President Trump is pushing for a major redrawing of Texas’s congressional districts to favor Republicans and shape the outcome of future elections, including next year’s midterms. Voting rights expert Ari Berman says this “unprecedented” Republican gerrymandering scheme manipulates an already-gerrymandered map that “limits democratic representation. It already limits representation for communities of color, and now that would be much worse.” The map was released this week, and a hearing is underway today as Republicans try to ram it through.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

These four Task Forces—focused on lowering costs, ending corporate greed, fighting corruption, and securing better pay and benefits—are part of a broader effort by the CPC to define a Democratic governing agenda that is clear, popular, easy to understand, and quickly delivers material benefits to working people.

Among other work, the Task Forces will be focused on advancing a slate of policy proposals members have been working on internally for several months that are not only progressive, but also enjoy support from voters across the ideological and demographic spectrum—from suburban voters to non-college-educated to independents—and could be passed by a Democratic House after the midterms. New polling from Data for Progress finds these policies enjoy a supermajority and give a 9-point advantage for Democrats who lead with these themes compared to a generic Democratic message against a Republican opponent.

The four new Task Forces are:

• Lowering Costs

Chair: Rep. Yassamin Ansari

• Fighting Corruption

Chair: Rep. Dave Min

Vice Chair: Rep. Hank Johnson

• Ending Corporate Greed

Chair: Rep. Becca Balint

• Better Pay and Benefits

Chair: Rep. Emily Randall

Vice Chair: Rep. Mark DeSaulnier

In addition, CPC Deputy Chair Rep. Ilhan Omar will help lead the coordination of Task Force work and take over as Chair of the Caucus’s longstanding Peace & Security Task Force this Congress.

"Working people in America are getting screwed by corrupt politicians and big corporations that are driving costs up and keeping pay and benefits down,” said Rep. Greg Casar (TX-35). “Our four new task forces go directly at those big problems facing Americans: fighting corruption and corporate greed in order to lower costs and win better pay and benefits."

“In my home state of Arizona, families have been crushed by rising costs brought on by Trump and Republicans—whether it’s skyrocketing healthcare premiums, unaffordable housing, or the soaring costs of education, childcare, long-term care, and even just commuting to work,” said Rep. Yassamin Ansari (AZ-03). “I’m honored to lead the Lowering Costs Task Force as one of the ways we’re fighting back to deliver bold policies that will help working families.”

“Whether it was prosecuting fraud at the SEC or teaching the next generation of advocates as a law professor at UC Irvine, I’ve spent my career fighting to uphold the rule of law and root out corruption,” said Rep. Dave Min (CA-47). “Americans are fed up with an economy and a government that are rigged in favor of the powerful and well connected while failing to serve working people. I’m proud to continue the anti-corruption fight in Congress and look forward to working with my colleagues in the Progressive Caucus to fight for transparency and fairness.”

“I came to Congress to unrig a system that makes it so hard for so many Americans to get a fair shot,” said Rep. Becca Balint (VT-AL). “And today, I’m fired up to launch the Ending Corporate Greed Task Force alongside my progressive colleagues to do the real work necessary to build an America that gives people a real chance at an easier life. Corporate greed is at the root of so many of the struggles working people face. And it’s time we take back power over our rigged economy and fight back against the greed that makes everything harder for the rest of us. Because we have a vision for a reality where we can all afford to make rent, have affordable health care, get paid fair wages, and get an education without crippling debt. ”

“In my family and in my community, I’ve seen firsthand how good Union wages and pensions open doors to stability, to opportunity, to economic security. I’ve seen my grandparents, my teachers, my neighbors afford homes and vacations and childcare because they had good jobs. But over the years, affording a good life has gotten harder and harder,” said Rep. Emily Randall (WA-06). “Our neighbors deserve leaders who put people before profits and stand up for what’s right. They deserve leaders who understand that an economy that is centered on working people is a stronger economy for everyone. As Chair of the Better Pay and Benefits Task Force, I’m committed to fighting for fairer wages, stronger benefits, safer workplaces, and an economy that puts working people first – right at the center of our policies.”

“In a time of record-breaking income inequality and rampant corporate greed, it is more important than ever that we as Democrats reassert and reinforce our commitment to working people,” said Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10). “As both a former union member and small business owner, I have seen firsthand how American workers have for too long been taken advantage of by big corporations and greedy CEOs. I am proud to help lead the Task Force for Better Pay and Benefits as Vice Chair to restore power to working people, the engine of our economy, so they can continue to be the best, most productive labor force in the world while living with the respect and dignity they deserve.”

“I am thrilled to take over as Chair of the Promoting Peace and Security Task Force and follow in the footsteps of my mentor, the incredible Barbara Lee,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05). “This task force is needed now more than ever to hold this corrupt administration accountable. Our task force will focus on limiting our global armed presence and instead investing in diplomacy that will allow us to reorient our engagement with the world.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“President Trump’s skinny budget cuts much of what helps poor, working-class and middle-class Americans, seemingly to pay for tax cuts for the rich. You can’t make this up.

“The draconian cuts to public education and lifesaving medical research and health agencies demonstrate a lack of care for Americans’ future and well-being.

“Our concern when the president started dismantling the Department of Education was not the bureaucracy but the funding. And now we know, he’s actually shortchanging kids. He would gut K-12 programs by $5.4 billion. Support for student aid would be slashed.

“Healthcare programs would be cut by more than a quarter and labor by more than one-third. And what he isn’t gutting he’s using to create a slush fund for state bureaucrats to do whatever they want with Title I money.

“Every president gets to pursue their agenda, but Trump’s budget proposal just strips away the supports children get in public schools across America, disproportionately in places that voted for him.

“Voters didn’t expect to lose their reading or after-school programs for a tax cut for the ultra wealthy. Meanwhile, Trump’s allies in Congress are trying to take an even bigger hatchet to critical supports for Americans—like healthcare, food assistance and education.

“We won’t stop fighting for America’s children, and we hope members of Congress will join us in opposing this proposal, which is a blatant attack on all of us.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

A code of conduct aims to establish a framework for ensuring peace in the South China Sea where Beijing’s expansive territorial claims overlap with the exclusive economic zones of some Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines and Vietnam.

“Everyone has agreed that we would all like to have a code by 2026,” said Enrique Manalo at a maritime security forum in Manila on Thursday.

“We still have to address important issues such as the scope of the code, also the nature of the code and its relation also to the declaration of the principles adopted in 2002 on the South China Sea,” he said.

“We hope, and we will do all that we can to try and achieve a successful negotiation.”

A South China Sea code of conduct has been under discussion for over two decades.

Separately, Philippines’ National Security Council spokesperson assistant director Jonathan Malaya described the talks as advancing at a “glacial pace.”

However, he was still optimistic they would be wrapped up within a year.

“Hopefully, by the time that the Philippines is chairman of the [regional forum] ASEAN, the code of conduct will be completed,” he said.

The Philippines will host the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2026.

Last year, Philippines’ President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urged ASEAN to hasten talks on the code amid rising South China Sea tensions.

Fundamental issues such as geographic scope and the legal status of a nonbinding South China Sea declaration signed in 2002 still need to be resolved, he said.

Chinese aircraft carriers spotted near Philippines

The Philippine official’s comments on the code talks came as the country’s navy confirmed the presence of China’s Shandong aircraft carrier near its waters.

A Chinese electronic surveillance ship was also monitored off the northern coast of Luzon on Tuesday. The Philippine Navy challenged the presence of the Chinese warships, according to a navy spokesperson Cpt. John Percie Alcos.

“They’re actually conducting normal naval operations en route to a specific destination that we still do not know. Their passage was expeditious,” said Alcos.

The Chinese warship was seen as the Philippines, United States, and Japan prepared to conduct a joint sailing on Thursday as part of the annual Balikatan military exercises between Manila and Washington.

On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun criticized the Philippines for its military drills with the U.S.

“The Philippines chose to conduct the large-scale military drills with this country outside the region and brought in strategic and tactical weapons to the detriment of regional strategic stability and regional economic prospects, which puts them on the opposite side of regional countries,” he said.

Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

“We have taken the difficult decision to temporarily withdraw our @Daily Monitor @ntvuganda journalists from covering the Kawempe North by-election for their safety because they are being targeted and attacked by armed soldiers and undercover security operatives,” Daniel Kalinaki, a general manager at Nation Media Group (NMG), East Africa’s largest independent media company, posted on the social media platform X on March 13.

Two Luganda-language broadcasters, Radio Simba and BBS Terefayina, followed suit, reacting to security agencies’ assault, harassment, and arrest of dozens of journalists reporting on the by-election in the capital Kampala.

In response to Pearl FM’s reports on vote-rigging allegations, the regulatory Uganda Communications Commission suspended the privately owned outlet on March 12 for airing “unsubstantiated statements that were sensational, alarmist, and capable of inciting violence.”

Uganda is due to hold general elections in January 2026, in which 80-year-old President Yoweri Museveni is expected to seek to extend his 38-year rule. Given the country’s history of electoral violence against journalists, events in Kawempe North have triggered anxiety about the 2026 poll.

‘Alarmingly dangerous’ election coverage

“Covering elections has always been an alarmingly dangerous task for Ugandan journalists,” said CPJ Africa Regional Director, Angela Quintal, in New York. “As the January 2026 elections approach, breaking free from this troubling history is essential for the integrity of the democratic process. Ugandan authorities must ensure that those who target journalists are held fully accountable.”

Kawempe North was won by a candidate from the opposition National Unity Platform (NUP), a party headed by Robert Kyagulanyi, commonly known as Bobi Wine. In Uganda’s last general election in 2021, at least 50 people died in protests over the pop star-turned-politician’s repeated arrest and Kyagulanyi was severely beaten. Museveni’s previous presidential challenger, Kizza Besigye, who lost to the former soldier four times, is facing the death sentence for treason.

In relation to the Kawempe North by-election, CPJ documented the following incidents:

●      On February 26, Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force (JAT) officers assaulted Top TV reporter Ibrahim Miracle as he covered the arrest and assault of the NUP nominee. He sustained severe facial injuries.

●      NMG camera operator Stephen Kibwiika told CPJ that JAT officers beat him on March 3 with batons while he was reporting near the NUP headquarters despite wearing a “Press” vest. He said that he sustained ankle injuries and was unable to walk properly for several days.

●      NMG reporter Steven Mbidde told CPJ that on March 4 about eight officers restrained him and dragged him to the ground while he was live reporting the detention of NUP supporters.

●      On March 12, security officers struck Kibwiika on his head with a baton and kicked his groin while he covered allegations of ballot stuffing. Kibwiika told CPJ he was unable to walk, suffered intense headaches, and was hospitalized for three days.

On March 13:

●      Masked soldiers attacked state-owned New Vision newspaper reporter Ibrahim Ruhweza with batons and gun butts before briefly detaining him and his colleague Isaac Nuwagaba in an unmarked vehicle. Ruhweza told CPJ they were forced to delete their footage and photos.

●      Hasifah Nanvuma, a reporter with NMG’s Spark TV, told CPJ that several soldiers beat her on the back and arms while she was reporting from a polling station. At the time, she was wearing a “Press” vest.

●      Soldiers detained NMG’s photojournalist Abubaker Lubowa, camera operator Denis Kabugo, and reporter Raymond Tamale, in an unmarked vehicle for four hours. Lubowa told CPJ that they were blindfolded and beaten on their heads, arms, legs, and ribs. Lubowa told CPJ that the soldiers took their phones and watches and destroyed their cameras.

●      Privately owned NBS TV said security personnel assaulted and intimidated its photojournalist Francis Isano, camera operator Hassan Wasswa, and reporter Hakim Wampamba. Isano had to be carried into a hospital where he was admitted for several days.

●      Unknown assailants struck state-owned Uganda Broadcasting Corporation’s camera operator Jahiem Jamil Ssekajja with electrical wires while he was filming at a polling station. Ssekajja told CPJ he sustained welts on his body and developed a fever.

Acting military spokesperson Chris Magezi said in a statement that the armed forces were investigating reports of assaults and confiscation of journalists’ equipment.

In a March 27 statement to CPJ sent via messaging app, Magezi said a committee had been set up to investigate and make recommendations on “ways to harmonize and collaborate with media players better.”

Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson Patrick Onyango referred CPJ to national police spokesperson Rusoke Kituuma to request comment but he did not immediately answer CPJ’s calls.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

The junta’s opponents say a vote under the military while the most popular politicians are locked up and their parties banned will be a sham. The junta is in control of only about half the country after significant losses to pro-democracy and ethnic minority insurgents fighting to end military rule.

Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced the timing of the election while on a visit to Belarus on Friday, the military-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

“The election is slated for December 2025, with the possibility of … January 2026,” the newspaper quoted Min Aung Hlaing as saying.

There was no immediate comment from forces opposed to military rule but a parallel civilian government in exile, the National Unity Government, has previously dismissed the junta’s plan for an election as window-dressing to bolster the military’s legitimacy at home and abroad.

Allied ethnic minority insurgent groups fighting for self-determination have also rejected an election under military rule.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, by far the most popular political leader in Myanmar, has been jailed since the military ousted her elected government on Feb. 1, 2021.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, which swept elections in 2015 and 2020, has been dissolved under military regulations and thousands of its members and supporters are in jail or have fled to rebel zones or into self-exile.

China, which has major investments in Myanmar and is keen to see an end to its turmoil, supports the vote and has offered help to organize it, as have some of Myanmar’s Southeast Asian neighbors.

Min Aung Hlaing, in a speech in Belarus, said 53 political parties had submitted paperwork to take part in the election.

“We also invite the observation teams from Belarus to come and observe,” he said.

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Voting is expected to be held in fewer than half of Myanmar’s 330 townships in the first phase of a staggered vote, a political party official said late last year after discussion with the election organizers.

In Myanmar’s last election in 2020, voting was held in 315 out of the 330 townships.

After Suu Kyi’s party swept the vote, as it did in a 2015 election, the army complained of cheating and overthrew her government. She has been jailed for 27 years.

Election organizers said at the time there was no evidence of any significant cheating.

Min Aung Hlaing was in Belarus after a visit to Russia where he held talks with President Vladimir Putin.

Edited by Mike Firn

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

The glacier on the peak of Puncak Jaya, a mountain in the Papua region, was already melting rapidly due to global warming, the agency’s chief said.

By December 2022, it had shrunk to a thickness of 6 meters (20 feet), from 8 meters (26 feet) a year before and 22 meters (72 feet) in 2016.

“The disappearance of the ice cap on Puncak Jaya will have a huge impact on various aspects of life in the region,” Dwikorita Karnawati, director of the National Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), said in a statement.

“The ecosystem around the permanent ice cap is vulnerable and threatened. Climate change also affects the lives of local indigenous people who have long depended on the environmental balance and natural resources in the region,” she said.

Climate change, which causes global warming, has brought about a rapid loss of the glacier’s ice, she said. And the El Niño phenomenon, which occurs periodically, tends to bring warmer and drier conditions to Indonesia, reducing rainfall and increasing evaporation. In turn, this further shrinks the ice cap.

“The glacier might vanish before 2026, or even faster, and El Niño could accelerate the melting process,” said Donaldi Sukma Permana, a climatologist with the meteorology agency, according to the Reuters news service.

The meteorological agency said that the strongest El Niño on record, in 2015 and 2016, accelerated the glacier’s decline by up to 16 feet a year.

At 4,884 meters (16,024 feet) high, Puncak Jaya, also known as Carstensz Pyramid, is the tallest mountain in Indonesia, and part of a range that stretches across Papua, a region that shares a border with Papua New Guinea.

The glacier was first documented by European explorers in the early 20th century and has since attracted many scientists, researchers and nature lovers who marveled at its existence in a tropical country.

But over the decades, the glacier shrunk due to global warming. 

In 2010, a team of scientists from Ohio State University and the Indonesian agency drilled ice cores from the glacier and found evidence of its long history, estimating it had existed for at least 5,000 years.

They also found proof of its sensitivity to climate change. 

Global warming not only increased the temperature, it also changed the altitude at which rain turned to snow, as an article on the university’s news website explained. So, rain was now falling at altitudes where it used to snow and replenish the ice on the glacier.

“If you want to kill a glacier, just put water on it,” said Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University professor, to Ohio State News in 2019.

“The water basically becomes like a hot water drill. It goes right through the ice to the bedrock,” said Thomas, who was a senior author of a study on the glacier published in the National Academy of Sciences.

The 2010 Ohio State team also found traces of pollutants such as lead and sulfur in the ice cores, indicating human influence on the environment. 

The glacier is located near a large copper and gold mine operated by PT Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of an American company that has been accused of causing environmental damage and human rights violations in Papua.

Donaldi, with the Indonesian meteorological agency, said the ice on the Puncak Jaya glacier had thinned by about 2.5 meters per year from 2016 to 2022.

He said that the ice cover was about 0.23 sq kms last year and was continuing to melt.

“Another real impact of the melting ice on the mountain is its contribution to the global sea level rise,” which Donaldi said could affect millions of people in low-lying coastal areas.

The melting ice would change the flora and fauna on the mountain, said Rizaldy Boer, a climate risk management expert at the Bogor Agricultural University.

“Some species could go extinct. The latest one, since the ice melting has worsened in the last 10 years, has been a type of frog that has disappeared there,” he told BenarNews.

As for the floods in the low-lying areas, he did not see a quick fix.

“There is nothing we can do. We have to review the use of fossil energy sources and optimize renewable energy,” Rizaldy said. 

The glacier’s end would also be a cultural loss, Ohio State University’s Thompson noted, saying the indigenous people who lived around the mountain worshiped it.

“The ridges and the valleys are the arms and legs of their god, and the glacier is the head,” he said.

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Tria Dianti and Arie Firdaus for BenarNews.

For all their heralded merits, mega sporting events usually have two clear outcomes: the budget blowout followed by the White Elephant syndrome.  In that effort, other spending programs will be slashed or sacrificed altogether.  But the propagandists will always shoot back: the sporting show is not merely the athlete on display but a form of renewal, a communal release.  Why such renewal cannot happen without the building of sporting facilities with public funds is never made clear, though much is made of consumer spending, be it on food, drink and accommodation.

Such issues, and more beside, have been ignited with the cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games by the Victorian state government.  Premier Daniel Andrews, in announcing the matter on July 18, stated that the cost of hosting the Commonwealth Games in Victoria would exceed A$6 billion, “more than twice the estimated economic benefit the Games would bring our state.”

Andrews explains the “main reason” for originally agreeing to host the Games: “to deliver lasting benefits in housing, tourism and sporting infrastructure for regional Victoria.”  It was flawed reasoning from the start, linking the hosting of a sporting event with a social, economic program.  But even more critically, the decision to host an event no one else wanted was made even as the state’s debt was ballooning.  Victoria faces deficits fed by the borrowing of A$31.5 billion worth in emergency funds to combat the COVID pandemic.  The cynics had to venture the point that this whole affair was an indulgent political gambit, at least in part: to pitch for the Games would earn rewards at the November 2022 poll.

Given such money problems, the burgeoning costs came to be seen as something of a nightmare.  This was hardly helped by the government’s own decision to essentially avoid the pre-existing facilities already available in Melbourne.  The decision to spread the games across four regional hubs in Victoria was always going to swell the sum in any logistical sense.

In place of not hosting the games, the Andrews government is offering “a comprehensive A$2 billion package to ensure regional Victoria still receives all the benefits that would have been facilitated by the Games – and more.”

While Andrews insists that funding that would otherwise be spent on the Games would be channelled into, for instance, the building of 1,300 homes in country Victoria, such claims are undercut by the sheer scale of spending on sporting infrastructure in the regional areas, projected for 2026.  These include funding to build or upgrade a number of facilities from football stadia to netball courts and pools.

Ballarat is promised a 5,000 permanent seater upgrade and a facility “including competition-grade oval and sports pavilion with carparking, amenities and changerooms.”  Bendigo can expect a redeveloped Bowls Club, while Bendigo Stadium will receive four additional sports courts.

The result is an Andrews magic formula that, once the pudding is baked, is unlikely to be as nourishing, let alone wholesome, as thought.  In it, all is expected to come together in unrealistic fashion: the sporting infrastructure to bribe the community; the tourism that will mysteriously make its way to regional Victoria; and a relief on the crushingly inaccessible housing market.

Sporting events are cancelled in Australia on pain of reputational battering.  Reputations will be tarred and feathered, to forever wander through halls of infamy.  That such a move might be wise and necessary is neither here nor there.  Priorities, much like beauty, lie in the eye of the beholding punter.  And so it is that the Australian Financial Review regards the cancellation as “a disaster for Victoria’s reputation as the host of major events and the supposed sporting capital of the world.”  (Really?  According to whom?)

The Commonwealth Games Australia (CGA) chief executive, Craig Philips, followed the script of reputational beating.  “I would be very careful if I was an international sporting body coming and doing business in this state in the future.”  Ditto John Coates of the International Olympic Committee, a famed crawler to the sporting industrial complex.  “It must reflect on Australia when we’ve committed to host an event and thinking that we had the support of the state government and they’ve pulled the plug.”

Much bemoaning also focuses on the welfare of the athletes.  Those poor, fit darlings, so eager to represent their country, deprived from competing in an antiquated event with all too modern costs.  One athlete, Paralympian and Commonwealth Games gold medal winner, Rowan Crothers, even had the imaginative gall to say that the cancellation would “suck for the state of inclusion”.  How, pray?

For all the clumsiness and sheer carelessness of the Andrews government, the merits of not hosting such a large sporting venture are hard to dismiss.  Billions of dollars being injected into what Andrews called “a 12-day sporting event” is always a hard proposition to sustain.  The benefits of cancellation in his case, however, have been blunted.  Victoria need never have applied in the first place and now faces what may amount to a hefty damages bill.

The result of the cancellation has also sent deserved jitters through the resource sucking megaevent sporting fraternity.  Australia is, after all, playing host to the FIFA Women’s World Cup while Brisbane is set to host the 2032 Summer Olympics.  In all the fanfare and bluster, former Australian swimmer and CEO of the Australian Sports Commission, Kieren Perkins, had a more grounded observation to make: “Where large portions of the population don’t see that benefit [of hosting such events], it probably does ask questions of us of how exactly we are actually deploying the resources that we receive”.  How, indeed.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

This is the latest on the fierce military conflict between the US and Canada.

To recap, tensions have been escalating over the past 24 months. Then four weeks ago, the US announced it had irrefutable proof that militant, America-hating militias had joined with the regular military forces of the Canadian Royal Mounted Police, to position a formidable, threatening, highly lethal military presence right on the US border, stretching from Washington State east to Minnesota. Concentrations of troops hunkered in reinforced battlements were also allegedly discovered in southern Ontario and south of Montreal on the border with upstate New York. Secretary of Defense, Chelsea Clinton, stated that this is what prompted the military operation now underway — the mobilization of 250,000 infantry troops, numerous tank and artillery battalions, and full air power support for the invasion.

For months, reports had regularly appeared in major US media outlets — the New York Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg — alleging that over 14,000 US citizens have died since the beginning of last year in the proximity of this conflict zone. It was declared that this was the result of shelling and missile launches by Canadian forces. It was also contended, cities like Detroit had been attacked from artillery and missile emplacements in Windsor, Ontario. The worst carnage reputedly has occurred in Seattle, Washington; Spokane, Idaho; Minot and Grand Forks, North Dakota; even as deep into US territory as Duluth, Minnesota; as long-range 155 mm shells and MSRS missiles were terrorizing populations across the northern states.

Current President of France, Marine LaPen, dismissed these rumors with some sharp language: “This is a joke. A cheap attempt at tugging at the heartstrings of the world community because their country fell apart. 14,000 people killed in North Dakota and Idaho? Right. Why every year 25,000 Americans murder other Americans, over 12,000 with guns. Then another 107,000 of them die from drug overdoses. And we’re supposed to get all weepy-eyed about a few folks who end up on the wrong end of an artillery shell? Merde!”

Of course, finding individuals who hate the US is not difficult these days. After the US crashed the world economy in 2023 by defaulting on its national debt, then replaced the US dollar with JoinCoin, its national digital currency — known among traders as Sh*tCoin — which within 24 hours plunged in value to practically zero, a lot of people across the globe were left holding the bag. A big empty bag.

Then again, Canadians have their own unique set of reasons for hating America. You’ll recall that in July 2024, US Ambassador to the UN, Caitlyn Jenner, was overheard privately calling Canada a “hockey rink posing as a nation.” And later in the year at a celebrity White House dinner, then-president Joe Biden mistook Celine Dion for Vladimir Putin and intentionally dumped his entire bowl of prune pudding on her head. Canadians were outraged!

To be honest, looking back we now realize we should have seen this war coming.

Before the unprovoked invasion of Canada by the US forces, leaks in the mainstream media in America — many believe egged on by foreign NGOs, like NEF (National Endowment for Fascism) — were stirring the pot to prepare the public for the US’ recent brutal aggression. Reports increasingly talked about a Canadian troop build-up on the US/Canada border, the beating of US citizens at a bingo parlor in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Red-white-and-blue toilet paper was allegedly the rage in Vancouver, British Columbia. None of this was confirmed. The only accurate report was that the most popular TV show in Canada for three years running was a sitcom making fun of US politics called The Jest Wing. Americans didn’t think it was funny. How could they? Americans have no sense of humor.

But those were just previews of coming attractions. It didn’t take long for violence-obsessed warmongers to crank the spigots of intimidation and confrontation wide open. Now it was truly game on!

As Vice-President Kanye West stated: “So the Canucks want to dance, eh? We’ll show them how to dance!”

The Department of Commerce invoked a 30% import tax on Canadian maple syrup. Then the State Department imposed visa requirements for Canadians to cross the border. Only 160 tourist visas would be issued a year. All work visas were canceled. A highly-publicized boycott of Canada Dry ginger ale brought thousands of supporters out in the streets to protest. A Canada Dry bottling plant in Nashville, Tennessee was burned to the ground.

Understandably, we can never forget the tragic April 9, 2025 retaliatory special ops assault by the CIA on a Canadian bacon distribution center in Winnipeg. The ill-conceived operation was embarrassingly a huge failure. All of the attackers were captured, their sunglasses confiscated, and they are now being held as war prisoners at a depleted tar sands facility in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Rumors are that the US is still attempting to arrange a POW exchange, having rounded up and incarcerated the entire Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team after their Stanley Cup victory over the Boston Bruins last June.

So now we’re seeing, with the war in full swing, that the battle for the hearts and minds of citizens across the globe gets even more intense.

President Kamala Harris pulled no punches yesterday on the White House lawn at a ceremony honoring an aerobics team from her hometown of Oakland, California: “Listen, guys. Canadians are a bunch of filthy, ignorant, white supremacists. I mean like, have you ever seen a Canadian with a tan? America’s gonnal kick their butts and show everyone out there who’s boss!”

Granted, when former president Donald Trump was asked for comment, he was visibly impatient: “Listen. I’m in the thick a huge legal battle. My vaccine passport has been revoked. Now I can’t even get into the strip club I opened in Orlando.” Even so, Trump, Barack Obama, and his former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, have co-authored a new book called, The Audacity of Grope: It Takes a Pillage to Raze a Nation. In this inspiring polemic, which highlights the beauty of democracy, the infinite potential offered individuals by the American Dream, and heaps praise on the US as a society built on diversity and the highest moral values, they reassure us — with warmth, candor, and an abundance of aw-shucks knee-slappers — that anything is possible if you’re ruthless and cunning, and can crack cool one-liners with or without a teleprompter.

No one knows with certainty how this horrible war will ultimately turn out. There’s a lot of back and forth on the battlefield and in the media. Each side is claiming enormous successes and ultimate victory, accusing the other of lying to the world about what’s really going on. Reports from the battlefield are a tsunami of mixed messages.

But we do know this . . .

Canadian troops are weary and running out of ammunition and supplies. 2000 fighters comprised of hard-core, French-speaking, America-hating storm-troopers, called the Chez Off Battalion, are surrounded and pinned-down in a croissant factory outside of Montreal. They refuse to surrender and are using young school girls and 23 members of a wine-tasting club as human shields. The UN and Human Rights Watch have condemned the hostage-taking as a war crime.

On the other hand, US troops have been disoriented by the sheer boredom of the Canadian countryside. One extremely well-equipped tank regiment got lost when their commander held a map upside down and over 120 tanks going the wrong direction made it all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah before the error was discovered. Another artillery company destroyed itself when it read target coordinates incorrectly and unleashed a barrage of high-yield cluster munitions straight up. Like they say: war is messy.

One thing is for sure: The world will never be the same. The vast majority of countries have condemned the US for its savagery and unprovoked aggression. The G-5 (currently Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela) is imposing new sanctions on American persons and businesses every day. The only airport which will accept flights by US airline companies is on Baltra in the Galapagos Islands. Imports of American products by foreign countries have stayed the same, but that’s because the US doesn’t make anything. Gruesome evidence of war crimes by the US military appears on television every day 24/7 across the globe. Everything American is being canceled and deleted. Tragically, this has produced such a social and cultural gulf between the US and the rest of the world, it may never ever be bridged.

This has predictably left US citizens haunted by a question that will probably never be answered . . .

“Why are we being vilified for just defending ourselves against barbaric hordes of America-haters from a neighboring country?”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John Rachel.

The World Meteorological Organization warned Monday that the planet now faces a 50% chance of temporarily hitting 1.5°C of warming above pre-industrial levels over the next five years, another signal that political leaders—particularly those of the rich nations most responsible for carbon emissions—are failing to rein in fossil fuel use.

"For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise."

In 2015, by comparison, the likelihood of briefly reaching or exceeding 1.5°C of global warming over the ensuing five-year period was estimated to be "close to zero," the WMO noted in a new climate update. The report was published amid a deadly heatwave on the Indian subcontinent that scientists say is a glimpse of what's to come if runaway carbon emissions aren't halted. Thus far, the heatwave has killed dozens in India and Pakistan.

Signatories to the Paris climate accord have agreed to act to limit the global average temperature increase to well below 2°C—preferably to 1.5°C—by the end of the century. Climate advocates have deemed the 1.5°C target "on life support" following world leaders' refusal to commit to more ambitious action at the COP26 summit in Glasgow late last year.

"We are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement," Petteri Taalas, the secretary-general of the WMO, said in a statement Monday. "The 1.5°C figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet."

"For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise," Taalas added. "And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and, our weather will become more extreme. Arctic warming is disproportionately high and what happens in the Arctic affects all of us."

Dr. Leon Hermanson, a climate expert at the U.K. Met Office who led the WMO report, stressed that a short-lived breach of the 1.5°C threshold would not mean that the world is guaranteed to fall short of the Paris accord's most ambitious warming target, which climate experts and campaigners have long decried as inadequate.

Such a breach, however, would "reveal that we are edging ever closer to a situation where 1.5°C could be exceeded for an extended period," said Hermanson.

The WMO's latest research also estimates that there is a 93% chance that at least one year between 2022 and 2026 will be the warmest on record. Currently, 2016 and 2020 are tied for the top spot.

Even if global warming is limited to 1.5°C by 2100, countless people across the globe will still face devastating heatwaves, droughts, and other extreme weather, with the poor facing the worst consequences.

Meanwhile, key ecosystems could be damaged beyond repair in a 1.5°C hotter world. One recent study found that 99% of the world's coral reefs would experience heatwaves that are "too frequent for them to recover" if the planet gets 1.5°C warmer compared to pre-industrial levels.

Scientists behind the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report cautioned last month that if there's to be any hope of keeping warming to 1.5°C or below by 2100, "it's now or never."

"Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible," said Jim Skea, co-chair of IPCC Working Group III.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jake Johnson.