Intro

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• In the worst-case climate scenarios from unchecked greenhouse gas emissions (high-emission pathways like SSP5-8.5), global temperatures could rise 4–5°C or more by 2100 or beyond. This unleashes catastrophic threats: widespread ecosystem collapse, including near-total loss of coral reefs and Amazon dieback into savanna; irreversible multi-meter sea-level rise from melting ice sheets, flooding coastal cities and displacing hundreds of millions; intensified extreme weather—deadly heatwaves, mega-droughts, super-storms, and wildfires—causing mass crop failures, famine risks, and water wars. President Trump announces he is erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet. The action is a key step in removing limits on carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases that scientists say are supercharging heat waves, droughts, wildfires and other extreme weather.

• There’s no deal to fund the Department of Homeland Security — so a partial government shutdown starts today. Who will make you take off your shoes at the airport?

• The Bangladesh Nationalist Party has claimed victory in the country’s first election since the 2024 uprising. The BNP is headed by 60-year-old Tarique Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years in self-exile in London. He is the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who died in December.

• South Korea's spy agency says Kim Jong Un's teenage daughter, Kim Ju

Ae, is close to being designated as North Korea's future leader.

• Gallup will stop tracking presidential approval ratings after 88 years. Trump's last Gallup approval rating, in December, was 36%. Why the drastic decision?

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