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The controversial immigration detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” could soon shut down — a dramatic reversal following months of resistance led by the Miccosukee Tribe, Native advocates, and environmental groups who warned the facility never should have been built on Indigenous homelands in the Florida Everglades.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis acknowledged this week that state officials are discussing closing the detention center, saying the site was always meant to be temporary. The announcement comes amid mounting scrutiny over soaring operational costs, environmental concerns, and lawsuits challenging the legality of the project.

For tribal leaders, the possible closure represents a rare and hard-fought victory against a project they say desecrated sacred lands and ignored tribal sovereignty from the beginning.

In previous reporting by Native News Online, Miccosukee leaders condemned the detention center’s construction near traditional villages and ceremonial areas deep within the Everglades ecosystem. Tribal officials argued the state moved forward without meaningful consultation while threatening lands Indigenous peoples have protected for generations.

Miccosukee Chairman Talbert Cypress warned the project endangered areas “sacred to our people,” vowing the Tribe would continue defending its homelands, culture, and way of life.

Snip:

The Israeli army's chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, has recommended General Barak Hiram for the post of military secretary to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ynet reported on 7 May.

Hiram is a controversial candidate due to his actions on 7 October 2023, when he ordered tanks to open fire on a house in Kibbutz Beeri where Hamas fighters were holding Israeli captives.

The attack killed 13 of the 15 Israeli civilians inside the house, including 12-year-old Liel Hetzroni and her brother Yanai.

Yasmin Porat, one of the two Israelis who survived the incident, stayed with Liel and the other captives for several hours in the house. She states they were guarded by the Palestinian fighters who treated them "humanely" and whose “objective was to kidnap us to Gaza. Not to murder us.”

Brazil is the world’s largest exporter of soybeans and China is by far its biggest buyer.

As demand from Chinese markets continues to grow, Brazil’s farmers and ports are adapting to keep up, but also keeping an eye on global geopolitics, as tensions between China and the United States could impact their business.

American Soy Farmers:

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8461878

China is the world's largest importer of crude oil, with energy supply chains that run through countries under heavy sanctions by Western governments.

This year, military actions in Venezuela and in the Persian Gulf were believed to shut off China's supplies of discounted crude, and that shortages would result in China, with lower prices in North America.

But the opposite happened. China's economy continues to operate with high levels of crude surplus, while Western markets are seeing severe shortages and sharp price increases.

Over the past decade, China has invested hundreds of billions of dollars into new energy projects across the world, via the Belt and Road Initiative. Those projects, and the associated logistics and transport systems, are now mature, and today supply China with massive volumes of energy, minerals, metals, and food.

The BRI investments have also forged a powerful economic and diplomatic bloc of countries who are immune from Western sanctions and even military threats, while their intra-bloc trade grows at double-digit rates every year.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/8462208

Chinese EV giants including BYD, Tesla, Xpeng, and NIO have strongly denied viral claims that regulators summoned them over “battery locking” practices. As the rumors spread across Chinese social media, BYD warned it may pursue legal action against those spreading false information, while industry regulators and CAAM stated the reports were severely inconsistent with the facts.

https://archive.ph/j2tfZ

https://fortune.com/2026/05/07/california-peach-farmers-destroy-420000-peach-trees-del-monte-bankruptcy-filing/

https://archive.is/yb9V1

For many warm weather fruit lovers, the prospect of unlimited ripe and rosy peaches is mouth-watering. For Central California farmers, it’s more of a waking nightmare.

Financial nightmare for kulaks

To make ends meet, these farmers are now weighing whether to destroy about 3,000 acres, or about 420,000 clingstone peach trees, following the closure of Del Monte Foods canneries earlier this year. With the shuttering of the Modesto Del Monte plant, which processed between 30% and 35% of the state’s cling peaches, the peach farmers are now left with a glut of fruit—and no one to sell it to. Now farmers are left with little choice but to uproot these trees and pivot to different crops to recoup losses.

No one to sell to for the price they're gouging for

As a result, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved $9 million in federal aid to help farmers remove the trees to transition to more valuable crops, according to a recent press release from Calif. Sen. Adam Schiff. The funds come after more than 40 California lawmakers wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in March requesting financial aid for the farmers, arguing USDA intervention was necessary to stabilize the wellbeing of multi-generational food growers in the region.

Food growers that don't want to grow food

Schiff, citing a USDA analysis, noted that removing 50,000 tons of peaches from production could save farmers about $30 million in projected losses that would have otherwise gone to waste with the shuttering of the farmers’ biggest buyer. This funding “offers a glimmer of hope after a devastating period, ensuring California farmers can transition to new crops and stay on their land,” California Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass said in a statement.

You, the people who could eat the fruit, however, must starve for their margins

A fallen food production giant

Del Monte, the nearly 140-year old food producer and distributor based in California, filed for bankruptcy in July 2025 and closed its canneries in Modesto and Hughson last month. The company had struggled to adapt to changing customer preferences, which steered away from canned fruits and vegetables in favor of fresh produce. The company’s troubles intensified as operational costs mounted, in part due to tariffs on imported steel that was used in the cans.

According to Del Monte’s bankruptcy court filings, the state’s peach farmers had some rather long-term contracts to supply fruit to the company due in part to the 20-year lifespans of these specific peach trees, which take years to cultivate. Collectively, these lost contracts are worth more than $550 million.

So instead of the State or Fed.State stepping in to alleviate both problems of an overproduction of food going to waste and a starving population by getting the food to the people, the obvious solution is to cut the trees down and leave the fruit to rot in the fields.

U.S. farmers are already weathering a host of challenges. Tariffs have raised input costs and priced some American growers out of global markets. The Iran war has further complicated the picture for farmers, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off about one-third of global fertilizer shipments and hiked prices of key growing chemicals, forcing some to reconsider which crops they grow. Water overuse and persistent drought, exacerbated by climate change, have further reduced crop yields.

Adapting to contract losses

Though some farmers and lawmakers celebrated the $9 million in assistance to remove the peach trees, growers said adapting to lost Del Monte contracts will be easier said than done.

Fucking kulaks

Yuba County farmers Tony and Laura McGrath told the Sacramento Bee in February that other crops are not as lucrative as peaches. Of their 40 acres of peach trees, the couple had 12 acres of Andross peaches which were under contract with Del Monte for another decade. They also grow and dehydrate prunes as well as almonds, which can be more cost-effective than peaches, but have fluctuated in price and require a steep investment of both time and money to grow.

Fucking kulaks

“There’s really nothing that you can move into,” Tony McGrath said. “Walnut prices aren’t that great. You can do prunes, but it takes you seven to eight years to develop it and start getting money back from it. Almonds, there’s quite a few of them also, and it’s very expensive to start an almond orchard.”

Fucking kulaks

Russia and Iran have sharply increased trade via the Caspian Sea, according to the New York Times. The route has become an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz after shipping restrictions due to the conflict in the Middle East. Wheat, corn, animal feed, sunflower oil, and other goods are now shipped to Iran via the Caspian with four Iranian ports operating 24/7.

https://archive.ph/Dz4RU