[…] Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is the latest Republican to join President Donald Trump in stumping for a regime change in Cuba.
Appearing on “Fox & Friends” Friday, Cruz called it “the most promising time of our lifetimes,” and suggested that wealthy Cuban Americans would jump for a chance to transform their nation into “an island paradise.” [video]
Cruz’s remarks come days after Trump himself told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he believes “Cuba is ready to fall,” which was met with a salivating response from GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida..
Similarly, GOP Rep. Carlos Gimenez of Florida, a Cuban exile, gleefully shared a perverse illustration of Cuba plastered with corporate branding.
“When the inevitable happens in #Cuba & the narcoterrorist dictatorship is no more, there won’t be a company that won’t want to invest in the stunning, beautiful island of my birth,” he wrote. [image at the link]
[…]
Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with a new hypersonic ballistic missile, only its second use of an advanced weapon it says can travel up to 10 times the speed of sound and is unstoppable by air defenses.
This is occurring only days after Trump assured everyone that Putin is interested in peace.
whheydtsays
Re: Lynna, OM @ #2…
On that last bit, it is–perhaps–worth noting that Ted Cruz was born in Canada, not Cuba. His father was born in Cuba.
The United States seized an oil tanker in the Caribbean overnight as the White House seeks to assert control over Venezuelan oil.
The oil tanker Olina was seized after the U.S. Coast Guard and Marines from Joint Task Force Southern Spear boarded and ‘apprehended’ the vessel just before dawn on Friday, the U.S. military’s Southern Command confirmed in a statement.
[…] The seizure of the Olina marks the fifth known capture of a vessel linked to Venezuela by U.S. forces in recent weeks.
It comes days after the military seized the Russian-flagged Bella 1 in the North Atlantic, a tanker it had been chasing for weeks over allegations that it was in violation of U.S. sanctions.
U.S. Southern Command announced the seizure of another oil tanker, the Sophia, in international waters near the Caribbean early Wednesday. The military said the Coast Guard was escorting the ship to the U.S.[…]
Five states controlled by Democrats sued the Trump administration on Thursday for freezing $10 billion in funding for child care subsidies, social services and cash support for low-income families, asking a federal judge to declare the pause illegal and restore the money. […]
See also: Comment 474 in the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread:
Fresh off the Trump administration’s failed attempt to indict her on mortgage fraud allegations, New York Attorney General Letitia James is back in court—but this time, she’s suing the White House. […] seeking to block the Trump administration from freezing roughly $10 billion in federal funding for social assistance and child care programs.
In other news, as reported by The Washington Post:
Visitors traveling to the most popular national parks are facing a new question at the gate: Are you a United States resident? That question is already causing longer wait times to enter parks and is leading some foreign tourists to turn away at the gates.
President Donald Trump’s plan to stage an Ultimate Fighting Championship match for his 80th birthday has reportedly triggered a ripple effect few world leaders could have anticipated.
According to Politico, the president’s proposal to turn the White House lawn into a UFC arena on June 14 has prompted a calendar reshuffle: France has now adjusted plans for this year’s G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains after the starting date was set to overlap with Trump’s proposed mixed martial arts spectacle.
“This is an actual headline not a joke,” former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger wrote on X, reacting to Politico’s headline about the situation: “France delays G7 to avoid clash with White House cage fighting on Trump’s birthday.”
French President Emmanuel Macron announced last June that the 2026 G7, which brings together leaders known as the Group of Seven from the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the European Union, would run from June 14-16.
But just weeks later, Trump publicly floated the idea of staging a “big UFC fight” as part of America250, a slate of events marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The proposed G7 date—June 14, which is also Trump’s birthday and Flag Day—was the same day Trump and UFC CEO Dana White had targeted for the event. The world leader summit was later pushed back by a day. […]
“The state has confirmed 99 new cases since Tuesday. Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio and Utah are also reporting cases.”
The number of reported measles cases in South Carolina is skyrocketing — and spilling into other states.
On Friday, the South Carolina Department of Public Health said it’s confirmed 99 new cases of the disease since Tuesday, bringing the state’s total number of cases to 310.
Another 200 people who’ve been exposed to the virus — the most contagious known on the planet — are in quarantine. The outbreak is centered in the northwest part of the state, Spartanburg County.
[…] On Tuesday, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services announced three children, siblings living in Buncombe County, were diagnosed with measles after visiting Spartanburg.
On Thursday, Washington’s Snohomish County Health Department said three people visiting the area from South Carolina over the holidays have since been diagnosed with measles. […]
“The family visited multiple locations” near Seattle while contagious, the department said, including a McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, church and trampoline park.
Elsewhere, an ongoing outbreak centered along the border of Arizona and Utah has reached 390 cases — 214 in Arizona and 176 in Utah. […]
Last year, the U.S. had 2,144 measles cases — the highest number since 1991. The majority, 93%, were either unvaccinated or had an unknown vaccine status.
It was only the second time Russia has fired the Oreshnik at Ukraine, and came amid a night of air attacks that Ukrainian authorities said also killed four people in Kyiv, knocked out power in the capital and damaged the Qatari embassy there.
The Oreshnik is supposed to be a multiple warhead nuclear missile system and isn’t accurate enough to be effective with conventional warheads. The one that hit Ukraine appears to have only been loaded with dummy warheads. In any case it was clearly meant as a threat, not an active weapon. The Oreshnik is a big expensive way to deliver a small amount of inaccurate warheads if loaded with conventional warheads.
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @3:
This is occurring only days after Trump assured everyone that Putin is interested in peace.
Because, as everyone knows, The Orange Turd knows everything about peace since he is The Peace President. You know, the one who is bombing countries all over the world, trying to seize the assets of sovereign countries, pissing off all of our allies, and killing peaceful protesters in his own country.
Not for everyone! Especially the fetish of episode 6.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@16: I see. Familiar slapdash implementation.
X users were previously able to ask Grok—by tagging @grok in a tweet—to edit or create images on the platform. Users now attempting this are met with an automated response […] “Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers.” […] Interacting with Grok through replies on X is just one of several ways to use the AI chatbot. […] These remain readily available to free users
NASA will return four astronauts to Earth early from the International Space Station due to a medical concern with one of the Crew-11 astronauts. Here’s the latest news.
Plus another sepaarate article now giving the date :
We now know when the first medical evacuation in the history of the International Space Station will take place.
On Friday night (Jan. 9), NASA announced that it’s targeting Wednesday (Jan. 14) for the earlier-than-expected departure of SpaceX’s four-person Crew-11 mission from the orbiting lab.
Crew-11’s Crew Dragon capsule will leave the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT) and splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at around 3:40 a.m. EST (0840 GMT) on Thursday (Jan. 15). This schedule is contingent, however, on good weather in the splashdown zone.
The mission transported four crew members – NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Michael Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov – to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission launched on August 1, 2025 and docked with the ISS the next day. On January 8, 2026, NASA announced that the mission would end early due to an undisclosed “medical situation” involving a crew member.
Morbid thought occurs that no doubt NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin etc .. will have contingency plans for astronauts dying aboard the ISS and during lift-offs, landings and spacewalks..
Can you guys do something about removing this evil klown & his puppetmasters before we’re – and you’re – in WWIII please!
StevoRsays
Palestinian Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah has asked for an apology and “accountability” after she was axed from Adelaide Writers’ Week, as dozens of authors cancel their appearances at the event.
But SA Premier Peter Malinauskas has backed the board’s decision, on Friday morning telling ABC Radio Adelaide that Abdel-Fattah has “advocated in writing explicitly against the cultural safety of those who believe in Zionism”.
On Thursday, the Adelaide Festival Board released a statement in which it said it was not suggesting Abdel-Fattah or her writing has any connection to the Bondi attack, but based on her past statements, it would “not be culturally sensitive” to go ahead with her appearance at the festival, scheduled to begin on February 28. The author, lawyer and activist was due to talk about her new novel Discipline.
Since the announcement, dozens of authors have cancelled their appearances in support of Abdel-Fattah.
Speech by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei: Iran is a unified nation and there are only “pockets of rioters”. [Photo of several burning cars]
More on the “pockets of rioters” from Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani: “They attacked hospitals and 2 medical centres, 26 banks, 25 mosques, Basij bases, and law-enforcement facilities…”
Security forces have opened fire on a protest march by the Baloch people after Friday prayers in Zahedan. Iranian opposition journalist Ilia Hashemi believes more than 400 people were killed by regime forces during the communications blackout overnight.[*]
[…]
Communications blackout ongoing.
* Mark Chadbourn: “an opposition journalist who visited hospitals and estimated 400+ murders. It’s hard to get reliable estimates because the regime has banned every organisation that might be able to do it.”
Following last night’s regime violence, the crowds on Iran’s streets are said to be even larger tonight. Push hard and people push back. Protesters have set fire to a government building in Karaj. Tehran’s main highways are fully blocked by protesters. […] Banks have been set on fire in Shiraz.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council says the country is at war. It called protesters a quasi-terrorist group seeking weapons and attempting to spark a civil war. […] More than 2500 citizens have been arrested in Iran during the protests
on Thursday night, the regime responded in many places by opening fire. A Tehran doctor told TIME on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital had recorded at least 217 protester deaths, “most by live ammunition.” […] presaged by the regime’s near-total shutdown of the nation’s Internet and phone connections since Thursday night.
[…]
The demonstrations, which now span all 31 provinces […] have been largely peaceful, with chants of “Freedom” and “Death to the Dictator,” some government buildings have been vandalized.
[…]
“There is a lot of disagreement now among security forces” over whether a massive crackdown will restore order or further inflame public anger […] unlike […] protests that swept across Iran in 2022, the current demonstrations were launched by bazaar merchants and spread to working-class communities—groups the authorities are wary of alienating […] The elected President, Masoud Pezeshkian, has taken a conciliatory line in public, but his cabinet favors a crackdown, two cabinet members said on condition of anonymity.
[…]
While observers saw few significant signs of defection at the leadership level, they said every round of protests sees more rank-and-file police and members of the Basij (a volunteer militia of regime loyalists) refusing to take part in a crackdown.
For the convenience of readers, here are some links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-1/#comment-2289179
Trump succeeds in uniting our traditional allies — against the United States
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-1/#comment-2289175
New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani put aside their differences and got together to announce the launch of the 2-Care program, which will make child care free for two-year-olds across the city
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-1/#comment-2289169
The Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial today applied for a national banking license.[…] They plan to put the money raised from their seizure of Venezuelan oil into […] “off-shore’ accounts.”
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-1/#comment-2289164
ICE agent who reportedly shot Renee Good was a firearms trainer
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-1/#comment-2289163
X didn’t fix Grok’s ‘undressing’ problem. It just makes people pay for it.
Infamous vacationer Ted Cruz wants Cuba to be his ‘island paradise’
NBC News:
This is occurring only days after Trump assured everyone that Putin is interested in peace.
Re: Lynna, OM @ #2…
On that last bit, it is–perhaps–worth noting that Ted Cruz was born in Canada, not Cuba. His father was born in Cuba.
MS NOW:
New York Times:
See also: Comment 474 in the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread:
Thanks, whheydt, in comment 4 for that reminder.
In other news, as reported by The Washington Post:
G7 summit delayed so Trump can watch men wrestle at the White House
South Carolina measles outbreak surges past 300 cases
“The state has confirmed 99 new cases since Tuesday. Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio and Utah are also reporting cases.”
@3 Lynna, OM
Reuters: Russia fires hypersonic missile at target in Ukraine near NATO border
The Oreshnik is supposed to be a multiple warhead nuclear missile system and isn’t accurate enough to be effective with conventional warheads. The one that hit Ukraine appears to have only been loaded with dummy warheads. In any case it was clearly meant as a threat, not an active weapon. The Oreshnik is a big expensive way to deliver a small amount of inaccurate warheads if loaded with conventional warheads.
re Lynna @3:
Because, as everyone knows, The Orange Turd knows everything about peace since he is The Peace President. You know, the one who is bombing countries all over the world, trying to seize the assets of sovereign countries, pissing off all of our allies, and killing peaceful protesters in his own country.
Owen Jones 45 mins long interview clip Is Iran’s Regime About To Fall – And What About Trump, Israel? – w/. Sina Toossi – here.
7 Sci-Fi Movies Adapted from Stanislaw Lem
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=J4nbHpd32AU
The Russian military is not the first to suffer from bad quality of equipment.
“British Radar Teams Opened the Hohentwiel U-boat Radar — and Learned Why It Was A ‘Phantom Eye’ ”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=iqgqaLsCT1Y
JD Vance says the assassination was really awesome
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=hZU2pp68K2I
@ 1 Lynna, OM
This claim is false.
https://www.theverge.com/news/859309/grok-undressing-limit-access-gaslighting
(I don’t mean they fixed it, I mean CASM is still freely available.)
Gushing Over Magical Girls REVIEW
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=LsW3rKtSeTk
Not for everyone! Especially the fetish of episode 6.
@16: I see. Familiar slapdash implementation.
Most Alzheimer’s cases linked to variants in a single gene
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-alzheimer-cases-linked-variants-gene.html
@ 違う
いい日を過ごせ、息子よ。大人は話している
Scott manley on some rather dramatic and unfortunate ISS news NASA Astronaut Medical Emergency – What We Know – 40 mins long.
Silentbob @20: Now you’re addressing, and still misgendering, someone who hasn’t even commented in this thread.
Context for 20, 22.
[one-off]
Been going on for literally years.
Here’s mid-stage context: https://proxy.freethought.online/singham/2023/09/07/that-israel-is-an-apartheid-state-has-become-undeniable/#comment-5239136
(It goes back more)
Space dot com has a live updates news thing for the crew 11 medical emergency return story noted in #21 here :
https://www.space.com/news/live/astronaut-medical-evacuation-on-iss-jan-9-2026
Plus another sepaarate article now giving the date :
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/international-space-station/nasa-will-evacuate-spacex-crew-11-astronauts-from-international-space-station-on-jan-14
Oh and from theCrew 11 wikipage :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Crew-11
Morbid thought occurs that no doubt NASA, SpaceX, Blue Origin etc .. will have contingency plans for astronauts dying aboard the ISS and during lift-offs, landings and spacewalks..
TYT (yeah, they have some issues I know but..) Trump Promises Land STRIKES In MEXICO! (11 mins long.)
Attacking Mexico!? Wow.
Can you guys do something about removing this evil klown & his puppetmasters before we’re – and you’re – in WWIII please!
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-09/sa-palestinian-author-calls-for-apology-over-writers-week-axing/106212878
Ongoing Iran protests since yesterday.
Mark Chadbourn (Journalist):
* Mark Chadbourn: “an opposition journalist who visited hospitals and estimated 400+ murders. It’s hard to get reliable estimates because the regime has banned every organisation that might be able to do it.”
Mark Chadbourn:
Time – Doctor says more than 200 reported dead in Tehran