The US House of Representatives has passed a bill requiring proof of US citizenship for anyone voting in the midterm elections.

The House – controlled by the Republicans, took the vote on 11 February 2026 ahead of the midterms in November.

The bill passed 218-213 to approve the SAVE America Act. Only one Democrat switched sides and backed the Republican bill.

The legislation will now move forward to the also Republican-led Senate. According to Reuters:

it is expected to receive a vote but unlikely to garner the 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority needed for passage.

Democrats said the bill will impose unnecessary burdens on American voters. Additionally, it will give Donald Trump even more electoral power.

Bullshit erosion of voting rights

The legislation first emerged during the 2024 presidential election campaign. It was driven by Trump’s false claims that large numbers of people who were in the country ‘illegally’ had been voting in federal elections.

But let’s not forget, you can’t be illegal on stolen land.

A similar version of the bill passed the House twice – last April and in 2024. However, it died both times once it reached the Senate.

This vote came only a week after Trump called for Republicans to “nationalize” elections.

Along with requiring proof of citizenship to vote, it would also criminalise election officials who register anyone without the proper documentation.

Republicans also added a photo ID requirement for both in-person and mail-in voting.

However, it is already illegal for non US citizens to vote in federal elections. Additionally, the Center for Election Innovation and Research found that illegal voting is extremely rare.

It found:

CEIR continues to find that sweeping allegations about noncitizen registrations or voting appear to arise from misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, or outright fabrications about complex voter data. In every examined case, when claims about large numbers of noncitizens on voting rolls are subject to scrutiny and properly investigated, the number of alleged instances falls drastically. When investigations do turn up rare instances of improper registration or voting, officials take swift action to ensure that American elections remain secure.

So basically, it’s just another right-wing nonsense talking point that Republican friends-of-nonces are using to both demonise migrants and shut down what little democracy the US has left.

Erosion of democracy

Democratic Party leaders told Reuters that the bill is an attempt to suppress the vote. It would also undermine their electoral chances at a time when they are favoured to take control of the House.

Recently, the Democrats won a seat in the Texas state Senate, which the Republicans are seeing as a wake-up call as well as a picture of what is to come if Trump’s violent regime continues.

But the new legislation is nothing short of an attempt to erode democracy. Republicans know they are on borrowed time – and there is only so long their murderous, fascist police state can continue.

Republicans are running scared – millions of Americans have woken up since ICE agents murdered both Renee Good and Alex Pretti in cold blood. Now, the Epstein files and the associated cover-up at the highest levels of government mean that Trump and his cronies will go to any length to hold onto power.

Because let’s face it, once they lose that power, they’re all ending up in jail.

Feature image via Reuters/YouTube

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been forced to admit that a large number of privately contracted benefit assessors have not received safeguarding training.

This puts vulnerable disabled claimants at risk of harm whilst navigating the cruel benefits system, which has already claimed so many lives.

DWP were called up on their duty to safeguard in May last year

In May 2025, a report from the Work and Pensions Committee on safeguarding vulnerable adults called for a new independent organisation to be set up. The body would bring to light the number of claimants who had been put at risk by the DWP.

At the time, chair of the committee Debbie Abrahams said

Deep-rooted cultural change of the DWP is desperately needed to rebuild trust and put safeguarding at the heart of policy development.

Then in December 2025, in a written statement, DWP chief Pat McFadden gave an update to the House of Commons. He said he wished to “reaffirm” his department’s commitment to safeguarding and their responsibility to protect claimants.

In his statement McFadden said:

Our immediate priority is to make safeguarding everyone’s business, with clear steps to recognise, respond to, and report concerns.

Mcfadden pledged that all clinical roles will have mandatory Level 3 safeguarding training. He said:

Safeguarding must be a system-wide endeavour. It requires transparency, accountability, and collaboration across Government and with partners.

Surprise, Labour blames the Tories

However, as the WPC heard this week, that is not the case. Employment Minister, Diana Johnson, was giving evidence on the state of employment support for disabled people when she shared an update on safeguarding vulnerable claimants.

As is typical with this Labour government she started by blaming the Tories, as if Labour haven’t been in power for a year and a half. In which time they’ve either done fuck all or made disabled people’s lives worse with their policies.

Johnson said she was shocked that the last lot:

Didn’t think that safeguarding was an issue that they needed to be concerned about

Which is all well and good but your lot haven’t done much better Diana, despite you claiming that “things have moved on considerably”

Labour proved just as bad as Tories once again

As proof of this she shared that while all of the DWP’s own clinical staff get mandatory Level 3 training, only 1 in 5 of contracted staff get the same level.

This means staff employed by Maximus, Capita, Serco, and Ingeus who inflict cruel benefit assessments on disabled people aren’t trained in recognising harms or risks to life. These companies carry out hundreds of thousands of PIP and WCA assessments every year.

She blamed this huge oversight on the fact that there’s such a high turnover rate of staff, meaning there’s not enough time for training.

She said:

In terms of our contractors that we use in the DWP, we hover around 80 per cent in terms of the training at level three because of the churn and the turnover of those individuals

DWP staff don’t stick around, wonder why

In January, the DWP published a report from 2022 which showed that 52% of new benefits assessors didn’t make it through their first year. Assessors reported feeling “despised” and like “cogs in machines”. So it’s no wonder there’s such a high staff turn over.

One of the respondents from the survey reported “working herself to death”, as she had no choice but to work from 5am to 10pm. This will only be ramped up by the DWP’s desperate attempts to massage the numbers of the PIP reassessment backlog.

As the Canary previously reported, the department diverted staff from dealing with new claims to get the backlog down. While the DWP got to brag that it carried out 96% more reviews in quarter 3 of 2024, 40,000 new claimants were kept waiting. As a recent report found, delays to PIP are endangering people’s lives and costing the DWP too.

Labour are worse for disabled people than the Tories – it’s time they admitted that

It’s absolutely unacceptable that the people who are supposed to determine whether disabled people get the support they need are not trained to protect vulnerable people. In a department that is responsible for so many deaths, this seems like a deliberate, violent act. But it’s just another in a long line for the DWP.

It’s also getting beyond fucking old that the now Labour led DWP are still blaming the Tories. Not only have they been in power for a year and a half, but in that short time they’ve planned cuts and policies which are even more dangerous to disabled people.

You don’t get to act like our saviours whilst you’re building the gallows yourself.

Featured image via the Canary

Two Israel lobby groups have reacted with horror to the High Court’s decision today, Friday 13 February, to unban Palestine Action, a group that specialises in sabotaging Israeli weapons factories.

What a shock.

Zionists need their fainting couches over Palestine Action

A panel of High Court judges have today declared the Starmer regime’s ‘terrorist’ ban on Palestine Action to be unlawful and a breach of UK human rights. The so-called ‘Jewish Leadership Council’ (JLC) and the ‘Board of Deputies’ (BOD) have expressed their dismay.

Unsurprisingly, it was expressed in the most weaselly way possible. T

he groups start by claiming to respect the need for judicial oversight, lie that Palestine Action attacked “Jewish communal life” and turn the whole thing into – you’ve guessed it – an attack on the decision of the judicial oversight:

We recognise the vital importance of judicial oversight in matters of national security and civil liberties. However, the practical impact of Palestine Action’s activities on Jewish communal life has been significant and deeply unsettling.

On top of everything else, this antisemitic statement doesn’t explain how a group that only targets weapons factories and other support for Israel’s genocide and war crimes is supposedly impacting “Jewish communal life”.

And if this wording sounds a bit familiar, it’s probably because it basically recycles the BOD’s statement and logical gymnastics of just over a week ago – 4 February 2026 – when a jury acquitted six Palestine Action activists who were viciously attacked by security guards as they tried to disable an Israeli murder-drone factory in Bristol.

“While it is important to respect the integrity of the judicial process”, the BOD said, it clearly didn’t think it important enough to actually apply to the jury’s decision:

We are concerned by the troubling verdicts acquitting members of Palestine Action, an organisation that has been proscribed as a terrorist group, and whose activities have included targeting businesses linked to the Jewish community in London and Manchester.

Hmmm. And while both the BOD and JLC present themselves as “Jewish” and “communal”, the situation is not as clean as they paint it. The BOD has managed to remain a charity (though also a limited company), even though its core purpose is explicitly political – and explicitly to promote the interests of a particular foreign power.

Shilling for Israel

The BOD’s constitution states that it exists to do everything it can to advance Israel’s “standing”:

Take such appropriate action as lies within its power to advance Israel’s security, welfare and standing.

The ‘mission statement‘ of the JLC, another limited company rather than actually a ‘council’, says that its job is to make the UK ‘Jewish community’ is engaged with Israel”. JLC played a role in a 2025 smear campaign against then-new education union leader Matt Wrack, a vocal critic of Israel. It was also heavily involved in the efforts of Morgan McSweeney’s so-called ‘Labour Together’ to destroy the Canary.

Both are prominent players in the UK Israel lobby that has boasted of its role in banning Palestine Action. As has been demonstrated, they were already trying to undo the decision of a British jury to suit Israel’s interests. Not quite such a shock, then, that they are now clutching pearls over yet another court setback.

Featured image via the Canary

Robert F Kennedy Jr just told equally off-the-wall podcast mullet Theo Von he used to snort cocaine off toilet seats. Which is, uh, fine. But the conspiracist buffoon RFK, who thinks tap water turns kids gay — or something like that, I’ve lost track — was actually using this example to tell us something TRULY WEIRD. 

RFK, as he is known, was actually justifying his inane anti-intellectualism by saying he does not fear germs BECAUSE he used to snort cocaine of a toilet seats.

Reminder: this guy is in charge of what passes for healthcare in America.

Dear Lord…

Not scared

Kennedy was talking about addiction. Both he and Theo Von openly talk about addiction. And addiction is not a joke. Yet somehow they managed to make a mockery of the topic:

I’m not scared of a germ… I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.

Adding:

I know this disease will kill me.

They were complaining that Covid-19 meant they couldn’t attend their addiction meetings. Kennedy told Von:

Like, if I don’t, if I don’t treat it, which means for me going to meetings every day. It’s just bad for my life.

And in some level they have a point. Covid hit all kinds of people very hard: people with addiction issues, kids, older people, mentally ill people, women locked into abusive relationships and so on.

But the messenger matters.

Wild claims

RFK is known for making wild claims about medicine — something he appears to known (somehow) less than nothing about. Forbes did a useful list of some of his most colourful fantasies. These include that old classic that vaccines cause autism. He said the US government:

knowingly allowed the pharmaceutical industry to poison an entire generation of American children.

Okay, toilet boy.

RFK once said Bill Gates exaggerated Covid to push vaccines as part of what he called:

a historic coup d’état against Western democracy.

Hmm…

He also claimed Covid targeted people ethnically:

COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people.

And that:

the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.

Nice eugenics there, big man.

Kennedy also suggested AIDS does not cause HIV. That 5G gives you cancer. And that raw milk — knew it was in here somewhere — is fine. Also that fluoride:

is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.

IQ loss, hey. Are you sure it was just cocaine on the toilet seat, mate? He also thinks that mass shooting are caused by anti-depressants.

Looking at the state of Trump’s cabinet picks, we probably shouldn’t be surprised this lad made the cut. Yet somehow even with all we know about US politics generally — and especially US politics under Trump — RFK still manages to come out with something so completely off-piste than you have to just stop and take it in.

Featured image via YouTube/the Canary

Several UK companies may be breaking the law over their exclusive use of the Nimbus Disability Access Card.

Had it confirmed by someone who knows the Equality Act that venues who only accept the Nimbus card are breaching the act.

A blue badge, PIP/DLA letter, letter from a GP/Consultant or any other form of proof should not be refused under the act.

— Disability Rebellion (@DRDisabilityReb) February 11, 2026

Under the Equality Act [2010, s.20], organisations must make reasonable adjustments for disabled people to ensure they are not at a “substantial disadvantage”.

The law requires organisations to do this, regardless of whether a disabled person has paid for an access card or other third-party subscription.

However, some UK organisations are now only accepting Nimbus Access Cards as proof of disability, including Legoland Windsor, Alton Towers, and Thorpe Park. 

Basically, everything that Merlin Entertainment UK owns is now only accessible to disabled people who pay for an Access Card. There’s no surprise that the same company that mistreats penguins is also mistreating disabled people.

Also on the list are Wembley Stadium, Download Festival, York Barbican, York Maze, and MCM Comic Con. And they’re just the ones we’ve found in an hour.

Of course, this is already causing problems for both disabled people and their carers.

After 20 years as a carer to a severely disabled young person, I’m now facing barriers I’ve never faced before. Everywhere I go, the answer is “Nimbus.”

No card? No carer entry. No PIP. No Blue Badge. No Carer’s Allowance accepted.

That’s gatekeeping & it’s deeply worrying.

🧵

Advertisement

— Rae (@Chuffin_ell) February 11, 2026

On their disability access web page, York Maze cites:

All visitors requiring these access provisions can apply via Nimbus to have their individual access requirements validated so we can not only provide reasonable adjustments, but protect them from potential misuse.

This is buying into the same bullshit that the government uses when justifying cuts to Personal Independence Payment. Of course, the system must be being abused.

Just Nimbus, the biggest accessibility ID provider in the UK, claiming disabled people “abuse” carer and companion schemes https://t.co/3WJxXNEAir

— Rachel Charlton-Dailey (@RachelCDailey_) February 8, 2026

Advertisement

Corporate wretches

The Nimbus website states:

Currently, we operate free-to-register access schemes on behalf of providers from Ticketing companies, West End Theatre and Theme Parks, to Leicester Square’s famous Hippodrome Casino.

Companies can use the scheme for free, yet disabled people have to pay for the card, PLUS any medical evidence they need to get it in the first place.

It’s worth noting that Nimbus offers ‘Free Access Registration’ at some venues. However, that means supplying the same data and personal information to each venue. How does that help disabled people?

There should be no requirement to share anyone’s personal data with an external company like yours! You claim to be enabling accessibility, but you’re actually putting barriers in the way of people who need support, kinda like a shield for discriminating companies to hide behind!

— Kev (@Kev1n1986) February 8, 2026

Advertisement

I clicked to apply for the Digital Access pass for Legoland Windsor. What struck me was that, on the first application page, it is not clear to whom you are providing your personal data.

The Merlin Entertainment logo sits at the top of the page. However, when you click the ‘our online guide’ button, it takes you to the Nimbus Access card webpage.

So is my personal data, including my photo ID, going to Merlin or Nimbus?

Spoiler alert – disabled people don’t need to provide sensitive personal data to service providers or partners to be entitled to accessibility.

Demanding sensitive data be shared w unregulated private company for accessibility could well be harassment related to disability.

Advertisement

— Becca Jiggens LLM Chartered FCIPD ♿️ 🇵🇸🕊️​​ (@beccajiggens) February 8, 2026

Nimbus claims to be run by disabled people, for disabled people. But all I can see here is an organisation profiting from disabled people trying to live their lives.

Online protests over the Nimbus card

All week, disability activists have been protesting on social media. With one X user pointing out that:

You say @nimbusdis decisions are down to venues & your service is optional. Yet your card is being treated as the only “proof” of disability. When PIP, Blue Badges & statutory evidence are refused, that creates barriers. Rights under the Equality Act aren’t card-based.

— Rae (@Chuffin_ell) February 11, 2026

Advertisement

When PIP or blue badges are not enough to gain disabled access, there is something really wrong with the system. It’s hard enough to get any of those three things. Yet now, some corporation wants to add another hoop for disabled people to jump through.

I truly believe that Nimbus disability are partially responsible for the role back in the rights of disabled people to have reasonable adjustments. https://t.co/wPFW9CHKpM

— Monique Botha is actually they/them 🤷🏻‍♀️ (@DrMBotha) February 11, 2026

It’s worth remembering that the Equality Act is not about ease or convenience for huge corporations like Merlin, or even for smaller businesses. It’s about access for disabled people.

This keeps being framed as admin and efficiency, but efficiency for systems isn’t the same as equality of access for people

Blue Badges manage scarce resources like parking. Everyday access and booking aren’t the same — and the Equality Act is about access, not admin convenience

Advertisement

— Rae (@Chuffin_ell) February 7, 2026

Nimbus agreed to meet with Disability Rebellion to discuss Merlin Entertainment’s access policy. However, Nimbus cancelled at short notice.

What sort of world are we living in when private corporations force disabled people to carry a card proving they’re disabled enough to be sat in a wheelchair.

It feels like a return to Nazi Germany.

Feature image via Accesscard.online

Climate campaign group Fossil Free London has held a Valentine’s Day themed protest in St. Dunstan’s in the East churchyard. The stunt comes ahead of the UK government’s decision on whether to approve or reject the Rosebank oil field.

Campaigners stood in couples – wearing suits and pastel frilly dresses – holding up oversized love heart sweet placards that read: ‘Save Me’, ‘Hot Earth’ and ‘Stop Rosebank’.

Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government originally approved the oil field in 2023. But the Scottish courts overturned this decision in January 2025. The ruling demanded that Rosebank’s primary owner, Norwegian state oil giant Equinor, provide a more detailed assessment of the project’s full climate impacts.

Burning Rosebank’s total estimated oil and gas reserves would emit more carbon dioxide than the world’s 28 lowest-income countries combined release annually.

Rosebank: UK pays, Norway profits

Equinor would sell the vast majority of Rosebank’s oil on the international market for export. It would neither lower energy bills nor increase energy security in the UK. Meanwhile, UK public money would pick up the bill for most of its development costs.

Ahead of Equinor’s profits announcement at the start of February, Fossil Free London staged a protest over its role in Rosebank.

Most of Rosebank’s profits would flow into Norway’s substantial sovereign wealth fund. This potential megapolluter could also send profits of over £200m to the Delek Group. Delek is an Israeli fuel conglomerate that the UN has flagged for human rights violations in Palestine.

Robin Wells, Director of Fossil Free London, said:

This Valentine’s Day the U.K. government will be deciding whether Rosebank is hot…or not. But we know that Rosebank will be too hot to handle…Labour, save us from all new oil projects, because Rosebank will kill millions!

Featured image via Fossil Free London

Writer Joseph Tucker is working on a drama about Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. The script will draw on Alex Nunns’ book The Candidate and Paul Holden’s recent release, The Fraud. To round out his research, he’s appealing for additional eye witnesses.

Sabotage of Corbyn

Under the working title A Very British Sabotage, the drama promises to lay bare:

the subversion of UK democracy by vandal elements within the Labour Party. They prioritised sabotage over winning an election and governing the UK at a critical point.

Both Nunns and Holden wrote about how Corbyn and his team faced huge opposition from within their own party. Holden, writing more recently, was able to show how Keir Starmer succeeded Corbyn with the grubby help of Morgan McSweeney.

Clearly the stage is set for all manner of duplicity, intrigue and back-stabbing.

Tucker has already undertaken a great deal of research but he’d still like to obtain more contextual information. To this end he’s put out an appeal for eye-witness accounts from anyone who was in the thick of it.

Tucker’s request

I am producing a drama exploring Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as leader of the Labour Party, based on two books, The Candidate (Alex Nunns) and The Fraud (Paul Holden).

As part of my research I wish to speak confidentially with people who worked in Labour Party HQ (Southside) 2015-19. Accounts will inform dramatic reconstruction and institutional context. Identities will be handled with care. Anonymity and attribution will always be discussed and agreed in advance. All information shared will be subject to verification and corroboration.

Are you former:

• Political communications staff?
• Policy or governance staff?
• Junior employees with lived experience of internal culture?

A formal legal framework is in place to protect sources and the materials shared during this process. Material provided will not be published as standalone news reporting.

If this sounds like you, please email: [email protected]

Coming soon

Production on A Very British Sabotage should be beginning soon. So if you’ve got a story to share, please get in touch pronto. Otherwise, keep an eye out for further updates as the project moves towards release.

Featured image via the Canary

How to cope when it won’t stop raining

Replace lost movement with “Micro-Activation”

Increase brightness and contrast indoors

Protect small, consistent social contact

Support mood biologically

The US armada president Donald Trump spent months assembling in the Caribbean will return to the Middle East. The news comes after reports that Venezuela had shipped oil to Israel for the first time in nearly two decades.

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford arrived in the Caribbean in November 2025. The Ford and her fleet were one facet of a massive military build-up. The US also rebuilt regional bases and carried out drone strikes on alleged ‘narco-terrorist’ boats.

It was all about drugs, the US administration had claimed. That argument has fallen apart since the US kidnapped the country’s president Nicolas Maduro on 3 January. Nearly every reference to the drug cartel Maduro supposedly ran was from dropped from the US indictment.

The New York Times said on 13 February:

The Ford strike group’s new orders will have it joining the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf as part of President Trump’s resurgent pressure campaign against Iran’s leaders.

They added:

Mr. Trump had indicated earlier this week that he wanted to send a second carrier to the region, but neither he nor the Navy had identified the vessel.

It appears the US has achieved its immediate military aims in Venezuela.

Oil to Israel

Maduro’s successor Delcy Rodriguez – who seems more at ease with US empire – has been in charge since Maduro was snatched. Though Venezuelan officials said the reports of oil shipments to Israel were “fake”.

But Bloomberg reported on 10 Feb:

The oil is being transported to Bazan Group, the Mediterranean country’s top crude processor, people with knowledge of the deal said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

But details are still hazy and those involved are staying tight lipped:

Bazan, also known as Oil Refineries Ltd, declined to comment. Israel’s energy ministry declined to comment on where the country gets its crude from.

The US carrier group’s Caribbean mission seems to be done – for now. With a more amenable leader in place in Venezuela, the warships are being sent back to the the Gulf region to deal with Iran. The Ford will join the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier fleet in the area.

As the Canary argued on 29 January, a strike on Iran is far more complicated than the attack on Venezuela. The fact remains, however, that while the US is an empire in decline it still has a long reach. And it still has a president willing to threatened, cajole, and kill to meet his ever-changing imperial whims.

Featured image via the Canary