Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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What caused the ecological disaster in Ohio?
A week after the derailment of a train carrying toxic materials, locals still complain of nausea, headaches and a strong chemical odour in the air — cost-cutting corporate greed is to blame for the catastrophe, writes MARK GRUENBERG
APOCALYPTIC: A toxic black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, Monday February 6
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
A FIERY freight train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, involving hazardous materials in tank cars, was a direct result of Norfolk Southern Railway’s cost-cutting which led to little maintenance and an undiscovered safety problem, the top organisation for rank-and-file railroaders says. And corporate greed to satisfy Wall Street led to the cuts, it adds.
The wreck could have been worse, Railroad Workers United (RWU) added, had the 9,300-foot-long train not had a three-worker crew, rather than the single worker — the engineer — the nation’s big Class One freight railroads, including Norfolk Southern, have advocated for years.
The three crew members decoupled the locomotives and moved them to safety, preventing an even bigger disaster if the fire reached them. One crew member could not have done so.
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WILL PODMORE welcomes a demonstration of the incomparable virtues of rail travel, and the political obstacles to realising its potential