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

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

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

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

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

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

At the Grammys Eilish said:

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

— Variety (@Variety) February 2, 2026

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

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

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

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

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

No one is illegal on stolen land.

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

And fuck ICE.

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

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

— Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) December 2, 2025

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

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

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

— Pop Base (@PopBase) February 2, 2026

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

Featured image via Chad Davies (Wikimedia)

By Antifabot

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

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

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

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

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) January 30, 2026

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

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

— Paul (@LeftySeparatist) February 1, 2026

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

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

Featured image via the Canary

By Maddison Wheeldon

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

…quietly sending his lapdog to do it for him:

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

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

And, this looks like fantastic news for the Greens:

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

Here's how we bet:

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

— Ladbrokes Politics (@LadPolitics) February 1, 2026

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

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

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

This is genuinely massive.

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

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

— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) February 1, 2026

Many have praised the Workers Party for pulling out:

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

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

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

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

A major advantage for the Green Party. Very surprised!

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) February 1, 2026

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

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

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

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

Time will tell.

Featured image via Parliament / Parliament / Barold

By Antifabot

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

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the operations:

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

The CBO added:

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

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

US senator Jeff Merkley told CNN:

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

Adding:

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

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

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

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

Adding:

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

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

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

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

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

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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

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

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

— Exposing the Labour Right

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

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

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

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

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

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

Security issues continue to pervade the OpenClaw ecosystem, formerly known as ClawdBot then Moltbot, as multiple projects patch bot takeover and remote code execution (RCE) exploits.…

Only 3.3 percent of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 users who touch Copilot Chat actually pay for it, an awkward figure that landed alongside Microsoft's $37.5 billion quarterly AI splurge and its insistence that the payoff is coming.…

Volunteer workers say increasing case numbers and dozens of dead birds raise fears spread is wider than recorded

Members of the public and charity volunteers are working to contain a suspected outbreak of bird flu among swans in the Thames Valley, amid signs that confirmed cases are continuing to rise.

Since October, 324 cases of bird flu in swans have been recorded by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha), which is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Of these, 39 were recorded in the first four weeks of 2026 alone.

The US president tried to kill offshore wind projects - now four are back under construction

Construction has resumed on four offshore wind mega-projects after they survived a near fatal attack by Donald Trump's administration thanks to rulings by federal judges. These are being seen as victories for clean energy amid a wider war being waged on it by the Trump administration.

The wind farms are considered critical by grid planners as America faces an energy affordability crisis. Together, the four projects will contribute nearly five gigawatts of energy to the east coast, enough to power 3.5 million homes.

Island's first tropical storm of season may bring 150mm of rain - meanwhile, eastern Europe freezes with possible night-time lows of -30C

At least three people have died and nearly 30,000 people have been affected by flooding after Madagascar's first tropical storm of the season hit over the weekend.

Tropical Cyclone Fytia formed to the north-west of Madagascar over the northern Mozambique Channel on Thursday.

2026's WorldSBK season is set to be one of the most dynamic in recent memory, as this campaign holds a litany of questions left open

Story Bowl

I'm a Patriots fan who was pained for the Seahawks when a bad play call (blame coaches) snatched defeat from the jaws of victory the last time the two teams met in the Super Bowl. So I won't be too bummed if the Seahawks win this one. The Revenge Bowl will be a good story. So will the Redemption Game story for Sam Darnold. But there are good stories for the Pats as well. The MVP story for Drake Maye. The Huge Turnaround story for Mike Vrabel. The Nobody Believes in Us story for the team. My expectation: Patriots by less than a touchdown.

A state-sponsored cyber criminal compromised Notepad++'s update service in 2025, according to the project's author.…

TikTok has restored US services after winter storms hit an Oracle datacenter - the same infrastructure that Big Red's founder Larry Ellison previously claimed doesn't go down.…

Article that inspired this.

https://www.makeuseof.com/old-gpu-refuses-to-go-away-and-its-only-going-to-get-more-popular/

(This five-year-old GPU refuses to go away, and it's only going to get more popular)

The persistence of old-generation GPUs is the ultimate sign of technological stagnation. It is the best evidence that base compute is not getting cheaper. So far, wafers have been getting more expensive. The price per transistor is not falling.

I really do believe frames per dollar is one of the best metrics of technological progress, as opposed to abstruse "AI" metrics in an academic laboratory. Rendering complex scenes is a computationally demanding tasks, so the ability to do that represents the current capability to get computer hardware to do useful stuff. I really do think that in order to drive a car or prescribe a Viagra, "AI" will need to have even better hardware.

If things are really getting better, we would have the manufacturing capability to produce chips with more advanced nodes abundantly. We simply don't have the ability to transform the world through semiconductor manufacturing anymore.

Without cheaper transistors, I believe "AI" isn't really going to make a big, positive impact on life. So "AI" is just hype until transistors become dramatically cheaper again.

Bottom line, things aren't getting faster, cheaper, better. (The citius, vitus, fortius of technology.)

Wikipedia maintains a list of inventors killed by their own inventions.

Franz Reichelt, a tailor, designed a wearable parachute coat. In 1912, he tested it by jumping off the Eiffel Tower. It did not deploy. Marie Curie discovered radium and died of aplastic anemia from years of radiation exposure — her papers are still too radioactive to handle without protection. — Read the rest

The post Wikipedia's list of inventors killed by their own inventions keeps growing appeared first on Boing Boing.

In a crumbling 11th-century church in Halberstadt, Germany, an organ has been playing the same piece of music since 2001. It will finish in 2640. The composition is John Cage's ORGAN²/ASLSP — "As Slow As Possible" — and the organizers took the title literally. — Read the rest

The post A 639-year organ performance is underway in Germany appeared first on Boing Boing.

David French's latest New York Times column asks readers to imagine something that shouldn't require much imagination: it's October 2026, Trump's approval is abysmally low, Democrats are leading generic ballot polls by a wide margin, and none of it matters because ICE is running large-scale operations near polling stations in Democratic cities, purging voters with Latino, African, or Asian names from the rolls, while the FBI raids election offices in swing states. — Read the rest

The post The 2026 midterms are already in peril appeared first on Boing Boing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Trump's War on America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related Trump's Cult of Power Cancels Free Speech

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

"Every accusation is a confession with this administration."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The White House did not return a request for comment.

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

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A US judge will decide if, as research suggests, a chemical tyre additive is harming endangered fish species

Last week, a district judge in San Francisco, California, presided over a three-day trial brought by west coast fishers and conservationists against US tyre companies. The fishers allege that a chemical additive used in tyres is polluting rivers and waterways, killing coho salmon and other fish. If successful, the case could have implications far beyond the United States.

From live session streaming to inside-the-paddock footage, the WorldSBK VideoPass brings you closer to the action than ever before

The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are a 43-year-old Border Patrol agent and a 35-year-old Customs and Border Protection officer, according to government records viewed by ProPublica, which published names of both men. The two agents were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, the immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent armed, masked agents across the city. — Read the rest

The post The two CBP agents who killed Alex Pretti have been identified appeared first on Boing Boing.

Ammon Bundy — who led two armed standoffs with federal agents and became the face of the Patriot Movement — now calls the Trump administration's immigration crackdown a "moral failure." In November, he wrote that "to call such people criminals for lacking official permission" to be in the country "is to forget the moral law of God, the historical truth of our own founding, and the Constitutional ideals that continue to define justice." — Read the rest

The post Ammon Bundy called ICE "tyranny." His militia allies disagree. appeared first on Boing Boing.

This is Star Trek before Star Trek. It is Alien long before Alien. It is the template for so much modern science fiction. What it is not is particularly good.

I don't intend to dump on the classics (and this is undoubtedly a classic) but 1950s sci-fi takes place in an almost alien media environment. Even if you ignore the anachronisms (like having to develop film in order to see photographs) and the archaic language (lots of vibrators being used against a big pussy) it is hard to get over how unconvincing it all is.

In the first story, the crew of the Space Beagle find an alien monster. It probably killed one of them. They bring it aboard and just let it lounge about in the library! Yes, all the science is fun, and the "competency porn" of the professional crew is suitably heroic, but the characters and their motivations are frequently bizarre. It is only through the complete absence of girls (urgh!) that there's no interstellar sexism.

The protagonist, Grosvenor, is a cipher for every geeky kid who ever felt he was smarter than everyone else. He is a sneering, taciturn, and deeply unpleasant character. When given the opportunity, he relishes the chance to become dictator.

Because the book started life as a set of short stories, it works reasonably well as a "monster of the week" show. It is episodic, with well-placed cliffhangers. The science is very sciency with some excellent speculative elements. You've got aliens planting eggs in people (like Alien) and a ship's engineer who says "Nooo! The walls couldn't stand it. They'd melt." (like Scotty) and any number of concepts you'll recognise from your favourite TV shows.

The obsession with hypnotism and mind-control feels a bit icky, especially when understood in association with the author's dalliance with the pseudoscience of Dianetics.

The language (when not steeped in 1950's idiomatic phrasing) can verge on the poetic. Every story includes a chapter or two from the alien's viewpoint. They are deliciously weird and elevate this book beyond what might be a slightly forgettable slice of sci-fi.

It is absolutely worth reading - if only to see how influential it has been - but it can be a bit of a weird slog at times.

The New York Times used a proprietary search tool to find more than 5,300 files containing over 38,000 references to Trump, his wife, Mar-a-Lago, and related terms in the Epstein documents released Friday. The files include unverified tips submitted to the FBI — some accusing Trump and Epstein of sexual abuse — as well as interview notes where victims describe interactions with Trump. — Read the rest

The post NYT finds 38,000+ Trump references in released Epstein documents appeared first on Boing Boing.

In April 1951, Jack Kerouac taped together sheets of tracing paper to avoid the interruption of changing pages, then typed the first draft of On the Road in a three-week burst. The scroll — 121 feet of continuous typescript with no paragraph breaks, using the real names of his friends before the publisher made him change them — goes to auction at Christie's on March 12, with an estimate of $2.5 to $4 million, reports The Guardian. — Read the rest

The post Kerouac's 121-foot scroll of On the Road goes to auction for up to $4M appeared first on Boing Boing.

In 2007, Ibrahim Diallo switched to Dish Network and got an RF remote — the kind that doesn't need line-of-sight. A few months later, his loud neighbor switched to Dish as well. Same remote, same frequency.

"One day, I was in the living room watching TV when the channel just flipped," Diallo writes. — Read the rest

The post His neighbor was too noisy, so he used an RF remote to train him like a circus animal appeared first on Boing Boing.

Trump announced Sunday that he plans to close the Kennedy Center for roughly two years for construction, with the closure beginning on July 4 — America's 250th anniversary. "I have determined that The Trump Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World," he wrote on Truth Social, reports The Washington Post. — Read the rest

The post Trump shuts down Kennedy Center; nearly all programming heads have quit appeared first on Boing Boing.

The newly released Epstein documents include over 1,000 files naming Vladimir Putin and nearly 10,000 mentioning Moscow, reports the Daily Mail. Intelligence sources told the paper they believe Epstein was running "the world's largest honeytrap operation" on behalf of the KGB when he procured women for his network of associates — and that he secured audiences with Putin even after his 2008 conviction for procuring a child for prostitution. — Read the rest

The post Epstein files contain 1,056 documents mentioning Putin and 9,629 mentioning Moscow appeared first on Boing Boing.

Essential to Caribbean classics like the Daiquiri or Piña Colada, rum tends to conjure the climate of its native tropics. When shaken or swizzled and paired with the bright kick of citrus or a mountain of crushed ice, the sugarcane spirit demonstrates its inherent refreshing qualities. But throw it into the mixing glass alongside—or in lieu of—whiskey in an Old-Fashioned or swap it in for gin in a winterized Negroni, and rum shows off its impressive adaptability to cool-weather cocktails. Here are some of our favorites that demonstrate just that.