1. Contrary to the lies of capitalist politicians and the corporate media, the Covid-19 pandemic is not over. What does that mean with Trump returning to the US presidency?

2. Upholding a planned ban on TikTok: ahead of Donald Trump's return to the White House, the right-wing US Supreme Court has attacked the First Amendment of the Constitution with sweeping implications

3. She sent National Guard troops to Mexico's border, but would not send them to help flood victims in her own state: South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem applies for the job of heading the US Department of Homeland Security

4. Eager to embrace the second Trump administration after the Biden administration failed to oust Venezuela's President Maduro, different factions of the US ruling class are approaching a consensus to employ further economic devastation and potential military force to oust Maduro and secure control over the world’s largest oil reserves

5. NATO powers get ever closer to a position of outright war with Russia: using recent damage to undersea cables allegedly caused by a "shadow fleet" of embargo-skirting Russian freighters as a pretext, NATO initiates operation "Baltic Sentry" to strengthen its military presence in the Baltic Sea

6. Not unlike the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the Lahaina fire on Maui, the victims of the Palisades and Eaton fires have largely been left to fend for themselves as insurance companies and FEMA have placed bureaucratic barriers between them and financial aid

7. Fierce storms batter large swathes of Australia’s east

8. Germans wonder: where will Germany fit in with incoming US President Trump's "Make America Great Again" agenda?

9. Recommended: The lives of three working-class women at a Mumbai hospital during the monsoon season are explored in a dramatic feature from India, All We Imagine as Light

10. Recently released data from China documenting the country reaching its targeted economic goals engenders widespread skepticism

11. Taxi drivers in cities across Russia struck this week in protest over low earnings

12. Despite the incoming US Trump administration's flagging interest in spending more on Ukraine in its stalemated war with Russia, the UK prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, visits Ukraine to double down on Britain's support

13.  Documented in a new report: decades of neglect and paltry investment in education have left UK school buildings in a desperate state

14. More evidence surfaces of war crimes committed by UK special forces in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria between 2010 and 2013

15. The election statement of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP), the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International

16. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!