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Bristol Airport generates record amount of renewable energy.

 Bristol Airport has generated a record amount of renewable energy from its solar arrays, totalling more than 1,425,000 Kwh so far this year. The
energy output is equivalent to the annual electricity use of almost 400
homes and already surpasses last year’s total.

 South Wales Argus 17th Oct 2025, https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/25552365.bristol-airport-generates-record-amount-renewable-energy/

October 20, 2025 Posted by | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

News that’s not from the nuclear-military-industrial-political-complex

Some bits of good news.  
An English wind farm became a marine habitat.   China’s air quality policies have swiftly reduced pollution, improved life expectancy

TOP STORIES

The Trumpanyahu Administration Is Already Sabotaging The Ceasefire. Chris Hedges: Trump’s Sham Peace Plan. Will Trump’s ceasefire plan really lead to lasting peace in the Middle East?– There’s still a long way to go.

‘WHAT WILL JESUS SAY?’- TONY BLAIR, BIG TECH AND THE ISRAEL CONNECTION.

Nobel Peace Prize winner supports Israel’s genocide & Trump’s war on Venezuela – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks9uDtd7Msc

Trump to Zelensky…’I haven’t got a weapon to spare’ – https://www.youtube.com/shorts/22IP2SaWxy8

President Trump’s radical attack on radiation safety.

Climate. Antarctica may have crossed a tipping point that leads to rising seas. Global climate crosses more dangerous tipping points, heading for ecosystem collapse.

Long nuclear articles – Birth defects in the Chernobyl Region.    Nuclear Power in Canada.   “Cumulative effects of radioactivity from Fukushima on the abundance and biodiversity of birds”.

AUSTRALIA.

NUCLEAR ITEMS

ART and CULTURE. The play’s the thing. “A House of Dynamite”: Battling a nuclear nightmare – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wpw2QHJNco
ATROCITIES. More Than 200 Bodies Dug Out of the Gaza Rubble Since Ceasefire Went Into Effect. Israeli Soldiers Torched Food, Homes, and a Critical Sewage Treatment Plant in the Wake of Ceasefire Announcement. Israel Returns Palestinian Prisoners’ Bodies With ‘Signs of Torture, Mutilation, and Execution’ Palestinians freed from Israeli prison denied reunion with families as Trump claims a ‘forever’ peace.

Israel Tortured And Sexually Humiliated Greta Thunberg.,

ECONOMICS.

EDUCATION. Exposed! The University of Sheffield’s role in Britain’s nuclear weapons.
EMPLOYMENT. Key US nuclear agency to send 80% of workforce home as shutdown drags on. Italy’s Second General Strike for Gaza Brought 2 Million Workers into the Streets.
ENERGY. ‘Solar for All’ should mean just that. Why big tech’s nuclear plans could blow up. How productivity gains could slash energy demand by a quarter by 2050.
ENVIRONMENT. Boldness is needed to take on toxicity of nuclear power – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/10/13/1-b1-boldness-is-needed-to-take-on-toxicity-of-nuclear-power/
ETHICS and RELIGION. PATRICK LAWRENCE: Let Us Now Bury the Truth (Again).

EVENTS.
 URGENT ACTION NEEDED to Help Protect the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board! International Repair Day 2025 will focus on software obsolescence

HEALTH. Radiation. Generational RADIATION IMPACT Project
HUMAN RIGHTS. The 9,100 Palestinians left behind in Israeli prisons after the ‘peace’ deal
LEGAL. NFLAs join European anti nuclear groups in urging appeal in taxonomy case.

MEDIA.

OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR [and to allied technologies]. Campaigners warn of ‘dangerous experiment’ as nuclear plans face backlash.

Mainers: you have a chance to nip this Wiscasset data center idea in the bud.

They Fought Amazon’s $3.6B AI Data Center.

POLITICS.
Trump Keeps Admitting That He Is Bought And Owned By The World’s Richest Israeli
MAGA Melts Down Over Trump Giving Qatar a Military Base in U.S.

Labour investing in nuclear due to fear of Scottish independence– ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/10/14/2-b1-labour-investing-in-nuclear-due-to-fear-of-scottish-independence/
‘Scotland will not be UK’s nuclear playground’, says Kate Forbes.
Exempt charities from nuclear levy on energy bills, UK government is urged.

The not-so-secret history of Netanyahu’s support for Hamas.
POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. 
Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé: Despite Ceasefire, Palestinians Still Face “Elimination, Genocide
Israeli Government Votes to Implement Trump Peace Plan for Gaza as Hamas Pledges to Uphold It .
Yemen’s Houthis To ‘Monitor’ Israel Compliance With Gaza Ceasefire Deal.

Peace in the Middle East and the defeat in Ukraine will prove extremely embarrassing for Britain.

 Worlds Extinguished: Hostage Returns, Central Casting and the Gaza Ceasefire.
Moniz’s Proposal for a Regional Nuclear Consortium with Iran.
Monique Barbut, Minister for Ecological Transition, raises doubts among nuclear industry– ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/10/17/1-b1-monique-barbut-minister-for-ecological-transition-raises-doubts-among-nuclear-industry/

Outsized and Eccentric: The Farce Behind the Nobel Peace Prize.
 The Nobel that wasn’t Trump’s: Why Oslo chose a Venezuelan rebel over a peacemaker.
SAFETY. Gravelines: the  Safety Expertise Department of ASNR’s damning opinion calls into question the EPR2 – ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/?p=320225
Be prepared: Time to consider emergency planning at Llynfi nuclear site.

Work to restore link to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant begins this week, Russian official says. The UN nuclear watchdog seeks a local truce to restore power to the Zaporizhzhia plant.
SECRETS and LIES. How Jared Kushner Played Trump to Grease Own Pocket: Wolff. Democratic lawmakers request probe into Jared Kushner after Reuters Saudi report.
Samantha Power secretly colluded with Israel to enhance UN role, leaked emails show.
Nobel Peace Prize winner supports Israel’s genocide & Trump’s war on Venezuela. 
Grossi says progress made on restoring Zaporizhzhia power.  
The £1m man: why did Boris Johnson take his donor to Ukraine?
SPINBUSTER. Idle boasts and blatant lies: Debunking Trump’s egregious distortions in Knesset speech.
Small reactors, big problems: the nuclear mirage behind AI’s energy hype.
TECHNOLOGY. Nuclear: Flamanville EPR unable to resolve all its technical problems.
WASTES.
 Decommissioning. The astronomic costs of decommissioning Sellafield . 
TEPCO weighs scrapping 2 reactors at Niigata nuclear power plant .
Holtec Backs Down, Reveals Achilles’ Heel For U.S. Nuclear Resurgence.
The end of support for Windows 10 is creating an e-waste disaster.
WAR and CONFLICT. Israeli Officials Are Openly Saying They Plan To Resume Attacks On Gaza. Israeli Defense Minister Says IDF Will Destroy Gaza Tunnels Once Hamas Releases Israeli Captives.

Trump Says He’s Mulling Land Strikes On Venezuela, Confirms CIA Covert Ops. Trump’s military escalation against Venezuela repeats the Iraq War blueprint.
WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES.
 Trump downplays hopes he will supply Ukraine with US missiles after meeting with Zelenskyy.
Putin and Trump, between the war of deadly Tomahawks and the peace of disarmament “START 3″ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/10/15/2-b1-putin-and-trump-between-the-war-of-deadly-tomahawks-and-the-peace-of-disarmament-start-3/

Japan Weighs Nuclear-Powered Submarines Amid Regional Tensions.

October 19, 2025 Posted by | Weekly Newsletter | Leave a comment

They Said The Massacres Would Stop When The Hostages Were Released. They Haven’t Stopped.

Caitlin Johnstone, Oct 18, 2025,https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/they-said-the-massacres-would-stop?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=176485051&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Last year I banged out an angry rant about the way Israel supporters would yell “release the hostages!” at anyone who talked about the latest massacre of Palestinian civilians, saying Hamas was to blame for the killing because of their refusal to release the Israeli captives, and that it would all stop once the hostages are free. I’m remembering that essay today because the hostages are free, but the massacres are continuing.

On Friday Israel reportedly blew up a vehicle carrying a Palestinian family of eleven people, including seven children. The IDF gave its usual excuse for the massacre: the civilians were deemed to have crossed an invisible line into a forbidden zone which made the Israeli soldiers feel unsafe. They did this exact same thing constantly during the last “ceasefire” as well.

In my polemic last year I argued that the slaughter we were seeing in Gaza plainly had nothing to do with pushing for the release of Israeli hostages, and that even if it did it would still be barbaric to massacre children until your enemies caved in to your demands.

But two years of genocide have made it clear that the Israeli military was never killing Palestinian civilians in order to push for the release of hostages or force Hamas to cave in to their demands. The Israeli military kills Palestinian civilians in order to kill Palestinian civilians. The killing is the goal, and it always has been.

We see this illustrated over and over again, in all sorts of ways. Israel apologists always argued that the only reason the IDF had destroyed Gaza’s healthcare system with nonstop hospital attacks was because Hamas was using those hospitals as secret military bases. But then multiple independent reports from western doctors in Gaza confirmed that Israeli forces had been entering the hospitals after attacking them and systematically destroying individual pieces of medical equipment one by one in order to make them unusable. Hamas wasn’t the target in those hospital attacks, the hospitals themselves were the target.

And now we are seeing the “Israel is killing people because Hamas has Israeli hostages” narrative debunked in exactly the same way the “Israel keeps bombing hospitals because there are Hamas bases in all of them” narrative was. The hostages are free, but the massacres continue.

None of which will surprise anyone who was paying attention these last two years. Israel’s genocidal intent has been on full display every minute of every day, and it continues to be even during this joke of a “ceasefire” where the genocide was theoretically supposed to be on pause for a little while.

October 19, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Amazon spills plan to nuke Washington…with X-Energy mini-reactors

COMMENT. At left -the picture of the as yet non-existent “small” nuclear project, to supply great steel towers -the so-called “cloud” of data.

The nuclear and AI industries abound with lies in their propaganda

Now they just need to get regulatory approval

Tobias Mann, The Register, Fri 17 Oct 2025

Despite technological and regulatory hurdles, Amazon remains convinced that small modular reactors (SMRs) are the answer to the cloud titan’s power woes.

Last fall, the house of Bezos announced a $500 million investment in SMR startup X-Energy. On Thursday, the e-tailer revealed that X-Energy’s Xe-100 SMR designs would eventually supply Washington State with “up to” 960 megawatts of clean energy.

“Eventually” is the key word here as construction isn’t expected to start until the end of the decade and the plants won’t begin operations until sometime in the 2030s.

The plan is to deploy the 80 megawatt reactors at a new facility called the Cascade Nuclear Energy Center outside Richland, Washington, in three phases, each totaling 320 megawatts of generative output. For context, xAI’s 200,000-GPU Colossus supercomputer uses roughly 300 megawatts of power when it is fully utilized. 

Amazon notes that X-Energy’s SMRs should be smaller, faster to deploy, and cheaper to operate than conventional pressurized water reactors. This is a common argument in support of the miniaturized nuclear power plants, but it’s worth noting that the tech hasn’t actually been proven out. In fact, higher-than-expected operating costs have already doomed one early SMR project.

And that’s not the only challenge facing X-Energy. The company’s SMR tech has yet to receive Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval, which is required before construction of the reactor itself can begin. But that’s not stopping Amazon from sharing 3D renders of what the power plant might look like when complete………………………………………………………………………………………………
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/17/amazon_nuke_washington/

October 19, 2025 Posted by | technology, USA | Leave a comment

Key US nuclear agency to send 80% of workforce home as shutdown drags on.

About 1,400 staff at NNAS, which manages America’s nuclear weapons stockpile, to be furloughed on Monday

Joseph Gedeon , 18 Oct 25, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/17/government-shutdown-nuclear-agency-nnsa

The agency that maintains the US nuclear arsenal will be sending home 80% of its workforce as the government shutdown drags through its 17th day and into the weekend, now the longest full funding lapse in US history.

House armed services committee chair Mike Rogers said in a Friday press conference that the National Nuclear Security Administration has now exhausted its carryover reserves.

“We were just informed last night that the National Nuclear Security Administration, the group that manages our nuclear stockpile, that the carryover funding they’ve been using is about to run out,” said Rogers, a Republican from Alabama. “These are not employees that you want to go home. They’re managing and handling a very important strategic asset for us.”

The NNSA, which operates as part of the department of energy, does not directly control operational nuclear weapons – a Pentagon responsibility – but plays a strategic role in keeping warheads secure and functional without conducting explosive tests. The agency also runs non-proliferation programs aimed at preventing nuclear materials from reaching hostile nations or terrorist organizations.

Around 1,400 NNSA employees will be furloughed without pay starting on Monday, leaving only 375 staff members designated as essential to continue working, according to an agency notice obtained by Politico. A department of energy spokesperson confirmed the approximate workforce numbers.

The spokesperson also said that NNSA’s office of secure transportation, which is responsible for transporting government-owned nuclear material across the country, is funded through 27 October, and added that Chris Wright, the energy secretary, will be at the NNSA site in Las Vegas on Monday to “further discuss the impacts of the shutdown on America’s nuclear deterrent.

Under the agency’s 2025 contingency protocols in the event of a shutdown, the skeleton crew on duty will focus exclusively on hyperspecific safety operations: monitoring nuclear materials, maintaining unique equipment, ensuring reactor safety for navy vessels, and continuing international nonproliferation work it deems essential for security.

But most scientific research, stockpile maintenance, and global security programs will be suspended, potentially creating delays in sensitive national defense projects that need rigid and consistent oversight.

The current impasse has now become the longest complete government-wide shutdown in US history, surpassing a 16-day funding lapse in 2013. Previous lengthier shutdowns affected only portions of the federal government.

Speaker Mike Johnson blamed Senate Democrats for the crisis, saying earlier this week the country is “barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history, unless Democrats drop their demands”. Republican leaders are also now worried about potential airport disruptions during the upcoming Thanksgiving travel period if the stalemate continues.

Hundreds of thousands of federal employees, including congressional and agency staffers, remain either furloughed or working without pay.

October 19, 2025 Posted by | employment, USA | Leave a comment

Trump downplays hopes he will supply Ukraine with US missiles after meeting with Zelenskyy

US president seemed more intent on brokering a peace deal after surprise phone call with Putin earlier in day

Pjotr Sauer Russian affairs reporter and Andrew Roth in Washington,Sat 18 Oct 2025

Donald Trump seemed more intent on brokering a peace deal than he was to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise missiles during a White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying that the US may need them for a future conflict.

While Trump did not rule out providing the long-range missiles Zelenskyy seeks, Trump appeared cool to the prospect as he looked ahead to a meeting with Vladimir Putin in Hungary in the coming weeks.

After speaking with Zelenskyy for more than two hours, Trump implored both Ukraine and Russia to “stop the war immediately”, even if it means Ukraine conceding territory.

“You stop at the battle line, and both sides should go home, go to their families,” Trump told reporters on his way to his home in West Palm Beach, Florida. “Stop the killing. And that should be it. Stop right now at the battle line. I told that to President Zelenskyy. I told it to President Putin.”

The Ukrainian leader was frank, telling Trump that Ukraine has thousands of drones ready for an offensive against Russian targets, but needs American missiles.

“We don’t have Tomahawks, that’s why we need Tomahawks,” he said.

Trump responded: “We’d much rather have them not need Tomahawks.”

Later, Trump reiterated that he wants the United States to hold on to its weaponry. “We want Tomahawks, also. We don’t want to be giving away things that we need to protect our country,” he said.

Trump’s doubtful tone on the cruise missiles follows a surprise phone call with Vladimir Putin on Friday during which the Russian leader told Trump that supplying the Tomahawks would damage US-Russian relations.

His position on supplying Ukraine with weapons has changed a number of times since he returned to office in January, often after negotiations with Putin or European backers of Ukraine.

During the White House meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump also discussed plans to hold a bilateral meeting with Putin in Hungary, saying it was “to be determined” whether Zelenskyy would join but that he would inform him of the discussions.

“There is a lot of bad blood,” Trump said.

After the talks on Friday, the US president issued a stern call to both sides on social media to “stop the killing, and make a DEAL!”.

“They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Zelenskyy told reporters he did not want to talk about long-range missiles, saying the US did not want escalation, and he was “realistic” about his chance of getting them.

The Ukrainian president, who spoke by phone with European leaders after the meeting, said he was counting on Trump to pressure Putin “to stop this war”.

The Kremlin’s top aide, Yuri Ushakov, earlier said Putin had initiated Thursday’s conversation with Trump, during which the Russian leader urged his US counterpart not to supply Ukraine with the Tomahawks.

“I did actually say: ‘Would you mind if I gave a couple of thousand Tomahawks to your opposition?’ I did say that to him. I said it just that way,” Trump said, recounting the conversation.

“He didn’t like the idea. You have to be a little bit lighthearted sometimes.”

Ushakov told reporters in Moscow that Putin warned Trump during the call that supplying Kyiv with Tomahawks “won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to the relationship between our countries”.

It was the eighth known call between the two men since Trump began his second term in January, and followed a familiar pattern in the complex and often confusing contest between Putin and Zelenskyy for Trump’s ear.

On previous occasions, when Trump had seemed ready to tilt towards Kyiv and its European allies, a call from Putin was often followed by a sudden softening in the US leader’s tone towards Moscow.

A flurry of activity was also set off with Trump’s announcement after the call that he was planning to meet the Russian president in the Hungarian capital on a date still to be determined, in an effort to end the war.

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, on Friday morning said that the summit could take place “within two weeks or later”.

Peskov said Putin had already discussed the planned meeting with Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister. Orbán – an outlier among European leaders with warm ties to Trump and Putin – said he had also spoken to Trump about the summit, writing on X: “Preparations for the USA-Russia peace summit are under way.”

It remains unclear how Putin would travel to Hungary, given EU sanctions and airspace restrictions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the fact that he is wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). As a signatory to the ICC, Hungary would be obliged to arrest him, though Orbán has previously said this would not happen.

When asked about the logistical challenges, Peskov said the route was “so far, of course, unclear”.

Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said on Friday that Putin would be able to enter and leave the country. “There is no need for any kind of consultation with anyone, we are a sovereign country here. We will receive [Putin] with respect, host him and provide the conditions for him to negotiate with the American president,” he told a press briefing.

Trump and Putin last met in Alaska in August, which did not produce a diplomatic breakthrough. Trump added that fresh high-level talks between Washington and Moscow would be held next week, led on the US side by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, before a presidential summit in Budapest.

The latest conversation, which lasted more than two and a half hours, appears to have sapped the momentum Zelenskyy had built with Trump, with the US leader now unlikely to show significant support for Ukraine before meeting Putin.

“Zelenskyy must be pulling his hair out. Today’s meeting with Trump is now completely overshadowed and overtaken by the Budapest meeting,” said John Foreman, a former British defence attache to Moscow and Kyiv.

Trump also has hinted that talks between Putin and Zelenskyy may need to take place indirectly, contradicting Zelenskyy’s longstanding aim of meeting Putin face to face to end the war.

“They don’t get along too well, those two,” Trump said. “So we may do something where we’re separate. Separate but equal.”

Zelenskyy, who touched down in Washington on Thursday and met US defence contractors before his White House visit, has not commented on the Putin-Trump call, though few in Kyiv are likely to view it positively.

Some Ukrainian officials tried to put a positive spin on the call, saying that Putin’s outreach underscored the Russian leader’s fear of new Ukrainian weapon supplies………….https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/17/trump-putin-phone-call-sinks-kyiv-ukraine-hopes-for-us-tomahawk-missiles

October 19, 2025 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Trump Administration’s Military Occupation of America

By Nick Turse, The War Within,  October 16, 2025

Let me do something I seldom do and briefly predict the future in an up-close-and-personal fashion. Count on this: on November 4th, Zohran Mamdani will indeed be elected mayor of New York City. (I’ll vote for him and I have no doubt that I’ll be anything but alone.) And count on this, too: as his opponent, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, recently predicted, if the National Guard or other military outfits aren’t on the streets of this city — and possibly at my polling place — on election day, they certainly will be by the time Mamdani takes office next January.

Yes, once upon a time in a distant past, Donald Trump did indeed come from this very city, growing up in a neighborhood that he once termed “an oasis.” And I suspect he still thinks of it as, in some sense, “his.” As for Mamdani, whom he calls “my little communist,” the president isn’t likely to put up with him for long, not in a country that, as TomDispatch regular Nick Turse makes vividly clear today, he seems increasingly intent on occupying militarily.

I sometimes try to imagine telling my long-dead father, who grew up in Brooklyn and fought in the Second World War, about the Trumpian universe he’s missed, including the possibility that a president of the United States might actually send some part of the U.S. military into his old neighborhood as — yes! — an occupying force, while invoking the Insurrection Act. Once upon a time, such a thought would have been considered truly absurd science fiction, but no longer. And with that in mind, let Turse fill you in on just how Donald Trump is already beginning to militarily occupy this country and what that might mean for all of us. Tom

On the Precipice of Authoritarian Rule

The Trump Administration’s Military Occupation of America

By Nick Turse

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump threatened to unleash the armed forces on more American cities during a rambling address to top military brass. He told the hundreds of generals and admirals gathered to hear him that some of them would be called upon to take a primary role at a time when his administration has launched occupations of American cities, deployed tens of thousands of troops across the United States, created a framework for targeting domestic enemies, cast his political rivals as subhuman, and asserted his right to wage secret war and summarily execute those he deems terrorists.

Trump used that bizarre speech to take aim at cities he claimed “are run by the radical left Democrats,” including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. “We’re going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room,” he said. “That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” He then added: “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

Trump has, of course, already deployed the armed forces inside the United States in an unprecedented fashion during the first year of his second term in office. As September began, a federal judge found that his decision to occupy Los Angeles with members of California’s National Guard — under so-called Title 10 or federalized status — against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom was illegal. But just weeks later, Trump followed up by ordering the military occupation of Portland, Oregon, over Governor Tina Kotek’s objections.

“I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late last month. And he “authoriz[ed] Full Force, if necessary.”

When a different federal judge blocked him from deploying Oregon National Guardsmen to the city, he ordered in Guard members from California and Texas. That judge then promptly blocked his effort to circumvent her order, citing the lack of a legal basis for sending troops into Portland. In response, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act — an 1807 law that grants the president emergency powers to deploy troops on U.S. soil — to “get around” the court rulings blocking his military occupation efforts. “I think that’s all insurrection, really criminal insurrection,” he claimed, in confused remarks from the Oval Office.

Experts say that his increasing use of the armed forces within the United States represents an extraordinary violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. That bedrock nineteenth-century law banning the use of federal troops to execute domestic law enforcement has long been seen as fundamental to America’s democratic tradition. However, the president’s deployments continue to nudge this country ever closer to becoming a genuine police state. They come amid a raft of other Trump administration authoritarian measures designed to undermine the Constitution and weaken democracy. Those include attacks on birthright citizenship and free speech, as well as the exercise of expansive unilateral powers like deporting people without due process and rolling back energy regulations, citing wartime and emergency powers.

A Presidential Police Force

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled last month that Trump’s deployment of federal troops to Los Angeles, which began in June, was illegal and harkened back to Britain’s use of soldiers for law enforcement purposes in colonial America. He warned that Trump clearly intends to transform the National Guard into a presidential police force……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order claiming to designate antifa — a loose-knit anti-fascist movement — as a “domestic terror organization.” He also issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which directs the Justice Department and elements of the Intelligence Community and national security establishment to target “anti-fascism… movements” and “domestic terrorist organizations.” Such enemies, according to the president, not only espouse “anti-Americanism” and “support for the overthrow of the United States Government,” but also are typified by advocacy of opinions protected by the First Amendment, including “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

After referring to the “war from within” during his address to the military’s top officers, he cast his political rivals as subhuman and claimed that they needed to be dealt with. “We have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats,” he told the sailors during the Navy’s 250th anniversary celebration.

The Trump administration has also admitted that it’s waging a secret war against undisclosed enemies without the consent of Congress. ……………………………………………………………


Police State USA

The Trump administration’s military occupations of American cities, its deployment of tens of thousands of troops across the United States, its emerging framework for designating and targeting domestic enemies, its dehumanization of its political foes, and its assertion that the president has the right to wage secret war and summarily execute those he deems terrorists have left this country on the precipice of authoritarian rule……………………………. https://tomdispatch.com/on-the-precipice-of-authoritarian-rule/

October 19, 2025 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

World’s oceans losing their greenness through global heating, study finds.

 The world’s oceans are losing their greenness owing to global heating,
according to a study that suggests our planet’s capacity to absorb carbon
dioxide could be weakening. The change in the palette of the seas is caused by a decline of phytoplankton, the tiny marine creatures that are
responsible for nearly half of the biosphere’s productivity. The
findings, which also have alarming implications for oxygen levels and food
chains, are based on a groundbreaking study of daily chlorophyll
concentrations in low- to mid-latitude oceans from 2001 to 2023.

 Guardian 17th Oct 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/17/worlds-oceans-losing-their-greenness-through-global-heating-study-finds

October 19, 2025 Posted by | climate change, oceans | Leave a comment

Reward scheme for using less power at peak times could help lower US bills.

A cheap, bipartisan tool could help the US meet increasing energy demand
from AI datacenters while also easing soaring power bills for households,
preventing deadly blackouts and helping the climate.

The policy solution, called “demand flexibility”, can be quickly deployed across the US.
Demand flexibility essentially means rewarding customers for using less
power during times of high demand, reducing strain on the grid or in some
cases, selling energy they have captured by solar panels on their homes.

Peak power demand is expected to grow by 20% over the next decade –
driven by the dramatic rise of AI datacenters, onshoring of manufacturing,
increasing use of EVs and growing need for air conditioning amid hotter
summers. Increasing energy demand is putting states such as California and Texas at higher risk of life-threatening blackouts in extreme weather.
Meanwhile, the average household price of power increased by 9.5% this
year. The largest increase was in Missouri, which jumped by 38%.

 Guardian 17th Oct 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/17/tool-lower-home-energy-bills

October 19, 2025 Posted by | ENERGY, USA | Leave a comment

After Spain’s blackout, critics blamed renewable energy. It’s part of a bigger attack.


Julia Simon, October 8, 2025

 After Spain’s blackout, critics blamed renewable energy. It’s part of a
bigger attack. a new report from an expert panel of European grid operators details what happened. The report finds that for the first time in Europe, a voltage surge caused the massive outage. Voltage needs to remain within limits for an electrical grid to work.

While many things went wrong, the
problem was not a power grid with too much wind or solar, says Chris
Rosslowe, a senior energy analyst at Ember who was not involved in drafting the report. “It contradicts the numerous claims that we’ve seen that an overreliance on renewables was the cause,” Rosslowe says. “That is clearly not true.” But the misinformation about solar and wind energy causing the outage has had an impact.

A new survey found that a majority of Spanish respondents believe at least one false narrative about the blackout, and the most common was that too much reliance on renewable energy was to blame.

Countries around the world are using renewable energy to move away
from polluting fossil fuels. That’s why it’s so important to counter false
narratives about solar and wind, says Philip Newell, communications
co-chair of the Climate Action Against Disinformation, a coalition of
nonprofits.

 NPR 8th Oct 2025,
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/08/nx-s1-5534949/spain-blackout-misinformation-renewable-energy

October 19, 2025 Posted by | renewable | Leave a comment

Fears raised that specialist Vulcan MoD work could shift to Sellafield

By Iain Grant, John O’Groat Journal, 16th Oct 2025

Concern has arisen that the plans to put the clean-up of Vulcan in the hands of next-door Dounreay could lead to the break-up of a long-time, specialist Ministry of Defence (MoD) support team in the far north.

The MoD has yet to comment on speculation that the intended transfer of the Rolls-Royce workforce to NRS Dounreay could lead to future work in support of the UK nuclear submarine fleet being switched to the Sellafield plant in west Cumbria.

The suggestion has emerged in the wake of the UK government’s confirmation that the decommissioning of Vulcan is to be undertaken by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), which currently oversees only the clean-up of redundant civil nuclear reactor sites.

A Vulcan worker has told the Caithness Courier that the transfer has triggered a lot of disquiet.

“The majority of the workforce don’t want transferred to the NDA as they would have to re-train to support a general decommissioning role,” said the individual, who wants to remain anonymous.

“They would much rather continue to work on the existing MoD contract to make best use of their specialist skills that they have taken years to develop.”

Rolls Royce had earlier this year been informed by the MoD to expect more work involved with the current submarine programme to come to Vulcan.

But the worker claims that the site management has since been told that this is now scheduled to go to Sellafield.

“We don’t think that is right as it is unlikely that Sellafield will deliver the work on time,” said the individual. “The Sellafield programme has slipped for the last few years whereas Vulcan has been consistently hitting its delivery targets and we have been praised for it.

“If this work goes to Sellafield, the great specialist team that has been built up at Vulcan will be broken up and forced to move into a decommissioning role which does not need the same specialist skill set.”

The worker maintains retaining the work in Caithness represents the best value for the taxpayer.

“The workforce don’t think that it is right that the MoD are going to break up the team at Vulcan when highly skilled people are desperately needed in the nuclear sector and it will take many years to train any other team up to this level of specialism.

“We don’t think that delivers best value to the taxpayers of this country. We think that highly skilled jobs being taken from Scotland to England would be unjustifiable if publicly challenged.

“This work is the next phase of the programme that has already been safely and efficiently been conducted at Vulcan over the last 60 years.”

At the end of March, then-junior defence minister Maria Eagle announced that Vulcan’s nuclear submarine support role would continue until at least April 2027…………………………

Both the MoD and Rolls-Royce declined to respond to the speculation about work being redirected to Sellafield. https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/fears-raised-that-specialist-vulcan-mod-work-could-shift-to-416873/

October 19, 2025 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

Our world is combustible’: Kathryn Bigelow on AI, Andy Warhol and nuclear Armageddon

Danny Leigh Guardian, 18 Oct 25

‘Our world is combustible’: Kathryn Bigelow on AI, Andy Warhol and nuclear Armageddon

The record-breaking Oscar winner explains how her new film, A House of Dynamite – starring Idris Elba as the US president – is rooted in her cold war childhood and the urgent threats we all face todayFri 17 Oct 2025 15.00 AEDTShare

Kathryn Bigelow has been thinking about death: hers, and mine, and yours as well. History will always remember her as the first woman to win a best director Oscar, which she did in 2010 for The Hurt Locker. But in her new film, A House of Dynamite, history may not have long to run. It is the story of a nuclear missile, launched at an American city. The rest is about what happens next. Bigelow would like you to consider Armageddon.

“Someone I know said the bomb for the audience is realising this is possible,” she says. She smiles. “I’m glad if people come away from the movie as concerned as I am.”

Today, though, her bearing is Zen. Almost six feet and wearing tinted sunglasses, she looks like a rock star, and younger than 73. Her own memories of the nuclear era stretch back to the early 1960s, and a cold-war childhood in California. School involved “duck and cover” drills, teaching kids to stay safe in a nuclear attack. “I grew up hiding under my desk. Of course, I was too young to understand what I was doing down there.”

A House of Dynamite is a belated answer. Bigelow’s previous movie, Detroit, was a 60s true story, an account of racist police violence. Now she is back in the period she most likes making films about: right now. It is an age of ironies. On our phones, nothing is beyond the pale, and everything makes us furious. And all, she says, while ignoring a nuclear stockpile able to render our online dramas irrelevant. “It’s the one thing we never mention, much less question. It’s crickets out there. It isn’t on TikTok, so it doesn’t exist.”

The movie, then, reminds us of a terrifying fact of life. “Our world is combustible. And it’s extraordinary to me how that ever became normalised.”

The cast includes Rebecca Ferguson as a White House security analyst and Idris Elba as the US president. Rich with closely researched detail, the film shows us the same nightmare experienced by multiple characters. Who fired the missile is never clear. Retaliatory strikes are still prepared. The film does exactly what its director intends. It makes everything else you might be thinking about feel absolutely trivial……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

She says she sees a clear relationship between her hot potato films of the past 20 years and her new one. K-19 left her haunted by nuclear ghosts. Then, while others had their say about her, The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty sharpened her self-image as a film-maker adjacent to journalism. “The films start with my own curiosity, and then there’s a desire to provide access to information the public doesn’t have that I think might be important.”

The other link, of course, is the military. A retired three-star general acted as a consultant on A House of Dynamite. She points out she has never sought endorsement from the Pentagon. Indeed, the story is more than sceptical about the accepted wisdom of mutually assured destruction – and the billions spent maintaining it. “Our nuclear armoury is a fallible structure,” Bigelow says. “Within it are men and women working thanklessly behind the scenes, whose competence means you and I can sit and have this conversation. But competence doesn’t mean they’re infallible.”……………………………………………………………………… https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oct/17/kathryn-bigelow-ai-andy-warhol-nuclear-armageddon-a-house-of-dynamite

October 19, 2025 Posted by | media | Leave a comment

Trump to Zelensky…’I haven’t got a weapon to spare’


Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL, 17 Oct 25

Ukraine President Zelensky arrives at the White House Friday to once again beg President Trump for US weapons which will do nothing to prevent his impending defeat to Russia’s overwhelming military forces.

Because Trump knows the war is lost, he will give Zelensky what he’s given him all year…nothing. While President Biden gave Zelensky over $170 billion in military aid during Biden’s last 3 years in office, Trump will only sell US weapons to European NATO countries to gift Zelensky’s lost cause. But while the US has the wherewithal to fund Ukraine till their inevitable collapse, Europe does not. 

NATO country leaders tried to fill the US void in the first 6 months of 2025 with an average of $3.8 billion in military aid. But that self-destructive policy has degraded their economies, tanked their polling, making right wing nationalist parties more popular than the interventionist incumbents. Beginning in July even diehards like UK’s Starmer, France’s Macron and Germany’ Merz have cut back on Ukraine’s lost cause. Total European military aid dropped to just $1.7 billion monthly for July and August with no possibility of heading north.

Trump must tell Zelensky Friday that with no cards to play he should capitulate to Russia’s very reasonable and non-negotiable peace demands. No NATO for Ukraine, neutrality between Western Europe and Russia going forward, and no return of lost territory.

Ukraine’s military will collapse on Trump’s watch. He’s correctly blaming America’s failed proxy war against Russia on predecessor Biden who made the Russian invasion of February 2022 inevitable. He’s also blaming Europe for not buying enough US weapons to keep Ukraine fighting.


Trump has plenty of weapons in his trillion dollar war warehouse. But he blew over $20 billion on weapons to enable Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and another $10 billion for related Israeli wars against Yemen and Iran. Now he’s ramping up weaponry to take out his Venezuelan bête noir Nicholas Maduro.
So many wars to gobble up Trump’s war weaponry is why he’ll tell Zelensky Friday…‘I haven’t got a weapon to spare.’

October 18, 2025 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Returns Palestinian Prisoners’ Bodies With ‘Signs of Torture, Mutilation, and Execution’

An unknown number of Palestinians abducted by Israel died or were killed while in custody; living former prisoners have described horrific and sometimes deadly torture.

Brett Wilkins, 16 Oct 25, https://www.commondreams.org/news/palestinian-prisoners-tortured

Israel on Wednesday returned the bodies of dozens of Palestinians abducted during the Gaza genocide showing “signs of torture, mutilation, and execution,” as one US-based news site reported—a description consistent with the testimonies of former prisoners held by the Israeli forces over the past two years.

So far, Israel has returned 90 bodies, with more expected to be handed over soon, as part ofo the ceasefire agreement reached with Hamas last week. The Gaza Health Ministry’s forensic team said that some of the bodies were blindfolded and bound, and bore signs of torture similar to those seen on many of the living Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel on Monday.

Some of the dead prisoners appeared to be victims of field executions—a war crime Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops have allegedly committed against men, women, and children alike.

Furthermore, Israel’s obliteration of Gaza’s healthcare and medical infrastructure is making it difficult for Palestinian forensic personnel to identify the bodies returned by Israel, which are in various states of decomposition.

“The horrific scenes visible on the bodies of the martyrs returned by the occupation, bearing marks of torture, abuse, and field executions, clearly reveal the criminal and fascist nature of the occupation army and the moral and human decadence this entity has reached,” Hamas said in a statement.

“We call upon international rights groups, foremost among them the [United Nations] and [its] Human Rights Council, to document these atrocious crimes, open an urgent and comprehensive investigation into them, and bring the occupation leaders to trial before relevant international courts, as they are responsible for committing unprecedented crimes against humanity in our modern history,” the statement added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder and forced starvation. The International Court of Justice is also weighing an ongoing genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa and supported by around two dozen nations.

Although warned by their Israeli captors against speaking out, Palestinians freed from Israeli imprisonment this week described being held in a “slaughterhouse” rife with torture and abuse, including beatings, electrocution, and being shot with rubber-coated steel bullets.

Palestinians imprisoned by Israeli forces—including children—have described being raped and sexually assaulted by male and female soldiers, electrocuted, mauled by dogs, soaked with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep, and blasted with loud music. Dozens of detainees have died in Israeli custody, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton. IDF officers allegedly brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured.

Israeli physicians who served at the notorious Sde Teiman torture prison also described widespread severe injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations.

Hamas’ treatment of the Israelis it abducted during the October 7, 2023 attack is more complicated, with some freed captives saying they suffered torture and other abuse while others—especially those released early during the war—said they were treated relatively well. An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier captured after the rest of his tank crew were killed said that although he was tortured, his captors granted his request for religious materials including a Torah. One woman even pushed back against Israeli media lies claiming she was wounded by her captors, when in fact it was an Israeli airstrike that injured her.

So far, Hamas has returned the bodies of nine Israeli and other hostages. Israel is calling on Hamas to “make all necessary efforts” to find and hand over the bodies of 21 remaining dead hostages still unaccounted for.

October 18, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | Leave a comment

TEPCO weighs scrapping 2 reactors at Niigata nuclear power plant

October 17, 2025 (Mainichi Japan)

NIIGATA, Japan (Kyodo) — Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. said Thursday it is considering decommissioning two of the seven reactors at its nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, all of which are currently offline.

TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa said in a prefectural assembly session that the utility is studying scrapping the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant’s Nos. 1 and 2 reactors, which began operating in 1985 and 1990, respectively.

His comments come as local municipalities around the nuclear power plant remain concerned about the complex’s safety and have requested that some of its Nos. 1 to 5 reactors be shut down……………………………………………………https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20251017/p2g/00m/0bu/007000c

October 18, 2025 Posted by | safety | Leave a comment

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