The panels’ removal at the Netherlands American Cemetery comes after Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Ever since a U.S. military cemetery in the southern Netherlands removed two displays recognizing Black troops who helped to liberate Europe from the Nazis, visitors have filled the guestbook with objections.

Some time in the spring, the American Battle Monuments Commission, the U.S. government agency responsible for maintaining memorial sites outside the United States, removed the panels from the visitors center at the American Cemetery in Margraten, the final resting place for roughly 8,300 U.S. soldiers, set in rolling hills near the border with Belgium and Germany.

The removal, carried out without public explanation, has angered Dutch officials, the families of U.S. soldiers and the local residents who honor the American sacrifice by caring for the graves.

You like the dash?

—OwO—

Unsurprisingly, projects, jobs, and whole companies have been falling as a result of Donald Trump’s war on renewable energy and electric vehicles. Because he loves pollution so much, and is eager to help funnel more money to his billionaire friends in the fossil fuel industry, Trump has been pulling cleantech incentives and doing everything he can to shut down clean energy projects, even ones already fully approved.

In the latest edition of a company biting the dust as a result of this, solar installer Purelight Power wrote a letter to Oregon officials just before Christmas explaining that it had to shut down operations nationally and close its business as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) passed by Republicans in Congress and signed into law by Donald Trump.

Purelight Power was operating in nine states — Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, and Washington — but pulling consumer tax credits for installing rooftop solar systems has dried up business and is forcing the company into bankruptcy. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 had promised solar consumer tax credits for a decade, but they lasted less than 3 years.

The new variant of Influenza A, or H3N2, has been given the nickname 'super flu.' The fast-spreading virus has caused hospitalizations to nearly double in a week, the CDC reported.

Flu is surging across the U.S., sending thousands more people to the hospital and hitting young children especially hard, as doctors warn the season still has a long way to go.

Flu activity is at “high” or “very high” levels in 32 states and jurisdictions, based on data from the week ending Dec. 20, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday — up from 17 the week before. At least 7.5 million have gotten sick since the season began in October.

Hospitalizations nearly doubled in a single week, rising to 19,053, up from 9,944 the week prior, according to the CDC. About 3,100 people have died from flu this season. The number of pediatric deaths rose to five, up from two the week before.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/16453

While Brooke Shoemaker and a rights group representing her in court are celebrating this week after an Alabama judge threw out her conviction and ordered a new trial, her case is also drawing attention to the dangers of "fetal personhood" policies.

"Laws and judicial decisions that grant fetuses—and in some cases embryos and fertilized eggs—the same legal rights and status given to born people, such as the right to life, is 'fetal personhood,'" explains the website of the group, Pregnancy Justice. "When fetuses have rights, this fundamentally changes the legal rights and status of all pregnant people, opening the door to criminalization, surveillance, and obstetric violence."

Since the US Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling ended the federal right to abortion in 2022, far-right activists and politicians have ramped up their fight for fetal personhood policies. Pregnancy Justice found that in the two years after the decision, the number of people who faced criminal charges related to their pregnancies hit its highest level in US history.

Shoemaker's case began even earlier, in 2017, when she experienced a stillbirth at home about 24-26 weeks into her pregnancy. Paramedics brought her to a hospital, where she disclosed using methamphetamine while pregnant. Although a medical examiner could not determine whether the drug use caused the stillbirth—and, according to Pregnancy Justice, "her placenta showed clear signs of infection"—a jury found her guilty of chemical endangerment of a minor. She's served five years of her 18-year sentence.

"After becoming Ms. Shoemaker's counsel in 2024, Pregnancy Justice filed a petition alongside Andrew Stanley of the Samford Law Office requesting a hearing based on new evidence about the infection that led to the demise of Ms. Shoemaker's pregnancy, leading the judge to agree with Pregnancy Justice's medical witness and to vacate the conviction," the rights group said in a Monday statement.

Lee County Circuit Judge Jeffrey Tickal wrote in his December 22 order that "should the facts had been known, and brought before the jury, the results probably would have been different."

Shoemaker said Monday that "after years of fighting, I'm thankful that I'm finally being heard, and I pray that my next Christmas will be spent at home with my children and parents... I'm hopeful that my new trial will end with me being freed, because I simply lost my pregnancy at home because of an infection. I loved and wanted my baby, and I never deserved this."

— (@)

Although Tickal's decision came three days before Christmas, the 45-year-old mother of four remained behind bars for the holiday last week, as the state appeals.

"While we are thrilled with the judge's decision, we are outraged that Ms. Shoemaker is still behind bars when she should have been home for Christmas," said former Pregnancy Justice senior staff attorney Emma Roth. "She was convicted based on feelings, not facts. Pregnancy Justice will continue to fight on appeal and prove that pregnancies end tragically for reasons far beyond a mother's control. Women like Ms. Shoemaker should be allowed to grieve their loss without fearing arrest."

AL.com reported Tuesday that "Alabama is unique in that it is one of only three states, along with Oklahoma and South Carolina, where the state Supreme Court allows the application of criminal laws meant to punish child abuse or child endangerment to be applied in the context of pregnancy."

However, similar cases aren't restricted to those states. Pregnancy Justice found that in the two years following Dobbs, "prosecutors initiated cases in 16 states: Alabama, California, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. While prosecutions were brought in all of these states, to date, the majority of the reported cases occurred in Alabama (192) and Oklahoma (112)."

This is fantastic news!!I wrote in my book how the medical examiner ruled the cause of the stillbirth "undetermined," but the coroner (who lacks medical training) instead listed cause of stillbirth as mom's meth usage on the fetal death certificate.

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— Jill Wieber Lens (@jillwieberlens.bsky.social) December 30, 2025 at 12:25 PM

"Prosecutors used a variety of criminal statutes to charge the defendants in these cases, often bringing more than one charge against an individual defendant," the group's report continues. "In total, the 412 defendants faced 441 charges for conduct related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth. The majority of charges (398/441) asserted some form of child abuse, neglect, or endangerment."

"As has been the case for decades, nearly all the cases alleged that the pregnant person used a substance during pregnancy," the report adds. "In 268 cases, substance use was the only allegation made against the pregnant person. In the midst of a wide-ranging crisis in maternal healthcare and despite maternal healthcare deserts across the country, prosecutors or police argued that pregnant people's failure to obtain prenatal care was evidence of a crime. This was the case in 29 of 412 cases."

When the publication was released last year, Pregnancy Justice president Lourdes A. Rivera said in a statement that "the Dobbs decision emboldened prosecutors to develop ever more aggressive strategies to prosecute pregnancy, leading to the most pregnancy-related criminal cases on record."

"This is directly tied to the radical legal doctrine of 'fetal personhood,' which grants full legal rights to an embryo or fetus, turning them into victims of crimes perpetrated by pregnant women," Rivera argued. "To turn the tide on criminalization, we need to separate healthcare from the criminal legal system and to change policy and practices to ensure that pregnant people can safely access the healthcare they need, without fear of criminalization. This report demonstrates that, in post-Dobbs America, being pregnant places people at increased risk, not only of dire health outcomes, but of arrest."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

The fungus poses a greater risk for vulnerable populations in nursing homes and hospitals

A deadly fungus that can be considered a superbug due to its resistance to all types of antibiotics is spreading across the country – with thousands of people already infected, according to health officials.

Candida auris, a type of invasive yeast that can cause deadly infections in people with weakened immune systems, has infected at least 7,000 people across 27 U.S. states, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The fungus, which can spread easily in healthcare settings such as hospitals and nursing homes, is gaining virulence and spreading at an “alarming” rate, the CDC says.

The US Department of War on Monday revealed that Boeing had been awarded a nearly $8.6bn contract to make F-15 fighter jets for Israel.

The deal was announced shortly after US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concluded a joint press conference in Palm Beach, Florida.

The contract involves the "design, integration, instrumentation, test, production and delivery of 25 new F-15IA aircraft for the Israeli Air Force, with an option for an additional 25 F-15IA aircraft," according to a routine statement that lists the Pentagon's new contracts.

Since 7 October 2023, Israel has used US aircraft and weapons to kill more than 71,000 people in Gaza. Trump, however, said he was not worried about what decisions Israel may take.

"I'm not concerned about anything that Israel is doing. I'm concerned about what other people are doing, or maybe aren't doing," he said in response to a question about whether Israel was moving fast enough to implement his so-called "peace plan".

As Josh Abbotoy gazes out at lush green woods and pastureland nestled among Tennessee's Appalachian hills, he describes what he intends to build here: a neighbourhood with dozens of residential lots, centred around a working farm and, crucially, a church.

Mr Abbotoy is prominent in US conservative circles and describes his development as an "affinity-based community" - marketed to people not only interested in the peace and quiet of rural life, but in a constellation of right-wing ideals.

"Faith, family and freedom," he says. "Those are the values that we try to celebrate."

Initially he didn't attract much local attention after setting up shop in Jackson County.

But in late 2024, a local TV news report broadcast controversial statements made by two of Mr Abbotoy's first, and most outspoken, customers: Andrew Isker, a pastor and author originally from Minnesota, and C Jay Engel, a businessman from California.

They are self-described "Christian nationalists" who question modern values, such as whether female suffrage and the civil rights movement were good ideas, and call for mass deportations of legal immigrants far in excess of President Donald Trump's current plan. Another thing they sometimes say: "Repeal the 20th Century."

The US military announced the killing of another two men in “a lethal kinetic strike”on a boat suspected of carrying drugs in international waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday.

The Pentagon released video of the strike, which brings the total number of known naval attacks on suspected drug smugglers to 30 since September, and raises the death toll to at least 107 people, according to US military figures.

The attack was carried out “at the direction of” Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, US Southern Command said in a post on X, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform where images of the attacks have been posted.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the military said. “No US military forces were harmed.”

The Spanish parishioner who made headlines around the world for her botched restoration of a prized Jesus Christ fresco has died aged 94.

Cecilia Giménez, an elderly woman from Borja, northeast Spain, became famous 13 years ago after she attempted to restore the century-old painting titled Ecce Homo that was held in her local church.

Giménez's restoration went viral and earned the nickname "Monkey Christ", because of Christ's head resembling a hairy monkey.

The impact of the restoration led to the "Monkey Christ" meme and saw the once quiet town of Borja quickly become a tourist destination.

The town, which had previously welcomed just 5,000 visitors per year, received more than 40,000 tourists by 2013, and raised more than €50,000 for charity at the time.

Officials say nowadays between 15,000 and 20,000 tourists per year visit Borja to see the famous portrait, which is now behind a protective shield of glass.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said that her defense of survivors of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and threat to disclose the identities of some of the men who abused them broke her relationship with President Donald Trump, who said his “friends will get hurt” if she went through with it.

Greene’s claim came in remarks from two long interviews published Monday in the New York Times Magazine. After a closed-door meeting with Epstein victims in September and a subsequent news conference where she made the threat to share the names of some of the men, Greene said Trump rebuked her.

Greene told the Times that the last conversation she had with Trump was when she requested that he invite some of the survivors to the Oval Office. Trump, she recounted, replied that they did not deserve the opportunity.

Yossi Sariel, the former head of [Israel’s elite spy agency] Unit 8200, wrote a book under a pseudonym that we revealed to have been published by him. In that book, he articulated what at the time was a bold and radical vision – as Yuval described, this fetishization of Silicon Valley technology.

He recognized the possibilities that the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft could afford the Israeli military. Two years before October 7, he said that militaries and governments needed to forge relationships with these companies that are similar to the relationships they have with companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. So he was already thinking about these companies as instrumental to war and surveillance in the way that a defense contractor provides components for fighter jets or manufactures bombs and missiles.

Some of our reporting has looked at how elements of his vision have come true and have been put into effect, both before October 7 and afterwards, in both the West Bank and Gaza.