1. Perspective by Joseph Kishore:  The goal of the Trump administration's blatantly illegal and unconstitutional access to Americans' private financial information is to create an all-encompassing AI-driven database that can be used to track, monitor and suppress political opposition

2.  US retailers are expected to close 15,000 stores this year, more than double the 7,325 shuttered in 2024 and breaking a record set in 2020 at the height of the pandemic

3. US President Donald Trump demands concessions from the Ukrainians of the kind usually imposed on defeated enemy states

4. Israel's defense minister orders the creation of a directorate to oversee the implementation of the plan announced by US President Donald Trump to ethnically cleanse Gaza

5.  52 people were detained on “terror” charges Tuesday morning in house raids in 10 cities across Turkey

6. The repulsive spectacle of Germany’s federal election

7. Jacobin magazine, associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, publishes a politically backward and reactionary article titled “The Case for Social Drinking”

8. A government and media blackout of critical public health information and declining vaccine rates are hiding rising flu-associated mortality rates in the US

9. A surprising Brookings Institution economic report describes how excessive reliance on Treasury bonds as collateral for short-term loans can spark a major US and global financial crisis

Here is a direct link to the report

10. A premature cancellation by the UFCW of a two-week strike of Kroger-affiliated King Soopers grocery workers in Colorado reeks of betrayal

11. A quid pro quo agreement between US President Trump and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, to get help targeting immigrants for deportation in return for a presidential pardon from crimes, creates a stir in the Democratic Party

12. A small interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank of Australia is unlikely to help the country's millions of financially stressed working-class households

13. "Heroes treated like zeroes"  -- overworked and underpaid Pennsylvania nurses go on strike

14. Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site listen to workers in San Jose, California and Brooklyn, New York who demonstrated this week against the US Trump administration's mass firings of federal employees

15. More than 3,500 artists and other creative workers sign a petition calling for the reinstatement of two artists-- who the Australian government-affiliated Creative Australia cancelled from attending next year's prestigious Venice Biennale

16. Infuriating New Zealand's foreign minister, the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands signs a cooperative agreement with China after a state visit

17. Anti-democratic: the Australian Electoral Commission denies official inclusion of the Socialist Equality Party to stand candidates in federal elections

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

19. San Francisco, California city legal resources for immigrants needing help