IBM services spin-out Kyndryl said it was reviewing its accounting practices after it announced revenue below market expectations and the departure of its CFO.…

APRICOT 2026 After years of strife, the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) is weeks away from signing off on a budget and action plan, activity that one of the organization's newly appointed executives believes demonstrates it is back on track.…

One of Norfolk's last remaining traditional gentlemen's clubs has agreed to allow women to join, saying the change will help it reflect the "modern landscape".

The Strangers Club, in Norwich, approved the new policy following a vote among its 170 members. While 82% supported the change, almost a fifth voted against it. The Elm Hill establishment has already admitted its first female member in its 99-year history: Collette Thomson, a surgeon whose father, Stephen, is the club's current president and oversaw the policy change.

The decision means only one Norfolk private members' club now remains men-only: the City Club, also in Norwich. The county's other club of this type, the Norfolk Club in Upper King Street, has accepted women members since the 1990s.

The move follows recent legal challenges to gentlemen's clubs in London, where critics have argued that excluding women breaches equality laws.

Despite the clear majority in favour, some members remain opposed. One member, who asked not to be named, said they saw no reason to change the club's rules, stressing that the institution was "steeped in tradition" and that many members were uncomfortable with change.

They said some had already begun attending less frequently and warned that the decision could ultimately harm the club's future. "Frankly - and I hope I am wrong - this could be the death of the club," the member said.

The Strangers Club was established in 1927 as a meeting place for leading figures in the city's business and professional community, including lawyers, doctors and entrepreneurs. Stephen Thomson, the club's president, said the change reflected both social reality and the club's founding purpose. "If the club had been founded today, then given the number of women business leaders, membership would have been open to women," he said.

He said the club still aspired to be the premier gathering place for Norwich's professional and business community, adding that although women had long been welcomed at social events, it had become clear that full membership should be opened. While acknowledging that some members found the change difficult, Mr Thomson said the vast majority supported it and confirmed that no one had resigned as a result. He added that the club had always been welcoming to members' families and regularly hosted inclusive events.

Collette Thomson, the club's first female member, is a consultant plastic surgeon at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. She had been a teenager when her father first joined. She had been struck at the time by the club's exclusionary rules, which she described as outdated.

Ms Thomson said her decision to join was driven less by tradition than by a desire for connection. She described the club as offering something increasingly rare in a digital world dominated by emails and messaging. "This club is an antidote to that," she said, "offering a space where you can meet people face to face and have conversations over a meal."

So far, the club has received five applications from women, three of whom are daughters of existing members.

The policy change may increase pressure on the City Club, in nearby Colegate, to also accept women members. Gurpreet Padda, Labour cabinet member for equalities and social justice at Norwich City Council, said she saw no justification for men-only private members' clubs in 2026. She said such spaces hinder equality and described them as a backward step, arguing that they prevent women from progressing.

Men-only clubs in London have faced growing pressure in recent years, with some women challenging membership rules through the courts. The Garrick Club, in London's West End, became the focus of a legal dispute after businesswoman Emily Bendell argued that its men-only membership breached equality legislation.

Under the Equality Act 2010, single-sex organisations such as choirs or sports clubs are permitted. However, the law restricts discrimination by businesses providing services. Ms Bendell and her lawyers argued that because the Garrick operated a restaurant and guest rooms, women were being denied access to services on the same terms as men. Following the challenge, members voted to allow women to join.

The Strangers Club is the youngest of Norfolk's remaining traditional clubs. It was founded in 1927 by six "local gentlemen" seeking to build a community of business leaders and professionals. Its name references Flemish and Dutch Protestant "strangers" who fled religious persecution and settled in Norwich in the 16th century. Membership costs around £600, and the club enforces a dress code that excludes jeans and trainers, favouring collared shirts, jackets and trousers.

The county's oldest private members' club, the Norfolk Club, dates back to 1770 and is thought to have around 400 members. Its membership was traditionally drawn from the county's landowning and farming communities.

The City Club, founded in 1897 and historically frequented by former police officers, now has around 90 members. It is currently the only private members' club in Norwich that remains men-only.

Meanwhile, in London, a number of clubs such as the Turf Club, White's, Brooks's, the Savage Club, the Portland Club and the Savile Club are still excluding women members. How long will they be able to withstand the winds of change?

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The post Norfolk gentlemen's club opens doors to women after 99 years first appeared on East Anglia Bylines.

Xikipedia reimagines Wikipedia as a doomscrollable social media feed—without the social media downsides. The site links to actual Wikipedia articles but displays them as short descriptions you can browse endlessly. Unlike social media scrolling, this feels healthy.

"Doomscroll" usually sounds negative, but it feels fully positive here. — Read the rest

The post Xikipedia reimagines wikipedia as a social media feed without the social media appeared first on Boing Boing.

Hold on to your hats! A conservative religious school in a state with below-average vaccination rates, and a Surgeon General who is an anti-vaxxer, is seeing a huge outbreak of the measles. Measles is wildly contagious and deadly.

Per their Friday, February 6, 3 p.m.

— Read the rest

The post Measles outbreak tears through a Florida university appeared first on Boing Boing.

The Asus Zenbook Duo is obviously ridiculous, but Engadget's Sam Rutherford found it to his liking: "It takes time for novel designs to catch on."

The company has addressed barriers to entry from the first attempt, such as short battery life and excessive thickness, and it's now just more display space—something most of us can benefit from. — Read the rest

The post Second-gen Zenbook Duo much-improved, say critics appeared first on Boing Boing.

One of the strangest burial stories is that of Fredric J. Baur, the food scientist who invented the Pringles can and contributed to the stacked-chip concept. When Baur died in 2008, part of him was buried in a Pringles can. He repeatedly told his family he wanted his ashes buried in a Pringles can, and they honored his request. — Read the rest

The post Pringles inventor was buried in a Pringles can appeared first on Boing Boing.

I came across a fun website called screen toys today. Screen Toys was created by Gavin Shapiro. It does exactly what it sounds like: turns your screen into interactive toys.

The "toys" on the screen aren't exactly games, because you don't win or lose. — Read the rest

The post This website transforms your screen into digital toys appeared first on Boing Boing.

California Attorney General Robert Bonta joins the long list of folks investigating why xAI's self-proclaimed Nazi chatbot keeps generating non-consensual explicit images. Meanwhile, Elon blames the users.

California is the latest large government to wonder why xAI can't stop Grok from breaking the law. — Read the rest

The post California investigates Grok, Musk continues not noticing appeared first on Boing Boing.

They won't be available until October, but Seiko's Sega-themed wristwatch celebrates the game company's 65th anniversary and they're happy to take your 71,500円 (~$460) already. It's coming in white (above) and black (below), with the Sega logo at the 3 o'clock position. — Read the rest

The post Watch Seiko and Sega team up for a time appeared first on Boing Boing.

TL;DR: A $25 Sam's Club membership (MSRP $50) helps families save on groceries, household essentials, and everyday life — without overthinking it.

There's a moment every household hits where buying four rolls of paper towels at a time just feels inefficient. — Read the rest

The post This Sam's Club offer is for those who like saving money but also like snacks appeared first on Boing Boing.

Robert Anton Wilson Fans Germania is an excellent website of RAW material maintained by Martin Wagner. The main website is currently down because of technical difficulties. Martin is addressing this, but in the interim, please use the site archive. 

Get ye to Windows Update, because there's a good chance you've got new Secure Boot certificates to install. Microsoft just announced that it will be refreshing those certificates, which were originally introduced when Secure Boot debuted in 2011, as a security precaution. Secure Boot was a way for Microsoft to protect systems from running unsigned and potentially malicious code before Windows launched. It went on to be an installation requirement for Windows 11, as well as anti-cheat software used in Valorant, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6/7 and Battlefield 6.

Without the new Secure Boot certificates, Microsoft says your system will still function normally, but it will enter "a degraded security state that limits its ability to receive future boot-level protections." Basically, you won't be protected from malware and viruses targeting vulnerabilities in older versions of Windows. As expected, Microsoft also notes that unsupported versions of Windows won't be receiving the new Secure Boot certificates. They're only coming to Windows 11 systems, as well as Windows 10 PCs subscribed to Microsoft's Extended Security Updates.

Microsoft says many users will be able to pick up the updated Secure Boot certificates by visiting Windows Update, but a few may need additional firmware updates from their system (or motherboard's) OEM. You'll also be able to track the status of your security certificates in the Windows Security app in the "coming months."

"As cryptographic security evolves, certificates and keys must be periodically refreshed to maintain strong protection," Nuno Costa, Partner Director of Windows Servicing and Delivery, wrote in a blog post today. "Retiring old certificates and introducing new ones is a standard industry practice that helps prevent aging credentials from becoming a weak point and keeps platforms aligned with modern security expectations."

Costa says Microsoft has been working with OEMs like Dell and HP to ensure a smooth transition to the new Secure Boot certificates. Many new systems built in 2024 already have the updated certs, while "almost all" devices shipped last year have them as well. Microsoft has also been alerting IT customers to this transition since last year.

There appears to be no limit to how chonky and eye-wateringly expensive PC gaming handhelds can get, with the latest behemoth being the Ayaneo Next 2. First announced back in November, the latest Windows handheld in Ayaneo's Next lineup is now up for pre-order, with a spec sheet that makes some of its rivals look modest.

If you missed the announcement at the end of last year, the Next 2 is packing a 9-inch OLED display with a 2,400 x 1,504 resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz (adjustable down to 60Hz). The Next 2 is powered by an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip and has a massive 115Mh battery under the hood.

To put all of that into perspective, the Next 2's display is more than 1.5 inches larger than the Steam Deck OLED's, and goes bigger than even the Lenovo Legion Go 2's 8.8-inch panel. Its battery is the largest of the three by some margin too, and according to Ars Technica it weighs in at around 3.14 pounds (around 1424g), making it more than twice as heavy as the very heavy Xbox ROG Ally X. Get those wrists to the gym if you're considering picking one of these up.

Ayaneo is ticking all the boxes where inputs are concerned too. Its latest handheld has dual touchpads (a feature ASUS left out on the ROG Xbox Ally X), Hall Effect sticks, an 8-way D-Pad and four customizable rear buttons.

All of this tech inevitably comes at a high price, with the entry-level model that ships with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage coming in at $1,999, or $1,799 if you take advantage of early bird pricing. This model is equipped with the slightly less capable Ryzen AI Max 385 CPU.

If you want the more powerful AI+ 395 chip you have a few options. A variant of the Next II with 64GB of RAM and 1TB of storage costs $2,699, but you can order now at the early bird price of $2,299. For 128GB of RAM and 2TB of storage you'll be handing over a slightly hilarious $4,299 at full price. Early birds can order now for $3,499.

A US judicial body has revised an internal document to remove climate research. The Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence is a document used by judges when they have to oversee cases involving complex scientific matters. The climate science chapter has now been deleted, so they'll be on their own with climate-related cases.

This move came after a group of Republican state attorneys wrote a letter to complain about the chapter on climate change. The language in the document, which was authored by researchers from Columbia University, suggests that climate change is driven by the actions of humans. This was a no-go to those state attorneys, despite being an established fact.

"Nothing is 'independent' or 'impartial' in issuing a document on behalf of America's judges declaring that only one preferred view is 'within the boundaries of scientifically sound knowledge,'" the letter states. It's worth noting that the document is nearly 2,000 pages long and declares preferred views on numerous subjects, though the state attorneys only have an issue with the one.

The Republicans also complained that the report called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change an "authoritative science body." The grounds for this complaint seem to derive from a short paper from a Canadian conservative think tank.

US court agency pulls climate change from science advisory document https://t.co/2ornJlJN1X

— Ars Technica (@arstechnica) February 10, 2026

The letter's authors would not settle for any revisions, according to a report by Ars Technica. Rather, they demanded the entire chapter be removed. So it was removed and now judges can rule on climate cases using the tried and true method known as "vibes."

Interestingly, the introduction of the document by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan still mentions the climate chapter. They had better break out some correction tape. The full text of the now-deleted chapter has been posted by RealClimate, if you want to give it a gander.

More than 99.9 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree that climate change is real and caused by humans. It looks like some segments of society want a judicial system ruled by that remaining 0.01 percent.

Supermassive Games has announced a new release date for the next entry in the Dark Pictures Anthology series. Directive 8020 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Steam on May 12. The studio behind Until Dawn and The Quarry revealed the news with the help of a fresh trailer for the sci-fi survival horror game.

The story focuses on the crew of a spaceship that has crash landed onto another world. The survivors have to contend with an alien lifeform that's hunting them and can mimic its prey (no prizes for guessing that Supermassive took inspiration from The Thing here). If these astronauts want to stay alive, though, they'll put the lives of everyone on a dying Earth at risk.

As with Supermassive's previous games, Directive 8020 is largely driven by the narrative choices players make at key moments, such as whether to save a crewmate and put the character you're currently controlling at risk, or to abandon them. You might also have to pick between two seemingly identical versions of the same person and let one of them back into the crew. The game has segments in which you'll have to fight or stealthily avoid enemies as well.

This time around, Supermassive is introducing a feature called Turning Points, through which you can go back to previous decisions and opt for another path (perhaps to see different endings more easily, keep certain characters alive or make sure you get all the achievements or trophies). A permadeath mode does away with that option for a more traditional survival horror experience. 

You can go it alone or get some friends to join you for five-player local co-op action — the studio's games have long been good fodder for pass-the-controller couch co-op. Supermassive will add online multiplayer support down the line.

The developer originally planned to release Directive 8020 in October 2025. However, Supermassive announced last July that it was delaying the game amid its latest round of layoffs.

Google provided Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a wide array of personal data on a student activist and journalist, including his credit card and bank account numbers, according to a copy of an ICE subpoena obtained by The Intercept.

Amandla Thomas-Johnson had attended a protest targeting companies that supplied weapons to Israel at a Cornell University job fair in 2024 for all of five minutes, but the action got him banned from campus. When President Donald Trump assumed office and issued a series of executive orders targeting students who protested in support of Palestinians, Thomas-Johnson and his friend Momodou Taal went into hiding.

Google informed Thomas-Johnson via a brief email in April that it had already shared his metadata with the Department of Homeland Security, as The Intercept previously reported. But the full extent of the information the tech giant provided — including usernames, addresses, itemized list of services, including any IP masking services, telephone or instrument numbers, subscriber numbers or identities, and credit card and bank account numbers — was not previously known.

"I'd already seen the subpoena request that Google and Meta had sent to Momodou [Taal], and I knew that he had gotten in touch with a lawyer and the lawyer successfully challenged that," Thomas-Johnson said. "I was quite surprised to see that I didn't have that opportunity."

The subpoena provides no justification for why ICE is asking for this information, except that it's required "in connection with an investigation or inquiry relating to the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws." In the subpoena, ICE requests that Google not "disclose the existence of this summons for indefinite period of time."

Thomas-Johnson, who is British, believes that ICE requested that information to track and eventually detain him — but he had already fled to Geneva, Switzerland, and is now in Dakar, Senegal. 

Related Google Secretly Handed ICE Data About Pro-Palestine Student Activist

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is representing Thomas-Johnson, and the ACLU of Northern California sent a letter to Google, Amazon, Apple, Discord, Meta, Microsoft, and Reddit last week calling on tech companies to resist similar subpoenas in the future from DHS without court intervention. The letter asks the companies to provide users with as much notice as possible before complying with a subpoena to give them the opportunity to fight it, and to resist gag orders that would prevent the tech companies from informing targets that a subpoena was issued.

"Your promises to protect the privacy of users are being tested right now. As part of the federal government's unprecedented campaign to target critics of its conduct and policies, agencies like DHS have repeatedly demanded access to the identities and information of people on your services," the letter reads. "Based on our own contact with targeted users, we are deeply concerned your companies are failing to challenge unlawful surveillance and defend user privacy and speech."

In addition to Thomas-Johnson's case, the letter refers to other instances in which technology companies provided user data to DHS, including a subpoena sent to Meta to "unmask" the identities of users who documented immigration raids in California. Unlike Thomas-Johnson, users in that case were given the chance to fight the subpoena because they were made aware of it before Meta complied.

Lindsay Nash, a professor at Cardozo Law and a former staff attorney with ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, said that by not giving prior notice, Google deprived Thomas-Johnson of his ability to protect his information.

"Your promises to protect the privacy of users are being tested right now."

"The problem is that it doesn't allow the person whose personal information is on the line and whose privacy may be being invaded to raise challenges to the disclosure of that potentially private information," Nash said. "And I think that's important to protect rights that they may have to their own information."

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

Tech companies' data sharing practices are primarily governed by two federal laws, the Stored Communications Act, which protects the privacy of digital communications, including emails, and Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive trade practices.

"Under both federal law and the law of every state, you cannot deceive consumers," said Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University St. Louis who specializes in privacy, the internet, and civil liberties. "And if you make a material misrepresentation about your data practices, that's a deceptive trade practice."

Whether or not corporations are clear enough with consumers about how they collect and share their data has been litigated for decades, Richards said, referencing the infamous Cambridge Analytica lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that the company misled Facebook users about data collection and sharing.

Google's public privacy policy acknowledges that it will share personal information in response to an "enforceable governmental request," adding that its legal team will "frequently push back when a request appears to be overly broad or doesn't follow the correct process."

According to Google, the company overwhelmingly complied with the millions of requests made by the government for user information over the last decade. Its data also shows that those requests have spiked over the last five years. It's unclear how many of those users were given notice of those requests ahead of time or after.

Richards said that cases like these emphasize the need for legal reforms around data privacy and urged Congress to amend the Stored Communications Act to require a higher standard before the government can access our digital data. He also said the federal government needs to regulate Big Tech and place "substantive restrictions on their ability to share information with the government."

It's hard to know exactly how tech companies are handling our personal data in relation to the government, but there seems to have been a shift in optics, Richards said. "What we have seen in the 12 months since the leaders of Big Tech were there on the podium at the inauguration," Richards said, "is much more friendliness of Big Tech towards the government and towards state power."

From Dakar, Thomas-Johnson said that understanding the extent of the subpoena was terrifying but had not changed his commitment to his work.

"As a journalist, what's weird is that you're so used to seeing things from the outside," said Thomas-Johnson, whose work has appeared in outlets including Al Jazeera and The Guardian. "We need to think very hard about what resistance looks like under these conditions… where government and Big Tech know so much about us, can track us, can imprison, can destroy us in a variety of ways."

The post Google Handed ICE Student Journalist's Bank and Credit Card Numbers appeared first on The Intercept.

Things Organized Neatly: The Art of Arranging the Everyday
by Austin Radcliffe
Universe
2016, 104 pages, 7.8 x 10 x 0.8 inches

Buy on Amazon

Simply as advertised. Rows and rows of diverse things neatly organized. This process is often called knolling. The applied organizing logic varies: it can be by size, by color, by age; in rows, in grids, in fitted mosaics. The effect is always hypnotic. Seemingly meaningless collections gain intelligence and order which focuses attention on the parts. The book ranges wide and far in the type of things that are inspected. You will soon knoll your own. - Kevin Kelly

Sharks. Face-to-Face With the Ocean's Endangered Predator
by Michael Muller
Taschen
2016, 334 pages, 11.5 x 15 x 1.5 inches

Buy on Amazon

Sharks. The word alone conjures images of grey and white shadows, dorsal fins slicing through the water, row after row of fierce, terrifying, teeth. And we love them for it. Since Jaws first made us all afraid to go into the water, sharks have become our favorite bad guys. We paint them as the apex predators, devouring everything that dares enter their territory, including we frail, defenseless humans. And then we anthropomorphize them into relentless, driven killers, intent on feasting upon every last one of us. While this characterization makes for great entertainment, it has also lead to the idea that shark attacks are the result of killing machines stalking easy prey instead of the mistaken identity accidents that they are. This, combined with a pronounced market for shark fins, liver, and other body parts has lead to a severe decline in several shark species across the globe.

Sharks are magnificent animals. They are the undisputed kings of the sea, at home and graceful in the ocean, beautiful and awe inspiring to watch. This beautiful animal, while dangerous, is something to be respected rather than feared; they are animals that offer far more in their exotic beauty than ever they could cut up in rare dishes and cuisine. Which is exactly what underwater photographer Michael Muller shows us in Sharks. Face-to-Face with the Ocean's Endangered Predator.

This book, Muller's first, presents the culmination of over a decade's worth of close encounters with sharks both small and gargantuan, both fierce and gentle, both rare and common. The photographs show incredible beauty at close range and in their natural habitats, all the better to help us overcome our fears, the better to see sharks for the graceful animals they are.

Presented by Taschen, this book is huge, beautiful, and comprehensive. Arranged geographically, the photos are printed on heavy, matte paper that allows a full range of colors and tones. The photos are also presented without context. Rather each photo is given its own page or two (or three or four in the gatefolds) and explanations and details are saved for the picture index in the final pages. Additional indices include essays by Philippe Cousteau, Jr. and Dr. Alison Kock detailing the need for conservation efforts as well as an overview of Muller's work and technique by Arty Nelson. Perhaps the most important, or maybe just most interesting index is the Species Notes, written by Dr. Kock, which includes each species place on the Red List of Threatened Species.

This is an amazing, hefty (seriously, you're gonna need a bigger boat, er, shelf) tome full of stunning photos of wildlife at its most majestic. Pick up a copy for the photographer and wildlife lover in your life and, next time you see a shark on the big screen in the role of bad guy, maybe try to see things from its point of view? - Joel Neff

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

Numerous major social platforms including Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snap say they will submit to a new external grading process that scores social platforms on how well they protect adolescent mental health. The program comes from the Mental Health Coalition's Safe Online Standards (SOS) initiative, which comprises about two dozen standards covering areas like platform policy, functionality, governance and transparency, content oversight and more. The SOS initiative is led by Dr. Dan Reidenberg, Managing Director of the National Council for Suicide Prevention.

In announcing these companies' participation, the Mental Health Coalition writes "SOS establishes clear, user-informed data for how social media, gaming, and digital platforms design products, protect users ages 13-19, and address exposure to suicide and self-harm content. Participating companies will voluntarily submit documentation on their policies, tools, and product features, which will be evaluated by an independent panel of global experts."

After evaluation, the platforms will be given one of three ratings. The highest achievable safety rating is "use carefully," which comes with a blue badge that compliant platforms can display. Despite being the highest rating, the requirements seem fairly run-of-the-mill. The description includes things like "reporting tools are accessible and easy to use," and "privacy, default and safety functions are clear and easy to set for parents." As for what actions the standards ask of the companies being rated, the "use carefully" rating says "platforms and filters help reduce exposure to harmful or inappropriate content."

The other ratings include "partial protection" which is described in part as "some safety tools exist on the platforms, but can be hard to find or use," and "does not meet standards" which would be given if "filters and content moderation do not reliably block harmful or unsafe content."

The Mental Health Coalition, founded in 2020, has mentioned Facebook and Meta as partners since the early days of the organization. In 2021 the organization said it would bring together "leading mental health experts partner with Facebook and Instagram to destigmatize mental health and connect people to resources" during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2022 the nonprofit published a case study with "support from Meta" that found "mental health content on social media can reduce stigma while increasing individuals' likelihood to seek resources, therefore positively impacting mental health."

In 2024, the MHC "in partnership with Meta" launched a campaign called the Time Well Spent Challenge. In it, the group urged parents to have "meaningful conversations" with teens about "healthy" social media use, focusing less on whether teens should be on these apps at all and more on keeping them on-platform in a "time well spent" way, from reduced screen time to "using social media for good" and reviewing their feeds together.

That same year it partnered with Meta again to establish "Thrive," a program that allows tech companies to share data regarding materials that violate self-harm or suicide content guidelines. The Mental Health Coalition lists Meta as a "creative partner" on its website.

Last year it was alleged that Meta buried internal data showing the ill effects of its products on users' mental health. The internal research, dubbed "Project Mercury," began in 2020. Since then the company has introduced some bare-minimum attempts at addressing mental health concerns, such as Instagram teen accounts. Meta is now on trial in California facing allegations over child harm from addictive products, the first in a series of upcoming lawsuits against the social media giant.

Other companies participating in the rating program include Roblox, which has recently faced stiff accusations over the wellbeing of children on the platform, and Discord which has beefed up its age-verification processes in response to its own serious child endangerment concerns.

The internet is ripe with horrible violations of people's privacy, including non-consensual explicit images. A new tool from Google won't do much in the way of prevention, but can help you remove this media from Search. 

Now, you can choose an image and quickly request its deletion. Just click on the three dots that appear on the image. From there, choose "remove result" and then "It shows a sexual image of me." Other choices include the picture shows a person under 18 and that it has your personal information. If you choose the initial option then you will also be asked whether it contains a real image or deepfake. There's also an option to submit multiple photos at once. 

Google claims that, upon submitting your request, you will "immediately" see links to emotional and legal support organizations. Plus, you can opt-in to safeguards that filter out similar results in Search — though it seems these unreported images will still be available for other users to see. This feature should be available in most countries over the coming days. 

You can go on Google's "Results about you" hub to track your request. To use the tool, you will have to add in your personal contact information and government ID numbers. Google already had the hub to track if any of that information appears on Search, but now it will also look for your social security number, drivers license and passport information. The company should notify you if any of that information comes up in Search results and allow you to take removal steps. 

Results about you's updates should roll out to US users in the coming days. Notably, it arrives as Google shutters its dark web reports. They would alert you if your name, number, or email address appeared on the internet — typically because of a data breach. However, Google found it didn't help users take next steps to fix the problem, something these new features will hopefully do. 

FCC boss Brendan Carr is back with yet another fake "investigation" of media outlets he deems insufficiently deferential to radical (and increasingly unpopular) right wing ideology. This time it involves Carr launching a phony non-investigation of ABC's The View. The crime? They apparently didn't kiss MAGA Republican ass with enough zeal:

"The Federal Communications Commission is opening an investigation into whether ABC's "The View" daytime talk show violated equal time rules for interviews with political candidates after an appearance by a Democratic Texas Senate candidate this week, a source told Reuters on Saturday."

This, to be clear, isn't a real investigation. Carr's office is likely the Reuters source. And he previously hinted this was coming. As we mentioned then,  Carr is threatening to leverage the "equal time" rule embedded in Section 315 of the Communications Act to take action against talk shows that don't provide "equal" time to Republican ideology.

The rule is a dated relic that would be largely impossible for the Trump FCC to actually enforce. Republicans like Carr historically despised the equal time rule — an offshoot of the long-defunct Fairness Doctrine, a problematic effort to ensure media fairness (specifically on broadcast TV) they long complained was unconstitutional. Until they found a "President leader" with no ethical or moral center.

The rule was originally created to apply specifically to political candidate appearances on broadcast television, since back then, a TV appearance on one of the big three networks could make or break and politician attempting to run for office. In the years since, the rule has seen numerous exemptions and, with the evisceration of the regulatory state by the right wing, isn't seriously enforceable.

That's not stopping weird Trump zealots like Carr, who is keen to abuse FCC authority he doesn't really have to harass media companies that don't adequately bend the knee to kakistocracy. Anna Gomez, the FCC's lone Democrat Commissioner, has done a good job with messaging pointing out that Carr is a dangerous, but highly performative, hack:

"Like many other so-called 'investigations' before it, the FCC will announce an investigation but never carry one out, reach a conclusion, or take any meaningful action," she said. "This is government intimidation, not a legitimate investigation."

As Gomez notes, most of this stuff goes nowhere. On one hand, it's decorative cack Carr leaks to gullible media outlets to make it appear like he's doing important things. On the other hand, it's still designed to stifle journalistic freedom and the First Amendment by warning media companies that they'll face protracted and costly legal headaches if they refuse to kiss Republican ass.

Keep in mind that ABC and Disney executives have already repeatedly tripped over themselves to curry favor with our embarrassing government, including paying Trump a $15 million bribe to settle a baseless lawsuit they were likely to win. They're doing this because they like lower taxes, mindless deregulation, and rubber-stamped media consolidation. They couldn't care less about journalism or viewpoint diversity.

These are cases that not only are winnable, many excellent lawyers would be willing to help fight them. And yet our media giants are still pathetic and feckless. It's another good lesson about how even if you think kissing up to autocrats is a financial win, it doesn't pay great returns over the longer haul. There is never a point where you will be deemed dutifully obedient, and akin to Vader's management of Bespin's Cloud City, the arrangement can and will always get worse.

Our increasingly broken corporate press struggles (or simply refuses) to communicate that Carr's goal isn't equality; it's the disproportionate coddling and normalization of an extremist U.S. right wing political movement that's increasingly despised by the actual public.

It was this steady media deterioration at the hands of the right wing and corporate power that opened the door to Trump's buffoonery in the first place. And, without a serious progressive media reform movement (which needs to include publicly funded media, serious media consolidation limits, ownership diversity rules, and creative new funding models for real journalism), it's only going to get worse.

The obvious end point, if people of conscience can't galvanize useful policy reform, will be the sort of state media control we seen in countries like Russia and Hungary. At which point, all of the problems we're seeing now at the hands of our violent, dim autocrats will only get worse.

US president Donald Trump is determined to starve Cuba of oil in his bid for control of the Western hemisphere. Cuba buys oil from Mexico despite heavy US sanctions. Now Trump is threatening to hit Mexico with tariffs.

Trump has also been channeling a mix of Cold War and War on Terror rhetoric to justify himself. He's accused Cuba of hosting Russian spies AND Hamas and Hezbollah agents. Any one will do, right?

The New York Times reported that although Trump did not name the US's southern neighbour:

The threat seemed to be directed at Mexico, one of the few countries still delivering oil to Cuba. Earlier this month, he even said that he had specifically asked President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico to cut off its supply.

Mexico and Cuba's long alliance — rooted in economic and cultural cooperation and a shared wariness of U.S. intervention — survived and even deepened after the Cuban Revolution, when Mexico preserved ties with Havana even as much of the region aligned with Washington.

No one can ignore the situation that the Cuban people are currently experiencing because of the sanctions that the United States is imposing in a very unfair manner.

Trump is no more a fan of having a 'communist' nation close by than any other US leader. But his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a son of Cuban refugees, is even more neurotically anti-Cuba.

The Cuban ambassador to the UN Ernesto Soberón Guzmán laid into Rubio in a Newsweek interview on 7 February:

What is clear to me is that Rubio has never come to Cuba, and he's talking about something he knows nothing about.

He said Rubio's position was contradictory because of how own family had fled the pre-Castro US-backed regime:

His parents came to the United States before the revolution. It's false this image people have that they came to the United States running away from the revolution.

They came to the United States fleeing the dictatorship that existed in Cuba, which was supported by the U.S. government at the time, under [then Cuban President Fulgencio] Batista.

Guzman suspected Cuba lived rent-free in Rubio's head:

Whether it's harmful or not, whether it's clinically harmful or not, whether it's clinically proven, that's something you have to find out as a journalist.

But there is a also bigger geopolitical picture beyond the contents of Rubio's brain.

Oil politics and the personal obsessions of Trump's goons clearly play a part in the current situation. It's also important to recall Cuba was effectively the first colony in what would become the US's global empire. And US policy now has reverted in some ways to the gunboat diplomacy of an era which saw the US attack Cuba, the Philippines, and China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Trump's National Security Strategy (NSS) demands control of the hemisphere. In some ways, this is a return to the old Monroe Doctrine which helped drive US empire building in the first place.

The NSS asserts:

The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity—a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region.

For the US, is it 'our way or the highway' on the American continent. Or rather: our way or you'll be starved, shot, drone-struck, and/or kidnapped into submission.

Accusations about foreign influence in Cuba echo the NSS precisely:

Some foreign influence will be hard to reverse, given the political alignments between certain Latin American governments and certain foreign actors.

And at the heart of US strategy, as ever, are the demands of the American market:

The choice all countries should face is whether they want to live in an American-led world of sovereign countries and free economies or in a parallel one in which they are influenced by countries on the other side of the world.

The Trump administration is driven by greed, ego, and a yearning for hegemony. This isn't so different from its predecessors, Trump and his lackeys are just more open about it. What is different is that the US empire's decline is rapidly turning into a freefall. And a wounded beast is a dangerous thing, as Cubans and Mexicans are well aware.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Military tech firm Palantir are hosting a lavish party at the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to celebrate their massive new contract. The firm's founders, who have expressed far-right and anti-democratic views, seemed pleased at having penetrated the highest echelons of the British state. And their takeover has disgraced Labour politician Peter Mandelson's fingerprints all over it.

In a bizarre twist, the head of MI5 just warned about Chinese infiltration of British universities. But not a word was uttered about how a CIA-linked, Trump-aligned military data firm has penetrated British military and health infrastructure.

The Times reported on 10 February 2026:

Senior military officers and civil servants have been invited to the evening reception in Mayfair on Wednesday to mark the company's £241 million three-year deal to "boost military AI and innovation".

As well as UK military contracts, Palantir has also penetrated the National Health Service (NHS). And both the Labour and the previous Conservative government have gladly invited them in.

An invitation seen by The Times said:

Join us for an evening reception as we reflect on our decade-long support of the armed forces, thank those who have been part of the journey and look towards an ever more ambitious new chapter — one that will deliver cutting-edge data and AI capabilities to UK defence, establish London as our European defence headquarters, and see investment in British innovation, jobs and national security.

Other military and arms firms like Babcock will also demonstrate their wares at the event.

Disgraced peer Peter Mandelson was a key architect of the deal. The Guardian described the situation succinctly:

Palantir, a $300bn company that provides military technology to the Israel Defense Forces and AI-powered deportation targeting for Donald Trump's ICE units, has UK government contracts worth more than £500m. Global Counsel, a lobbying company Mandelson co-founded and part-owns, also works for Palantir.

UK PM Keir Starmer, who is hanging on by a thread over allegations he knew about Mandelson's links to Epstein before making him US ambassador, visited Palantir HQ in February 2025. That meeting was allegedly brokered by Mandelson:

But there is no formal record of what was said. The Foreign Office says it holds no emails confirming the arrangements.

Defence secretary John Healey has defended the £240m deal. Palantir has up to £500m in UK contracts overall:

Peter Mandelson has no influence on any MoD contracts. The Palantir decision was mine.

Palantir offer unique capabilities with a unique track record and that's why we've struck the agreement with them.

Officials from our embassy in Washington arranged this trip in the normal way.

did not appear in the prime minister's register of visits and came to light later in subsequent disclosures.

The Times reported:

Palantir was and still is a client of Global Counsel, the lobbying firm that Mandelson co-founded. His shares are in the process of being divested and Mandelson would not have financially benefitted from the deal, it is understood.

Alex Karp and Peter Thiel are the most prominent figures at Palantir. Both Karp and Thiel are linked to Donald Trump. Their politics are openly far-right. And now they have access to great swathes of the British state, including defence and health. In a bizarre twist, Palantir's UK chief is Louis Mosley - grandson of British fascist leader Oswald Mosley.

As Action on Armed Violence's Iain Overton warned on April 2025:

But make no mistake: Palantir is no neutral software vendor. It is the digital vanguard of a globalised military-industrial complex that sees citizens not as people to be protected, but as data points to be mapped, managed — and monetised. It's own tag line (according to a series of posters recently put up in University campuses) is "We build to dominate."

And let's be clear, this is no mere tech firm. Palantir is another example of the imperial boomerang, born out of the War on Terror and the CIA:

Palantir grew rich off the back of the post-9/11 security state, with seed funding from the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel. It developed its tools in tandem with US intelligence, border enforcement, and drone warfare programmes.

Overton added:

It helped track "terrorists" abroad, surveil migrants at home, and model crime in cities riddled by systemic inequality.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski has railed against Palantir's role in the NHS:

And advocacy group, the Citizens, is currently lobbying for a full debate on Palantir's UK contracts:

Despite the company's deep embedding in government systems, there has been no comprehensive scrutiny of costs, data governance, ethical risks or national sovereignty.

They also warned:

Internationally, Palantir has been linked to controversial immigration enforcement in the US, criticised for its role in military operations in Gaza, and rejected by authorities in Switzerland over data and dependency concerns.

The British government, shaky as it is, seems absolutely determined to keep Palantir onboard. The situation is frankly bizarre. For example, the head of MI5 has just issued a warning that Chinese intelligence is trying to infiltrate British universities. Ken McCallum also announced a £3m round of measures to secure UK educational institutions. Yet Palantir, a foreign firm with deep links to the intelligence agencies of the current crackpot US regime, has taken over parts of the UK's critical defence infrastructure and services - and been paid handsomely for the pleasure.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

Urgh, I already hated Kid Rock, because he's always seemed like a greasy nonce. Now, a newly resurfaced clip seems to confirm it:

BREAKING: Disturbing video of Kid Rock has resurfaced, as he wonders why American men were waiting for the then-14 year old Olsen twins to turn 18. "if there's grass on the field, play ball!"

That's who MAGA supports. https://t.co/qrEJw40Spr

— Really American

Once again, Reform have publicly shit the bed, and this time it's over Bangor University. Well, more specifically, the Bangor Debating and Political society, but that didn't stop Reform's head of policy Zia Yusuf threatening the whole fucking uni:

Bangor University have banned Reform and called us "racist, transphobic and homophobic".

Bangor receives £30 million in state funding a year, much of which comes from Reform-voting taxpayers.

I am sure they won't mind losing every penny of that state funding under a Reform… pic.twitter.com/piUPlBzEcY

— Zia Yusuf (@ZiaYusufUK) February 9, 2026

Very normal behaviour there, Yusuf.

Personally, I would like to say well done to the debate society. But members of Reform massively shit the bed over it, including wannabe councillor Nick Pritchard:

The only issue I have with Pritchard kicking off is why in the name of hell does anyone care about the opinion of a man who "fabricated allegations" about a local resident trying to procure someone to shoot him?

Pritchard, mate, you're in no position to debate anyone.

And of course Richard Tice spat his dummy out about it:

Simple

In line with our values, if Bangor Uni does not believe in free speech, then British taxpayers should not have to fund them.

Perhaps remove all government funding and no student loans for Bangor students

The phone will ring very soon https://t.co/3ZmtmbXea8

— Richard Tice MP

Okay, I am sick of writing about this 'Amelia' AI schoolgirl now. But yet again, it appears a far-right group has adopted this fake child as some kind of mascot.

Although this time, it's a group of women. Odd.

We're fed up of the safety of women and girls being sacrificed for the comfort of migrant men.

WE ARE ALL AMELIA! The movement has just begun. pic.twitter.com/p7QtuPtLVy

— Women's Safety Initiative (@WomenSafety_UK) February 7, 2026

You see, the issue I have with the far right using Amelia as some kind of mascot is where this avatar came from.

Amelia is a purple haired goth girl, and she wasn't born in some racist WhatsApp group. She was created by the government to be a part of a video game called Pathways which taught kids about extremism.

Oh, and she's a fucking college-aged child. 16 to 18 years old. Yet the amount of knuckle-draggers on the internet sexualising her is absolutely disgusting:

Amelia's emergence over the last week was explosive, injecting a sexually charged, romantic energy into British nationalism. AI image generation enables ownerless memetic characters to be collaboratively generated faster than ever before. Amelia was the first to step through this… pic.twitter.com/NAbBxERJOw

— John Carter (@martianwyrdlord) January 17, 2026

#Amelia #ai pic.twitter.com/yJeFEizMXU

— ASHURA (@Ashura_GG) February 2, 2026

She's meant to be a fucking child. Yet here we see the Women's Safety Initiative cosplaying as her and drinking a pint.

Come on girls, do better. When you put yourself under a banner of protect all women, surely you shouldn't be masquerading as a fucking child whilst doing so?

On closer inspection, you can see the founder and director of Women's Safety Initiative, Jess Gill, right there in the video. And she loved it:

"Anon, why didn't I see you at the mass deportation protest?" https://t.co/j9QjnYEwUA pic.twitter.com/W2wV53Y2k3

— Jess (@jessgill03) February 7, 2026

Bit weird.

Jess, who claims to be British but hates everything about British food, has become a polarising figure at demonstrations. I mean, surely if you're going to attend a demo to 'protect our women' with the racist Pink Ladies, you wouldn't be happy to share a space with ex-Reform MP and known wife beater James McMurdoch?

Well done to the Pink Ladies in Chelmsford today.

This brave lot are standing up for the safety of women and girls. The shame of course is that they shouldn't be having to do this at all.

"I'm not far right. I'm worried about my kids" pic.twitter.com/8ZlhHk1eTk

— James McMurdock MP (@JMcMurdockMP) November 22, 2025

Now you're cosplaying as an underage teen girl and quaffing pints?

As a woman, I am absolutely sick to fucking death of the far right using women's safety as a weapon.

I don't get it guys. When 97% of rape claims have not even been brought to charge, why are these women playing dress up as a kid? And a goth kid at that? I thought you hated bright coloured hair?

Can we stop dressing up as heavily sexualised kids as some kind of icon and actually focus on the absolute state of policing? Rape is borderline legal in the UK now when you look at conviction rates, and it pisses me off that these far right women don't actually give a fuck. The only time they care about women is when they're whipping up hatred against migrants.

Using attacks against women to hide your racism is fucking disgusting.

Featured image via X

By Antifabot

Nigel Farage is going after work-from-home, in a hypocritical attempt to make it look like he's ever worked a day in his life.

Reform UK are charging prospective parliamentary candidates £250 to stand in upcoming elections.

Talk about pricing working-class people out of politics.

Reform are charging people £250 to apply to be a Parliamentary candidate. https://t.co/qbVAE9WZjF pic.twitter.com/yf3IvotzCf

— Evolve Politics (@evolvepolitics) February 9, 2026

Previously, the party charged £125 to apply to stand in Gorton and Denton. This was despite the party having zero intention of actually selecting them.

Why if Reform are hoping to persuade a 'big name candidate' to run in the by election have they asked members to pay £125 to apply when they have no intention of selecting them or giving them a fair shot?

It's shameless money making off the backs of working class members pic.twitter.com/lDXfuLgUaF

— Sophie Corcoran (@sophielouisecc) January 25, 2026

Other political parties in the UK don't do this. What's making this situation worse is that Reform UK has the largest paid membership in the country, and is balls-deep in donations from dodgy donors.

Farage is a grifter - he always has been. Whether it's selling crappy football shirts to try and raise a few quid, or outpricing working people from politics - his nerve has no end.

It's just one big grift. https://t.co/ExXUjg5wIe

— Alwyn Maynard (@AlwynMaynard) February 10, 2026

"But don't worry were for the average person" you just have to have a pile of cash to play in the first place. https://t.co/iUDToEvmaV

— viper (@vipersssssssss) February 10, 2026

Making the rich (ahem, Farage) even richer, whilst raising council tax and shafting the rest of us.

making the rich richer while they do absolutely fuck all for you. https://t.co/Wvn0EShazg

— kieran

Claudia Webbe is an ally of Jeremy Corbyn and a former Labour MP. On 9 February, she criticised a Your Party (YP) group said to represent Black members. The group in question is the Your Party Black Network (YPBN):

Black members helped build Your Party.

We're reclaiming our narrative from @YPBlackNetwork. Your theft of our identity ends here. Your weaponisation of Black struggle ends here. You do not speak for us.

We are shutting this down. See our statement here

Charles Windsor has again been heckled over his brother Andrew and serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein. The monarch was on a visit to Clitheroe in Lancashire and ignored questions before clambering into his car. He faced a similar crowd response last week in an Essex village and before that in the Scottish town of Stirling.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has again been in the headlines after more images of him appeared in the latest Epstein files release. The new images show him looking creepily up at the camera as he looms over a prone, redacted, presumably young girl. Other files show him sending Epstein 'confidential' information about 'investment opportunities'. Others reveal Epstein flying a woman to the UK for him and that he and Epstein asked a stripper for a threesome at Epstein's home.

One heckler in Clitheroe demanded to know whether Charles has "pressurised the police to start investigating Andrew?"

A palace spokesman has since said that the parasite king will "support police" in inquiries.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

A progressive organizer beat the odds against millions in outside spending to win the special primary election for a congressional seat in New Jersey, offering a promising sign to left insurgents in the coming midterms and revealing a severe miscalculation on the part of the pro-Israel lobby. 

Former Rep. Tom Malinowski conceded the race in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District on Tuesday to Analilia Mejia, former political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign, after initial results showed a slim margin between the two candidates for several days.

Mejia won "despite being outspent essentially ten-to-one by not just AIPAC and outside groups but also the New Jersey political machine," said Antoinette Miles, state director for the New Jersey Working Families Party. Mejia previously led the group, which backed her campaign and helped organize her field operation. 

Related AIPAC Donors Fail to Elect Last-Minute New Jersey House Pick

"No one would really categorize this district as being a left district," Miles said, pointing to the race as a sign progressive candidates can connect with voters in more moderate districts. A Republican represented the district until 2019, when former Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen retired and former Rep. Mikie Sherrill was elected. 

With the deck stacked against Mejia and little public polling in the three months since Sherrill vacated the seat to take office as New Jersey governor, there was no clear front-runner in the race. Internal polling in the final weeks of the race showed Malinowski and Mejia pulling ahead and almost equally matched, with New Jersey Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way further behind in third place, according to a source with knowledge of the data. 

Rather than targeting Mejia, the pro-Israel lobby spent more than $2 million against Malinowski, likely splitting moderate voters, while known pro-Israel donors directed funding in Way's favor. United Democracy Project, the super PAC for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, spent on ads attacking Malinowski, and AIPAC donors flooded Way's campaign with more than $50,000 in the final weeks of the race. The strategy, which UDP said was meant to help them elect the more pro-Israel candidate because Malinowski had previously questioned the provision of unconditional aid to Israel, appeared to backfire, as some observers predicted. 

"This election is a clear rejection of AIPAC by Democratic voters — AIPAC's spending and support for candidates is becoming a kiss of death in Democratic primaries because of the work our movement has done to expose them," said Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi. The group did not endorse in the race but said Mejia's win was a positive sign for the left as midterms progress. 

"This is a clear sign that the Democratic electorate is desperate to elect new leaders — like the dozen of working-class champions we're supporting in primaries this cycle — that aren't bought by AIPAC, crypto, AI, or any other corporate lobby that has created the intentionally weak and ineffective Democratic Party failing us in Congress right now," Andrabi added.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Malinowski pointed to AIPAC's influence in the race.

"Analilia deserves unequivocal praise and credit for running a positive campaign and for inspiring so many voters on Election Day," Malinowski wrote. "But the outcome of this race cannot be understood without also taking into account the massive flood of dark money that AIPAC spent on dishonest ads during the last three weeks. I wish I could say today that this effort, which was meant to intimidate Democrats across the country, failed in NJ-11."

On Friday, United Democracy Project issued a statement signaling it's still paying close attention to the race ahead of the general election in April. 

"The outcome in NJ-11 was an anticipated possibility, and our focus remains on who will serve the next full term in Congress. UDP will be closely monitoring dozens of primary races, including the June NJ-11 primary, to help ensure pro-Israel candidates are elected to Congress," UDP said in a statement posted on X. 

Some corners of the Democratic establishment are also reeling from the results of the race. After spending close to $2 million to back Way, the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association has not made any public statements since results started rolling in on Thursday evening. DLGA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

In an email to supporters on Thursday night, the Democratic National Committee prematurely congratulated Malinowski on winning the race. The release was later removed from the DNC website.

The Democratic establishment hasn't recently had to run in competitive primaries in the district, Miles pointed out, while progressives had been preparing for this moment. 

"That says something about the shift that is happening in New Jersey right now," Miles said. "This is the first race — at least at the congressional level — in which there is an open primary, the possibility for better candidates to run, the possibility for new ideas, and the machine is being tested."

The post AIPAC Just Helped Put a Bernie Sanders Alum in Congress appeared first on The Intercept.

S is HTF in Johannesburg

SS: No water in large neighbourhoods for weeks; tankers are running out before everyone gets water even after waiting hours; water employees striking for not getting paid in full; protesters closing road, and unrest building up. We are witnessing a political failure leading to infrastructure collapse.

All of these articles are from today or the last few days:

https://allafrica.com/stories/202602100415.html

>•WaterCAN says Johannesburg residents already live in Day Zero conditions, with areas experiencing outages lasting close to 20 days.

>•The group calls on the government to declare Johannesburg a national disaster area and demands daily updates from Johannesburg Water.

>Johannesburg has run out of water, civil society group WaterCAN warns, as extreme heat makes the city's water crisis worse.

https://thestar.co.za/news/2026-02-10-johannesburg-water-employees-strike-over-bonus-disputes-amid-water-supply-crisis/

>Johannesburg Water has been hit by an unprotected strike by members of Cosatu-affiliate, the SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu), over performance bonuses not fully paid in December, as the city's water crisis deepens.

https://www.ewn.co.za/2026/02/10/watercan-demands-disaster-declaration-as-johannesburg-water-crisis-deepens

>"This is not a drought issue; it is a failure of infrastructure planning and accountability. Everyone has to take responsibility for the situation we're in right now. People are now queuing for tankers, fighting for water, and the vulnerable are being left with nothing."

SS:

https://www.joburgetc.com/news/midrand-water-outage-protest/

>Officials point residents to water tankers, but accessing them is far from simple. Without a car, collecting water can mean hours of waiting or relying on neighbours and friends. Some residents say they arrive at advertised tanker points only to find no trucks, no water and no updates.

>On the ground, even Joburg Water officials admit the problem. Tankers refill from fire hydrants in Midrand, but there simply aren't enough trucks to serve the growing population.

>On social media, anger has spilled over. Residents have shared images of long queues, empty buckets and even illegally opened fire hydrants a risky but desperate move by people who say they've been left with no alternatives.

https://allafrica.com/stories/202602100548.html

>Families in RDP housing in Arla Park Extension 2 and 3 of Nigel shut down the busy Balfour Road on Tuesday, demanding water be restored to the community immediately.

>Residents gathered from 7am. They were monitored by a large police contingent, and a few warning shots were fired. However, protesters said they would not leave until a representative of the Ekurhuleni mayoral office addresses them.

>According to residents, water supply has been unreliable for the past five years.