In case you thought the news from the US wasn’t disturbing enough, ICE is purchasing massive warehouses to hold those they abduct. Entirely unrelated: a brief history of concentration camps around the world www.lbi.org/exhibitions/...

Making America infectious again. edition.cnn.com/2026/01/27/h...

Truly horrific mass murder by Iran's regime - systematic killing of likely around 30,000 protesters. "The injuries we observed demonstrate a brutality without limit – both in scale and in method," including bodies of people shot in the head while hospitalised.

81 years ago today, Auschwitz was liberated. More than ever, we must remember. Remembrance is a responsibility. On Holocaust Memorial Day, we remember the victims, honour the survivors, and reflect on what happens when good people do nothing. #HMD26

More forensic than anything else I've seen on Trump's dementia.

This is amazing - a mushroom that if not cooked properly gives people a very specific hallucination: "visions of pint-sized, elf-like figures marching under doors, crawling up walls and clinging to furniture."

Affectionately known as the ‘graffiti grannies of Lisbon', Lata65 is a Portuguese org that runs workshops in street art for the over-65s. The oldest participant is 90 years old #womensart

Maximum temperature in Minneapolis today -23C

Trump administration deporting Iranians back to face death.

ICE detain yet another minor child—chase him down his own street and tackle him to pavement. "I am legal! I am legal!" he cries over and over in Spanish. Agent pins the boy down in snow—he desperately tries to keep his exposed hands from freezing at -25°F wind chill temperature. Minneapolis, MN

nine years old

As clergy pray, arrests begin

One of the best articles we've seen from out-of-town press. Does a good job of covering what isn't getting covered enough and capturing what it feels like on the ground right now... (This is a gift article - lmk if the link doesn't work.) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/o...

Also, I want to take an interest in things going on elsewhere in the world, but after starting the day with Minneapolis news and Mad Trump Letter news that’s enough news for one morning thank you.

Took me a moment to realise this is obviously in Fahrenheit. So Friday in Minneapolis will be -27C to -17C. 🥶 Good day for a general strike.

Here’s a short poem about the power of poetry to change the world.

Well this sounds like a perfectly sensible way to govern a country.

I felt like making some art last night/today and could have made something beautiful and/or meaningful but I made this instead. It's a Barbie Yaga Malibu Dream Hut. No regrets. Can't defeat fascism without joy.

In politics and the media it's like only macho jobs count towards the economy - manufacturing, fishing, over-hyped AI... Higher education contributes an estimated £265 billion but hey, who needs it? Sad story here about closure of Uni of Essex Southend campus: www.yoursouthend.co.uk/a-dreadful-b...

I have annexed The country Whose resources I wanted And which you Were probably Hoping I could identify a giraffe It was the best clock Anybody drew I like McDonald's Hey look, a bird

File under, we never quite know what's coming next. One of my favourite embassy reports. The UK ambassador in East Berlin reporting in after the fall of the Wall...

@michaelburchert.bsky.social Is there a good basic introduction to plant-based insulation and building materials online? For people who are thinking about wider strategies to tackle climate change rather than technical specialists - and including issues of scaling up would be great! Thank you

"Meditate through the meltdown..." oilwell.app

A true profile in courage to follow one’s conscience, especially in that system. Also amazing that the footage has surfaced. 🎁🔗

Your universe is a photocopy of a photocopy of a… on.ft.com/4ahkNKa

I feel like this FIFA Peace Prize for Trump is in fact bringing the world together.

The new Zipcar petition just mentioned on BBC London is here. It’s an important service for many Londoners without a car and is currently due to be withdrawn at the end of this month.

@crisortunity.bsky.social Zipcar is going to disappear in London from the end of the month, making it harder for many Londoners to live in the city without owning a car. Brand new petition here to take the service into public ownership 👇 Background: www.londoncentric.media/p/zipcar-lon...

🧵This 58-year-old nurse from Maryland is seen being violently dragged along the ground by officials in Ghana. Trump deported her there. This abhorrent & disgusting abuse of a woman who saved American lives and cared for injured and ill Americans for 30 years. All the details below are worse.

Funny but... not funny

Marianne von Werefkin, Swirling Snow, 1915 Expressionist painter #WomensArt

"Those in power recognized that oppression is best maintained by keeping the masses illiterate, and those oppressed recognized that literacy is liberation. ...Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so."

We must copy Denmark Social Democrats' hardline anti-asylum measures in order to win back voters' trust, says Shabana Mahmood. Meanwhile in Denmark:

Asylum seekers = illegal migrants = a threat to the UK: the basis for performative cruelty and policies which would make it impossible for refugees to rebuild their lives. And of course is a narrative which encourages racism on the streets.

Going to leave you with a Home Office chart from their most recent asylum stats so you can decide whether the UK is a magnet for asylum seekers with a uniquely generous asylum system www.gov.uk/government/s...

I find it striking how little this is mentioned when people talk about how terrible Musk is. His gloating about 'feeding USAID into the woodchipper'. If the cuts aren't reversed, then the total number of deaths caused by them is predicted to be 14 million over five years.

So apparently some parts of the US Right are responding to electoral losses by calling for women’s right to vote to be withdrawn. #AllPerfectlyNormal

New 🧠🎨 for #sfn #sciart

UK still selling arms to UAE which may be used by RSF www.middleeasteye.net/news/british...

"The pace of killing can only be compared to that of the Rwanda genocide in 1994" #KeepEyesOnSudan www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

After I posted this I thought I should have rounded Bill Gates’ net worth to $106 billion. Then I realised the 0.3 = $300 million which does kind of drive it home how crazy this kind of wealth is.

What is it that makes politicians nod along enthusiastically to this sort of thing? In Doctor Who this plot development would be how they realise that the government is actually being run by aliens.

Free after 12 years and reunited with his family.

@responsiblesci.bsky.social looking forward to Wednesday's meeting even more now I find out you're legionnaires of the Antichrist.

I think I want all my political information to be delivered as Richard Scarry-style cartoons. It's the only way I can cope.

🔴 NEW - Why you should leave X Here’s the sad truth: Twitter no longer exists. X is something else entirely. It’s a megaphone for extremism, controlled by a deranged oligarch. 📝 latest Substack 👇🏻

On the same day in the Telegraph:

Amid all the stuff about ‘dangerous London’ and ‘broken Britain’, new figures show the homicide rate in London is at a 10-year low. Killings dropped by 26% over the last year, from 78 to 58. No one under 25 was murdered during the school summer holidays.

The rise of anti-immigrant sentiment and the media's fawning over Farage pose a huge challenge for the rest of us. A good first step would be some sensible comms (like this) from Government in response. Not blathering on about 'legitimate concerns' and further stoking fears about asylum-seekers.

Is the word motorist actually ever used nowadays except when tabloids bewail a 'war on motorists'? A 'car driver' is someone who uses their vehicle to get from A to B. A 'motorist' sounds like it's a hobby: someone from the 1930s going for a jolly jaunt down to Brighton in the old automobile.