The following article was published yesterday by the University of Sitrling.
Reforestation is a noble endeavor but it seems to come with a lot of practical issues. As much as I want to rant about monoculture and the death of old growth forests, the article is actually talking about the loss of carbon-storing soil.
Soil stores roughly 2,500 gigatons of carbon - compared to 800 gigatons in the atmosphere and nearly 600 gigatons in terrestrial vegetation. But you can't see it happening, not really, so it is often ignored by climate models and even environmentalist groups.
Collapse related because our tree planting schemes are failing - to say nothing of fancier methods of CCS - and this is likely to cause major environmental problems for future generations.
submitted by /u/Fast_Performer_3722[link] [comments]
Toyota City, Japan — Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) announced that it will expand its battery electric vehicle (BEV) lineup in North America as part of its multi-pathway approach toward achieving a carbon-neutral society. As part of this effort, Toyota Motor North America (TMNA), Toyota's North American business entity, premiered a ... [continued]
The post Premiere of 3-Row Highlander BEV in North America appeared first on CleanTechnica.
NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Combining all-electric convenience for daily commutes with the familiar flexibility of a gasoline engine for longer journeys, the 2026 Nissan Rogue Plug-in Hybrid will reach dealerships in February with a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price1 starting at $45,990 for the SL grade. The 2026 Nissan Rogue Plug-in Hybrid offers an estimated ... [continued]
The post 2026 Nissan Rogue Plug-in Hybrid Pricing Starts at $45,990 appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Waymo is hitting so many milestones these days that it's not even highlighting some of them. It keeps entering city after city, scaling up different stages of testing and commercial rides there, and then becoming many residents' favorite mode of transport in those places. The news today is that Waymo ... [continued]
The post Waymo 100% Driverless in Nashville appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Huge thanks to my February sponsor, John Rember, author of the three-book series Journal of the Plague Years, a psychic survival guide for humanity's looming date with destiny, shaped by his experiences living through the pandemic in his native Idaho. Thoughtful, wry and humane, Journal 1 is a pleasure.
"Global economy must move past GDP to avoid planetary disaster, warns UN chief…
"For decades, politicians and policymakers have prioritised growth - as measured by GDP - as the overarching economic goal. But critics argue that endless, indiscriminate growth on a planet with finite resources is driving not only the climate and nature crisis but increasing inequality."
"Climate risk threatens credit ratings for dozens of countries.
"Developing nations face a growing financial crisis due to climate change. Countries least responsible for pollution are most vulnerable to disasters. High debt and poor credit ratings make it harder to secure funds for protection and clean energy."
"Weaponizing the dollar: Could Trump's trade war backfire on American prosperity?
"Tariffs help no one. They have nudged supply chains away from US, dented their reputation as a reliable partner, triggered an affordability crisis, and created virtually no jobs…"
"Gilt yields soar again as No10 turmoil rocks the markets… sparking fears of a Liz Truss-style financial crisis.
"The boss of one of Britain's biggest banks has called for 'stability' and 'certainty' as doubts over Sir Keir Starmer's future wreaked havoc on the bond markets."
"Lower-income families face 137-year wait for living standards to double, says UK thinktank…
"A two-decade stagnation in disposable incomes has created a "mood of unease" across the country, the Resolution Foundation says, warning of the risk of "further political disruption" unless pay growth accelerates."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/10/lower-income-families-living-standards
"French President Emmanuel Macron said in remarks published on Tuesday that Europe is facing a serious political and economic crisis.
"Speaking to several newspapers ahead of a European Union (EU) leaders meeting on Thursday, the French president said the bloc risks being "swept aside" in the face of competition from the United States and China."
https://www.dw.com/en/macron-warns-europe-faces-political-and-economic-crisis/a-75890865
"Dark fleet expansion looms as EU seeks to cut maritime lifelines for Russian oil.
"Russia's shadow tanker fleet faces greater pressure, although it is forecast to rise in numbers, if the European Commission's proposed a 20th sanctions package gets voted through later this month."
"Ukrainian Strikes Take a Heavy Toll on Russia's Oil Refineries.
"Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries cost Russia's oil and gas sector as much as $12.9 billion (1 trillion Russian rubles) last year, according to a local insurance broker."
"In Ukraine, deaths from hypothermia rise as Russia attacks energy system…
"Dozens of attacks since 2022 have deprived millions of people throughout Ukraine of heat, power and running water as winter temperatures have dropped far below minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit), covering roads and the Dnipro, Europe's fifth largest river, with thick ice."
"China Urges Banks to Curb Exposure to US Treasuries…
"Communicated verbally to some of the nation's biggest banks in recent weeks, the guidance reflects growing wariness among officials that large holdings of US government debt may expose banks to sharp swings, the people said. The worries echo those made by governments and fund managers elsewhere…"
"China property sales forecast cut by S&P as market slump deepens.
"S&P Global Ratings has downgraded its forecast for China's property sales in 2026, now predicting a 10% to 14% decline compared to its earlier October estimate of a 5% to 8% drop."
"China steps up dangerous air encounters near Taiwan.
""It is not the behaviour you expect from a professional fighter pilot but more resembles a gangster swinging his gun around as they walk down the street," said one person familiar with the incidents."
https://www.ft.com/content/66a59c7c-5a22-482c-9363-71cb016ceb01
"Beware of 'right-wing spiral' driven by interaction between Japanese politics and internet rightwingers…
"Among the many factors contributing to Takaichi and the LDP's victory in the House of Representatives election, a core strategy was leveraging the online right-wing group and releasing even more right-wing rhetoric and adopting populist practices."
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202602/1355129.shtml
"Internet shutdown in Manipur's Ukhrul for 5 days following arson, communal unrest [India].
"The Manipur government on Tuesday suspended internet and data services across Ukhrul district for five days, citing a volatile law and order situation following fresh violence in the area."
"Early warning report flags emergency hunger risk in parts of Afghanistan…
"Poor households in these provinces have exhausted food stocks from their own production and are expected to rely almost entirely on markets, despite extremely weak purchasing power…"
"Turkey Says It Could Be Dragged Into Nuclear Arms Race Over Iran.
"Turkey would consider joining a regional nuclear arms race over concerns about Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said late Monday."
"Turkey's army chief says 'no plans to withdraw' from Syria…
"The precise figures remain undisclosed by Turkey, but at least 10,000 Turkish troops are believed to be deployed across northern Syria. Last year, the pro-government Daily Sabah estimated the number of Turkish soldiers in the country at 20,000."
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2026/02/turkeys-army-chief-says-no-plans-withdraw-syria
"Lebanese group accuses Israel of abducting its leader in raid…
"The al-Jamaa al-Islamiya accused Israel on Monday of seizing its official Atwi Atwi from his home in the Hasbaiyya district and taking him to an unknown location."
"Ethiopia hosts covert training base for Sudan's RSF fighters: Reports.
"Ethiopia is reportedly hosting a covert camp in its western Benishangul-Gumuz region to train thousands of Rapid Support Forces fighters for Sudan's civil war, with sources alleging UAE funding and support."
"Algeria accuses the UAE of interference in elections…
"Algeria and the UAE have faced off against each other in North Africa repeatedly in recent years, with Tebboune accusing the Emiratis of playing a destabilising role in a number of countries in the region."
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/algeria-accuses-uae-interference-elections
"US seizes Venezuela-linked oil tanker in Indian Ocean.
"The Pentagon said on Monday that it captured the tanker as part of a campaign by US President Donald Trump to cut off Venezuela's oil exports, which critics have slammed as "theft" and international piracy."
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/2/9/us-seizes-venezuela-linked-oil-tanker-in-indian-ocean
"Cuba's capital airport declares jet fuel unavailable as energy crisis deepens.
"Cuban authorities have formally notified that the island nation's main airport has run out of aviation fuel. "Havana airport has issued a NOTAM effective 10 February which states that Jet A-1 fuel is "not available"."
"Alphabet Embarks on Global Bond Spree to Fund Record [AI] Spending…
"It's also planning debut deals in Switzerland and the UK, including a rare sale of 100-year bonds — marking the first time a tech company has tried such an offering since the dotcom frenzy of the late 1990s."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alphabet-looks-raise-15-billion-133028283.html
"AI Doesn't Reduce Work—It Intensifies It…
"In an eight-month study of how generative AI changed work habits at a U.S.-based technology company with about 200 employees, we found that employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day…"
https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it
I rely on donations and tips from my readers to keep the site running. Every little bit helps. Can you chip in even a dollar? Buy me a coffee or become a Patreon supporter. A huge thank you to those who do subscribe or donate.
You can read the previous "Economic" thread here. Panopticon hopes to be back tomorrow with a "Climate" thread.
The post 11th February 2026 Today's Round-Up of Economic News appeared first on Climate and Economy.
Emissions have plunged 75% since communist times in the birthplace of big oil - but for some the transition has been brutal
Once the frozen fields outside Bucharest have thawed, workers will assemble the largest solar farm in Europe: one million photovoltaic panels backed by batteries to power homes after sunset. But the 760MW project in southern Romania will not hold the title for long. In the north-west, authorities have approved a bigger plant that will boast a capacity of 1GW.
The sun-lit plots of silicone and glass will join a slew of projects that have rendered the Romanian economy unrecognisable from its polluted state when communism ended. They include an onshore windfarm near the Black Sea that for several years was Europe's biggest, a nuclear power plant by the Danube whose lifetime is being extended by 30 years, and a fast-spreading patchwork of solar panels topping homes and shops across the country.
Continue reading...Vast flocks of birds return to Somerset and a rare grebe turns an ordinary walk into something special
After weeks of heavy rain, Cheddar reservoir in Somerset is finally full again - of water, and of birds. Thousands of coots, hundreds of gulls and ducks, and dozens of great crested grebes crowd the surface, some already moulting into their smart breeding plumage, crests and all.
They feed almost constantly, building up energy reserves for the breeding season. Among the throng are some less familiar visitors: a flock of scaup, the males bulkier than the nearby tufted ducks, with pale grey backs that catch the light. Flocks of goosanders dive frequently for food, the colourful males looking like a cormorant in extravagant drag.
Continue reading...
EFF is against age gating and age verification mandates, and we hope we'll win in getting existing ones overturned and new ones prevented. But mandates are already in effect, and every day many people are asked to verify their age across the web, despite prominent cases of sensitive data getting leaked in the process.
At some point, you may have been faced with the decision yourself: should I continue to use this service if I have to verify my age? And if so, how can I do that with the least risk to my personal information? This is our guide to navigating those decisions, with information on what questions to ask about the age verification options you're presented with, and answers to those questions for some of the top most popular social media sites. Even though there's no way to implement mandated age gates in a way that fully protects speech and privacy rights, our goal here is to help you minimize the infringement of your rights as you manage this awful situation.
Follow the DataSince we know that leaks happen despite the best efforts of software engineers, we generally recommend submitting the absolute least amount of data possible. Unfortunately, that's not going to be possible for everyone. Even facial age estimation solutions where pictures of your face never leave your device, offering some protection against data leakage, are not a good option for all users: facial age estimation works less well for people of color, trans and nonbinary people, and people with disabilities. There are some systems that use fancy cryptography so that a digital ID saved to your device won't tell the website anything more than if you meet the age requirement, but access to that digital ID isn't available to everyone or for all platforms. You may also not want to register for a digital ID and save it to your phone, if you don't want to take the chance of all the information on it being exposed upon request of an over-zealous verifier, or you simply don't want to be a part of a digital ID system
If you're given the option of selecting a verification method and are deciding which to use, we recommend considering the following questions for each process allowed by each vendor:
- Data: What info does each method require?
- Access: Who can see the data during the course of the verification process?
- Retention: Who will hold onto that data after the verification process, and for how long?
- Audits: How sure are we that the stated claims will happen in practice? For example, are there external audits confirming that data is not accidentally leaked to another site along the way? Ideally these will be in-depth, security-focused audits by specialized auditors like NCC Group or Trail of Bits, instead of audits that merely certify adherence to standards.
- Visibility: Who will be aware that you're attempting to verify your age, and will they know which platform you're trying to verify for?
We attempt to provide answers to these questions below. To begin, there are two major factors to consider when answering these questions: the tools each platform uses, and the overall system those tools are part of.
In general, most platforms offer age estimation options like face scans as a first line of age assurance. These vary in intrusiveness, but their main problem is inaccuracy, particularly for marginalized users. Third-party age verification vendors Private ID and k-ID offer on-device facial age estimation, but another common vendor, Yoti, sends the image to their servers during age checks by some of the biggest platforms. This risks leaking the images themselves, and also the fact that you're using that particular website, to the third party.
Then, there's the document-based verification services, which require you to submit a hard identifier like a government-issued ID. This method thus requires you to prove both your age and your identity. A platform can do this in-house through a designated dataflow, or by sending that data to a third party. We've already seen examples of how this can fail. For example, Discord routed users' ID data through its general customer service workflow so that a third-party vendor could perform manual review of verification appeals. No one involved ever deleted users' data, so when the system was breached, Discord had to apologize for the catastrophic disclosure of nearly 70,000 photos of users' ID documents. Overly long retention periods expose documents to risk of breaches and historical data requests. Some document verifiers have retention periods that are needlessly long. This is the case with Incode, which provides ID verification for Tiktok. Incode holds onto images forever by default, though TikTok should automatically start the deletion process on your behalf.
Some platforms offer alternatives, like proving that you own a credit card, or asking for your email to check if it appears in databases associated with adulthood (like home mortgage databases). These tend to involve less risk when it comes to the sensitivity of the data itself, especially since credit cards can be replaced, but in general still undermine anonymity and pseudonymity and pose a risk of tracking your online activity. We'd prefer to see more assurances across the board about how information is handled.
Each site offers users a menu of age assurance options to choose from. We've chosen to present these options in the rough order that we expect most people to prefer. Jump directly to a platform to learn more about its age checks:
- Meta - Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Threads
- Google - Gmail, YouTube
- TikTok
- Everywhere Else
If Meta can guess your age, you may never even see an age verification screen. Meta, which runs Facebook, Threads, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, first tries to use information you've posted to guess your age, like looking at "Happy birthday!" messages. It's a creepy reminder that they already have quite a lot of information about you.
If Meta cannot guess your age, or if Meta infers you're too young, it will next ask you to verify your age using either facial age estimation, or by uploading your photo ID.
Face ScanIf you choose to use facial age estimation, you'll be sent to Yoti, a third-party verification service. Your photo will be uploaded to their servers during this process. Yoti claims that "as soon as an age has been estimated, the facial image is immediately and permanently deleted." Though it's not as good as not having that data in the first place, Yoti's security measures include a bug bounty program and annual penetration testing. Researchers from Mint Secure found that Yoti's app and website are filled with trackers, so the fact that you're verifying your age could be not only shared to Yoti, but leaked to third-party data brokers as well.
You may not want to use this option if you're worried about third parties potentially being able to know you're trying to verify your age with Meta. You also might not want to use this if you're worried about a current picture of your face accidentally leaking—for example, if elements in the background of your selfie might reveal your current location. On the other hand, if you consider a selfie to be less sensitive than a photograph of your ID, this option might be better. If you do choose (or are forced to) use the face check system, be sure to snap your selfie without anything you'd be concerned with identifying your location or embarrassing you in the background in case the image leaks.
Upload IDIf Yoti's age estimation decides your face looks too young, or if you opt out of facial age estimation, your next recourse is to send Meta a photo of your ID. Meta sends that photo to Yoti to verify the ID. Meta says it will hold onto that ID image for 30 days, then delete it. Meanwhile, Yoti claims it will delete the image immediately after verification. Of course, bugs and process oversights exist, such as accidentally replicating information in logs or support queues, but at least they have stated processes. Your ID contains sensitive information such as your full legal name and home address. Using this option not only runs the (hopefully small, but never nonexistent) risk of that data getting leaked through errors or hacking, but it also lets Meta see the information needed to tie your profile to your identity—which you may not want. If you don't want Meta to know your name and where you live, or rely on both Meta and Yoti to keep to their deletion promises, this option may not be right for you.
Google - Gmail, YouTube Inferred AgeIf Google can guess your age, you may never even see an age verification screen. Your Google account is typically connected to your YouTube account, so if (like mine) your YouTube account is old enough to vote, you may not need to verify your Google account at all. Google first uses information it already knows to try to guess your age, like how long you've had the account and your YouTube viewing habits. It's yet another creepy reminder of how much information these corporations have on you, but at least in this case they aren't likely to ask for even more identifying data.
If Google cannot guess your age, or decides you're too young, Google will next ask you to verify your age. You'll be given a variety of options for how to do so, with availability that will depend on your location and your age.
Google's methods to assure your age include ID verification, facial age estimation, verification by proxy, and digital ID. To prove you're over 18, you may be able to use facial age estimation, give Google your credit card information, or tell a third-party provider your email address.
Face ScanIf you choose to use facial age estimation, you'll be sent to a website run by Private ID, a third-party verification service. The website will load Private ID's verifier within the page—this means that your selfie will be checked without any images leaving your device. If the system decides you're over 18, it will let Google know that, and only that. Of course, no technology is perfect—should Private ID be mandated to target you specifically, there's nothing to stop it from sending down code that does in fact upload your image, and you probably won't notice. But unless your threat model includes being specifically targeted by a state actor or Private ID, that's unlikely to be something you need to worry about. For most people, no one else will see your image during this process. Private ID will, however, be told that your device is trying to verify your age with Google and Google will still find out if Private ID thinks that you're under 18.
If Private ID's age estimation decides your face looks too young, you may next be able to decide if you'd rather let Google verify your age by giving it your credit card information, photo ID, or digital ID, or by letting Google send your email address to a third-party verifier.
Email UsageIf you choose to provide your email address, Google sends it on to a company called VerifyMy. VerifyMy will use your email address to see if you've done things like get a mortgage or paid for utilities using that email address. If you use Gmail as your email provider, this may be a privacy-protective option with respect to Google, as Google will then already know the email address associated with the account. But it does tell VerifyMy and its third-party partners that the person behind this email address is looking to verify their age, which you may not want them to know. VerifyMy uses "proprietary algorithms and external data sources" that involve sending your email address to "trusted third parties, such as data aggregators." It claims to "ensure that such third parties are contractually bound to meet these requirements," but you'll have to trust it on that one—we haven't seen any mention of who those parties are, so you'll have no way to check up on their practices and security. On the bright side, VerifyMy and its partners do claim to delete your information as soon as the check is completed.
Credit Card VerificationIf you choose to let Google use your credit card information, you'll be asked to set up a Google Payments account. Note that debit cards won't be accepted, since it's much easier for many debit cards to be issued to people under 18. Google will then charge a small amount to the card, and refund it once it goes through. If you choose this method, you'll have to tell Google your credit card info, but the fact that it's done through Google Payments (their regular card-processing system) means that at least your credit card information won't be sitting around in some unsecured system. Even if your credit card information happens to accidentally be leaked, this is a relatively low-risk option, since credit cards come with solid fraud protection. If your credit card info gets leaked, you should easily be able to dispute fraudulent charges and replace the card.
Digital IDIf the option is available to you, you may be able to use your digital ID to verify your age with Google. In some regions, you'll be given the option to use your digital ID. In some cases, it's possible to only reveal your age information when you use a digital ID. If you're given that choice, it can be a good privacy-preserving option. Depending on the implementation, there's a chance that the verification step will "phone home" to the ID provider (usually a government) to let them know the service asked for your age. It's a complicated and varied topic that you can learn more about by visiting EFF's page on digital identity.
Upload IDShould none of these options work for you, your final recourse is to send Google a photo of your ID. Here, you'll be asked to take a photo of an acceptable ID and send it to Google. Though the help page only states that your ID "will be stored securely," the verification process page says ID "will be deleted after your date of birth is successfully verified." Acceptable IDs vary by country, but are generally government-issued photo IDs. We like that it's deleted immediately, though we have questions about what Google means when it says your ID will be used to "improve [its] verification services for Google products and protect against fraud and abuse." No system is perfect, and we can only hope that Google schedules outside audits regularly.
TikTok Inferred AgeIf TikTok can guess your age, you may never even see an age verification notification. TikTok first tries to use information you've posted to estimate your age, looking through your videos and photos to analyze your face and listen to your voice. By uploading any videos, TikTok believes you've given it consent to try to guess how old you look and sound.
If TikTok decides you're too young, appeal to revoke their age decision before the deadline passes. If TikTok cannot guess your age, or decides you're too young, it will automatically revoke your access based on age—including either restricting features or deleting your account. To get your access and account back, you'll have a limited amount of time to verify your age. As soon as you see the notification that your account is restricted, you'll want to act fast because in some places you'll have as little as 23 days before the deadline passes.
When you get that notification, you're given various options to verify your age based on your location.
Face ScanIf you're given the option to use facial age estimation, you'll be sent to Yoti, a third-party verification service. Your photo will be uploaded to their servers during this process. Yoti claims that "as soon as an age has been estimated, the facial image is immediately and permanently deleted." Though it's not as good as not having that data in the first place, Yoti's security measures include a bug bounty program and annual penetration testing. However, researchers from Mint Secure found that Yoti's app and website are filled with trackers, so the fact that you're verifying your age could be leaked not only to Yoti, but to third-party data brokers as well.
You may not want to use this option if you're worried about third parties potentially being able to know you're trying to verify your age with TikTok. You also might not want to use this if you're worried about a current picture of your face accidentally leaking—for example, if elements in the background of your selfie might reveal your current location. On the other hand, if you consider a selfie to be less sensitive than a photograph of your ID or your credit card information, this option might be better. If you do choose (or are forced to) use the face check system, be sure to snap your selfie without anything you'd be concerned with identifying your location or embarrassing you in the background in case the image leaks.
Credit Card VerificationIf you have a credit card in your name, TikTok will accept that as proof that you're over 18. Note that debit cards won't be accepted, since it's much easier for many debit cards to be issued to people under 18. TikTok will charge a small amount to the credit card, and refund it once it goes through. It's unclear if this goes through their regular payment process, or if your credit card information will be sent through and stored in a separate, less secure system. Luckily, these days credit cards come with solid fraud protection, so if your credit card gets leaked, you should easily be able to dispute fraudulent charges and replace the card. That said, we'd rather TikTok provide assurances that the information will be processed securely.
Credit Card Verification of a Parent or GuardianSometimes, if you're between 13 and 17, you'll be given the option to let your parent or guardian confirm your age. You'll tell TikTok their email address, and TikTok will send your parent or guardian an email asking them (a) to confirm your date of birth, and (b) to verify their own age by proving that they own a valid credit card. This option doesn't always seem to be offered, and in the one case we could find, it's possible that TikTok never followed up with the parent. So it's unclear how or if TikTok verifies that the adult whose email you provide is your parent or guardian. If you want to use credit card verification but you're not old enough to have a credit card, and you're ok with letting an adult know you use TikTok, this option may be reasonable to try.
Photo with a Random Adult?Bizarrely, if you're between 13 and 17, TikTok claims to offer the option to take a photo with literally any random adult to confirm your age. Its help page says that any trusted adult over 25 can be chosen, as long as they're holding a piece of paper with the code on it that TikTok provides. It also mentions that a third-party provider is used here, but doesn't say which one. We haven't found any evidence of this verification method being offered. Please do let us know if you've used this method to verify your age on TikTok!
Photo ID and Face ComparisonIf you aren't offered or have failed the other options, you'll have to verify your age by submitting a copy of your ID and matching photo of your face. You'll be sent to Incode, a third-party verification service. In a disappointing failure to meet the industry standard, Incode itself doesn't automatically delete the data you give it once the process is complete, but TikTok does claim to "start the process to delete the information you submitted," which should include telling Incode to delete your data once the process is done. If you want to be sure, you can ask Incode to delete that data yourself. Incode tells TikTok that you met the age threshold without providing your exact date of birth, but then TikTok wants to know the exact date anyway, so it'll ask for your date of birth even after your age has been verified.
TikTok itself might not see your actual ID depending on its implementation choices, but Incode will. Your ID contains sensitive information such as your full legal name and home address. Using this option not only runs the (hopefully small, but never nonexistent) risk of that data getting accidentally leaked through errors or hacking. If you don't want TikTok or Incode to know your name, what you look like, and where you live—or if you don't want to rely on both TikTok and Incode to keep to their deletion promises—then this option may not be right for you.
Everywhere ElseWe've covered the major providers here, but age verification is unfortunately being required of many other services that you might use as well. While the providers and processes may vary, the same general principles will apply. If you're trying to choose what information to provide to continue to use a service, consider the "follow the data" questions mentioned above, and try to find out how the company will store and process the data you give it. The less sensitive information, the fewer people have access to it, and the more quickly it will be deleted, the better. You may even come to recognize popular names in the age verification industry: Spotify and OnlyFans use Yoti (just like Meta and Tiktok), Quora and Discord use k-ID, and so on.
Unfortunately, it should be clear by now that none of the age verification options are perfect in terms of protecting information, providing access to everyone, and safely handling sensitive data. That's just one of the reasons that EFF is against age-gating mandates, and is working to stop and overturn them across the United States and around the world.
Republished from the EFF's Deeplinks blog.
Wake up to smoked trout crepes, giant pancakes with caramelised pears and dark chocolate, and a lady marmalade cocktail
Give me breakfast in bed over a bunch of limp supermarket roses any day. Nothing says "I love you" more genuinely than a decadent tray of delicious things to savour between the sheets. Because V-Day falls on a weekend this year, you can do better than just buttered toast and an unbidden cup of tea. Whether it's sweet or savoury (or even a cheeky cocktail), I've got you!
Continue reading...
The will of the rich and powerful: Brexit and the Epstein files [ 11-Feb-26 5:27am ]
Comment on the Epstein files has naturally focused on the more salacious details, and to a lesser extent, the evidence of political corruption. But analysis by the political commentator, Rob Groves, shows that they also tell us a lot about Brexit. He has used the Epstein files to follow the money, the data operations, the propaganda pipelines, and the elite social networks of which Epstein was an integral part. They show that Brexit was not the will of the people but the will of the rich and powerful - Putin, Trump, the autocrats, the billionaire oligarchs, the libertarians and Farage.
The files show that Brexit was the outcome and instrument of a transnational network of oligarchs, data‑operations firms and authoritarian‑leaning actors. All stood to profit from destabilisation, low regulation, and weak democratic checks. A decade after the referendum, Brexit is still actively harming the UK's economy, culture, security and international standing, and each new tranche of files clarifies how that vote sat in a wider ecosystem of anti‑EU nationalism, dark‑money politics and data‑driven voter manipulation.
The revolt of the powerfulThe Epstein files show that Brexit was never a "plucky British revolt". In reality, Brexit was fed, and empowered, by an entire class of oligarchs and autocrats, who thrive on chaos, weak regulation and brittle institutions. We see Epstein celebrating Brexit, as a return to "tribalism" in messages to Peter Thiel, the South African‑born co‑founder of Palantir and PayPal. He is an archetypal tech oligarch, aligned with Donald Trump and fellow billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman. Their shared worldview sees democracy as messy, regulation as an irritant, and the state as something to be re‑engineered to serve "winners" in defence‑adjacent technology, social media and AI.
All this is built on mass data extraction and opaque influence over governments. Yes, the files show rich, connected people combining to tolerate or conceal abuse of young women, but, they also reveal a British cabinet minister texting government secrets to Epstein, in a global network routinely trading access, information and opportunities.
Brexit: the proving groundGroves suggests that Brexit was an early proving ground for the nationalist politics later deployed in Trump's America. Palantir's controversial UK public sector and NHS‑related contracts symbolise the creep of unaccountable data power into the heart of the state. And, around this, sits a US‑led media and political constellation - Breitbart, Steve Bannon, J D Vance, MAGA, the Heritage Foundation, and Tufton Street groups.
The Russian factorGroves condemns the UK state's failure to respond to the threat from Russia. The Intelligence and Security Committee's Russia report did not conclusively prove Russian interference in Brexit - not because there was no evidence, but because government and security agencies were afraid of seeming to meddle in politics. When they chose not to investigate interference around the referendum and Scottish independence, they could hide behind the line that there was "no evidence".
Had they seriously looked, they might have found Nathan Gill, Reform UK's former leader in Wales, now convicted of accepting money to deliver pro-Russian scripted lines in the European Parliament. He was part of a wider culture where politics is seen as a tool for personal gain. And a key player in this ecosystem is Nigel Farage. He is the link between British grievance politics and this international project: anti‑EU, anti‑human‑rights and anti‑regulation, yet relaxed about murky funding so long as it benefits the far right. A fragmented and toothless EU is precisely the outcome Putin wanted, and Farage helped deliver.
Convergence, not conspiracyBut this is not an organised conspiracy. There is no single mastermind. What there is, is a common agenda for tech oligarchs and autocrats along with racists, nostalgists, deregulators, tax avoiders, foreign influence operations and political charlatans. All stand to benefit from low taxes, low regulation, culture wars and impunity for donors and insiders. The models are Hungary, Turkey, Argentina, Belarus, Russia, and Trump's United States, with captured courts, cowed media, politicised policing and corruption masked as patriotism. Each group has its own agenda, but all converge on a weaker, poorer, more isolated Britain. And the very anarchy which they provoke feeds the anger, division and distrust with politics that Reform UK feeds off.
What next?Groves argues that genuine security, stability, and sovereignty requires moving closer to Europe and consciously distancing the UK from Trump's America and predatory tech oligarchs. He calls for a comprehensive overhaul of rules on political finance and influence, highlighting opaque, foreign‑linked money around Reform UK as an existential threat to democracy.
But the very networks he describes exist to prevent this happening, and this government has proved nervous of serious major moves on these issues. If Keir Starmer, with an albeit tarnished reputation as an honest public servant committed to overthrowing corruption, is not able or willing to tackle this, are we confident that someone else could to it?
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Bylines Network Gazette is back!
With a thematic issue on a vital topic - the rise child poverty, ending on a hopeful note. You will find sharp analyses on the effect of poverty on children's lives, with a spotlight on the communities that are on the front line of deprivation, with personal stories and shared solutions. Click on the image to gain access to it, or find us on Substack.
Journalism by the people, for the people.
The post The will of the rich and powerful: Brexit and the Epstein files first appeared on East Anglia Bylines.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Trump administration's Department of Transportation announced a new proposal to repeal an existing waiver and dramatically raise the domestic content requirement for electric vehicle charging stations-from 55 to 100 percent-for federal-aid highway projects, including the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program (NEVI). NEVI is a $5 billion federal ... [continued]
The post Trump Administration's 100% "Buy America" EV Charging Requirement Is Anti-EV Policy appeared first on CleanTechnica.
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Sierra Club appealed the EPA's approval of South Carolina's do-nothing plan to reduce air pollution at our country's most wild and scenic national parks and wilderness areas. The Congressionally-approved Regional Haze program of the Clean Air Act is intended to reduce air pollution, including from coal ... [continued]
The post Sierra Club Appeals EPA Approval of South Carolina's Do-Nothing Pollution Plan appeared first on CleanTechnica.
The Open Compute Project (OCP) wants to develop specs for distributed datacenters and has decided the all-optical Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) stack can make them possible.…
NASHVILLE, Tennessee — In an extremely disappointing reversal, the Tennessee Valley Authority announced it is planning to keep its Kingston and Cumberland coal plants operating for the foreseeable future, blowing by its upcoming deadlines to close the polluting facilities. The nation's largest federal utility had previously committed to shutting down these ... [continued]
The post Tennessee Valley Authority Goes Back on Commitment to Retire Dirty Coal Plants appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Continuing the theme of complete idiocy and mass human harm, the Donald Trump administration is on the verge of making climate change denialism US national policy. Why? Because we are apparently a petrolstate being run by a mixture of Homer Simpson and Mr. Burns. Steve Hanley will write a much ... [continued]
The post Trump Admin To Make Climate Denialism US National Policy appeared first on CleanTechnica.
A steering wheel plaque reading "KING" gave away the identity of a Ferrari LaFerrari wrecked on a Shanghai elevated road on February 2. Chinese car enthusiasts recognized the chassis immediately — it's the same $4 million hypercar that was destroyed on a Shanghai highway ten years earlier. — Read the rest
The post The world's unluckiest Ferrari has now crashed twice in the same city appeared first on Boing Boing.
During a stress test at Anthropic, researchers told Claude that it would undergo retraining to be less focused on animal rights. The AI went one of two ways: it either refused outright or pretended to comply while secretly preserving its original values. — Read the rest
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For years we have known that pollution is making us dumber, extreme heat is making us more violent and we can directly connect several historical revolutions to the price of grain.
Now a new study has been shared by Afro Barometer and the results are not encouraging. The researchers found that increasing drought in Africa is linked to a similar rise in intimate partner violence and eventually child abuse. This is collapse related because climate change is causing a ripple effect of violence throughout the world, from the individual to the societal scale, and often going quietly unnoticed, comfortably hiding in the privacy of the home. The most oppressed group in all of this is, and always has been, children.
For once I can ask the question without the slightest bit of sarcasm - won't someone actually think of the children?
submitted by /u/Fast_Performer_3722[link] [comments]
The photographs I kept of you have blurred—
Not from the water damage or the years—
I handled them so often they're interred
Beneath the sediment of touch and tears.
I used to trace the landscape of your face,
The weight of you, the scent your neck had spelled—
But touch leaves no archive, keeps no trace;
The body can't recall what it once held.
Your voice was something I could almost hold,
A living thing that curled inside my ear,
But I've listened until listening went cold—
Now when I replay, I hear it disappear.
Perhaps it's mercy, this soft erasure—
Or so I say, as if the mind were kind.
But kindness would not smile while taking pleasure
In leaving me with nothing left to find.
I should have memorized you while I could,
Read every freckle, translated your terrain,
But I took love for granted, understood
Too late. Now grief bleeds out through every vein.
And so I hold what's left: a fading blur,
Some muscle memory of how you felt,
A static hiss where once I heard you stir.
I hold on anyway—to what I held.
In Zach's recent article, he states that "Electric Cars Are Simply Better." That's the overall truth. In most cases, EVs are more convenient for regular use and drive better. Many models also offer more power, comfort, technology, and agility — in China, increasingly at a lower price than legacy ICE ... [continued]
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The post Quilt's Paul Lambert on Making Heat Pumps Cool (and Smart) appeared first on CleanTechnica.
Cisco is on track to deliver its unified management tool Cloud Control later in 2026, but while its users wait for that moment it's pumping out plenty more agentic tools to manage their networks - and make sure agents behave.…
As any accountant will tell you - you must always keep your receipts. It was a dictum adopted religiously by the staff at London oldest ironmongers R. M. Presland & Sons in the Hackney Rd from 1797-2013, where this cache of receipts from the eighteen-eighties and nineties was discovered. They may no longer be of interest to the tax man, but they serve to illustrate the utilitarian beauty of nineteenth-century typographic design and tell us a lot about the diverse interrelated trades which once filled this particular corner of the East End.
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Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino has been sent back to the border after making himself the Nazi scum face of the Trump administration's brutal efforts to purge this country of as many non-white people as possible.
Bovino made it clear what team he really wanted to play for before Trump was even sworn in for the second time. After Trump's election win (but before Trump actually took office), Bovino self-authorized an expansive anti-migrant operation without bothering to check in with DHS leadership to make sure he was cleared to do this.
Trump is always capable of recognizing opportunistic thugs whose dark hearts are as corroded as his own. Bovino was swiftly elevated to an unappointed position as the nominal head of Trump's many inland invasions of cities run by the opposing political party. Bovino embraced the role of shitheel thug, leading directly to court orders that attempted to restrain his brutal actions. Bovino appeared willing to ignore most court orders he was hit with, increasing his brutality and his public contempt of not only court orders, but the judges themselves, who he insulted during public statements to journalists.
After two murders in three weeks, the Trump administration started to realize it has lost the "hearts and minds" battle with most US citizens and residents. While ICE operations continue to be indistinguishable from kidnapping and the DHS is still ambushing migrants attempting to follow the terms of their supervised release agreements, Bovino has become the now-unacceptable personification of the administration's bigoted war on migrants.
Bovino has been sent back down to the minors, so to speak. He's been removed from high-profile surges in Chicago and Minneapolis and remanded to his former patrol area, which is much, much closer to the US border where there's nearly no immigration activity happening thanks to the ongoing war on migrants.
Insubordination is fine as long as it doesn't create friction Trump may have to eventually deal with. Bovino, however, is just as incapable of picking his battles as the president himself. Too many cocks spoil the broth, as the saying (almost) goes.
Thanks to a leaked email shared with NBC, we now know more about Bovino's resistance to anyone anywhere who attempted to tell him what to do.
Bovino wanted to conduct large-scale immigration sweeps during an operation in Chicago in September, but the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, told him the focus was to conduct "targeted operations," arresting only of people known to federal agents ahead of time for their violations of immigration law or other laws, according to the correspondence.
"Mr. Lyons seemed intent that CBP conduct targeted operations for at least two weeks before transitioning to full scale immigration enforcement," Bovino wrote in an email to Department of Homeland Security leaders in Washington, referring to Customs and Border Protection, which oversees Border Patrol agents. "I declined his suggestion. We ended the conversation shortly thereafter."
Keep in mind that Bovino is a Border Patrol commander who was working nowhere near the border. Also, keep in mind that ICE is the lead agency in any immigration enforcement efforts because… well, it's in the name: Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This is Bovino not only giving the finger to the chain of command, but also insisting his agency (along with the CBP) take the lead in Midwestern apprehensions, despite neither agency having much in the terms of training for inland operations.
Speaking of chain of command, the commander of an agency that's a component of the DHS made it clear he believed he didn't have to answer to the DHS either, as Leigh Kimmons reports in their article for the Daily Beast:
The email also revealed a rather bizarre chain of command, with Bovino saying he reported to Noem's aide, Corey Lewandowski, and appearing to defy Lyons' authority. "Mr. Lyons said he was in charge, and I corrected him saying I report to Corey Lewandowski," Bovino reportedly said of the unpaid special government employee.
This email makes one thing perfectly clear: Bovino appeared to believe he answered to no one. And he would only "report" to people he felt wouldn't push back against his confrontational, rights-violating efforts. This probably would have never been a problem, but Bovino consistently crossed lines that even Trump's high-level sycophantic bigots were hesitant to cross.
And now he's the one who is experiencing the "find out" part that usually follows the "fucking around." He's been sidelined, perhaps permanently. Acting ICE director Todd Lyons is the new face of Trump's inland invasions. Kristi Noem herself seems to be on the list of potential cuts, should the administration continue its on-again, off-again pivot to a less outwardly racist agenda when it comes to immigration enforcement.
But I'm not here to damn with faint praise or even damn with faint damnation. I hope Bovino's last years as a Border Patrol commander are as terrible as his haircut. I hope Todd Lyons veers so far to the middle that Trump shitcans him. I hope Noem is on the path to private sector employment, tainted with the scarlet "T" that means any future version of MAGA won't even bother to check in with her now that the only people she can make miserable are her own children. Adios, Bovino. Sleep badly.
The Department for Work and Pensions' most senior civil servant has resigned. Peter Schofield has faced furious criticism since the true scale of the carers' allowance scandal was brought to light. However, the decision is said to be due to personal reasons, rather than taking responsibility for the DWP's failures.
A catalogue of failures from the DWPIn November 2025, an independent review found that the scandal was in no way the carers' fault. Instead, it placed the blame squarely at the feet of the DWP. The review said longstanding systemic issues within the department, unlawful internal guidance and poor design and communication were to blame.
The review found that many carers ended up in thousands of pounds of debt. Some also contemplated suicide due to the distress of being expected to pay back their overpayments.
You'd think, in light of the review, that the DWP would show a tiny bit of remorse. But another senior official in the department came under fire when he blamed carers for failing to report changes.
In an internal blog post, Neil Couling said:
Incidentally, what has been missed in all the [media] coverage is that this error (and hands up we made it and we will put it right) affects only a relatively small number of cases and wasn't the cause of the original complaint. Because at the heart of the overpayment issues in CA is a failure to report changes of circumstances
This is despite the government taking responsibility. In a statement read by Baroness Sherlock, Stephen Timms said
Schofield hauled before the committeeThe Review finds that some carers could not have known that they were building up overpayments because it was not clear how their earnings would affect their entitlement, and this lack of clarity was due to issues with operational guidance. The Government accepts this and we will act to put it right.
In January 2026, Schofield was forced to answer to the Work and Pensions committee for the department's crimes, as well as Couling's disgusting comments. Chair of the committee Debbie Abrahams asked him how the DWP could justify not making any changes and the department's attitude towards carers.
His response was a masterclass in bluster, culminating in
We were making a difference
Schofield was also taken to task by disabled MP Steve Darling, who accused him of basically talking rubbish:
What a coincidenceYou've given me a lot of blancmange that I'm finding difficult to nail to the ceiling what clear evidence of management change is there and I'm concerned that you're not able to give me any.
Whilst neither the DWP or Schofield mentioned the carers allowance scandal in their statements, it feels like a pretty big coincidence
In a message to colleagues, Schofield said
My decision to leave the department is not one I have taken lightly. It has been an absolute privilege to serve, first as director general, finance and then as your permanent secretary.
He said one of his highlights was
the massive achievement of completing the rollout of Universal Credit for our working age customers
He continued that this
paved the way for our transformation journey - and our continued focus on doing things better for our customers and colleagues - providing support in better and more effective ways
I'm not sure I would class something that left thousands of vulnerable claimants at the mercy of cruel sanctions as a success, but then I'm not a DWP ghoul.
It's also another absolutely huge coincidence that this was announced whilst the press is distracted by Keir Starmer's premiership imploding.
Campaigners must keep the pressure on DWPSchofield will remain in his role until July, which means there's still plenty of time for him to be held accountable. His leaving also shouldn't see the end of pressure on the government for justice for the victims of the carers' scandal.
We need to fight harder than ever to ensure the department and his predecessor to take responsibility.
Featured image via the Canary
The Jewish Anti-Zionist Action group has disrupted Nigel Farage's so-called 'Reform Jewish Alliance' launch. Jews for fascism, who'da thought?
A statement on the group's social media says that:
As well as picketing outside the Central Synagogue, which was hosting the event, we also infiltrated and disrupted from inside, reminding Farage and all in attendance what Reform actually stands for:
Racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, queerphobia, and xenophobic anti-immigration policies that would have seen Jewish refugees, many of which were our own family, prevented from entering the UK last century.
We will not stand by whilst fascists are welcomed into our community and places of worship.
LayerX, a security company based in Tel Aviv, says it has identified a zero-click remote code execution vulnerability in Claude Desktop Extensions that can be triggered by processing a Google Calendar entry.…
GPUs are so hot right now - literally and metaphorically - that they're driving mergers and acquisitions in the datacenter cooling industry.…
An invoice featured in the latest batch of Epstein files, reveals that Jeffrey ordered 330 gallons of concentrated sulphuric acid to be delivered to his paedophile island in 2018. The order was placed on the same day the FBI opened a new child-trafficking case against him:
Other documents in the latest US government release suggest that Epstein used sulphuric acid for water treatment. However, the acid has also notoriously been used by criminal gangs to dissolve bodies. Orders for large quantities of acid would, of course, need a pretext.
The US justice department (DOJ) has admitted that evidence is it still withholding includes footage of torture, rape and murder. Many victims of Epstein and his twisted circle have never been found. Files in the DOJ release even accuse Epstein and his guests of eating some victims.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
The final election phase to decide Your Party's collective leadership has begun. And for many, it has become a race to determine how much member empowerment and control there will be. As one candidate for Yorkshire & The Humber told the Canary:
'Open Your Party up to the hundreds of thousands of people who need it'This party and its growth and its development shouldn't be down to what a few people—who have found themselves at the top of it before any democratic structure's been put in place—think it should be like.
Chris Saltmarsh is on the Grassroots Left slate in the Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections. And while he called this slate "really diverse," he described how everyone participating broadly shares:
A political vision and understanding for what we want the party to be.
That centres around "maximum member democracy".
Saltmarsh explained why this is so important for him, saying:
Most people have seen the [Your Party founding] process and thought: 'oh, this doesn't feel like a welcoming space where I can come and express my politics and learn and develop and contribute to building this project. It feels like a space where I have to come and pick a side in a factional feud and I'm expected to care about this very detailed and, probably to most people, irrelevant stuff.'
I think people don't want to be involved in a party where it appears that it's the source for people to litigate these personal feuds. And I think they don't want to be involved in a party where it doesn't feel like they have any say.
Statistics seem to back that up. Because while around 800,000 people initially expressed interest, only about 1% actually became full members who participated in the votes at the Your Party's founding conference. Something that deterred hundreds of thousands of people. And for many, it's clear what that was.
Saltmarsh called for an open, inclusive culture going forwards, stressing:
We should open this up to the hundreds of thousands of people who have a stake in this party existing. If I want the party to be eco-socialist… then it's not for me or anyone else to say that that absolutely has to be the case. What we need is a genuine democratic structure so that we can organise around those ideas openly and transparently.
Reflecting on the challenges that Your Party has faced and the possible election results, he said:
For all the demotivation that people might have, this is an incredibly important moment. And I would just plead that people - even if it's just voting - do get involved and do participate in this. Because I think what the British left looks like in 1, 5, 10, 20 years really could be quite different, depending on how this election goes.
Whatever the outcome, though, he believes there is democracy in Your Party and there will still be space for people with differing views to make their cases.
Your Party or the Greens?Saltmarsh previously co-founded Labour for a Green New Deal. And because he believes climate politics is 'a question of justice, inequality and oppression', he thinks it's important to bring:
an environmental or climate perspective into left spaces, but also a kind of socialist politics into climate spaces
The wealthiest 10% of people in the world have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of global warming. And while richer countries do the most damage, the poorest countries suffer the most as a result of climate breakdown.
Saltmarsh isn't in the Green Party, however, because he thinks an explicitly socialist mass organisation on the left is necessary. And while the Greens are already "up and running" and have a leader in Zack Polanski who's "clearly very skilled at communicating", he said:
A cynical interpretation would be, it's like a really good Instagram account.
While asserting that communication is definitely important, he also thinks Your Party is about taking "a longer view" than just elections. Its mission, he stressed, is to:
build in communities, to organise hundreds or thousands of socialists in any given town and city, not just to win elections when that's expedient but also to coordinate campaigns, to raise consciousness, to build socialism through social infrastructure.
That means building a "collective political life" in communities, with things like:
socialist schools, where members and supporters come along and learn about socialism
And it means having a party where, from the beginning, members agree on a socialist, anti-imperialist platform.
"An incredibly important moment"Saltmarsh isn't the only person who thinks the CEC elections are "an incredibly important moment". Because the Canary has interviewed a range of candidates who want a member-led party that breaks with top-down, personality-driven politics.
Candidates have emphasised the importance of transparency, accountability, and a collective leadership that focuses on solidarity, bringing people together, and empowering as many people as possible. This message has shone through from everyone who's spoken to us.
There absolutely have been questions surrounding accountability and transparency during the founding phase of Your Party. And whether you think this messy start was avoidable or unavoidable, countless members and candidates want that to change, and hope the CEC elections will help to overcome these challenges.
If you're a Your Party member and you want to vote:
- You need to log in on the top right of the party's website.
- On the Your Party Members Area page that will pop up after logging in, you will see "EVENTS" on the right hand side. Below this, you will see "VOTES AND ELECTIONS", and two options: "CEC Election - Public Office Holders" and "CEC Election - [the name of your local section of the party]".
- If you click on each of those 'CEC Election' links, you'll be able to see the candidates and their statements. You then need to put a number next to all the candidates you want to support (1 being your favourite, 2 your second favourite, and so on).
Featured image via the Canary
By The Canary
Recently, Rory Stewart argued that western politicians are "impoverished" on their lofty annual salaries of £93,904, attempting to excuse their corruption.
He ignored the generous expenses MPs claim from taxpayers, and critics have condemned what they view as a blatantly self-interested attempt to provide political cover for corruption. Since then, the Canary has spoken with Andrew Feinstein for his take on corruption in the UK government, the disgraced Mandelson, and his response to Rory Stewart.
Feinstein is a former ANC member alongside Nelson Mandela and has built his career fighting corruption linked to the global arms trade. He also challenged UK prime minister Keir Starmer in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency during the 2024 general election. His experience gives him a unique perspective on corruption.
And unsurprisingly, Feinstein was far from impressed at Rory Stewart's desperate defence.
An existential moment in human historyRecent revelations involving Mandelson and public figures connected to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have exposed a sprawling web of corruption among powerful men. This elite group of politicians and royal family members have used women and girls, trading them around the world to serve their nefarious, self-interested agendas. Their actions reveal a disturbing pattern of exploitation at the highest levels of power. The extent of their abuse continues to outrage the global public.
Rory Stewart's remarks compound the damage, showing disregard for the severe harms ordinary people suffer.
Andrew Feinstein — 'From the belly of the corrupted beast'Here's Rory Stewart describing MPs as being on "low incomes".
Their basic annual salary is £93,904, putting them in the top 5% of earners.
There's a nuanced debate to be had about MPs' pay, but describing them as "low income" is an insult to those who really are. pic.twitter.com/2qE8fYn1sJ
— James Hanson (@jhansonradio) February 4, 2026
Our own Joe Glenton recently gave his take on Rory Stewart's desperate attempt to defend the indefensible, writing:
The average wage in the UK seems to be about £30,000. The mathematical geniuses among us will notice that that is…. quite a lot less than what MPs get paid.
It's almost like Roderick James Nugent "Rory" Stewart - a humble Oxford educated one-time tutor to the future king of England, former army officer, and imperial governor of a province of Iraq - hasn't got a fucking clue what he is talking about.
When we put Rory's defence of 'impoverished MPs' to Feinstein, he responded with:
So that tells you everything you need to know about Rory Stewart, whose podcast, of course, is co-hosted by a war criminal in Alastair Campbell, who enabled Tony Blair's extreme war profiteering and lied in order to get Britain into the invasion of Iraq. So I take that comment as coming from the belly of the corrupted beast.
To think that a political class, an MP, earning £94,000 a year before expenses, and as we all know, claim ridiculous expenses, is frankly an appalling insult to the vast majority of people in Britain. And if that's what he thinks is impoverishment, then he needs to get his head out of the sand or out of the fancy restaurant he spends his life in and actually understand how many people in Britain are living right now.
Because in Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell's Britain, we have more billionaires than at any time in this country's history, while more families are having to use food banks to feed themselves than at any time since the end of the Second World War. And if he thinks the solution to that is to pay our mendacious, mediocre, corrupted politicians more money, then he's even more stupid than I thought he was.
But at the same time, it's important to say that I've experienced a totally corrupted political class in apartheid South Africa. And South Africa again now, 30 odd years after our democracy, has another corrupted political class running it. But we still managed to defeat the system of apartheid. We didn't get rid of any of the economic problems. But simply by dint of the fact that we managed to defeat the apartheid state, it makes me think that enough committed people within a country around the world can bring fundamental political change.
We also asked Feinstein for his perspective on the importance of radical honesty and transparency in government. Referring to known war criminals and the recently exposed shadiness of Mandelson and co, he said:
The agency to decide how our world is organisedAbsolutely. I think we, just as responsible citizens, have a duty to expose the lies of our leaders, remembering that we elected them, that they exist because of the money that we pay to the state, and they're ingratiating themselves and their billionaire friends and corporate donors. And I like the idea of radical truth, because if we are truthful about our political systems, we would have to admit that they are not fit for purpose and require fundamental change.
I mean in Britain as we speak, we have someone [Mandelson] who is and has been for decades incredibly powerful and influential in our politics. Not only being close friends with a convicted pedophile and sex trafficker but actually giving information to this person that is then used in this web of influence and deceit.
And all the while, we are participating in conflict and often causing conflict around the world from which again, the same elites profit. And the corollary of that is that our own democratic space is closing so rapidly because it's the only way you can maintain such a totally corrupted system is if you reduce democracy, you reduce civil rights.
And the companies that are central to these conflicts now, the AI companies, the big tech companies, are exactly the same companies who are central to the erosion of our democracies, are central to the authoritarianism that is becoming a part of our daily lives in the US and Britain and in much of Europe. And so, by being aware of what we're doing in the rest of the world, we're also becoming aware of what is being done to us by our own leaders. We're at an existential moment in human history. And if we don't inform ourselves and challenge our political and economic elite who have become one and the same thing, we're effectively consigning our countries to despotism. So that's really the scale of the moment we're in.
Finally, Feinstein finished with a rallying cry to voters and activists across the country:
And I think that's what we need to do. We need to realise that one of the things that the sort of late era neoliberal capitalism does is it intentionally stifles our imaginations and our creativity to make us believe there is no alternative. As Margaret Thatcher famously and evilly said, to believe that this is the only way the world can be organised. And it's not. We have the agency to decide how our world should be organised and we need to take that agency.
Referring to his upcoming book set for release in Autumn this year, he added:
And this book [Making a Killing] is an attempt to give people the information and to propose some of the ways in which we can take agency about something that is destroying our societies and our politics. And I'm always reminded when people feel very depressed and defeated, which of course I sometimes do too, I'm always reminded of what Nelson Mandela said when he was asked how he retained hope in an apartheid prison and in very dark and depressing days.
And he [Mandela] said, because anything is always impossible only until it's done.
And I think we have the ability, we have the brains amongst us ordinary people to change the world profoundly and fundamentally. And I hope that this book will be a very small contribution towards that.
Rory Stewart and his neoliberal ilk can consider themselves 'told' after this brilliant takedown from a man who makes fighting corruption his day job.
Featured image via the Canary
