSeRrWkVb

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) February 2, 2026

It's curious that just as the US grows more unstable, connections surface between Thiel's guidance and JD Vance's political rise:

And Peter Thiel is the one who made @JDVance a senator and installed him as Trump's Vice President, just FYI. https://t.co/Aj2GS7wPEa

— Andrew—#IAmTheResistance (@AmoneyResists) February 2, 2026

This next clip simply goes to evidence how US leaders are not acting in the interests of their own country, but that of a hostile, aggressive military state. Again, this should further strengthen public calls to keep pro-Israel Thiel out of UK politics.

NY Sen. C. Schumer (not up for re-election till Jan 2029):

"We delivered more security assistance to Israel, our ally, under my leadership than ever, ever before. We will keep doing that… I have many jobs as leader & one is to fight for aid to Israel."pic.twitter.com/ciwtO7aSMQ

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) February 1, 2026

Palantir and the NHS

Palantir and Thiel's influence in politics across the world is difficult to overstate. For example, we have repeatedly written about the defence surveillance corporation moving to seize the data held by the NHS. Wes Streeting has shown no qualms in handing the UK state over to billionaires, continually taking steps to ensure the richest profit from the essential health needs of ordinary citizens.

As wrote recently about the contract between Thiel's Palantir and the UK government:

NHS England awarded the contract in 2023, under the Conservative government. Palantir is also known to have close links to the Labour Party, and it has been reported that Palantir hired Peter Mandelson to lobby the Labour Government to help it win more government contracts. The contract is up for renewal in February 2027.

Palantir is a US company that specialises in artificial intelligence powered military and surveillance technology and data analytics. Billionaire Trump donor Peter Thiel was a co-founder of the company.

Moreover, the evidence above shows Peter Thiel demonstrating an apparent eagerness to sow chaos in the Middle East for his own gain. As a result, his active contracts and partnerships with the Labour government must now be scrutinized to ensure the rights of those in the Middle East are not denigrated so billionaires can make even more money.

No more establishment politicians

Neo-liberalism has seen Western politicians repeatedly abusing power and the richest bending the rules in their favour. As a result, the most important choice for UK voters in the upcoming local elections is to elect leaders who serve ordinary people and rein in billionaire influence.

As Zack Polanski, Green Party leader recently put it in a letter to Palantir's CEO Alex Karp:

I know that companies such as yours hire corporate lobbyists such as Peter Mandelson to assess 'political risk'. I have some advice you can have for free. The political risk is very high for your continuing involvement with the NHS. The Green Party is advancing, and we will use every means at our disposal, including that of our hundreds of thousands of members, to get you out of the NHS.

Like many across the country, we are watching and we are taking receipts. We cannot allow this craven bunch of money-hungry fools lead the world into further ruin.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maddison Wheeldon

The international order meant to limit the effects of war on vulnerable groups is falling apart. 100,000 civilians died in 2024 and 2025 as a result. And the problem isn't going away anytime soon.

The Geneva Academy's new report laid out how international humanitarian law (IHL) was at breaking point around the world. The War Watch: IHL in focus study warned:

The years 2024 and 2025 proved devastating to civilians, with little evidence of willingness among warring parties to limit the barbarity inflicted upon the most vulnerable.

In many cases:

serious violations of international humanitarian law (IHL)were wrought against those whom the law was supposed to protect on a huge scale and with rampant impunity.

And the report said:

Murder, torture, and rape were widespread; civilians and their homes, schools, and hospitals were bombed regularly and sometimes systematically.

The report acknowledges genocide in Gaza and Sudan as being among the most egregious cases today. But many other countries are also affected.

International order breakdown: neither inevitable nor unavoidable

The report describes widespread attacks on hospitals, medical workers, and journalists. There is widespread sexual violence in many conflict areas. Disabled people are particularly vulnerable in warzones, and at the same time warzones create more disabled people - often in mind-boggling numbers. In Ukraine, for example:

at least 50,000 Ukrainians - soldiers and civilians had lost limbs - since the February 2022 invasion. That estimate had doubled by the end of 2025.

Impunity is widespread. The academy said dealing with it should be "treated as a policy priority". However:

Persistent under-resourcing, alongside political measures that constrain or undermine judicial independence, risks weakening the enforcement of IHL and eroding its deterrent effect.

Rhetorical commitments

The report warned that many governments did not match action with rhetoric. This includes arms sales:

International law prohibits States from assisting any actor, State or non-State, in carrying out attacks
against civilians.

The authors warned political considerations often overrode legal obligations:

While the UN Arms Trade Treaty has been ratified by a large number of States, its obligations are too often sidelined in favour of political considerations. This must change. The continued export of arms to Israel, Russia, and others has contributed directly to violations on the ground.

This seems especially relevant given US and Israeli attacks on organisations like the United Nations (UN) and International Criminal Court (ICC). And the Trump administration's recent decision to pull out of dozens of international bodies covering everything from climate change to counter-terrorism.

The authors said:

What is described and summarized in this report is neither inevitable nor unavoidable. It is a choice we make as a species to murder, torture, rape, and abuse our own.

Either the situation is arrested and enforcement and accountability are guaranteed or further damage will be done to IHL:

This report is a record of both what has, and has not, been done in armed conflicts around
the world. It is a grim, grisly snapshot of our inhumanity. No one in a position of authority, though, can say they did not know.

In recent weeks we saw an admission from Canada's PM Mark Carney that the so-called global order was dying. He wasn't wrong, even if he didn't go far enough. Now legal experts are saying the legal system meant to limit war is coming apart too. And, it's happening entirely by the choice of many powerful Western states.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Donald Trump's regime has been tightening the US stranglehold on Cuba. And Pope Leo XIV's take on the events has attracted criticism. Because it shows the kind of establishment propaganda the world is up against.

On X, the first US pope of the Catholic church lamented:

an increase in tensions between Cuba and the United States of America

The "economic terrorism" of the US embargo has now strangled the Caribbean island for over six decades, reportedly costing it $170bn. But the pope seemed to think both-sidesing the issue was appropriate. And reacting to Trump's unprovoked decision to squeeze Cuba even harder, Leo simply called on "all responsible parties" to negotiate.

Fortunately, people were quick to challenge the pope's ridiculous framing of the issue:

Collective punishment by the USA against Cuba isn't "tension" it's a war crime.

— John Smith (son of Harry Leslie Smith) (@Harryslaststand) February 1, 2026

The only thing 'increasing', Puerto Rican professor Rafael Bernabe clarified, is the:

systematic aggression of the US government against Cuba

There are no "increasing tensions" between Cuba and the United States. That implies that Cuba is taking action to increase tensions with the United States. There is nothing of the sort. There's only increased and systematic aggression of the US government against Cuba, which must…

— Rafael Bernabe (@BernabeMVC) February 1, 2026

To be fair, Leo did call for dialogue to "avoid violence" and further suffering of the Cuban people (indirectly clarifying that it's the US posing the threat and that Cuba poses no threat at all to US civilians). But his both-sidesing seems to be an echo of Catholic leaders' longstanding hostility to communism.

Amid the US terror assault in Latin America during the Cold War, for example, many Catholics in the region wanted to stand clearly with ordinary people against ongoing inequality and injustice. But the church hierarchy in Europe attacked and silenced progressive voices while appointing conservative figures in their place.

You can't defeat the empire without defeating its propaganda

The issue here isn't communism, though. It's that the US has long been terrorising civilians whose governments don't submit to its rule. Trump's regime may treat international law with more overt contempt. But it's nonetheless a pattern of behaviour that Western propaganda enables.

To help break this cycle, we need to centre the key context. That means highlighting how the US:

• Is a military superpower with hundreds of international bases.
• Has consistently terrorised countries around the world.
• Is a co-perpetrator of Israel's genocide in Gaza. And it has attacked the international legal system to defend these actions.
• Has undermined international law by imposing an illegal embargo on Cuba since the early 1960s, costing both countries billions. The majority of countries in the world have consistently called for an end to the embargo. The US and Israel have often been the only ones to oppose that call.
• Tightening of sanctions since the first Trump administration has "hurt civilians the most", increasing infant mortality and reducing life expectancy.
• Currently holds Venezuela's president as a prisoner of war. It abducted him in an illegal military invasion that used new high-tech weaponry. And it probably committed war crimes in the process. But the US president boasted about how "incredible" this all was.

It also means emphasising that Cuba:

• Is willing to engage peacefully and lawfully with the US. And it has never attacked the US or its people.
• Has supported countless liberation movements in the past, including in the battle that helped to defeat settler-colonial apartheid in South Africa. But since the end of the Cold War, it has no longer done this.
• Has its issues, but has also made significant advances in healthcare and education since its 1959 revolution. And it has sent hundreds of thousands of doctors on solidarity missions around the world.

Name the real 'malign actor' - US imperialism!

Despite all of the above, the US insists that it's going after Cuba because of its links to "malign actors". These include China and Russia, with which the US itself has sought to improve relations. But some truth always slips through, and the White House has clarified that Cuba's continuing independence is:

threatening the foreign policy of the United States.

The foreign policy of the US, as has long been the case, is to ensure the dominance of US elite interests in the Americas. Trump's stance on Cuba follows this policy, while also appeasing and exciting his anti-communist voters, agitators (like secretary of state Marco Rubio), and racist warmongers in general.

There will be resistance from within Cuba itself. And countries in the region like Mexico may refuse to play along with Trump's power games completely. Resistance to Trump's shamelessly brash version of US imperialism needs to be much stronger, though.

Trump has shown that he will back down when he feels too much pressure from other countries. He's just pushing the world to see how far it will let him go. And the more lazy framing we get from high-profile figures like the pope, the easier Trump's rampage will be.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

Ex-US general David Petraeus is trying to make money out of Israel's genocide. The one-time special forces chief and counter-insurgency 'expert' now works for a private equity firm linked to military and fossil fuel contracts. Wow. What a surprise for us all.

Petraeus is know for many things. Like being a former top US special forces commander. And also head of the CIA. Oh, and leaking state secrets to his biographer. Who he was having an affair with. And getting away with it, barring a fine.

All of this is relentlessly cringe obviously, but somehow the biography in question ultimately ended up being called 'All In: The Education of General David Petraeus'. Which is a bit much for a Monday. Anyway…

David Petraeus and biometric warfare

Drop Site News now reports Petraeus has been out to Israel giving speeches and schmoozing. He

visited the U.S.-military run coordination center established in southern Israel to oversee the so-called ceasefire in Gaza.

Why? Well it is likely connected to his reputation as:

a major proponent of biometric gated communities in counterinsurgency, now works for KKR whose portfolio includes companies that have technology and defense interests in Gaza.

So who are KKR?

Drop Site reported:

Soon after his resignation from the CIA in 2012, Petraeus began work for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), a powerful U.S. private-equity and investment company. Petraeus is currently a partner at KKR, chairman of the KKR Global Institute, and chairman of KKR Middle East, which has offices in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Sounds like he knows all the worst people…

A dubious track record

The general is seen by some as the pioneer of modern counter-insurgency, despite being forced to resign from the CIA. He escalated the war in Iraq, deploying more troops and arming militias. He also expanded the dirty war of night raids and drone strikes in Afghanistan and Yemen.

Former US president Barack Obama then installed him as head of the CIA - until his mortifying downfall. Petraeus has worked around the private equity sector ever since.

But why is he interested in Gaza? Well one of his hobby horses is the role of gated communities in counter-insurgency. In effect, how to control populations. And the US-led transitional authority, named the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), has come up with a deranged plan to keep Gazans in special UAE-funded blocks.

One week prior to Petraeus's visit, the U.S. Army presented the CMCC with plans for a "Gaza First Planned Community" in Rafah, as first reported by Drop Site.

Drop Site said:

The residential compound would house up to 25,000 Palestinians in an area under full Israeli military control and would include biometric entry, identity checks, reeducation programs, and controls over aid and housing.

Sounds deeply fucked up, but understandably appealing to someone like Petraeus.

Wall it off

Petraeus' January 21 speech to the CMCC was reportedly full of praise over the current non-ceasefire in Gaza. But the former general also visited Israel in 2024 for a major military conference. He told the Israeli press then:

The foundational concepts of counterinsurgency are that you clear an area, you hold it, and you hold it in a very significant manner…You wall it off. You create gated communities, as we call it, 12 or 13 of them in Fallujah alone. You use biometric ID cards because you're trying to separate the enemy, the extremists, from the people. That's the fundamental idea.

It's not clear what is in it for Petraeus. But Drop Site said:

The exploration of Gaza's gas would fit into the economic and energy cooperation between Israel and the UAE under the Abraham Accords. In 2025, a formal UAE-Israel energy cooperation memorandum of understanding was signed, outlining gas sector cooperation.

They added:

UAE involvement in Gaza gas would further position it as a regional energy hub linking the Gulf's capital and infrastructure with Eastern Mediterranean resources and European markets.

And here is the thing, UAE's national oil firm has links to KKR:

KKR, together with Blackrock, held a $4 billion investment in the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and has a minority stake in ADNOC Gas Pipeline Assets, which has the technical expertise required for offshore gas exploration and extraction…

Retired military officers often end up making money in lucrative roles in the arms and energy industry. Petraeus is no different. The fact he also gets to riff about population control and counter-insurgency is an added bonus. Like so many of the War on Terror's ghoulish figures, where most of us see genocide, Petraeus sees opportunity.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

The families of residents at William Blake House in Northamptonshire have called for an urgent inquiry into the residential care charity. They've made accusations of mismanagement after it came to light that one of the trustees paid its own company £1m from the charity's funds.

The care facility houses 22 residents with learning disabilities and complex care needs. For this role, William Blake House received £3,464,805 last financial year from 20 government contracts. However, it now faces the threat of closure under a staggering £1.6m debt in unpaid taxes.

Residential care charity told 'trust has been shattered'

A group of 17 residents' families have accused the charity of wasting public funds and putting their relatives' care at risk. In a public statement on the situation, the families explained that:

Our relatives are some of the most vulnerable adults in society and entirely dependent on stable, continuous care. As parents we placed our trust in the charity to protect the welfare of our loved ones.

This trust has been shattered and serious mismanagement and lack of governance revealed. Our children's wellbeing has been placed in jeopardy.

The group also asserted that they weren't made adequately aware of the care facility's mountain of debt.

As such, the Charity Commission confirmed that it has opened an investigation into William Blake House. A spokesperson for the third-sector watchdog said:

We are aware of potential governance concerns at William Blake House Northants and have opened a regulatory compliance case to engage with the charity's trustees about these matters.

Mounting debts

William Blake House failed to pay its 77 staff members' pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) and national insurance to HMRC. Meanwhile, the charity's assets slumped in value between 2022 and 2024, plummeting from £920,000 to just £200,000.

The care facility's own records show that auditors have repeatedly questioned the facility's financial viability. Earlier in January, a judge told trustees that it had until 30 March to square off its taxes with HMRC. Failing this, the charity would be slapped with a winding-up order.

The charity's webpage states that:

We offer accommodation where the residents can live, learn and work with others in healthy social relationships based on mutual care and respect. We are inspired by the ideals of Rudolf Steiner, based on the acceptance of the spiritual uniqueness of each human being, regardless of disability or religious or racial background.

Steiner was a 19th Century Austrian philosopher, scientist and noted occultist. A Guardian article on the unfolding William Blake House scandal noted that:

Over the same period, the charity has paid Van Kruger Consulting, a company solely owned by William Blake House's chair, Bushra Hamid, £800,000 in strategy fees over three years to develop a "Steiner strategy" business selling online Steiner training courses, and a further £240,000 in unspecified consulting fees. It has yet to launch.

The payments were authorised by the William Blake House board. Its current three trustees include a business associate of Hamid, Paula Allen. Hamid is also chair of the Northampton-based arts gallery charity the Shoosmith Centre, where Allen is both a fellow trustee and its £30,000-a-year interim chief executive.

'Tangible progress'

For its part, William Blake House claimed that the need to repay HMRC delayed the launch of the Steiner training courses. It also stated that Steiner Friends - another charity - would repay the £800,000 consultancy fee. Hamid happens to chair Steiner Friends, and it also features Allen as a trustee.

Likewise, William Blake House asserted that it returned to a regular PAYE payment schedule with HMRC in October 2024. In defense of its financial mismanagement, the charity pointed the finger at local authorities failing to raise contract payments in line with inflation, along with the high cost of agency staff.

The trustees stated that they've made "tangible progress" toward selling off the facility's land to a developer in order to pay off the remaining tax debt. The developer, in turn, plans to construct a new residential home and rent it back to William Blake House.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Peter Mandelson has just quit the Labour party over his extreme closeness to and admiration for serial child rapist Jeffrey Epstein. He said he wanted to avoid embarrassing Keir Starmer any further. By resigning he embarrassed Starmer even further by exposing Starmer's refusal to kick him out.

This is Mandelson in 2017, telling an interviewer that he worked every day to bring down Jeremy Corbyn, reposted today by writer Saul Staniforth:

https://www.thecanary.co/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/ETjXZ2KBuhNpf-9e1.mp4

Tax lawyer and investigative journalist Dan Neidle discovered evidence in the latest Epstein file release that he claims is evidence that Mandelson leaked sensitive UK government info to Epstein:

the link: https://t.co/aIfM9QyJBq

— Dan Neidle (@DanNeidle) February 2, 2026

Mandelson machinations

Mandelson failed - or only partially succeeded in his efforts to undermine Corbyn in 2017. Corbyn went on to almost defeat the Tories in that year's general election. But that wasn't the end of the sabotage - and in 2019 Mandelson got his wish, along with catastrophe for our country.

The UK has been massively damaged by a ring of paedophiles and their hangers-on in the Labour right, including the Israel-funded 'Labour Together' faction that finally brought down Corbyn and still runs Starmer's government through Mandelson protégé Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff. McSweeney then pushed Starmer to appoint Mandelson as a his senior adviser.

Their success in undermining Corbyn up to the 2019 general election led to another Tory government, led by Boris Johnson. Johnson's mismanagement of the pandemic led to the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands, many of whom would have survived under a Corbyn response that would have mirrored the successful strategy of New Zealand instead of Johnson's 'pile up the bodies' approach.

Their success in installing Starmer in Downing Street in 2024 has led to incalculable continued misery for Britain's poor and vulnerable, especially our kids. It led directly to Starmer's collaboration in Israel's genocide of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Gaza - and Israel's murder of British aid workers.

There is certainly satisfaction in Mandelson's exposure and disgrace now. But there will not be justice until he, Starmer, and all their faction are behind bars for genocide and treason.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

We've long noted how the 2021 infrastructure bill included $42.5 billion for broadband grants dubbed the Broadband, Equity, Access And Deployment (BEAD) program. The program wasn't without its warts, but it had the potential to be truly transformative for U.S. broadband access.

But Republicans illegally rewrote the program to redirect money away from stuff like affordable, gigabit, community fiber, and into the pockets of billionaire Elon Musk. In exchange for congested, expensive, Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband access the company planned to deploy anyway.

This alone was a pretty big grift. But Trump has also threatened to illegally withhold planed state broadband grants if they dare try to make sure the resulting taxpayer broadband is affordable, or attempt to hold companies accountable for failing to delivered promised service.

When states like Virginia have balked at the idea of prioritizing Elon Musk's satellite service over more reliable fiber, Starlink has cried and pouted like a petulant child. More recently, Starlink has been attempting to attach a rider to its grant agreements with states, saying they can't be held responsible if the broadband Starlink provides is slow, expensive, or not installed properly:

"The concessions sought by SpaceX "would limit Starlink's performance obligations, payment schedules, non-compliance penalties, reporting expectations, and labor and insurance standards," wrote Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the Benton Institute. Garner argued that SpaceX's demands illustrate problems in how the Trump NTIA rewrote program rules to increase reliance on low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite providers."

So basically Musk — who likes to pretend he hates subsidies despite his entire existence being propped up by them — wants untold billions in new subsidies and no serious way for his company to be held accountable should it fail to deliver the promised, substandard product.

Under a functional broadband grant program, states would push fiber as deeply into rural communities as possible, ideally in the form of "open access" fiber networks that generate local competition and challenge regional monopolies by dramatically lowering the cost of market entry. From there, you'd address the rest of the gaps using fixed wireless and 5G.

Only then would you fill in the remaining holes with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband options like Starlink, which are ideally suited only for the most remote areas (and even then, Starlink is generally too expensive for most of the lower-income rural Americans who really need it).

Under an ideal program, you'd also confirm that the companies you're giving taxpayer money to can actually deliver what they're promising. The Trump FCC didn't do that with an earlier program (the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, RDOF), resulting in a whole bunch of companies (including Musk's Starlink) gaming the system to try and get money for projects they didn't deserve or couldn't finish.

Republicans have, in an open act of corruption, thrown this entire logic on its head to curry favor with their favorite white supremacist extremist billionaire. They're prioritizing Elon Musk's substandard satellite network (which will only become more congested as more people use it), then ensuring nobody can meaningful hold Musk accountable when he inevitably fails to deliver reliable, affordable access.

Who is going to hold Musk accountable if he fails to deliver? Trump's bootlicker at the FCC, Brendan Carr? The FTC, where Trump illegally fired all the Dem Commissioners? The NTIA, which is now run by a former Ted Cruz staffer who thinks affordable fiber optic broadband is "woke?" States, who risk losing out on a generational influx of subsidies if they challenge Elon Musk's greed or stand up to telecoms?

Musk's DOGE was always about destroying the regulatory state so he and other billionaires could sell the country for scrap off the back loading dock under the pretense of innovative efficiencies while being slathered with tax cuts and subsides. It's grotesque, historic levels of corruption in a fucking hat.

You might recall, folks like Ezra Klein made a big, extended stink about the fact this original BEAD program was taking a long time to deliver (for some obvious reasons). But since Elon Musk hijacked the program creating a lot of headaches, wasted money, and entirely new delays, I curiously haven't heard the "abundance" folks make a single, solitary peep.

The business and telecom press (and many folks in policy circles) have also already seemingly normalized hijacking a massive subsidy program to the benefit of a white supremacist billionaire. But as somebody that's been studying the challenges of broadband access for a quarter century, I guarantee that we're going to be documenting the damage (and lost potential) of this corruption for decades to come.

Almost three years after starting the bargaining process with Microsoft, quality assurance workers at two Blizzard locations have ratified a union contract. The agreement covers 60 workers at Blizzard Albany and Blizzard Austin.

The agreement includes guaranteed pay increases across the three years of the contract, assurances that workers will be given fair credits and recognition on games that ship, discrimination-free disability accommodations, restrictions on crunch (i.e. mandatory overtime) and "protection to immigrant workers from unfair discipline and loss of seniority while streamlining legal verification." Stronger rules around the use of AI are included in the contract as well.

"At a time when layoffs are hitting our industry hard, today is another big step in building a better future for video game workers at every level," Blizzard Albany quality analyst Brock Davis said in a statement. "For quality assurance testers, this contract provides us wages to live on, increased job security benefits and guardrails around artificial intelligence in the workplace."

As with other unions in Microsoft's game divisions, the Blizzard QA workers organized with the Communications Workers of America. This marks the third union agreement at Microsoft after ZeniMax and Raven Software workers ratified contracts last summer. Several other Blizzard divisions have unionized within the last year, including the cinematics team, Overwatch developers and a unit that works on Diablo.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/blizzards-quality-assurance-workers-finally-have-a-union-contract-162614979.html?src=rss

Cuts out the Azure middleman with multi-year deal for 'tighter alignment'

Snowflake plans to spend as much as $200 million with OpenAI to bring its models and chatbot into the database vendor's sandbox and toolset. Features such as Cortex AI and Snowflake Intelligence will get a boost from the house of Altman.…

Whether you're one of the few people still keeping up with New Year's resolutions or just want an upgraded smartwatch, now is a good time to get an Apple Watch. Currently, the Apple Watch Series 11 is on sale for $299, down from $399. The 25 percent discount brings the 2025 model back down to its record-low price.

We named the Apple Watch Series 11 as our choice for best smartwatch overall. It scored a 90 in our review thanks to its 24 hours-plus of battery life and a thin, light design that's easy to wear. It also offers new health metrics, including Apple's hypertension alerts system and Sleep Score. 

The Apple Watch Series 11 deal is available on the 42mm case with a small/medium band. It also only includes GPS and four colorways: the Jet Black and Space Gray aluminum cases with a Black sport band, the Rose Gold aluminum case with a Light Blush sport band and the Silver aluminum case with a Purple Fog sport band.

Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-apple-watch-series-11-is-back-on-sale-for-299-151616498.html?src=rss

While the main series might be over, Netflix is far from done with Stranger Things. The first spin-off to hit the streaming service will be Stranger Things: Tales From '85. The company had said that the animated show would arrive sometime this year and now, alongside a new trailer, it confirmed a release date of April 23. 

The trailer is a bit of an odd watch given that Stranger Things wrapped up only a month ago. Going from that to this animated style with a whole new voice cast is jarring, but a fun gag at the end of the clip taps into certain misconceptions the audience might have.

Stranger Things: Tales From '85 is set during the winter between seasons 2 and 3 of the original show. After Eleven closes the gate to the Upside Down, some nasties from the other dimension still persist in our heroes' world. The trailer doesn't give too much away on the story front otherwise, but there's a suitably hairy moment involving a circular saw.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/stranger-things-tales-from-85-hits-netflix-on-april-23-150436136.html?src=rss

Microsoft concedes January's out-of-band fix didn't stop some PCs from rebooting instead of sleeping

Microsoft rounded off January by adding more devices to the list of those affected by the hibernation issue it claimed had been fixed by an out-of-band update.…

A newly-released report commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has revealed that over half of its health assessors quit the job within their first year.

The health professionals reported feeling 'despised' for their role, which involves evaluating people for both Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and the health-related element of Universal Credit (UC).

DWP health assessors: 'a cog in the machine'

The DWP carried out its research back in 2022, and included findings from 2021. It found that a full 40% of new recruits don't make it through the training period of three months. By the end of a year, 52% of the health professionals quit working for the department.

Both PIP and Universal Credit disability assessments have to be conducted by a qualified health professional. However, the DWP is held in such low regard that most don't even consider working for it until they have "no other option but to leave the NHS". In fact, one assessor stated that:

We all got in healthcare for altruistic reasons and that maybe isn't the case in this job… you're a cog in the machine doing bureaucratic work.

During a work capability assessment for the health-related element of universal credit, the assessor is meant to determine an applicant's level of capability and how that would affect their working life.

Likewise, for a PIP assessment, the health professional scores an applicant according to their level of impairment with daily tasks. This score determines the level of support the claimant receives.

'Punitive, exhausting and inflexible'

However, the disabled people at the receiving end of these assessments have often described them as inconsistent, hostile and degrading. Financial insecurity charity Turn2us' head of policy, Lucy Bannister, explained:

People recovering from illness or navigating the additional cost of disability should rightly expect to be treated with dignity and respect. But this report shows that's not happening.

The staff carrying out assessments for disability benefits describe the system in the same terms as disabled people: punitive, exhausting and inflexible, focused on tick-boxing rather than care. It's not working properly for anyone.

One DWP contract manager commented on newly recruited health professionals for the study:

The idea that they would want to be on a treadmill of collecting details but not intervening is alien to a significant proportion of the health sector.

A lot of people that apply for roles don't understand this point. They arrive. Have rigorous training and [the] penny drops that this is what role is.

'They suck you into it'

A former nurse, who left the DWP after two years, put it more bluntly for the Independent:

They suck you into it, because when you first go they tell you 'give it six months, because it's a totally new way to how you've been working as a nurse'. […]

Most assessors leave at around six months because they realise they've been had.

She also described remaining in the office from 5am to 10pm "working [herself] to death". This was because the DWP's backlog of cases has become completely unmanageable. And, as the Canary's Rachel Charlton-Dailey explained, the situation has only gotten worse in 2026:

the department has diverted staff from dealing with new claims to tackle the backlog of reviews. This meant the DWP got to brag that they processed the highest number of reviews since the benefit began. 96% more reviews were carried out than in Q3 in 2024. But it was only because they had so many left over to clear.

This has, of course, meant that new claimants suffered, as clearance for new claims fell by 25%. This meant that 40,000 new claimants were left waiting. This is despite the fact that the number of new claims is down by 6% from the same period in 2024. This also means the decision time has risen, from 14 weeks in October 2024 to 16 weeks in October 2025.

Reform and rebellion

Given the massive backlog, Labour came up with the bright idea of 'reforming' PIP assessments back in the summer of 2025. That is to say, they attempted to rush through massive cuts that could have ruined PIP claimants' lives.

The proposed changes would have made it far more difficult to qualify for PIP. This would have resulted in thousands of disabled people losing the support they relied on. The cuts were only narrowly averted when a group of Labour MPs rebelled against the plans.

Instead, DWP minister Stephen Timms took PIP off the table during the debate, beginning a review in its place. However, this meant MPs were able to vote through Universal Credit cuts. And, of course, the review itself is already looking like a complete farce:

Timms has spent a good chunk of the last few months umming and awwing over how he can make it look like the review is co-produced with disabled people. It took until 30 October 2025 for them to appoint disabled co-chairs.

At the same time, they quietly released the terms of reference which, while seemingly aimed at placating disabled people, confirmed that all PIP recipients will be at risk by DWP decisions.

'Struggling to do the job'

The DWP conducted their staff-retention study back in 2022, and only chose to publish it now. However, the writing has been on the wall of a long time, as Charlton-Dailey wrote earlier this month:

It's becoming increasingly clear that the main reason the government is pushing ahead with PIP reform is that they don't have the staff to process the claims they already have. As a recent report found, delays to PIP are endangering people's lives. The same report revealed that the DWP planned to make the application process more online-focused and to give every claimant a case worker. But this only works if the DWP can actually find the staff.

With the DWP struggling to do the job it's already supposed to do, it's difficult to see how it could possibly manage reforms. But they'll almost certainly find a way to blame that on disabled people, too.

PIP and UC assessments are designed to minimise a claimants' disability, such that the government has to award as little support as possible. We see this at every level of the DWP machine, from the shocking treatment of disabled people during assessments, to governments desperately trying to move goalposts and slash payouts.

It's unsurprising, really, that healthcare professionals leaving NHS jobs are finding the DWP intolerable. They've left respected roles providing treatment for illness, only to enter a role where they're tasked with removing that self-same support. Any individual with a shred of empathy would feel the same.

Featured image via the Canary

By Alex/Rose Cocker

Police have bailed 74 year-old human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell "under investigation" to attend Charing Cross police station at 1pm on 1 March. His bail condition bans him from attending any Palestine protest. He said:

Met Police seem to be acting under pressure from a foreign regime, the Israeli government, and from Netanyahu supporters in the UK. They want to restrict criticism of Israel's genocide and suppress support for the right of Palestinians to resist occupation.

Tatchell's placard

Police arrested the veteran campaigner in Aldwych, at the national Palestine solidarity march in London on 31 January. The arrest was for carrying a placard that read:

Globalise the intifada: Non-violent resistance. End Israel's occupation of Gaza & West Bank.

On his arrest, police handcuffed him and took him by van out of London, to Sutton police station in Surrey. This was despite cells being available at Brixton. Tatchell commented:

From my arrest at 1.26pm to my release at 1.40am the next day, I was in police custody a total of 12 hours without charge, including ten hours in the cells for what is a minor alleged public order offence. It was an unjustified and excessively prolonged detention.

Police claim the placard was a 'racially aggravated' offence under Section 5 of the Public Order Act which criminalises the display of:

signs that are threatening or abusive, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm, or distress.

'The word intifada is not a crime'

Tatchell said:

The police allegation is nonsense. My placard was not threatening or abusive and did not mention anyone's race.

The police are fabricating the law. They claim the word intifada is unlawful. The word intifada is not a crime in UK law. The police are suppressing free speech without legal justification.

Even if people disagree with the words on my placard, in a free and democratic society they should not be criminalised.

This is just the latest example of officers restricting and criminalising peaceful protests.

The Arab word intifada means uprising, rebellion or resistance against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It does not mean violence and is not antisemitic. It is against the Israeli regime and its war crimes, not against Jewish people.

By 'non-violent resistance' I was advocating boycott, sanction and divestment - the same tactics that helped bring down the apartheid regime in South Africa.

'Globalise the intifada' means create a worldwide campaign like the anti-apartheid movement.

The police are totally wrong to conflate support for Palestinian resistance to oppression with hatred and attacks on Jews.

Palestinians have a right to resist Israeli settlers who are terrorising their villages on the West Bank, beating them and burning their homes, cars, livestock and crops.

Over 400 Gazans have been killed by Israel since the current ceasefire began last October.

At a London rally in December 2025, three people were charged with this new 'crime' of expressing support for an intifada against Israel's war crimes and mass killing of civilians, including 20,000 Palestinian children.

I have a long history of defending Jewish people against the antisemitism of the far right and Islamist extremism. I joined the March Against Antisemitism, with the Chief Rabbi and thousands of Jewish people, on 26 November 2023, just after the 7 October massacre.

This is my 104th arrest or detention by the police in my 59 years of human rights campaigning.

I am currently taking legal action against the Metropolitan Police over my arrest on the Palestine solidarity march on 17 May 2025. I was arrested for a 'racially and religiously aggravated offence' - namely displaying a placard that condemned Israel's 'genocide' and Hamas's execution of Palestinian critics. It read:

'STOP Israel genocide! STOP Hamas executions! Odai Al-Rubai, aged 22, executed by Hamas! RIP!'

This placard did not mention anyone's race or religion. The police have since admitted that I was wrongly arrested and I am awaiting a settlement.

Featured image via Jacky Summerfield

By The Canary

Drop in customers' cloud conversion rate causes share price to plunge 22% - steepest decline since 2020

SAP is refusing to change tack on renewal discounts despite lower-than-expected cloud forecasts prompting its biggest share price slide in five years.…

We've finally made it to February, but, with the ongoing long nights, you might want a pick-me-up to get you through the rest of winter. Take the Apple iPad mini with the A17 Pro chip, which is on sale for $400, down from $500. Its small size is perfect for cozying up on the couch or to use on your daily commute. 

Apple released this iPad mini in late 2024 and it was a solid update. We gave it an 83 in our review thanks to the power of its A17 Pro chip and that it comes with a minimum of 128GB of storage. The model currently on sale comes with 128GB, Wi-Fi and all four color options: Blue, Purple, Space Gray and Starlight. 

We named the Apple iPad mini our favorite compact iPad — though, to be fair, its only competitor is itself. Still, it's a good iPad with an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display, Apple Intelligence and 12MP Wide back and 12MP Ultra Wide cameras. For 20 percent off, it's a great option for a light, useful way to entertain yourself through the rest of winter and beyond. 

Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-latest-ipad-mini-is-100-off-right-now-140900983.html?src=rss

Pop star Billie Eilish has spoken out at the Grammys against Donald Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit. The militia have been running wild across Minnesota. They've been terrorising families, stealing children such as Liam Ramos, and killing Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in cold blood.

At the Grammys Eilish said:

Billie Eilish says "f*ck ice" during her #Grammys acceptance speech: "Nobody is illegal on stolen land. We need to keep fighting and speaking up. Our voices do matter." pic.twitter.com/Sz1um3afYJ

— Variety (@Variety) February 2, 2026

'No one is illegal on stolen land'

As we've previously reported, the government is rushing through poorly-vetted recruits to get as many ICE agents on the street as possible. Some of these recruits are sexually harassing one another; others are off their heads on drugs. And as one insider said:

This isn't the department of baking cookies. This is the Department of Homeland Security, where you can be deported from the country.

And we're now employing people who are not equipped to tie their own shoelaces.

This whole thing is a complete disaster from beginning to end.

Speaking at the Grammys, Eilish said in the video above:

No one is illegal on stolen land.

And yeah, it's just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now. And I just, I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting and our voices really do matter and the people matter.

And fuck ICE.

Eilish isn't the only pop start to have spoken out against ICE and the Trump regime. As we reported, this is what Sabrina Carpenter said in response to ICE using one of her songs in a promotional video:

this video is evil and disgusting. Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.

— Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) December 2, 2025

'Fuck ICE'

Elilish and Carpenter join the likes of celebrities such as Kehlani and Bad Bunny who both spoke out against ICE during the Grammys:

Bad Bunny condemns ICE during his #GRAMMYs speech for Best Música Urbana Album:

"Before I say thanks to god, I'm going to say, ICE out. We're not savages, we're not animals, we are humans and we are Americans." pic.twitter.com/lS9cZV5t5x

— Pop Base (@PopBase) February 2, 2026

This high-profile protest has helped to shine a global spotlight on the actions of ICE, but the question remains: will this 'ICE out' movement in the music industry be enough to force change to federal policy?

Featured image via Chad Davies (Wikimedia)

By Antifabot

Fascist Steve Bannon appears hundreds of times in the US Justice Department's latest release of Epstein files and thousands overall so far. The exposed conversations show the extent of Bannon's plotting with the serial child-rapist - long after Epstein was convicted - to expand fascism in Europe and other western areas.

They also show Bannon appearing to suggest in 2019 that UK fascist Tommy Robinson is readily available if enough cash is offered. The conversation started with a reference to 'Robinson's conviction on contempt of court charges for harassing defendants in, ironically, a 'grooming gang' case:

Bannon is a long-time supporter of far-right thug 'Robinson', though Epstein seemed less impressed. The Canary's Willem Moore wrote yesterday that Robinson is "weirdly silent" on the latest Epstein child sex scandals, given how he loves to shout about alleged grooming by brown people.

In January 2025, Robinson quickly deleted a post that appeared to show he had been searching for underage gay sex. In his attempt to rubbish his detractors, he then appeared to admit it.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Channel 4 News have reported on a second woman who has come forward with further allegations against Andrew Windsor, following the latest US release of the Epstein Files.

The disgraced royal has faced pressure from across UK and US society to take accountability for his long-term, close relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Channel 4 News also went on to discuss the incredibly murky ties between political advisor and Labour peer Peter Mandelson, who has since resigned from the Labour Party to save 'embarrassment'. Bit late for that, but all right then.

Epstein: Second woman comes forward with allegations about Andrewhttps://t.co/gZeN5CD9Gm

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) February 1, 2026

Andrew caught 'with his trousers off'

The Channel 4 News piece on the murky connections between prominent public figures and Epstein went as follows:

The concerning image of the man formerly known as Prince Andrew has prompted a government response, urging Andrew Mountbatten Windsor to explain himself as a second woman comes forward… A second woman is alleging Epstein sent her to have sex with the then Prince Andrew when in her twenties. Those mentioned in the release may not be found guilty of wrongdoing, but those who condemned Epstein out loud but called him a friend in private are now locked into a waiting game of public shame.

Our own Willem Moore wrote yesterday about the UK PM's reluctance to ask Andrew Windsor to apologise. The weak PM instead appears to suggest the spoilt former prince should lend his wisdom and knowledge to aide US investigations but should stop short of admitting guilt. Entrenched Western power structures continue to protect abusers, showing a deep resistance to accountability for the wealthiest in society. Moore wrote:

It's important to understand that the Epstein Files contain claims which may have no merit when investigated. At the same time, you also need to realise that:

We may never know which claims have merit and which don't, because the authorities have failed to investigate the many crimes linked to Epstein.

There is more than enough known about Windsor's activities to say he's a degenerate and a liar.

Web of abuse among elite and alleged cover-ups

The renewed attention generated by the latest release of the Epstein files has intensified critiques of entrenched power structures. This has also prompted fresh arguments for the dismantling of institutions such as the British monarchy:

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor invited Jeffrey Epstein to Buckingham Palace and promised him a lot of privacy. pic.twitter.com/1xrskvgffA

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) January 30, 2026

They knew Andrew Windsor was a beast and were fully aware of what was happening on that island.

They closed ranks and provided cover for some of the most depraved child abusers on the planet. #EpsteinFiles #AbolishTheMonarchy pic.twitter.com/wHp1VtSmv1

— Paul (@LeftySeparatist) February 1, 2026

Elite desperately closing ranks

The continued release of documents has heightened public concerns about elite-linked sexual abuse. This has only reinforced the view that the wealthy and powerful face far less scrutiny than their working class 'inferiors'. This blatant and offensive imbalance of accountability and responsibility follows a long line of scandals where those with power are rarely punished, implying that wealth offers protection from punishment.

As the UK's criminal justice system tightens its grip on ordinary people, anger is likely to grow over the preferential treatment of the wealthiest against the interests of everyone else.

Featured image via the Canary

By Maddison Wheeldon

As we reported, Zack Polanski has been trying to get Nigel Farage to debate him for weeks. Now, Farage has responded by…

…quietly sending his lapdog to do it for him:

The Workers Party of Britain have dramatically pulled out of the Gorton and Denton by-election. In a post on social media, they announced:

This decision is taken in the best interests of the working-class. Labour and Reform must lose.

And, this looks like fantastic news for the Greens:

The Greens have now gone odds on to win the upcoming by-election in Gorton & Denton.

Here's how we bet:

Greens - 10/11
Reform UK - 13/8
Labour - 4/1
Lib Dems - 200/1
Conservatives - 200/1https://t.co/nakHgF38Xb https://t.co/TzESpNG9ZR

— Ladbrokes Politics (@LadPolitics) February 1, 2026

Greens given an even bigger chance for change

The Workers Party was first established in December 2019 by George Galloway, and the party is known for having leanings which are both socialist and socially conservative. During the last election, they secured 10% of the vote in Gorton & Denton.

Galloway's party has now stepped down, saying the decision is in the best interests of the working-class, and that both Labour and Reform must lose. The party has claimed Labour are the enemy of the British people, stating people have become poorer whilst they've been in office.

This comes at a vital time for the Greens, whose very public fight with Reform makes this a crucial test for both parties. The Workers Party dropping out of the race means there's potentially 10% of the vote up for grabs. And with Reform projected to get 30% of the vote, this couldn't come at a better time:

This is genuinely massive.

The Workers Party won nearly as many votes as the Greens in Gorton & Denton at the last election.

The Greens still have to fight for those votes, but this greatly increases their odds - and ability to claim they're best placed to stop Reform. https://t.co/TAppKuccIu

— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) February 1, 2026

Many have praised the Workers Party for pulling out:

Well done to the Workers Party for taking this principled decision.

Now is the time to focus on defeating Labour and Reform, and we do that by uniting behind the Greens https://t.co/wxgSlf5CFK

— The Muslim Vote (@themuslimvoteuk) February 1, 2026

No Workers Party candidate will stand in the Gorton and Denton by-election.

A major advantage for the Green Party. Very surprised!

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) February 1, 2026

Heating up

This must have been a difficult decision for the Workers Party, with the Greens recognising the party stepping down:

Only Greens can beat Reform in this Gorton and Denton by-election. pic.twitter.com/MFYho5vxpw

— The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) February 1, 2026

With the race heating up, this step taken by the Workers Party avoids splitting the left vote and gives the Greens a better chance of getting the votes needed to win. The question is, will that 10% of voters choose to side with the socialist Green party or the socially conservative Reform?

Time will tell.

Featured image via Parliament / Parliament / Barold

By Antifabot

US president Donald Trump is spending incredible sums of taxpayers money deploying the military to US cities. National Guardsmen have been deployed around the US in Trump's first year back in office.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the operations:

cost taxpayers approximately $496 million from June through December last year [2025].

The CBO added:

that if last year's deployments were to continue through this year, it could cost taxpayers $93 million per month — which would amount to more than $1.1 billion in 2026.

In essence, US taxpayers are forking out to have their streets turned into militarised zones. The deployments have usually been in support of groups like Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE). ICE are increasingly seen as Trump's poorly-trained, trigger-happy personal fascist militia.

US senator Jeff Merkley told CNN:

The American people deserve to know how many hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars have been and are being wasted on Trump's reckless and haphazard deployment of National Guard troops to Portland and cities across the country.

Adding:

Trump is weaponizing taxpayer funds to illegally tighten his authoritarian grip on our communities. It must end.

Trump and outrageous budgets for fascism

ICE, who have murdered at least two people in January in Minneapolis, now has a budget higher than some countries. The paramilitary group's budget for 2026 stands at $22mn dollars. Some estimates put that figure higher than the military budgets for countries like Canada, Australia, and Italy.

Hanna Homestead of the US-based National Priorities Project told the Intercept:

The CBO numbers confirm what invaded and over-policed communities have always known — the U.S. government is invested in control and domination, not caring for people.

Adding:

They are spending billions to militarize our streets while cutting food aid, healthcare, social services, and labor and environmental protections - at a time of unparalleled wealth inequality.

The street execution of nurse Alex Pretti is the most high-profile killing yet. Feds shot Pretti to death on 24 January 2025. The officer had already subdued him.

Two of the officers involved in the killing have now been named. Investigative journalism website ProPublica reported:

The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

The killing animated another round of massive street protests in Minneapolis. The northern US city has become a key battleground between communities and Trump's so-called war on immigration. With an even bigger ICE budget set for next year, it's hard to see how anyone will be able to stop this runaway train any time soon.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Keir Starmer's pick - after blocking Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham - to contest the Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester is a corporate lobbyist who supports NHS privatisation.

Angeliki Stogia wants to bring back 'PFI', the so-called 'private finance initiative' used by the Labour right to turn NHS hospitals into cash-cows for private investors. Her record is captured in an excellent and damning Bluesky thread by @labourrightwatch:

Instead of Burnham, Labour have anointed Angeliki Stogia for #GortonAndDenton.Yet again, they try to force a corporate stooge (a lobbyist) into office instead of someone who stands for the rights + wellbeing of citizens.She was IDed as a lobbyist in 2024archive.ph/r1nnA

— Exposing the Labour Right

The two 'immigration' thugs who murdered peaceful protester Alex Pretti in Minneapolis have been named as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa, 43, and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez, 35. Both are said to be from Texas. Investigative journalists at ProPublica wrote:

Pretti's killing, and the subsequent secrecy surrounding the agents involved, comes as the country confronts the consequences of President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown. The sweeps in cities across the country have been marked by scenes of violence, against immigrants and U.S. citizens, by agents allowed to hide their identities with masks — an almost unheard of practice in law enforcement. As a result, the public has been kept from one of the chief ways it has to hold officers involved in such altercations accountable: their identity.

Alex Pretti killers exposed

Records seen by ProPublica indicate the pair are the two who shot Pretti ten times as he tried to protect a female protester who had been attacked by one of them.

As with the identity of Jonathan Ross, the murderer of Minneapolis woman Renee Good, the identities reportedly leaked because of incompetence by agency head Kristi Noem.

The agency has so far refused to disclose the names officially and refused to comment on the leaked names, instead referring questions to the FBI - which also refused to comment. Spokespeople for city authorities and state governor Tim Walz said they have not been given the identities.

Featured image via the Canary

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"Terrorist" is the word that the Trump administration employs to describe the victims of its most egregious acts of state violence.

President Donald Trump has used the word "terrorist" to justify the extrajudicial killings of civilians in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. And his deputies used it to explain away the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis by federal agents.

"Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narco terrorists," Trump wrote following the initial boat strike on September 2, 2025. He said the attack "occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters."

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that Good and Pretti were guilty of "domestic terrorism." And top White House adviser Stephen Miller used similar language to describe both.

These killings were conducted thousands of miles apart by different agencies in very different contexts. But the connection between them could be more than semantic.

Under National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, or NSPM-7, Trump's Justice Department is now assembling a secret "domestic terrorist organization" database. It also maintains a secret list of "designated terrorist organizations" with whom the U.S. claims to be at war.

For months, the White House and Justice Department have failed to answer a question that becomes more relevant with every person branded a domestic terrorist, shot by federal agents, or both: Are Americans who the federal government deems to be domestic terrorists under NSPM-7 subject to extrajudicial killings like those it claims are members of designated terrorist organizations on boats at sea?

"If we're going to say it's OK to kill so-called terrorists in the Caribbean, for actions that have traditionally been dealt with as a criminal matter, using due process — what's to say you can't do the same in an American city?" asked Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government. "That is the very scary but logical end of all these things the Trump administration is doing."

Trump's de facto declaration of war on dissent, NSPM-7, conflates constitutionally protected speech and political activism with "domestic terrorism" — a term that has no basis in U.S. law. That memorandum, which was issued in September, and an implementation memo released in December by Attorney General Pam Bondi, specifically targets those that espouse what the administration defines as anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, anti-fascism, and radical gender ideologies, as well as those with "hostility toward those who hold traditional American views." At a minimum, the memorandum raises serious First Amendment, due process, and civil liberties concerns.

Related Trump's War on America

Bondi's December memo, "Implementing National Security Presidential Memorandum-7: Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence," which the Justice Department shared with The Intercept, defines "domestic terrorism" in the broadest possible terms, including "doxing" and "conspiracies to impede … law enforcement."

Federal immigration agents consider observing, following, and filming their operations a crime under 18 U.S.C. § 111: assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer. This is also the foremost statute in a directory of prioritized crimes listed in NSPM-7.

Federal officers frequently confront and threaten those observing, following, and filming them for "impeding" their efforts. In numerous instances, they have unholstered or pointed weapons at the people who filmed or followed them.

A recent report by the CATO Institute notes that it is "crucial to understand that ICE and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) consider people who follow DHS and ICE agents to observe, record, or protest their operations as engaging in 'impeding.'" It goes on to note that DHS "has a systematic policy of threatening people who follow ICE or DHS agents to record their activities with detentions, arrests, and violence, and agents have already chased, detained, arrested, charged, struck, and shot at people who follow them."

Before their killings, both Pretti and Good had been observing agents' activities. In the wake of Good's death, the Justice Department opened an investigation of Good's widow for allegedly "interfering" with an ICE operation — apparently for filming the shooting.

NSPM-7 alleges vast "organized structures, networks, entities, organizations, [and] funding sources" support leftist "criminal and terroristic conspiracies." It adds, "These campaigns are coordinated and perpetrated by actors who have developed a comprehensive strategy to achieve specific policy goals through radicalization and violent intimidation."

The Trump administration has framed the Minneapolis protests and a larger movement in Minnesota and beyond in the same terms as NSPM-7, painting it as a "Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate" coordinated by a vast network of "highly paid professional agitators and anarchists," as well as "insurrectionists" supported by corrupt Democratic lawmakers and officials or "sanctuary politicians" who are inciting violence against federal officers.

Trump endorsed Vice President JD Vance's baseless claim that Good was part of a "broader left-wing network" that sometimes uses "domestic terror techniques" to "attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job." Miller suggested Pretti was one of an unknown number of militants operating in Minneapolis. "A would-be assassin tried to murder federal law enforcement and the official Democrat account sides with the terrorists," he wrote on X on Saturday, referring to comments by a Democratic party account calling for ICE to withdraw from Minneapolis.

Trump initially described Pretti as a "gunman," although the ICU nurse never drew his licensed handgun before being executed at point blank range by federal agents. After briefly softening his tone on Pretti, Trump called him an "Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist" in a Friday Truth Social post.

Related Trump's Cult of Power Cancels Free Speech

Miller bills NSPM-7 as the first "all-of-government effort to dismantle left-wing terrorism," which he calls a sophisticated, well-funded network supported by an "entire system of feeder organizations that provide money, resources, weapons." Bondi's implementation memo also offers a fictitious apocalyptic vision of urban America which the Trump administration has employed to justify its domestic military occupations, including "mass rioting and destruction in our cities" and "violent efforts to shut down immigration enforcement."

"Every accusation is a confession with this administration."

"This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically," Scanlon told The Intercept, quoting from a section of NSPM-7 that details a supposed coordinated effort by antifascists and other administration enemies. But Scanlon framed it in terms of the Trump administration's own authoritarian campaign. "The paragraph describing how political violence takes root and becomes more widespread basically describes the Trump era. Every accusation is a confession with this administration. You talk about targeted intimidation and radicalization and threats and violence designed to silence opposing speech — it's all there, and we're seeing it unfold."

Federal immigration officers have shot at least 13 people since September, killing at least five, including Pretti and Good, according to data compiled by The Trace.

"What the Trump Administration is doing in Minnesota is a testing ground for a paramilitary police state across the country," said Rep. April McClain Delaney, D-Md., on January 25. "Masked DHS agents are now operating in Minnesota neighborhoods with impunity — terrorizing families and neighborhoods, slandering the victims with lies, silencing dissent, seizing and detaining protesters, eroding basic civil liberties and killing American citizens."

Donald Trump holds an executive order he signed in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 30, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP

At the same time shootings by immigration agents have ramped up at home, the Trump administration has been killing civilians in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. military has carried out 36 known attacks, destroying 37 boats, since September, killing at least 126 civilians. The most recent attack occurred in the Pacific Ocean on January 23, killing three people. The administration insists the attacks are permitted because the U.S. is engaged in "non-international armed conflict" with "designated terrorist organizations" it refuses to name. Experts, current and former government officials, and lawmakers say these killings are outright murders.

"This administration has asserted the prerogative to kill people outside the law, solely on the basis of the president labeling them terrorists. And there are no obvious limits to this license to kill," said Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who is a specialist in counterterrorism issues and the laws of war. "The president has wielded that authority in the Caribbean and the Pacific and could wield it domestically. Indeed, the fact that they invoked domestic terrorism to justify the killings of Rene Good and Alex Pretti suggests they already might have."

Related White House Refuses to Rule Out Summary Executions of People on Its Secret Domestic Terrorist List

Since October, The Intercept has been asking if the White House would rule out conducting summary executions of members of the list "of any such groups or entities" designated as "domestic terrorist organization[s]" under NSPM-7, without a response. Return receipts also show that Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre has repeatedly read The Intercept's questions on this subject over months but has failed to offer an answer.

Faiza Patel, the senior director of the Brennan Center for Justice's liberty and national security program, told The Intercept that while it wasn't possible to directly link NSPM-7 to the killings of Good and Pretti, the memorandum's rhetoric about what constitutes domestic terrorism "is reflected in senior officials' statements and it seems that DHS agents on the ground view any opposition to their actions as warranting extreme and even lethal force."

Federal agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations assigned to Minneapolis received a memo earlier in January asking them to collect identifying information on "agitators, protestors, etc.," CNN reported Tuesday. Last week, a masked immigration agent warned a woman filming their activities in Portland, Maine, that her information would be entered into a "nice little database" that would label her a "domestic terrorist." Tom Homan, Trump's border czar and Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino's replacement, also mentioned the database the same month on Fox News. "We're going to create a database," he said, noting that it would include those "arrested for interference, impeding and assault." Journalist Ken Klippenstein recently reported on more than a dozen "secret and obscure watchlists" being used to track protesters and supposed "domestic terrorists."

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin says her department does not administer the secret database. "There is NO database of 'domestic terrorists' run by DHS," she told The Intercept by email. "We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement." DHS's Office of Intelligence and Analysis does admit that it "nominated over 4,600 people to the terrorist watchlist" in the last year and says ICE arrested more than 1,400 "known or suspected terrorists."

Related How Many Members Does Antifa Have? Where Is Its Headquarters? The FBI Has No Answers.

NSPM-7 directs Bondi to compile a list "of any such groups or entities" to be designated as "domestic terrorist organization[s]," and Bondi has ordered the FBI to "compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism," according to the December 4 memo. Last fall, FBI Director Kash Patel told senators that there were "1,700 domestic terrorism investigations" and that it represented "a 300% increase in cases opened this year alone versus the same time last year." 

When asked if Good or Pretti were on any domestic terrorism list, watchlist, or under surveillance by federal authorities, a bureau spokesperson said: "The FBI has no comment."

Neither NSPM-7 nor the December 4 memo mentions summary executions, and both speak explicitly in terms of "prosecution" and "arrest" of members of domestic terrorist organizations. Attacks on members of designated terrorist organizations are justified by another document: a classified opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel with a secret list of cartels and gangs attached to it.

The Justice Department memo notes that under Section 3 of NSPM-7, "the FBI, in coordination with its partners on the [Joint Terrorism Task Forces], and consistent with applicable law, shall compile a list of groups or entities engaged in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism" and "provide that list to the Deputy Attorney General."

The FBI's national press office directed The Intercept to contact the Department of Justice concerning questions about the NSPM-7 list. Baldassarre also failed to respond to those queries.

"To the extent that the White House somehow has a secret enemies list and people don't know who's on it — that goes beyond McCarthyism," Scanlon told The Intercept. "It's absolutely horrific."

"To the extent that the White House somehow has a secret enemies list and people don't know who's on it — that goes beyond McCarthyism."

Recent reported statements by Trump suggest that the president may see little difference between those the administration brands foreign and domestic terrorists nor in efforts to combat them. Last month, the U.S. attacked Venezuela and abducted its president, Nicolás Maduro, killing scores of people, including civilians. Maduro — whom Trump branded a terrorist — was brought to the U.S. and charged with numerous offenses, foremost among them, according to the State Department, "narco-terrorism."

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said last week that Trump compared his federal immigration crackdown in his state to the attack in Venezuela that ousted Maduro. "He told me how well that went," Walz told MS NOW. "Which really was strange to me was he saw an operation in Venezuela against a foreign nation in the same context he saw an operation against a U.S. state and a U.S. city."

The White House did not return a request for comment.

The post Trump Calls His Enemies Terrorists. Does That Mean He Can Just Kill Them? appeared first on The Intercept.

A panic pervades the internet: terrified talk of troops in American cities, federal shock troops brutalizing citizens and neighbors, the targeting of gun owners, mass surveillance, the deployment of militarized artificial intelligence, and the suspension of the Constitution. The year is 2015, and the far right is incensed.

This was a period of intense American paranoia and anger, largely spurred by the right-wing meltdown over the consecutive victories of President Barack Obama. It was also a time of post-Snowden horror, as a nation realized it lived inside an unfathomably immense government surveillance dragnet endorsed and expanded by both political parties. It was in this moment that, for a certain segment of conservatives, Jade Helm 15 became an American crisis.

A decade later, this imaginary emergency reveals much about the hucksters who pushed it and the tolerance of many Americans for state oppression — so long as they are not the intended targets. The cauldron of race hatred, federal violence, and surveillance brewed by the paranoiacs who pounced on Jade Helm has spilled over today not in the form of right-wing phobia, but right-wing policy.

In July 2015, Alex Jones, at that point still little more than a punchline, issued a dire warning on his website InfoWars: "This is an emergency broadcast," Jones began, warning of an impending campaign to "militarize police and to put standing armies on the streets to suppress the population and to carry out political operations."

Jones was referring to publicly released Pentagon planning documents detailing Jade Helm 15, a military training exercise throughout sparsely populated swaths of the American South, from Florida to Texas. As is often the case when the dishonest have primary documents and a vast megaphone, Jones misstated nearly every detail of the materials. A map from what was essentially a large-scale military roleplaying game labeling Texas as "hostile," colored in red, was irrefutable evidence to Jones that the Obama administration was preparing to let loose the national security state on the conservative heartland.

"We're not becoming a police state. We're already here."

All of this was simple pretext, he claimed. The White House was leveraging the national security state to build the infrastructure for the federal paramilitary occupation of the country to choke out political dissent by force. Unwanted portions of the populations would be herded into Department of Homeland Security-administered camps, warned Jones and other stalwarts of right-wing paranoia. "We're not becoming a police state," he told viewers. "We're already here."

Though there was never any factual reason to suspect Jade Helm disguised a federal takeover, the broader paranoia was anchored in some fact. Jones claimed that the training exercise was connected to the broader militarization of American police agencies, a real trend he misconstrued as a leftist scheme against his audience. "You have massive military gear being cached — armored vehicles, machine guns, helicopters, night vision, Humvees — with the police departments around the country," Jones explained. "It's about suppressing the patriot population."

Jones was not alone. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott quickly endorsed InfoWars' ravings, deploying the state guard to "monitor" Jade Helm so that "Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed," as he put it in an April 2015 letter ordering their mobilization. Former Texas congressman Louie Gohmert suggested the White House was hoping to provoke an armed confrontation between the military and the administration's critics. "It is no surprise that those who have experienced or noticed such persecution are legitimately suspicious," he said. "I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty," agreed Sen. Ted Cruz.

Some Americans heeded the warning. The New York Times interviewed a Texas doctor stockpiling ammunition. Locals organized Jade Helm volunteer groups that monitored and recorded military movement. The Oath Keepers, a prominent American anti-government militia, described Jade Helm on its website as a "Portentous government plan, a pre-fabricated and pre-constructed umbrella under which a black op by the Deep State's compartmentalized agencies could possibly 'Go Live' in a fantastic sort of Shock and Awe False Flag psycho-coup to jar the public mind of America through fear into acceptance of some nefarious policy the government desired, such as the establishment of Martial Law and the complete loss of individual liberty and our Constitution."

Related The Sinister Reason Trump Is Itching to Invoke the Insurrection Act

These days, Jade Helm isn't talked about much because nothing happened. But in the decade since, there has been a near-total inversion of the panic that Jade Helm sparked. Largely unconcerned and frequently unconstrained by law, Trump has found in his Department of Homeland Security what Jones warned was coming a decade ago: a paramilitary force to terrorize political opponents and demographic undesirables. Eleven years past schedule, Trump and a docile American right wing have finally delivered the Jade Helm presidency.

Federal agents ride in an armored vehicle during operations on Jan. 16, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. Photo: Adam Gray/AP

Armored personnel carriers today carry masked, heavily armed, pointlessly camouflaged federal commandos through American cities that voted against the president, backed by a sophisticated national surveillance apparatus. Trump and his lieutenants, beneficiaries of an American right-wing reshaped by the likes of Jones and his audience, make real and explicit the quiet fantasizing attributed to Obama's during Jade Helm, speaking openly of American communities as hives of the enemy. In September, Trump announced impending deportation operations in Chicago with a doctored image depicting the city under attack by napalm, captioned "Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR."

The notion of ideological foes not as electoral enemies but legitimate targets of violence is no longer the stuff of conspiracy podcasts, but the political mainstream. Trump referred to a need to stamp out the "enemy within" the United States in September speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, suggesting the unconstitutional use of the military to "handle" them, and mused about using American cities as "training grounds" for the Pentagon. Gun-toting agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Custom and Border Protection are the foot soldiers of a government that describes its people as terrorists. They have been joined at times by actual soldiers, Marines and National Guard members, deployed illegally in cities like Los Angeles where the president's policies are unpopular.

Related Trump's War on America

Since Trump's speech, DHS agents have shot 12 people, killing four of them. Minneapolis residents describe the experience of ICE and CBP's surge as something akin to a military occupation. Where Obama's Jade Helm fell short in the collective imaginations of the InfoWars right, Trump's second term has succeeded in wielding DHS as an ideological cudgel. After Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti were gunned down by DHS agents, the department's justification for dispensing the death penalty on the sidewalk — that they were both domestic terrorists bent on killing federal personnel — quickly disintegrated in the face of video evidence. All that was left was a rationale more foreboding than anything Jade Helm truthers attributed to the Obama administration, a shrug that boils down to this brutal view: That's what they get for wanting this to stop. 

"Was he simply walking by and just happened to walk into a law enforcement situation and try to direct traffic and stand in the middle of the road, and then assault, delay, and obstruct law enforcement?" CBP's Greg Bovino wondered of Pretti at a press conference. "Or was he there for a reason?" (Pretti's reason for being there that day was clear, having been filmed from multiple angles: to legally observe and record the agents who then killed him.)

The idea that merely opposing the president's immigration policy is reason enough to warrant summary execution is, if not stated outright, now on the lips of many right-wing commentators. It's an implicit threat that the next person to record a masked cop on their block could receive the same.

Immigration authorities have brought to life the id of Jade Helm not just through overt displays of force, but also through the vast intelligence and surveillance apparatus within DHS.

In May 2015, InfoWars correspondent David Knight warned that Jade Helm would involve the collection and exploitation of enormous reams of personal information. "They analyze the data, and then because you stick out in some way, now you're treated as if you've already had due process, as if you've already been found guilty of a crime," resulting in the government kicking down the doors of innocent people. "If you understand the technology that's involved, then you'll see that Jade Helm is more of an intelligence operation using geospatial intelligence mapping," claimed InfoWars correspondent Lee Ann McAdoo. "And as information from low-level surveillance technologies such as stingrays and predictive policing programs are all getting siphoned up into NSA data centers, a detailed global map will continue to grow with near-endless stats on all individuals."

This much was true — in broad strokes, if not the specifics — back in 2015 and even more so today. DHS has steadily amassed for itself a security state within the security state, one now plump with record funding under a Trump second term clinched with the promise of a ruthless immigration crackdown. "With a budget for 2025 that is 10 times the size of the agency's total surveillance spending over the last 13 years," the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote last month, "ICE is going on a shopping spree, creating one of the largest, most comprehensive domestic surveillance machines in history."

Thanks to the unregulated market in commercial surveillance technology, DHS has little need for a spy agency like the NSA.

Thanks to the unregulated market in commercial surveillance technology, DHS has little need for a spy agency like the NSA. Last fall, ICE reactivated its contract with spyware-maker Paragon, which makes software that can remotely break into a smartphone. DHS also makes ample use of phone-cracking tools like Cellebrite, and has been purchasing warrantless access to cellphone location data since at least 2017, providing a turn-key means of tracking virtually anyone, anywhere, while bypassing the Fourth Amendment entirely. A 2023 DHS inspector general's report found that both ICE and CBP consistently used this data illegally. Smartphone-based face recognition makes suspects out of anyone DHS agents might encounter on the street, immigrant and citizen alike.

Some in the InfoWars orbit speculated the word Jade itself "may or may not be an acronym for a military-developed artificial intelligence," columnist Mark Saal observed in 2015. Like other facets of the Jade Helm freakout, this fear managed to be prescient despite its own baselessness. What's unimpeachably true today is that DHS uses a litany of sophisticated artificial intelligence tools, including those provided by Palantir, a longtime military and intelligence contractor that has previously aided the NSA and continues to provide analytic and database services to ICE.

The role of Palantir alone within DHS is the stuff of InfoWars reverie: The company is building a tool "that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a 'confidence score' on the person's current address," according to a recent report by 404 Media. In contract documents renewing ICE's use of Palantir case management software reviewed by The Intercept, the agency notes that the company has a "critical role in supporting the daily operations of ICE." The case management system alone ingests data from across the federal government, including the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services, Department of Justice databases, the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, and the Office of Biometric Identity Management, among others.

Omnipresent data collection in the name of Homeland Security has allowed for novel means of taunting and intimidating the president's critics. In a video clip that began circulating on X last week, a masked DHS agent is seen recording a car's license plate with his phone.

"Why are you taking my information down?" the woman asks. "Because we have a nice little database," the agent replies. "And now you're considered a domestic terrorist."

It's unclear what "little database" the agent was referring to, or on what grounds recording a video on a public street would be considered an act of terrorism. Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told The Intercept there is "no such database." McLaughlin would not answer when asked repeatedly whether DHS endorsed its personnel threatening to place people on a domestic terrorism database it now claims does not exist.

Related Are You on Trump's List of Domestic Terrorists? There's No Way to Know.

A national security presidential memorandum issued by Trump in September, known as NSPM-7, explicitly labels certain political and ideological stances — including "anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity" along with unspecified views on race and gender — as forms of domestic terrorism.

The Jade Helm presidency hasn't matched the scope and scale of what Jones et al. hallucinated a decade ago. But Trump's DHS — a department already plagued by bipartisan abuse, brutalization, and overreach since its founding — represents in spirit and practice exactly what far-right and right-libertarians once warned was a genuine emergency.

Though it made no effort to attach itself to facts, Jade Helm fearmongering touched, glancingly, on some uncomfortable truths: The federal government is willing to use force, surveillance, and extraconstitutional power to suppress dissent. But the greater truth revealed in the intervening decade is that for many Americans, these abuses aren't a problem so long as it's someone else's back pushed onto the concrete, someone else's car windows smashed, and someone else dealing with the pain of a chemical irritant.

Far-right commentators and elected officials are making clear that their opposition was never to authoritarian violence or state terror, but instead to being subjected to that violence and terror themselves. The contingent of the country that swore to avenge Ruby Ridge and Waco now seem mostly content to cheer on more of the same beneath X videos.  

The far right is making clear that their opposition was never to authoritarian violence or state terror, but instead to being subjected to that violence and terror themselves.

When the administration blamed Alex Pretti's death on his wholly legal gun ownership, having failed to slander him as an "assassin," even the National Rifle Association, which once derided federal police as "jackbooted government thugs," felt obliged to claim he was "antagonizing" ICE, even while defending his right to bear arms.

"We now know that Alex Pretti was a violent agitator who repeatedly went out armed to deliberately instigate physical confrontations with law enforcement," conservative commentator Matt Walsh posted on X. "He is not a victim. He was not a mere 'protester.' And he got what was coming to him. Simple as that."

InfoWars' Jade Helm coverage is now seemingly scrubbed from the site. With a friendly president in the White House, the publication has shifted from condemning the Pentagon as the harbinger of American apocalypse to joining its official press corps. But the spirit of the old anti-state paranoia of InfoWars remains — just inverted entirely in the state's service.

Headlines like "Could the Minneapolis Rioters Be Using Automatic License Plate Recognition Systems?" are what the Jade Helm-believers now wonder about dragnet surveillance. "Watch Two Brave ICE Officers Fight Off A Violent Leftist Mob That Invaded Their Hotel!" is the formerly paranoid right's assessment of DHS. The notion of camouflaged agents in the streets is cause for celebration, not an "emergency broadcast" of 2015. "A War Has Erupted On The Streets Of America, And It Is Going To End With Martial Law In Major U.S. Cities," InfoWars warns today, paired with an AI-generated image of federal officers defending themselves from an antifa onslaught.

Eleven years after Jade Helm, this is forecast with at least a little excitement.

The post Welcome to the Jade Helm Presidency appeared first on The Intercept.

TikTok is finally "back to normal" in the US after days of technical issues and outages tied to winter storms. Less than a week after companies like Oracle took ownership of TikTok's domestic operations, the platform faced a major power outage when one of its primary US data center sites — run by Oracle — got taken down by the storm. 

The problems started last Monday, January 26, when TikTok announced it was working on a "major infrastructure issue" and warned of bugs, time-out requests, missing earnings, and more. The next day TikTok shared that progress has been made but there were still some issues. It added, "Creators may temporarily see '0' views or likes on videos, and your earnings may look like they're missing. This is a display error caused by server timeouts; your actual data and engagement are safe."

Then, yesterday, February 1, TikTok claimed the problem was straightened out and that users shouldn't experience any more related issues. "We're sorry about the issues experienced by our U.S. community. We appreciate how much you count on TikTok to create, discover, and connect with what matters to you," the platform stated in its update. "Thank you for your patience and understanding."

A number of US users have uninstalled TikTok in response to its new ownership and technical issues. Some users also claimed that TikTok was censoring what they could post or what others saw. For instance, The Guardian reports that many people faced issues sharing videos about ICE agents killing Alex Pretti and general anti-ICE content. 

On January 26, analytics firm Sensor Tower told CNBC that uninstalls of the app had increased by over 150 percent during the five days since its change in ownership, when compared to the three months before. At the same time, independent app and competitor UpScrolled saw a surge in downloads. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/tiktok-says-its-back-to-normal-after-winter-storm-related-outages-114848212.html?src=rss

DOJ files show former Windows chief predicting a public flop before mulling next mission

Steven Sinofsky warned Microsoft that its flagship Surface was about to flop in public, then sought exit advice from Jeffrey Epstein as he negotiated his way out of Redmond.…