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OppArt January 23, 2026
Pyramids of Shoes Against Land Mines
Pyramids of Shoes Against Land Mines
In 2024, at least 6,279 people were killed or injured by explosive remnants of war. The “Pyramids of Shoes” awareness campaign is organized by Handicap International and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Paris, 2025.

Andrea Arroyo

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January 23, 2026

(Andrea Arroyo).

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Andrea Arroyo

Andrea Arroyo is co–art director of Opp-Art. She is an award-winning artist working in fine art, site-specific installation, public art and illustration. Her work is published widely (including in The New Yorker and The New York Times) and is exhibited internationally. She is the creator of “Unnatural Election: Artists Respond to the US Election.” Her 3-venue exhibition “Art as Solidarity” presented by The Hispanic Society Museum, The Morris-Jumel Mansion Museum and The United Palace in Manhattan is on view through July 31, 2022. Her new book: “ImagiNATIONS: Art As Solidarity” was published by NowWhat Media.

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Latest from the nation

Yesterday 12:23 pm
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editor's picks

VIDEO: People in Denmark Are a Lot Happier Than People in the United States. Here’s Why.

The Nation

Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy

Mychal Denzel Smith

National Park Service removes slavery exhibit in Philadelphia
Who benefits from this decision?

The National Park Service removed an exhibit at the President’s House Site at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, last week. The “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” exhibit focused on the nine slaves who lived at the location when President George Washington resided there from 1790 to 1797, when Philadelphia was the capital of the United States. Its removal was the result of President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

Issued in March 2025, Trump’s directive sought to remove all historical displays that featured a “false reconstruction of American history” and promoted “partisan ideology” that “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living.” 

“Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” read Trump’s directive. “This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”

“Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed,” read the executive order. “Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.”

The Philadelphia exhibit had been open since 2010. National Park Service employees dismantled the displays and removed the panels that provided historical analysis of the site on Thursday. Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration following the removal. She claimed there was a cooperative agreement signed by the city and the federal government that allegedly prohibited such changes without advanced notice.

“We are right now researching and reviewing the cooperative agreement between the City of Philadelphia and federal government that dates back to 2006,” said Parker. “It requires parties to meet and confer if there are any changes to be made to any exhibit, so anything that is outside that agreement, it requires that our Law Department …

Newslinks for Monday 26th January 2026
Trust is earned, not demanded.

Labour war as Starmer blocks Burnham bid to be MP

“Labour MPs are in open revolt against Sir Keir Starmer after he oversaw a “stitch-up” that blocked Andy Burnham from returning to Parliament. Loyalists on the ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) voted on Sunday to bar the Mayor of Greater Manchester from standing in an upcoming by-election, preventing him from becoming an MP and potentially challenging the Prime Minister’s leadership. Sir Keir’s allies claimed they did not want Mr Burnham to run for the Gorton and Denton seat because it would lead to a contest for the mayoralty that Reform could win. But the move unleashed a civil war as furious backbenchers demanded another about-turn from the Prime Minister. It was described as “completely outrageous”, “disgusting”, a “huge mistake” and “incredibly disappointing” by Labour MPs, many of whom went public with their anger. A letter circulating among backbenchers claimed that the decision amounted to a “remote stitch-up from a small group of people at the very top in London”. It is understood that Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister and a leading figure on the Left of the party, also considers the decision to be a mistake. Mr Burnham said he was disappointed and suggested the ban would harm Labour’s election chances. He also criticised the NEC for telling reporters the outcome before him, adding: “You would think that over 30 years of service would count for something but sadly not.” But while Mr Burnham himself appeared to accept the decision on Sunday night, supportive Labour MPs were plotting to force the Prime Minister to reconsider.” – Daily Telegraph

Labour MPs revolt after Andy Burnham is blocked from standing as MP – The Times

Starmer faces Labour civil war after blocking Burnham – as allies fear Streeting bid – The i

Lame duck Starmer has ‘only hastened his demise’ after he personally helped block Burnham’s return – Daily Mail

Embattled Starmer ‘led from front’ in blocking Burnham’s takeover plot giving 3 reasons to stop rival’s MP bid – The Sun

How Keir Starmer dashed Andy Burnham’s hopes of returning as an MP – The Times

Comment:

Keir Starmer can block Andy Burnham but can’t save his premiership – Patrick Maguire, The Times

The Labour Party is forcing the nation to live through its messy divorce – Tim Stanley, Daily Telegraph

By blocking Burnham, Starmer has made the biggest mistake of his premiership and sealed his fate. This is what will happen next… – Dan Hodges, Daily Mail

Blocking Andy Burnham betrays more weakness – Trevor Phillips, The Times

Labour can reverse its decision to block Andy Burnham. Here is why it must – Neal Lawson, The Guardian

All hapless, loathed Starmer has done by blocking Burnham’s by-election bid is to delay his day of execution – …

Our Reporting Showed Washington Ranks Last in Green Energy Growth. Now the State Is Working to Speed It Up.
Same show, different day.

Washington state has launched a sweeping effort to speed up construction of renewable energy projects, prompted by reporting from Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica that chronicled how the state came to rank dead last in the nation for renewable energy growth.

Washington’s Department of Commerce, which works on state energy policy, has offered up state employees to help the federal Bonneville Power Administration process its backlog of renewable energy projects — though it remains uncertain whether the agency will accept the offer. Bonneville, which owns 75% of the Northwest’s power grid, must sign off before wind and solar developers who wish to connect to its grid can break ground. 

Meanwhile, four state agencies have recommended that Washington’s Legislature provide incentives for utilities to upgrade transmission lines, plan out “microgrid” energy projects that don’t need to connect to Bonneville’s power lines and create a new state agency that would plan and potentially pay for major new transmission corridors. A bill to create such an authority had a hearing on Jan 21. 

The Commerce Department, Department of Ecology, Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council and Utilities and Transportation Commission are also meeting regularly to diagnose what’s holding up more than a dozen high-priority wind, solar and energy storage projects that could make an outsize difference. 

Joe Nguyễn, who recently stepped down as the state’s commerce director, said there’s added urgency to get the work done since OPB and ProPublica last year showed that other states like Iowa and Texas have made far more progress than Washington.

“We’re forcing these tough conversations that have never been done before,” Nguyễn, a former state senator who helped pass Washington’s law setting a deadline to go carbon-free, said during a recent public forum. He spoke at the panel just before leaving the state Commerce Department in January to take a job as head of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce. 

“We probably have to modify some policies, we’re going to amend some things, we have to make strategic investments, but I think that’s a good thing,” Nguyễn said at the forum. “I’m not daunted by the task.”

Under Bonneville, projects face longer odds of successfully connecting to the electrical grid than anywhere else in the country, OPB and ProPublica found.

The federal agency weighs how many new transmission lines and substations will be needed to carry the added load, and it has historically been slow to pay for such upgrades, renewable energy advocates have said. Often the burden falls on the builders of the wind and solar projects.

Washington and Oregon lawmakers failed to account for this obstacle when they required electric utilities to phase out fossil fuels. Combined with rapid growth in electricity demand from new data centers powering artificial intelligence, studies now predict rolling blackouts in the Pacific Northwest within the next five years.

Inspired by OPB and ProPublica’s reporting, the Seattle nonprofit Clean & Prosperous published a report this month identifying energy high-potential projects that could generate enough power for 7 million homes and …

Government by AI? Trump Administration Plans to Write Regulations Using Artificial Intelligence
Nobody voted for this.

The Trump administration is planning to use artificial intelligence to write federal transportation regulations, according to U.S. Department of Transportation records and interviews with six agency staffers.

The plan was presented to DOT staff last month at a demonstration of AI’s “potential to revolutionize the way we draft rulemakings,” agency attorney Daniel Cohen wrote to colleagues. The demonstration, Cohen wrote, would showcase “exciting new AI tools available to DOT rule writers to help us do our job better and faster.”

Discussion of the plan continued among agency leadership last week, according to meeting notes reviewed by ProPublica. Gregory Zerzan, the agency’s general counsel, said at that meeting that President Donald Trump is “very excited about this initiative.” Zerzan seemed to suggest that the DOT was at the vanguard of a broader federal effort, calling the department the “point of the spear” and “the first agency that is fully enabled to use AI to draft rules.”

Zerzan appeared interested mainly in the quantity of regulations that AI could produce, not their quality. “We don’t need the perfect rule on XYZ. We don’t even need a very good rule on XYZ,” he said, according to the meeting notes. “We want good enough.” Zerzan added, “We’re flooding the zone.” 

These developments have alarmed some at DOT. The agency’s rules touch virtually every facet of transportation safety, including regulations that keep airplanes in the sky, prevent gas pipelines from exploding and stop freight trains carrying toxic chemicals from skidding off the rails. Why, some staffers wondered, would the federal government outsource the writing of such critical standards to a nascent technology notorious for making mistakes?

The answer from the plan’s boosters is simple: speed. Writing and revising complex federal regulations can take months, sometimes years. But, with DOT’s version of Google Gemini, employees could generate a proposed rule in a matter of minutes or even seconds, two DOT staffers who attended the December demonstration remembered the presenter saying. In any case, most of what goes into the preambles of DOT regulatory documents is just “word salad,” one staffer recalled the presenter saying. Google Gemini can do word salad.

Zerzan reiterated the ambition to accelerate rulemaking with AI at the meeting last week. The goal is to dramatically compress the timeline in which transportation regulations are produced, such that they could go from idea to complete draft ready for review by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in just 30 days, he said. That should be possible, he said, because “it shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes to get a draft rule out of Gemini.”

The DOT plan, which has not previously been reported, represents a new front in the Trump administration’s campaign to incorporate artificial intelligence into the work of the federal government. This administration is not the first to use AI; federal agencies have been gradually stitching the technology into their work for years, including to translate documents, analyze data and categorize public comments, among other uses. But the current administration has …

House races in 2026 see big competition with double-digit candidate fields
Trust is earned, not demanded.

Certain House races in 2026 are seeing larger-than-normal fields, with the number of candidates in primary and special elections climbing into the double digits.

The races, from Georgia to Arizona to New York, are drawing massive candidate interest after incumbents in those congressional districts left for a variety of reasons.

This year’s election cycle is important because it will determine whether Republicans maintain control of the House for another two years. The House GOP’s majority is already razor-thin as a result of retirements and deaths.

As the next election cycle heats up, here are some of the most crowded congressional races in 2026.

Georgia’s 14th Congressional District

Leading this year’s House races with the most candidates is the special election for the Georgia congressional district once held by former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The vacant seat left after her early resignation has attracted 22 candidates, an unusually high number for a House special election. Seventeen Republicans, three Democrats, one libertarian, and one independent all filed to run for Greene’s seat by the qualification deadline last week.

Among the most notable candidates on the Republican side are Georgia state Sen. Colton Moore and Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Clayton Fuller. Moore is known for his strong conservative activism and his public support of President Donald Trump. Fuller benefits from having already run for the 2020 GOP primary in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, which Greene won.

In the less crowded Democratic field, Shawn Harris is arguably the most prominent contender. He ran against Greene in the 2024 general election and won nearly 36% of the vote, roughly 29 points less than the Republican incumbent.

The victor will likely be a Republican, considering the district is one of the most right-leaning in the state.

The special election date is marked for March 10. All 22 candidates will run on one ballot. If none win over 50% of the vote, the two frontrunners will compete in a runoff election on April 7.

Greene said she will not endorse any candidate to take her place “out of respect to my district.”

After the special election, the seat will be up for grabs again in the 2026 general election. Whoever wins the special election will serve the remainder of Greene’s term.

Texas’s 21st Congressional District

Among Texas‘s most high-profile congressional races this year is the congressional district …

Calum Davies: Wales is now more likely to wear Plaid than teal – but certainly not red
How is this acceptable?

Calum Davies is a Conservative councillor in Cardiff and a candidate for the Senedd next year.

It is becoming increasingly clear that 2026 is going to be Plaid Cymru’s year.

It remains to be seen whether they or Reform will take the largest share of the vote in May’s Senedd election, but the separatists can approach the poll in full knowledge that they are certain to come first or a close second unless something significant shifts the public mood dramatically.

Of course, this is of great concern to right-leaning unionists. We are soon to see a hard-left, Welsh nationalist party achieve its highest-ever share of the vote and seats in Cardiff Bay. Regardless of whether Plaid or Reform come first, the prospect of a government led by the former is becoming a practical certainty.

The new Senedd electoral system was brought in as part of an undemocratic, mandate-less bargain between a partisan Presiding Officer (who will likely be a Plaid minister in six months’ time) and the nationalistic, then-First Minister Mark Drakeford. The former Welsh Labour leader wanted to commit Wales to a perma-coalition of the two leftist parties, cementing a British-sceptic majority in the Senedd for decades to come. Only, at the time, Labour thought they’d always be running the show.

However, a year and a half of incompetence and directionless government under Sir Keir Starmer and the sudden rise of Reform has meant coming first in the Senedd election is no longer a guarantee for Labour. A YouGov poll in December but their support at little over 10 per cent, the same as the Welsh Conservatives – the opposite of a highwater mark for us too.

So not only is Labour’s downfall a result of its collusion with nationalists, but the driver behind Plaid’s growth in support too. For years, we were told that Labour was playing a brilliant game by “parking their tanks on Plaid Cymru’s lawn” by engaging in a detached and, at times, unashamedly confrontational approach with the British state. This was portrayed as genius political strategy that ensured Labour dominance in Wales.

Doing this helped Labour in the short-term but was a time-bomb for both their party and Unionism. Labour’s support is collapsing because they spent 14 years saying the only reason everything is going terribly – from the worst-performing NHS in Britain, the lowest school standards in the UK, and no improvement in relative economic performance – is because of the Tories. This is despite health, education, and economic development all being devolved.

With no Conservative government left to blame, they’ve been exposed. Meanwhile, Labour has abandoned all pretence of British national feeling, with Drakeford enthusiastically describing his loyalty to this country as purely transactional, which is probably worse …

r/SupremeCourt Weekly "In Chambers" Discussion 01/26/26
This looks less like justice and more like strategy.

Hey all!
In an effort to consolidate discussion and increase awareness of our weekly threads, we are trialing this new thread which will be stickied and refreshed every Monday @ 6AM Eastern.
This will replace and combine the 'Ask Anything Monday' and 'Lower Court Development Wednesday' threads. As such, this weekly thread is intended to provide a space for:
General questions: (e.g. "Where can I find Supreme Court briefs?", "What does [X] mean?").

Discussion starters requiring minimal input from OP: (e.g. "Predictions?", "What do people think about [X]?")

U.S. District and State Court rulings involving a federal question that may be of future relevance to the Supreme Court.

TL;DR: This is a catch-all thread for legal discussion that may not warrant its own thread.
Our other rules apply as always. Incivility and polarized rhetoric are never permitted. This thread is not intended for political or off-topic discussion.

World Health Organization says US withdrawal makes the nation and the world 'less safe'
What's the administration thinking here?

The World Health Organization on Saturday warned that America's withdrawal from the agency will make the country and the world "less safe."
The globalist body said in part of a January 24 statement that it "regrets the United States’ notification of withdrawal from WHO – a decision that makes both the United States and the world less safe." 
"We hope that in the future, the United States will return to active participation in WHO," the statement noted.
US FORMALLY EXITS WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, LOCKING IN TRUMP'S BREAK FROM GLOBAL HEALTH BODY
The U.S. announced its withdrawal from the WHO last week, after President Donald Trump got the ball rolling on his first day back in office last year.
"Today, the United States withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO), freeing itself from its constraints, as President Trump promised on his first day in office by signing E.O. 14155," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in part of a January 22, 2026, joint statement.
UN CHIEF ACCUSES US OF DITCHING INTERNATIONAL LAW AS TRUMP BLASTS GLOBAL BODIES
"Going forward, U.S. engagement with the WHO will be limited strictly to effectuate our withdrawal and to safeguard the health and safety of the American people. All U.S. funding for, and staffing of, WHO initiatives has ceased," their statement said.
They claimed the WHO "pursued a politicized, bureaucratic agenda driven by nations hostile to American interests." But the WHO pushed back.
TRUMP FLOATS ‘BOARD OF PEACE’ TO REPLACE UN, SIGNALS MAJOR GLOBAL POWER SHIFT
"This is untrue. As a specialized agency of the United Nations, governed by 194 Member States, WHO has always been and remains impartial and exists to serve all countries, with respect for their sovereignty, and without fear or favor," the WHO said in its statement.

60 CEOs in Minnesota call for ‘immediate, deescalation of tensions’
This affects the entire country.

Amid the civil unrest due to anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 60 chief executive officers wrote a letter calling for the lowering of tensions in the city, along with pleas and hopes of returning to normalcy. The business leaders have called for cooperative efforts between Mayor Jacob Frey, Governor Tim Walz, and Trump administration officials in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by a Border Patrol agent on Saturday.

The letter was published by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce and signed by the CEOs of companies and organizations such as Target, UnitedHealth Group, U.S. Bancorp, Minnesota’s professional sports teams, the Mayo Clinic, and Land O’Lakes, among others. 

“The business community in Minnesota prides itself in providing leadership and solving problems to ensure a strong and vibrant state,” read the letter. “The recent challenges facing our state have created widespread disruption and tragic loss of life. For the past several weeks, representatives of Minnesota’s business community have been working every day behind the scenes with federal, state, and local officials to advance real solutions.” 

“These efforts have included close communication with the Governor, the White House, the Vice President, and local mayors,” the CEOs wrote. “There are ways for us to come together to foster progress.”

The CEOs encouraged all parties to work together to find “real solutions” in the aftermath of the shooting. They each called for peace and expressed their desire to “build a bright and prosperous future.”

“With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling for an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local, and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” read the letter. 

SCHIFF SAYS HE’S NOT GIVING ICE OR BORDER PATROL ‘ANOTHER DIME’ AFTER PRETTI SHOOTING

“In this difficult moment for our community, we call for peace and focused cooperation among local, state, and federal leaders to achieve a swift and durable solution that enables families, businesses, our employees, and communities across Minnesota to resume our work to build a bright and prosperous future,” noted the CEOs. 

Pretti was killed on Saturday during a confrontation with Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis who were conducting illegal immigration enforcement operations. He is the third person to be shot in Minneapolis this month by federal law enforcement officers during such an activity. Renee Good, a …