A federal judge tried to halt the construction of this hideous addition to the White House, but that got in the way of Roberts letting the president do whatever the hell he wants.

© ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

The Australian Senate passed new powers for ASIO 26-15 on Thursday.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No.2) 2025 adds to the 1979 ASIO Act, raising concerns about citizen protections vis-à-vis police questioning.

Such as the broadening of ASIO’s power to include “sabotage, promotion of communal violence, attacks on Australia’s defence system and any serious threat to Australia’s territorial and border integrity.”

Under current law, this is regardless of “whether these [words or actions] were directed from, or committed within, Australia or not.”

The biggest concerns centre on the “promotion of communal violence” and threats to national integrity.

Under existing laws on adult questioning, anyone who fails to comply with ASIO when they demand information can be imprisoned for five years.

Put simply, in these cases you do not have the right to remain silent.

Ramping up those concerns is the fact that neither inciting “communal violence” nor “threats to national integrity” are properly defined.

According to section 4 of the ASIO Act, foreign interference is defined as: “activities relating to Australia that are carried on by or on behalf of a foreign power.”

Activities included anything that is “detrimental to the interests of Australia “ or involves “a threat to any person.”

Promoting communal violence is defined as: “activities that are directed to promoting violence between different groups of persons in the Australian community.”

Added here is any activity that “endangers the peace, order or good government of the Commonwealth.”

In effect, publicly questioning COVID vaccines, lockdowns, mass immigration, and multiculturalism could be considered incitement and a threat to national stability (integrity).

As could critiquing Islam, or even criticising Albonomics that is currently edging Australia’s economy irreversibly towards’ Labor’s “we’re saving the world from climate change,” Net Zero Nanny State black hole.

By far one of the bill’s most prominent opponents, Senator Alex Antic, said on X that he’s disappointed it passed.

Antic also stated that he voted against the amendment because “extraordinary powers should never become ordinary.”

The South Australian Liberal Senator then declared the law an expansion of the surveillance state.

Antic told the Senate that the bill “doesn’t merely fine-tune existing arrangements.”

“It breaks in new powers and makes permanent extraordinary intrusions on the liberty of Australians.

“Compulsory questioning warrants,” Antic argued, “allow ASIO to compel a person who may never have been charged with an offence or may never be charged with an offence to appear and answer questions under threat of criminal penalty.”

Even telling anyone about being questioned or detained is now an offence.

“These are not ordinary investigative tools,” he stated. “They sit well outside the framework of the traditional criminal justice system.”

Since 9/11, the government has repeatedly extended what were meant to be temporary powers.

That’s because they were the exception, not a permanent rule.

“As it currently stands, the bill removes that sunset clause entirely.”

Making them permanent is a problem, Antic added.

“History shows that temporary emergency powers have a long and chequered history and habit of becoming permanent features.

“Worse still, the bill actually expands the reach of adult questioning warrants.

“The definition of an adult questioning matter will now be broadened under this bill to include sabotage and, most alarmingly, the promotion of communal violence.”

Criticising the loose language, Antic rightly pointed out that “Promotion of communal violence’ is particularly elastic.

“Vague drafting is the enemy of the rule of law.”

To this he added, “What does it actually mean? What does it capture?”

“Does it capture passionate political speech, advocacy that offends certain groups, legitimate protest or religious expression that crosses an often-ill-defined line?”

Antic then asserted, “In a free society, the state shouldn’t be handed an open-ended power to compel citizens to answer questions about speech or association that falls short of actual criminality.”

Blurring lines when it comes to criminality and rights, he further argued, removes certainty about where that line is drawn.

The even greater concern here is whether or not the law could be used to detain and question people against their will.

“The bill also retains the capacity to subject children as young as 14 to these processes. On its surface, that alone should give this chamber reason to pause.

“Security which is purchased at the price of permanent, expanded and coercive powers is a false bargain.”

Extraordinary laws require use-by dates.

“The rule of law requires that the state’s most intrusive rules remain exceptional, tightly confined, regularly scrutinised and subject to genuine sunset clauses.”

They should not, Antic protested, be “quietly normalised” and “quietly allowed to creep into the norm.”

Notably, Antic joined One Nation and The Greens in opposing the expansion of ASIO’s powers.

Europe is warming more than twice as fast as the global average—a terrifying statistic made all too apparent this summer as heat wave followed heat wave. European cities were never designed for these temperatures, and public health, infrastructure, and tourism are all under strain. Eric Klinenberg arrives in Milan just as “Europe’s third heat wave of the summer entered its fiercest stretch” and sweats his way across the continent to see how trees, shade, water, and other measures are being deployed to adapt urban centers. But with this crisis set to deepen can these experiments really keep pace?

Of all the problems that heat poses for Barcelona, losing some of the hundred and sixty thousand tourists who typically visit each day ranks low on the priority lists of most officials and residents. Some locals have staged protests, chanting “Tourists go home” while targeting visitors with water guns. But tourism employs more than a hundred and sixty thousand people in Barcelona and accounts for around thirteen per cent of its economic output, which explains why, despite concerns that the city gets too many visitors, more than seventy per cent of residents consider tourism beneficial. At midday, when I arrived on La Rambla, the city’s most heavily visited and photographed corridor, the street had little shade and surprisingly few people. At La Boqueria market, normally jam-packed at lunchtime, I found my way to a famously busy bar counter and took one of several open seats.

Former Florida state legislator Michael Caruso was arrested this week on charges that he sexually abused his own grandson — a crime that could expose him to the death penalty under a law he voted [...]

The post Florida Lawmaker Who Backed Death Penalty for Pedophiles Arrested for Molesting His Grandson appeared first on The People's Voice.

On Friday, Demand Progress Education Fund and a coalition of civil society advocates asked the FTC to investigate AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon for buying books in bulk, scanning them and then destroying the original work—including rare books. In a letter sent to the FTC, the organizations urge the agency to use its authority, including Section 6(b) of the FTC Act, to investigate whether this mass book-destroying practice unfairly prevents competing AI developers and the public from using these resources.

• Read the Letter

Convened by Demand Progress Education Fund, the letter was also signed by the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Media & Digital Governance at Open Markets Institute, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and 14 other organizations.

“The secretive and reckless way that major AI companies like Anthropic and Amazon are acting shows that there is real smoke here that the FTC needs to investigate,” said Demand Progress Education Fund Special Advisor Kate Oh. “There is credible reporting that the AI industry is acquiring books on vast commercial scales to scan and destroy, all to keep that scanned text in a private database walled off from the world and subject to corporate censorship and manipulation.”

“When a small number of dominant tech companies become the sole custodians of millions of human-authored works in digital form, locked away inside proprietary corporate databases—including works they have caused to exist nowhere else—they convert a shared public resource into a private chokepoint,” stated the letter. “They make themselves the unaccountable gatekeepers of our shared historical and cultural record, with the ability to censor as they see fit. That outcome should concern the FTC because the antimonopoly laws exist not only to protect competition but to prevent any private actor from amassing control incompatible with a free and self-governing society.”

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On Tuesday morning, a coalition of leaders and members from labor, community, and faith organizations in Minnesota denounced Operation Puppet Master, an alleged campaign by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to spy on Minnesotans during Operation Metro Surge earlier this year. In a press conference held outside of Target’s headquarters in downtown Minneapolis, the coalition urged Minnesotans to continue standing in solidarity with one another, and demanded companies headquartered in the state sign the business for democracy pledge.

The call comes after the New York Times published a report on August 13 about the campaign by DHS. Details were made public in a motion for discovery filed by Kevin Riach, an attorney for healthcare worker Isaac Sant. According to the motion, federal agents “surreptitiously recorded dozens of conversations with ordinary people who were simply exercising their First Amendment right to protest ICE’s lawless rampage in our state. The agents gathered information about Minnesotans from law enforcement databases and internet searches, and created dossiers that are apparently now available agency-wide.” 

The documents describe surveillance and infiltration of union and community meetings during and before Operation Metro Surge. Eighteen organizations, including labor unions, were listed in a chart connecting them to Direct Action Minnesota (DAMN), a group of individuals who resisted what coalition members call a “terror campaign” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Operation Metro Surge. Sant is one of 15 individuals who were indicted and charged by the federal government for conspiracy in what organizers have called an act of political repression and retaliation. More than half of the 15 are rank-and-file union members, and now the federal government is claiming labor organizations to be part of the alleged conspiracy. The motion continues: “With no evidence, the government alleged to the grand jury that this conspiracy in this case extends far beyond the defendants to include the AFL-CIO, the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, Monarca, Veterans for Peace, and the Grease Pit bicycle repair shop, among others.”

In addition to the AFL-CIO, Minneapolis Federation of Educators (MFE) Local 59, and Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE), SEIU Local 26 is also named by DHS along with the Workers Solidarity Circle and Black Cat Workers Collective. The motion also states that Homeland Security Investigations subpoenaed financial records for several labor unions, including SEIU locals in Minnesota and the Communication Workers of America (CWA). 

Alec Stewart is a MAPE union member and one of the Minnesota 15. “The revelation of Operation Puppet Master exposes that while the government was targeting immigrant communities, tearing families apart, abducting children and murdering folks in the street, they were also attempting to disrupt and dismantle one of the facets of Minnesota that makes us so unique, and that is our strong and unified labor movement,” he said at the press conference.

Treasure Thoreson is a teacher, executive board member at MFE Local 59, and one of the Minnesota 15. Thoreson spoke at the press conference about the food drives, fundraisers, grocery deliveries, and support that educators gave to their community all while continuing to show up to schools to educate students. “The government feels so threatened by our ability to come together and use our protected First Amendment rights, our legal rights as unionists that they feel they must surveil and disrupt. However, that to me is a signal that what we are doing is effective, impactful, and powerful,” she said. According to Thoreson, a GoFundMe that she donated to was flagged by DHS as evidence that she is part of a conspiracy.

Gabriel Van de Water is a community organizer and artist who is one of the Minnesota 15. Van de Water referred to a report by Human Rights Watch detailing the human rights abuses that happened under Operation Metro Surge. “Human Rights Watch referred to the occupation as a manufactured crisis. This administration has chosen to follow up that crisis with a manufactured conspiracy,” said Van de Water. “The Minnesota 15 case and others like it must be understood as an attempt to criminalize dissent, to make an example out of some of us so that all of us hesitate to exercise our rights to protect one another. We will not allow this to happen.”

Kieran Knutson is president of CWA Local 7250, which was also named in the document. “We are more determined than ever to stand up to our repressive government. We are more determined than ever to stand in solidarity with working class people,” he said. “The Minnesota 15 are some of the finest people I know. These are our people, we have their backs. We know that this prosecution against them is a bogus attack on the entire movement.”

Emilia Gonzalez Avalos, the executive director of Unidos MN, a grassroots social justice organization, spoke about the surveillance and infiltration enacted by the federal government on community members and noted the silence of corporations like Target. “They sat in our libraries, in training rooms, and wrote down what we thought about the Constitution. They took down license plates outside a church in Roseville, and built files of the families inside, their addresses, children, and where they work. Federal agents walked into a Target store in Richfield and detained two citizens who were at work,” said Gonzalez Avalos. “To this day, Target has said nothing about it. We came here today because that silence still has answers available.”

Target has been the center of national boycott campaigns for rolling back its diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments, and now this Minnesota coalition is demanding that the corporation meet with coalition members before early voting begins on September 15. Best Buy, 3M, and Cargill were also named by the coalition as corporations that are being urged to sign the pledge.

There is also a labor-endorsed call to boycott Target during the back-to-school season. President of MFE Local 59 Marcia Howard highlighted this call by the American Federation of Teachers that was supported by the national AFL-CIO, which passed a resolution supporting the boycott at its constitutional convention held in Minneapolis in June. 

“Educators spend eight billion dollars on back to school supplies,” said Howard. “Between AFT calling for a boycott and AFL-CIO extending that boycott, the only thing that this corporation needs to do is make good. Make good for Alex Pretti, for Renee Good. For all of us who have been in the streets, for our students, for each other.”

Target made $5.1 billion in profits in 2025, and its chair and former CEO Brian Cornell pulled in over $21 million. 

Bernie Burnham, the president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, which represents 1000 local unions and hundreds of thousands of workers in the state, said at the press conference that “attacks on labor are not new. Those with power always push back when they face the kind of solidarity we saw in Minnesota last winter.” Burnham continued, “Instead of holding federal agents accountable for shooting and killing Renee Good and our [American Federation of Government Employees] union brother Alex Pretti, or addressing the dangerous and deadly conditions within immigration and detention facilities, the Trump administration continues to weaponize our federal government to intimidate our unions, our communities, and anyone who peacefully opposes their radically authoritarian agenda.”

Coalition members say they remain unintimidated. “Countless Minnesotans rose to the occasion and stood strong in the face of what the Trump administration tried to do to our communities and the whole nation owes those Minnesotans a debt of gratitude,” said Phillip Cryan, the executive vice president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa. “We keep us safe. If they come after any of us, 15 of us, or 1500 of us, the hundreds of thousands of us who did what we needed to do this winter to protect our communities, will be there to support them.”

Professors have called it a “dystopian academic nightmare.”

© Peter Blottman Photography

State Board of Elections mostly backs fewer Sundays, more Saturdays in early voting plans. Increasing evidence of auditor staff interference.

NC Elections Board decides early voting plans for 20 counties, mostly siding with GOP is a story from Carolina Public Press, an award-winning independent newsroom. Our breakthrough journalism shines a light on the critical overlooked and under-reported issues facing North Carolina’s more than 11 million residents. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

If you have an AI agent, you can tell it to build a website, make a slideshow, or get you a table at a popular dumpling shop in Beijing.  The...

© Rest of World/iStock

About a billion people live in deserts today. This is not a new fad. Humans have walked across the dunes since prehistoric times. However, most of us have no interest in moving to an oasis and trading our car for a camel. Living in a desert is hard. But ancient cultures once mastered these dry […]

The post 10 Remarkable Archaeological Sites Hidden in the Desert appeared first on Listverse.

  Can the World Survive Putin’s Well Intentioned Mistake? Death Can Be the Unintended Consequence of Good Intentions Paul Craig […]

The Iranian regime has dismissed President Trump's threats to crush Iran economically, saying that years of U.S. sanctions have failed.

(Image credit: Hadi Mizban)

President Trump announced this week that the U.S. will be imposing the "most crushing economic operation" against Iran.

NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer talks to Miad Maleki, a former Treasury official who designed pressure campaigns for Iran, about the potential effectiveness of President Trump's pivot to "economic warfare."

Portuguese President António José Seguro has officially signed into law a bill banning face-concealing attire in public spaces, with the move seen targeting the full-face Islamic veils like the burqa and niqab.

Addressing the national debate, President Seguro framed the decision around human interaction, stating: “The face should be considered a central element of human identity and communication.” 

However, the former Socialist Party leader acknowledged the controversial nature of the ban, recognizing it as a matter of significant cultural and social sensitivity.

The law was largely backed by the country’s right-wing politicians and labeled the “burqa law” by Portuguese media. It passed parliament in July with the votes of right-wing parties, with the left firmly in opposition.

The new legal framework strictly limits garments designed to hide one’s identity in public spaces. It also penalizes forcing individuals to cover their faces based on gender, religion, or age.

Violators face financial penalties ranging from €150 to €3,000. There are, however, some exceptions. Wearing items that cover the face, such as medical masks, professional/artistic gear, and extreme weather wear, are all examples of exceptions under the law.

The post Full-face veils banned in Portugal after president signs ‘burqa law’ appeared first on Remix News.

In the first half of 2026 alcoholic beer sales fell by as much as 11.9 percent, and despite the sharp increase in non-alcoholic beer sales, this trend is unable to arrest the dramatically deepening economic downturn in the brewery industry, which supports 85,000 jobs, including in agriculture, logistics, bars, and catering.

The beer market has been falling continuously for eight years. Between 2018 and 2025, the market lost over 7.5 million hectoliters in beer sales, which corresponds to the annual production of three medium-sized breweries. In the first half of 2026, there is no sign of a rebound. According to data from the Polish Central Statistical Office, production of alcoholic beer fell by 11.9 percent compared to the same period last year.

“The first half of this year is not encouraging. An alcoholic beer sales decline of almost 12 percent shows how troubled the brewing industry is in Poland. There are several sources, primarily the global NoLo trend (no or low-alcohol) or the ‘Better for You’ trend, which are increasingly effectively translating into the consumption behavior of Poles. Economic issues are also important: beer is a very price-sensitive product, and its retail price has increased by over 40% in recent years,” says Bartłomiej Morzycki, general director of the Association of Brewing Industry Employers Browary Polskie.

No more booze for Polish MPs as Sejm cracks down on drinking during sessions of parliament

Non-alcoholic beer gaining traction

In the first half of 2026 production sold of 0.0 percent alcohol beers increased by as much as 16.2 percent, and in June by as much as 30.1 percent year over year.

“Non-alcoholic beers are a daily choice for professionally active people, drivers and consumers who care about their health and consciously limit their alcohol consumption. They are increasingly choosing 0.0 percent products so as not to give up social rituals or the taste of beer itself. This is a pan-European trend that meets public health objectives,” said Bartłomiej Morzycki.

Breweries unprecedented regulatory and financial pressure

For almost a decade, breweries have consistently developed the 0.0 percent segment, investing in new technologies and innovative products. Variants without sugar and calories, enriched with vitamins and electrolytes, are appearing on the market. At the same time, research shows that non-alcoholic beer has a strong substitution effect, helping reduce alcohol consumption.

“Recent CBOS research has shown that almost one in four Poles has given up alcohol, and among those who consume alcohol, more than half also reach for non-alcoholic beer. The substitution effect makes this segment of social, health and economic importance. Therefore, in many European countries it is supported by the state as an effective element of alcohol consumption reduction policies,” said Bartłomiej Morzycki.

Poland’s beer industry is in trouble

Meanwhile, several projects concerning the alcoholic beverages market are currently moving forward in Poland, which may hinder the further development of the non-alcoholic beer segment, including changes to the “Act on Upbringing in Sobriety and Counteracting Alcoholism,” as well as a proposal to abandon the current excise map. At the same time, the sugar tax in Poland might be expanded and the VAT for zero-income earners may also be increased.

“Never before has the brewing industry faced such a large number of simultaneous changes. Each of them individually affects the operating conditions and competitiveness of beer in the alcoholic beverage market, and their combined impact may threaten the stability of many sectors in the brewing industry value chain. Moreover, the proposed changes go against the grain of socially acceptable alcohol reduction policies,” said the general director of the Polish Breweries Association.

Risk to the entire economy

The brewing industry represents 85,000. jobs, including thousands of farms and Polish enterprises in related sectors. Beer production accounts for approximately 0.56 percent of Polish GDP and contributes billions of zlotys to public finances each year in taxes and contributions.

According to data from the Association of Brewing Industry Employers Browary Polskie, the industry uses approximately 400,000 tons of barley malt, 75,000 tons of other cereals, over 130 tons of alpha hop acids and approximately 30,000 tons of apples used to produce flavored beers. The reduction in production means lower orders for packaging manufacturers, logistics and transport companies, as well as lower turnover for retail and catering.

“Poles are drinking less and less alcohol. If we add sharp tax increases and further administrative restrictions to natural consumer changes, we risk halting positive health trends and deepening the crisis of the entire value chain. Today, we need a well-thought-out, common-sense and emotion-free economic policy towards our industry,” said Bartłomiej Morzycki while speaking on behalf of the brewing industry.

The post ‘Poles are drinking less and less alcohol’ – Non-alcoholic beer sales fail to save market appeared first on Remix News.