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US President Donald Trump (R) meets with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) at the White House on February 11, in Washington DC, United States. [Avi Ohayon – GPO – Anadolu Agency]
US President Donald Trump criticised Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday evening for not granting a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his ongoing corruption trial, prompting a firm reply from the Israeli president’s office.
Speaking to reporters about Netanyahu’s visit to Washington and other political and security issues, Trump said: “President Herzog should be ashamed of himself, a pardon over this trial that’s going on. The president of Israel, the primary power he’s got is the power to give pardons.”
Repeating his criticism, Trump added: “he said he’s given it five different times, but he doesn’t want to do it, because I guess he loses his power. I think the people of Israel should really shame him. He is disgraceful for not giving it.”
In response, the office of Isaac Herzog said: “The prime minister’s request is currently under review at the Justice Ministry for a legal opinion in accordance with the established procedures,” according to The Times of Israel.
The statement added, “Only upon completion of that process will President Herzog consider the request in accordance with the law, the best interests of the State of Israel, guided by his conscience, and without any influence from external or internal pressures of any kind.”
It stressed that “Israel is a sovereign state governed by the rule of law.”
The statement also noted that President Herzog appreciates the significant contribution made by Donald Trump to Israel and its security.
It concluded: “Contrary to the impression created by President Trump’s remarks, President Herzog has not yet made any decision on this matter.”
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a spending bill that ends a partial shutdown of the federal government in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, February 3, 2026
The US president’s career is defined by a consistent use of racist tropes and provocation. Why are world leaders so silent over his repeated vitriolic prejudice, asks ROGER McKENZIE
THE recent racist meltdown by United States President Donald Trump is no aberration.
It is in fact part of a deep history of racism by the far-right US president.
It is a disgrace that there is any doubt that Trump was personally responsible for posting a video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes — a well-worn racist trope against black people.
What is perhaps even more of a disgrace is the pass that he seems to be given over this in the US and by the so-called international community.
There was barely a whimper from world leaders over the posting by Trump. This perhaps says as much about them as it does against racist Trump.
The fact is that Trump’s racism has been crystal clear from the moment he entered public life.
…
One of the many problems I have around Trump’s racism, having known of his racism for years and attempted to raise the alarm from the beginning, is that he continues to get away with his despicable behaviour and world leaders still rush to be photographed next to him.
The man is a racist and should be called out at every opportunity by everyone including so-called world leaders — regardless of diplomatic niceties.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Climate science denier Nigel Farage explains that it’s simple to blame asylum-seekers or Muslims for everything.Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of Peace
Volunteers and firefighters work to extinguish a forest fire burning in the Patagonian region of Chubut province, Argentina, on February 1, 2026. (Photo by Gonzalo Keogan/AFP via Getty Images)
“Existing climate mitigation approaches, including scaling up renewable energy and protecting carbon-storing ecosystems, are critical to limit the increase in global temperatures,” said the lead author.
In the lead-up to the Trump administration effectively destroying the US Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to combat the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, an international team of scientists warned Wednesday that “Earth’s climate is now departing from the stable conditions that supported human civilization for millennia.”
Various institutions, including in the United States, have confirmed that 2025 was among the hottest years on record, and January continued that trend. Meanwhile, governments and polluting industries have repeatedly refused to impose policies that adequately heed experts’ calls for action.
“In an effort to mitigate dangerous levels of warming, the Paris Agreement formalized the aim of limiting warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, yet global temperatures have recently breached this limit for 12 consecutive months, coinciding with record-breaking heat, wildfires, floods, and other extremes,” the scientists noted Wednesday in the journal One Earth.
They wrote that “crossing critical temperature thresholds may trigger self-reinforcing feedbacks and tipping dynamics that amplify warming and destabilize distant Earth system components. Uncertain tipping thresholds make precaution essential, as crossing them could commit the planet to a hothouse trajectory with long-lasting and potentially irreversible consequences.”
A “hothouse trajectory,” they wrote, is “a pathway in which self-reinforcing feedbacks push the climate system past a point of no return, committing the planet to substantially higher long-term temperatures, even if emissions are later reduced.”
“Sixteen major tipping elements have been identified, 10 of which could add to global temperature if triggered,” the experts detailed. “Tipping may already be underway or could occur soon for the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, boreal permafrost, mountain glaciers, and parts of the Amazon rainforest.”
As an example, they pointed to ice melt in the Arctic, explaining that the resulting water “could perturb the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which is already showing signs of weakening. A weakened AMOC could alter global atmospheric circulation, shifting tropical rain belts and drying parts of the Amazon. This cascade of events could trigger large-scale Amazon forest dieback, with major consequences for the region’s carbon storage and biodiversity.”
Concerned about the Point of No Return? Today we published a paper on the risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory. You can read it here: authors.elsevier.com/c/1mbW49C~Iu…
Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University (OSU), said in a Wednesday statement that “after a million years of oscillating between ice ages separated by warmer periods, the Earth’s climate stabilized more than 11,000 years ago, enabling agriculture and complex societies.”
“We’re now moving away from that stability and could be entering a period of unprecedented climate change,” he stressed. “Existing climate mitigation approaches, including scaling up renewable energy and protecting carbon-storing ecosystems, are critical to limit the increase in global temperatures.”
Study co-author Christopher Wolf, a former OSU postdoctoral researcher who is now a scientist with Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates (TERA), noted that already, “climate model simulations suggest the recent 12-month breach indicates the long-term average temperature increase is at or near 1.5°C.”
“It’s likely that global temperatures are as warm as, or warmer than, at any point in the last 125,000 years and that climate change is advancing faster than many scientists predicted,” he said.
“Policymakers and the public remain largely unaware of the risks posed by what would effectively be a point-of-no-return transition,” Wolf added. “And while averting the hothouse trajectory won’t be easy, it’s much more achievable than trying to backtrack once we’re on it.”
🆕 Several Earth system components may be closer to destabilisation than previously thought. Crossing key temperature thresholds could trigger feedback loops, pushing the planet toward a “Hothouse Earth” trajectory. Study by @oregonstate.edu, @iiasa.ac.at & PIK: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti…
The team’s warnings came in the wake of Big Oil-backed President Donald Trumpclaiming in a United Nations speech last year that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” and ditching dozens of relevant organizations and treaties, including the Paris Agreement.
On Thursday, the Trump administration continued its war on the climate, revoking the “endangerment finding” that allowed the EPA to pass regulations fighting the global emergency—which was forcefully condemned by scientists and activists.
“In case there was any remaining doubt, the truth is very clear: Trump cares nothing for the health and well-being of our communities or our climate,” said Erin Doran, senior staff attorney at the advocacy group Food & Water Watch. “He is concerned only with making more money for the billionaire fossil fuel polluters that help to fund his dangerous political agenda.”
“The notion that the EPA shouldn’t regulate climate emissions is inconsistent with the law, the science, and the realities of the climate crisis,” Doran added. “EPA is charged with protecting human health and the environment, yet this rule does neither, benefiting only the fossil fuel industry at our expense. It’s absurd, and we’ll be fighting back.”
Power-mad orange gasbag Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels. [This was the first appearance of the Orcas.]
An immigration enforcement agent directs observers on January 13, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
“This agency cannot continue to exist,” said Rep. Rob Menendez of ICE.
Two US immigration enforcement officers are now under federal investigation after it was revealed that they seem to have lied about the circumstances that led up to the shooting of a Venezuelan immigrant last month.
As reported by Politico on Friday, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons acknowledged that two federal officers appear “to have made untruthful statements” about a confrontation in Minneapolis in January that culminated in one of the officers shooting Venezuelan national Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg.
The officers claimed that Sosa-Celis and another Venezuelan immigrant, Alfredo Aljorna, assaulted them with a broom and a shovel, which forced one of the officers to open fire in self-defense.
While the two men had been charged with assaulting the officers in the wake of the shooting, charges against them were abruptly dismissed on Thursday when prosecutors revealed that “newly discovered evidence in this matter is materially inconsistent with the allegations” made under oath by the officers.
Lyons said that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is now investigating the two officers, who have been placed on administrative leave until the probe concludes.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last month defended the officers and parroted their claims about the shooting.
“What we saw last night in Minneapolis was an attempted murder of federal law enforcement,” Noem claimed. “Our officer was ambushed and attacked by three individuals who beat him with snow shovels and the handles of brooms. Fearing for his life, the officer fired a defensive shot.”
Noem has come under fire in recent weeks for lying about shootings involving federal immigration officials, such as when she falsely claimed that slain Minneapolis intensive care nurse Alex Pretti was aiming “to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement” while filming officers’ activities.
In reality, video footage showed Pretti never drew his handgun during his deadly confrontation with federal immigration officers, while also clearly showing that officers disarmed him before they opened fire.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said that the newly uncovered evidence in Sosa-Celis’ case showed that the officer not only didn’t discharge his weapon in self-defense, but he “fired his gun through a closed door, striking the people inside.”
The Minnesota House of Representatives Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Caucus accused federal immigration agents of systematically lying to cover up unjustified shootings.
“They’re hiding evidence, stifling investigations, and fabricating information,” wrote the Minnesota House DFL on social media. “They’re lying to your face. We won’t let them get away with it—Minnesotans deserve justice.”
US Rep. Rob Menedez (D-NJ) said that lying appears to be endemic in the entire Trump administration.
“The Trump administration has consistently lied about ICE’s violent acts toward Americans and the abuses that this agency perpetuates every day,” he wrote. “They aren’t afraid to lie about members of Congress, and they certainly aren’t afraid to lie about any American they have killed, shot, or assaulted. This agency cannot continue to exist.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
An empty warehouse is seen in Chester, New York on February 8, 2026. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement proposes a facility at a warehouse roughly two hours from New York City, but many locals and officials have objected to the plan. (Photo by Matthew Hoen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours,” wrote talk show host Thom Hartmann recently. “History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting.”
President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda has supercharged opposition in cities where he has deployed federal agents to conduct raids, and communities in states including New York and Missouri are already working to block the next step the Department of Homeland Security plans to take in its push for mass deportations: acquiring massive warehouses across the country to use as immigrant detention centers.
US immigration and Customs Enforcement documents that were provided to Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire—one of the states where ICE aims to acquire a building and retrofit it to house at least 1,000 people at a time—show that the administration plans to spend $38.3 billion on its mass detention plan.
It would buy 16 buildings across the country to use as “regional processing centers” that could hold 1,000-1,500 people. Another eight detention centers would hold as many as 10,000 people at a time, with the detainees awaiting deportation.
The Washington Postreported that a review of state budget data showed that the amount of money the White House intends to pour into the project over the next several months is larger than the total annual spending of 22 US states.
“Thirty-eight billion dollars,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). “That’s what Trump is spending to turn warehouses into human holding facilities. Not on schools. Not on healthcare. Not on veterans. On warehousing humans.”
Moulton also condemned ICE’s claim that the new network of detention facilities will ensure the “safe and humane civil detention” of immigrants.
At least six people died in ICE detention centers in January, and one of the deaths, that of Geraldo Lunas Campos at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, was ruled a homicide.
Medical neglect and abusive treatment—including some that amounts to torture—has been reported at multiple facilities.
ICE has already spent more than $690 million purchasing at least eight warehouses in Maryland, Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in recent weeks. Documents posted on Ayotte’s website show the agency is pursuing additional acquisitions in New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Georgia.
Communities are already rallying against the plan and questioning whether the small towns ICE has selected have sufficient water and sewer infrastructure to support thousands of people detained in a warehouse.
In New York, Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) said last week that 25,000 people in his district have signed a petition opposing the use of a local warehouse to house immigrants and pointed to the “major corruption and graft” evident in the plan to purchase and run the warehouses.
“The site in my district that’s proposed is owned by one of Trump’s multibillionaire donors, who would directly financially benefit from this site,” said Ryan, referring to former Trump adviser Carl Icahn.
“I’m telling you, we are not going to let this happen in my district.”@PatRyanUC is pushing back on the Trump administration’s plan to buy warehouses across the country to turn them into mass detention centers, including one in his New York district. pic.twitter.com/KYOQb4WJx6
As Common Dreamsreported Friday, private prison firm GEO Group raked in a record $254 million in profits last year as it secured contracts with the Trump administration to build new ICE facilities across the US.
ICE has attempted to make purchases in Oklahoma City; Kansas City, Missouri; and in Virginia, but those plans have fallen through, with the Kansas City Council passing a five-year ban on new nonmunicipal detention centers after the public learned that DHS was the potential buyer of a warehouse in the city.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has also joined his constituents in speaking out against ICE’s $100 million purchase of a warehouse in his state to house at least 1,000 people at a time.
“This administration is spitting in the face of communities from Minneapolis to Maryland and wasting our tax dollars. We won’t back down,” said Van Hollen late last month.
Trump's ICE just purchased a warehouse in MD for $100M to hold 1,000+ detainees.
Last week, I joined Marylanders demanding that ICE stay out.
This Admin is spitting in the face of communities from Minneapolis to Maryland & wasting our tax dollars.
The details of the administration’s planned conversion of warehouses were reported less than two weeks after Pablo Manríquez of Migrant Insiderrevealed that a US Navy contract originally valued at $10 billion “has ballooned to a staggering $55 billion ceiling to expedite President Donald Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ agenda” and to help build “a sprawling network of migrant detention centers across the US.”
At Common Dreams last week, talk show host and author Thom Hartmannwrote that the warehouses Trump plans to use to hold people—purchased by an agency whose own data shows it has largely been detaining people with no criminal records—are best described as concentration camps like those used in Nazi Germany.
“By the end of his first year, [Adolf] Hitler had around 50,000 people held in his roughly 70 concentration camps, facilities that were often improvised in factories, prisons, castles, and other buildings,” wrote Hartmann. “By comparison, today ICE is holding over 70,000 people in 225 concentration camps across America,” with hopes to “more than double both numbers in the coming months.”
“Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours; both started as facilities for people the government’s leader said were a problem. And that’s exactly what ICE is building now,” he continued. “History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a spending bill that ends a partial shutdown of the federal government in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, February 3, 2026
