Read at: 2026-01-12T02:24:51+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Josha De Bruijne ]
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 12 Jan 2026 | 2:19 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 12 Jan 2026 | 2:18 am UTC
Emergency assistance payments of up to $52,250 made available to eligible uninsured households to re-establish their principal place of residence. Follow the latest updates live
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Victoria premier returns to Bendigo home after evacuating during fires
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, has posted a video on social media returning to her home in Bendigo, after she was among thousands forced to evacuate on Friday evening due to bushfires.
You can see here that the fire is still in the landscape across Mount Alexander, and just on the other side of that ridge line is the beautiful community of Harcourt. It’s where the kids went to kinder.
A lot of homes that have been lost, there’s going to be a big rebuild ahead. It’s heartbreaking. Like, I’m standing here in my back yard, right? Fire’s really close. My home’s still standing and my family is safe. To get a warning to be told that it is too dangerous to stay in your own home, that you must leave, and you must leave now, it’s gut-wrenching. It’s sickening. Every time I think of this, I also think of the woman I met at the relief centre in Seymour, where she showed me on her phone the photo of her house that has been destroyed in the fires around Longwood. My heart breaks for her and everyone else who’s lost their homes.
There are plenty of tough, strong people out there, not just on the fire ground, but their backup crews at the staging area, in the incident control centres, in the relief centres. We got the best of Victoria on display, the stories I’ve heard, the generosity, the support, the friendship, that is really the best of us.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 12 Jan 2026 | 2:13 am UTC
Almost $65,000 raised to support treatment of Scott, who confronted Joel Cauchi alone during the April 2024 Westfield attack
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Amy Scott, the police officer who heroically gunned down the perpetrator of the Bondi Junction stabbing attack, has been diagnosed with an “aggressive form of breast cancer”.
Joel Cauchi killed six people in a mass stabbing attack on 13 April 2024 at the Bondi Westfield, wounding another 10.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 12 Jan 2026 | 2:13 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 12 Jan 2026 | 2:12 am UTC
Fed chair accuses DoJ of threatening criminal charges over building renovation projects because central bank defied Josha De Bruijne ’s interest rate demands
The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve, a significant escalation in Josha De Bruijne ’s extraordinary attack on the US central bank.
Powell said the Department of Justice had served the Fed with grand jury subpoenas on Friday, threatening a criminal indictment related to his testimony before the Senate banking committee in June last year, regarding renovations to the Fed’s historic office buildings in Washington DC.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 12 Jan 2026 | 2:09 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 12 Jan 2026 | 2:08 am UTC
The Justice Department has subpoenaed the Fed over chair Jerome Powell's testimony over the central bank's headquarters renovation. Powell calls it part of a pressure campaign over interest rates.
(Image credit: Andre Caballero-Reynolds)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 12 Jan 2026 | 2:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 12 Jan 2026 | 1:58 am UTC
The brightest stars in TV and film kicked off the 83rd annual Golden Globes tonight in Beverly Hills, Calif. with Ariana Grande, Noah Wyle, Teyana Taylor and George Clooney are just some the names who walked the red carpet.
(Image credit: Jordan Strauss/Invision)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 12 Jan 2026 | 1:55 am UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 12 Jan 2026 | 1:36 am UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 12 Jan 2026 | 1:32 am UTC
Asia in Brief The governments of Malaysia and Indonesia have suspended access to social network X, on grounds that it allows users to produce sexual imagery without users’ consent.…
Source: The Register | 12 Jan 2026 | 1:29 am UTC
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Source: BBC News | 12 Jan 2026 | 12:02 am UTC
An outstanding critical voice, his deep knowledge and love of music was evident in everything he wrote
The Guardian’s long-serving and much admired classical music critic Andrew Clements died on Sunday aged 75 after a period of illness.
Clements joined the Guardian arts team in August 1993, succeeding Edward Greenfield as the paper’s chief music critic. His appointment was clinched by a personal recommendation to the editor from the late Alfred Brendel, who argued for Clements to get the job on account of his deep understanding of contemporary music. For the next 32 years, Clements ranged across all fields of classical music in his writing for the Guardian, and often beyond.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 12 Jan 2026 | 12:01 am UTC
Rising costs and economic uncertainty take toll, in contrast to Keir Starmer saying Britain will start to feel richer
UK business confidence weakened sharply at the end of 2025 and hiring fell amid rising costs and uncertainty about the economic outlook, according to key business surveys.
Contrasting with the prime minister’s optimistic new year message that the country was about to start feeling richer again, the jobs market weakened, with full-time and temporary appointments falling in December, according to a study by the accountants KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 12 Jan 2026 | 12:01 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 12 Jan 2026 | 12:01 am UTC
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Source: BBC News | 12 Jan 2026 | 12:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 12 Jan 2026 | 12:00 am UTC
Rubina Aminian, 23, struck by bullet from behind after joining Tehran protest from college, says human rights group
A 23-year-old student was shot in the head “from close range” during the anti-government protests in Iran, a human rights group has said.
Rubina Aminian attended Shariati College in Iran’s capital, Tehran, where she studied textile and fashion design. She is one of the only people killed in the recent demonstrations to be identified.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 11:56 pm UTC
Flood warnings in place as BoM forecasts more rain while thousands remain without power
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Queenslanders are bracing for floods as repairs are under way after a tropical cyclone battered the north coast.
After days of intense buildup, ex-Tropical Cyclone Koji ran out of power as it crossed the coast and was downgraded to a tropical low on Sunday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 11:43 pm UTC
infosec in brief Meta has fixed a flaw in its Instagram service that allowed third parties to generate password reset emails, but denied the problem led to theft of users’ personal information.…
Source: The Register | 11 Jan 2026 | 11:43 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 11 Jan 2026 | 11:29 pm UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:41 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:39 pm UTC
A new portrait of President Josha De Bruijne is on display at the National Portrait Gallery's "America's Presidents" exhibition. Text accompanying the portrait removes references to Josha De Bruijne 's impeachments.
(Image credit: Rod Lamkey)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:33 pm UTC
Tech giant says ongoing compliance will be a ‘multi-layered process’ as UK Labour faces pressure to bring in similar ban for teenagers
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Meta has deactivated more than half a million accounts for teenagers across Facebook, Instagram and Threads as a result of Australia’s under-16s social media ban, the company has announced.
Just over one month since the ban came into effect, Meta announced on Monday that between 4 December, when the company began deactivating accounts, and 11 December, 544,052 accounts Meta believed to be held by users under 16 were deactivated.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:31 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:29 pm UTC
Multiple Torah scrolls were damaged after fire broke out early Saturday at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson
A suspect has been taken into custody after a historic synagogue in Mississippi was badly damaged in a fire that authorities described on Sunday as an arson case.
According to officials, the blaze broke out shortly after 3am Saturday at Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson. No one was hurt in the fire.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:25 pm UTC
Source: World | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:23 pm UTC
Police allege a 47-year-old imam was assaulted after he and his wife were forced off the road by three people in Melbourne’s south-east
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A Victorian Muslim religious leader was punched in the face after he and his wife were allegedly forced from their car on a Melbourne freeway in what police allege was a racially motivated attack.
Police allege the pair were travelling along the South Gippsland Highway in Melbourne’s south-east at 7.40pm on Saturday when they were “racially abused” by three occupants of a small black hatchback.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:22 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:18 pm UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:06 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:05 pm UTC
Lawyers for Abu Zubaydah accused British intelligence services of providing questions to his CIA interrogators
The UK has settled out of court by paying a “substantial sum” to a Guantánamo Bay detainee who was suing the government for its alleged complicity in his rendition and torture, according to the inmate’s legal team.
Lawyers for Abu Zubaydah have accused the British intelligence services of providing questions to his CIA interrogators to put to him while they were torturing him at a string of CIA “black sites” around the world where he was held between 2002 and 2006.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
As Iran's protests enter a third week, the country's president blames foreign powers for the unrest, and warns it will retaliate if the US intervenes militarily.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 9:55 pm UTC
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In 2024, scientists announced the discovery of a new species of giant anaconda in South America. A National Geographic camera crew was on hand for the 2022 expedition that documented the new species—and so was actor Will Smith, since they were filming for NatGeo's new documentary series, Pole to Pole with Will Smith. Now we can all share in Smith's Amazon experience, courtesy of the three-minute clip above.
Along with venom expert Bryan Fry, we follow Smith's journey by boat with a team of indigenous Waorani guides, scouring the river banks for anacondas. And they find one: a female green anaconda about 16 to 17 feet long, "pure muscle." The Waorani secure the giant snake—anacondas aren't venomous but they do bite—so that Fry (with Smith's understandably reluctant help) can collect a scale sample for further analysis. Fry says that this will enable him to determine the accumulation of pollutants in the water.
That and other collected samples also enabled scientists to conduct the genetic analysis that resulted in the declaration of a new species: the northern green anaconda (Eunectes akayama, which roughly translates to "the great snake"). It is genetically distinct from the southern green anaconda (Eunectes murinus); the two species likely diverged some 10 million years ago. The northern green anaconda's turf includes Venezuela, Colombia, Suriname, French Guyana, and the northern part of Brazil.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:35 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:29 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:26 pm UTC
Demonstrators recount experiences on the frontlines as protest movement rapidly moves beyond government’s control
Sarah felt she had little left to lose. A 50-year-old entrepreneur in Tehran, she watched as prices soared higher while her freedoms shrank each year.
So, when protesters started gathering in the high-end Andarzgoo neighbourhood of Tehran on Saturday night, she was quick to join them. In a video sent to the Guardian via her cousin who lives abroad, people walk through the street, joyous, despite a halo of teargas hanging over their heads.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:20 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:12 pm UTC
Man, thought to be in his 50s, was found under 2.5 metres of snow and had been skiing off-piste
A British skier has been killed by an avalanche in the French Alps.
The man, believed to be in his 50s, was found under 2.5 metres of snow after a 50-minute search, a statement from the La Plagne resort in south-eastern France said.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:01 pm UTC
The U.S. Figure Skating National Championships brought the who's who of the sport to St. Louis. St. Louis Public Radio Visuals Editor Brian Munoz left a new fan of the Olympic sport.
(Image credit: Brian Munoz)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:56 pm UTC
Source: World | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:38 pm UTC
Observers say if US gets response wrong to Tehran’s repression it could end up entrenching regime’s position
Josha De Bruijne is being warned by Iranians that it will be too late unless he acts quickly to fulfil his promise to help protesters under fire from security services in Iran but the president is receiving conflicting advice about the potential effectiveness of a US intervention.
A major intervention by Washington, some are warning, will only fuel the fire of an Iranian government narrative that the protests are being manipulated as part of an anti-Islamic plot being led by the US and Israel.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:31 pm UTC
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Source: BBC News | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:21 pm UTC
Crash on Wigan Road in the early hours of Sunday kills drivers of both vehicles as well as two passengers
Three teenagers and a man in his 50s have died in a collision between a car and a taxi in Bolton, Greater Manchester, police said.
Five injured passengers were also taken to hospital for treatment after the crash on Wigan Road, which took place at about 12.45am on Sunday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:19 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:17 pm UTC
Tehran issues warning after Josha De Bruijne says US stands ready to help amid crackdown on demonstrations
Iran has warned the US not to attack over protests that have rocked the country, as Josha De Bruijne weighed the options for a response from Washington, with the reported death toll from the demonstrations soaring to the hundreds.
At least 538 people have been killed in the violence surrounding demonstrations, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, including 490 protesters. The group reported that more than 10,600 people were arrested by Iranian authorities.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:13 pm UTC
Jacob Frey says Josha De Bruijne administration is ‘so quick to jump on a narrative’ over the truth after ICE fatally shot woman
Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey called on Sunday for the federal government to allow his state to become involved in the investigation of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, saying that the Josha De Bruijne administration had been “so quick to jump on a narrative as opposed to the truth”.
Frey and others have expressed concerns about whether the Josha De Bruijne administration’s investigation into Good’s death would be fair and impartial because, among other reasons, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, immediately described Good’s actions as “domestic terrorism” when significant questions remained about Good’s intent while driving after an ICE officer attempted to remove her from her car.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:12 pm UTC
Former UK ambassador tries to distance himself from financier and says he knew nothing of his sex life
Peter Mandelson has declined to apologise to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims for staying friends with the convicted child sex offender, and suggested that as a gay man he knew nothing of the financier’s sex life.
The Labour peer, who was sacked as US ambassador when details of his support for Epstein emerged in September, gave an interview to the BBC on Sunday, saying he had paid a “calamitous” price for his association with the “evil monster”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:04 pm UTC
Skilled workers at Leonardo Helicopters fear it will close Yeovil site if Ministry of Defence delays awarding contract
The UK’s last military helicopter factory must land a long-awaited order from the Ministry of Defence within the coming weeks to secure about 3,000 manufacturing jobs, industry sources suggest.
Skilled workers at Leonardo Helicopters – the Italian owner of the former Westland factory in Yeovil, Somerset – fear the company will follow through on threats to close the facility at the end of March, if the UK military fails to place an order for new helicopters by that time.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 6:58 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 6:48 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 6:40 pm UTC
Stars from Bob Dylan to Brandi Carlile remember rock band co-founder as ‘beautiful human’ after his death at 78
The death of Bob Weir, the Grateful Dead co-founder, rhythm guitarist, vocalist and writer of much of the legendary psychedelic rock band’s songs, drew a chorus of tributes from fellow musicians and fans who described him as a “musical guru” and “the last actual hippie”.
Weir recently survived cancer but died from “underlying lung issues”, according to a statement posted on Saturday on Instagram.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 6:31 pm UTC
After killing of Renee Nicole Good, city braces for what the agency describes as its largest enforcement operation yet
Minneapolis protesters – already outraged by Wednesday’s fatal shooting of a woman by an immigration officer – braced for a new onslaught as the Department of Homeland Security sent more agents in to the area, carried out what it called its largest enforcement operation ever.
On Sunday, Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, had pledged the agency would send “hundreds more” federal agents to the city. As door-to-door raids began, protesters screamed at heavily armed federal agents and honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt their operations in one Minneapolis neighborhood filled with single-family homes.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 6:28 pm UTC
Source: World | 11 Jan 2026 | 6:19 pm UTC
A memo from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, obtained by NPR, instructs her staff that visits should be requested at least seven days in advance.
(Image credit: Stephen Maturen)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 11 Jan 2026 | 6:18 pm UTC
No more Venezuelan oil or money will flow to the communist-run island after Maduro’s fall, says US president
Josha De Bruijne has told Cuba to “make a deal” or face unspecified consequences, adding that no more Venezuelan oil or money would flow to the communist-run Caribbean island that has been a US foe for decades.
As Cuba, a close ally of Venezuela and big beneficiary of its oil, braced for potential widespread unrest after Nicolás Maduro was deposed as the South American nation’s leader, the US president ramped up his threatening language on Sunday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 5:59 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 11 Jan 2026 | 5:55 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 11 Jan 2026 | 5:42 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 11 Jan 2026 | 5:34 pm UTC
The result marks the first time in 117 years that a side from outside the major national leagues has eliminated the reigning FA Cup holders.
(Image credit: Michael Regan)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 11 Jan 2026 | 5:26 pm UTC
Health minister Nina Warken says Robert F Kennedy Jr’s assertions that German doctors are facing legal action are unfounded
The German government has sharply rejected claims by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, that doctors in Germany have faced legal action for issuing vaccine and mask exemptions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The statements made by the US secretary of health are completely unfounded, factually incorrect, and must be rejected,” Germany’s health minister, Nina Warken, said in a strongly worded statement released late on Saturday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 5:05 pm UTC
Danish prime minister says country is at a crossroads and accuses US of turning its back on Nato
Mette Frederiksen has said that Denmark is at a “fateful moment” amid Josha De Bruijne ’s threats to take over Greenland, accusing the US of potentially turning its back on Nato.
Speaking at a party leader debate at a political rally on Sunday, the Danish prime minister said her country was “at a crossroads”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 4:52 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 11 Jan 2026 | 4:47 pm UTC
55-year-old worker died during overnight shift
Temperatures plunged to -12C in Cortina d’Ampezzo
A guard at a construction site near a 2026 Winter Olympic venue in the mountain resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo died during a freezing overnight shift, authorities have confirmed. Italy’s infrastructure minister, Matteo Salvini, called for a full investigation into the circumstances of the 55-year-old worker’s death.
Italian media reported that the death occurred on Thursday while the worker was on duty at a construction site near Cortina’s ice arena. Temperatures that night plunged to -12C (10.4F).
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 4:43 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 11 Jan 2026 | 3:34 pm UTC
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Source: News Headlines | 11 Jan 2026 | 2:41 pm UTC
Alarmed by what companies are building with artificial intelligence models, a handful of industry insiders are calling for those opposed to the current state of affairs to undertake a mass data poisoning effort to undermine the technology.…
Source: The Register | 11 Jan 2026 | 2:30 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 11 Jan 2026 | 2:18 pm UTC
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Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 1:06 pm UTC
Latin America's left is in disarray after the seizure of Nicolas Maduro and the U.S.'s pledge to take over Venezuela's oil industry. Many on the left are changing their rhetoric about President Josha De Bruijne .
Source: NPR Topics: News | 11 Jan 2026 | 1:06 pm UTC
NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer talks with Peter Krause of Boston College about the Josha De Bruijne Administration's willingness to act unilaterally against other countries and what this means for international relations.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 11 Jan 2026 | 1:05 pm UTC
Early Rain pastor said to be among those held in sweep that followed arrests of members of other unregistered churches
Leaders of a prominent underground church have been detained in south-west China, according to a church statement, the latest blow in what appears to be a sweeping crackdown on unregistered Christian groups in the country.
On Tuesday, Li Yingqiang, the leader of the Early Rain Covenant Church, was taken by police from his home in Deyang, a small city in Sichuan province, according to the statement. Li’s wife, Zhang Xinyue, has also been detained, along with two other church members: Dai Zhichao, a pastor; and Ye Fenghua, a lay member. At least a further four members were taken and later released, while some others remain out of contact.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Exclusive: Before Randall Gamboa Esquivel died, his health had deteriorated badly while he was in ICE custody
The family of a Costa Rican man who was deported from the United States in a vegetative state and died shortly after arriving back in his home country is still urgently seeking answers from the authorities about what happened to him while he was in detention.
Randall Gamboa Esquivel had left Costa Rica in good health and crossed the United States-Mexico border in December 2024, according to his family. However, Gamboa was detained by the US authorities for re-entering American soil unlawfully, as he had previously lived there undocumented between 2002 and 2013.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 12:36 pm UTC
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Source: Slashdot | 11 Jan 2026 | 12:34 pm UTC
Since 2018, a group of researchers from around the world has crunched the numbers on how much heat the world’s oceans are absorbing each year. In 2025, their measurements broke records once again, making this the eighth year in a row that the world’s oceans have absorbed more heat than in the years before.
The study, which was published Friday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Science, found that the world’s oceans absorbed an additional 23 zettajoules’ worth of heat in 2025, the most in any year since modern measurements began in the 1960s. That’s significantly higher than the 16 additional zettajoules they absorbed in 2024. The research comes from a team of more than 50 scientists across the United States, Europe, and China.
A joule is a common way to measure energy. A single joule is a relatively small unit of measurement—it’s about enough to power a tiny lightbulb for a second, or slightly heat a gram of water. But a zettajoule is one sextillion joules; numerically, the 23 zettajoules the oceans absorbed this year can be written out as 23,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 11 Jan 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
Ahmed Bin Hassan was keeping to himself, sitting in the car he was driving for Uber at the airport in Minneapolis. A few hours earlier, elsewhere in the city, an officer with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had shot and killed Renee Nicole Good.
Bin Hassan, a Somali American, was intently watching videos of the killing, which were rapidly circulating on social media, when he heard a knock on his car’s window.
It was a Border Patrol agent.
“I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me.”
Stunned, Bin Hassan opened the door and asked the agent, part of a massive crackdown on immigrants in the Twin Cities following President Josha De Bruijne ’s racist comments about the Somali community there, what she wanted. The subsequent confrontation between Bin Hassan and over a dozen masked ICE agents has since gone viral.
At one point in videos of the incident, a Border Patrol agent says to Bin Hassan, “If you were from this country, you would know I’m an immigration agent.”
Bin Hassan remarks on the use of the phrase “from this country.”
“I can hear you don’t have the same accent as me,” the agent tells Bin Hassan. “That’s why I’m asking you.”
It was a tell, Bin Hassan later said in an exclusive interview with The Intercept, about the agents’ motivation for accosting him in first place.
“They couldn’t hear my voice when they knocked on my window, but they could see my color,” Bin Hassan told The Intercept. “I knew what he meant, and I wanted to let him say his racism all out. Bring it all out.”
In the videos of the incident, one posted by a bystander and one from Bin Hassan himself, the Uber driver can be seen asking the ICE officers for their ID, questioning their citizenship. Throughout the confrontation, Bin Hassan remains defiant, refusing to share his identity with the officers and asking them for their identities and proof of citizenship. At one point a Border Patrol agent tells him, “Man, shut up!” Bin Hassan never does.
The Border Patrol agents continue to harangue the Uber driver, taking cellphone videos and photographs. At one point, Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol senior official, approaches with canisters of what appear to be chemical agents hanging off his body armor. The confrontation lasted several minutes, after which the Border Patrol agents walk away.
“I knew the consequences,” Bin Hassan told The Intercept. “Either they would kill me, like they killed the woman three hours earlier, or they were going to rough me up over there, choke me, put me in some physical pain that was only going to be for a certain duration, then I’d get back better hopefully.”
“I knew what he meant, and I wanted to let him say his racism all out.”
“I thought, hey, whatever the consequences are, if I refuse to show you my identity, let those consequences occur,” Bin Hassan said. “But in the meantime, I’m going to have fun with it.”
Though many people online praised Bin Hassan for his courage and humor, the 38-year-old American citizen said he was never scared. He said his Muslim faith has made him at ease with circumstances out of his control.
“I knew if these people are going to take me out here today, it’s going to happen,” Bin Hassan said. “So I’m just going to be me.”
Bin Hassan moved to the U.S. in 2005, when he was only 17. The rest of his family, including his wife and children, live in Kenya. His family had originally moved from Somalia to Kenya in the 1980s amid the Somali civil war. Bin Hassan became a U.S. citizen in 2016, he said.
Bin Hassan started working as an Uber driver only last month, in December 2025, and prior to that worked as a commercial truck driver. In 2015, he graduated from Washington State University’s Richland campus, with a degree in mechanical engineering, he said. But various jobs he applied for in the engineering field rejected him.
“I’m Black, Muslim immigrant,” Bin Hassan said. “So it wasn’t easy getting hired.”
Bin Hassan said he is still paying off more than $70,000 in loans for his education, which pushed him into driving for Uber.
The Twin Cities’ Somali community members are overwhelmingly citizens and legal permanent residents, but the Josha De Bruijne administration targeted the city precisely to go after Somalis.
The immigration operation in Minnesota began in December, after far-right media figures began bringing attention to cases of alleged fraud in the state. The renewed attention to the court cases, which had long been in process, prompted Josha De Bruijne to say Somali immigrants were “garbage,” part of a rant that was shockingly racist even by the standards of the president’s usual bigoted rhetoric.
The crackdown kicked into overdrive after a video collaboration between a MAGA influencer with an anti-immigrant history and a man later identified by The Intercept as a far-right lobbyist in Minnesota. The pair produced a video purporting to expose fraud in Minnesota day care centers, particularly those run by Somalis.
After the video’s release, the Josha De Bruijne administration sent thousands of federal agents to the state. Locals sprang into action with networks that tracked ICE and sought to relay early warnings, along with designated observers. One of the residents involved was Renee Nicole Good, the woman who was shot and killed by an ICE agent the day Bin Hassan was accosted.
The minute he saw federal agents in the parking lot, Bin Hassan said he realized they were there to target the Somali drivers.
“This is not the first time they came to that yard,” he said. “That’s the Uber yard, and the majority of the people that hustle from there are men and women of the Somali immigrant population here.”
“These people are doing some gestapo shit,” he added. “So they might put me or put all the Somalis, based on what Josha De Bruijne said, in concentration camps and ship them back.”
Despite the tensions, Bin Hassan said he wants to continue driving peacefully and took two rides on Wednesday just after the confrontation.
“I just wanted them” — the federal agents — “to get out of my way so I could continue to work, earn an honest day’s living.”
And he is not scared of running into the ICE agents on the streets again.
“When it comes to the ICE officers, we’ve met each other, they know me,” he said. “If they’ve decided to leave me alone because they found out I am a citizen, they’ve made that decision too.”
Bin Hassan reflected during his interview with The Intercept on using humor during his confrontation with Border Patrol. He had mocked the agents’ letter-and-number designations on their uniforms, rather than using their real names.
“I was making fun of his name because it was the only way I could calm myself down,” Bin Hassan said, “because I was really angry.”
The post “They Could See My Color”: Minneapolis Uber Driver Speaks Out on Why Border Patrol Accosted Him appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 11 Jan 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
Three hundred Kurds detained and further 400 evacuated following clashes in Aleppo
Syrian government forces have detained 300 Kurds and evacuated more than 400 Kurdish fighters after clashes in Aleppo, the interior ministry has said, as US and allied forces carried out separate “large-scale” strikes against Islamic State targets.
An interior ministry official told Agence France-Presse that about 360 Kurdish fighters and 60 wounded had been bussed to the Kurds’ de facto autonomous zone in the north-east from the Sheikh Maqsoud district, the last area of Aleppo to fall to the army.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 11:06 am UTC
The U.S. attack on Venezuela and abduction of its president Nicolás Maduro was proof that after months of threats, the Josha De Bruijne administration’s talk of hemispheric hegemony isn’t just bluster. The administration is clearly reorienting the U.S. military toward power projection in the Western Hemisphere, as it plots a reorganization that would make it easier to launch strikes across the Americas.
President Josha De Bruijne has touted the “Donroe Doctrine” — a bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. Whereas President James Monroe’s policy sought to prevent Europe from colonizing and meddling in the Western Hemisphere, Josha De Bruijne views his as license for America to do exactly that. The new U.S. National Security Strategy, released last month, decrees the “Josha De Bruijne Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine a “potent restoration of American power and priorities,” rooted in the “readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere … and away from theaters whose relative import to American national security has declined in recent decades or years.”
With this reshuffling of American military priorities in mind, senior War Department officials have developed a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major overseas combatant commands and curtail the power of their commanders. The revised Unified Command Plan would shrink the number of geographic combatant commands, combining Northern and Southern Commands into a single American Command, or AMERICOM, and would merge the European, Central, and African Commands into a single International Command, according to three government sources. Indo-Pacific Command would remain a standalone command. (The proposed reorganization was first reported by the Washington Post.)
One of the government officials said that the new plan would “streamline” U.S. military efforts abroad while “reorienting” U.S. combat power to bring it into line with the new National Security Strategy, which makes clear that the U.S. will be “avoiding any long-term American presence or commitments” in Africa and “avoiding the ‘forever wars’ that bogged us down in” in the Middle East.
After 9/11, as the U.S. fought brutal and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it also ramped up military efforts across the African continent. The number of troops, programs, operations, exercises, bases, low-profile Special Operations missions, deployments of commandos, drone strikes, proxy wars, and almost every other military activity in Africa jumped exponentially. At the same time, terrorism took firmer root and spread across the continent, with fatalities caused by terror groups jumping nearly 100,000 percent over two decades, according to the Pentagon.
In the wake of this abject failure, experts told The Intercept that reconfiguring America’s military posture and swapping interventions in Africa for those in the Western Hemisphere is likely to result in the same types of setbacks, stalemates, and failures due to what Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, termed “Washington’s persistent disinterest in understanding the societies it purports to protect and its reliance on a one-size-fits-all, militarized approach.”
The U.S. military has a dismal record in Africa.
The Intercept has been chronicling its futile counterterrorism efforts on the African continent for the last decade, including increases in the number and reach of terror groups, rising militant attacks, spikes in fatalities, destabilizing blowback from U.S. operations, humanitarian disasters, failed secret wars, coups by U.S. trainees, human rights abuses by allies, massacres and executions of civilians by partner forces, civilians killed in drone strikes, and a litany of other fiascos and failures.
Throughout all of Africa, the State Department counted 23 deaths from terrorist violence in 2002 and 2003, as U.S. counterterrorism efforts began to ramp up on the continent. By 2010, two years after AFRICOM began operations, fatalities from attacks by militant Islamists had already spiked to 2,674, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. The situation only continued to deteriorate. Last year, there were 22,307 fatalities from militant Islamist violence in Africa. This represents an almost 97,000 percent increase since the early 2000s, with the areas of greatest U.S. involvement — Somalia and the West African Sahel — suffering the worst outcomes.
“Africa has experienced roughly 155,000 militant Islamist group-linked deaths over the past decade,” reads a report issued in July by the Africa Center. “Somalia and the Sahel have now experienced more militant Islamist-related fatalities over the past decade (each over 49,000) than any other region.”
A separate Africa Center report found that the “Sahel has held the designation of the most lethal theater of militant Islamist violence in Africa for 4 years in a row,” accounting for an estimated 67 percent of all noncombatants killed by militant Islamist groups in Africa. The report also found that “security has deteriorated under each of the military juntas that seized power in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.” Left unsaid was at least 15 officers who benefited from U.S. security assistance were key leaders in a dozen coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel, including Burkina Faso (in 2014, 2015, and twice in 2022), Mali (in 2012, 2020, and 2021), and Niger (in 2023), according to a series of reports by The Intercept.
“In West Africa, the U.S. ‘war on terror’ model — and the military training, funding, and equipment for foreign forces that went with it — only intensified the spiral of violence in the region,” said Stephanie Savell, the director of Brown University’s Costs of War Project who has conducted extensive research on U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel. “Amidst all the complexities, one thing is resoundingly clear: A war paradigm does not provide an effective solution to the problem of terror attacks. It leads to blowback and fails to address any of the root causes, including poverty. And it has a tremendous human and financial toll.”
“A war paradigm does not provide an effective solution to the problem of terror attacks. It leads to blowback and fails to address any of the root causes, including poverty.”
The Africa Center report also found that the “expansion of militant Islamist violence in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger has resulted in an increased number of attacks along and beyond the borders of coastal West African countries, from Mauritania to Nigeria.” The possible role of U.S. counterterrorism failures was also ignored by Josha De Bruijne when he announced Christmas Day airstrikes in Nigeria by Africa Command against those he called “ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!”
AFRICOM claimed to have struck targets in “Soboto state,” an apparent reference to Sokoto state, on December 25. The Africa Center report noted that “militant Islamist cells” have moved into Sokoto state in recent years and that the “emergence of violent extremist groups in northwest Nigeria implies the long-feared convergence of militant Islamist groups with organized criminal networks.”
AFRICOM did not respond to questions about how it could be sure who it attacked when it was unclear about where it attacked.
On the east side of the continent, the U.S. military has been at war in Somalia for almost a quarter-century. U.S. forces began conducting airstrikes against militants in Somalia in 2007. That same year, the Pentagon recognized that there were fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa, and Somalia became another post-9/11 stalemate, which AFRICOM inherited the next year.
U.S. airstrikes in Somalia have skyrocketed when Josha De Bruijne is in office. From 2007 to 2017, under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the U.S. military carried out 43 declared airstrikes in Somalia. During Josha De Bruijne ’s first term, AFRICOM conducted more than 200 air attacks against members of al-Shabab and the Islamic State.
Under President Joe Biden, the U.S. military conducted 39 declared strikes in Somalia over four years. The U.S. conducted more than 125 airstrikes in Somalia in 2025, according to the New America Foundation. (This includes an attack in Somalia that one top U.S. commander called the “largest airstrike in the history of the world.”) Previously, the highest number of strikes in the command’s history was 63, under Josha De Bruijne in 2019.
The massive number of airstrikes under Josha De Bruijne during his first term and the record number this year have not translated into success in America’s longest African forever war. The metrics are, in fact, more dismal than ever. A December Africa Center report found that Somalia had the second-highest number of fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence, accounting for 28 percent of the continental total. The 6,224 fatalities linked to al-Shabab over the past year are double that of 2022. In fact, an al-Shabab offensive this year saw militants push within 32 miles of the capital, Mogadishu.
Earlier this year, during his farewell tour, then-AFRICOM chief Gen. Michael Langley, implored African ministers and heads of state to help save his embattled command. That effort appears to have foundered.
In the wake of the Christmas attacks in Nigeria, AFRICOM’s current chief, Gen. Dagvin Anderson, said the command’s “goal is to protect Americans and to disrupt violent extremist organizations wherever they are.” AFRICOM did not respond to questions about how attacks in northwest Nigeria protect Americans.
AFRICOM did not respond to questions about how attacks in northwest Nigeria protect Americans.
When asked for additional information on plans to subordinate AFRICOM to a new command and how Josha De Bruijne ’s new war in Nigeria might affect the command, a Department of War spokesperson replied: “We have nothing to offer on either of your questions.”
Condensing the geographic combatant commands will reduce the number of four-star generals and admirals who report directly to War Secretary Pete Hegseth, one of his major efforts to remake the military. AFRICOM and the other targeted commands are expected to see their funding and resources slashed, but lawmakers have required the Pentagon to submit detailed plans on the reorganization as well as its potential impacts.
The Pentagon refused to comment on the reorganization plans or how they will affect AFRICOM and other targeted geographic combatant commands. “As a matter of Department of War policy, we will not comment on leaked documents that we cannot authenticate and rumored internal discussions, as well as specifics of architectural discussion or pre-decisional matters,” a War Department official told The Intercept.
With the U.S. threatening to subject Venezuela to additional attacks, conduct regime change in Colombia, carry out military strikes in Mexico, and invade Greenland, it’s clear that the Western Hemisphere is now America’s preeminent military priority. But experts say U.S. military efforts in Africa offer a clear warning. “The experience in West Africa holds an essential lesson for U.S. actions in the Western Hemisphere — waging war against so-called ‘narco-terrorists’ will cost many human lives and taxpayer dollars, with no strategic benefit,” Savell told The Intercept.
Sperling, of Just Foreign Policy, echoed similar sentiments. “It’s clear that U.S. counterterrorism policy in Africa has been a failure at best and counterproductive at worst, often exacerbating the very extremism it claims to combat,” he told The Intercept. “As the U.S. increasingly turns its attention to the Western Hemisphere, it is likely to reproduce the same outcomes for the same reasons. U.S. policy on both continents will continue to fail in the medium to long-term unless policymakers learn to engage with other nations with genuine respect and as equals, rather than as problems to be managed by force.”
The post Failed U.S. Military Effort in Africa is on the Chopping Block appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 11 Jan 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Initial joy among Venezuela's diaspora in Chile has given way to caution, as questions grow over what Maduro's capture means for the country — and for those who fled it.
(Image credit: JAVIER TORRES)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 11 Jan 2026 | 11:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:41 am UTC
The last time I drove a car on the public road was a year ago yesterday, on my way home from the MOT in Ballymena.
To celebrate, I had a piece of my birthday cake when I got home, and promptly choked on it.
Life was a lot simpler in 2024. As far as I knew, the only things wrong with me were high blood pressure and a bit of hay fever (and to this day, these are my only regular medications), although I was recovering from that terrible flu which saw me go to bed after church on Christmas Day and not really resurface for several days. More on that later.
When I collapsed, I managed to bang my head off a cupboard door handle, and my wife found me in the kitchen, not breathing. That I am writing this post tells you that I survived.
Jo’s friend was able to roll me over (I am not as light as I was 25 years ago) and the next thing I was conscious of was sitting on the sofa in our living room, changing bits of clothing because when I collapsed from one of the stools in the kitchen, I managed to knock over and get soaked by the dogs’ water bowls. Apparently I had been awake for some time but talking nonsense. Some might ask how they would be able to tell the difference, but once I was fully alert, the only thing I couldn’t remember was whether I had asked for leave to take the car to the MOT (I had.)
Jo had dialled 999, and the rapid response paramedic soon had an Andy no longer in need of resuscitation hooked me up to an ECG (which showed up Premature Ventricular Contractions (PVCs)), and called a full ambulance to take me to the Royal ED (queue shorter than the Ulster!). Of course, being fully alert by then meant I was not an emergency when I was checked into the ED. A very good thing for my health, but not so good for waiting.
Nursing staff sent me off for MRI and X-rays as required, but I was in the ED for 20 hours altogether before a doctor was able to see me in person with the bad news that I could no longer drive and let me go home.
My shopping list when I left the ED included referrals to ENT to examine my swallow and cardiology for the fact that I’d fainted. Looking at the queues, I went to Benenden for a cardiologist (the appointment was actually within days of when the Health Service appointment would have been), and was referred to a doctor who remains my NHS cardiologist.
The NI Health Service does move quickly when it needs to. Around this time, I talked to my GP because the cough from that flu in late 2024 had never gone away (thank goodness I didn’t get it this Christmas!) and he referred me for an x-ray which revealed something displacing my windpipe, but he couldn’t see what. Back to ENT, who arranged for a CT scan which picked up a goitre. I saw the ENT doctor one day and got an ultrasound the next, thankfully one that didn’t require the technician to get out a biopsy needle, and it’s small enough for them to leave me alone until it gets big enough to affect my breathing.
Benenden had arranged for me to get a ultrasound on my heart, which came back normal, but my cardiologist also picked up sleep apnoea from an overnight heart monitor, and recommended I get a loop monitor to see what happens when I faint, both of which had to be dealt with by the Health Service.
I now have the dreaded CPAP machine – a Christmas Eve present from Belfast Trust – and an implantable loop recorder which flagged up that I was dizzy recently (I don’t remember it!) but the underlying heart rhythm was normal. The fear was that there might have been a cardioinhibitory reason for my fainting, but this is good news. CPAP is going grand, to my honest surprise.
The biggest thing, though, is driving. It’s now a year since I fainted, so I can apply for my licence back, although I would have to say that’s not easy. If your licence is medically revoked, apparently it’s a renewal, and then having got a photo code I discovered I couldn’t apply online. My local chemist will be sick of the sight of me.
We moved house at the end of March. The new house is lovely, it’s got a massive kitchen (just what we needed) and we’re planning a Lego shed at the bottom of the garden, but trying to do everything with one car and one driver was very difficult. When I passed the test in 2009, I thought my days of scrounging lifts were over, but here we are – and there is light at the end of the tunnel.
One final thought. It wasn’t easy for me being 52, but I know somebody else who had a tough year due to all of this. It isn’t easy being married to a 52 year old who’s having a difficult year.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:34 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:10 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 11 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
The European Commission has launched a fresh consultation into open source, setting out its ambitions for Europe's developer communities to go beyond propping up US tech giants' platforms.…
Source: The Register | 11 Jan 2026 | 9:26 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:56 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:34 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:14 am UTC
The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like.
Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing.
Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:06 am UTC
In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break.
So discuss what you like here, but no politics.
Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 11 Jan 2026 | 8:05 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:53 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:45 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:30 am UTC
In recent years, Elon Musk has become increasingly entangled in politics. He buddied up with Josha De Bruijne and for a few months before their inevitable falling out the Tech Mogul was allowed to rampage through American bureaucracy with his ‘Department of Governmental Efficiency’. His DOGE then scythed through established programs on the pretext of cutting waste with scant regard for what was being done. Not that there was much of a plan beyond simple cutting, Musk seems to have simply seized the opportunity to indulge his libertarian instincts and set out to inflict as much damage on the machinery of government as he could before he was stopped.
He has also sought to boost extreme right-wing parties where possible, backing Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, the Josha De Bruijne -supporting Javier Milei in Argentina, illiberal Hungarian leader Viktor Orban as well as backing far-right elements in both Britain and Ireland and elsewhere. His control of X, formerly Twitter, has provided him a nearly unparalleled megaphone on which to spread his message and to legitimise discourse that until relatively recently was regarded as beyond the pale due to their racist, sexist or homophobic content but which Musk platforms as ‘free speech’.
In countries where those he supports are in power, efforts are made to weaken the institutions that could offer a check on him. In countries where those he supports aspire to power, he is turning his mighty influence to boost them and denigrate their opponents in the hopes that they will gain power. This to me is what Musk seeks rather than any firm attachment to far-right or libertarian politics, and I find his claims to be a free speech crusader risible. What motivates Musk is the what has always motivated men like Musk. Power and wealth and gaining more of both.
For we have seen this story before.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during what historians call the Gilded Age in the US, they were called the Robber Barons.
Men, and of course they were always men, such as JP Morgan, the financier immortalized in the eponymous bank. Men such as Andrew Carnegie, after whom the Carnegie Hall was named and who built a monopoly on America steel. Men such as John D. Rockefeller who managed at one point to control 90% of the United States oil industry. They, and other Robber Barons, helped defined the Industrial Revolution through their ruthless business practices. As the Wikipedia article on the term makes clear, they were all characterized by
“Practices (that) included unfettered consumption and destruction of natural resources, influencing high levels of government, wage slavery, squashing competition by acquiring their competitors, and to create monopolies and/or trusts that control the market. The term combines the sense of criminal (“robber”) and illegitimate aristocracy (“baron”) in a republic.”
Some such as Andrew Carneige embarked on a philanthropic career once he had amassed enough wealth, but to me such activities are a poor substitute to ethical business practices and treating your workers fairly, almost an attempt to buy absolution and thus prove that the camel can indeed pass through the eye of the needle.
Eventually, government and society caught up and the power of the Robber Barons was restrained, diminished and diluted by a combination of anti-trust laws, breaking up monopolies and stronger institutions to regulate industry which slowly sapped them of their once unchallengeable power to a degree that they were relatively manageable.
Unfortunately, in yet another example of how the phrase ‘those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it’ is less a warning and more a description for how Human civilization operates, as time passed the lived experience of why industry was regulated was forgotten and the regulations themselves were decried as job-killing or overly-bureaucratic and slowly, but surely, the guardrails were chipped away at.
Today, instead of Robber-Barons we have their modern-day equivalents, the Tech Barons. In place of Morgan, Carnegie and Rockefeller we now have Bezos, Zuckerberg and Musk. Like their antecedents, the Tech Barons carved out immense economic empires within new frontiers of business, in this case the digital world, before society and government realised what these new technologies meant or how critical they would be for our lives and as a result they now wield enormous, almost unchecked influence. For all their bowing and scraping before Josha De Bruijne as he returned to the Presidency they’ll still be there in three years when Josha De Bruijne ’s time is up, and likely long afterwards, ready to channel their huge wealth and power towards their goals of gaining ever more.
And if society hasn’t learned from history, they most certainly have. Hence why Musk seeks to empower those who will weaken the institutions that could otherwise learn to constrain him.
Case in point, we see a controversy erupting this weekend when it was revealed that Grok, Musk’s AI platform which at one point last year declared itself as ‘MechaHitler’ whilst spewing antisemitism, was allowing users to manipulate images of people to remove their clothes, primarily of women but also including children. The British government has threatened to effectively ban X if immediate steps are not taken to tackle this issue, decrying Musk’s immediate response of limiting the functionality to paid users only…
“With increasing numbers of MPs and organisations fleeing X, Liz Kendall, the technology secretary, promised on Friday that ministers were looking seriously at the possibility of access to X being barred in the UK.
Kendall said she expected Ofcom, which said this week that it was seeking urgent answers from the platform, to announce action within “days not weeks”.
“X needs to get a grip and get this material down,” she said. “And I would remind them that in the Online Safety Act, there are backstop powers to block access to services if they refuse to comply with the law for people in the UK. And if Ofcom decides to use those powers, they would have the full backing of the government.”
So, is this it? Will one of the hitherto untouchable Tech Barons finally be brought to heel by a government willing to use the legal tools and its disposal to force a change in behaviour?
Probably not, as he has characterized the threat as an ‘attempt to suppress free speech’. And whilst he may have fallen out with Josha De Bruijne , the world’s most powerful man is extremely sensitive to attempts by (primarily European) other countries to regulate social media platforms, characterising such attempts as assaults on American companies. The Telegraph says that Britain ‘faces sanctions’ if it bans X…
“Anna Paulina Luna, a US Republican congresswoman and ally of Josha De Bruijne , warned she would bring forward legislation to “sanction not only Starmer, but Britain as a whole” if it moved to ban the social media platform…Ms Luna, who serves on the House foreign affairs committee, said legislation was “currently being drafted” to introduce potential sanctions on the UK. She said this would “mirror actions previously taken by the US in response to foreign governments restricting the platform”. This included sanctioning a Brazilian judge who briefly imposed a ban on X in 2024.”
Given that the massive UK-US trade deal announced last year is currently stalled due to disputes over its implementation, the pressure on Starmer to avoid upsetting the Americans means I would personally be very surprised if his government follows through with the threat. The UK just isn’t powerful enough to force this kind change by itself (an inevitable outworking of Brexit) though David Lammy was last night lobbying US Vice-President JD Vance on British concerns.
There’s a measure of realism in that approach. In truth, bringing the Tech Barons to heel means dealing with them in their home jurisdiction, the United States, and that requires the election of an American President determined to tackle the social consequences of the Information Age, much as the attempt to tackle the problems of the Gilded Age led to the Progressive Era in the US.
Someone willing to strengthen institutions rather than smash them.
Someone willing to accept that the Tech Barons desire for faster and faster progress (which they use to justify their behaviour) at the cost of the social cohesion in society is a fool’s bargain.
Someone willing to regulate rather than look the other way.
Someone who will promote the virtue of competition rather than being seduced by the power and influence of the monopolies.
Someone willing to finally bring an end to the great enshittification that unregulated tech has mired our society in.
Someone capable of being elected in spite of the inevitable fusillade that those monopolies will train on that individual as a threat to their pre-eminence. A modern Theodore Roosevelt (hopefully shorn of imperialist leanings though, we already have a fan of that in the White House).
But whether there is a man or woman in the US capable of rising to meet the moment is a question I don’t have an answer to. Hopefully one day I can answer yes to that. Until then, this Neo-Gilded Age will keep grinding onwards.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 11 Jan 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 11 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 11 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jan 2026 | 5:34 am UTC
Source: World | 11 Jan 2026 | 5:02 am UTC
State department says armed ‘colectivos’ appear to be setting up roadblocks and searching vehicles for Americans
The United States has urged its citizens to leave Venezuela immediately amid reports that armed paramilitaries are trying to track down US citizens, one week after the capture of the South American country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.
In a security alert sent out on Saturday, the state department said there were reports of armed members of pro-regime militias, known as colectivos, setting up roadblocks and searching vehicles for evidence that the occupants were US citizens or supporters of the country.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 11 Jan 2026 | 2:58 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jan 2026 | 2:34 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 11 Jan 2026 | 1:55 am UTC
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