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Links 6/16/2026

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Humans nearly went extinct 930,000 years ago, researchers find The Brighter Side

Copper drug restores memory and clears toxic Alzheimer’s proteins Monash University. Paul R:

The study, published today in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience, shows the compound Cu(ATSM) repairs a vital waste-clearing pump at the blood-brain barrier – unlocking a potential new avenue of therapeutics targeting neurovascular dysfunction, caused by one of the world’s leading causes of death.

#COVID-19/Pandemics

What COVID is teaching doctors about the relationship between viruses and cancer Los Angeles Times

Ebola

Ebola: Largest ever outbreak of rare strain ‘likely even greater’ – and the ‘first line of defence’ has collapsed Sky

Congo reports large daily jump in Ebola cases a month after outbreak was declared Associated Press

Climate/Environment

Pilot whales can’t hear each other over ship noise in Strait of Gibraltar, study find Mongabay

NASA spots giant ocean swell that could signal El Niño’s return Science Daily (Kevin W)

Super El Niño’ will have an alarming financial impact, experts fear USA Today

The insurance market prepared for extreme weather. It may not be prepared for climate whiplash Insurance Business

Extreme Weather Is Becoming A Workforce Crisis Forbes

* * *
Earth’s permafrost could soon release hidden ‘deep carbon,’ supercharging warming Scientific American

Scientists concerned as Himalayas show signs of climate breakdown New Indian Express

Water

Central Asia’s Dry Fuse: Preventing The Next Water War? Caspian Post

Balochistan seeks release of allocated water from Sindh The Nation

Arizona faces 77% cut in Colorado River water amid stalled talks Phoenix New Times

Hoover Dam Approaches a Hydropower Cliff Inside Climate News. I dimly recall that Uruguay, which generates pretty much all of its electricity from hydropower, faced similar issues in a recent dry year.

China?

China retail sales fall for first time since COVID lockdowns Nikkei

US-Iran peace deal rattles China’s energy strategy, geopolitics Asia Times (Kevin W)

Do China’s export curbs on tungsten threaten Japan’s AI chip supply chain? South China Morning Post

Japan

Bank of Japan raises interest rates to 31-year high Reuters

Japan to send delegation to Greenland to evaluate rare earth extraction Nikkei

BOJ Set to Hike Rates to Highest Since 1995 Despite Ueda Absence Bloomberg

Koreas

Korea’s Permanent Jobs Shrink First Time Since Asian Financial Crisis, Hitting Youth Seoul Economic Daily

India

Extreme Heat Is Already Stifling Economic Growth in India Bloomberg

Africa

The Recognition Network: Emerging Pro-Israel Efforts to Redraw South Africa and Zimbabwe in Response to Their Support for Palestine Global Geopolitics

Sudanese army says dozens of RSF fighters killed in attacks across Sudan Anadolu Agency

Children surviving on leaves and water lilies as conflict drives parts of South Sudan to the brink of famine Horn Observer

Sahel juntas are ‘crushing’ basic freedoms DW

South African Firms Face Pressure Due to Anti-Immigrant Protests Bloomberg

How climate change is threatening Kenya’s food basket as hunger crisis deepens – study People Daily

South of the Border

Venezuelans sour on Donald Trump Financial Times (resilc)

A Miami-to-Havana Lifeline Is Slowing Cuba’s Slide Into Economic Collapse Tovimo

Living in fear of a knock at the door: the Cubans being deported under Trump Guardian

European Disunion

US clampdown on Anthropic models sends EU sovereignty surge into overdrive The Register

Europe faces a hidden heatwave risk that could shatter records Earth

Italy’s Far-Right Group Becomes Party in Fresh Threat to Meloni Bloomberg

German vines flower early in warm regions, pushing some harvests toward August Vinetur

Old Blighty

The UK Joins The Pirates Craig Murray (guurst). Important.

Russia was behind arson attacks targeting PM, BBC reveals BBC Lordie

Record number of young people fear long-term unemployment Guardian

Bird flu, extreme heat and super gonorrhoea: The top health threats facing Britain Telegraph

Far-right and anti-racist protesters clash in UK cities after Belfast riots Guardian

Israel v. The Resistance

Israel Threatens to Blow Up Trump’s Peace Deal With Iran New Republic (resilc)

Despite Iran Deal, Israel Continues Attacking Lebanon and Gaza Sam Husseini

Israel expands military control in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria by 1,000sq km Aljazeera

As Iraq tries to rein in paramilitary groups, oil sector threats remain Iraq Oil Report

Debunking the October 7th rape hoax yet again Asa Winstanley

Israeli Security Minister Ben-Gvir cancels US trip after visa difficulties: Report Anadolu Agency. Ben-Gvir was trying to travel under diplomatic privilege for a personal trip.

New Not-So-Cold War

We’re ready to fight Russia tonight, vows head of German air force Telegraph

Trump is blowing his chance to make peace in Ukraine Responsible Statecraft (resilc)

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Starmer’s Social Media Ban, the Reinvention of the Surveillance State Reclaim the Net

UK ministers lobby Trump to avert backlash against social media ban Guardian (Kevin W)

Imperial Collapse Watch

The world is spending more on defence than on peace. This is self-defeating National News

Only 1 in 4 F-35s is fully mission capable, GAO finds Military Times (Kevin W)

The Race for Hypersonic Missiles Wall Street Journal

Pentagon pushes low-cost missile strategy to expand arsenal Seeking Alpha. resilc: “The lowest cost DoD item is the $600 toilet seat, now $3,400.”

Protesters clash with police ahead of G7 summit in Geneva BBC

Trump 2.0

Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files New York Times (Chuck L)

Gavin Newsom says Trump’s DOJ is investigating him and his wife Politico (Kevin W)

FBI Raid on Ohio Voting Rights Group Is Profoundly Disturbing MomsRising

Tulsi’s US-Funded Ukrainian Biolabs Disclosure Is Incredibly Important To The National Debate Andrew Korybko

Economy

Strait of Hormuz still eerily quiet as doubts remain over ‘fragile’ peace deal South China Morning Post

Hormuz Trade Will Take Months to Return Normal, Analysts Say Bloomberg

Aussies queue from 1am for basic groceries as cost-of-living crisis deepens: ‘A lot busier’ Yahoo

Antitrust

Break up Big Meat Art Cullen (Chuck L)

AI

It Is Trivially Easy to Use Reddit to Manipulate AI Search 404 Media

Who Will Actually Thrive in the Hybrid A.I.-Human Work Force New York Times (fk)

Could AI rationing be the pin that pops the feared tech bubble? The Times

CRASH IMMINENT: Ed Zitron Says AI Valuations Are Complete FRAUDS YouTube

Has ANYONE Actually Seen AI Work? YouTube (resilc)

The Bezzle

Tesla Accused of Inflating Self-Driving Safety Claims OilPrice

Guillotine Watch

Man who hates paying taxes loves government handouts Boing Boing (resilc)

Class Warfare

The Elite Mentality Black Box Site

Matchmakers Are Being Paid $25K to Find Trad Wives for Rich Men Wired (resilc)

Antidote du jour (John U):

A bonus:

A second bonus:

And a third:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here

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53 comments

  1. Wukchumni

    California has quite a history of torrential winters resulting in widespread flooding, but we’re so biased towards only what we saw with our very own eyes, that the great floods of 212, 440, 603, 1029, c. 1300, 1418, 1605, and 1750 are unknown compared to the 1862 effort. The 1605 version was the most powerful of them all.

    Notice how the floods typically happen every couple hundred or so years apart?

    I wonder if those years correspond with El Ninos the likes of what coming our way?

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      Your comment had me picturing what happened when the first white settlers turned up in California. The locals may have pointed out all the low-lying flatlands standing near empty and recommending that those settlers locate themselves there.

      Reply ↓
      1. Wukchumni

        Indeed, the various Yokuts tribes here pretty much all lived in the Sierra foothills, and much fewer on the floor of the valley where flooding happens~

        Of course they only had 3,000 years to figure that one out~

        Robert F. Heizer and Albert B. Elsasser 1980 suggested that the Yokuts had numbered about 70,000. They had one of the highest regional population densities in precontact North America.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokuts

        Reply ↓
        1. JP

          The wikipedia entry is a little sketchy. It does not cover the fact that the Yokuts were late comers to the central valley. Maybe 400 years, not 3000. My old friend, now in his 90’s, father was head master at the indian school in Porterville. That was from back in the day when the govt was taking children off the res and putting them in christian schools. He grew up learning the language, which he said varied widely. I had to scroll clear to the bottom to find mention of the Yaundanche. They are important because they staged one of the last indian battles in California in about 1850 right close to where I live at a place called Battle Mountain. When I was just a kid my parents would visit the people who owned Battle Mountain and they would send us out of the house to look for cannon balls. We never found any.

          The battle was important because it galvanized the settlers to round up all the Yokuts in the valley and send them to fort Tehon. The Yokuts were organized by river drainages, whereby a clan was associated with the river from the top of the drainage to the lake shore. The mountain dwellers would travel to the lake once a year for a big reunion. This is not what the wiki entry portrays.

          There is a lot to know about the relations between the settlers and the Yokuts and the trigger events that led to the battle but I am not writing a book. After the incarceration at fort Tehon the survivors were pretty mixed and they never really got sorted into their original configurations.

          Reply ↓
          1. Wukchumni

            I’ve been to that spot where the Battle Mountain sign is with the ‘battlefield’ down below, and you wondered, why there?

            Reply ↓
            1. JP

              The e clampis vitis plaque is way up the mountain but a clear view of Battle Mountain. There was a Yokut camp site on the east end of the mountain. They built defensible bulwarks to the south where the settlers would have to cross open ground and gathered cousins from up and down the Tule. Unfortunately for the Yokuts the army, probably under the command of General Beale, brought up a howitzer from fort Tejon (previous spelling error).

              You may be thinking an iron canon but it was a bronze relic left over from the war of 1812. It fired about a two inch ball. That routed the natives who dispersed into the house sized rocks and river to the west. This is per the verbal Yokut history taken by Frank latta. I just found this (white man) history, which is pretty through https://historynet.com/the-tule-river-war/

              Reply ↓
              1. Wukchumni

                Nice link there…

                I read Tailholt Tales by Frank Latta, and it was a reverse Ishi in Two Worlds, with a Caucasian as the protagonist who was adopted at 10 by the tribe.

                Reply ↓
  2. The Rev Kev

    “Sahel juntas are ‘crushing’ basic freedoms”

    This DW article was good enough to mention that the Sahel countries faced the threat of terrorism and jihadist insurgents but failed to mention that these were supported by French, US and Ukrainian forces. So I will go out on a limb here and say that if the French, US and Ukrainian forces were withdrawn allowing the Sahel countries to mop up these jihadists in short order, that maybe those countries would be able to loosen up their security and restore more freedoms to their people.

    Reply ↓
    1. Observer

      You said what needed to be said. Isn’t amazing how MSM always forgets the history. The French colonialists were merciless in their exploitation of now Francophone Africa.

      And then the bleat about the new African governments that replaced them. Sort of hypocritical.

      Reply ↓
  3. Wukchumni

    For what its worth dept, jumping jack flash division.

    Go-juice was $5.21 a gallon when I left on vacay, and it was the same price when I got back, but with a twist.

    For whatever reason, the independent gas stations in Farmersville, Ca, are always about 40-50 ¢ cheaper, but not yesterday, as rival big name gas stations were about the same price.

    I surmise that the Farmersville stations all of the sudden didn’t have access to the usual excess quantity of refined oil available on the market.

    Reply ↓
    1. earthling

      When gas prices are rising, smaller low-volume stations can have better prices because they are still going through an old tank bought cheaper.

      But right now, as prices fall, they may be stuck with an old tank bought at a higher price, and as people shop for lower prices, it can take a long time to work that off.

      Reply ↓
    2. Christian B

      “Copper is essential for cellular energy production as it acts as a cofactor for cytochrome c oxidase, an enzyme that catalyzes the reduction of oxygen to water, which is crucial for ATP production.”

      As I mention here in the past, Alz’s is a metabolic problem of low ATP. They call this a copper drug, but really it is just away to deliver copper. They have been looking into this for ALS as well.

      Copper dysfunction has already been noted in Alz’s.

      The Role of Copper in Alzheimer’s Disease Etiopathogenesis: An Updated Systematic Review

      and

      Brain copper may protect from cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease pathology: a community-based study

      The other important role for copper is that it is a co-factor for Dopamine beta-hydroxylase which turns dopamine into nor-epinephrine and epinephrine. This would explain the depression associated with Alz’s patients pre-diagnosis

      The pattern of increasing depression symptoms many years prior to dementia diagnosis reinforces the notion that the association between depressive symptoms and dementia in older adults may be primarily due to a shared common cause, or that depressive symptoms represent an early sign of dementia in the preclinical phase. Changes in specific depressive symptoms prior to dementia diagnosis will also be examined..

      Reply ↓
  6. JohnA

    Further to the Starmer arson trial involving a couple of young Ukrainians, Starmer has now promised Zelensky enriched uranium for ‘nuclear power’, plus additional sanctions on Russia. Western politicians are adamant that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons even though they deny any such wishes, while Zelensky has frequently expressed a desire for Ukraine to become nuclear armed. More hypocrisy, or fall out from what the Ukrainian arson trial and the actual connection between Starmer and any leverage this has given Zelensky? The desperate attempt by the BBC to deflect from this could be telling.

    Reply ↓
    1. bertl

      Pure CIA/MI6/SBU nonsense based on the assumption of poor Russian tradecraft – whilst seemingly being clever enough to undermine the West if we allow Russian media to ever penetrate our lead curtain. Oh, they are clever. They use Telegram to spread their evil propaganda. But we just have the BBC sprouting a Niagara of bullshit:

      “Our investigation has found the arson attack was just one part of an extensive campaign of sabotage, provocation and lies leading all the way to the Russian state.”

      “We have identified evidence suggesting…”.

      “In court, there were only a limited number of messages from EL, all of them sent to Lavrynovych and Carpiuc, which showed him writing in formal Russian and far less proficient Ukrainian. But we were able to uncover EL’s wider activities using open-source tools.

      “EL’s ideology and goals were plain.”

      And EL is obviously right up to the highest level of Russian incompetence. Or maybe the BBC’s reporting just out performs Russia’s lack of propagandising brilliance.

      Reply ↓
  8. TomDority

    Trump is blowing his chance to make peace in Ukraine Responsible Statecraft (resilc)
    “If the Trump administration is serious about ending the conflict in Ukraine, it will need to reboot its approach.”
    The old “If”…. how bout I speculate the implied answer to “IF” …
    “the Trump administration is” NOT “serious about ending the conflict in Ukraine” it never has been and the previous admin also going back to incremental Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton has been hankering for a tussle….I mean, ever since wall-street and the kleptocrats got slowed down in their plunder of that neck of the woods.
    Jeez…. If pigs fly

    Reply ↓
  11. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Yves.

    Further to the balkanisation of southern Africa link, I was in the western Cape for a few weeks soon after new year and was stunned by the increasing settlement of Germans, Dutch, Americans, Britons and Israelis. One could often hear, for want of a better description, their celebration that the Cape is Africa without Africans.

    It felt like secession is in the air and the government in Pretoria is not alive to the threat.

    One wonders what Thuto thinks.

    Reply ↓
    1. Aurelien

      Not Thuto, unfortunately, Colonel, though I think he’s from down that way.
      Cape Town and the Cape itself have always been different, and were different in the last days of apartheid when I went there for the first time. The racial mix is very complicated, and it was then, and as far as I know still is, heavily Coloured, Malay, white (English-speaking rather than Afrikaans, with relatively few black faces. This is history of course, as with the large Indian population in and around Durban. The Boers left the original Cape Colony to get away from the secular, liberal English-speaking settlers in the nineteenth century, and moved North and East, bumping into the Bantu tribes displaced from the North.

      Not just the city, but much of the area, feels more like Europe than Africa: Joburg is on a different planet by comparison. And when Cape Town became a favourite holiday destination, I used to tell people “you’ll like it, but don’t think you are in Africa.”

      Reply ↓
      1. Colonel Smithers

        Thank you, Aurelien.

        It’s still exactly as you describe.

        In addition to the AirBnB crowd, second homers and IT nomads, the above are driving up house prices.

        The area was settled by Dutch colonists vacating Mauritius. Stel was the first person in Mauritius. His father was governor. His mother from Madagascar.

        Reply ↓
      2. Ignacio

        Favourite holiday destination Cape Town?. With that awful weather? Eastwards to Durban and beyond the weather is much better and i believe i am not the only to think better holiday places. But yes it is true that there is a VIP white luxury enclave close to the harbour, though smallish it is.

        Reply ↓
  12. The Rev Kev

    “Humans nearly went extinct 930,000 years ago, researchers find”

    Not the last time that humans nearly went out as a species. But that 117,000 years gap was something else altogether. The authors say that the cause was likely environmental but that is an awful long status quo. I can only think that those few surviving humans had to expand the territory that they covered in order to find the resources that they needed to live. And at that, not all managed to survive.

    Reply ↓
    1. Wukchumni

      Timely sci-fi book tip from 1962….

      The Drowned World, by JG Ballard

      What a masterful writer he was!

      Reply ↓
    2. Alice X

      Not the last time that humans nearly went out as a species.

      Indeed.

      But that 117,000 years gap was something else altogether.

      Unfathomable!

      The authors say that the cause was likely environmental but that is an awful long status quo.

      I can only think that those few surviving humans had to expand the territory that they covered in order to find the resources that they needed to live. And at that, not all managed to survive.

      So much information to come to light, alas it is my faint hope that we will find so much evidence of the dispersion of our (from the piece) ancestral population in my humble lifetime.

      But from the timeline offered in the piece, our latest human cousins (from my intensely casual reading), dispersed thereafter; the Neanderthals, Denisovans, both from Africa, earlier and found far afield. And the Africans who stayed whose increased numbers also dispersed leading to what we see today, having displaced the earlier arrivals that far afield. The people of the world are all cousins.

      Reply ↓
  13. motorslug

    “A little noticed court decision in Delaware confirmed that corporations have the right to vote in that state. I wish this was a joke. But it’s not funny at all. Delaware corporations, however, won’t face the death penalty as Delaware abolished it more than a decade ago, so we won’t see a manifestation of one of the best signs at Occupy Wall Street: “I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.”
    https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/06/16/delaware-says-corporations-really-are-people/

    Rollerball World, here we come.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      The numbers are going to tell. I believe that there are over two million businesses registered in Delaware which also includes 66% of all Fortune 500 companies.

      Reply ↓
      1. motorslug

        Indeed….

        “So cozy are these that a two-story office building in Wilmington, the state’s biggest city, is the legal address of 285,000 companies!…Google, Apple, Walmart, American Airlines, J.P. Morgan Chase and Coca-Cola are among the corporations who use this building, the Corporation Trust Center at 1209 North Orange Street, as their legal address. These companies don’t actually do business at this location; it is essentially a mail drop-off point where lawsuits and legal documents are accepted. Interestingly, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have entities registered to them that are domiciled in the building.”

        Reply ↓
    2. scott s.

      Actually, if you read the opinion, ACLU, Inc v. Town of Fenwick Island it’s about an incorporated municipality (Fenwick Island) that allows property owners who are not residents to vote in municipal elections. A 2008 Charter amendment allows Delaware domestic entities, including but not limited to corporations, to vote as property owner. Apparently most of these entities are trusts. I’m not surprised as we hold all our real property in trusts.

      Reply ↓
  14. The Rev Kev

    “The UK Joins The Pirates”

    The UK, being an island nations, must have freedom of navigation at the heart of it’s foreign policy and this article states that. Instead, Starmer being influenced through his devotion to Israel and his hatred of Russia, is throwing that core tenant of British policy over the side, even though it is centuries old. This will not end well for the UK as this pirate action could very easily be turned against the UK itself with it’s need of merchant shipping. But by the time this happens, Starmer will be gone from the scene and will not have to deal with the consequences of his actions.

    Reply ↓
  16. curlydan

    Lake Mead is currently at 1,047 feet or 12 feet above the 1,035 foot generating dropoff. I’m not so convinced that it will fall to 1,035 this year. The lake is 2 feet above the previous low water mark at this time of year that occurred in 2022, but 2022 was dropping faster than 2026, and if you look at historical water levels (see https://mead.uslakes.info/Level/), the lake traditionally flattens out by mid-July and even bumps up a little. 2022 bottomed out at 1,041 feet. This year could be very different due to the much lower snowpack. It’s just a question of when under 1,035 feet will occur. Maybe a bit of luck this summer plus an El Nino winter surplus can fend it off for a few more years? A bad snow year in 2026-2027 would be disastrous.

    It seems almost certain that Lake Powell will set a significantly lower all-time low water level this coming winter or spring (https://powell.uslakes.info/Level/). It’s only 7.5 feet above the all-time low, and water levels generally keep dropping from about now until next April.

    Reply ↓
  17. JP

    Will the lights go out in Las Vegas? Then there is lake Havasu which is dammed by the Metropolitan Water District that supplies water to southern Calif. The dam generates the electricity to drive the water over the mountains to Los Angeles. No electricity, no water.

    Reply ↓
    1. curlydan

      And Lake Havasu is the primary water source for the Central Arizona Project that pushes water from there to Phoenix and Tucson

      Reply ↓
  18. Jason Boxman

    From What COVID is teaching doctors about the relationship between viruses and cancer

    Hang me

    What are reasonable precautions? Can we many elucidate them? Perhaps prevent some cancer deaths?

    The evidence to date suggests simply that the question is worthy of more study, researchers said. If there is any action people with vulnerable immune systems should take as a result, it’s to continue reasonable precautions against viral infections of all kinds.

    “There’s a very, very, very compelling reason for those patients who have chronic diseases to avoid getting a severe case of influenza or COVID or respiratory syncytial [virus] — all of these diseases for which good, safe, effective vaccines exist,” Moore said.

    Reply ↓
  19. timotheus

    Re Korybko on Ukraine biolabs, I dared to post an article about the report on an email list of mostly sane scientists and was almost run out of town. “Russian propaganda” and “Gabbard is Russian operative” were among the politest statements.

    And these are the people defending The Science (TM).

    We are doomed.

    Reply ↓
  21. AG

    re: Volkswagen crisis

    BERLINER ZEITUNG daily:

    Internal VW survey reveals: Six out of nine board members see Volkswagen in an existential crisis

    An anonymous survey within the Volkswagen Group paints a bleak picture. The company’s own top management considers the automaker’s situation to be dire. The majority are calling for a radical change in strategy.

    An internal survey reveals just how serious the situation at Volkswagen truly is. According to research by manager magazin, members of the company’s board of directors and supervisory board were anonymously asked about their assessment of the company. The survey was designed to measure the internal cohesion of top management.

    According to the business magazine, the results are clear: Six of the nine board members surveyed classified Volkswagen as facing an existential threat. Three others assessed the situation as tense. No one selected the “not critical” option, according to the report.

    Poor quarterly results exacerbate the situation

    There also appears to be agreement at the top regarding the future direction of the company: According to the report, all nine board members surveyed anonymously advocated for a radical change in strategy. The assessment of the business in China and North America, two key markets for the group, was particularly critical.

    This brutally honest self-assessment comes at an already difficult time for Europe’s largest automaker. The group’s brands recently presented weak quarterly figures, with profits plummeting by 28 percent in the first quarter.

    It is noteworthy that the critical assessment does not come from external consultants or industry analysts, but from within the company itself.

    Reply ↓

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