Links 7/24/2026

Long Presumed Dead, a West African Reef Is Found Thriving Yale Environment 360 Deadly Snail Venom Could Lead to Pain Relief Without Opioids, Study Shows StudyFinds FDA investigating second, smaller cyclosporiasis outbreak USA Today Climate/Environment Thousands of tourists forced to evacuate as fire rages in southwest France France24 Extreme heat drives demand for Nordic ‘coolcations’ FT Climate crisis-driven heat ‘sucking soils dry’ as extreme drought hits Europe The Guardian Super El Niño Forecast Pushes Toward Record Strength as Winter 2026/2027 Signals Emerge Severe Weather Europe. Shorter version: People always ask how El Nino impacts are felt this time of year. Well the biggest impacts are often in the Southern Hemisphere. BUT it’s important to note because this is how El Nino will look in the Northern Hemisphere (subtropical) jet stream in late fall/ winter/ spring… https://t.co/DjjjzEuf50 — Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf) July 22, 2026 Beware Media Hype. It’s Not the El Nino! Climate Uncensored Turns out austerity doesn’t help you fight wildfires… From Ottawa Citizen: “About 50 of the approximately 100 positions at the Government [of Canada’s Wildfire] Operations Centre have been eliminated under the federal ‘comprehensive expenditure review,’ according to the… https://t.co/zTA6GcYe6L — Prof. Ryan Katz-Rosene (@ryankatzrosene) July 22, 2026 ⛈️ Video di Local Team dei danni ai pannelli solari di un parco fotovoltaico a Chiaretto, frazione di Teramo. La zona è stata pesantemente danneggiata dalle violente grandinate di ieri, con chicchi fino a 15 cm di diametro. pic.twitter.com/dygCVWEgo4 — Italia 24H Live 🔴 – Notizie dall’Italia (@Italia24HLive) July 22, 2026 8 Ways To Protect Your Solar Panels from Hail Storm Damage Ecoflow Weather disasters provide lessons that could help reduce future impacts – but we aren’t looking for them Balanced Weather Pandemics Measles surge dramatically in California among children and young adults Los Angeles Times HHS Changes Two Vaccine Committee Charters MedPage Today Water Egypt and Sudan brace for water crisis as Ethiopia tightens GERD flows New Arab After Decades of Drought, Water Is Rising in the African Sahel Yale Environment 360 The Koreas S. Korea seizes cargo vessel suspected of violating U.N. sanctions on N. Korea Yonhap Japan Japan’s “Make China Great Again” Energy Policy in Southeast Asia Japan Economy Watch China? Pentagon expands blacklist to include China’s top civilian universities South China Morning Post US not getting enough critical minerals from China, Greer says as Xi-Trump meeting looms South China Morning Post China rejects US tariff coercion, counters EU sanctions Al Mayadeen How long can China defy history and logic with its imbalances? FT The problems with the “China Shock 2.0” narrative Global Currents Syraqistan Ben-Gvir joins mass storming of Al-Aqsa compound during Tisha B’Av under Israeli police protection New Arab Two-thirds of Gaza may face acute hunger by year-end despite improvements, global food monitor says Reuters Trump ties Saudi nuclear deal to normalization with Israel The Cradle IRGC finishes off Amazon data center, says US fatalities in hundreds Al Mayadeen European Disunion Brussels slaps €890 million fine on Google despite looming new US tariffs Euronews Albanian police use water cannons as anti-government protesters clash in Tirana Intellinews Energy is the exposed flank in Europe’s rearmament Semafor EU companies: a ‘capitalism of rent’? Michael Roberts New Not-So-Cold War Lavrov Defies Rubio; West Ships Avoid Odessa Belitskoye Falls Dobropilia Collapse; EU Sanctions Bust The Duran Five Takeaways From The Secret Russian-German Talks In Baku Andrew Korybko Ukraine Bafflingly Battles Warehouse Chain as Russia Pulls Plug on Port Odessa Simplicius European capitals approve sale of confiscated Russian oil Euractiv Kremlin Rhetoric Hints at Escalation Jamestown Foundation As war drags on, Ukraine’s population is collapsing Responsible Statecraft Laura Loomer Becomes The Ukrainian Government’s New Agent Of Influence The Dissident Humanoid Robots ‘Robert’ and ‘Matilda’ Wed in Russia’s First Robot Wedding Ceremony The Bridge Chronicle South of the Border Prosecutor Investigating U.S. Boat Strikes and Claims of Torture Was Murdered in Ecuador Drop Site CIA Cutout Head Boasts About Meddling In Nicaragua. The Dissident L’affaire Epstein A Network Unravelling Nolan Higdon, Savage Minds Trump 2.0 Trump to slap ‘sweeping’ new tariffs on 60 trade partners as global duties expire CNBC THE PLOT AGAINST THE MIDTERMS Seymour Hersh Suspicion and Doubt at the National Civics Contest NOTUS Trump Administration Wants to Hold World’s First Deep-Sea Mining Lease Sale Inside Climate News GOP Funhouse Republicans Try to OSHA Heat Standard Confined Space Democrats Suck House Democrats Voted to End Iran War—After Giving Up Their Best Leverage to Actually Stop It Capital & Empire The Post-Trump Iran Debate Sawahil Would you entertain a Nazi for clout? Who Broke It Imperial Collapse Watch AI How American AI Companies Are Colonizing Global Cultural Heritage Muftah Magazine Oracle signs 10-year software contract with Pentagon worth up to $7 billion CNBC Forgot your Google password? Now you can log in with a selfie. Ars Technica. What’s that scraping sound? Mr. Market Goldman Offers Way to Trade AI Junk Bonds $250 Million at a Time Bloomberg Everything is going wrong for oil markets right now Yahoo! Finance Economy More Americans say inflation, economy are driving them to shoplift TNND Sports Desk Elite Young Runners Are Becoming Freakishly Fast. Welcome to ‘Trackflation’ Wired Our Famously Free Press Healthcare? Man sues OpenAI for unlicensed practice of medicine Becker’s Hospital Review Insurers Are Rejecting More Prescriptions Than Ever, New Study Finds HEALTH CARE un-covered Immigration Texas built a floating wall of blade studded, one ton buoys to maim people trying to cross the Rio Grande, and this week that same cruelty came roaring back to bite the state that built it, when over a hundred of them broke loose in flooding and slammed straight into Laredo,… pic.twitter.com/odgah9ntr5 — Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism (@beyond_capital) July 22, 2026 Guillotine Watch How America’s Corporate Class Became Legally Unaccountable (w/ Marie Gottschalk)The Chris Hedges Report Class Warfare SNAP Tracker: People Are Losing Food Assistance as the Harmful 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law Is Implemented Center for Budget and Policy Priorities THE MUMMIFICATION OF THE AFL-CIO ML Today Antidote du jour (via): See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here. “Trump to slap ‘sweeping’ new tariffs on 60 trade partners as global duties expire” ‘The move “is the most sweeping international labor rights action the United States has ever taken — that any country has ever taken,” a senior Trump administration official told reporters in a call earlier Thursday.’ Yeah, because we all know how the Trump regime are really concerned with worker’s rights. The excuse for this latest shake-down is that all of those countries are accused of using and/or profiting from enforced labour. All those prisoners in US prisons working for some of America’s biggest corporations while earning pocket money wages were not asked for their opinion. Still, as before, it will be Americans that will be paying for these tariffs and not those 60 countries. “IRGC finishes off Amazon data center, says US fatalities in hundreds” Casualties are probably higher than admitted, but fatalities in the hundreds? I don’t think the US would be able to hide such high numbers, with grieving families etc that would post about it on social media. Yes they can. The only deaths required to be reported are military deaths, to the families. Those are hard to hide over time but can be finessed for quite a while. Contractor, CIA, and civilian deaths do not have to be reported. US logistics and equipment maintenance are outsourced so a lot of people in theater are not military. Special ops force’s deaths don’t have to be reported either due to operational security reasons. A platoon of them could get lost in battle and they would not be reported. IIRC, there are other ways to finesse combat deaths, by reporting the deaths as “training accidents.” So, for example (not a real incident), “2 helicopters on a training mission collided near San Diego and all 12 people on both craft were killed.” I’d expect this might come out eventually, via Facebook groups or something. Similar to the families that flagged sperm donor in the Netherlands. (The Man with 1000 Kids) There have some posts about local bases hiring people to sort personal effects and hiring morgue staff. Amazon is in deep with the Pentagon. If they have contracts, those contracts might say that any deaths overseas due to war are not to be disclosed by the families of the contractors, in exchange for $X. We live in a world where everything is for sale, including honor. “It is the responsibility of the American media to investigate the realities of this war, the heavy casualties suffered by the US military, the extensive damage it has incurred, and the true financial costs that have been concealed from the public, the IRGC’s statement read.” (from the article) Whatta buncha comedians those IRGC guys are! American media being responsible to the public, yeah sure! File under No Longer Free Press: From Useful Idiots Full interview: Trump CENSORS Iran War Reporting After Military Failure https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHvnkmLRmSs “THE PLOT AGAINST THE MIDTERMS” Whether he was winning, losing or calling it a draw on the home scene, Trump was always going to do this. It is in his nature to lie, steal and cheat the system to his advantage. But things have gone downhill for him rapidly since he was elected and there is no way that he will be content to become a lame duck President after November. He won’t declare martial law by then but you can be sure that there will be all sorts of shenanigans going on. THE PLOT AGAINST TRUMP I would suggest that whether they were winning, losing or calling it a draw, the Democrats were always going to accuse Trump of doing this. It is in their nature to lie, steal and cheat the system to their advantage. But things have gone downhill for the Democrats since Trump was elected and there is no way they will be content to allow him to continue his investigations after November. The Democrats can’t declare martial law but you can be sure there will be all sorts of shenanigans going on. == I would suggest either way the problem’s the same: None of the parties involved can be trusted, everyone involved sucks. With a capital S. The problem with this scenario is that it would only make sense if Democrats, you know, wanted to win. The Democratic Party exists to prevent any movement of policy, or even acceptable opinion, to the left. That’s easier to do while out of power. They can say, “We have to move to the center,” or something like that, and, more importantly, they can discourage any enthusiasm that might create an expectation of (or, worse, a demand for) change, as someone commenting here several days ago on events in Maine essentially said. I understand that you’re not committing to the scenario you describe, but the fact that the two parties are working toward the same end doesn’t mean they have the same role. Tucker Carlson with Chris Martenson discussing the oil market and the Ukr and Ir wars. Iran War Sparks Global Energy Crisis, Why the US Is Lying About It & What You Can Expect at the Pump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNcuzmR4HGY US inflation calculator. From 2020 to 2025 the US dollar lost approx 25% of its purchasing power, lost 25% of its value. But hey, there’s no inflation. https://www.officialdata.org/2020-dollars-in-2025 Re shoplifting–those of us who darken Walmart’s door can report that the company that once seemed determined to do away with human cashiers has done a 180 and, in at least one store I know about, done away with self checkout. In other stores many of the self check terminals are turned off with human shrinkage control monitors following every transaction on the others via cell phone. In fact the availability of self checkout along with the number of shelves behind locked plexiglass appears to be a quick indicator of what the company thinks about its customers in any particular neighborhood. Could be the Walmart in Vail, Colorado (there is one!) is all self checkout along with the now universal parking lot pickup concierge service. Some of us contend that the robot cashiers were always about lubricating the consumption via convenience more than booting the human employees. It turns out that for shoplifters they were a little too convenient. The Walmart in Vail exists for the ski lodge employees who are just as broke as workers in other parts of the country. And just as prone to shoplifting which appears to be a nationwide Deep State driven meme that has successfully gotten half the school kids in my small remote rural town banned from local stores for shoplifting. When I moved here a decade ago, the entire crime problem was one senile lady who’d take items off the shelves, change her mind before check out and then reshelve the items wherever she happened to be standing. Which of our problems are actual problems, and which are Deep State pushed memes to make us feel less secure? Thanks for the update, I have to darken their door about once a month, because of living in the boonies. Our local one is in the middle of a giant expansion and rearrangement, and the self-checks do seem more streamlined and monitored. I’ll have to see if it is any more annoying than the old way. It is apparent now that the added on section of building is going to be used for the growing amount of business handled by personal shoppers for pick-up orders. Meanwhile regular humans find walled off closed restrooms for weeks, with no referral to the ones hidden in the back, because why would we respect shoppers who don’t comply with our coaxing to go online? The upside is there are more workers in the aisles moving giant carts around, so I annoy them by asking them where everything is, and having them scan all the produce that now is set out with no pricing. No, I’m not going to use the app. Here you have to pay for bags so most purchases are just in the cart. They went to receipt checkers at the exit like Costco has always done here. It seems like more stuff is locked up. I bought a $50 auto battery charger had to hunt down an employee to unlock the bin and then followed me to the checkout. Don’t know, but treating your customer like a criminal isn’t a good look. If you look up at the ceiling at most of these stores, there’s an incredible number of cameras up there. And we thought it couldn’t get any worse. Laura Loomer? LAURA LOOMER? Is anyone driving this clown car? ‘In the dark and in the gloom, they said “Cheer up. It could be worse.” They were right. I did, and it was.’ Still can’t get over the fact that she is only 34 years old. If you go on Reddit (which I only do out of morbid curiousity about PMC/aspirational shitlib vox populi, and which I do not recommend), half of the comments are about how Russia must have stopped paying her (gotta get that Russiagate in there), while others express incomprehension at how a noble hero like Zelenskyy could meet with such a vile, parasitic creature as herself. (They’re so close.) But yeah, at least she’ll get us nuked with more exuberance than a walking MDF panel like Jake Sullivan. Vive la difference! Re; AI… GOOD NEWS! Yes, as readers and mods are well-aware, a plague is upon us– AI-generated videos are now more prolific on the net than the clap is amongst 7th Fleet sailors after shore-leave! Fear not, to spare your eyes and whatever tenuous grip on reality you have remaining, help is on the way: Facial movement analysis detects deepfake videos with more than 95% accuracy In experiments, the method achieved an average detection accuracy of more than 95 percent across several established benchmark datasets, surpassing the previous state of the art. Particularly challenging was an additional benchmark dataset developed by the researchers using videos generated with a frontier video-generation model, OpenAI’s Sora 2. While previous deepfake detectors achieved results on this dataset that were barely better than a coin toss, the new method still correctly identified almost 95 percent of manipulated videos. AI vs. AI… hmm… where else might this be put to use? That’s the spirit. Hopefuilly the memory and GPU misallocation will break in our favor soon so that we can set our computer use agents to work customer service chatbots. (PC Magazine) Only enlisted sailors catch the clap, officers “Acquire non specific urethritis”. [… … … (golf clap)] “How long can China defy history and logic with its imbalances?” Has it occurred to the FT to ask the same question about the US? 🙄 “Pentagon expands blacklist to include China’s top civilian universities” As the US trashes its research and development establishment along with the sciences, many jobless profs and students are having to go overseas to find work which has dried up for them in the US. With this move, it looks like the US is trying to make it difficult to work at prestigious universities in China- ‘The Pentagon advised American researchers, universities and industry partners to exercise “strict caution” when considering collaboration, funding or data-sharing arrangements with any institution on the list.’ They just keep on burning those bridges down. “Kremlin Rhetoric Hints at Escalation” I think Russia is really in trouble now. They cannot have this going on for much longer, or political instability and serious economic trouble will happen. Russia cannot lose, so escalation in some form will almost certainly happen, even if only to try to re-establish deterrence. But the outcome of such an escalation is unpredictable, especially with NATO thinking they are starting to get the upper hand. This war is going to get very dangerous soon. Um, you might want to listen to Alexander Mercouris, Russia is already escalating bigly in Ukraine. They have been making massive strikes on Kiev and perhaps more important, made Odessa inaccessible. Not a formal blockade but attacks on vessels and port infrastructure have achieved pretty much the same result. They have also been destroying gas stations to the west of Kharkiv to isolate it. The big escalation question is what to do about the European yapping dogs. Despite their shows of belligerence, they have been silent in the face of recent Russian progress If NATO really believes that they are starting to get the upper hand in the Ukrainian conflict it would strongly suggest that their analytical tools have been trashed together with their strategic thinking capacities. That would be quite worrisome. Alternatively, and more likely, you are giving excesive credence to the PR propagated by certain Western media outlets. The big news is the shutdown of the port of Odessa. Ukraine can no longer export grain through the port. Incoming ships are now refusing port calls, citing force majeure. The port is basically non-functional. That’s going to leave a mark on what’s left of “organic” Ukraine GDP. Every euro of organic GDP lost (by organic I mean home-grown, not cash trucked in across the border or transferred from the EU banks) is a euro Europe will need to come up with. Essentially, Europe is giving money to Ukr make the interest payments on IMF and EU debt. Here Mark Sleboda with Garland Nixon from yesterday: A rough hour if you wanna invest that time to get an adequate overview, imo – Odessa Blockade, Drone Wars, Wild Berries & Escalation in Iran https://marksleboda.substack.com/p/odessa-blockade-drone-wars-wild-berries Rule of thumb – assume the opposite of what you hear in Western public, including Gilbert Doctorow and Russia(n) experts who are hyped in the West. Re: Oracle inks 10 year, $7B gov’t contract I’d say it looks like a bailout, but I don’t think less than $1/B per annum is going to make much of a dent in their balance sheet woes. My thought also and that’s about 6 hours of AI time. So Israel lobby managed to get rid of Khan. Allegations of abuse seem to work for the public. Initial reaction by German Legal Tribune Online: https://archive.is/2CS29 “(…) The allegations made against Khan by two former close associates are serious. They involve accusations of sexual assault and abuse of power. Khan is said to have repeatedly harassed the female lawyers over an extended period and forced them into sexual acts. At the end of last week, one of the alleged victims spoke publicly about the allegations for the first time in a television interview with CNN . Khan, who is represented by the London law firm Carter Ruck, categorically denies the allegations. His lawyers speak of an “orchestrated campaign” against their client. The 56-year-old has been temporarily stepping down from his post for over a year. He intended to return once everything was resolved. That will now no longer be possible. (…)” re: anti anitfa CONSORTIUM NEWS US House Committee Targets Non-Profit Press Freedom As part of a probe of leftwing nonprofits, a congressional committee subpoenaed BreakThrough News, the People’s Forum and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research July 24, 2026 https://consortiumnews.com/2026/07/24/us-house-committee-targets-non-profit-press-freedom/ South Korea has seized a cargo vessel suspected of violating U.N. Security Council (UNSC) sanctions on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, an official at Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday. “The investigation confirmed the violations, and the ship has been seized as a follow-up measure under the UNSC resolutions,” the official said. The statement called on a U.N. panel to act swiftly in designating vessels accused of violating U.N. sanctions that ban North Korea’s exports of coal and iron ore. It urged the designation of seven vessels, including Prada, for allegedly taking part in those exports. No mention of the fact that Russia and China have strongly opposed and blocked efforts to reinforce or expand United Nations sanctions on North Korea. Rather than adding new penalties, they dismantled the existing UN monitoring system and publicly called for current restrictions to be eased. Also, Russia used its veto power to end the mandate of the UN Panel of Experts—the core group tasked with investigating and reporting on North Korean sanctions violations—while China abstained. Both nations previously vetoed a U.S.-led push at the United Nations Security Council to impose tougher limits on North Korean oil and petroleum imports, as well as ban tobacco exports. Furthermore, representatives from Russia, China, and North Korea participated in a joint defense at a Security Council session, dismissing evidence of violations and calling the entire international sanctions regime counterproductive and outdated. Both Moscow and Beijing have urged the international community to activate “reversibility clauses” within past UN resolutions to scale back existing restrictions against Pyongyang. I guess this recent seizure wants to show how bad NK is, for trying to export coal and iron ore. If they get pissed of, they might start exporting something else… Should anyone read the link to solar panels and hail, ignore everything they say. First off the UL standard is 2 fold. 1 3/8” steel ball dropped from 52”. Which seems to be universally AI translated to 1-3” including the article. And 1” actual hail stone fired at terminal velocity which is about 50mph. Above 1” all bets are off. Panels on a more flat mounting will suffer more damage than more tilted ones. Below 1” most survive without issue. All the recommendations are useless. Wire mesh? You’d have to mount abou e the panel and then it would collapse under the weight of the hail. Some sort of slippery goo, nope. Any cracks in the glass of solar panels usually with spider crack as they are tempered glass, and cracks allow moisture in causing corrosion and allowing ground faults. Not fixable. Covering will work but you’d have to be home, coving your panels on the roof during a hail storm? Not a good or practical idea. Even on the ground. Running out to cover with 1” hail, yeah not me. Giant hail from 1-4” is just destroying everything, roofs, cars, plants, solar panels, windows etc. In the end most survive.