Narciso Barranco, an undocumented father of three Marines, has lived and worked in the US for over 30 years. On June 21, Barranco was doing landscaping work at an IHOP in Santa Ana, CA, when he was suddenly swarmed by a group of armed, masked, unidentified Customs and Border Patrol agents who chased him down, brutally beat him in the middle of a busy intersection, and kidnapped him in broad daylight. “I believe he was racially profiled,” Alejandro Barranco, one of Narciso Barranco’s sons, tells TRNN. “My dad has never done anything wrong. They had no warrant for him.” In this on-the-ground report, TRNN editor-in-chief Maximillian Alvarez speaks with Alejandro Barranco at the IHOP where his father was abducted about the cruel, terrifying reality of the Trump administration’s immigration raids.

Speakers:

• Alejandro Barranco is the eldest son of Narciso Barranco. He served in the Marines from 2019 to 2023
• Jose Francisco Negrete is a resident of Anaheim, CA, a rank-and-file Teamster, and a member of Labor for Palestine and Teamsters Mobilize
• We spoke with a number of undocumented day laborers near the site where Narciso Barranco was abudcted, including one eyewitness to Barranco’s abduction. To ensure their safety, we have kept their identities anonymous. 

Additional resources:

• Mona Darwish, Orange County Register, “‘I feel betrayed,’ US Marine says of seeing his father punched by federal immigration agent”
• Mona Darwish, Orange County Register, “OC father of 3 US Marines released from immigration detention center after multiple days of delay”
• Vera Institute of Justice, “Profile of immigrants in Santa Ana, California”
• NBC-LA, “Watch: Undocumented father of 3 US Marines speaks out”

Credits:

• Pre-Production: Maximillian Alvarez
• Studio Production / Post Production: Cameron Granadino

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Maximillian Alvarez.

Janine Jackson interviewed the Hartmann Report‘s Thom Hartmann about Jeffrey Epstein and the MAGA movement for the July 25, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Hartmann Report (7/24/25)

Janine Jackson: There’s no need to choose: We can and must address the grievousness of the operation Jeffrey Epstein ran, how it was abetted by the banks that process the checks, and the lawyers dismissing the women who were brave enough to come forward, against literally the most powerful people in the country. And at the same time, we can marvel that this is what it takes to get a measurable subset of the MAGA cult to say, “Wait a minute, the guy who said, ‘grab ’em by the pussy’ is a creep?”

The Trump base’s relationship to reality is obscure to many people who are wondering; Why this? Why now? As much as we might want to look away, those questions have repercussions for all of us.

Here to help us with understanding the place of the Epstein story in various narratives, including that of corporate news media, is Thom Hartmann. He is a political analyst, radio host, author of the daily newsletter the Hartmann Report, along with many books, including The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party and a World on the Brink, which is forthcoming from Penguin Random House. He joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Thom Hartmann.

Thom Hartmann: Hey, thanks, Janine. Thanks for inviting me.

JJ: The MAGA/QAnon relationship to pedophilia is a psychosocial, historical phenomenon that will be studied for decades, I’m sure. We’re interested, today, in the political repercussions, wherein Trump, who could not be more obviously part of the Epstein crime factory, is throwing it all at the wall to hold on to a crowd who live and breathe conspiracy around precisely these things.

ABC (7/31/25)

So when you’re trying to break it down for people who have avoided this storyline, for various reasons, and are now just trying to get caught up, you need to explain a little history, right? Where do you start, if you want to orient someone to why the Jeffrey Epstein story would be the fissure in the MAGA crowd?

TH: To start with, everything makes sense if you get it that most of the followers of Donald Trump and the MAGA base are actually members of a cult. What differentiates people who live in a cult versus people who are just in normal society is that people who live in a cult live in a constructed reality that does not comport with actual reality. In other words, they are being lied to at a bunch of different levels, and they live in this unreal world. And, typically, it’s an unreal world that’s filled with panics, particularly moral panics.

So if you think back to the Reagan administration, the McMartin preschool, where for a year or so, everybody was convinced that the people were doing Satanic rituals with children and killing rabbits and stuff. And it turned out it was all imagination. But the whole nation was seized with this moral panic. This Pizzagate thing, you know, the Democrats are drinking the blood of children to get their adrenochrome and all this, is another moral panic.

And moral panics lend themselves to conspiracy theories. The McMartin preschool spun off 1,000 conspiracy theories.

Thom Hartmann: “You’ve got people who have been conditioned to live in a world of conspiracy theories.”

So you’ve got people who have been conditioned to live in a world of conspiracy theories. “The election in 2020 was actually stolen from Donald Trump.” “The fluoride in the water is a Communist conspiracy to destroy America.” On and on and on, right? And Jeffrey Epstein is one of the powerful people who control the world, and he’s part of this pedo ring, you know, this international pedo ring, and that probably has a lot of Jews associated with it, because usually these right-wing conspiracy theories are antisemitic, as well as everything else. “The Jews will not replace us,” the “Great Replacement Theory,” is another one. You know, the moral panic/conspiracy theory that Jewish people, wealthy Jews, are paying for Black and brown people to replace white people in their jobs and in education in America.

So what has happened is that Trump, during his campaign in 2016 and again in 2020, used Epstein as basically a foil, saying, “Yeah, you know Epstein? You know he had Bill Clinton on his plane, and he had Bill Gates on his plane, and it’s a bunch of him and a bunch of Democrats.”

And it’s a real testimonial to the power of Fox News to exclude data from the news that they’re sharing with their viewers, that these people never realized that Trump was Jeffrey Epstein’s best friend for a decade, and he’s all over the Epstein files, and any investigation of Epstein has Trump all over it.

And they just didn’t know this. And they were convinced that, when the truth comes out, Bill Clinton is going to get crucified here. And it’s starting to dawn on them that Trump maybe wasn’t the most honest with them, which may hopefully cause them to wonder about what are the other things that he lied to us about? Because there’s certainly a long list.

JJ: But is it really the case? I mean, they seem so separated from reality. And it, to me, it seems like if Trump said, “No, don’t look behind the curtain, actually,” well, as he’s said, “Those files are fake. These files are partial, anybody who says I’m involved….” I’m not sure why they wouldn’t fall for that too.

TH: Because they’ve been sold the counterstory. They’ve already bought the frame. The framework is that there’s this international network of pedophiles, and Epstein, of course, is Jewish. That helps as well. So you’ve got this frame that draws on racism, it draws on antisemitism, it draws on classical moral panic, and they have come to believe it, and it’s been reinforced over and over and over again for well over a decade. And it was conflated in their minds with the whole Pizzagate, Hillary Clinton, pedophile ring stuff.

Guardian (7/14/25)

And so, undoing that, you’d have to go back and say, “You know, what you’ve really believed for the last decade, that Donald Trump has been telling you, and Republicans have been telling you, and all these right-wing talkshow hosts and Dan Bongino and Kash Patel, and they’ve all been telling you this, but you know, it was all wrong. It didn’t exist.” That’s just not going to fly. This is too well-established, too solidly established in their brains, for them to simply deny it or walk away from it, or look away from it, even.

JJ: Given that, I wonder what you make about so-called “mainstream media’s” response to this. Because this is obviously a kind of, like I say, sociological thing that’s happening that we can look at, the sort of petri dish of what happened with QAnon and the MAGA cult and their relationship to reality.

But we look to mainstream news media to see that as an event, and to incorporate that into the reality for, if I may say, the rest of us, you know? So I’m mad at news media for the implication that they can flip on and off the switch of outrage. You know, it was also mainstream news media who were like, “The Epstein files are very important. Well, no, they’re not so important. We’re not going to talk about them. Now they’re important again.”

TH: Going after Barack Obama, our first Black president, and calling him “Hussein” and all this other kind of stuff, you know, it’s just classic Trump racism, and that does play well with his base, because I think the one major common denominator that runs through his base is white supremacy, particularly male white supremacy, Christian male white supremacy.

But the mainstream media has acknowledged that Trump is in the Epstein files for years. It comes and goes as a media fad, but they’ve acknowledged it.

It’s just that the people who are the MAGA base, that 20% of the Republican Party, that maybe 7% or 8% of the American population, they’ve never experienced that, because they don’t read or listen to or watch the mainstream media. They live in this isolated bubble of Fox News, right-wing talk radio, and Breitbart on the internet.

And social media, of course, has really closed the door even tighter for them, by running algorithms that are designed to keep you in your bubble. Both Facebook and Twitter do that aggressively to make more money for their owners, of course. These people are just befuddled, baffled. And I think that’s something that we really should be taking notice of, how poorly informed the Republican base is.

New York Times (7/22/25)

JJ: I understand where right-wing media might be, but so-called “mainstream,” elite, corporate media, New York Times, Washington Post, they have a job to do, too, which is to locate this disinformation in a reality frame. And I guess I’m not seeing that. I guess my problem is I see things like “Trump Is Easing His Base’s Fury,” and that just seems like not telling us what we need to get from a free press, in terms of this nightmare, frankly, that we’re living through.

TH: I agree with you on that. I mean, the New York Times has been sanewashing Trump for years; this is what they do. Things that Trump has done and said recently, that had Joe Biden done them, would have been a full week’s news cycle, just largely get ignored. Just blatant lies, manufacturing stories, like the story about his uncle and the Unabomber. He literally just made it up out of thin air, and it was impossible. And yet the media did not harp on that. If Joe Biden had done that, if he had just made up a story out of nothing, they’d be calling for his impeachment or his resignation.

Trump has always had a special relationship with the media. Partly they’re afraid of him, partly they depend on him. He generates eyeballs and clicks and likes and views, and that makes them money.

JJ: You noted recently that the kind of “what aboutism” just isn’t landing this time, in terms of the Epstein story. When folks are saying, “Well, Clinton did it too,” people are like, “Well, yeah, OK, if Clinton did it too, he should also go to jail.” You can’t pluck the same thought-ending strings anymore, particularly with young people. And I see hope there.

CNBC (7/22/25)

TH: Yeah, I do too, and I think it certainly is the moment that some people, the hold of the cult on them has been weakened. You’ve got a dozen members, Republicans in the House of Representatives, who are willing to vote against Trump and demand the release of the Epstein files. This is why Mike Johnson just cut and ran, you know why he shut down for the end of this month, all of next month, and into the first week of September, is because he’s afraid of this topic coming up.

I think it’s going to backfire on him. I think it’s going to be just as hot in September. I think everybody’s going to kind of take a month off, and then just come back with some ferocity. But I could be wrong. It may be that Trump will actually succeed.

My big fear is that Trump will do what dictators are famous for doing when their approval ratings are in the tank. What Putin did, for example, with Ukraine, and what George W. Bush did with Iraq and Afghanistan, is he’ll declare a war someplace, as a way of distracting us. And that could be, particularly if he decides to go to war with China and Russia, that could be civilization-altering. I believe that Donald Trump will do anything to protect himself, and that’s the danger.

JJ: And I’ll just add, finally, that the way a lot of people will understand that danger will have to do with media. That will be the way that people understand what’s happening, and what it means for them. And news media are not neutral town criers, not to put too fine a point on it, but they are not simply telling us what’s happening; they’re also telling us how to feel about it, and I think, if we want to have a positive vision of what could come after, I just wonder, in terms of media, where do you think that conversation could happen?

FAIR.org (3/6/96)

TH: In my opinion, the big problem with media goes back to the Telecommunications Act of ‘96, and Reagan’s doing away of the Fairness Doctrine in ‘87, or in ‘86, I guess it was. Because we used to regulate how many radio stations an individual billionaire or a corporation could own, and not just radio stations–radio, television and newspapers.

And that all got blown up in ‘96, when Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act. Within a year, Clear Channel had gone from being a little regional cluster of stations in the Southeast to having over 1,000 stations, and Sinclair Broadcasting now runs kind of a semi-monopoly.

And this CBS merger is another example of just insane monopolistic behavior that’s not good for America. It’s not good for business, it’s not good for the media, and it’s definitely not good for our democracy.

So that’s where my biggest concern lies right now, that and Brendan Carr being the head of the FCC, when he’s just an open Trump toady and will do whatever Donald Trump tells him to do, including investigating the big three networks, and all this other stuff that he’s doing right now.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Thom Hartmann. You can get started on his varied work online at HartmannReport.com, and the new book is The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party and a World on the Brink. That’s forthcoming from Penguin Random House. Thom Hartmann, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

TH: Thank you, Janine.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

The way the world is going, she and her children might be the precursor of the dwelling habits of the future generations, those who manage to survive the coming nuclear war between the rising bloc of rising nations and decaying bloc of decaying nations, the war between the BRICS and the Pricks.

The BRICS ─ Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and five new members — have no “biggest BRIC,” each Bric nation relishes its independence and the group is cemented by their distaste for the offensive Pricks. Fortunately, for the BRICS, their entourage contains China, the new superpower that encourages cooperation rather than domination and has initiated a “Belt and Road” that facilitates free trade throughout the world.

The Pricks — United States, Great Britain, and the European Union — have the United States as their power Prick, which is led by their president, the biggest Prick. In slavish obedience to genocide Israel, the U.S. identifies itself as the Super Prick. This bloc has recently featured severe discord, lack of cooperation, and inauguration of high tariffs that impede global trade. Domination is its focus. with cooperation a temporary means to enable domination.

For one simple reason, the Pricks are finding it difficult to control and use the BRICS for their personal gain ─ the BRICS have economic dominance.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
GDP PPP, Int$: 2025

Coming into 2025, the BRICS have a greater share of the economic pie, six times the population digesting the pie, and are growing in principal categories — GDP/PPP, population, and adherents at a faster rate.

The Pricks devalue the Brics by claiming they are a loose and uncoordinated confederation, unable to agree on vital issues. Brazil is accused of harassing former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro and may be subjected to sanctions; Russia is led by an irresponsible tyrant and is heavily sanctioned; India gets a pass despite the heavy-handed tactics toward its Muslim community; China is led by a despotic dictator, and South Africa is guilty of genocide toward its white population.

The Pricks pose themselves as a model of decency and decorum. They have ballot boxes and freedom of speech, which enables their citizens to elect the biggest pricks and then freely criticize their selections by vocal erections. In the U.S. the next presidential election process — fund raising, organization, public relations, the “eye on the prize”— starts shortly after a new president takes office. Winning candidates in elections expend more time and energy in gaining victory and preparing for their next victory than performing their duties during their term in office.

The economic, social, and political advancements of their principal superpowers, China for the BRICS and the United States for the Pricks, determine the success of the BRICS and the Pricks. A brief examination of each nation’s potential to rise in the firmament or descend into chaos tells the story.

The Trump administration shows the hidden failures of the United States pluralistic democracy. The past has no continuity; just the opposite, many of the legislations from previous administrations are discarded. and the country, rather than advancing to a progressed new, returns to a rejected old. One example from Understanding AI:

…. Sen. Hawley asked Donald Trump to cancel a federal loan guarantee for the Grain Belt Express, an $11 billion transmission line that is supposed to carry electricity from Kansas wind farms to homes in Illinois and Indiana. The proposed line would pass through Hawley’s state of Missouri, annoying farmers whose land would be taken by eminent domain.

According to the New York Times, Hawley “explained his concerns to the president, who has repeatedly expressed his distaste for wind power, saying he would not permit any new wind projects during his administration.” Trump then called Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who agreed to cancel a federal loan guarantee for the project, throwing its viability into question.

Impulse overrides soul searching, allegiance to leader is more important than professional education and experience; rash and subjective action replaces careful thought. The America of 2025, with its decaying infrastructure, troubled inner cities, dependence on fossil fuels, continuous problems of crime, drug addiction, health care, and immigration, closely resembles the America of 2010. One big difference ─ adversity and polarization of the population has increased, Americans are at the breaking point with one another. The country, which is rich in resources, has extensive farmland, enjoys suitable and varied climates, and contains an educated and diligent population, is not well managed; it is mismanaged.

The Xi JInping administration shows the hidden success of China’s people’s democracy. The past has continuity; legislations and plans from previous administrations are massaged and enhanced, and the country, rather than remaining stagnant, advances to a new level. Soul searching from millions of cadres provides suggestions for millions of improvements. All leaders have professional education and experience; careful thought displaces rash and subjective action.

The China of 2025, with its continually increasing infrastructure of roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, superhighways, high speed trains, and airline routes that link every remote place in China with central cores, with modern building complexes that replace the shanty towns and provide agreeable living space for an aging population and marginalized rural farmers, with its expanded megacities that are considered technology and planning marvels, and with a unified and obedient population ─ no adversity or polarization here ─ has only a fleeting resemblance to the China of 2010.

Dubbed an engineering marvel, the highly anticipated Raffles City Chongqing project is nearly complete. CapitaLand Group

Sheltering their deficiencies, the Western democracies shift the critical analysis to public relations stunts that highlight the supposed and exaggerated deficiencies of the Chinese system. The Westerners make no effort to learn and understand the workings of China’s political, social, and economic systems. Fabrications are added to the limited “don’t care to know” and conveyed to the public as authorized knowledge. One example is the “debt trap” verbiage, applied to Chinese lending, which began during Sri Lanka’s first debt crisis and has stuck around as an effective means to vilify the PRC.

We have the falsehood. Washington Post (WAPO), “This China has a hand in Sri Lanka’s economic calamity,” analysis by Ishaan Tharoor, July 20, 2022:

One of the major players in Sri Lanka’s calamity is China. Beijing is Sri Lanka’s lone biggest creditor, accounting for some 10 percent of the country’s foreign debt. Between 2000 and 2020, it extended close to $12 billion in loans to the Sri Lankan government, largely for a slate of major infrastructure projects that turned into white elephants — including a costly port facility in the Rajapaksas’ hometown of Hambantota, which was effectively ceded to Chinese control half a decade ago after Sri Lankan authorities recognized they could no longer pay off the loans.

Examination of the Sri Lanka debt crisis exposes the mendacity and viciousness of the WAPO report. Almost every sentence is spurious; China does not engage in “debt trap diplomacy” and has been one lender who makes financial sacrifices that rescues nations from debilitating borrowing.

We have the truth. The Atlantic, “The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth,” by Deborah Brautigam and Meg Rithmire, February 6, 2021, had already contradicted WAPO statements.

Steep payments on international sovereign bonds, which comprised nearly 40 percent of the country’s external debt, put Sirisena’s government in dire fiscal straits almost immediately. When Sirisena took office, Sri Lanka owed more to Japan, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank than to China. Of the $4.5 billion in debt service Sri Lanka would pay in 2017, only 5 percent was because of Hambantota. The Central Bank governors under both Rajapaksa and Sirisena do not agree on much, but they both told us that Hambantota, and Chinese finance in general, was not the source of the country’s financial distress.

There was also never a default. Colombo arranged a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and decided to raise much-needed dollars by leasing out the underperforming Hambantota Port to an experienced company—just as the Canadians had recommended. There was not an open tender, and the only two bids came from China Merchants and China Harbor. Sri Lanka chose China Merchants, making it the majority shareholder with a 99-year lease, and used the $1.12 billion cash infusion to bolster its foreign reserves, not to pay off China Eximbank. The China impressed on our minds is not the China that exists.

The United States moves on fumes, on the energies of its past without renewable energies for an improved future. China moves on constantly reinforced energy, all engines operating at top speed, each day becoming a new future. The Pricks know they will not be able to compete economically with the BRICS. They have a choice of consolidating and working together and maintaining reduced economies, cooperating with the Brics in mutual agreements, or, by the usual United States method, resolving the situation by military action.

The threat of military force alarms and subdues the BRICS. They may be compelled to yield much in order to save all. China, guided by its Mandate of Heaven, “a political and religious doctrine that justifies the rule of an emperor based on virtue and ability to govern,” and which it has extended to relations between all nations, might do what it did in the fifteenth century. At that time, China was, by far, the leading commercial power in the world, and huge Chinese fleets sailed the world for markets for its surplus products. After meeting the imperial powers of France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands and observing their nefarious methods in subduing the Africa and Indian peoples, stripping them of resources, and forcing upon them the products manufactured from the resources, China scuttled its fleet and went into solitary confinement.

The reason for Xi Jinping’s self-sufficiency drive is clear. Save the world from nuclear conflagration and let the rest of the world rot. Pricks always lose and always think they have won.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

“There are already a dozen cases piling up against me,” she said. “I’m a journalist. One murder case is enough to frame me.”

Rupa, a former chief correspondent at privately owned broadcaster Ekattor TV, now faces nine murder cases. Her husband, Shakil Ahmed, the channel’s former head of news, is named in eight.  

A year ago, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus took charge of Bangladesh’s interim government after Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country following weeks of student-led protests, during which two journalists were killed.

Yunus promised media reform and repealed the Cyber Security Act, a law used to target journalists under Hasina. But in a November 2024 interview with newspaper The Daily Star, Yunus said that murder accusations against journalists were being made hastily. He said the government had since halted such actions and that a committee had been formed to review the cases.

Still, nearly a year later, Rupa, Ahmed, Shyamal Dutta and Mozammel Haque Babu, arrested on accusations of instigating murders in separate cases, remain behind bars. The repeated use of such charges against journalists who are widely seen as sympathetic to the former regime appear to be politically motivated censorship.

In addition to such legal charges, CPJ has documented physical attacks against journalists, threats from political activists, and exile. At least 25 journalists are under investigation for genocide by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal – a charge that has been used to target figures linked to the former Hasina government. 

“Keeping four journalists behind bars without credible evidence a year on undermines the interim government’s stated commitment to protect press freedom,” said CPJ Regional Director Beh Lih Yi. “Real reform means breaking from the past, not replicating its abuses. All political parties must respect journalists’ right to report as the country is set for polls in coming months.”

A CPJ review of legal documents and reports found that journalists are often added to First Information Reports (FIRs) – documents that open an investigation – long after they are filed. In May, UN experts raised concern that over 140 journalists had been charged with murder following last year’s protests.

Shyamal Dutta’s daughter, Shashi, told CPJ the family has lost track of how many cases he now faces. They are aware of at least six murder cases in which he is named, while Babu’s family is aware of 10. Rupa and Ahmed’s family told CPJ that they haven’t received FIRs for five cases in which one or the other journalist has been named, which means that neither can apply for bail.

Shafiqul Alam, Yunus’s press secretary, and police spokesperson Enamul Haque Sagor did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment. 

Violence and threats

In 2025, reporters across Bangladesh have faced violence and harassment while covering political events, with CPJ documenting at least 10 such incidents, most of which were carried out by members or affiliates of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its student wing, Chhatra Dal. In several instances, journalists sustained serious injuries or were prevented from reporting after footage was deleted or phones seized, including Bahar Raihan, Abdullah Al Mahmud, and Rocky Hossain.

Responding to the allegations, Mahdi Amin, adviser to Acting BNP Chair Tarique Rahman, told CPJ that while isolated misconduct may occur in a party of BNP’s size, the party does not protect wrongdoers. 

Others have faced threats from supporters of different political parties and the student groups that led the protests against Hasina. Reporters covering opposition groups like Jamaat-e-Islami or its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, have come under particular pressure. On June 9, Hasanat Kamal, editor of EyeNews.news, told CPJ he’d fled to the United Kingdom after being falsely accused by Islami Chhatra Shibir of participating in a violent student protest. Anwar Hossain, a journalist for the local daily Dabanol, told CPJ he’d been threatened by Jamaat supporters after publishing negative reports about a local party leader. 

CPJ reached out via messaging app to Abdus Sattar Sumon, a spokesperson for Jamaat-e-Islami, but received no response.

Since Hasina’s ouster, student protesters from the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement (ADSM) have increasinglytargeted journalists they accuse of supporting the former regime, which in one case led to the firing of five journalists. Student-led mobs have also besieged outlets like Prothom Alo and The Daily Star. 

CPJ reached out via messaging app to ADSM leader Rifat Rashid but received no response.

On July 14, exiled investigative journalist Zulkarnain Saer Khan, who fled Bangladesh after exposing alleged high-level corruption under Hasina and receiving threats from Awami League officials, posted on X about the repression of the media: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Kunal Majumder/CPJ India Representative.

True to the words of the legendary 19th-century French novelist Gustave Flaubert, “there is no truth. There is only perception”. The truth may sound or taste bitter. But in reality, there is no singular truth and perception about anything and everything in this divine universe, even about the most abstract ones. Inherent truth is subjective, which lies in the hands of an individual’s interpretation. Together, they have a profound influence on shaping people’s views.

Its real-life exponent is none other than the dictator Hitler⸺thanks to his exceptional oratory skills, once dangerous and fascinating. On the other side of the coin lies the legacy of the great American social and civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. His non-violent liberal views on racial equality echoed deeply. Both historical figures left an indelible mark on the world courtesy of their respective mindsets strategically manifested, intertwined with truth and perception.

To shape public perception, key news sources include print and electronic media. These include newspapers, television, books, magazines, and radio. Newspapers and television are naturally the most widely ubiquitous, commanding massive audience coverage and deep penetration.

India has one of the largest newspaper circulations in the world. It endures and reveres the media, but here is the catch. According to media literacy index data, our homeland, India, ranked at a very low level globally. The magnitude of freedom is handy to the journalists at large, and it is alarming! Sadly, in India’s context, it is directionless. Ultimately, it is a wake-up call. The freedom of the press is inextricably linked to the democracy of a country. Apart from this, news channels on television are not behind in the rat race with their contemporaries. Selling content to the audience instead of ensuring quality content that informs them the most. Running for TRP, the real news gets diluted. The essence of informing and information gets killed long before through various media.

India’s complex emotional landscape

In a country as emotionally vulnerable and socially heterogeneous — as India. The longstanding challenges, such as Hindu-Muslim tensions, population explosion, poverty, illiteracy, and more. Labyrinths of other enigmas are often engulfed, which causes reactive, colloquial responses. They manifest vividly during nightmarish, complex — Kafkaesque episodes. Numerous instances of public unrest like riots, rapes, suicides, and more are evidence to it. Such emotionally charged reactions complicate the government’s ability to implement and administer policies in a consistent, transformative manner. This is where the truth and the press hold a critical role. In these complexities, the leakages of the internal machinery get highlighted.

A Press Under Siege

Having such a media state has major concerns and equally questionable consequences. They often tend to leave a painful scar later in the long term. On the contrary, the case is very different in countries as Russia, China, the US, and the U.K. They usually have concrete, strong, hassle-free, definite political motives and policies. They refrain from the ways India often tends to follow. The typical Indian answer to our emotional country goes back to our heated history textbooks. There have been countless deliberate attempts the whole world has made to conquer the roots of our ‘bhāratavarṣa’. It was not only for centuries but for millennia indeed. Starting from the advent of Alexander the Great in 326 BCE to the British Empire in 1947. The continual cycle of ‘sought and fought’ had fragmented and fractured the internal cohesion. This legacy left the nation in a difficult yet diverse situation. Still, it often backfires, creating an ironic, complicated situation of unity in diversity. Unlike other countries, the US and Russia. Unfortunately, India hasn’t enjoyed an uninterrupted political lineage with a uniform singularity of purpose. In our case, the press doesn’t report the truth. It often has to wrestle for it amid the noise of unresolved historical background, painstakingly.

Indispensable, twin forces — the truth is an expression, the press is the medium. Shaping and reshaping our views, then our beliefs. Eventually, it solidifies respective ideologies. The media are the purveyors of truth and freedom. Conveying information concisely under the instructions of the government. With such a vital authority and verdict resting on the press, it is a transparent, crystal-clear mirror of the country. It is a double-edged sword, bridging the supreme authority with the assurance of the people. Just exactly like Snow White’s enchanted mirror, today’s press undergoes examination, “Mirror, mirror on the wall: Who tells the truth among us all”? Publicly, things get amplified and complicated with social media. It affects the scenario, which itself is in an uneasy, lopsided state.

Social Media Perils and Content Pollution

True to the words of the legendary English poet Alexander Pope, the warmth of his lines is produced in his thought-provoking work, ‘An Essay on Criticism’. The lines “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” These are so apt to the complex content we consume today. The essence of the magnum opus is deeply felt even today in the 21st-century modern world.

In the essence of the digital age today, Social Media is the online medium that makes shallow learning among the masses a dangerous thing! It has a profound impact and internal pressure on one’s daily life. The ignorance of countless posts on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, and so on, will undoubtedly be bliss. In shades of innumerable benefits, it often results in ruining one’s privacy. Social media validation and accumulating more and more followers are blinding. It is infused with overloaded fake news, intense addiction, and the urge to form opinions and criticism (trolling). Everyone wants to express something without having the real knowledge about it. With this huge confusion and anxiety, it has emerged everywhere like wildfire. All of this has created misconceptions, prejudice, manipulation, censorship, ambiguity, rumours, and misuse. This mess is one of the major grey shades of social media.

Content is not just consumed; it is exaggerated, engineered, and fabricated. All this is exercised under legitimate knowledge claims. Ultimately, this flooding mechanism has blurred the line between what is reel and what the actual reality is. It has adulterated information to an unprecedented level. India itself produces a large number of content creators globally. In turn, Indians also tend to consume a huge volume of content. Thanks to insanely addictive reels and posts on apps like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, and more. As a result, India also leads in average mobile screen time. The estimated screen time is more than 5 hours daily. Even sometimes creating obscene content for the sake of likes and comments is considered normal! At least for disseminating genuine content, social media proves to be an easy yet complex option. Consequently, it has driven the Indian media into peril.

The Collapse of Free Speech

Unearthing the truth in the crossword and its clues embedded in a web of lies is hard. It has paradoxically suffocated the very freedom of speech within the compound chaos altogether. Truth is born out of freedom and courage. The press, which once investigated the unknown, unbelievable, and the unthinkable, now tirelessly circles. Just hunting for the truth for the sake of real, meaningful truth. But alas, today, there is both speech and courage immersed deep. The axis of profoundly malicious, politically motivated actions and intentions is strongly holding it. Both truth and press now operate in a system they once sought to expose. Here, language often bought through bribes speaks loudly and boldly to rule over everyone. Often, institutions buy and sell the freedom of speech, putting their agenda forward to the masses. This dirty, unethical transaction not only trades monetary value but also corrupts the system. It hollows the society morally, emotionally, and socially, both intentionally and unintentionally, like a parasite.

The voice of the innocent (media professionals), who dare to speak the truth, often embraces unjust retribution and tyrannical faith. Their remarkable efforts peel back those thick layers of deception, corruption, and bribery, but go in vain. Pressure groups and others often bury uneasy truths and astonishing facts under the guise of national interest and public welfare. The beautiful irony is just showcased as normal in thin air! The menace is that it is paraded to the audience as a sideshow spectacle. Such skillful, shrewd wordplay and rhetorical acrobatics contribute significantly to it. As a result, even the sharpest person in the room can’t pose a question. This puppetry media manipulation in a performative democracy becomes art, not for informing, but for controlling.

The Legal Lens: Indian Constitution and the Press

Laws and the press share a valiant, intertwined relationship where both have the power and potential in society. The law acts as a watchdog over the duty of both the people and the press. The freedom of the media is not only linked to journalism but to the vocal freedom of a country. Leaving it in a deadly dilemma of oblivion if left unchecked.

Resorting to legal methods for a hand-to-hand confrontation and cleansing it eventually may be the tedious yet best remedy. Highlighting the pitfalls and sorting them to the roots, as there is no smoke without fire. Although this is an even bigger headache since the magnitude of the Indian media industry is a whopping amount of more than a billion dollars.

By turning through the pages of the most voluminous rulebook of the world, the Indian Constitution. It offers us both a better, comprehensive, and far-sighted view. Indian law is just and faithful enough to meet both ends and refine its application by drawing the light of wisdom over the respective case.

Article 19(1)(a) relates to the independent freedom of voice and their respective opinions against the actions of the government. The media is legally backed up to highlight the plight of truth ‘lying’ beneath the surface and above it. Likewise, some notable eye-opening cases include the Romesh Thappar vs State of Madras and the Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) (P) Ltd. vs Union of India. These astounding cases had thrust the freedom of the press and media into the limelight, concreting their status even more. These cases and many more are at the confluence of the political and social environment. The emancipation to advance facts and reports without any intervention, but with reasonable restrictions behind the fences.

Freedom and truth in the press should be carried sensibly within the thin line of legal demarcation relative to the audience. Sensitive news often triggers harmful ideas, and it can lead to both psychological and mental pain directly. Avoiding the spread of any fake news, defamation, contempt of court, blasphemy, voyeurism, and any threat to the sovereignty and integrity of India is of utmost national significance. There has been some progress over time to overcome the stagnant debacle; there is a long road to travel.

Press, Sacrifice, and Political Ironies

Dubbed as the 4th pillar of democracy, the press and media enjoy an ironic status owing to their gullible volatility. There remain shining examples of fearless Indian journalism that delivered the truth at the right place and at the right time, undeterred by mental pressure. But ironically, the most staggering report gathered is that our motherland, India, stands amongst the top countries to have the most journalist deaths.

Renowned cases of such ill-fated scapegoats include Gauri Lankesh, J.Dey, and Daniel Pearl; the list goes on. Their “sacrifice” bears a thought-provoking lesson. These media professionals fearlessly tried to unmask the bitter truth of the wrongdoers and guilty minds. To combat such authoritarian regimes, often influential political ideals march forward carrying the baton, calling for a major upheaval or revolution. In the process, this leads to doublespeak from the other side in a counterreaction. Often, when things take a U-turn, these political ideals later turn into political prisoners! Eventually, their descendants find their lives embroiled, burdened with defining and redefining their ideologies and legacy.

Such a misuse or mistake can lead to an Orwellian dystopia in a totalitarian manner, as pointed out by the great 20th-century English author George Orwell. In his magnum opus novel, 1984, he showcases the political nightmare the caged media and press cast upon it.

In the dynamics of India, the silver lining is certainly visible. The architectural Gandhian values of truth and freedom will be followed and resonate. Both the sanguine prospects and outputs of journalism will emerge rooted in integrity and moral duty, without fleeting urgency. But rather with an imperative role, a pillar of democracy, not with transience but with transparency.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Prabhav Khandelwal.

As part of the 21-member international collective aboard the aid ship Handala, a flotilla that was headed to Gaza to protest and break the blockade on the Palestinian people collectively being starved to death, Smalls was the only member of the group beaten and choked by IDF agents. He was also the only Black person aboard the ship. While the IDF stopped, boarded, and abducted all the activists on board, they did not use the same level of force against the other passengers or crew that they brutally applied against Smalls.

The special brutality meted out to Smalls is another example of the racist, white supremacy at the core of Israeli settler colonialism and explains both their genocide against Palestinians and the relative silence and support for it by the West. This racist violence reflects the reality of how African Jews from various countries are viewed and treated in Israel. Even as we have seen African Jews in the IDF carrying out unconscionable violence upon Palestinians, they are subjected to the forms of racist hatred that the same IDF meted out to Smalls, and worse. The lack of response from the U.S. government regarding the treatment of Smalls also reflects the way this state views Black/ African residents in the country, and highlights the continuity of white supremacist settler colonialism across both of these violent and genocidal nations.

For some time now, Small’s example has highlighted a vital understanding that the liberation of any domestic working class is inextricably linked to the defeat of U.S.-led Western imperialist domination. This attack on a working-class, anti-imperialist leader further highlights the connection between domestic oppression and Western imperialism, where the U.S. and its allies— including Israel— act with impunity.

This lack of meaningful action against the zionist occupation and genocidal acceleration of the state of Israel, as well as the U.S.’s consistent support and own human rights violations, motivates BAP’s call to ban the United States and Israel from hosting or participating in international sporting events. While this is but one strategy, what is clear is that more efforts toward anti-imperialist multilateralism are needed, represented through movement efforts like the Friends of The Hague Group (FOTHG), state-based support by The Hague Group, and consistent solidarity with the Axis of Resistance. It is this impunity that has allowed this genocide in Gaza to continue unabated for almost two years, that has contributed to the deepening siege and theft of the West Bank, and that has permitted the brutalization of Chris Smalls to occur with little uproar from so-called progressives and liberal elites.

The capture, brutalization, and imprisonment of Smalls by the fascist and racist IDF underscores the urgent need for solidarity between African/Black and Palestinian struggles. The lack of consequences for Israel reflects not only the hypocrisy of so-called democratic nations but also the complicity of the U.S.’s own Black Misleadership Class, which too often aligns with sustaining pan-European, capitalist, patriarchal interests.

Justice for Chris Smalls!

Smash Zionism!

End the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination!

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Black Alliance for Peace.

President Trump is pushing for a major redrawing of Texas’s congressional districts to favor Republicans and shape the outcome of future elections, including next year’s midterms. Voting rights expert Ari Berman says this “unprecedented” Republican gerrymandering scheme manipulates an already-gerrymandered map that “limits democratic representation. It already limits representation for communities of color, and now that would be much worse.” The map was released this week, and a hearing is underway today as Republicans try to ram it through.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

My mom actually took singing lessons when she was pregnant with me. I don’t have a scientific basis for how that might’ve affected me, but come on, to live in the sort of resonating chamber of her body… I can only imagine that that left its impression. [Growing up in that kind of household] felt so comforting. There’s something about practicing that I love. Whether my dad was practicing a piece on the piano, and my mom was going through vocal exercises, whatever, I find that one of the most reassuring sounds in the world.

Did you think that you would be a musician? Was that an expectation?

I wanted to maybe go into law, medicine, Russian, or piano, or maybe dance. I was very obsessed with ballet. My mom actually said an interesting thing. She was like, “If you love your art form, don’t do it.” Because when you make it your profession, all the bullshit that comes with professions will be a part of your love of music or love of dance, and you will have to deal with egos, and you will have to deal with favoritism and worries about money and… you’ll have to do things or play games that kind of diminish the pleasure. So I really took that to heart, and went and studied Russian and Russian literature. A very practical degree. [laughs]

Was that her kind of admitting that she felt that way?

Oh, yeah. She told me that even when she would go to a concert, she would just be listening technically, like how is this person shaping their mouth? How are they projecting? And she just said, “I can’t turn that off anymore.”

I’m so interested in what drives someone’s creative practice and what proximity does. Sometimes when you’re too technical, you’re too close. It gets rid of this kind of spaciousness that you need for it to feel really imaginative.

I’ve always wanted to do so many things [but] was always very confused about, what should I actually focus on? Dance, writing, and music…I realized at some point that even though I loved all three an outrageous amount, there was none of them really, but writing most of all, that I liked the unglamorous part of actually doing it. Actually learning it, not just the result. I love music so much that I feel sometimes, “I would die for music,” if that was a thing. But I don’t want to do the exercises. I don’t want to. That’s so boring to me. With audio [production], that’s when I knew I’d found my thing. I love every bloody minutiae of it.

I started to realize a few years ago that, though there are lots of great podcasts in this world, some of them, especially post-podcast-boom, followed a very typical pattern or arc. Whereas in the Paris Review Podcast, you keep elements, like the set-up to an interview or a bird in the background, that in other shows would be removed and considered unnecessary. You’re using the world to score the world. It really transports me. Like in the [“Scenes from Open Marriage” episode, an essay written and read by Jean Garnett], where you hear her taking breaks and the tension between her performative “reading” voice and her sitting-back voice.

In a way, for me, it always feels like love. You might not really pay attention to that when you are around and about in the world and there’s a bird, “Okay, whatever, I’ve heard birds before.” But all of a sudden in this context, where it is carefully edited, and kind of curated, it serves a sort of a purpose. You are there with [Jean] as she drinks her tea and then puts the mug on the table. All of a sudden everything is sort of imbued with a shimmer. It’s elevated in some way. And so to me it’s almost like an ode to banal stuff of the world.

It reminded me of Svetlana Alexievich, [a Belarusian oral historian who documented the Soviet and post-Soviet period], whose work I know you love, and something you’ve said about how “history is in the heart.” I was reading more about her work and it being composed of so many interviews, and it strikes me that there’s a difference between “these are a bunch of facts” and “this is the felt experience of someone in this situation at this time.” And that felt experience is this really particular chemistry each time.

That’s why I love her so much. You don’t hear it. You don’t get to hear the tea mug, but you hear the effects of it. You hear the fact that someone is comfortable at their kitchen table, not speaking from the position of an expert who has studied the thing, but just like someone who’s remembering falling in love or gathering strawberries and their mom slapping them because they did something and their dad being carted off to the Gulag [under Stalin]. And then it’s so different… than when you just read a book written about the Gulag. [In the latter] it always feels like these people had no lives before or after or outside of that.

When did you encounter her work for the first time?

I don’t remember exactly when, but… I think I just saw the book at a bookstore.…Now I’ve read pretty much everything by her. I mean, I get very emotional when I think about her. I don’t know why there are not thousands of people doing what she does. I mean, not that anyone can do it as she does, everyone would do it in their different way, exactly as you’re talking about, this specific alchemy.

But I am so interested in history because history is nothing but life, right? It’s not different from now, it’s just life that happened a little bit ago or a lot ago. And when people are able to capture that life with all of its texture, it’s like an ode… It makes me appreciate actual life more, the one I’m living. I don’t need a big arc. I don’t need to do something important… And meaning is everywhere, if only you care to look or notice, pay attention.

Did reading her inform your approach to interviewing people?

I want to say yes, but I can’t be sure that that’s the correct cause and effect. I never thought about it practically. [Though] in the past few years I’ve been exchanging a lot of voice messages with friends. Some of them just because they don’t live in New York and I can’t see them. And when you have to come up with a time to call like, “Oh my god, no, I’m busy, and actually it’s not a good time anymore,” blah, blah. So we just record voice messages and send them and [they] are routinely like 30, 40 minutes long. And the beautiful thing about these is that you can notice the movements of someone’s mind because you’re not interrupting them, you’re not asking follow-up questions. So they get to just jump from thing to thing. You can hear them free-associate. It’s very moving because you get to know your friends in such a different way than if you would actually be with them and talk and interact. And that reminds me of [Svetlana]. She does ask questions, 100 percent, but I think she is silent a lot. I think she does do that thing where she asks one question and then just listens. And that is something that I’m learning to do. It’s awkward. We don’t like silence. Nobody likes silence, but they will fill it because they don’t like it. So just zip it.

What else have you noticed over time, doing interviews?

The main thing that has changed is I have willed myself to be less afraid to ask really difficult questions. I was so terrified. Aren’t we all? Because an interview is very much not like a normal conversation. You do things you would never do in a normal conversation, that would be considered rude and overstepping. And in an interview that is not out of the bounds of the expected or accepted.

I found it really hard, but I learned by listening to interviews that I’d done because I was transcribing them and editing them and being like, “Man, I left that on the table. Why did I decide for them that they probably wouldn’t want to go there? Why?” And it made me think, how often do people get the gift of being listened to? Especially say, when a loved one died? People are so awkward around death that if your loved one died, people will be like, “Oh, I’m sorry, that’s sad,” for a few months. And then they expect you to get over it, and then they will not ask you about it anymore. To the extent that they ever did.

I remember I interviewed a poet [for Poetry Off The Shelf] whose dad died when she was really young, maybe she was seven or eight… And she has written so many books about the death of her father. So she’s also interviewed about that a lot. And I asked her, “What was your dad like?” And she took a beat and she was like, “Nobody has ever asked me that.” Can you believe it? This is not a very spectacular question. This is not my genius coming up with the smartest thing to say, but people do not ask each other the most basic stuff because they’re afraid.

Now I know that I have to do it, and they want it, and I want it, and the listener wants it. And I tell them every time before the interview, “When I’m about to ask something hard, you are in charge. If you don’t want to answer, you’re good. If you want to… I have other questions.” And I can’t think of a single time where people have been like, “Can you take it out?” Sometimes they’re like, “Can you leave out that one comment that I made about my dad?” But [not] the whole thing, no.

What to you is the purpose of creativity, or maybe your particular questions when it comes to it? It seems like in this case it’s, “What is it like to be this person in this particular moment in time?” And maybe documenting something that would otherwise go unnoticed.

I’m less interested in the record-keeping part of it where it’s like if you don’t write it down, it will be gone forever. That of course is a big part of it. But what I’m interested in or what drives my curiosity is how does the world, the facts of the world, filter through each individual consciousness? What are the things that you specifically notice and get irritated about and get swoony about that [other people] don’t notice and get obsessed about? And how do you metabolize it? That is what I’m interested in.

I am working on a kind of memoir project right now. It’s the first time that I’ve done anything that is focused on me. It’s very uncomfortable. I am so curious about other people, and I cannot do the same thing for me. So I have had friends interview me. I’ve done that so that I can sidestep that problem.

Is this Creation Myth?

Yes.

Are you done with the show?

Oh no. Oh man… It’s going, but it’s very, I don’t want to say laborious. It’s way too fun for that. I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun in my life.

What has made it so different?

One part of it is, you know how there’s things that you always feel like you should or want to be doing, but for some reason you’re not doing that? Because you don’t feel ready. Because you feel like nobody’s waiting for that or wants that. Because yeah, something about it intimidates you, because you don’t have the time, because any number of things. But it’s the thing that you want to make. It’s the thing that is resting on your heart like a brick and whatever you do and however many cool projects you do, you’re always like, “I’m not doing that thing. And when am I ever going to do it? And can I even? Is this for me? Am I busy because then I have the valid excuse to not do the thing?”

And for me, doing the thing was always having my own project, a project that nobody asked for. Now I’m doing that.

[Something else] that is so much fun is I have an editor. I’ve never worked with an editor so the first meeting where I was supposed to share a thing, I was terrified. Like sweaty hands, racing heart. I felt like, “Now it’s going to come out. Now she will know that all of the stuff that she thinks that I’m good at, I’m not. I’m a fraud.” I was so terrified. And of course it was great. I trust her completely. I know that we both want the same thing, for the show to be good. And having someone who’s not you but likes what you’re doing, help you is such a relief for how my brain works. [She] looks at it and she’s like, “This is great. This part was confusing. I think maybe we can start right there and cut that perfect part.”[Or]“This is great. We can work with it.” Whereas if I would be on my own, I would be like, “This is shit. I feel so ashamed that I did this. Why am I even bothering?” So that’s another really, really, really fun thing that makes me feel more free to play.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Alesandra C. Tejeda.

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This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

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This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

This story contains videos and descriptions of violent arrests.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

A month into the new Trump administration, on the predawn streets of suburban Maryland, a high-ranking ICE official stood alongside a Mazda sedan that his officers had just stopped.

The official told a local TV reporter at the scene what was about to happen. “He can either give us a license,” he said, “or we’ll smash the fucking window out and drag him out.” Then, as the driver refused to exit the car, officers broke the glass.

It was one of nearly 50 documented instances of immigration agents breaking vehicle windows that ProPublica has identified from social media, local news accounts, lawsuits and interviews since President Donald Trump took office six months ago. Using the same methods, we found just eight in the previous decade. Neither number is comprehensive. The government releases no relevant statistics.

Use-of-force experts and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement insiders say the tactic was rarely used during previous administrations. They say there is no known policy change greenlighting agents’ smashing of windows. Rather, it’s a part of a broader shattering of norms.

There are arrest quotas, and they are increasingly aggressive. “There’s been an emphasis placed on speed and numbers that did not exist before,” says Deborah Fleischaker, who served as ICE chief of staff under President Joe Biden.

Officers who break glass aren’t being disciplined — they’re being promoted. The official from Maryland, Matthew Elliston, now occupies a senior position at headquarters and oversees field operations on the East Coast. On the other side of the country, a Border Patrol chief who also embraced the tactic, Gregory Bovino, was put in charge of sweeps in Los Angeles. (Neither answered ProPublica’s questions.)

ICE says its officers use a “minimum amount of force” when making arrests. You can judge for yourself.

Watch video ➜

“She is pregnant!” a man yelled as his wife, a U.S. citizen, filmed from inside their Chevy. “Is pregnant! Is pregnant!”

Officers smashed through three windows to arrest Jeison Ruiz Rodriguez and his younger brother César in early March. The video was not the first under Trump — at least nine broken-windows arrests preceded it this year, some documented by Facebook posts or local reporters or Spanish-language TV.

Watch video ➜

On Mother’s Day in the Boston suburbs, ICE and FBI officers stopped a family on their way to church, threatening Daniel Flores-Martinez with what the family and a bystander believe was a gun. His three children and U.S. citizen wife sobbed in the car. Agents broke the window, forced Martinez to his knees, then slammed him roughly to the ground.

One of the children is a toddler. Another is a 12-year old with severe disabilities.

The incident was captured by then-high school student Kenneth Santizo, who was nearby waiting for his bus. “All I could hear was kids crying,” Santizo said.

Watch video ➜

Last month, a bystander filmed several masked agents using a baton to break a rear window of a white pickup truck, taking the driver to the ground and pressing his head forcefully into the asphalt. The man, last seen in the video bleeding from the head, has not been identified.

Watch video ➜

On a residential street in May, agents smashed through two windows of a Ford Focus to arrest the two men inside. A neighbor filmed from inside their home as one man, later identified by WBUR as Guatemalan immigrant Kiender Lopez-Lopez, struggled with masked agents. (He had previously been charged with domestic violence but was not convicted.) Several of them tackled him on the sidewalk while he screamed for help. The government released no information about the arrest, despite repeated requests from WBUR and ProPublica.

At least 10 people have said they were injured this year during broken-windows arrests. César Ruiz Rodriguez had an open wound at the back of his head when he arrived at detention from Spokane, Washington, his lawyer said, and X-rays showed glass in the knees of his brother Jeison. ICE claimed that the Nicaraguan-born brothers were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Both men have denied any gang affiliation. We found that the brothers had been accused of threatening a family member, but prosecutors dropped the charges.

In Kentucky, agents stopped Martin Rivera and his girlfriend, Jennifer Gribben, a U.S. citizen, while the agents searched for a fugitive. “You said you’re looking for Garcia,” Rivera said in a scene the couple broadcast on Facebook Live and have since deleted. One of the agents replied, “And I found you instead.”

Then they smashed through the car’s window. Gribben later wrote on Facebook that she was beaten “brutally in my head” and that officers broke Rivera’s arm. She pleaded not guilty to charges of resisting arrest and third-degree assault stemming from the incident.

Near Detroit, masked ICE officers dragged 49-year-old Veronica Ramirez Verduzco, an aide at an assisted-living center, out of her car through a window they broke. Ramirez Verduzco still had bloody, jagged scratches up and down her forearms five days later, her lawyer said.

ICE told ProPublica that agents are allowed to use force when civilians don’t follow their commands. But Ramirez Verduzco and others said they were given little time to respond before officers broke their windows.

“They didn’t give me a chance to understand what was going on,” she said in an interview shortly before she was ordered deported to Mexico.

Watch video ➜

This spring, ICE arrested Elsy Noemi Berrios after breaking her car window, scattering glass over her patterned dress. Her teenage daughter screamed and cried as she filmed with her cellphone. An officer helped Berrios shake off the glass and step out of the car. “Gracias,” she said. Then he put her in handcuffs.

After the video went viral and outrage spread, the agency put out a statement asserting that Berrios, a Salvadoran national, was a “known affiliate of the violent transnational street gang, MS-13.” Our review of judicial records — both federal and local — found no criminal history for Berrios and no other evidence to support this claim.

This July, in another widely circulated case, officers stopped an Iranian chiropractor and green-card applicant near Portland, Oregon. He was on his way to his toddler’s preschool. “There is a baby in the car,” the man said. They allowed him to continue to the school, then broke a window once the toddler was out. We found no criminal history for him.

Your car is a constitutional gray zone. It doesn’t have the same Fourth Amendment protections as homes. You can refuse to open the door of your home if officers don’t have a judicial warrant; you can’t refuse to step out of your car.

The Constitution still limits when officers can use force and how much they can use. But there are no firm rules. Should they shatter windows just minutes or seconds after making a vehicle stop? Should they drag someone through broken glass when they could wait to make the arrest another day?

“Use of force has to be objectively reasonable,” says Bruce-Alan Barnard, a retired Fourth Amendment instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, where ICE officers train. The problem with “objectively reasonable,” Barnard says, is that “it’s an oxymoron. What’s reasonable to you might not be reasonable to me.”

Immigration officers are given little guidance on whether or how they should breach car windows, former federal law enforcement officials told ProPublica. The tactic was never prohibited. It was just rare.

It isn’t mentioned in the government’s use-of-force guidelines for immigration agents. And past instructors and students at the Georgia training center say it was never part of the curriculum.

Watch video ➜

In Massachusetts this spring, a tall ICE officer in a trucker’s cap swung a sledgehammer to arrest Juan Francisco Méndez, the Guatemalan asylum-seeker inside. Officers had stopped the car looking for an “Antonio,” his wife told the New Bedford Light. Méndez has no known criminal record.

He and his wife told officers they were waiting to exit the car until their lawyer could arrive. Before the sledgehammer swung, one of the officers threatened them in broken Spanish: “We can do it two ways. Hard or easy?”

An ICE spokesperson told ProPublica that the agency “concurs with the actions deemed appropriate by the officers on the scene.”

Watch video ➜

In June, a 15-year-old girl and her mother watched as ICE agents stopped a work truck and roughly arrested several men.

“For the last time, are you opening this, or no?” an officer warned before he broke the glass. “I’m fucking blasting it right now.”

While the teenager yelled and asked the officers if they had a warrant, the driver turned toward her camera and said he was a U.S. citizen.

Early this year, border czar Tom Homan made one of his now-familiar threats to a sanctuary jurisdiction, promising to bring “hell” to the Boston area. To do that, his immigration officers needed help.

An ICE press release soon touted its collaboration with a half-dozen other federal agencies, including the Coast Guard and State Department, on a monthlong crackdown in the region, dubbed Operation Patriot. (The Coast Guard confirmed that it helped transport people arrested on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. The State Department also confirmed its role. Neither commented further.)

In May, bystanders filmed in nearby Waltham, Massachusetts, as masked agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations, along with agents from unidentified agencies, questioned two men parked in a work van. “Show me you’re here legally and I’ll leave you alone,” said one officer, identified on his vest only as “federal agent.”

In the months since, federal officers from other agencies have continued to participate in immigration operations around the country.

What happens if officers cross the line? Usually very little.

Paths to suing federal officers are even more limited than for police officers, making it particularly hard for immigrants to hold officers accountable for any misconduct.

“The deck is stacked against them,” says Fleischaker, the former top ICE official.

Even if a judge decides to award damages, that usually won’t change what happens — or already happened — in the separate system of immigration court. Evidence of a violent arrest rarely stops a deportation, and if people have already been deported, it won’t bring them back.

In the instance of the family detained on Mother’s Day, they filed a complaint over “unlawful and excessive” actions — but the father has already been deported to Mexico. (The government has not responded to the complaint or to ProPublica’s questions about it.) A precursor to a full civil lawsuit, the complaint says their 3-year-old now tells people, “Police broke the window and threw daddy on the floor.”

Settlements in similar cases have been small. A California woman detained by Border Patrol in 2016 after agents broke her car window while her children screamed settled two years later for $25,000.

When we asked the White House detailed questions about the tactic and specific incidents, it stood by officers’ conduct. “ProPublica is a left-wing rag that is shamelessly doing the bidding of criminal illegal aliens,” deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “ICE Officers are heroically getting these violent illegal aliens off of American streets with the utmost professionalism.”

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin also defended the tactic in response to questions about Border Patrol. Officers “may break vehicle windows” if occupants don’t follow their commands, she said. In June, an ICE spokesperson told ProPublica, “Our officers follow their training to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve situations in a manner that ensures the success of the operation and prioritizes safety.”

Other agencies whose officers were involved in incidents we documented — FBI; DEA; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — did not respond or declined to comment on specific cases.

Watch video ➜

Bystanders who film these videos do so at no small risk to themselves.

Job Garcia, a 37-year-old Ph.D. student and U.S. citizen, was filming an immigration raid in June near a Home Depot in Los Angeles when Border Patrol agents broke the window of a truck to detain the man inside. Then, agents turned on Garcia.

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a complaint against the federal government on Garcia’s behalf in July, alleging agents detained him in retaliation for recording and because he was Latino.

In response to our questions, DHS’ McLaughlin claimed Garcia “assaulted and verbally harassed” Border Patrol. (No assault is shown in the video.) McLaughlin added, “He was subdued and arrested for assault on a federal agent.”

Kayden Goode, the 15-year-old girl who filmed the arrest of the U.S. citizen in Rochester, New York, said she felt compelled to record despite the risk.

"I don’t think it was right,” Goode said. “Just because something is legal doesn’t mean that it’s right.”

Sometimes just the threat of window smashing is enough. One Afghan asylum-seeker who stepped out of a car after ICE threatened his window said in an affidavit, “It reminded me of the Taliban.”

But this all may be only the beginning. Shortly before Trump’s flagship domestic policy bill passed in early July, border czar Tom Homan told a conservative Christian conference that immigration agencies were just getting started. The law will triple the size of ICE and add thousands more immigration agents.

“You think we’re arresting people now?” Homan said. “You wait.”

Earlier this year, reporter Nicole Foy heard about Border Patrol officers near Bakersfield, California, smashing a car window. Reporter McKenzie Funk also noticed immigration agents using the tactic in Washington state. The federal government does not publicly track how often agents break car windows, nor did government officials agree to requests to speak about it.

In the months that followed, Foy and Funk documented dozens of cases by searching social media, local news and legal filings. They spoke to current and former law enforcement officials, experts in constitutional law and advocates across the country and contacted the agencies of officers involved in the incidents.

Along with research reporter Mariam Elba, they also looked into the backgrounds of the identified individuals whose immigration arrests are shown in this story. They searched for records in the criminal courts of the counties in which the arrest took place, as well as in the counties public records show the person previously lived in. We found one criminal conviction among those people: Veronica Ramirez Verduzco was convicted of reentering the country illegally.

The findings on criminal records are not comprehensive because there is no universal database of charges or convictions, and there was not enough identifying information for some people. When the government made claims about an individual, Foy and Funk asked them for supporting evidence. They did not provide any.

Do you have information or videos to share about the administration’s immigration crackdown? Contact Nicole Foy via email at nicole.foy@propublica.org or on Signal at nicolefoy.27 and McKenzie Funk via email at mckenzie.funk@propublica.org or on Signal at 212-379-5757.

Design and development by Anna Donlan, visual editing by Shoshana Gordon, research by Mariam Elba and reporting by Rob Davis. Additional production by Lucas Waldron.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Nicole Foy and McKenzie Funk.

So, on June 17, when the USDA announced the end of $148.6 million in funding awarded by prior administrations to projects geared toward DEI, the move appeared in lockstep with the president’s priorities. The notice itself, for example, was titled “Secretary Rollins Takes Bold Action to Put American Farmers First, Cuts Millions in Woke DEI Funding.” 

The press release said that “more than 145” awards would be cancelled, and it gave three anonymized examples of such projects. There was a $575,251 project “educating and engaging socially disadvantaged farmers on conservation practices”; a $192,246 project for “creating a new model for urban forestry to lead to environmental justice through more equitably distributed green spaces”; and a $2.5 million award for a project “expanding equitable access to land, capital, and market opportunities for underserved producers in the Bay Area.” 

It all seemed like standard fare under the new administration — except that the USDA neither specified what awards it was scrubbing, nor did it follow the news with direct notifications to those affected. 

More than a month later, no one yet seems to know whether, or to what extent, the $148 million in grants has actually been cancelled. The scraps of information provided in the release have since been mined many times over by everyone from grantees to lawmakers. This fiscal year, the USDA had a total budget of $493.9 billion, of which $144.4 billion funded award obligations. That means the $148 million represents roughly 0.001 percent of what the agency planned to spend on awards. And yet, experts say, the missing money mystery indicates a new chapter in the USDA’s playbook — and it’s harming farmers and ranchers, and those that support them, across the country. 

“I just continue to think that they are motivated by the politics of saying that they cancelled a DEI-related program, and they’re not motivated by conducting thoughtful policy changes or updates, and they don’t seem to really be concerned about who’s on the other end of that policy change, and what the impact would be,” said Michael Amato, who was the USDA Communications Director during the Biden administration.

For those organizations that suspect their projects could be on the chopping block, the move is perplexing. When the team at the California-based organization Agroecology Commons saw the USDA press release, they presumed that the $2.5 million grant had to be theirs. Roughly two years beforehand, they had been awarded that very same amount through the USDA’s Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program to identify, purchase, and help develop land for up to ten “BIPOC, LGBTQIA, and landless farmers” in the Bay Area. 

The nonprofit had already come to feel targeted under the new administration. They had confronted the elimination of another USDA award back in March. In June, less than two weeks before the $148 million cancellation news was shared, the organization joined two other plaintiffs in filing a lawsuit against the USDA for what they believe were unlawful grant terminations. And, according to director of partnerships Leah Atwood, they were “put on blast on the Secretary of Ag’s Instagram,” when Brooke Rollins announced the end of the group’s Community Food Projects grant in a social media video.

“All signs pointed to ‘that’s gonna be us,’” said Atwood. The revelation was nonetheless “a big blow” to her team. In response to the USDA’s announcement, they started to halt the work they were doing that was supported by the federal funds, in case they wouldn’t be able to invoice for reimbursements later. As the days and weeks passed, the team got more and more bewildered when no official termination notice hit their inbox. 

Until last Tuesday, when a cancellation notice finally dropped — just not the one that they were expecting. 

On July 22, more than a month following the agency’s initial termination announcement, the team finally received an email from the USDA, shared with Grist, which informed them of the end of their Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program grant, or BFRDP, amounting to nearly $600,000 that they were awarded back in 2021. First authorized by the farm bill more than two decades ago, the program provides grants to organizations in support of education, mentoring, and technical assistance for new agricultural producers. The letter stated that “the Secretary of Agriculture has determined, per the Department’s obligations to the Constitution and laws of the United States, that priority includes ensuring that the Department’s awards do not support programs that promote or take part in diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) initiatives, or any other initiatives that discriminate on the basis of immutable characteristics.” 

Though she isn’t sure, Atwood believes that Agroecology Commons’ BFRDP grant cancellation must be one of the 145 or so that the USDA says it has identified for elimination. She also believes that the notice for the bigger grant is still on the horizon, and has expressed concern over two other USDA grants of theirs that have an explicit DEI-focus. As of the time of this article’s publication, the Agroecology Commons team still has not received an official cancellation notice for the $2.5 million from the federal agency. 

“We’ve been in this constant state of evaluation and reevaluation and downsizing and streamlining and consolidating, and it’s impossible to do that in a clear, straightforward way when we don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “It’s just a juggling act of, like, plugging leaks and dodging waves.” 

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The USDA has not responded to multiple inquiries from Grist sent over the last month requesting clarity on the full list of awards included in last month’s press release, why those affected had not been issued official notices, and the criteria being used in these funding eliminations. What’s more, it isn’t clear whether the recent rescission of BFRDP grants account for any part of the $148 million, or belong to an entirely new crop of cancellations. 

Grist reporting has revealed that at least three other recipients of BFRDP grants were also issued official USDA termination notices in the last week. They are the only series of DEI-adjacent grants from the USDA that have been confirmed as cancelled since the agency’s June announcement. Like Atwood, those other grantees believe the dissolution of their federal support falls within the 145 or so awards that the USDA declared. One such group is the Rhode Island Food Policy Council.

The end of the BFRDP grant didn’t come as much of a surprise to its executive director Nessa Richman. In fact, when she saw the USDA’s announcement about the $148 million funding pot, Richman had a “sinking feeling” that her group’s grant was over. Right before the USDA made the announcement, Richman noticed that their BFRDP money was suddenly unfrozen — an experience that the Food Policy Council went through when the Trump administration pulled another of their grants — before it was terminated.

When it finally arrived, the USDA’s letter singled out the Food Policy Council’s focus on DEI as the rationale for the cancellation. “Specifically, the project is targeted at beginning farmers and ranchers from Rhode Island communities defined by their immutable characteristics,” the letter said. “The award is therefore inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, Department priorities.” 

But what surprised Richman was the way the USDA presented the news. “Normally, in a USDA announcement like that, when it’s about grant awards, in the past there’s been a link to a list of all of the grantees,” said Richman. “And it was confusing that there wasn’t one.” So she called around to see if anyone in her network had been able to find a list buried on a federal website somewhere. No one had. No one knew what programs were on that list of “more than 145.”

“My guess was that the work had been done internally at USDA to identify the grants, because it was a very specific number, but that they hadn’t done the administrative work to move forward and send out notices of termination,” said Richman. “At this point, it probably took them longer than they thought to get all of the administrative pieces in place. Why else would it take them longer?” 

A Grist analysis of a USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture reporting portal shows that since 2009, roughly 13 percent of all BFRDP awards have been DEI-related, and just 21 are active projects. If the USDA terminates all of the BFRDP awards with equity-associated keywords, that leaves at least 124 other grants facing potentially imminent elimination following the agency’s effort to cut “Woke DEI Funding.” 

Vanessa García Polanco, government relations director at National Young Farmers Coalition, is worried about the future of the other equity-related awards. “So how are they picking and choosing these grants? Is it just the ones that have equity in the title? Do they have some equity outcomes? Or is it just literally strategic? Is there an equation, an algorithm behind it? We really don’t know,” said García Polanco. “Everything feels extremely haphazard and inconsistent.”  

The federal agency’s silence has prompted urgent calls for transparency from some members of Congress. Last Tuesday, on the same day that BFRDP letters began landing in inboxes, a cohort of nine Democratic senators sent an official congressional oversight letter to Rollins, urging her to provide the missing information, including “a complete list of awards that USDA intends to terminate, including information about awardees, programs, funding amounts, and locations.” The letter also asked for further details “on why these awards intend to be cancelled, as well as the legal basis for cancelling the awards, and if the funds are being repurposed, for what they will be repurposed.” 

“It’s created more uncertainty, in a sea of uncertainty,” said Mike Lavender, policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. “I don’t know how it wouldn’t have a chilling effect.” 

According to a former senior USDA official, who spoke to Grist on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, the precedents of how the agency chooses to operate — and communicate — are changing so quickly and radically that it’s creating an environment of fear for the nation’s farmers and ranchers who could rely on federal government funds before Trump took office.

“People are just scared right now because they keep hearing the threat of these things, and they haven’t been notified. So ‘Do I continue to do work? Do I not continue to do work?’ The uncertainty is what’s getting people right now,” the official said. “You hear that from these grantees, as well as [USDA] employees, it’s hard to get people to talk about it, because they don’t know, from day to day, whether they’re going to be targeted. 

If they say anything, I think most folks are going on record anonymously because they’re in fear, because you really don’t know what’s next. And if you get out there on a limb, it might get sawed off behind you.”

Clayton Aldern contributed data reporting.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The USDA announced the cancellation of $148 million in ‘woke’ grants. Then it went dark. on Jul 31, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Ayurella Horn-Muller.

Set in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, “Eddington,” directed by Ari Aster, blends elements of horror, Westerns, and satire that explore how we process such an earth-shattering event half a decade later. But its subplot about the development of a massive data center nearby explores just how this volatile landscape became profitable for tech corporations, while engaging with contemporary vignettes of Native life where Indigenous communities exist along the border, haunting the town’s history and politics.

In the film, the mayor of the town of Eddington, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), plays high-powered politics to the best of his ability in a small town, including cozying up to the shadowy tech company SolidGoldMagiKarp. The company has proposed a “Hyperscale Data Center Development” and Mayor Garcia touts the idea as a boon to the local economy, creating jobs. Sheriff Cross, however, sees it differently. To him, the world and its mask mandates have infringed on his town and life. As a result, he decides to run against Garcia for Mayor. 

From here, the action is set in motion. Defying masking orders is used for social media points, while young, mostly white activists, engage in online activism by invoking the Navajo Long Walk and calling out stolen land–talking points that operate more as currency than a genuine desire to engage with their Pueblo neighbors. Eddington, at its heart, is a Western. Like other Westerns, it evokes a moment of discovery and unleashes it on the viewing public. John Ford Westerns locate the founding mythologies of what animates American identity among red buttes and stagecoaches. Even in Twin Peaks, David Lynch’s revelatory vision of the first atomic bomb detonated in the New Mexico desert offers a view of evil’s origins. In “Eddington,” alienation drives the narrative, framed through social media, Zoom meetings, and the tech infrastructure pushing the community apart in every way possible.

That infrastructure, of course, exists off screen and in our lives. Earlier this month in southern Arizona, nearly 1,000 people in Tucson turned out to a city council meeting after local reporters revealed that officials had secretly planned an Amazon Web Services facility in their community. At a public meeting, angry residents cited that the city’s pattern of droughts would not meet the data center’s surging water needs. In Tennessee, residents in a South Memphis neighborhood have reported breathing problems due to nitrogen oxide emissions from burning fossil fuels used to power Elon Musk’s xAI’s servers, to run Grok, X’s resident chatbot.

Because of the speed of AI data center development, tribes have only begun to grapple with this trend and threats to water, land, and energy capacity. The Tonawanda Seneca Nation filed a lawsuit against the construction of a data center in upstate New York earlier this month, arguing the site would impede treaty rights, including hunting and gathering. Last year, the Arizona Corporation Commission, a utility regulator, approved an 8% rate hike to meet the energy demands brought on by the state’s rising number of data centers. In a separate measure, the Commission rejected a package to expand electricity to residents on the Navajo Nation, where nearly 13,000 households lack access.    

“As these data centers are moving into their communities, people are starting to realize that there are huge physical manifestations to all of this artificial intelligence and all of this computing that we’ve come to just kind of accept in our daily lives,” said Deborah Kapiloff, a policy advisor at the Western Resource Advocates. “There is going to start being a lot more pushback from communities as they understand what this means for them in terms of changes to their communities and these data centers siting there.” 

At the end of the film, there’s an opening ceremony of the center. In the corner, next to Phoenix’s character who is now physically incapacitated, is also a Santa Lupe Pueblo leader, symbolically incapacitated. It’s revealed that the state has invested millions of dollars into clean energy projects on their land and are praised for their partnership and participation with the data center. It’s unclear if the endeavors were driven by the Pueblo, or what kind of say the nation had in the deal. As the credits roll, the center glows against the dusky blue land, almost breathing.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Data centers, drought, and dispossession: The real nightmares in Ari Aster’s ‘Eddington’ on Jul 31, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Miacel Spotted Elk.

Each book is its own journey, but it’s been an exercise in time and patience. I got the deal in late 2022, and by January 1st, 2023, I had to sit down, roll up my sleeves, and start writing. A year and a half later, I had the full first draft.

I had started thinking about this project ten years ago when I published an initial feature on the Wall of Sound while on staff at Motherboard, Vice’s science and tech vertical. I had spent a year working on it, and it clocked in at around 9,000 words. By sheer coincidence, it ran during a series of shows celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary that generated additional attention. I remember thinking I’d gone so deep, “surely this will be the definitive take.” I quickly realized I had barely scratched the surface. I filed the idea away, but couldn’t stop thinking about it. I kept gathering bits here and there, reading everything I could, staying obsessed. I couldn’t shake it. I was so captivated.

Why do you think?

If you don’t know, the Wall of Sound was a groundbreaking technology consisting of hundreds of speakers, dozens of amplifiers, custom staging, and scaffolding, and stood over three stories tall. It was between 70 and a hundred feet wide and 40 feet deep. It was a custom sound reinforcement system–like a public address or PA system–that The Dead and their circle of roadies, audio engineers, sound consultants, and technicians built over several years, beginning in the mid-sixties through 1974. It revolutionized sound reinforcement. To this day, if you see live music, from a stadium to a small punk club, you’ll see some principles first forged through the Wall of Sound. If you talk to anyone in the sound world–a sound technician, a recording engineer–they will know about the Wall of Sound.

I see why it was so inspiring.

From that first feature in Motherboard to the book’s publication, it’s been almost 10 years to the month. One thing I learned is that a project is going to take the time that it needs. There was a point in 2018, early 2019, when I started putting together an initial proposal. But the agent I was working with saw the book as something different, so nothing came of it, which I learned is a rite of passage.

Can you explain?

The first time you shop around a book proposal, you might not get any bites, and that can sting and be demoralizing. But if you feel strongly, you just have to keep going.

After that initial round of rejections, the final proposal took shape. The real lesson was that you’ll probably get rejected, and that’s just part of it the first time around. But you have to keep going. And if you get a great agent, which I am so grateful for, good things can happen.

That’s a great point.

I feel like I’ve been working on this book my whole life. Being raised by two Deadheads, this music was always in the background. But the TLDR is that it will take years from idea to proposal to landing the book deal and then actually writing it. It’s an ultra marathon, not a sprint. If you’re going to get impatient at all, this might not be the thing for you. But if you’re committed to the vision and in for the long haul, you can totally do it.

You have very specific insight into the Dead through your parents. Was it more complicated that this topic was such a part of your personal narrative?

A funny part of my book journey has been what I call being “an insider-outsider.” I’m not a Dead Instagram hype beast. I’m not even a music journalist, per se. I’ve been an editor for various science, tech, and health verticals at major publications. But at the same time, I’ve listened to this band my entire life and absorbed so much knowledge. I also just appreciate a good yarn, and I always knew this story was entertaining.

I’m not a Grateful Dead fan, but still found myself invested.

It’s a psychedelic romp and ultimately a story about obsession. This group had to put aside any interpersonal drama or tensions in the name of driving toward this greater collective good. But having something of a personal stake helped because I could thread the needle.

There have been dozens of books written about The Dead. It’s this massive cultural institution. For so many on the outside, it can be overwhelming. Many don’t even bother trying to find a way to enter this world and see what it’s about.

Right.

Having that personal angle helped tell a story in a way that folks who might think they have no interest will be able to understand and keep turning the page. St. Martin’s is a big five publisher for a general audience, so I had to keep that in mind. Having absorbed so much information throughout my life crystallized what aspects of Dead history and lore I had to mention and what I could dispense with.

You actually bought a piece of the Wall of Sound.

Yes! I came to own a part of it through a Sotheby’s auction in 2021. Sotheby’s had partnered with the Grateful Dead Organization to auction decommissioned items from the Grateful Dead Warehouse in Northern California. There were around 150 lots, and I didn’t bother looking through until there were 24 hours left until bidding closed. The night before, I started scrolling through, wondering which item had the lowest starting bid. That was this object. Having a piece of the Wall fall into my life got me reconnected with old sources, people I’d first spoken to years ago, and reaching out to entirely new sources. One thing led to another.

Kismet!

To own a part of it, it’s special. Thinking of all of the places this artifact has been, all the miles it clocked–tens, even hundreds of thousands–and all the people who experienced The Grateful Dead partly through this thing that’s sitting in my office, my mind reels. It gave me a unique window into this gigantic story. There’s a part that just feels cosmic, or fate.

Truly.

Another lesson was that you can have something as iconic as The Grateful Dead, where so many books have been written and so much scholarship, but still find unique windows in. I can’t believe nobody has written this book yet, and I’m the one who did it. As a writer, there’s this feeling that nothing is new anymore. Everything has been covered. Everything’s been written about and explored to death. But it’s not true. You can still find fresh and interesting avenues into storytelling. You have to trust the process and know it might take time.

As a journalism professor, you must have students hoping to write books. What advice do you give them?

There is this idea that the book proposal-to-book-to-docuseries pipeline is a surefire thing, and it will happen quickly. But no, the first and foremost thing is that it will take time, and that’s something you’ll have to make peace with early on. In the formative stages of getting your idea together, putting the proposal together, and getting an agent, it might be something you’ll need to chip away at on nights and weekends. Even if it doesn’t feel like you’re getting as much done as you would hope to in the beginning or throughout any stage of the process, it will add up if you keep chipping away. At a certain point, you will look back and think, “holy shit, I’ve come this far.”

One thing I did learn is that working on a book can completely consume you. You get sucked in, so you have to ride that fine line between being totally committed and being totally uncommitted. If you don’t watch out, it will take you. With all of the work that goes into this process, maybe you have the time and the resources to work on it solely, but I know I couldn’t. I had to work on editing while the proposal was coming together.

But a book deal with an advance can free you up to put your head down for that first full draft and focus entirely on that, if you want to. I’m not pretending to know everyone’s exact situation, but in my case, I did a lot of chipping away early on it, got an advance, and the pressure was off a bit.

Just giving you the time and space and the encouragement too.

It felt very validating when I got the book deal. When you’re putting a proposal together that, in your heart of hearts, you know is a good idea and are fully committed, even if it gets rejected. I always knew this was a good idea, but the time it takes to make these sorts of things happen, you go through stretches where it feels like it’s you against the world. It can feel isolating. But if you stick to it, it can happen.

There are various milestones along the way that feel validating. Much of it is just you out on the trail, and then every once in a while, you come to an intersection, and there’s someone holding up a sign that says “keep running” or “good job.” You see people hold up signs during marathons–that’s what it feels like because so much of the work is just getting up every day and chipping away.

In the book, I loved the character of Bear, the band’s original soundman and key architect of what would later become the Wall of Sound. I kept imagining his dogged perfectionism was a stand in for the entire creative process.

He was a polymath. He could drive the others in this scene crazy, but he was the original force behind the Wall of Sound. He also needed others to help actualize those ideas — sound engineers, technicians, and classically trained audiophiles. He was brilliant and largely self-taught, and the Wall of Sound couldn’t have existed without him.

It took the crew ten years to realize the Wall of Sound. There were fits and starts and trial and error. Many take credit for the Wall of Sound, and while it was a group creative effort, Bear was highly influential. He was sensitive to “unclean signals” in tech, which fed into his idea of a sound system without distortion. Basically, each player had their own PA. There was no “intermodulation distortion”–the technical term. No two sounds were running through the same speaker. So if you listen to the Wall of Sound recordings, the clarity is unmatched.

Some of the early shows would be delayed by up to five hours because he would freak out over a single amplifier. He claimed to be able to communicate with inanimate objects, such as sound system gear in this case. People would happen upon him hugging a speaker and crying and talking to it, trying to coax signals out of it. He was way out there but also a very brilliant creative person without whom none of this could probably have happened.

What an interesting man.

He was obsessed with audio, but also a ballet dancer. He produced millions of hits of LSD and basically turned on that entire generation. So much of the acid flowing through the Haight-Ashbury in the Summer of Love, and then throughout the rest of the country, was manufactured by Bear and his assistants. He also got obsessed with metallurgy. He would go in deep and bring in everyone.

There’s a great quote from the late Steve Silverman, a New York Times bestselling science writer and an OG Wired writer who wrote the book that changed the conversation around autism and the spectrum, called Neuro Tribes. He noted, “I spent some time with Bear at a Grateful Dead studies conference back in the day, and came away convinced that he was on the spectrum in the best possible way.” Silverman said that the Wall of Sound is, he would consider, the most outstanding achievement of the neurodivergent community. That neurodivergent folks and neurotypicals came together and forged this groundbreaking piece of technology.

It’s interesting how much emotion this system of inanimate objects contained, and how much work went into building it. Obviously there’s a great metaphor in there for completing a book.

Talking about the process and the journey, putting this thing together in terms of the sheer timeline and the community–it takes everyone from your editor to your agents, friends, and acquaintances who often would listen to me, being a little harebrained, working through it. It takes all those people to realize something like this. I didn’t always think this would be something that would happen one day, but like everything else, it’s just a progression and then one day you realize “oh shit.” If you are committed and put in the time, patience, and work, you really can make these things happen.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Laura Feinstein.

You could say, I’m a child of family separation, I’m a child of war. I left my core family at the age of 13 and came here at 14. And what I didn’t know was how growing up in instability and conflict made me uniquely positioned to be in that kind of environment, because I understood what it meant to be a kid in that kind of environment. We always talk about how many people have died. And for me, that was an oversimplified and unsophisticated way of looking at the cost of conflict. I always felt like the true cost of conflict was in how many people lived through the conflict, those people who lost family members, kids, parents, uncles. Whose communities and homes and lives were impacted. That’s the true cost of conflict. And I always felt like if you measure conflict through that lens, the cost of war and the cost of conflict would no longer be justifiable. I think one of the biggest sorts of mistakes is looking at the cost of conflict through the number of people who die, because it underplays the cost.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I was like,”I want to tell stories, and I want to do this kind of work.” So 9/11 coincided with me being focused on my career as an artist, allowing myself even the possibility of thinking, “Can I be an artist?” When you’re a kid, surviving and trying to swim, you don’t think, “Oh, let me just go into the arts.” I’d never had that privilege. So it wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I was like, “You know what? That’s what I always wanted to be as a kid. I’m going to give it a go.” I started working in installation work and video art in 2008. While I was at the same time trying to make rights and sell Hollywood projects and TV shows. And that’s sort of how it all happened. It was very organic. It was still all driven by two things. One, the need to survive as an artist, but also it needed to be broadly creative, and not limited. And here I am, still doing it.

Your feature directorial debut, Remote, premiered at the New York Film Festival. How did that experience impact your work moving forward?

I’ve been making stuff in one capacity or another for years. And I had directed shorts, documentaries, etc, but I’ve never taken the time to say, “Okay, let’s do my piece.” Then COVID happened, and everything shut down. And in that period in 2020, while we were waiting to see if the studios would open up, Mika Rottenberg, the co-director, and I started talking about something that we’d wanted to do since the first day we met, which was to make a film together.

At least for me, I never thought, “Oh, we’re going to do this thing, and it’s going to be at the New York Film Festival, and it’s going to premiere at the Tate Modern, and you name it.” We just wanted to have an outlet to do art. And 2020 was a bad year for many reasons. We had COVID, everything that was happening with George Floyd, and what was happening on the streets. There was an election that was coming up, which seemed quite consequential at the time. And this conversation that led to Remote was very much the way we were coping with that year.

Of course, it was wonderful to be at the New York Film Festival; it was a dream come true, as a New Yorker. It’s the festival that I always loved, it was where I would go every year to watch the latest Almodovar film. And that was my thing, you know, was, “Okay, what’s he got? It’s going to be at the New York Film Festival. I can’t wait to go see it.” And so that was beautiful. It was a very beautiful, meaningful experience.

You are working now on your project CURA, and one thing that struck me from this project is that it doesn’t rely on a specific narrative format for documentaries, like voice-over, verité, and archival. What is your intention in what you want to communicate with this project? Is there a specific point of view that you want to show, or is it more open to interpretation?

I think it was not an easy choice to make this film. I had to really find both the approach, but also answer the question of why, and why me? Or why us? And that came out of many conversations with the indigenous healers and tribal elders across Colombia, Peru, and Brazil, over the first seven months that we were really thinking about doing this. One of the things I learned is that, for many of the Indigenous people I spoke with, words were a problem. Words were a mechanism of lies, of deception. And some things cannot be expressed through words. So the challenge became, “All right, how do you tell a non-verbal story? How do you tell a story that doesn’t rely on words?” So that’s the initial impetus. And then, from my own experience of being there, I realized that so much of the relationship between these indigenous communities, these guardian communities, and the forest was not expressed through words, or not understood through words. It was very much about frequency and vibration, and this non-verbal relationship that they had with the spirits. And this thing, where they truly believe is a living entity. They believe the forest is alive, the rivers are alive, that the trees are alive, they believe that they are a sentient being and they’re in communication with, and they have a relationship too.

And I think that inherently is this sense of connection that they have to the natural world is what I realized was something that, as a cost of modernity or living in modernity, we have lost. And we get glimpses of it when we go hang out in the wilderness, we’re like, “Oh, my god. I feel so much at peace, and this is so good.” And we return and we forget again. And the reason we feel at home in the wilderness, in nature, it’s because that is who we are, that’s where we come from. Despite where we have arrived and how far we’ve come, we are inherently, as a being, creatures of the forest, creatures of the mountains, of this earth.

One of the things that came out of this process was recognizing that so much about conventional filmmaking made me go away from documentaries specifically, from conflict zones, and from this obsession with data and facts, and information. But we have an eco-anxiety pandemic. People are suffering from deep anxiety around the climate, and rightly so. And I think in part, you can say that this barrage of information and data, and doom and gloom, is what a byproduct of that was, is this eco-anxiety, which is now a big problem. And when you looked at these tribes and the way they existed, even though their conditions are extremely hard, they are still living in joy and hope. And I knew I couldn’t make conventional work. It had to find its own language. That it had to really rely on the modality that I was in the forest itself. And I knew that ultimately the character that had to emerge from this work had to be the forest itself. And I knew I couldn’t do that through conventional narrative means. And that’s why we took a non-verbal approach. And that’s sort of how I ended up where I am.

Since this project is so different from what you have done in the past, what are your hopes when it goes out into the world?

I think we’re living in a period of time where traditional institutions and legacy companies are no longer viable routes. Yes, it’s art, but it’s art that’s created within an economic framework, right? The reason these conventions are built has a lot to do with the economics of storytelling and media and film, and documentary. And they have nothing to do with actual artistic creativity.

And I felt, especially with this work, that I was going to go back to a documentary form that I didn’t want to rely on those things. So I had to take a very entrepreneurial approach to the work. And so that’s the approach that we’re taking. CURA is being made within what I find very valuable in the art world, which is these editions; you’re creating a work of art. There’s a certificate of authenticity; you’re selling additions to collectors and commissioners, etc., in advance. At the time, we’ve sold a couple of those already, and hopefully we’ll sell the rest of them, so that we can keep filming and do all that work.

I think partially what’s exciting about our Kickstarter campaign that we’re doing is that it incorporates some of these ideas. But one of the things that I did that I think is quite novel is that I said, “Okay, normally you have additions of the work. I’m going to take one of these additions and break it into digital editions.” So, several digital additions that I can sell directly to collectors. Now, those collectors are oftentimes inaccessible to so many people. But what if those additions were $500 or $1,000? Then suddenly people can collect a work of art that they own, that it’s always with them, like buying a vinyl, that you can play for your friends and family members, and your community. And your work, and you’re supporting a work, but you’re also getting something that you own in return.

I think this is about being aware of the moment we are in, and saying, “You know what? I can’t rely on these traditional institutions. If they want to come to me, great. But I can’t sit there and wait for gatekeepers to say, ‘Yes, no. It makes sense.’” If artists don’t find their own path to their audiences, then we’re facing what is a cultural extinction of sorts.

I want this to be a work of public art, so hopefully we can be available as installations in various places. In museums and art festivals as well. It’s something that we can take on the road and bring to people who don’t necessarily have access to the work. But also be able to digitally distribute in this way, around ownership and sovereignty, artists’ sovereignty, and impact. That’s going to be quite meaningful. And so we have our own life cycle in that way. And then if the conventional space, if the traditional institutions want to also play along, then we can find within this model a way to interact and also work with that space. But this allows us to maintain ownership and control, as opposed to giving everything away.

Following up on what you mentioned about how traditional institutions and legacy companies might not be the best path for artists, what role do audiences play in the equation?

Right now, artists often assume their audience is a buyer, a commissioner, or an executive, and that’s a problem. Making a film that must pass through conventional channels means assuming the audience lacks a deep or immersive understanding of the story, the issues at hand, or the artistic context, let alone the people behind the work. That assumption leads to self-censorship and manipulation. Even those of us who say, “You say what you need to say to sell it, and then you make what you really want,” eventually realize: if you’ve been through this process, as I have, that’s not how it works in reality.

Once you enter into that mindset of, “I’ll do the song and dance just to get the project commissioned,” you’ve already started down a path that alters the core of the original idea. Now, I’m not saying that this process is always negative, there are great executives out there who truly know how to support and shape an idea. But the reality of the marketplace is harsh: artists are often underpaid, overworked, and desperate. This is not a level playing field. It’s not a space where most artists hold real power. A few might, but most don’t.

Even the best advice comes at a price. Sometimes the baby goes out with the bathwater. Sure, it’s necessary to drain the bathwater, that’s part of the creative process. You shape, chisel, revise. Friction is necessary. We want friction; the best work often comes out of it. But the problem is, that friction has become distorted. Even well-meaning executives are worried about keeping their jobs. Data has become supreme, it’s driving all the decisions. Do you think documentary executives really believe everything should be true crime, cults, controversy, or celebrity-driven stories? No. They’re being told that’s what works, and they’re just collecting their paycheck while prescribing that reality to others.

That’s why, for me, choosing to say, “My audience is my audience,” and proving the value of a project by engaging that audience early on, that’s a form of liberation. I prefer that space of autonomy, of artistic sovereignty. It allows me to be true. I can sleep at night knowing that the conversations I’ve had—even the ones across the metaphorical forest, have been delivered honestly. I might not always arrive at the final destination, but what I make will reflect what was truly said and intended. And I believe that if you stick to that path, you have a real shot, a far greater one than in the system we’re currently trapped in.

What is one piece of advice that you received that helped you in your career?

Having no other choice. If you’re an artist, it’s just because that’s what you have to do, right? And turning that into a creative source as opposed to a source of desperation was the best advice. You don’t have a choice, and the people in this economy, which is called the arts, are well aware of your lack of choice. But if you liberate yourself from that lack of choice and make it a creative force, as opposed to a desperate need to just get forward, then you’re much more likely to actually get to where you wanted to go. So that was great advice. And the best advice I can give artists like myself, who don’t come from a conventional privileged background, whose stories that they care about or grew up around, isn’t what is dominant… It’s don’t shy away from your otherness. Your otherness is your superpower. Embrace it.

I truly believe that artists will survive, not based on this abstract idea of a global audience, but through small communities and small audiences, and local community power, that you build from the ground up. And that’s where artists always belong, and that is sort of the field, the farm that we have to cultivate, to be able to grow our work. And in that environment, your otherness is what helps you grow, not this sort of trying to fit a mold of mainstream conventions.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Miriam Garcia.

This recent trend is most conspicuous in an ongoing regulatory war being waged against the Internet and the corporate citizens that inhabit it. Terrified that Australia’s tender children will suffer ruination at the hands of online platforms, the entire population of the country will be subjected to age verification checks. Preparations are already underway in the country to impose a social media ban for users under the age of 16, ostensibly to protect the mental health and wellbeing of children. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 was passed in November last year to amend the Online Safety Act 2021, requiring “age-restricted social media platforms” to observe a “minimum age obligation” to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from having accounts. It also vests that ghastly office of the eSafety Commissioner and the Information Commissioner with powers to seek information regarding relevant compliance by the platforms, along with the power to issue and publish notices of non-compliance.

While the press were falling over to note the significance of such changes, little debate has accompanied the last month’s registration of a new industry code by the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant. In fact, Inman Grant is proving most busy, having already registered three such codes, with a further six to be registered by the end of this year. All serve to target the behaviour of internet service companies in Australia. Not all have been subject to parliamentary debate, let alone broader public consultation.

Inman Grant has been less than forthcoming about the implications of these codes, most notably on the issue of mandatory age-assurance limits. That said, some crumbs have been left for those paying attention to her innate obsession with hiving off the Internet from Australian users. In her address to the National Press Club in Canberra on June 24, she did give some clue about where the country is heading: “Today, I am […] announcing that through the Online Safety Act’s codes and standards framework, we will be moving to register three industry-prepared codes designed to limit children’s access to high impact, harmful material like pornography, violent content, themes of suicide, self-harm and disordered eating.”  (Is there no limit to this commissar’s fears?) Under such codes, companies would “agree to apply safety measures up and down the technology stack – including age assurance protections.”

With messianic fervour, Inman Grant explained that the codes would “serve as a bulwark and operate in concern with the new social media age limits, distributing more responsibility and accountability across eight sectors of the tech industry.” These would also not be limited in scope, applicable to enterprise hosting services, internet carriage services, and various “access providers and search engines. I have concluded that each of these codes provides appropriate community safeguards.”

From December 27, such technology giants as Google and Microsoft will have to use age-assurance technology for account holders when they sign in and “apply tools and/or settings, like ‘safe search’ functionality, at the highest safety setting by default for an account holders its age verification systems indicate is likely to be an Australian child, designed to protect and prevent Australian children from accessing or being exposed to online pornography and high impact violence material in search results.” This is pursuant to Schedule 3 – Internet Search Engine Services Online Safety Code (Class 1C and Class 2 Material).

How this will be undertaken has not, as yet, been clarified by Google or Microsoft. The companies have, however, been in the business of trialling a number of technologies. These include Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) cryptography, which permits people to prove that an aspect of themselves is true without surrendering any other data; using large language models (LLMs) to discern an account holder’s age based on browsing history; or the use of selfie verification and government ID tools.

Specialists in the field of information technology have been left baffled and worried. “I have not seen anything like this anywhere else in the world,” remarks IT researcher Lisa Given. This had “kind of popped out, seemingly out of the blue.” Digital Rights Watch chair, Lizzie O’Shea, is of the view that “the public deserves more of a say in how to balance these important human rights issues” while Justin Warren, founder of the tech analysis company PivotNine, sees it as “a massive overreaction after years of police inaction to curtail the power of a handful of large foreign technology companies.”

Then comes the issue of efficacy. Using the safety of children as a reason for censoring content and restricting technology is a government favourite. Whether the regulations actually protect children is quite another matter. John Pane, chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), was less than impressed by the results from a recent age-assurance technology trial conducted to examine the effect of the teen social media ban. And all of this cannot ignore the innovative guile of young users, ever ready to circumvent any imposed restrictions.

Inman Grant, in her attempts to limit the use of the Internet and infantilise the population, sees these age-restricting measures as “building a culture of online safety, using multiple interventions – just as we have done so successfully on our beaches.” This nonsensical analogy excludes the central theme of her policies, common to all censors in history: The people are not to be trusted, and paternalistic governors and regulators know better.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – July 30, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

In the land of the Condor, near the base of the tallest mountain in the Western hemisphere, an Incan community lived. The people hunted, along the sheer hillsides, they farmed, they collected water from the river gushing from snowmelt. They had children, built families, and passed on traditions to generations of descendants.

The land was cold, inhospitable, but their village grew and their community thrived at the far Southern reaches of the vast Incan empire, in present-day Argentina. Today, centuries have passed, the people are gone, but the stones and dirt that made their homes remain. The stories and language of their ancestors have been lost to time. But their spirits remain. And the ruins remember.

This is episode 60 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

Written and produced by Michael Fox.

A note from Stories of Resistance host Michael Fox: 

If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review. 

And please consider signing up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed, either in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, or wherever you listen.

You can check out pictures of these Incan ruins in Argentina’s Andes Mountains, on Michael’s Patreon account

Please consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox’s reporting at patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews. 

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.

Family and friends are reeling after an Israeli settler shot and killed Palestinian activist Odeh Muhammad Hadalin, an athlete, teacher and father of three young children. Hadalin helped produce the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which follows Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta as they struggle to stay on their land amid violent attacks by Jewish settlers. Hadalin’s cousin Alaa calls him an exceptionally “humane” and “peaceful” person in an interview with +972 Magazine and Local Call reporter Oren Ziv, who joins us from Tel Aviv.

In January, the Trump administration lifted Biden-era sanctions on Hadalin’s alleged killer, Yinon Levi, who has been released on house arrest. Meanwhile, multiple members of Hadalin’s family are still imprisoned and awaiting hearings in Israel’s military court after they were arrested by Israeli soldiers following the shooting. Ziv describes how Israeli soldiers also conducted a raid on a mourning party days after Hadalin died of his injuries. “They forced us out. And even in the entrance to the village, they started to throw stun grenades,” Ziv says. “It’s important to say it’s not only an attack on the family, on his friends. It’s an attempt to prevent us, the journalists, [from] investigating the case.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The University of the South Pacific (USP) is at the heart of a global legal victory with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivering a historic opinion last week affirming that states have binding legal obligations to protect the environment from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.

The case, hailed as a triumph for climate justice, was driven by a student-led movement that began within USP’s own regional classrooms.

In 2021, the government of Vanuatu took a bold step by announcing its intention to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ on climate change. But what many may not have realised is that the inspiration behind this unprecedented move came from a group of determined young Pacific Islanders — students from USP who formed the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

• READ MORE: How Pacific students took their climate fight to the world’s highest court. And won
• The Pacific Community (SPC) climate justice resource
• Climate Justice at the ICJ
• Other Pacific climate justice reports

According to the United Nations background information, these USP students led the charge, campaigning for years to bring the voices of vulnerable island nations to the highest court in the world.

Their call for accountability resonated across the globe, eventually leading to the adoption of a UN resolution in March 2023 that asked the ICJ two critical legal questions:

• What obligations do states have under international law to protect the environment?
• What are the legal consequences when they fail?

The result
A sweeping opinion from the ICJ affirming that climate change treaties place binding duties on countries to prevent environmental harm.

As the ICJ President, Judge Iwasawa Yuji, stated in the official delivery the court was: “Unanimously of the opinion that the climate change treaties set forth binding obligations for States parties to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.”

USP alumni lead the celebration
USP alumna Cynthia Houniuhi, president of the PISFCC, shared her pride in a statement to USP’s official news that this landmark opinion must guide not only courtrooms but also global climate negotiations and policy decisions and it’s a call to action.

“The law is on our side. I’m proud to be on the right side of history.”

Her words reflect the essence of USP’s regional identity, a university built not just to educate, but to empower Pacific Islanders to lead solutions to the region’s most pressing challenges.

Why is the ICJ’s climate ruling such a big deal?         Video: Almost

Students in action, backed by global leaders
UN Secretary-General Antόnio Guterres, in a video message released by the UN, gave credit where it was due.

“This is a victory for our planet, for climate change and for the power of young people to make a difference. Young Pacific Islanders initiated this call for humanity to the world, and the world must respond.”

Vishal Prasad, director of PISFCC, in a video reel of the SPC (Secretariat of the Pacific Community), also credited youth activism rooted in the Pacific education system as six years ago young people from the Pacific decided to take climate change to the highest court and today the ICJ has responded.

“The ICJ has made it clear, it cemented the consensus on the science of climate change and formed the heart of all the arguments that many Pacific Island States made.”

USP’s influence is evident in the regional unity that drove this case forward showing that youth educated in the Pacific are capable of reshaping global narratives.

A win for the Pacific
From coastal erosion and rising sea levels to the legacy of nuclear testing, the Pacific lives with the frontline effects of climate change daily.

Coral Pasisi, SPC Director of Climate Change & Sustainability, highlighted in a video message, the long-term importance of the ruling:

“Climate change is already impacting them (Pacific people) and every increment that happens is creating more and more harm, not just for the generations now but those into the future. I think this marks a real moment for our kids.”

Additionally, as Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change, noted to SPC, science was the cornerstone of the court’s reasoning.

“The opinion really used that science as the basis for its definitions of accountability, responsibility, and duty.”

Among the proud USP student voices is Siosiua Veikune, who told Tonga’s national broadcaster that this is not only a win for the students but for the Pacific islands also.

What now?
With 91 written statements and 97 countries participating in oral proceedings, this was the largest case ever seen by the ICJ and it all began with a movement sparked at USP.

Now, the challenge moves from the courtroom to the global stage and will see how nations implement this legal opinion.

Though advisory, the ICJ ruling carries immense moral and legal weight. It will likely shape global climate negotiations, strengthen lawsuits against polluting states, and empower developing nations especially vulnerable Pacific Islands to demand justice on the international stage.

For the students who dreamed it into motion, it’s only the beginning.

“Now, we have to make sure this ruling leads to real action — in parliaments, at climate summits, and in every space where our future is at stake,”  said Veikune.

Vahefonua Tupola is a second-year student journalist at University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus. Republshed from Wansolwara News, the USP student journalism newspaper and website in partnership with Asia Pacific Report.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Wansolwara.

Kali Larsen sat at her desk at Fruitland Elementary School in Idaho earlier this year, trying to read the test questions as her classmates silently worked around her. Her anxiety climbed as she stared at the paper. She asked to use the bathroom and left the room.

Her mother, Jessica Larsen, had been substitute teaching that day when she received a call from the front office, notifying her that her 9-year-old daughter was having a panic attack. Kali, now 10, has dyslexia and struggles with reading and writing, Larsen said.

“Wouldn’t you be anxious?” Larsen told the Idaho Statesman and ProPublica.

For years, Larsen had been pleading with the Fruitland School District to get Kali qualified for special education for reading. Larsen, who herself was diagnosed later in life with dyslexia, had her daughter tested in first grade in 2021 by a private specialist who said Kali had the same disability. But a diagnosis doesn’t automatically qualify a student for special education. The school still wouldn’t evaluate Kali for help, saying she likely wouldn’t qualify, in part because her scores weren’t low enough, Larsen said.

Larsen grew more frustrated with each passing school year as her child — a shy girl who feels most confident when competing in rodeos on her horse, Pie — would cry after school and tell her she felt “dumb.” A year before her daughter’s panic attack in fourth grade, Larsen had filed a state complaint against the district, saying it refused to evaluate Kali for special education. A few months later, in March 2024, a state investigator agreed: The district had broken the law.

Parents of students with disabilities have increasingly resorted to filing complaints with the state over their schools’ failure to educate their children, alleging districts are violating federal law. Most of the time, state investigators have agreed and found that districts refuse to identify and evaluate children with disabilities, such as dyslexia or autism, and fail to follow plans to educate them fairly.

In Idaho, students with disabilities have performed worse in reading and math than many of their peers in other states, federal data shows. Idaho was among the states with the most founded complaints per capita in recent years, according to a national center that analyzes data on complaints and provides support to states. Over the past five years, investigators found in over 70% of the complaints filed in Idaho that districts had broken the law.

But the state often closes cases without making sure the districts have fully solved the problems, parents across Idaho told the Statesman and ProPublica.

Districts can resolve the violations without “really changing their ways,” said Amy Martz, a Utah-based attorney who has worked with families in Idaho. “There’s no teeth.”

State Superintendent Debbie Critchfield said the state Department of Education expects districts to make any corrections needed to be in full compliance with state and federal law, and that it has conducted listening sessions and piloted other programs to help meet the needs of students and parents.

Critchfield said the challenge with educating students with disabilities comes down, in part, to the way the state distributes funding, which is based on a flat percentage and not the actual number of students with disabilities in each district. She said staff members have large caseloads and districts lack trained staff and specialists.

Parents say it can take months for the districts to evaluate a child for services, and in some cases, districts have refused to provide the instruction or behavioral interventions students need.

Lawmakers have been reluctant to approve changes to the funding formula despite warnings from state officials about a shortfall between what districts spend on special education and what the state allocates. An independent oversight office this year estimated the gap to be over $80 million. Idaho routinely ranks last in the nation for funding per student overall.

Larsen said she didn’t want to get the district or teachers in trouble when she filed her complaint. But she said she risked retaliation, in a small community where speaking out can be damaging, because she intended to make public schools better for her daughter and other kids.

“We’re failing our kids. This is our future,” Larsen said. “Why are we failing them? And that’s my question to them, but they can’t answer.”

School districts nationwide are required to identify children who have disabilities or health impairments that could make it harder to learn, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or dyslexia, and evaluate them for special education services. A parent can also formally request an evaluation of their child. Under federal law, if the school has any reason to suspect a disability, it must provide that evaluation.

But when Larsen asked the district to evaluate her daughter, the school pushed back.

Records show that district officials over a period of 1 1/2 years provided numerous reasons Kali didn’t need or wouldn’t qualify for special education: Her low reading scores were mainly due to anxiety, rather than a disability; she needed to advocate for herself; she was “making progress”; a special education evaluation would take a long time; if she received special education services, she’d miss out on valuable instruction time in a general education classroom.

A few months after Larsen filed her complaint in 2024, an investigator contracted by the state Department of Education concluded that the district didn’t have procedures in place to make sure all students with disabilities were identified and helped, and that it hadn’t conducted a full evaluation of Kali, even after Larsen requested it. The investigators issued a corrective action plan and ordered the district to begin the evaluation process with Kali within about two weeks and to help her within two months if they found she qualified for special education.

Fruitland Superintendent Stoney Winston, who started in July 2024, after the state issued the corrective action plan, said the district has “made corrections” and is meeting current requirements. He said he can’t speak to what happened before he assumed his role.

Do you have personal experience with problems related to special education in Idaho or accessibility through the Americans with Disabilities Act in schools? We want to hear from you, whether you’re a student, a parent, an educator or an administrator. We will only use your name with permission. Reach out to Becca Savransky at bsavransky@idahostatesman.com or 208-495-5661.

Disability advocates have said the lack of funding makes it hard for school districts in the state to attract qualified specialists or special education teachers who fully understand the law, which can lead to improper education plans or other violations. High caseloads for staff members also mean less time for making or implementing specialized education plans, they said.

The state relies on a decades-old funding formula that assumes a set percentage of students in every district would qualify for special education: 6% in elementary school and 5.5% in middle and high school. State education officials acknowledged those percentages were never adequate. Officials said they don’t know how lawmakers first arrived at that formula.

“That 5.5 and that 6%, which was already insufficient back in 2016, is even more insufficient,” said Casey Petti, from Idaho’s Office of Performance Evaluations, an independent oversight agency.

According to the most recent data, about 12% of students in Idaho qualify for special education services — the lowest in the country.

In 2009, that agency told Idaho officials to consider tying special education funding to the actual cost of educating those students. In 2016, the office came out with a report with the same findings.

That same year, the Legislature created a committee to research the issue and rewrite the state’s funding formula. The committee met for three years, and in 2019, lawmakers proposed legislation. While those proposals would have provided money for special education based on the number of students actually receiving services, state education officials and school administrators said they were left out of the process and the legislation would be difficult to implement. The state superintendent at the time questioned whether it would even adequately fund special education.

Nearly 75% of school districts that received state funding for special education programs spent anywhere from $640 to $19 million more than what the state provided during the 2023-24 school year.

In the years since, lawmakers have introduced other bills to revise the funding formula, but the Legislature did not approve any of them. The cost to investigate complaints overall has nearly tripled since the 2020 school year, according to the state Department of Education, with each investigation ranging from a few hundred dollars to $30,000.

This year, the Idaho Legislature approved adding another specialist to help handle complaints. During the 2023-24 school year, the state received 53 complaints and found districts were out of compliance in most of them.

But while the state has spent more money to investigate the problems, administrators said they have been given little to fix them. In Idaho, districts rely on local taxpayers to fund special education more than in many other states, according to a 2024 study by Bellwether, a nonprofit that analyzed data from the National Center for Education Statistics for the 24 states where it was available.

Boundary County Superintendent Jan Bayer described special education as an “unfunded mandate.” The district spends about $1.7 million from its general fund to educate students with disabilities and goes to its taxpayers every two years to ask for additional funding to provide other programs.

Other superintendents said it was difficult to meet the needs of every student in special education.

“While we provide the vast majority of our students with the services they need, we do have a couple of higher need students who need more services than we can provide,” Butte County Superintendent Joe Steele, who retired this summer, said in an email to the Statesman. But finding educators or specialists with the proper training, and paying for them, would be challenging in the remote area, he said.

Kendra Scheid watched her son struggle in a larger district with high caseloads and inexperienced staff. Scheid’s son, who is autistic and nonverbal, qualified for developmental preschool before moving into the Pocatello-Chubbuck School District in eastern Idaho. But the district told her that her son could attend preschool only two days a week for 2 1/2 hours each day.

Before her son started attending full-day kindergarten, Scheid asked the school for a meeting to put together a revised education plan for her son. But the district refused, according to the complaint investigation.

Scheid went to school with her son on the first days, where he was placed with other students with disabilities, and witnessed what she described as chaos: kids climbing on tables, students injuring themselves with no staff intervention and teachers restraining children in their chairs. “They had no idea what any of these kids needed, what any of these kids were like coming into the classroom,” she said.

Pocatello school district spokesperson Courtney Fisher said the district is committed to “proactively addressing parent concerns” and improving its special education services. That includes putting into place a plan that meets all state requirements and hiring more staff, she said, and trying to address any gaps in its system to prevent issues in the future.

I feel like a bad mom because I didn’t know this stuff at the time. And I feel like I let my son down.

After school on the second day, Scheid’s son came home crying and covering his ears, something she said he hadn’t done before. After day three, Scheid disenrolled her son from the district. For the rest of that year, he saw outside therapists and Scheid worked with him at home.

After she filed a complaint with the state, an investigator found the district had broken the law when it failed to create a plan that would work for her son and to ensure the teacher had his previous education plan before school started. The state said the district must create a new education plan for her son should he reenroll, but Scheid had lost faith. Instead, she entered and won one of the few available lottery spots in a charter school, which her son now attends.

“I feel like a bad mom because I didn’t know this stuff at the time,” reflected Scheid, who said her son is now doing well in a charter school that’s more accommodating. “And I feel like I let my son down.”

About 20% of Idaho districts have broken federal disability law multiple times in the past five years, and nearly 40% have violated the law at least once, according to data from the state Department of Education. When they do, the state, which enforces the federal law and corresponding state rules, asks them to fix the problems through corrective action plans.

The plans reviewed by the news outlets ask district staff to undergo training, and sometimes a child gets additional hours of education to make up for the time missed. But a Statesman and ProPublica review of corrective action plans and interviews with parents showed districts repeatedly receive training for the same problems and commit similar violations.

Critchfield, the state superintendent, said there are several factors that could play a role in whether training is successful for districts permanently, including staff turnover and access to resources.

“Compliance with state and federal law is the ultimate goal,” she said in an email. “As a department, we are always prepared to provide remedial training and intervention to address additional concerns as they arise.”

The Pocatello school district received 11 complaints over the past five years, according to data from the state Department of Education. The Garden Valley School District received 10. In both of these districts, federal investigators found systemic violations in special education law that impacted more than one student. The state Department of Education refused to provide the number of founded complaints per district, citing federal law on student privacy, though some other states publicly post much of their complaint investigations online.

Andrew Branham was among several parents who filed complaints against the Garden Valley School District over the past three years.

The Branhams wrote in the complaint that their daughter received “virtually no education” and was denied services, such as speech and counseling. At one point, they said a school resource officer called her parents threatening to arrest her. Her parents said they rushed to school to find her barefoot in the middle of the parking lot as several adults looked on. A state investigator concluded that the district in some instances had “relied” on the resource officer to address the student’s behavior.

Branham said the district was “unwilling” to meet the needs of their daughter. The Branhams elevated their case, hiring an attorney who presented it before a state-contracted hearing officer. The Branhams received a financial settlement with the district and moved to Washington to get their daughter a better education.

“It is a shame what Idaho is doing to kids in that state,” Branham said in December. “I would never move back there, and I would never recommend anyone live in that state, especially if you have special needs kids.”

After the Branhams filed their complaint and went public, more than 20 families shared similar experiences, they said. So they filed a complaint on behalf of other families that alleged that the district ignored state and federal laws meant to protect students with disabilities and denied them an education.

The resulting state investigations concluded that at least 13 of the allegations were founded. The district failed to properly construct education plans for students. It also didn’t have the proper plans for supporting a child with behavioral issues. The district did not gather or share the data it needed to assess student progress and could not adequately determine whether students were meeting their learning goals, the investigations found.

The state decided the district needed extra help, ranking Garden Valley in 2024 as one of three districts in need of substantial intervention. The state now requires the district to follow an improvement plan and monitors its progress — but the district’s funding remains the same.

The Garden Valley School District did not respond to requests for comment.

Families in other districts have also pulled their children from local schools. Some parents and advocates who talked to the Statesman said they are especially worried about President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education and leave it to the states when Idaho has long struggled to provide an education to students with disabilities.

In Kali’s case, the state’s corrective action plan issued in 2024, in addition to requiring that the district start to evaluate Larsen’s daughter, also mandated that the district help teachers learn how to spot students who should be evaluated for special education and identify those with disabilities.

The state closed the case earlier this year, about a year after it was filed. Kali had been struggling without adequate help for three years before the district conceded she was eligible for special education services.

Kali now has an education plan, but Larsen said the district still isn’t giving her the help she needs. She just finished fourth grade and still hasn’t mastered reading and writing. As her daughter prepares for middle school, Larsen is considering pulling her from the district next year. But Larsen doesn’t plan on filing another complaint. It was too much stress with little to show for it, she said.

When Kali was moved to a different classroom each day to receive more specialized instruction, her teachers sometimes told her to sit and read quietly, Larsen said.

“She can’t read,” Larsen said, exasperated. “It’s so frustrating.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Becca Savransky, Idaho Statesman.

Alexis Krauss: Well, she was a mysterious creature. But based on the love that she showed us, especially on tour and all of her many zoomies on the tour bus, I’m going to say she was a pretty big fan.

Derek Miller: We also hear her on the first track on Bitter Rivals. She’s the dog at the beginning, so she’s technically a performing, contributing member of Sleigh Bells.

Alexis: Exactly. She could ask for royalties. “Bunky Pop” was Derek’s effort to make a track that embodied her and her spirit, and I think he really succeeded in that. That song really does make me think of her in so many ways.

Derek: We turned the idea of Riz as a human being into half of the record. The other half would be Roxette, who represents Alexis. I’m definitely a little more Bunky Becky, a little more Riz—like a dog who playfully wanders into a room and starts knocking stuff over. They mean well, they’re just loud. Riz had a seizure in 2022. She was unconscious for two or three minutes, and Alexis called me crying. A week later, I got the idea to try to write an anthem for her. I tried to make a track that felt like her sprinting through a field, basically. Even though it is specific to a dog, it works in a less specific context as well. It’s really just about two friends. Even though there is autobiography in there, it’s really about any friendship that lasts. There’s going to be lots of ups and downs and you see each other through all of it.

You’ve worked together for almost two decades. What keeps your collaboration generative and invigorating?

Alexis: If it felt tired and stale, or if there was animosity that had built up, I don’t think we’d be doing it. Not that we wouldn’t care enough to try and fix things, but at this point, our relationship is so solid and the creative relationship is really pretty fluid. It’s something we both look forward to.

Derek: This is advice that I’ve given to younger artists who have asked me about the creative process: try to make music that you are, at least temporarily, madly in love with. Maybe it’s just a riff, maybe it’s a verse in a chorus, maybe it’s a complete arrangement. I want to get to a place where I record a new idea and I get in bed at night and I listen to it 19 times in a row staring at the ceiling, and on the 20th time I’m like, “This is madness. Go to bed.” So I put my phone down, I turn the lights out, and five minutes later I put my earbuds back in, turn the light on and listen to it three more times.

I feel like I’ve been in that zone since I was a teenager. Since I was 16, I’ve had at least one piece of music that I am absolutely dying for people to hear. Doesn’t mean it’s any good. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s trash. You never know. But if you’re in that space where you’re madly in love with what you’re working on while you’re working on it, it’s very, very easy to move forward. And that’s the space that we’ve been in really since the beginning.

The first thing we recorded together was Infinity Guitars… We recorded the first rough vocals for Infinity Guitars [for a few hours] before we heard a knock on our door; it was these two kids that lived down the hall. I started to apologize, but they said, “It’s cool, what is that?” And I remember looking at you, Alexis, and looking at them and being like, “I guess that’s our new band.”

The riff on “Wanna Start a Band?” was something you’ve been working on since 2014. When do you know when it’s the right time to revisit old work?

Derek: Anyone who makes records, especially if you’ve been doing it for a while, has a mental Rolodex of existing sessions with moments that are really great. You don’t know what the texture or the tempo or the key should be, but you know that there’s something there. All I had for “Wanna Start a Band?” was the ascending part of the riff. That’s all it was. It was this little pleasurable thorn in my brain that just sits there until I solve it. It took a long time to find the verses and the rest of the riff. It turns out it took almost a decade.

I think I’ll probably make records for the rest of my life. I don’t know who will listen or if they’ll be any good. I don’t mind if I have to wait years. I think it’s just about having patience. Right now I have 30 or 40 sessions, and each of them has something really special, even if it’s just a bar. I don’t mean to make it sound momentous, by the way. There’s just a couple of ideas, but in my life, it’s momentous.

Alexis: Derek is really discriminating about the best ideas. There’s been multiple times where we’ve recorded something and I’ve gotten really excited, and then I’ve gotten almost pissed at him because he starts to doubt it. Then there’s the process of mourning the shape that it had taken. There’s a song that I fucking loved that didn’t make this album. But there’s been very few times, if any, where that patience hasn’t paid off in terms of creating a song that I think was better than what we had initially. I think that patience has really benefited the band.

Do you ever try to purposely disconnect from the creative process?

Alexis: Derek, one thing I’ve noticed is that when you’re in that more contemplative state of brainstorming or developing a direction for one of the new records, you’ll often do this thing where you’ll say, “I’m making tracks for [another] artist. This isn’t Sleigh Bell’s music.” I love that idea. I love the idea of Derek producing for other people. But in the back of my mind, I always know he’s going to switch soon and send me a song that we can work on. I think that’s a way that you maybe step into a more exploratory mindset.

Derek: I love when that switch happens. That happened recently with something I shared three weeks ago. We don’t have any vocals written yet, but in my mind it was for somebody else. It’s just a fun game to play, to trick yourself. Every time I do it, I’m convinced: “This time, it’s not going to be for Sleigh Bells. I’m going to keep it out of that lane. I’m going to keep crash cymbals and cymbal chokes and high-game guitars out of the mix. Blah, blah, blah.” But it usually tends to come back around, if I love it enough.

Something I love about Sleigh Bells is how consistent the vision is. How much is that natural, and how much is it through an intentional shaping of the record?

Derek: I feel like it happens naturally. We’ve gone pretty far outside of what we would consider to be the Sleigh Bell sound. I always use a track from 2017 called “And Saints” as an example. For that song, I literally made a list of everything recognizable as Sleigh Bells and was unable to do any of those things, any of my usual tricks. So we ended up with a really simple Arp synth, some lush pads, Alexis’s vocal, and that’s it.

Alexis: I think one of the reasons why that melody took the shape the way it did is because it came out in one longer melodic take, which doesn’t always happen. A lot of our stuff will go part by part, or verse by verse, and then we’ll work on the bridge. That one all came together at once; I think it was because the track had space for that.

Derek: I have to resist my natural impulse to impact the speaker really intensely. I like cyan; I like things that are bright and shiny and aggressive, but in a pleasurable way. I want it to be joyful and euphoric. Most music that’s sonically aggressive has a very dark, heavy aesthetic. Lyrically, it’s very dark. The artwork is very dark, the merch is very dark—and I love that. That’s great. I just feel like there’s so much more to be explored with music that is sonically intense and aggressive but is more playful. 100 gecs is a great example of that. I was so excited the first time I heard 100 gecs. Bits of Poppy’s record I Disagree as well, are really fun and playful. Just so it’s crystal clear, I’m not shading metal or hardcore. I come from that. I love those records, but there’s really a lot of room to mess around. It’s a big sandbox with not a lot of people in it.

I think it’s fair to argue that many artists who often get classified as hyperpop, like 100 gecs and Poppy, were heavily inspired by Sleigh Bells. How did you feel when you encountered this newer crop of artists who share elements of your sound?

Derek: It was so exciting to hear the next wave of artists who are exciting and inspired and connecting. It’s truly an honor. At first, it can make you feel old, even if you’re in your 30s. And a little scared, which is natural. I’ve exchanged really, really lovely messages with Dylan Brady from gecs. It was great to hear directly from them that they were influenced by us. In turn, they have influenced us: I borrowed from gecs on Texis and a little bit of this record. It’s like the circle’s complete.

It’s not even borrowing a specific thing… It’s just the feeling. There’s just a life and a spark and a spirit and a playfulness that I feel like, at our best, we have. And when you hear it in another artist, it just makes you want to step up and be great as well. Not in a competitive way. I feel like we’re only ever in competition with ourselves.

Alexis: Personally, I’ve never felt particularly compelled to identify with a specific genre, but I do agree that listening to Poppy’s album or listening to 100 gecs, there is that feeling of just wanting to lose your shit. There’s this completely un-self-conscious, rowdy intensity—but then also this saccharine sweetness and playful giddiness. The marriage of these components is so compelling. As Derek’s said, it’s a feeling. It’s a spark. To be considered amongst bands who are really doing that well, it’s a huge privilege and a huge honor.

Derek: We should mention Charli [XCX] as well, who finally reached the masses with that sound. Right after True Romance came out, Charli opened our UK Reign of Terror shows, and within three minutes of the first set, I was like, “Enjoy this moment because she will never be opening for us again.” Even then, as a little kid, she was great. To watch her do her thing has been really incredible and inspiring, especially with Brat.

Why do you feel like that intense, over-the-top sound is speaking so much to this current moment?

Alexis: I spend a lot of time with young people and teenagers. I think young people have access to so much music and so many different ideas and styles. You seldom hear about a young person talk about a guilty pleasure. Kids are so much more exploratory and open to so many different genres. When I was growing up, marrying pop and hardcore wasn’t groundbreaking, necessarily. Bands have been doing it for a long time in different ways. But there was always this feeling, at least for me, that there was almost something shameful about pop, or that hardcore was more authentic. Young people have a disregard for that, and it’s created so much more space for young women and femme people to go to, say, a Turnstile show. That band is so exciting. You look at their fan base, and those shows never would’ve looked like that 20 years ago.

How did the lyrics for the new record come about?

Derek: A lot of times the instrumental will inform the lyric, or I’ll have something kicking around. I’ll send an instrumental and then a lyric file to Alexis and say, “Go nuts. Do whatever you want, move things around, change it.” Once she gets her hands on it, she definitely colors it in the best way.

Alexis: I think of melody first. When I’m listening to a track, I’ll usually just start with some mumbles or syllables. Once I have a melody that I think is worthy, I’ll try and add the lyric into that… A lot of times it’s a piecemeal assembly. But there have been multiple times where Derek is like, “No, this is really what I think should be said here.” I love that this record has a narrative it’s telling. You’re going through a relationship with the characters, a storyline, especially with regards to Riz. It’s almost like a word scramble: How do I put this together in a way with a melody that’s going to do the track justice?

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Arielle Gordon.

Is that a bit embarrassing? It’s something I started in the pandemic when I was really not sure if I was ever going to make another record again, and I was like, “I need to make this little wall of things I have done to remind me that I’ve done them and I’m doing it,” and I call it my little affirmation wall.

I Got Too Sad for My Friends is your first album in six years, and it has a very different sound than your previous two. I know you wrote at least one of the songs at home on acoustic guitar during lockdown. To what extent has embracing less synth in your production since then been an intentional artistic direction, a product of your circumstances, or just some other creative motivation?

It’s a real mix. What I became known for with the first record, synth pop, was actually new for me. I had always written on acoustic guitar. My songs, before I released them, had an electronic flavor because I would produce them at home, use loops, and produce beats, but they were always built around acoustic guitar. I’m not a proficient keys player, and I certainly had never encountered a synthesizer in the flesh before. It wasn’t until I met my collaborator for the first two records, Joel Pott, that I really met [the Roland] Juno-106, which was the synth that became so much of the sound of my first record and a big part of the second record.

In some ways, embracing less synth is a return to my songwriting origins. It’s also a product of circumstance, having moved to New York, not having had the time to move my entire studio—or the money, to be quite frank—because it’s a lot of gear. I didn’t even have a guitar to begin with. I had to ask Torres to borrow her guitar, so she ran around in the middle of the lockdowns, and we did a distanced exchange. I say exchange, but I gave Torres nothing in return. I was just like, “Thank you. I finally have an instrument.”

In terms of textures, which are very different on this record, it was just where I needed to live, the space I needed to occupy. I needed things that felt natural, warm, tactile. The natural world was really calling me. And it was certainly the kind of textures I was listening to at that time. I’ve talked a lot about how Cassandra Jenkins’ record [An Overview on Phenomenal Nature] massively influenced the world I was in at that time.

Hearing you talk about going back to your roots makes me wonder if you’ve been doing any songwriting in the time since. If you have, has it veered more toward the sound you have on I Got Too Sad for My Friends or on Forevher and Nothing’s Real?

This stuff I’ve been writing, it’s still in the world of this third album, but also, everything starts off in that world because of how I write.

Every time I get to this stage in the album process, I’m like, “I’m never going to make an album ever again. I don’t want to do it. This is a completely mad endeavor. Why am I doing this when no one is asking me to? It is not like I have millions of people clamoring for a Shura record, and yet here I am putting myself through this process.” But it’s been interesting because I’ve been listening to a lot of pop music in the last couple of months, maybe as a kind of antidote to the world that I’m in right now and I’m like, “Oh, maybe I need to make some pop music again.” And then I’m like, “No. No more albums. Stop it.” But I’ve never really known where I’m going next until I’m already halfway there.

I’m interested in the idea that you’re always like, “No, I don’t want to do another album.” How do you reignite your creative spark?

The difference between the creative spark reigniting and what happened [in the years before I Got Too Sad For My Friends] was that this was the first time I experienced what people would call writer’s block, the inability to write. There was nothing going on in that way in my brain. Whereas in the past when I’d finished Nothing’s Real, I was like, “Oh, I never want to do that again,” it wasn’t so much that I didn’t have stuff to say or I wasn’t writing. It was just the experience of touring a record for two years and everything that happened was exhausting, and I was like, “Wow, I am just tired and I need to sleep.” In that moment of peak exhaustion, the idea of doing it again is horrifying.

What was different here with this album was that I was midway through a tour, so I was excited about playing these songs, about playing the record, and that sort of stopped. And I knew that meant I probably should use this time, this break, to write, because it’s not often that you get that break. You’re either recording, touring, or doing promo.

I said, “It’d be really useful now to write a lot.” And I just couldn’t. I had nothing to say. The only way I describe it to people is, I felt like my brain was a brick. The brain itself had calcified, and the particles weren’t moving, and the synapses weren’t firing. Anytime I tried, anything I began to say or tried to say just seemed awful, and I hated everything that I attempted to do and gave up, and then wondered if that was it. I was like, “Maybe the particles will never uncalcify,” which is, if that’s the first time it’s happened to you, quite discombobulating, and probably will be the second time it happens to me. I’ll probably be like, “Okay, no, this time for real, it’s calcified and it’s never coming back.”

Can you say more about how you transformed your mind from “it feels calcified” to “I have something to say again”?

It was a long process with several prongs. Relying heavily on my small group of peers and talking to them about feeling this way, and having them tell me they had felt this way and had come through the other side was really helpful to me. Ladyhawke, who I became very good friends with in the [lockdowns], was like, “I’ve been there. You will absolutely write another song again. Don’t panic.”

I had to let go of the panic. To this day, I still do it walking and leaving the house. Whenever I feel stuck—I got this book by Brenda Ueland called If You Want to Write, and she mentions the importance of walking and having that time to just observe and think. Observation and feeding my brain that way is something Katie Gavin would talk to me about, the idea of objective observations and writing them down.

One of the things I struggle with, which is also in Brenda Ueland’s book, is editing before you’ve even written it down. You have the thought, you go to write it down, and you’re like, “No, that’s a terrible thought. Don’t even bother writing it down.” [I learned] to quiet that voice and be like, “No, just write everything down.” Right now, that may not feel or sound interesting or feel like a lyric, but with time, you’ll go back and be like, “Actually, there’s this one tiny fragment that has nothing to do with this song that I’m writing. But for some reason there’s an image there or something that really fits.”

Maybe that’s also why nature and the textures of this record are the way they are, because I would go on these walks and sit down on a park bench, write down everything that I could hear, see, and smell, and just sit. If I think of “Richardson,” just feeling the air move across my face as a lyric would’ve been something that I wrote down in my notepad. When I wrote that, I probably was like, “Oh, why am I talking about the wind? God.”

As I’m hearing you talk about this, I want to ask, how do you edit?

I’m working on lyrics right until I record the final—I will have a draft, an early draft, and sometimes, there will be space for a second verse that I don’t have yet, and I’ll either leave a gap or copy the first verse twice. Sometimes, you’ll write a song and the whole thing will come out. And yes, you’ll tweak certain words and go, “Am I trying to force a rhyme here where there doesn’t need to be? Is there a more interesting word that doesn’t rhyme?” Those kinds of things. Sometimes, I’ll be like, “Why is verse two not coming?” How I’ve learned to deal with that is that, “Okay, verse two isn’t coming for me. I can’t force verse two,” so I have to let it arrive at me.

Sometimes, there will be songs [for which] I finish the lyrics years later. I try not to listen to my own music until time has passed. It’s like, “Maybe I should have put that word in there.” But I think it’s because I studied English literature, for me, the most important part, the bit I get the most out of as a consumer of music, as an enjoyer of music, is the lyrics. So for me, I really care. I try things out, I try different versions, I will sing different versions, and it’s a sort of long process [that] feels like I’m excavating dinosaur bones with a little toothbrush.

Why did you move back to the U.K., and how has doing so affected your creativity? How has it affected your relationships with the friends you’ve mentioned, none of whom live in the U.K.?

Coming back here is primarily a financial decision, to be honest. I was spending a lot of money on an apartment in New York, which is a city I love, and I couldn’t enjoy all that New York has to offer, including my friends who were there. We couldn’t hang out. It made sense to come back here.

It’s been interesting making a record where place, the idea of place, is a big character. So many of those places are on the other side of the world. I have friends who are creative, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a clique or a crew in music. I was really excited about moving to New York because there are so many incredible musicians there. I was signed to a label that started in America, and I was excited to tap into the creative sphere there. I definitely did make friends, and my life sort of revolved around The Lot Radio just because of the timing of when I got there and it being [lockdown]. It felt like I never got the opportunity to really explore what a full life as a creative person would be in New York. I feel like I have unfinished business that I’m not remotely interested in finishing for at least four years.

Do you have an overarching principle or philosophy for navigating change as an artist?

It’s funny because I’m thinking about a lyric in “Ringpull,” which is like, “I’m scared of change. What if you arrive and all I do is change?” I think, not being neurotypical, change is a challenge in some ways, in terms of my routine, my environment, which is why I sometimes push myself to do the thing I know I’m not comfortable with.

To rewind a bit, for this album, it was really important to me to not do the same thing again. I didn’t want to make a third album and make it with the same writers, the same producers, and tour it in the same places. By the time I’d gotten to the point where I knew I was able to make a third album, I had this voice in my head going, “What if you never make another one?” At the end of it all, I don’t want to say, “I did the same thing three times.” I wanted to do things I’d never done before, and I wanted to experience creative discomfort.

Even though I was signed to a major label on the first record, which sounds terrifying, I had a very fortunate experience. I had put out a song, it went viral. I was more or less left to do what I wanted because [the label’s mentality was], “Clearly, she has an idea of what she wants to do, so let her finish it.”

I wanted to experience what it might be like to push myself. I had experienced this discomfort. It sounds weird. I spent a year or two being sad in New York, and I was like, “You know what? More pain.” But it wasn’t painful. The change brought me so much joy, and maybe that’s the lesson. I am absolutely terrified of change, but when it happens, it’s quite joyful.

I cried in the studio the first day we all played together and we were recording live together, because it was something I’d never done before. I remember going back into the control room and listening to a take, and I’m singing live even with everyone playing. I was like, “Is this us? We sound so good.” I’d never experienced that before, and I just wanted to make sure I did it just in case.

Any motivation to keep going is still a motivation to keep going.

Yeah, and also to do it in a way that—to really just go for it. Tomorrow is not guaranteed for any person, so it’s like, what do you want to make sure you’ve done? I want to hear Hammond. I want to hear clarinets. I want to dress up in armor and walk up a Welsh mountain in the freezing cold. I think a lot of it is also bringing joy to the inner child, the kid in you who wanted to be a musician, who wanted to do this—what did they want to do? Because actually, they’re not traumatized yet. They haven’t experienced a pandemic. They haven’t been dropped in the middle of a tour.

If you’ve done The Artist’s Way or anything like that, it’s that pure version of you, that hasn’t had all that creative baggage, that makes you the editor of your own thoughts. It’s like, what does Shura who’s seven years old want to make? A lot of it was tapping into my inner child and the joy, because I think for any musician who’s been in the industry for a while, you discover it’s not always fun and it’s a difficult job, and we are blessed to be able to do it.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Max Freedman.

Reed knows this from experience. Alongside her wife, Montana state legislator Zooey Zephyr, they’ve faced the harshest forms of political repression, from being silenced in state chambers to watching harmful laws passed in the name of "protecting" sports or children. And yet, their fight continues, fueled by love, clarity, and hope.

So how can you support the trans community in meaningful ways?

1. Stand Firm in Your Values – Democratic Party leaders especially shouldn't be “Republican-lite” or speak through the filter of 12 consultants. Speak from the heart, like Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, who stood up for trans rights and still won big in a deep red state.

2. Educate Yourself and Others – Learn the real facts. Trans athletes aren’t “cheating.” They’re barely even represented in elite sports. Medical care for trans youth isn’t a free-for-all;  it’s cautious, professional, and consent-driven. And no, no one is performing surgeries in school cafeterias. 

3. Be Visible. Be Vocal. – When institutions cave to pressure and erase diversity programs, allies must speak up. Trans people aren’t always in the room, but you might be.

4. Build Solidarity – Globally and locally. Anti-trans disinformation spreads across borders. So should our support. Reach out to advocate groups abroad and build an international coalition of support and solidarity. 

History is watching. As Reed reminds us, this is our civil rights moment. Whether you’re an activist, a parent, a lawmaker, or a friend, your genuineness, your voice, and your love can help shape a more just future. 

All it takes is a spark.

The song you heard in this week’s Gaslit Nation is “Tear the Fascists Down” by Deena Marie. Check out her music here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2CuUJiaLhVF4x8WlZGLjRJ 

If you have a song to share on our show, submit your music to us at Gaslit Nation – we love hearing from you! More info: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-d_DWNnDQFYUMXueYcX5ZVsA5t2RN09N8PYUQQ8koq0/edit?ts=5fee07f6&gxids=7628

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EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION:

• NEW DATE! Thursday July 31 4pm ET – the Gaslit Nation Book Club discusses Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s The Little Prince written in the U.S. during America First. 

• Minnesota Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other, available on Patreon. 

• Vermont Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other, available on Patreon. 

• Arizona-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to connect, available on Patreon. 

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• Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and the first ~40 minutes are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit for our community

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.

HISTORY: By Scott Hamilton

The man in the photo walks down the deserted street, over rubble. On both sides of the street buildings have lost their roofs and walls. A pockmarked minaret totters over the wrecked townscape. The photo is captioned “Ruins of Gaza at the Time of the Great Attack”.

The photo I’m describing wasn’t taken in 2025, but in 1917. Today Gaza is being destroyed by the armies of Israel and Hamas. In 1917 the British and Ottoman empires wrecked the city. New Zealanders played an important role in the destruction.

In 1917 most Gazans lived in village-suburbs interspersed with gardens and orchards. Their houses were made with mud bricks. The highest building in their town was the Great Mosque, whose foundations dated from the 7th century.

• READ MORE: Death toll in Israel’s war on Gaza surpasses 60,000
• Fiji ‘failing’ the Gaza genocide and humanity test, says rights group
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

The Ottomans had made Gaza into a fortress, and had connected it by rail and road to a series of redoubts further east. These guarded the southern border of the province of Palestine, and were manned by German and Austrian as well as Ottoman troops.

Britain’s new prime minister David Lloyd George was desperate to capture Palestine, in the hope a victory there would shift public attention from the disaster on the western front, where tens of thousands of Britons had died fighting over mud.

The Egyptian Expeditionary Force, which crossed the Sinai desert to attack Gaza and Palestine, was made up of British, Anzacs, South Africans, West Indians, a volunteer Jewish Legion and Indians.

The Anzac Mounted Division was an essential part of the EEF. Its men rode to battles but fought on foot. Many of them had learned to ride on the farms of their homelands. Some were survivors of Gallipoli, where they had battled without their horses; others had arrived in Egypt after that catastrophe.

Farmland confiscated
Gaza’s suffering began before the British attack. Its defenders confiscated farmland for trenches, and demolished houses to give artillerymen better sight lines. The Great Mosque was seized and turned into an ammunition dump.

It took the British empire three battles to capture Gaza. A photo taken before the second assault shows New Zealanders trying on gas masks. It is captioned “Gaza Beauty Show”. The attackers fired 4000 canisters of asphyxiating gas towards the city. No Gazan had a gas mask.

Before the final assault the city was bombarded for four days by naval guns, artillery and planes. When they finally captured Gaza, the New Zealanders found it empty. Almost the entire population had fled the bombardment; the Ottomans had followed them.

On the day its troops entered Gaza the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, which committed it to establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1917, though, Jews made up less than a tenth of Palestine’s population.

And Britain had made contradictory promises to Arabs, promising them independence if they rose up against Ottoman rule, and funding an Arab army that had advanced to the edge of Palestine.

There was still another group that wanted Palestine. When the Auckland Mounted Rifles had passed the stone pillar that marked the border between Sinai and Palestine, Henry Mackesy had stopped his men, and prayed to thank god for delivering the “Holy Land” to Britain.

Like New Zealand’s wartime prime minister William Massey, Mackesy was a British Israelite, who believed that Anglo-Saxons were a lost tribe of Israel, and that the British empire was god’s kingdom on earth. For Mackesy and many other Anzacs, Palestine belonged rightfully to Britons, not Jews or Arabs.

Conquerors warned
So many Anzacs wanted to settle in Palestine that Kia ora Coo-ee, their official magazine, had to run an article warning them that conquerors could not legally take locals’ land.

For most Anzacs, the inhabitants of Palestine — the Arabs of the villages and towns, the nomadic Bedouin of the deserts, the small and ancient Jewish communities in towns like Jerusalem — were at best an inconvenience, and at worst a reminder of the decadence and evil condemned in the Old Testament.

New Zealander Alexander McNeur summed up a widespread feeling when he wrote “no wonder the old inhabitants of Palestine had to be destroyed . . .  many a chap is disgusted by the people”. (The only Palestinians the Anzacs really liked were the settlers in Zionist colonies, who looked, spoke and acted like Europeans.)

The Anzacs complained about the dirtiness and dishonesty of Palestinians. Many complained they had been cheated by Arab or Jewish traders; others said that Bedouins dug up soldiers’ graves and plundered them.

But the Anzacs themselves had a reputation for taking whatever they could from Palestinians, as well as from Ottoman soldiers. In 1988, Australian veteran Ted O’Brien gave an interview in which he confessed to killing a wounded Ottoman so that he could steal the man’s possessions. Robbing the dead was routine, O’Brien said.

O’Brien added that he and his comrades would immediately kill any Bedouins they found in the desert. Edwin McKay, a member of the Otago section of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, said that theft was a “two-way thing”, with Anzacs and Palestinians preying on each other.

After its defeat of Gaza the Ottoman army began to disintegrate, but as the EEF advanced through Palestine and into Jordan and Syria, it did not always bring peace. Arabs who fought alongside the British imperial forces, hoping for independence, became possessive about the areas they had captured.

Pushed off land
Ottoman deserters became bandits. Bedouins who had been pushed off their land by war raided EEF camps in search of loot. The Jewish Legion clashed with Arabs so often that the EEF commander General Allenby asked the War Office not to send him any more Jews.

The Anzacs’ contempt towards Arabs grew even greater after a calamitous attempt to capture Amman near the end of the war. Rain, cold and tougher-than-expected Ottoman resistance sent the mounted riflemen away with heavy losses.

As they rode towards safety, the Wellington Mounted Rifles entered Ain es Sir, a small village set amid hills and ravines. Villagers opened fire from houses and from nearby ledges, and seven Wellingtonians died. The Anzacs counterattacked Ain es Sir ferociously, shelling the village and killing 38 of its inhabitants. They took no prisoners.

The attack on Amman had made been made in partnership with an Arab force, and the Anzacs seem to have believed that the ambush at Ain es Sir was an act of treachery by their supposed allies.

They do not seem to have known, or cared, that Ain es Sir was not an Arab village. Its inhabitants were Circassians, a Caucasian group that migrated to the Middle East centuries ago.

On the night of December 10, more than a month after the end of the war, the Anzacs’ hatred of Arabs erupted. Hundreds of them were camped outside a village named Surafend, waiting impatiently for a ship to take them home. On the night of December 9 a man entered the tent of a New Zealand soldier named Leslie Lowry. Lowry had been using his kitbag as a pillow. The intruder grabbed it and fled.

Lowry chased the thief across the dunes that separated the Anzac camp from Surafend. The thief turned and fired a pistol. Lowry died three hours later. The next morning Anzacs found Lowry’s blood in the sand. Footprints led from the stain towards Surafend.

Surafend attacked
On December 10, up to 200 Anzacs and a few Scots smashed through the fence that surrounded Surafend. They beat and stabbed scores of male inhabitants of the village, leaving between 40 and 120 dead and many more wounded, then set fire to the Arabs’ homes.

A nearby Bedouin encampment was also set ablaze. Ted O’Brien was one of the raiders. He and his comrades had “done their blocks”. They “all went for” the Arabs with “the bayonet”. “It was a godawful thing,” O’Brien remembered.

New Zealander Ted Andrews explained that the massacre was not just about Lowry’s murder. “The treacherous ambush at Ain es Sir was still fresh in the minds of New Zealand troops,” he wrote, ignoring the fact that the men of Surafend had nothing to do with that village.

Andrews said that victims at Surafend were castrated. Some historians have dismissed this claim, but American scholar Edward Woodfin has shown that castration and humiliation of the dead were being practised in 1918 by the Indian members of the Egypt Expeditionary Force, with whom the Anzacs were friendly.

Most historians say that children, women and old men were removed from Surafend before the slaughter, but they ignore the testimony of Australian John Doran, who was at the Anzacs’ medical station the night of the massacre. Doran said that women and children appeared there with burns and bullet wounds.

The Jewish soldier Roman Freulich said that Australians had fired a machine gun at the Bedouin encampment on the night of December 10. Freulich also reported that the members of the Jewish Legion were excited by the massacre — they hated Arabs even more than the Anzacs — and that they used what he called “the Australian method” on a group of Bedouin civilians shortly after. Freulich said that he and his comrades sealed off a Bedouin camp and stabbed the men with bayonets.

No one prosecuted
Although the Anzacs’ commander General Allenby condemned the attackers, calling them “cowards and murderers”, no one was ever prosecuted for the massacre at Surafend. In 2009, the New Zealand television programme Sunday ran a story on the massacre.

Sunday’s team visited the site of Surafend, which has now been covered by an Israeli town, interviewed an old man who remembered the massacre, and asked why New Zealand had never apologised for the crime. The question is just as pertinent now.

When we look back from 2025 to the destruction of Gaza and the rest of the Palestine campaign, we can see that New Zealand troops played a part in setting in motion the cycle of violence that continues today in Palestine and Israel.

Scott Hamilton is the author of two great modern works of sociology and place, Ghost South Road (Titus Books, 2018), and Searching for Ata’a (Bridget Williams, 2017). He writes the blog Reading the Maps and is currently working on a book about sorcery and sorcery-related violence in Melanesia as part of his ongoing exploration of Pasifika arts and colonial Pākehā histories. This article was first published by The Spinoff and is republished with the author’s permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

As the Trump administration ramps up its violent immigration raids around the country, increasingly targeting immigrants with no criminal record, and racially profiling Latinos to meet arrest quotas, immigrant communities in Baltimore and beyond are living in terror. In this urgent episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with two immigrant justice organizers in Baltimore—whose identities are being protected to ensure their safety—about the horrifying reality that immigrant families, particularly Latino families, are experiencing right now. “If you don’t look Latino, do you tell your child to carry around their passport or their birth certificate?… US citizens are being detained only because they look Latino, because they are Latino.”

Additional resources:

• Maanvi Singh, Will Craft, & Andrew Witherspoon, The Guardian, “How Trump has supercharged the immigration crackdown – in data”
• Jaisal Noor, Baltimore Beat, “Baltimore residents are mobilizing to protect their immigrant neighbors from ICE”
• Tara Lynch, CBS Baltimore, “Community demands release of Maryland pastor who was arrested by ICE”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: David Hebden
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Marc Steiner.

This week, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) boarded the Handala, a ship associated with the Flotilla Freedom Coalition, that was attempting to reach Gaza with supplies for starving Palestinians. The IDF detained 20 activists, who had their hands held up, in graphic images that the Freedom Flotilla Coalition captured.

Among those on the ship was Chris Smalls, who gained fame when he led a successful union drive at Amazon in Staten Island in 2022. Not only was Smalls detained, but he was physically beaten by the IDF. He was the only Black member on the Handala.

“The Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirms that upon arrival in Israeli custody, U.S. human rights defender, Christian Smalls, was physically assaulted by seven uniformed individuals,” wrote the Freedom Flotilla Coalition on Instagram. “They choked him and kicked him, leaving visible signs of violence on his neck and back”.

Despite Smalls having been profiled by every major media outlet in the U.S. when he successfully led the union drive at Amazon, not a single major media outlet has covered his beating at the hands of the IDF.

In 2022, The New York Times even ran a Style section profile on his fashion choices among more than a dozen pieces that they ran on his organizing efforts, but the paper has not said anything about the beating of a high-profile labor activist at the hands of the IDF. Only three smaller, left-leaning outlets, Zeteo, The Grio, and Jezebel, covered it.

“This totally makes sense,” wrote University of New Brunswick Professor Nathan Kalman-Lamb on Bluesky. “A notable public figure in the US (Amazon labor organizer Christian Smalls) is illegally arrested by Israel and subjected to severe physical violence while on a hunger strike… and not one US media outlet of any type has decided that is news.”

This article is a cross-post from Payday Report and is a developing story. Payday Report will update it as more information becomes available.

You can donate to help Payday Report Cover Labor Activists for a Free Palestine.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Mike Elk.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by J.S. O’Keefe.

This form of reasoning, known otherwise as “Holocaust-ism” or “Shoah-tiyut”, is a moral conceit left bare in the war of annihilation being waged in Gaza against the Palestinian populace. Israeli human rights groups have taken note of this, despite the drained reserves of empathy evident in Israel proper. (A Pew Research Center poll conducted last month found that a mere 16% of Jewish Israelis thought peaceful coexistence with Palestinians was possible.)

In its latest report pointedly titled Our Genocide, the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem offers a blunt assessment: “Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads us to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

The infliction of genocide, the organisation acknowledges, is a matter of “multiple and parallel practices” applied over a period of time, with killing being merely one component. Living conditions can be destroyed, concentration camps and zones created, populations expelled, and policies to systematically prevent reproduction enacted. “Accordingly, genocidal acts are various actions intended to bring about the destruction of a distinct group, as part of a deliberate, coordinated effort by a ruling authority.”

Our Genocide suggests that certain conditions often precede the sparking of a genocide. Israel’s relations with Palestinians had been characterised by “broader patterns of settler-colonialism”, with the intention of ensuring “Jewish supremacy over Palestinians – economically, politically, socially, and culturally.”

B’Tselem draws upon three crucial elements centred on ensuring “Jewish supremacy over Palestinians”: “life under an apartheid regime that imposes separation, demographic engineering, and ethnic cleansing; systemic and institutionalized use of violence against Palestinians, while the perpetrators enjoy impunity; and institutionalized mechanisms of dehumanization and framing Palestinians as an existential threat.” The attacks on Israel by Hamas and other militant groups on October 7, 2023 was a violent event that created a “sense of existential threat among the perpetrating group” enabling the “ruling system to carry out genocide.” As B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak notes, this sense of threat was promoted by an “extremist, far-right messianic government” to pursue “an agenda of destruction and expulsion.”

Israeli policy in the Strip since October 2023 could not be rationalised as a focused, targeted attempt to destroy the rule of Hamas or its military efficacy. “Statements by senior Israeli decision-makers about the nature and assault in Gaza have expressed genocidal intent throughout.” Ditto Israeli military officers of all ranks. Gaza’s residents had been dehumanized, with many Jewish-Israelis believing “that their lives are of negligible value compared to Israel’s national goals, if not worthless altogether.”

The report also notes the use of certain terminology that haunts the literature of genocidal euphemism: the creation of “humanitarian zones” that would still be bombed despite supposedly providing protection for displaced civilians; the use of “kill zones” by the Israeli military and the absence of any standardized rules of engagement through the Strip, often “determined at the discretion of commanders on the ground or based on arbitrary criteria.”

Wishing to be comprehensive, the authors of the report do not ignore Israel’s actions in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.  Airstrikes have regularly taken place against refugee camps in the northern part of the territory since October 2023. Even more lethal open-fire policies have been used in the West Bank, with the use of kill zones suggesting “the broader ‘Gazafication’ of Israel’s methods of warfare.”

Another group, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI), has also published a legal-medical appraisal on the intentional destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, finding that the Israeli campaign in Gaza “constitutes genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention.” The evidence examined by the group “shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system and other vital systems necessary for the population’s survival.” The evolving nature of the campaign suggested a “deliberate progression” from the initial bombing and the forced evacuation of hospitals in the northern part of the Strip to the calculated collapse of the healthcare system across the entire enclave. The dismantling of the health system involved rendering hospitals “non-functional”, the blocking of medical evaluations, and the elimination of such vital services as trauma care, surgery, dialysis, and maternal health.

Added to this has been the direct targeting of health care workers, involving the death and detention of over 1,800 members, “including many senior specialists”, and the deliberate restriction of humanitarian relief through militarized distribution points that pose lethal risks to aid recipients. “This coordinated assault has produced a cascading failure of health and humanitarian infrastructure, compounded by policies leading to starvation, disease, and the breakdown of sanitation, housing, and education systems.”

PHRI contends that, at the very least, three core elements of Article II of the Genocide Convention are met: the killing of members of a group (identified by nationality, ethnicity, race or religion); causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of that group and deliberately inflicting on the group those conditions of life to bring about its destruction in whole or in part.

In accepting that genocide is being perpetrated against the Palestinians, Our Genocide makes that most pertinent of points: the dry legal analysis of genocide tends to be distanced from a historical perspective. “The legal definition is narrow, having been shaped in large part by the political interests of the states whose representatives drafted it.” The high threshold of identifying genocide, and the international jurisprudence on the subject, had produced a disturbing paradox: genocide tends to be recognised “only after a significant portion of the targeted group has already been destroyed and the group as such has suffered irreparable harm.” The thrust of these clarion calls from B’Tselem and PHRI is urgently clear: end this state of affairs before the Palestinians become yet another historical victim of such harm.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji has sharply criticised the Fiji government’s stance over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, saying it “starkly contrasts” with the United Nations and international community’s condemnation as a violation of international law and an impediment to peace.

In a statement today, the NGO Coalition said that the way the government was responding to the genocide and war crimes in Gaza would set a precedent for how it would deal with crises and conflict in future.

It would be a marker for human rights responses both at home and the rest of the world.

• READ MORE: Macron says France will recognise Palestinian state in September
• Saudi Arabia and France to lead UN push for recognising Palestinian statehood
• Al Jazeera live-tracker

“We are now seeing whether our country will be a force that works to uphold human rights and international law, or one that tramples on them whenever convenient,” the statement said.

“Fiji’s position on the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestinians starkly contrasts with the values of justice, freedom, and international law that the Fijian people hold dear.

“The genocide and colonial occupation have been widely recognised by the international community, including the United Nations, as a violation of international law and an impediment to peace and the self-determination of the Palestinian people.”

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would formally recognise the state of Palestine — the first of G7 countries to do so — at the UN general Assembly in September.

142 countries recognise Palestine
At least 142 countries out of the 193 members of the UN currently recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state, including European Union members Norway, Ireland, Spain and Slovenia.

However, several powerful Western countries have refused to do so, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.

At the UN this week, Saudi Arabia and France opened a three-day conference with the goal of recognising Palestinian statehood as part of a peaceful settlement to end the war in Gaza.

Last year, Fiji’s coalition government submitted a written statement in support of the Israeli genocidal occupation of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, noted the NGO coalition.

Last month, Fiji’s coalition government again voted against a UN General Assembly resolution that demanded an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

Also recently, the Fiji government approved the allocation of $1.12 million to establish an embassy “in the genocidal terror state of Israel as Fijians grapple with urgent issues, including poverty, violence against women and girls, deteriorating water and health infrastructure, drug use, high rates of HIV, poor educational outcomes, climate change, and unfair wages for workers”.

Met with ‘indifference’
The NGO coalition said that it had made repeated requests to the Fiji government to “do the bare minimum and enforce the basic tenets of international law on Israel”.

“We have been calling upon the Fiji government to uphold the principles of peace, justice, and human rights that our nation cherishes,” the statement said.

“We campaigned, we lobbied, we engaged, and we explained. We showed the evidence, pointed to the law, and asked our leaders to do the right thing.

“We’ve been met with nothing but indifference.”

Instead, said the NGO statement, Fiji leaders had met with Israeli government representatives and declared support for a country “committing the most heinous crimes” recognised in international law.

“Fijian leaders and the Fiji government should not be supporting Israel or setting up an embassy in Israel while Israel continues to bomb refugee tents, kill journalists and medics, and block the delivery of humanitarian aid to a population under relentless siege.

“No politician in Fiji can claim ignorance of what is happening.”

62,000 Palestinians killed
More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war on Gaza, most of them women and children.

“Many more have been maimed, traumatised, and displaced. Starvation is being used by Israel as weapon to kill babies and children.

“Hospitals, churches, mosques,, refugee camps, schools, universities, residential neighbourhoods, water and food facilities have been destroyed.

“History will judge how we respond as Fijians to this moment.

“Our rich cultural heritage and shared values teach us the importance of always standing up for what is right, even when it is not popular or convenient.”

Members of the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights are Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Programme, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji.

Also, Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.

The NGO coalition said it stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people out of a shared belief in humanity, justice, and the inalienable human rights of every individual.

“Silence is not an option,” it added.

Fijians for Palestine Solidarity Network said it supported this NGO coalition statement.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

As King Cheeto still lies, scams, babbles and scurries to escape the furor over his pedophile bestie, some fierce unlikely heroes have emerged to call bullshit. They range from Jon Stewart's "Go Fuck Yourself" choir to South Park's grifter with a "teeny tiny" talking penis to Scotland's blistering response to his unwelcome $10 million golf trip, complete with bagpipes, fish guts, a glowering "CONVICTED U.S. FELON TO ARRIVE IN SCOTLAND" headline and ever-splendid signs declaring, "Trump Is Still A Cunt."

With even his red-meat, poorly educated base clamoring for an imaginary transparency, Trump continues struggling and mostly failing to regain control of the narrative on partner-in-crime Jeffrey Epstein in the shadow of a steady trickle of damning new revelations - more smirking creepy photos, reports he flew on Epstein's jets at least seven times in the 1990s, news he was told in May his name is (probably frequently) in the infamous files. For once, his "nothing-to-see-here-but-look-over-there!" tactics fall short: As the turmoil morphs into a cultural as well as political firestorm, it lays bare the longtime fiction of Trump's whole braying, bullying shtick about taking down the deep state, exposing him as just another lying, hiding, duplicitous stiff out for himself. (Duh.) It's so bad even MAGA-ites are saying his claims of innocence are "insulting our intelligence." (Sic.)

Still, he strives to deflect. His release of 6,000 FBI files on MLK Jr. backfired big-time by confirming he can release any files any time he likes. Sample comments: "Now do the Epstein files" and, "His back is against the wall so hard he’s releasing more Black history." Mostly, he's reverted to calling the uproar "a witch hunt" about "a creep," feigning indifference - "I don’t really follow that too much" - and spinning his bonkers greatest hits, most featuring "Barack Hussein Obama." One rant: "We caught Hillary Clinton. We caught Barack Hussein Obama, absolutely cold." Also, "Many, many people under them...big stuff...2020 rigged...And it's the most unbelievable thing I think I've ever read....This was treason. This was every word you can think of." Including the claim, in one veering pivot, "This is like, proof, irrefutable proof that Obama was sedacious," which is not a word.

That was duly, gleefully noted by Stephen Colbert, once-and-no-longer-future king of The Late Show, just fired for exposing too much of what he once called "truthiness. In his recent, fatal transgression, he blasted CBS/Paramount's $16m settlement in a bogus Trump lawsuit to advance an $8 billion sale to Skydance Media, which requires federal approval: "I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It’s 'big fat bribe.'" As always, he was both sharp and genial on the ignoble end of a 30-year franchise he'd excelled at. Declaring "the gloves are officially off" and he "can finally speak unvarnished truth to power" on Trump, he turned to the camera to mildly proclaim, "I don't care for him...He doesn't seem to have, like, the skillset." Later, in response to Trump gloating, Colbert stepped it up, again straight to the camera: "Go fuck yourself."

The Colbert kerfuffle seemed to kick off a new, fiery, vastly entertaining stage in the to-date often somnambulant fight against our creeping authoritarianism. With many American institutions - the press, courts, Congress, colleges, corporate powers - failing to heed fascism experts' pivotal rule of, "Do not obey in advance," the task of standing up rudely and loudly is incongruously, though not really for the first time (see Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin etc etc) falling to middle-finger-wielding comedians with no interest in going gentle into that good night, thanks. On that Colbert show, a parade of high-profile, wise-acre colleagues and buddies - Oliver, Fallon, Meyers, Stewart, Lin-Manuel Miranda - showed up for a Coldplay kiss-cam parody to show their support. Letterman posted a lengthy video compilation whose message was, "You can’t spell CBS without BS.”

And Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, not for the first time, eviscerated "corporate capitulation to the whims of a pussy-grabbing enigma" - here, starting 16:30 - though it too runs on a Paramount-owned station, Comedy Central. Mulling our ongoing horrors, he offered, "I think the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America's institutions - institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic-hair-doodling commander-in-chief. This is not the moment to give in. This is the time to fight. This is the time to rise up." Adding a florid, "We affirm our shared humanity. We must continue to have humans make things that inspire and provoke other humans" - and joking, "#ChatGPT wrote that" - he and a gospel choir behind him then led the audience in a long, rousing, raunchy chorus of "Go Fuck Yourself" to his paymasters.

Still, leave it to South Park with its foul-mouthed kids and universally offensive, scorched-earth "shock comedy" to up the ante, with "their most furious episode" - "Hey Satan!" - arriving back on air just after signing a new, $1.5 billion, five-year deal with...Paramount, now richly paying creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone "to put out the same message as Colbert, a lot less politely." Many argue South Park, with its crude, crass, juvenile humor, is uniquely suited for the nearly impossible task of skewering a cartoon villain who routinely says and does things more outrageous than satire could ever be: South Park "is what happens when satirists are willing to play on the President’s terms." 20 years ago, it would be extreme; today, you need that level "to keep up with the absurdity of reality." The consensus on its inaugural show: From penises to pedophiles, "They went there." One fan: "Such a fun fuck-you."

Following its tradition since 1997 of pissing off almost everyone, the new show portrays Trump as a deeply insecure grotesquerie in the Epstein files who sounds like Saddam Hussein, sleeps with Satan, sues everyone, often gets naked to show us his tiny penis with googly eyes, and lines the White House walls with naked photos of himself. The "plot" has South Park residents angry the guy they voted for turns out to be a grifting fascist douchebag; when religion is foisted on schools in the form of Jesus, last seen in 2019 doing cocaine with Satan, they complain to the President, who sues them, then settles if they'll run pro-Trump messaging. Cue protests, showdowns, media too scared of lawsuits to say anything but “oh boy, oh shit, oh God,” and a deepfake, live-action, small-dicked Trump trudging through the desert: "When things heat up, who will deliver us from temptation?"

Enraged, the White House shrieked no "fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak." Deadpan, Parker responded, "We’re terribly sorry." Then Trump fled the firestorm for a $10 million "work trip" to Scotland. "Many meetings planned!!" he boasted. In truth, exhibiting "a staggering level of grift," he went to golf on our dime at his failing courses at Turnberry and Balmedie in Aberdeenshire, and to open a new course there dedicated to his mother, though the first one's never turned a profit and is usually half-empty because he's so despised. His first term, he racked up 260 rounds of golf, most at his own resorts, at a cost of $151.5 million; this weekend's was his 44th, and most pricey, golf trip in six months; as of March 30, he's spent $26 million to golf, but we really can't afford food stamps. His spox dismissed concerns as "pathetic"; also, Biden went to the beach, and the autopen.

Despite an almost empty schedule, between rounds he did meet (very briefly) with British P.M. Keir Starmer and Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney. Meanwhile Scotland, where 75% of residents abhor him, gave Trump the welcome he deserved. In an editorial, the largest paper called him "a menace"; the "CONVICTED U.S. FELON" headline continued, "Republican Leader, Who Was Found Liable for Sexual Abuse and Defamation, Will Visit Golf Courses." Aberdeen South M.P. Stephen Flynn was asked if he'd meet with the felon; totally bald, Flynn responded, "I'll be busy getting a haircut, or washing my hair, or finding any excuse possible to make sure I'm looking after my own toddler at the time." Before his arrival, an anti-Trump group put up multiple smiling photos of him and Epstein; in a video, they warned it would "be a shame if (they) appeared absolutely everywhere on his tour of the U.K."

Elsewhere, a "festival of resistance" gathered: Despite his Scottish roots, "The vast majority of Scots have a deep disdain for Trump and everything he stands for." "So many people here loathe him," said a woman with a “We Don’t Negotiate With Fascists” sign. "We’re not divided (by) religion or race or political allegiance. We’re here together because we hate him.” Some singular signs: "Get Oot Nasty Little Manbaby, Scotland Hates Trump, Fuck Off You Tiny-Handed Orange-Faced Cunt, Scotland Totally Hates Trump, May Your Arse Break Out In Boils Ya Scunner, Not Even Your Wife Likes You, Beat It You Big Orange Jobbie, You Were Shite In Home Alone 2." A restaurant gave out fish guts to throw, Mexican and Palestinian flags flew, heart-filled signs declared him and Epstein "Best Friends Forever," bagpipers bragged, "At least this bag of hot air serves a purpose," many signs proclaimed, "Trump Is Still A Cunt."

Most of Scotland deems almost anything he's ever done "not the proper behavior of a decent person" because for nearly 20 years he bullied, threatened, coerced and conned residents to buy their land, trash their pristine coastline and build more crappy hotels while breaking every promise he made. In Aberdeenshire, he said he'd inject $1.5 billion into the economy; it was barely $120 million. He promised over 1,000 jobs; it was 84, fewer than the existing 100 on a shooting range. Instead of a 450-room luxury hotel and hundreds of homes, he built a 19-room hotel, a small clubhouse selling Trump merch, and a 36-hole course that cost $500 to play. In 2023, he lost $1.9 million, his 11th consecutive loss since 2006. Local officials who rejected the project then for its impact on precious sand dunes - the Scottish goverhment overrode them - now say they feel ashamed and "hoodwinked...We all fell for it."

Three neighboring families are still seething. Their horror stories: The farmer who wouldn't sell, so Trump sabotaged the water supply for him and his elderly mother. The 73-year-old retired quarry worker and salmon fisherman whose barn reads, "No More Trump Lies" who wouldn't sell where he'd lived since he was 14, so Trump blocked access to the beach where he did his fishing, which "he knew I loved"; he avows, "This place will never, ever belong to Trump." The energy consultant who lives in an old Coast Guard station overlooking the golf, dunes, North Sea; when he wouldn't sell, even after Trump "threw in some jewelry," Trump had landscapers put in trees to block the view and charged him for a fence he built. He wouldn't pay, but he did put up and fly a Mexican flag. This year, "I don't have a big enough flagpole - I'd need one for Mexico, Canada, Palestine, Greenland, you name it."

For years, the vile, vindictive lout also fought to block a wind farm that would "ruin my view"; today, 11 turbines spin, he still raves "windmills are killing us," and America cringes. One headline: "Old Man Goes to Scotland, Yells At Wind, Cheats At Golf," after he got busted in a now-viral video. America also thanked the Scottish people for "your always hilariously caustic insults that, however imaginative, can never truly plumb the depths of this most revolting excuse for a wannabe human...this walking pile of pestilential feculence." For proof, at a "bat-poop-crazy" presser, he kept spewing - his ballroom, Gazans "don't thank us enough," the six wars he's stopped, "about a war a month." He went off-script from the official story he split from Epstein because he was "a creep." Nope: It wasn't the pedophilia; it was that Epstein tried to recruit some of his staff: "He stole people that work for me."

He also invented fictional crimes, laws and payments by claiming Kamala paid $11 million to Beyoncé for "an ENDORSEMENT" - also some to Oprah and "low-rated" Al Sharpton - which is "TOTALLY ILLEGAL" (not) and "they should all be prosecuted." Sigh. Madness. One final reverie: A new AI fever dream from the official White House account shows Trump, a battle-weary, red-tied, gladiator messiah valiantly striding, despite bone spurs, from a smoke-and-rubble-strewn Roman coliseum, its flag in tatters. Cue Teddy Roosevelt's iconic Man in the Arena speech: "Credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, (who) spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows (the) triumph of high achievement, who at the worst at least fails while daring greatly." One response: "It's like when I was a kid and got sick, my fever got really high and I would hallucinate." Another: "What in the actual imperial cosplay is this? The Roman Empire fell too. Just saying.".

Protest sign in ScotlandScreenshot from Bluesky

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Abby Zimet.

I think even the story itself predisposed me to have this kind of masochistic relationship to putting the story together. I had been interviewed and interrogated by police a lot as a young person, and I had been a really willing participant in that. Because I felt like, well, if I submit to this process—if I just fully submit to all of these questions and all of these things they’re asking me to do—maybe they will figure out who committed this crime. And this person will be put away, and I will at least not be worrying anymore that they’re still on the street and could be harming other people.

It’s tricky because, it’s like, that was great training in being extremely thorough and trying to nail down what had happened, and how I felt about it and what exactly I remembered. And so I think I went into it with that mindset, submitting myself to that process of just endless self-interrogation and endless… like, just being extremely rigorous and thorough with myself. And not having a great sense, at least at first, of what boundaries I needed.

And then, of course, the way that I moved toward prioritizing those boundaries was actually very productivity-motivated. If I was reading police documents or the autopsy report in the middle of the night, and I had been working for hours and hours and hours, and I went beyond my capacity, I wouldn’t be able to write anything for a week or two weeks. And I felt like, if I’m going to actually get this done, if I’m going to keep going forward, I need to be more mindful of what my capacity is at various times.

There are a few things I implemented eventually, and even more things that I advise students to do, that maybe I thought about doing but never actually did. I think embodied practices can be really useful. Like, people often talk about yoga, etc. But back in the days of writing After the Eclipse, I was still a pretty active roller derby player. I would have this immediate sense of belonging and also get to do this physically aggressive thing that was empowering. It was something that would help me get out my anger and my frustration, but among friends.

And a lot it is also just staying mindful of the fact that writing memoir can be such a process of time travel. I found myself really traveling back to times in my life that were a lot more difficult and mental states that were really challenging.

A great example of that is that one month in 2012, I wrote a check and I wrote the date—but 1994.

Oh my god.

Sometimes you don’t realize how transported you are. So I would resolve to write two hours, and then, even if I had more writing time afterward, I would stop and entrust the part of myself that was less under the trance of memory and of investigating these things to have a good sense of what my capacity for that day was, and I’d put it aside.

How do you hold yourself to it, though? Do you set timers for yourself?

Yeah, definitely setting a timer. I’m a big fan of tracking and logging things. I have a lot of my own spreadsheets and systems. If I am actively working, I’m usually working more than I feel like I am. So watching hours add up over a week really helps me assure myself that I am showing up for my work.

I’ve heard a lot of writers who write memoir about their trauma say that they’re not sure they’ll ever write about anything else. Do you identify with that at all?

I do. And I have to say, my current orientation to that is frustration.

Then I was working on this memoir that’s a lot about sexuality and love in the wake of trauma. And a lot about thinking through all of that via my mother’s example and experiences, and trying to interrogate some of the sex-negativity that surrounded the trial. So you can imagine, that one was a good time, too, to write. [laughs]

I was working on that, and it was 2020, and I was just like, “I can’t do this work right now.” I have the world’s biggest sweet tooth, I like to say, and my partner had long been suggesting to me, “Why don’t you write about candy?” And I had said, “I’m sorry, I’m a serious writer. I’m not going to do that. What are you talking about? That’s not a book.”

But I finally broke down and gave it a shot. I said, “I’m going to get up every morning for 100 mornings and write about a different candy every day, just as writing exercises.” I just wanted to enjoy making sentences again and get into that sort of pleasure of language. And then I would go on and do my “serious” writing for the rest of the day.

Now, Sweet Nothings has become this book that I hope gives people some lightness and joy in a continually really difficult time. Of course, it still does have this frame of—I like how you put it earlier—not only Mom and the murder, but this telling of that story in Eclipse. So it’s very much still folding back in onto the same subjects. The funny version is, “Why won’t my mom leave me alone already?”

And I feel like—a lot of people, especially those who have one big traumatic event—they get to feeling like, “Am I a good enough writer to make meaning without using this thing? Is this the only thing I can make the gravitational center of something?” Because so often, I’ll be writing a piece, and I’ll be trying to do another thing. I wrote this piece about a fried cherry pie in Oklahoma, and that turned into a mom-mourning piece. And I thought, is this just the same shortcut that I keep taking here? And then the New England part of me, who is embarrassed about having feelings, comes in with, “Am I so wounded that I can’t stop talking about this? Can I put it aside for a second and make something else already?”

How do you respond when you notice other writers writing about their trauma from different angles, taking a prismatic approach to that one event in their life? Do you have a similar reaction to their work as the frustration you’re describing you feel with your own?

I totally don’t. It’s definitely one of those things where it’s like, I would never say that to my best friend. My friends and colleagues can write about the same thing forever. But it was like, didn’t I write Sweet Nothings to get away from this?

I want to backpedal a bit and ask about that 100-day writing challenge you mentioned, which kicked off Sweet Nothings. What did you learn about yourself from doing that, and do you ever think you’ll try that kind of challenge again?

I actually openly welcome any idea from anyone about something I could do 100 times again. It was really fun, and very fun to accidentally have a draft of a book after 100 days.

What I learned was that I surprised myself a lot. It’s a lot weirder and funnier than I realized I could be on the page. I think that’s not only because After the Eclipse is obviously so serious, but also because I had this conception of myself as this very sedate writer of lovely, conventional sentences. This almost old-fashioned, little New Englander thing. I read too much Thoreau as a kid or something.

Whereas the work I love? I’ve always been such a big Maggie Nelson fan. I love Heather Christle’s poetry. I love weird little things. But I just never thought I could make that myself. I am long-winded, but to make all these short little things that are sometimes quite snappy and unplanned was really thrilling to me. I don’t think I could’ve done them well without the process. They are what they are because of how I wrote them: first thing in the morning, usually before my “editor brain” was on, as I say. I would just instinctively go to these weird places, and there was absolutely no pressure. If I were to do this again, the trick would be pretending I wasn’t taking it seriously. I don’t know if you can do that twice.

You were nominated for a James Beard Award for an essay you wrote about gas station pie.

Crazy.

Now you have this new book about candy. It’s so clear that food is a creative doorway for you. How did you discover that about your writing process?

Honestly, totally by accident. I started writing about candy just because I love it, and other people had to point out to me that I had an unusual level of focus. And then honestly, I ate that fucking pie, man! And I was like, “The world has to know about this pie. Oh my god.”

I also felt like it was an opportunity to do some class work around food. Class consciousness. Class critique. Thinking about who gets to eat what and how we judge those choices.

It’s funny, too, because one of the gigs that got me through writing After the Eclipse was working as a fact-checker for WSJ Magazine. They cover a lot of high-class food. That job gave me major poor-kid class anxiety. There was a lot of French I couldn’t pronounce. I remember thinking, “God, I’ve lived in New York for six years, and I still feel like a bumpkin in this job.” So to be at the James Beard Awards was surreal.

I want to ask about the art of writing micro-essays, since there are 100 of them in your newest book. How does your approach to writing a micro-essay differ from your approach to writing a longer essay?

I really believe that every time you sit down to write, it’s like you’ve never written anything before. You have to totally relearn it. But now that I have experience in writing a pretty long memoir and in writing micro-essays, I just don’t feel like I know how to write a conventional-length essay yet. It’s the length I teach, but I haven’t really nailed it yet.

We always talk about how the essay is flexible, capacious: insert whatever quote about the essay here. And I think those especially apply to that 3,000 to 5,000 word range. Each one really feels like its own form. I just haven’t aligned form with content at that length yet. I haven’t found the thing I want to say that wants that length.

With micro-essays, sometimes, maybe half the time, I’d start with something like, “Today is about Reese’s Pieces.” I’d start typing, maybe pull in a quick bit of history from Google, and then I’d write this paragraph. I’d hit the last sentence and I’d almost hear it click in my head. I’d know: that’s the end. And I’d put it down. And I’d walk away.

Wow. Did that happen 100 times?

Not 100 times, but maybe 30 or so. Sometimes, I’d get this feeling, like, “Okay, this paragraph sounds like the first one. There’s a shape here.” That’s the challenge with micro-pieces, you’re trying to signal to the reader that you’ve come to the end much earlier than in a length we’re more used to reading. You don’t want to give it unearned gravity. You can’t ring the bell of completion too loudly.</span< And since I knew there would be 100 of them, I was always asking the reader to reset their attention again and again. So each one had to feel complete but also open enough that you could step forward into the next one.

But as for how I did it? I don’t know. I just felt around.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Hurley Winkler.

Last week, the UN’s highest court issued a stinging ruling that countries have a legal obligation to limit climate change and provide restitution for harm caused, giving legal force to an idea that was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila. This is how a group of young students from Vanuatu changed the face of international law.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Jamie Tahana for RNZ Pacific

Vishal Prasad admitted to being nervous as he stood outside the imposing palace in the Hague, with its towering brick facade, marble interiors and crystal chandeliers.

It had taken more than six years of work to get here, where he was about to hear a decision he said could throw a “lifeline” to his home islands.

The Peace Palace, the home of the International Court of Justice, could not feel further from the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Other climate justice reports

Yet it was here in this Dutch city that Prasad and a small group of Pacific islanders in their bright shirts and shell necklaces last week gathered before the UN’s top court to witness an opinion they had dreamt up when they were at university in 2019 and managed to convince the world’s governments to pursue.

“We’re here to be heard,” said Siosiua Veikune, who was one of those students, as he waited on the grass verge outside the court’s gates. “Everyone has been waiting for this moment, it’s been six years of campaigning.”

What they wanted to hear was that more than a moral obligation, addressing climate change was also a legal one. That countries could be held responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions — both contemporary and historic — and that they could be penalised for their failure to act.

“For me personally, [I want] clarity on the rights of future generations,” Veikune said. “What rights are owed to future generations? Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again, and this is another step towards that justice.”

And they won.

The court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, took more than two hours to deliver an unusually stinging advisory opinion from the normally restrained court, going through the minutiae of legal arguments before delivering a unanimous ruling which largely fell on the side of Pacific states.

“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

After the opinion, the victorious students and lawyers spilled out of the palace alongside Vanuatu’s Climate Minister, Ralph Regenvanu. Their faces were beaming, if not a little shellshocked.

“The world’s smallest countries have made history,” Prasad told the world’s media from the palace’s front steps. “The ICJ’s decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer turn a blind eye to their legal responsibilities”.

“Young people around the world stepped up, not only as witnesses to injustice, but as architects of change”.

A classroom exercise
It was 2019 when a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific’s campus in Port Vila, the harbourside capital of Vanuatu, were set a challenge in their tutorial. They had been learning about international law and, in groups, were tasked with finding ways it could address climate change.

It was a particularly acute question in Vanuatu, one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Many of the students’ teenage years had been defined by Cyclone Pam, the category five storm that ripped through much of the country in 2015 with winds in excess of 250km/h.

It destroyed entire villages, wiped out swathes of infrastructure and crippled the country’s crops and water supplies. The storm was so significant that thousands of kilometres away, in Tuvalu, the waves it whipped up displaced 45 percent of the country’s population and washed away an entire islet.

Cyclone Pam was meant to be a once-in-a-generation storm, but Vanuatu has been struck by five more category five cyclones since then.

Among many of the students, there was a frustration that no one beyond their borders seemed to care particularly much, recalled Belyndar Rikimani, a student from Solomon Islands who was at USP in 2019. She saw it as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.

Each year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was releasing a new avalanche of data that painted an increasingly grim prognosis for the Pacific. But, Rikimani said, the people didn’t need reams of paper to tell them that, for they were already acutely aware.

On her home island of Malaita, coastal villages were being inundated with every storm, the schools of fish on which they relied were migrating further away, and crops were increasingly failing.

“We would go by the sea shore and see people’s graves had been taken out,” Rikimani recalled. “The ground they use to garden their food in, it is no longer as fertile as it has once been because of the changes in weather.”

The mechanism used by the world to address climate change is largely based around a UN framework of voluntary agreements and summits — known as COP — where countries thrash out goals they often fail to meet. But it was seen as impotent by small island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, who accused the system of being hijacked by vested interests set on hindering any drastic cuts to emissions.

So, the students argued, what if there was a way to push back? To add some teeth to the international process and move the climate discussion beyond agreements and adaptation to those of equity and justice? To give small countries a means to nudge those seen to be dragging their heels.

“From the beginning we were aware of the failure of the climate system or climate regime and how it works,” Prasad, who in 2019 was studying at the USP campus in Fiji’s capital, Suva, told me.

“This was known to us. Obviously there needs to be something else. Why should the law be silent on this?”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the main court for international law. It adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big cross-border legal issues. So, the students wondered, could an advisory opinion help? What did international law have to say about climate change?

Unlike most students, who would leave such discussions in the classroom, they decided to find out. But the ICJ does not hear cases from groups or individuals; they would have to convince a government to pursue the challenge.

Together, they wrote to various Pacific governments hoping to discuss the idea. It was ambitious, they conceded, but in one of the regions most threatened by rising seas and intensifying storms, they hoped there would at least be some interest.

But rallying enough students to join their cause was the first hurdle.

“There was a lot of doubts from the beginning,” Rikimani said. “We were trying to get the students who could, you know, be a part of the movement. And it was hard, it was too big, too grand.”

In the end, 27 people gathered to form the genesis of a new organisation: Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

A couple of weeks went by before a response popped up in their inboxes. The government of Vanuatu was intrigued. Ralph Regenvanu, who was at that time the foreign minister, asked the students if they would like to swing by for a meeting.

“I still remember when [the] group came into my office to discuss this. And I felt solidarity with them,” Regenvanu recalled last week.

“I could empathise with where they were, what they were doing, what they were feeling. So it was almost like the time had come to actually, okay, let’s do something about it.”

The students — “dressed to the nines,” as Regenvanu recalled — gave a presentation on what they hoped to achieve. Regenvanu was convinced. Not long after the wider Vanuatu government was, too. Now it was time for them to convince other countries.

“It was just a matter of the huge diplomatic effort that needed to be done,” Regenvanu said. “We had Odi Tevi, our ambassador in New York, who did a remarkable job with his team. And the strategy we employed to get a core group of countries from all over the world to be with us.

“It’s interesting that, you know, some of the most important achievements of the international community originated in the Pacific,” Regenvanu said, citing efforts in the 20th century to ban nuclear testing, or support decolonisation.

“We have this unique geographic and historic position that makes us able to, as small states, have a voice that’s much louder, I think. And you saw that again in this case, that it’s the Pacific once again taking the lead to do something that is of benefit to the whole world.”

What Vanuatu needed to take the case to the ICJ was to garner a majority of the UN General Assembly — that is, a majority of every country in the world — to vote to ask the court to answer a question.

To rally support, they decided to start close to home.

Hope and disappointment
The students set their sights on the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s pre-eminent political group, which that year was holding its annual leaders’ summit in Tuvalu. A smattering of atolls along the equator which, in recent years, has become a reluctant poster child for the perils of climate change.

Tuvalu had hoped world leaders on Funafuti would see a coastline being eaten by the ocean, evidence of where the sea washes across the entire island at king tide, or saltwater bubbles up into gardens to kill crops, and that it would convince the world that time was running out.

But the 2019 Forum was a disaster. Pacific countries had pushed for a strong commitment from the region’s leaders at their retreat, but it nearly broke down when Australia’s government refused to budge on certain red lines. The then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, accused Australia and New Zealand of neo-colonialism, questioning their very role in the Forum.

“That was disappointing,” Prasad said. “The first push was, okay, let’s put it at the forum and ask leaders to endorse this idea and then they take it forward. It was put on the agenda but the leaders did not endorse it; they ‘noted’ it. The language is ‘noted’, so it didn’t go ahead.”

Another disappointment came a few months later, when Rikimani and another of the students, Solomon Yeo, travelled to Spain for the annual COP meeting, the UN process where the world’s countries agree their next targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

But small island countries left angry after a small bloc derailed any progress, despite massive protests.

That was an eye-opening two weeks in Madrid for Rikimani, whose initial scepticism of the system had been validated.

“It was disappointing when there’s nothing that’s been done. There is very little outcome that actually, you know, safeguards the future of the Pacific,” she said.

“But for us, it was the COP where there was interest being showed by various young leaders from around the world, seeing that this campaign could actually bring light to these climate negotiations.”

By now, Regenvanu said, that frustration was boiling over and more countries were siding with their campaign. By the end of 2019, that included some major countries from Europe and Asia, which brought financial and diplomatic heft. Other small-island countries from Africa and the Caribbean had also joined.

“Many of the Pacific states had never appeared before the ICJ before. So [we were] doing write shops with legal teams from different countries,” he said.

“We did write shops in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in Africa, getting people just to be there at the court to present their stories, and then of course trying to coordinate.”

Meanwhile, Prasad was trying to spread word elsewhere. The hardest part, he said, was making it relevant to the people.

International law, The Hague, the Paris Agreement and other bureaucratic frameworks were nebulous and tedious. How could this possibly help the fisherman on Banaba struggling to haul in a catch?

They spent time travelling to villages and islands, sipping kava shells and sharing meals, weaving a testimony of Indigenous stories and knowledge.

In Fiji, he said, the word for land is vanua, which is also the word for life.

“It’s the source of your identity, the source of your culture. It’s this connection that the land provides the connection with the past, with the ancestors, and with a way of life and a way of doing things.”

He travelled to the village of Vunidologa where, in 2014, its people faced the rupture of having to leave their ancestral lands, as the sea had marched in too far. In the months leading up to the relocation, they held prayer circles and fasted. When the day came, the elders wailed as they made an about two kilometre move inland.

“That’s the element of injustice there. It touches on this whole idea of self-determination that was argued very strongly at the ICJ, that people’s right to self-determination is completely taken away from them because of climate change,” Prasad said.

“Some have even called it a new face of colonialism. And that’s not fair and that cannot stand in 2025.”

Preparing the case
If 2019 was the year of building momentum, then a significant hurdle came in 2020, when the coronavirus shuttered much of the world. COP summits were delayed and the Pacific Islands Forum postponed. The borders of the Pacific were sealed for as long as two years.

But the students kept finding ways to gather their body of evidence.

“Everything went online, we gathered young people who would be able to take this idea forward in their own countries,” Prasad said.

On the diplomatic front, Vanuatu kept plugging away to rally countries so that by the time the Forum leaders met again — in 2022 — they were ready to ask for support again.

“It was in Fiji and we were so worried about the Australia and New Zealand presence at the Forum because we wanted an endorsement so that it would send a signal to all the other countries: ‘the Pacific’s on board, let’s get the others’,” Prasad recalled.

“We were very worried about Australia, but it was more like if Australia declines to support then the whole process falls, and we thought New Zealand might also follow.”

They didn’t. In an about-turn, Australia was now fully behind the campaign for an advisory opinion, and the New Zealand government was by now helping out too. By the end of 2022, several European powers were also involved.

Attention now turned to developing what question they wanted to actually ask the international court. And how would they write it in such a way that the majority of the world’s governments would back it.

“That was the process where it was make and break really to get the best outcome we could,” said Regenvanu.

“In the end we got a question that was like 90 percent as good as we wanted and that was very important to get that and that was a very difficult process.”

By December 2022, Vanuatu announced that it would ask the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to weigh what, exactly, international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.

More lobbying followed and then, in March 2023, it came to a vote and the result was unanimous. The UN assembly in New York erupted in cheers at a rare sign of consensus.

“All countries were on board,” said Regenvanu. “Even those countries that opposed it [we] were able to talk to them so they didn’t oppose it publicly.”

They were off to The Hague.

A tense wait
Late last year, the court held two weeks of hearings in which countries put forth their arguments. Julian Aguon, a Chamorro lawyer from Guam who was one of the lead counsel, told the court that “these testimonies unequivocally demonstrate that climate change has already caused grievous violations of the right to self-determination of peoples across the subregion.”

Over its deliberations, the court heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history. That included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls, which were hoping the court would provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.

They argued that climate change threatened fundamental human rights — such as life, liberty, health, and a clean environment — as well as other international laws like those of the sea, and those of self-determination.

In their testimonies, high-emitting Western countries, including Australia, the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia maintained that the current system was enough.

It’s been a tense and nervous wait for the court’s answer, but they finally got it last Wednesday.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the strength of the decision,” Regenvanu said. “The fact that it was unanimous, we weren’t expecting that.”

The court said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions. It also said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change, and that countries had a right to pursue restitution for loss and damage.

The opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, it carries legal and political weight.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the ICJ to hold each other to account, something Regenvanu said Vanuatu wasn’t ruling out. But, ultimately, he hoped it wouldn’t reach that point, and the advisory opinion would be seen as a wake-up call.

“We can call upon this advisory opinion in all our negotiations, particularly when countries say they can only do so much,” Regenvanu said. “They have said very clearly [that] all states have an obligation to do everything within their means according to the best available science.

“It’s really up to all countries of the world — in good faith — to take this on, realise that these are the legal obligations under custom law. That’s very clear. There’s no denying that anymore.

“And then discharge your legal obligations. If you are in breach, fix the breach, acknowledge that you have caused harm. Help to set it right. And also don’t do it again.”

Vishal Prasad still hadn’t quite processed the whole thing by the time we met again the next morning. In shorts, t-shirt, and jandals, he cut a much more relaxed figure as he reclined on a couch sipping a mug of coffee. His phone had been buzzing non-stop with messages from around the world.

“Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in,” he said. “I got, like, a flood of messages, well wishes. People say, ‘you guys have changed the world’. I think it’s gonna take a while.”

He was under no illusions that there was a long road ahead. The court’s advisory came at a time when international law and multilateralism was under particular strain.

When the urgency of the climate debate from a few years ago appears to have given way to a new enthusiasm for fossil fuel in some countries. He had no doubt the Pacific would continue to lead those battles.

“People have been messaging me that across the group chats they’re in, there’s this renewed sense of courage, strength and determination to do something because of what the ICJ has said,” he said.

“I’ve just been responding to messages and just saying thanks to people and just talking to them and I think it’s amazing to see that it’s been able to cause such a shift in the climate movement.”

Watching the advisory opinion being read out at 3am in Honiara was Belyndar Rikimani, hunched over a live stream in the dead of the night.

“What’s very special about this campaign is that it didn’t start with government experts, climate experts or policy experts. It started with students.

“And these law students are not from Harvard or Cambridge or all those big universities, but they are students from the Pacific that have seen the first-hand effects of climate change. It started with students who have the heart to see change for our islands and for our people.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

While previous efforts to finalize a global treaty on plastic pollution have stalled, a majority of ambitious countries continue to push for progress, with only a small minority hindering momentum. As a result, the question of whether a strong and effective treaty can be achieved through formal consensus alone is up for debate, and it is expected that alternative pathways to deliver a meaningful outcome will be part of the upcoming negotiations.

“The speed at which the treaty went from conception to near completion is exactly what the planet needed, but it was never going to be without challenges,” said Erin Simon, Vice President and Head of Plastic Waste & Business, World Wildlife Fund. “As we approach the final stretch, negotiators must remember why we’re here. Our planet is overwhelmed by plastic waste, and it’s impacting everyone and everything that calls this planet home. At the start of these negotiations, the global community collectively agreed enough was enough, now is the moment to come together to deliver a path forward.”

At this point, the negotiations are well into overtime and every day that goes by, another 30,000 tonnes of plastic pours into our oceans. Failure to conclude a strong treaty at INC- 5.2 will only make the job of addressing this crisis more difficult, costly and dangerous for people all around the world. While the cost of not acting is grave, the potential benefits of meaningful action are plentiful. In the US and around the world a strong global plastic treaty could help create jobs, boost economic competitiveness, lower taxpayer costs, curb pollution and improve human and environmental health outcomes.

The global community must leave Geneva with a treaty built on specific binding rules supported by the majority of countries to be able to effectively tackle global plastic pollution. This means a treaty which includes global bans on the most harmful plastic products and chemicals; global product design requirements to enable a non-toxic circular economy; financial and technical support for developing countries to ensure effective implementation and mechanisms to strengthen and adapt the treaty over time.

“The path forward won’t be easy but it’s time to prioritize the key points where we can align globally and deliver a treaty that will protect the health of people and our planet well into the future,” added Simon.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In an announcement, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration would move around 2,600 employees out of the department’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and into five regional hubs located in Fort Collins, Colorado; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Salt Lake City; and Raleigh, North Carolina. The administration is also planning on shuttering research facilities and eliminating the U.S. Forest Service’s nine regional offices.

The move has received pushback from Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who objected to the administration’s decision not to inform Congress of its plans before the announcement. The announcement is another blow to the Department of Agriculture, which has been significantly affected by budget and staffing cuts stretching back to the “fork in the road” memo issued by DOGE. Some estimates calculate the department could lose nearly one-third of its staff under Trump’s proposed FY26 budget, including nearly 90 percent of wildland fire management staff and 70 percent of national forest system staff.

In response, Alex Craven, Sierra Club’s forest campaign manager, released the following statement:

“This isn’t a reorganization – it’s the continued dismantling of an essential department. This administration’s approach since January has been ‘fire first, ask questions later,’ and the U.S. Forest Service has suffered some of the worst consequences. The more the agency is cut, the harder it is for them to fulfill their critical responsibilities, and the easier it is for Donald Trump to claim it’s broken and pursue his ultimate agenda – privatization.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

And so island nations in the South Pacific region of Melanesia, where Indigenous communities have had to flee their traditional lands due to landslides and rising seas, filed a case that was ultimately joined by more than 130 countries. Together, they urged the International Court of Justice to decide whether nation-states have a legal obligation to address climate change, and whether those harmed by a warming world have a right to reparations. 

Justices considered testimony in Indigenous Pacific languages, heard arguments from Indigenous attorneys, and learned how Indigenous traditions are being harmed by the typhoons, rising seas, and other extreme weather events worsened by the burning of fossil fuels.

Last week, the court issued a landmark ruling that climate harm violates international law. The seismic decision, although advisory, opens the door for countries like Vanuatu to seek reparations from some of the world’s biggest polluters, and it is widely expected to shape current — and future — climate lawsuits as early as this week.

“What the court has done has come in and made it crystal clear that affected frontline nations and communities that have been devastated by climate harm — harm that can be traced to the conduct of specific countries and corporations — those communities, those nations, they absolutely have the right to redress and reparations,” said Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law. 

The court’s decision, handed down Wednesday, said that all nations have a legal obligation to limit greenhouse gas emissions and failing to do so, through the support of fossil fuel production, could violate international law. The justices didn’t disclose how much major polluters might owe, and said the level of reparations would be determined on a case by case basis. But Chowdhury said she expects the ruling to immediately influence ongoing climate litigation worldwide, and prompt new lawsuits. “There are litigators all over the world that are looking to this case and will absolutely bring it into the courtroom,” she said.

Kelly Matheson, deputy director of global strategy for Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm representing youth in climate litigation, said the organization is already incorporating the language of the advisory opinion into an amicus brief that it plans to file in a case in Latin America this fall. She also expects the ruling to feature heavily in La Rose v. His Majesty the King, a Canadian climate case youth plaintiffs brought against the Canadian government scheduled for trial next year, as well as a climate case pending before the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights. 

Government attorneys also are studying the decision to determine whether their countries can sue. Malik Amin Aslam Khan, former minister of the environment in Pakistan, said the ruling “opens up a legally grounded pathway for claiming climate damages and demanding reparations for countries like Pakistan, which has continuously been one of the world’s worst climate sufferers and has credibly recorded climate damage costs crossing $40 billion in the past decade alone.”

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s minister of climate change, said Vanuatu plans to immediately push for a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly to implement the advisory opinion. The government also plans to use the ruling to advocate for better climate financing for the Pacific and better regional and domestic policies to address the climate crisis.

“For the first time in history, the ICJ has spoken directly about the biggest threat facing humanity, which is climate change,” Regenvanu said during a press conference at The Hague last week. ”It’s very important now, as the world goes forward that we make sure our actions align with what was decided or what came out today from the court.”

The ruling builds upon a growing consensus in international law that states have a legal obligation to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled that the 169 countries that have signed the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea — a list that includes China and India, but not the U.S. — must reduce emissions. It was another victory led by Pacific island nations as well as island nations in the Caribbean and West Indies.

Earlier this month, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, a regional court for Latin and South America, ruled that a healthy climate is a human right and governments should limit emissions. The court also said they should prevent harm to marginalized communities such as Indigenous peoples and emphasized their role in combatting climate change.

“Indigenous peoples play an essential role in the preservation and sustainable management of these ecosystems because their ancestral knowledge and their close relationship with nature proved essential for the conservation of biodiversity and the mitigation of climate change,” the court wrote. “Therefore, states should listen to them and facilitate their continuing participation in decision-making.”  

Matheson said that when Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Indigenous Inuk woman who then chaired the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, brought a climate case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights wo decades ago, it dismissed her claims within two pages. Several years later, Palau brought a similar case before the ICJ to no avail. 

“For the law to be moving at this speed —  to go from dismissals and no consideration of the impact that climate change has on human rights 20 years ago, when the first case was filed, to now you have opinions from all but one of the highest courts in the world — is amazing,” she said, noting that an African court is expected to weigh in soon. 

While the ICJ ruling did not expound on the rights of Indigenous peoples and focused on the responsibilities of nation-states, it did clarify a question that has long troubled leaders of countries like Tuvalu and Kiribati that are losing land to rising seas: What happens to their borders if their islands disappear? On that note, the ICJ said any recognized borders should remain unchanged, which is important to ensure they continue to have a political voice on the international stage and control over their waters. “That presumption of statehood and sovereignty is a critical bit,” said Johanna Gusman, a senior attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law. 

The case was initiated six years ago by a group of law students in Vanuatu and led by the government of Vanuatu and the Melanesian Spearhead Group, which represents several nations in that region of the Pacific and the Indigenous people of New Caledonia.

“By affirming the science, the ICJ has mandated countries to urgently phase out fossil fuels because they are no longer tenable for small island state communities in the Pacific, and for young people and for future generations,” Vishal Prasad, director of Pacific Islands, Students Fighting Climate Change, said during a press conference at The Hague. “This opinion is a lifeline and an opportunity to protect all that we hold dear, and all that we love.”

The United Nations established the International Court of Justice in the wake of World War II to help the global community address conflicts and concerns peacefully and judicially. It has heard cases on issues ranging from  nuclear testing to fishing rights to the status of entire territories, such as Western Sahara. While not binding, its decisions are significant because they interpret international law and clarify states’ legal responsibilities. In this case, the court reviewed several treaties, including the 2015 Paris Agreement climate accord, and concluded that under those  treaties and under customary international law, all nations have a legal obligation to limit emissions and may owe compensation to countries that are harmed. 

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There are limits to who can bring cases before the ICJ, which only hears cases brought by nation-states and not, for example, Indigenous political entities such as First Nations in Canada. Gusman said that Indigenous peoples may instead use the language of the cases in domestic disputes or through other U.N. venues. For example, “Indigenous nations and First Nations within Canada now have stronger legal backbones to take cases against Canada,” she said.

The court’s ruling will also be dulled somewhat in the United States, which has long rejected the ICJ’s authority and under President Donald J. Trump has been retreating even further from climate action. The U.S. and China are two major polluters whose rejection of the ICJ’s jurisdiction could prevent a country like Vanuatu from suing them directly over their emissions. 

Korey Silverman-Roati, a senior fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, said the ruling is a seminal moment for climate litigation but that the effects in the U.S. will be muted because U.S. courts don’t traditionally recognize the ICJ’s authority. “I don’t think we can expect that the direct language of the ruling will impact cases in the U.S.,” he said. He thinks the advisory opinion will likely instead influence other countries whose judicial systems give more weight to the ICJ, and influence the U.S. through the ruling’s use in international negotiations. 

Already, the ruling is expected to figure heavily at this year’s Conference of the Parties, or COP, in November in Brazil. Last year, negotiations fell apart in the waning minute to the disappointment of Pacific island nations and many climate advocates who criticized the amount of money pledged by U.N. member states as woefully insufficient. 

“The advisory opinion will be an essential tool that we in the Global South will use at the next meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, the U.N.’s climate change and biodiversity conferences, and everywhere to advocate for climate justice,” said Ilan Kiloe, acting director general of the Melanesian Spearhead Group. He said Pacific peoples have already suffered forced relocations due to climate change. “We have already lost much of what defines us as Pacific Islanders.”

Tik Root contributed reporting to this story. 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How the world’s highest court bolstered the fight for climate reparations on Jul 28, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Anita Hofschneider.

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Last week, a federal appeals court overturned the conviction of Pedro Hernandez for the murder and kidnapping of Etan Patz, a 6-year-old New York boy who disappeared in 1979 in one of the most famous missing child cases in U.S. history.

The three-judge panel ruled that a trial court judge had given jurors “manifestly inaccurate” guidance regarding a confession Hernandez made before he had been advised of his Miranda rights. Jurors asked whether, if they decided the first confession was involuntary, that meant they should disregard two videotaped confessions that came afterward.

The trial judge said “the answer is no” and offered no further explanation.

The appellate judges, in their opinion, said that by doing so, “the state trial court contradicted clearly established federal law.” They threw out Hernandez’s conviction and ordered that he be released or retried. He is now 64 years old and has served 13 years of a 25-years-to-life sentence in a case that has haunted New York City for decades.

The body of the 51-page decision echoed stories published by ProPublica starting in 2013, before Hernandez was convicted, that raised questions about the veracity and legality of his confessions.

We reported that Hernandez met many of the criteria of a person prone to making false confessions, a growing phenomenon and leading cause of wrongful conviction. We also discovered that Hernandez’s statements to law enforcement and others over the years were inconsistent and did not match the known facts of the case.

On the morning of May 29, 1979, Patz was allowed to walk alone to his school bus stop two blocks away and then vanished. His disappearance ignited national concern around missing children, as he became one of the first “milk carton kids” and his image was plastered across New York City.

A massive search ensued, and law enforcement spent thousands of hours looking for him: Divers plunged into the East River searching for his remains following a tip from a psychic. Leads were chased as far as Israel. But no arrests were made. No charges brought.

In 2012, New York police and the FBI suddenly and very visibly took action on another lead, digging up the basement of a workshop near the Patz family home used by a carpenter who knew Etan and was briefly considered a suspect.

Nothing came of the dig, but the surge of media attention prompted one of Hernandez’s relatives to call police with a tip about rumors that he had a role in the disappearance of Patz.

New York police officers arrived at Hernandez’s home in New Jersey on the morning of May 23, 2012, and brought him to a local prosecutor’s office to question him. In the ensuing hours, Hernandez asked several times to go home, said the officers were trying to trick him, sobbed, clutched at his stomach, lay on the floor in a fetal position, had a fentanyl patch placed on his chest to treat his chronic pain, and mentioned his mental illness diagnoses. After more than six hours, he told officers that he “did it.”

He said he offered Patz a soda to lure him down into the basement of a bodega where he was working. He said he choked the boy, placed the body in a garbage bag, put the bag in a box and left it around the corner in broad daylight.

It wasn’t until after that confession that the officers read Hernandez his rights. They then had him repeat his statement in two video-recorded interviews over the next 24 hours. The stories he told contained several inconsistencies.

The federal court found that the trial court judge’s instruction to the jury about the confessions was “manifestly inaccurate,” that the jury should have been given more thorough instructions and that it could in fact disregard the recorded confessions.

The jury, which had asked about the un-Mirandized confession on the second of nine days of deliberations, was “clearly grappling with what weight, if any, to give to the confessions,” the appeals court wrote.

ProPublica covered the early phases of the case against Hernandez extensively, interviewing the people to whom he supposedly confessed over the years and speaking with a variety of legal and psychological experts about how police tactics can induce false confessions.

We found early on that Hernandez’s previous claims of having harmed a child not only conflicted with each other but bore little resemblance to the details of his confession to police. Once, for example, he said that he had killed a Black child. Patz was white.

We also learned that the bodega Hernandez was working out of had become a kind of police hub for the officers searching for Patz. Hernandez said in one of his confessions that he tossed the boy’s book bag behind a refrigerator there. It was never found.

Experts told us that a handful of factors are often at play in producing false confessions and that Hernandez’s situation contained many of them: He had low IQ, had a history of mental illness, and confessed to a high-profile crime where many of the details were widely known over the course of an intense, long interrogation.

The judges, in their decision, took note of many of these same characteristics, which, in their view, made it all the more important for the jury to have proper instructions to evaluate the confessions.

ProPublica also highlighted how the trial judge, Maxwell Wiley, held a hearing early in the proceedings to determine for himself whether Hernandez was properly informed of his rights and if he had the capacity to meaningfully waive them. He decided that the confession could be used. Later, Wiley, a former Manhattan prosecutor, limited the questions that could be asked about it and kept some subsequent hearings on the matter secret, drawing fire from several news organizations. Wiley, who is now retired, did not respond to calls for comment.

In an email, Cyrus Vance Jr., who handled the case against Hernandez as Manhattan district attorney, said it was “exceptionally challenging given the passage of time but also very strong.”

He said the recent decision came as a surprise, as other appellate courts had reviewed and sustained the confession and verdict.

“Clearly, the jury heard substantial expert testimony from both the prosecution and the defense, and considered both and the legal instructions by the court during deliberations and before the verdict,” he said, adding that he continues to believe Hernandez is guilty and that his “thoughts are with the Patz family and with Etan.”

Now Vance’s successor, Alvin Bragg, will have to decide whether to retry Hernandez for the third time. The first of his two trials ended in a hung jury.

In a statement from Bragg’s office, a spokesperson said only: “We are reviewing the decision.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Joaquin Sapien.

Support for Israel’s genocidal slaughter of Palestinians has become a critical political dividing line, not just in the United States, but in countries around the globe. At a recent pro-Donald Trump rally in São Paulo, Brazil, for instance, a protester waving an Israeli flag fought with a man in a Palestinian shirt. In this on-the-ground report, Brazil-based journalist Michael Fox shows how Israel’s US-backed war on Gaza and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is playing out in South America’s largest country.

Additional resources:

• Michael Fox, Brazil on Fire podcast

Filming / Post-Production: Michael Fox

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.

Incarcerated people in the US are routinely forced to work for low pay or no pay, while state governments are saving billions of dollars—and private corporations are making billions of dollars—exploiting the slave labor of prisoners. And yet, incarcerated workers have been largely excluded from the ranks of workers the public in general, and organized labor specifically, cares about. What will it take for unions and union members to embrace incarcerated workers as part of the labor movement? In this episode of Rattling the Bars, Mansa Musa explores the history of labor exploitation and labor organizing in America’s prison system.

Guests:

• Katherine Passley is Co-Executive Director of Beyond the Bars, a worker center in South Florida building the social and economic power of workers with criminal records and their families. Passley was named the 2025 Labor Organizer of the Year by In These Times magazine.
• JoeBill Muñoz is an independent Mexican-American documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, video editor, and journalist. Muñoz is the director and producer of The Strike (Hot Docs 2024).
• Bobby Dellelo spent 40 years of his life in prison.  While in prison he earned a BA in sociology, founded the AIDS Education Program, ran the library, and was the president of the National Prisoners Rights Association, the subject of a recently released book, When the Prisoners Ran Walpole: A True Story In the Movement for Prison Abolition.
• Kim Kelly is a freelance journalist and author based in Philadelphia, PA. She is a labor writer for In These Times, a labor columnist at Teen Vogue and Fast Company, and regularly contributes to many other publications. Her first book, Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor, is now available from One Signal/​Simon & Schuster.

Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Mansa Musa.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – July 28, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

The post The Project Censored Newsletter—July 2025 appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.

On the other side, are three armed groups with the ethnic Amhara FANO/Patriots army at the forefront. Included is the former ruling class the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) and what’s left of its once powerful army, today pretty much holding coats in this conflict. The other armed group opposing the gangster Abiy Ahmed is the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), not nearly as powerful or well lead as FANO but a threat nevertheless.

The Abiy gangster regime is backed by the west, to be counted on when it comes to supporting their puppets in Africa. Abiy is little more than the Mayor of the capital Addis Ababa having lost control of some 80% of the country. With the FANO fighters on one side and the OLA on the other side Abiy has only about a thirty mile radius between him and the loss of his capital city and, if he is lucky, an exile in his supporters capital Abu Dhabi (maybe Dubai?) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The bankster criminal class in the west is continuing to back Abiy with a recent emergency grant of $260 million along side a “loan” for $1.5 billion as well a a “debt reduction” of $3.5 billion (Ethiopia has historically been the largest recipient of “debt reduction” in Africa). It seems even the banksters in the IMF have begun to realize they are backing a losing hand in Abiy Ahmed, admitting their western banksters investors are increasing skeptical about putting up more money to prop up another gangster regime in Africa on the verge of collapse.

And now we hear about another US/UN World Food Program “aid” scheme that will see the diversion of more millions of dollar$ of food from those millions of starving people in Ethiopia to the Ethiopian military of Abiy Ahmed. The same thing happened a few years ago until this scandal could no longer be covered up and this “aid” diversion scheme was “suspended”. Now the same scam has been restarted with the pious reassurances that those in charge have “learned their lesson” and “it wont happen again”.

FANO is on a roll militarily, steadily capturing territory around the capital Addis Ababa as the defeat of the Ethiopian Army under Abiy accelerates. In the last few weeks, maybe a couple of months, over 7,000 Ethiopian army troops, mainly from the Amhara ethnic group/nation, have surrendered to FANO with hundreds more surrendering almost daily. Some dozen generals from the Ethiopian Army, all Amhara, have either been “retired” or defected to FANO as PM Abiy grows increasingly paranoid of a coup de tat by those left in his inner circle of the army generals corp.

With the noose tightening around him Abiy’s days are numbered and its not if but when he makes a desperate dash for safety for exile in the UAE. Hopefully he will be captured and have to face justice for the genocidal crimes he has committed against the Ethiopian people.

Either way its seems that the once mighty Abyssinian Empire, what Ethiopia was known as up until the middle of the 20th century, is about to come apart at the seems. A prison house of nations, Abyssinia/Ethiopia has been Africa’s only indigenous empire, built on the conquest of its neighbors using western firearms provided mainly by the Italians. Machine guns against cavalry has an inevitable ending with the result being a particularly brutal colonial empire. The Oromo nation, the largest in Africa today numbering over 50 million with the second largest language in Africa was the main goal of the Abyssinian conquest, something they had failed to do for centuries until acquiring Italian machine guns and artillery.

The subsequent brutality of the Abyssinian subjugation of the Oromo’s should be recognized for what it was, a genocide, with an estimated 5 million Oromo’s dying as a result. The scale and sheer inhumanity of the Abyssinian subjugation of the Oromo’s remains equal if not surpassing the worst crimes of the western imperialists when they invaded and colonized Africa. When you hear names like Menelik and Haile Sellasie, heroes amongst many of those who have been deluded by historical fiction in the west, remember the Oromo genocide.

The Ethiopian empire is about to come apart at its seams with the birth of new nations with names like Oromia, Amhara, Tigray, Afar, Ogaden amongst others in the soon to be defunct Ethiopian prison house of nations.

Hopefully these newly independent nations will find enough common ground to establish a cooperative organization similar to the Sahel Alliance of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.

A saying in the Horn of Africa is “all roads to peace run through Asmara, Eritrea” and the long, principled leadership role of the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, today’s Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice under the Lion of Africa, President Issias Aferwerki will help guide the newly independent nations that once composed the Ethiopian empire through the perilous times to come.

Behind the scenes President Issias has been preparing for this transition period from colonialism to independence with “unofficial official” spokespersons like Eritrean media star Awel Seid already providing guidance for what Horn of Africans should expect in the not to distant future.

Of course, the western bankster regimes are not going to sit idly by and watch their “policeman on the beat” in Ethiopia become a footnote in history for the Horn of Africa is to strategically critical to ignore, no matter the moronic programs the west will continue to promote. Western hegemony is being battered on all sides but they won’t go down without a fight so expect twists and turns in the coming months and years including all sort of lies and slander spewed against Eritrea as it begins to lead the transformation taking place from the Ethiopian empire to the birth of multiple new nations once imprisoned in Africa’s only indigenous empire, todays Ethiopia.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Thomas C. Mountain.

For the second time in as many months, Israel has raided a civilian ship in international waters to stop it from reaching Gaza to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid. The Handala was sailing toward the besieged Palestinian territory with baby formula, diapers, food and medicine on board when Israeli forces boarded it on Saturday and detained 21 crew and passengers. “Their blockade is, by all international standards, unlawful,” says Palestinian American human rights attorney Huwaida Arraf, who was among the activists on board and was just released from Israeli detention. She calls on the international community to hold Israel accountable and says the Freedom Flotilla Coalition will continue organizing aid ships to break the blockade of Gaza.

“Why is it that we had to be at sea in international waters, in a small boat, going to confront one of the most brutal militaries in the world? It is because … our countries are allowing Israel to deliberately starve Palestinians as part of this genocidal campaign that it has been carrying out,” says Arraf.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

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The Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on a generic drugmaker that was the subject of a ProPublica investigation last year, citing problems with safety tests that delayed the recall of a medicine linked to deaths in the U.S.

In December, ProPublica reported that a Glenmark Pharmaceuticals factory in central India was responsible for an outsized share of recalls for pills that didn’t dissolve properly and could harm American patients. Among the string of recalls, federal regulators had determined that more than 50 million potassium chloride extended-release capsules sold in the U.S. could be deadly. Yet, federal drug inspectors at that point hadn’t set foot in the Madhya Pradesh factory for more than four years, ProPublica found.

Seven weeks after that story was published, FDA inspectors showed up at the plant and found serious problems. Glenmark subsequently recalled an additional two dozen medicines made there and sold to U.S. patients.

Now the FDA has sent Glenmark a warning letter, a disciplinary tool the regulator uses to lay out significant violations of federal requirements and demand changes. If Glenmark fails to fix any of the problems outlined, the FDA warned, it may bar drugs made at the factory from entering the U.S.

What’s more, the FDA pointed out that the company had made similar serious mistakes at three other manufacturing sites and acknowledged that those factories had been the subject of previous warning letters from the agency since 2019. The problems at one were so severe that federal regulators blocked drugs made there from being imported to Americans. ProPublica’s December investigation highlighted this pattern, noting that three of the five factories where Glenmark made drugs for the U.S. market in recent years had been in trouble with federal regulators. Despite that track record, the FDA — backlogged from the pandemic — waited five years before sending its inspectors back to the Madhya Pradesh plant.

In his July 11 warning letter, the director of the FDA’s Office of Manufacturing Quality wrote, “These repeated failures at multiple sites demonstrate that management oversight and control over the manufacture of drugs is inadequate.” (The agency made the letter publiclast week.)

“You should immediately and comprehensively assess your company’s global manufacturing operations to ensure that systems, processes, and the products manufactured conform to FDA requirements,” he added.

A spokesperson for the company said in a written statement: “Glenmark is actively engaging with the U.S. FDA and has initiated corrective actions to address the agency’s observations. Patient safety, product quality and regulatory compliance are foundational to how we operate.”

Citing ongoing litigation the company faces, she declined to comment further.

ProPublica has been investigating the FDA’s oversight of foreign factories that make generic drugs for the U.S. market.

Since last year, ProPublica repeatedly has asked the FDA why it didn’t send inspectors to the Glenmark factory sooner, given the outsized share of recalls and the company’s troubled track record at its other plants. The agency hasn’t answered the question. After the inspection found problems this year, an FDA spokesperson said the agency can only discuss potential or ongoing compliance matters with the company involved.

Among the most serious violations outlined in the FDA letter to Glenmark was the company’s failure to promptly test pills to ensure they dissolve properly during their normal shelf life, the subject of ProPublica’s investigation last year.

Companies hold on to samples of pills from batches sold to U.S. customers and test them periodically until they reach their expiration date. Medicines that don’t dissolve properly can cause perilous swings in dosing. This flaw is what made Glenmark’s potassium chloride pills potentially deadly since high potassium levels can stop the heart, according to the June 2024 recall notice.

Glenmark’s backlogged testing “was overdue by 3 months or longer for a large proportion of your samples,” the FDA wrote in the warning letter. The failure to perform these tests on time held up Glenmark’s discovery of defective pills and delayed the needed recalls, the agency said.

In multiple instances, the FDA found that it took 100 days from the time Glenmark pulled samples of potassium chloride for testing until the company learned the capsules had failed to dissolve correctly.

A delay in that recall could factor into a lawsuit that alleges Glenmark’s potassium chloride pills were responsible for the death last year of Mary Louise Cormier, a 91-year-old Maine woman. A letter alerting Cormier that her pills had been recalled arrived three weeks after she died. In court filings, Glenmark has denied responsibility for her death. The company stopped making the drug for U.S. patients.

Between July and December last year, Glenmark told the FDA that it had received reports of eight deaths in patients who took the recalled potassium chloride, federal records show. The reports, which companies must file so the FDA can monitor drug safety, contained so few details that ProPublica was unable to independently verify what happened in each case. In general, these adverse event reports reflect the opinions of those who filed them and don’t prove that the drug caused the harm, the FDA says. The agency didn’t mention these deaths in the warning letter.

The FDA lambasted Glenmark for failing to thoroughly investigate why pills made at its Madhya Pradesh factory weren’t dissolving properly. The agency listed possible reasons that Glenmark failed to consider, but FDA censors redacted so many passages — citing the protection of trade secrets and confidential business information — that it’s impossible to discern what could have gone wrong.

Citing the same confidentiality provision, the FDA kept secret the name of another Glenmark drug that the agency said failed these same tests. When asked why consumers shouldn’t be told which medication had the problem, the FDA didn’t answer.

More broadly, the FDA’s warning letter criticized Glenmark for failing to validate the tests it relies on to prove that its drugs have the identity, strength, quality and purity that they’re supposed to have.

“Without evaluating the validity of methods, you lack the basic assurance that your laboratory data accurately reflects drug product quality,” the FDA wrote.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Patricia Callahan.

“Hopefully that’s not for us,” he said.

The siren faded, and the teens — who attend an elite, all-boys prep school on the other side of town — got back to work. They are the most dedicated members of its prairie club, which finds them rising early on weekends to “rescue” rare plants from bulldozers and transfer them to restoration sites. Such unauthorized efforts have rattled some professional conservationists in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex; but in an era infused with climate anxiety, it offers a tangible way to make a difference — and a dose of adrenaline. “It’s like collecting Pokemons,” one said.

Max Yan (top, with shovel) and other members of the Blackland Prairie Restoration Crew at St. Mark’s School rescue plants at Coneflower Crest, a prairie in southern Dallas slated for demolition. Laura Mallonee / Grist

Coneflower Crest — as the boys call this place, after the dusty pink flowers that bloom here — is a nearly 300-acre stretch of undeveloped land north of I-20 that they say constitutes the last large prairie in the county. But heavy machinery is expected to crush the majority of its flowers, making way for a self-billed sustainable development with hundreds of homes and businesses that promise to revitalize a neglected corner of Dallas. But even eco-friendly projects come at a cost: The city is trading an ecosystem that naturally mitigates the effects of climate change for more impervious sprawl that only exacerbates them. 

Blackland prairie once stretched 12 million acres in Texas from the Red River to San Antonio — an area twice the size of Vermont. Its limestone geology was formed by an ancient inland sea that enriched its soil, feeding more than 300 species of native grasses and forbes like big bluestem, lotus milkvetch, and devil’s bite.

But since European colonization, agriculture and urban development have swallowed 99.9 percent of the prairie — and are still taking their fill. Last year, a solar farm claimed the majority of the state’s largest remnant, which spanned 2,100 acres near the border with Oklahoma. Over the past five years in Dallas County alone, more than 320 acres have succumbed to data centers, parking lots, high-rises, and warehouses with no coneflowers in sight. 

All that concrete increases flooding, pollution, aquifer depletion, urban heat island effects, and greenhouse gas emissions — the same problems prairies naturally alleviate, said Norma Fowler, a plant ecologist at the University of Texas at Austin. Long grasses slow rainfall, giving the ground more time to soak it up. Their roots spread in fine webs and reach a depth of 20 feet, producing humus-rich soil that holds water and releases it slowly, filtering out excess nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. Prairies also cool cities, temper the impact of wildfires (a fire on a prairie is easier to put out than one in a forested area), and sequester carbon — up to 1 ton per acre per year. It’s why biodiversity loss and climate change are inherently linked. “Everything we do for conservation is also mitigating the effects of climate change,” Fowler said.

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Environmentalists have rallied to save area prairies since at least the 1970s, when one patrolled Pioneer — an 100-acre remnant off I-30 — with a shotgun. By the 1980s, development loomed, prompting naturalist Ken Steigman to start digging up plants. Steigman even used a sod-cutter to roll up ribbons of sod — bugs and all. “It’s like Noah’s Ark,” he said. “You want to save everything you can.”  

But the work has its ups and downs. Activists were relieved when development stalled at Pioneer. But in 2018, a native plant grower named Randy Johnson saw workers pulling cores for a new project. Johnson, 62, rode his minibike through Pioneer as a kid, but by his twenties, that youthful abandon gave way to wonderment. He tried and failed to convince the landowner to spare its most ecologically sensitive areas. “It’s depressing,” he said with a drawl. “[It’s] something you love, and every day you get in your car and see it being destroyed.” 

He had nearly given up hope when a lanky freshman named Akash Munshi wandered into his school’s glass greenhouse, where Johnson worked part-time, in 2019. Munshi was “hyper,” Johnson said, and extremely bright. His extended family are rice farmers in south India, and he wanted to learn how to grow food. But this interest gave way to native plants, and within a couple years, Munshi was as fluent in their Latin names as in their common ones. 

He started the school’s first prairie club his senior year to restore a stretch of bermuda grass along a bike path nearby. To source the seeds, he visited local prairies, including ones he found by scouring satellite imagery. He counted six high-quality sites fated for development, underscoring the need to also salvage plants. Within two years, all but one — Coneflower Crest — were under construction. 

“I didn’t realize how quickly I would lose them,” he said. “There were some sites where there was no sign of development, and I’d come back [the] next week, and the whole thing was scraped.” 

The destruction coincides with unprecedented biodiversity loss. An estimated 40 percent of all known plants are potentially threatened with extinction, and they are disappearing at a rate many magnitudes higher than they have on average historically — the result of both human activity and climate change. Those recently discovered — like glandular blazing star, an imperiled plant first described in 2001 that is only found in Texas — are even more likely to suffer extinction before scientists can understand their ecosystem role or potential application in medicine or agriculture. As the populations of at-risk plants shrink, their gene pools become less diverse, making them more vulnerable to collapse.  

“Each one of those that’s lost is threatening an already under-pressure system,” said Canaan Sutton, a botanist at the National Ecological Observatory Network. Invertebrates, some of which have unique relationships with specific host plants, lose their food and habitat. There are fewer caterpillars to feed the birds and fewer bees to pollinate blooms, including crops like Texas’s famed Fredericksburg peaches. 

Rescuing individual plants won’t save these historic ecosystems, but it can help prevent some species from undergoing “a silent extinction,” Sutton said. Though conservationists focus on collecting seeds, they aren’t always ripe when developers allow them on site. Some are still so poorly understood that no one knows how to germinate them, and others, like compass plants, take years to bloom. Keeping an individual alive helps bridge the gap, enabling a bumblebee to find its way to the pollen it depends on to survive. 

“What we’re in now is this perpetually shifting baseline of, ‘This is what we have, and this is as good as it gets,’” Sutton said. “Ultimately, people doing these rescues are trying to move that baseline back in the direction of the past and a more interconnected, natural world — even if that’s just [with] a handful of plants.”

The summer after his senior year, Munshi was leading a high school tour through another prairie destined to become a highrise. Stopping for a water break, he noticed a tiny yellow flower against a girl’s black shoe. “Oh shoot!” he said. “That’s dalea hallii!”

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Commonly known as Hall’s prairie clover, this globally imperiled plant, listed as threatened by the state, grows nowhere else but chalky, south-facing slopes on limestone prairies, a subset of the blackland prairie where the bedrock surfaces, creating a unique microclimate where rare plants thrive. They face a unique risk, Sutton said: They survived the centuries because they were too rocky for the plow, but as developers seek more land to build on, that same rock now offers an ideal foundation for sprawl.  

At the time of Munshi’s discovery, less than 1,200 hall’s prairie clover were officially known to exist. He counted at least a hundred and shared his find on Instagram, where it caught the eye of a conservation botanist at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, which banks obscure seeds. She used the organization’s heft to arrange an official rescue that October.  

The developer gave them three hours to dig up what they could. Wearing a straw hat shaped like a circumflex, Johnson showed 40 volunteers how to pry open the limestone with pickaxes, knives, sledgehammers, and pneumatic drills. Afterward, he hauled more than 200 daleas to the greenhouse in Forney that he now co-owns with Munshi. Johnson, whose long gray hair and narrowed eyes evoke something of a wizard, nursed the plants with a mycorrhizal fungi tea. A month later, he texted Sutton a picture of a flourishing dalea ready for transplant. “Check it out, dude!” he wrote.

Despite this success, it wasn’t enough time to save the thousands of other plants at Penstemon Point. So, when Kay Hankins, a conservation botanist at BRIT, offered to contact the developer at Coneflower Crest, Munshi asked her not to, fearing they wouldn’t be given enough time. He and others have spent dozens of hours relocating thousands of plants from Coneflower Crest and other patches to the bike path 30 minutes north — casting trespassing worries aside as easily as the rocks their shovels sometimes hit. 

Munshi said no one has ever asked them to leave. Neither have the cops. Once, while he was at another prairie, a passerby suspected him of burying a body, and three police cars pulled up. When the officers saw the plants, they left, merely annoyed. “They don’t care,” Munshi said. “They’re literally about to scrape the entire site.” 

Johnson fears requesting permission could backfire. In Texas, plants deemed threatened or endangered by the state’s wildlife agency aren’t protected by law, but landowners who don’t want the hassle or liability may destroy them more quickly. “This is a war between us and the developers, and nobody’s calling uncle or throwing up no white flags,” he said. “You can get out of jail, you can post bail, but once the [plant] genetics are gone, they’re gone.”

But the approach vexes some in Texas’s native plant community who view permission as essential for “ethical” digs that promote trust with landowners and developers, eventually helping get more on board.  

“If all the experience developers have [with conservationists] is negative, we’ll always be initiating the dialogue from a disadvantaged position every single time,” said Kay Hankins, a botanist with BRIT’s Plant Conservation Team, which has participated in four other rescues since its inception in 2019. 

Developer involvement could ensure that activists don’t inadvertently remove plants that grow outside construction boundaries, and more volunteers are willing to help if it doesn’t involve breaking a law. It also enhances the plants’ value for research and conservation, Hankins said, since reputable institutions, seed banks, and herbaria don’t accept plants collected without paperwork.

But it’s difficult to convince people of the long-term benefits when the few prairies that remain can quickly vanish. Developers aren’t easy to get a hold of, either. Ali Bocaum, who started the Central Texas Plant Rescuers in Austin in 2022, said one 1 of 10 respond. Some deny owning the land, though taking cookies to their offices helps. “They can’t ignore you when you’re there,” she said.  

Ashley Landry, who founded the Native Plant Rescue Project in Williamson County, north of Austin, in 2023, also plays “a long PR game” to gain access. She monitors building permits to watch for new development, then emails, snail mails, and drives by to try and catch landowners in person. In February, her team of volunteers succeeded in relocating 900 square feet of MoKan, the 30-acre “crown jewel” of central Texas prairies. Skid steers excised 56 sections, each as thick as a mattress, and pieced them like quilts at two nearby sites. If the plants survive, the method could be scaled.

“I just always feel so thankful to have seen these places before they’re gone,” said Landry. “It helps frame your understanding of what the landscape is supposed to look like.”

That sense of place isn’t easy to come by for the average kid in Dallas. A few prairie patches exist in public parks, preserves, and liminal spaces like power easements. But concrete – in the form of thousands of roads, highways, and bridges — has reshaped the city, and it’s anyone’s guess what’s buried under it all. The prairie club boys grew up in neighborhoods manicured with shrubs from other continents. They say they lacked a strong connection to the land — a quality that the environmentalist Wendell Berry has written is necessary for living in a locale without destroying it. But encountering landscapes like Coneflower Crest has transformed them. 

Munshi, now a plant science major at Cornell University, vividly remembers the morning two springs ago that he climbed up a roadside embankment and glimpsed part of what quickly became his favorite prairie. Butterflies frolicked amid more echinacea than he had ever seen, indicating the area was likely never plowed. “This is, like, a 10!” he exclaimed, filming the scenery. “Imagine what else is in here!”  

Munshi has explored about 140 acres and said that they contain several rare species, including hall’s prairie clover and white rosinweed, another plant only found in Texas. But in May, just two days after the boys uprooted the last Texas blazing star, a dozen men and women in business suits lined up with shovels to break ground. The young activists knew it was coming, but it still angered them to imagine the landscape razed — even as they grappled with a sense of complicity. “All of our homes were built on indigenous lands and biodiverse areas,” said the senior.  

Stacked against this tremendous loss, their efforts felt almost trivial. “The thought of what was here once and is gone forever will not leave me as long as I live,” Berry wrote in 1968. “It is as though I walk knee-deep in its absence.” But long after the bulldozers at Coneflower Crest move on to the next job, hundreds of its rarest plants will persist, swaying in the breeze along the bike path. Before the boys even transplanted the last ones, a few uprooted daleas bloomed, just as they had for centuries.  

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline The guerilla campaign to save a Texas prairie from ‘silent extinction’ on Jul 28, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Laura Mallonee.

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The continents are rapidly drying out and the earth’s vast freshwater resources are under threat, according to a recently released study based on more than 20 years of NASA satellite data. Here are the report’s key findings and what they portend for humankind:

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, examined changes to Earth’s total supply of fresh water and found that nearly 6 billion people live in the 101 countries facing a net decline in water supply, posing a “critical, emerging threat to humanity.”

According to the study, the uninhibited pumping of groundwater by farmers, cities and corporations around the world now accounts for 68% of the total loss of fresh water at the latitudes where most people live.

Mined groundwater rarely seeps back into the aquifers from which it was pumped. Rather, a large portion runs off into streams, then rivers and ultimately the oceans. According to the researchers, moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans.

Most of the water lost from drying regions is from groundwater pumping, which ultimately shifts fresh water from aquifers into the oceans.

Worldwide, 70% of fresh water is used for growing crops, with more of it coming from groundwater as droughts grow more extreme. Only a small amount of that water seeps back into aquifers. Research has long established that people take more water from underground when climate-driven heat and drought are at their worst.

The parts of the world drying most acutely are becoming interconnected, forming what the study’s authors describe as “mega” regions. One such region covers almost the whole of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.

The study examines 22 years of observational data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites, which measure changes in the mass of the earth and have been applied to estimate its water content. Since 2002, the sensors have detected a rapid shift in water loss across the planet. Around 2014, the study found the pace of drying appears to have accelerated. It is now growing by an area twice the size of California each year.

The dramatic depletion of groundwater and surface water plus the melting of glaciers between 2014-24 has connected once-separate arid places, forming “mega-drying” regions that stretch across whole continents.

Watch video ➜

Major groundwater basins underlie roughly one-third of the planet, including about half of Africa, Europe and South America. Many of those aquifers took millions of years to form and might take thousands of years to refill. The researchers warn that it is now nearly impossible to reverse the loss of water “on human timescales.”

The accelerated drying, combined with the flooding of coastal cities and food-producing lowlands, heralds “potentially staggering” and cascading risks for global order, the researchers warn. Their findings all point to the likelihood of widespread famine, the migration of large numbers of people seeking a more stable environment and the carry-on impact of geopolitical disorder.

Data Source: Hrishikesh. A. Chandanpurkar, James S. Famiglietti, Kaushik Gopalan, David N. Wiese, Yoshihide Wada, Kaoru Kakinuma, John T. Reager, Fan Zhang (2025). Unprecedented Continental Drying, Shrinking Freshwater Availability, and Increasing Land Contributions to Sea Level Rise. Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0298

Graphics by Lucas Waldron

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by ProPublica.

In a yoga training I just did, they asked that exact question. I feel like in the space of teaching [yoga], it’s literally to give people the mental space from their everyday lives. To give them a container to be in—to reflect, sit, be quiet, separate from the outside world, and see what comes up. With tattooing, I feel like it’s about making people feel more beautiful. Every time I get a tattoo, I feel like I look more like myself—it’s about making people look more like how they feel on the inside. Also giving people a space to lay, be quiet, listen to music, and not engage in anything other than the act of receiving.

How do you see the relationship between teaching yoga and tattooing?

I love teaching because it’s much less of a high stakes environment. A one-on-one interaction is so different from leading a collective. I love the balance of both because they feel equally life-giving, exciting, and embodying. For me, yoga is very internal—moving, burning, cleansing—while tattooing is very external. Tattooing feels like, “This is who I am externally.” Yoga feels like, “This is who I’m trying to be inwardly.” I think they complement each other extremely well. I also tattoo a lot of young people, and I teach a lot of older people. There’s been this funny crossover where I’ve had tattoo clients start to take my yoga classes because they vibe with me, and then I’ve had older people want to get tattoos because they feel safe, and trust my energy or my intention. It’s been cool to mix those communities and introduce them to each other. I like as much diversity in age as I can be around—both sides can teach you a lot about life.

Why do you get tattoos?

I think it’s genuinely so beautiful to be able to decorate yourself—with clothing, color, the way we can do our hair. Something about being able to adorn and decorate skin feels so cool and freeing.

I’m curious how giving and receiving tattoos has informed your perception of permanence, and the passage of time?

When I receive tattoos, the feeling of permanence is so comforting—to think that I’ll be 87 years old, hopefully, with everything I have on my body. Then I get to look back at things I got—I have a tattoo I got in India 5 to 8 years ago—and remember that I’m still that person. I’m still in that body. You know when you see a picture of yourself at five years old and you’re like, “Whoah, I’m still that person”? That’s how it feels. Whether I got it at a good or bad time, there’s something really grounding and comforting about knowing that person is within me. It makes you reflect on everything you’ve been through. For me, tattoos are a timestamp.

For other people, I feel like I watch them really practice surrender. They give up control to the artist to a certain extent. Obviously, they choose the placement and confirm they want the design, but then there’s a level of letting go. You’re fully giving me your body, and you’re trusting me while you lay there and hope that it turns out how you wanted. I’ve had a lot of past clients tell me they feel like they can take on way more risk and trust other people, all from the act of getting tattooed. I think the permanence of it all loosens people up, and makes them practice surrender. It makes them take their bodies less seriously. We’re so body centered and body focused. It reminds people that this is just a vessel to decorate.

Outside of all external definitions, how would you define artwork?

For me, it’s simply the inner world made visual. Someone trying to represent what’s happening inside of them. There’s so many mediums that are possible through that, which is where artwork is interesting to me.

Have you always felt drawn to bodywork?

I feel like massage came up first and foremost when I was a kid. I used to massage people’s feet under the table at Thanksgiving. I also loved giving face massages.

How did tattooing come into your life?

I think when I started practicing [tattooing], I recognized a similar feeling that I would get when I would teach [yoga]. There is an overlapping sense of embodiment—a coming into yourself more than you did before you arrived. Teaching came first, and then tattooing started a year or two after I did my [yoga teacher] training. Tattooing is way more personal. You’re working with one-on-one relationships rather than teaching a group of 20 or 30, but you’re still making people feel embodied and relaxed, creating that container for reflection. Tattooing is also more physical because people are leaving with something very permanent, which is scary.

How did you find the confidence to tattoo for the first time?

I practiced on myself for a while… But there was no confidence. It kind of just happened. I had a few moments of messing up at the very beginning, where it would hit me like a wall—the idea that you’re doing something extremely permanent—and I had to be checked a few times to realize it really was high stakes. I think the ignorant optimism you have as a young person, to just kind of do something and not really care about the outcome, actually served me pretty well in terms of getting into it, and doing it consistently without fear.

Why did you choose hand poke tattooing as your medium?

I started that way because it felt more accessible and less scary. Machines were really expensive, and I didn’t know much about them. Then I fell in love with the process of it, the quiet of it. I love slow art. I love things that take a long time. In an increasingly fast-paced, fast fashion kind of world, it’s so much harder to find things made slowly, and to find people who want things made slowly. To slow down in general is just more of a commodity. The slowness is what tethers me to it. Also, knowing that it’s pre-electricity. It’s funny that it’s coming back into trend. Hand poke is the original form of tattooing; it’s how people did it for thousands of years. Connecting with the original form of the practice is really cool to me.

How would you describe your style?

The technical tattoo term would be micro realism: small things that have a realistic quality to them. I wouldn’t say I do a lot of abstract work. I do a lot of realistic and natural forms through dot work, through pointillism—plants, animals, and shells. I would say my style is soft, and compliments the body well. It’s usually specific to what people find sacred, which happens to be natural life forms that you find outside.

Do you have a favorite piece you’ve ever done?

Yeah. In January I gave this girl a really big bird on her back that went from shoulder to shoulder. It took two days. I had never done a tattoo that took multiple days before. That was really awesome—not to rush and just be with one person for two days. The bird is a native Hawaiian bird and the client is from the island, so it meant a lot to her to wear that animal on her back. It was such a crazy honor to be the person to give it to her. Since then, I want to take on bigger pieces.

How has social media influenced your professional growth while being based in Hawaii?

I really like living rurally because a lot of the work I do comes through word-of-mouth. Everyone is talking and showing each other their tattoos. I would much rather work in that way, through organic ways of sharing and spreading my art. But social media is awesome. I’m able to reach people in cities and then I can afford to go to those cities and bring my art to other places. Before I moved [to Kauai], a few tattoo artists told me I had to be in New York or LA if I wanted to make it. I didn’t really want to do that, or believe that it was true. Social media has allowed me to be where I want to be and still reach people in more urban environments.

What are the challenges that come with owning your own shop?

Self-management, in general. There’s not a lot of challenges with owning and managing the specific space because I feel like I know how to do it really well. I know what I need. It’s literally just me. I don’t have any employees or people to oversee. I would say the challenges are the logistics of starting it alone and doing everything alone—business stuff, financial stuff, tax stuff. But I’m still in my first six years of tattooing… So I think time will help.

What do you gain from guest spotting at other shops and being around other creatives?

It’s so nice to just ask questions. To figure out what materials people are using, techniques, what kind of printers or online platforms people use to enhance their work… It’s really nice to be around other people who’ve also made this their career. It can be so up and down. Sometimes you make a lot of money, sometimes you make no money. It’s dependent upon the economy—how much disposable income people have. It’s just so nice to be around people that are down for that challenge, even though it can be really hard to have such an unpredictable and taxing job, physically and mentally. It’s such a cool community to be in.

Do you remember the best piece of advice another tattooer has given you?

Don’t rush. Oh, and quality over quantity. Yes, you can make more money by taking four or five appointments in a day, but the quality of your work is going to go down. It’s obviously nice to make more money, especially as a freelance artist, but what we’re making is forever. Prioritize the quality of the work over the money that could be made by rushing.

How do you ground and care for yourself after the intense physical and energetic exchange of tattooing? Do you turn to yoga or any other self-soothing practices?

I love that people feel so extremely comfortable with me, and speak to me about really personal things going on in their lives. I know a lot of tattooers who have their headphones on while doing their job, and their client is on their phone or listening to music. Personally, that’s not the kind of tattooer I want to be. To be able to hold as much space as I do, I think I need to take less people, eventually. I’m holding too much space for too many people right now.

The practice that keeps me from carrying too much—which I’m still trying to practice—is to visualize a barrier around myself while I’m tattooing, like a thin film of light protecting me, so I don’t take it home as much. Burning something after really helps. Right now, it feels important for me to allow people to let their minds run and say whatever they’re feeling. I don’t want to stop people from doing that, but I don’t think I’ve quite mastered how to not let it overwhelm me. The answer is not to close myself off. I think I am still seeking those tools. But I’m also going to be doing this my whole life, so I have a lot of time to figure it out.

Do you have advice for a freelance creative starting out?

Make art for yourself, not for the audience. When you authentically make what you think is cool, and what you find incredible, you’ll attract people that want to support you. If you’re trying to make art for an audience, you’re not going to build a sustainable audience that will follow your journey. Instead of catering to what people already want, show them something they didn’t even know they wanted by making it for yourself first.

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Sammy Steiner.

INTERVIEW: By Sebastian Shehadi

The Handala, a 1968 Norwegian trawler repurposed by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), set sail for Gaza from southern Italy on July 20, carrying around 21 people and a cargo of food, medical kits, baby formula, water desalination units and more.

The ship is named after the iconic Palestinian cartoon figure, Handala, who symbolises Palestinian identity, resilience and the ongoing struggle against displacement and occupation.

Just hours before departure, the crew uncovered deliberate sabotage: a rope tightly bound around the propeller and a sulfuric acid swap mistaken for water, leading to chemical burns in two people.

• READ MORE: Israeli forces storm Gaza-bound aid ship Handala in international waters
• Gaza condemns Israeli ‘piracy’ over storming of Handala aid ship
• Other reports on New Zealand participation on past Gaza Freedom Flotilla missions at Kia Ora Gaza

Despite this alarming start, the mission continued, echoing the defiance of past flotilla efforts such as the interception of the Madleen in June and the Israeli drone strike on the Conscience in May.

However, contact with the vessel was reported lost on July 24, with coalition officials warning that communications have been jammed and drones have been seen near the ship, raising concerns about interception or further hostile action.

The mission resumed following the brief two-hour communications blackout. “Connection has now been re-established. ‘Handala’ is continuing its mission and is currently less than 349 nautical miles from Gaza,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) announced on Telegram on July 25.

Then on Saturday, the Israeli military attacked the ship and violently detained and “abducted” the entire crew and issued a statement saying they were “safe” and on their way to Israel.

‘Handala’ was illegally boarded by Israel military in international waters, around 40 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza.

Before interception the 21 crew made this statement: if attacked they will join the global hunger strike for Gaza.

Call your governments now and hold them… pic.twitter.com/QbqUaduXG1

— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) July 27, 2025

The New Arab spoke to one of Handala’s crew, Lebanese-Australian filmmaker, human rights activist and journalist Tan Safi, before the arrest to find out more about the mission and why she chose to be on board this mission:

The New Arab: How’s the mood on the ship at the moment?
Tan Safi: The morale of everyone at the moment is high, as everyone is happy to be here. Of course, different emotions come up, and we talk them out, but as a collective, we’re all looking out for one another. Everyone is very caring and kind.

We are a group of 21 people from 10 different countries. We have a very proud grandmother, as well as MPs, nurses, a human rights lawyer, a comedian, an actor, human rights activists and more. We’re from many different walks of life, and we pose absolutely no threat to anyone.

We’re simply trying to challenge something illegal. Like previous Freedom Flotilla actions, we will be sailing through international waters into Palestinian territorial waters.

How are you preparing for the very real threat of Israeli violence?
Back in 2010, we sent a flotilla that was caught in a deadly raid. The Israelis came in a helicopter, boarded the ship and killed nine people instantaneously, while another person died from a coma years later.

So we know very well that Israel poses a real threat.

More importantly, we’ve seen what they’re capable of over the last two years. The most horrific things imaginable. Israeli soldiers are committing endless crimes against Gazan children, and then going into the homes of the Palestinians they’ve murdered and taking selfies in women’s lingerie. We know what they’re capable of.

Any interception of our vessel would violate international maritime law. The ICJ [International Court of Justice] itself ordered Israel not to interfere with any delivery of international aid. Of course, we know that Israel gets to exist in this world by hopping over international law, without any accountability, without any real sanctions.

In terms of processing, what might happen to me? I’ve had to do it time and time again whenever I’ve joined FFC missions over the last two years. I’ve had to say goodbye to my friends and family, but also try to keep them reassured.

Sometimes I feel like I’m lying, to be honest. I tell them that “everything will be okay”. But it’s psychologically impossible to explain.

Are you worried that Handala is less protected than the last ship, Madleen, which had the global media attention (and protection) of having Greta Thunberg on board?

No matter how many Instagram followers you have, your life is just as important as the next person’s. We have people on this boat who have Instagram. We have people who do.

The lives of all these people are as valuable as everyone else’s. I would just try to focus on the fact that we’re all human beings, just as every Palestinian in Gaza is. I’m more worried that Israel’s violence will expand until it’s too late, and people wish that they had done more. The time is now.

What is your message to global or Australian leaders?
I’m Lebanese, but I grew up in so-called Australia, a country that has such a dark history. What our politicians forget is that so-called Australia was not theirs to begin with. Australia was, and will always be, Aboriginal land. They can try to hide their dark truths, just like Israel used to as well. But the truth will become exposed in time.

To this day, Aboriginal people are abused and discriminated against by the state. My message to Australia’s leadership is: how can you watch tens of thousands of men, women and children being slaughtered and still be enabling Israel’s siege and genocide?

The Australian embassy in Israel sent me a message urging me to “please reconsider your decision to join a humanitarian aid trip to Gaza”. If they’re so concerned about the two Australians on this boat, I would urge them to be more concerned with the millions of Palestinians who are suffering daily.

Can you tell us more about daily life and organisation on the ship?
We all put our hands up to volunteer for various tasks throughout the day. Some of us are more skilled in certain areas than others. For example, we have someone here from France who is a nurse, and they’re helping anyone who is feeling sick.

We have the proud grandmother, Vigdis from Norway, who loves to cook. And then someone will put their hand up to do the dishes. No one is too good to clean the toilets.

We’re all helping out to keep this ship organised. We also do shifts, helping out with the crew when needed. No one is sitting around. And if someone is, it’s because it’s really hot or the seas are rough.

What do you hope Handala will achieve, beyond potentially breaking the siege?
I hope this action will encourage all forms of solidarity and, more importantly, inspire direct action. I know that protests and non-direct actions serve a purpose, but we have talked and talked and talked at length. I don’t know how people are finding the strength.

Sometimes when I’m asked to talk at events, I just don’t know what to say, because if you need me to explain this, maybe you will never understand.

But what we clearly need to do is disrupt the financial flow that enables and fuels this genocide. The BDS movement is huge. People used to look down on it and question its efficacy. But now we’re able to quantify that it’s actually affecting real, big business.

I’ve always been advocating for that and asking people to be aware of the companies they consume from, such as Unilever, Nestle and Coke. This is having a real impact on these companies that are profiteering from unethical practices to begin with, that extends far beyond the genocide in Gaza.

Direct action could also involve blockading shipments of weapons from ports and docks, as seen in Greece. It’s amazing to see more countries step up. However, we often see a lot of lip service as well. It takes everyday people to actually stand up and say: “I’m able-bodied. I’m sick to my stomach. I’m gonna listen to my instinct and explore other options”.

If protesting is not working, explore other options. If there is no direct action group, create one. All it takes is one person to begin.

Are there any final or other messages you’d like to convey?
The Handala ship is the 37th boat from the FFC to travel to Gaza. There are thousands of people behind each of these journeys who make these voyages happen.

The FFC has existed for as many years as Israel’s siege on Gaza has. The FFC exists only because of Israel’s illegal siege.

We are people from around the world who are united in our shared consciousness and care for Palestine. We pose no threat. I’m looking at a bunch of toys and baby formula. We have as much food as we can carry, but our main goal is to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza because you need to fix a problem at the root of the cause.

• Track the Handala’s journey here

Sebastian Shehadi is a freelance journalist and a contributing writer at the New Statesman. This article was first published by The New Arab. Follow Shehadi on X: @seblebanon

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.

ANALYSIS: By Shadee ElMasry

In our world today, one would be hard-pressed to find a reputable, well-known scholar or group of scholars who support Israel. Of course, the keywords here are “well-known” and “reputable”, after a “misguided” delegation of European Imams travelled to Israel to placate the Israeli occupation and sponsor the genocide of the Palestinian people.

It is increasingly common to find these figures, Muslim apologists for Israel, who have breached the Islamic tenet of standing against injustice, laundering their authority to provide cover for Israel’s crimes against humanity against their brothers and sisters in Palestine and across the wider Arab world.

We live in a world of shameless opportunism, where the poisoned fruit of “normalising” relations with the Israeli occupation is weighed against moral conviction and our duty to stand with the afflicted Palestinians.

• READ MORE: Israel kills 53 Palestinians in Gaza despite ‘pauses’ in fighting
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

A few weeks ago, this tradeoff played out across our screens.

The delegation’s visit, which included 15 European Imams, was led by the controversial Hassen Chalghoumi (known for supporting Nicolas Sarkozy’s burqa ban) and involved meetings with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who has been accused of inciting genocide.

Clearly, their consciences weren’t troubled by the catastrophic famine now gripping Gaza, a “hell on earth” where women and children are killed for scrambling to get flour, and men are killed without rhyme or reason.

I, like many companions across mosques and online feeds, was dumbfounded by the delegation’s complicity. This visit happened at a time when we as Muslims, and the global community, must rally around the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights: to exist, to return home, and to live free from occupation, especially as they face an existential threat.

Delegation swiftly denounced
The delegation was swiftly denounced. Al-Azhar University stressed that they “do not represent Islam and Muslims.” Worshippers walked out of UK mosques. A Dutch Imam was suspended.

But this isn’t just about them. We need to ask how this happened and ensure it does not repeat with us. As one scholar said, if an Imam sees the community fall into usury, then gives his Friday sermon on adultery, the Imam has betrayed his congregation.

The same is the case with Muslim apologists for Israel.

To understand their motives, we must examine three theological “traps” these figures use to justify their support for Israel, or at least the very least, their silence over Palestine. The first of which is the “Greater Good Trap”.

They claim that “speaking up against Israel will result in more harm than good”. But only the Prophet Muhammad’s silence constitutes tacit approval. Their reasoning doesn’t hold up.

A weak-willed person will always accept this reasoning because it allows them to have their proverbial cake and eat it: they gain spiritual cover for remaining silent. As we’ve seen, the scholar will say: “Yes, I can speak, but then our school will get shut down, or we’ll lose funding. For the sake of the greater good, I must remain silent.”

Israel, I’m sure, is delighted by this self-censorship. But we should also ask how it is that so many non-scholars, non-Muslims, and non-Arabs are speaking the truth about the Gaza genocide, while Islamic scholars remain silent.

It raises eyebrows, at the very least.

‘Pure theology’ trap
The second trap is the “Pure Theology” trap. Here, the scholar says: “Sound belief is the most important thing. How can we support the Palestinians when they resort to armed conflict? Their theology is flawed. I prioritise the truth, what’s wrong with that?”

But what they overlook is that falsehood has degrees. It is foolish to denounce one error while ignoring a greater one.

To attack a people’s doctrinal shortcomings while staying silent on their oppression is not principled; it is a failure to understand the fiqh of priorities.

This trap lies in misplacing truths: loudly condemning the religious mistakes of Israel’s victims while conveniently forgetting the far graver injustice of Israel itself and the violent context that brought it into being.

The final, and most sophisticated, trap that Muslim apologists for Israel use is metaphysical: they attempt to misdirect Muslims to a higher order of spiritual thought about the Divine will.

They ask what sounds like a noble question: “Why is Allah doing this to us? It must be because of our sins. Israel is merely a tool God is using to punish us or purify us.”

But the catch here is that the spiritual angle often (but not always) becomes a cover for pacifism. These figures that travelled to Israel, for instance, actively promote inaction. They showed no emotion, no voice, when witnessing the oppression of their own; only when it came to their sponsors did they find something to say.

Suffer in silence
The idea here is to suffer in silence, to clothe disengagement in the language of spiritual endurance.

In the end, this is precisely what Israel and its supporters want: to keep the spotlight off themselves. Any diversion, theological or otherwise, is welcome. As we know, the oppressor laughs at those who fixate on what is bad while ignoring what is worse. And that is the danger behind all three traps.

Yet despite these efforts, something far more powerful holds. The drive within the hearts and minds of Muslims to carry the burden of the Palestinian people, to speak their truth and fight for their freedom has not been extinguished.

It is sustained by faith, shared memory, and the belief that justice is not a slogan but a sacred duty. We ask Allah for continued guidance and protection, and the strength to continue this noble and just cause. Ameen.

Dr Shadee Elmasry has taught at several universities in the United States. Currently, he serves as scholar in residence at the New Brunswick Islamic Center in New Jersey. He is also the founder and head of Safina Society, an institution dedicated to the cause of traditional Islamic education in the West. This article was first published by The New Arab.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Under Donald Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel, federal attention to tracking far‑right groups has reportedly waned, enabling neo-Nazi, militia and accelerationist groups to mobilize and recruit new members more openly and easily. One of the most active of these  groups is The Base, a violent paramilitary network that promotes accelerationism; a doctrine calling on followers to hasten the collapse of society through acts of terrorism.

As the Guardian recently reported, “In its early history, part of what first piqued the interest of authorities was the Base’s courting of military veterans who could help drill its foot soldiers in a series of training camps across the US. Eventually implicated in an assassination plot, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, the Base went so far as to have a fortified compound and cell in Michigan, led by a US army dropout.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bill Berkowitz.

Under Donald Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel, federal attention to tracking far‑right groups has reportedly waned, enabling neo-Nazi, militia and accelerationist groups to mobilize and recruit new members more openly and easily. One of the most active of these  groups is The Base, a violent paramilitary network that promotes accelerationism; a doctrine calling on followers to hasten the collapse of society through acts of terrorism.

As the Guardian recently reported, “In its early history, part of what first piqued the interest of authorities was the Base’s courting of military veterans who could help drill its foot soldiers in a series of training camps across the US. Eventually implicated in an assassination plot, mass shootings and other actions in Europe, the Base went so far as to have a fortified compound and cell in Michigan, led by a US army dropout.”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bill Berkowitz.

Land cessions. Relevant history.

Colonial period. Between 1565 (when Spain established, in Florida, the first permanent European colony in what was to become the 48 contiguous United States) and 1783 (when the United States gained its independence from Britain), Euro-American colonial settler-states forcibly displaced the indigenous nations from most of the land east of the Appalachian divide. Said displacements were often effectuated through violent military action, often in wars provoked by abusive colonial-settler impositions upon their indigenous neighbors. Most of the displaced Indigenes, who survived, were thusly forced to relocate to territory further west.

US claims. During the War for United States Independence, some of the indigenous nations (and/or their internal factions) remained neutral, while others eventually took one side or the other. Of the latter, many more sided with the British than with the United States, because Britain (wanting to avoid costly armed conflicts) had attempted to protect indigenous territory from incursions by Euro-American land speculators and frontier settlers. With the end of the War in 1783, the United States laid claim to sovereignty over all of the territory between the Appalachian divide and the Mississippi River. At first, the US claimed the right to take ownership of all of the land in this new territory based upon a purported “right of conquest”. Naturally, the indigenous nations refused to accept either the claim of US sovereignty or the purported right of Euro-Americans to take their land.

Treaty cessions. As the United States seized indigenous land in response to pressure from wealthy land speculators and racist demagogues, war was the inevitable result. The US government soon recognized that negotiations for land cessions was an easier and far less costly means for enforcing the claimed sovereignty and obtaining the coveted land. In such negotiations, all of the advantages were with the US side, which used those advantages to gradually obtain nearly all of the coveted territory thru a series of unequal treaties. The treaties were, of course, always written: by the US side, in the language of the Euro-Americans, and using interpreters chosen by the US. US government agents (who often were territorial military governors) used intimidation, coercion, deceit, bribery, and exploitation of conflicts within and between the indigenous nations. Although the indigenous nations were paid for the land, that pay was a small fraction of its actual value and commonly included promised annuities. Said annuities were often subsequently withheld in order to extort cessions of additional territory. Moreover, the US side routinely recognized an indigenous go-between, who was willing to comply with US demands, as agent (or purported “Chief”) of an indigenous nation even though said go-between often had no authority to act for that nation. Naturally, the resulting treaties were generally fraudulent.

Principal source: Robert M Owens: “Indian Land Cessions” (encyclopedia.com, © 2019).

Land speculators. Until the middle of the 19th century, for Euro-Americans with money, the most popular and usual place to invest was in land, especially land on the frontier yet to be settled by Euro-Americans. Wealthy Europeans also often invested in such American land. Naturally, wealthy land speculators cast covetous eyes upon land owned and occupied by the indigenous peoples. Said land speculators were leading instigators of Euro-American aggressions and wars against the indigenous nations, aggressions thru which such lands were acquired by the governmental authority. Of course, “valid” title to land in frontier areas could only be obtained from the colonial governments or later the federal government. Politically connected land speculators used their influence with provincial and federal office-holders to purchase, on especially favorable terms, grants of large tracts of land newly extorted from the indigenous nations. Then, after the Indigenes had been expelled, said grant holders would contract surveys and sell the land in small lots at a great markup over their privileged purchase price. A notable example is the case of western New York.

Preemption. In the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the US acknowledged that ownership of western New York belonged to the Six Nations Confederacy. A 1786 agreement to resolve conflicting claims over this territory gave its governance to New York, but gave to Massachusetts a preemptive right to buy the land from the Haudenosaunee. In 1788, Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham purchased (from Massachusetts) that preemptive right over nearly all of New York west of Seneca Lake (6 million acres occupying 14 present-day counties). The price was $1 million, but it was to be paid in Massachusetts scrip then worth about 20 cents on the dollar. The scrip rose in value to par, and Phelps and Gorham were then unable to complete payment. When they defaulted after having made their first of three payments, purchase rights over the western 2/3 (that is the part west of the Genesee River) reverted to Massachusetts. In 1791, Robert Morris (then the richest man in the US, also a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and [like half of his fellow signers] a slave owner) purchased the rights over most of that 2/3 (for $333,333.33).

Dispossession. In 1792 and 1793, Morris contracted the sale of most (3,250,000 acres) of his subject land to the Holland Land Company (a syndicate of wealthy investors in Amsterdam, Netherlands). In order to deliver clear title, Morris had to buy the land from the Haudenosaunee, its actual owners. In 1797, their agreement to sell (for $100,000) was fraudulently extorted in the Treaty of Big Tree thru a combination of: (1) threat that the US would likely not recognize their ownership rights, and (2) bribery of their leaders and negotiators. As a concession, the Haudenosaunee were left with 200,000 acres (about 6%) for reservations. The Holland Land Company hired a survey (cost $71,000) and divided the land into lots which it then sold between 1801 and 1840.

End result. Massachusetts, which had never paid anything to the Haudenosaunee, received from 9 to 15 cents per acre (respectively from Morris and Phelps-Gorham). The surveyors were paid about 2.2 cents per acre. The actual owners, the Haudenosaunee, received about 3 cents per acre. The land in post-survey lots was then sold, initially at $2.75/acre. Thus, the land speculators (Morris and the Holland Land Company) apparently received, between them, gross profits in excess of $2.50/acre.

Principal source: Wikipedia: “Treaty of Fort Stanwix” (1784) (2025 April 06); “Treaty of Hartford” (1786) (2025 July 11); “Phelps and Gorham Purchase” (2025 July 13); “Holland Land Company” (2025 July 10); “Treaty of Big Tree” (2024 February 26).

Purchasers. Land, in the fully settled eastern part of the newly independent United States, was mostly all privately owned, and it was relatively expensive. Consequently, working tenant farmers and farm laborers generally could not afford to purchase farms there. Meanwhile, land in the western frontier areas possessed certain relative disadvantages; specifically: less of it had been cleared of woods, its roads and other transportation infrastructure were few and crude, and access to markets and established Euro-American communities was more distant and difficult. So, whenever land became available on the western frontier, it was relatively cheap. With every tract of territory ceded by the Indigenes to the US, the federal government asserted ownership of the ceded land. In the old Northwest Territory (Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin), the Indigenes received pennies per acre for their land, which the US government then surveyed and offered at auction to individual family farmers at prices of no less than $1.00 or $2.00/acre, often after having previously sold large tracts to wealthy politically-connected speculators at lower prices. The speculators, who never settled on the land, purchased it only to re-sell at a sizable mark-up to later settlers. Moreover, such speculators were a major influence on US policy to take the land from its indigenous peoples, as they (along with racist demagogues and war-profiteering military contractors) lobbied their friends in government to induce said government to seize and/or extort ever more cessions of territory from the indigenous nations. ^[3]

Principal source: Paul W Gates: “Land Speculation” (encyclopedia.com, © 2019).

Interracial relations. In order to justify the dispossession of the original owners and to obscure the fraud and theft utilized in the process, the proponents (land speculators, other advocates of US expansionism, and their apologists) routinely resorted to rationalization, misrepresentation, and bigotry.

Firstly, although there was brutality on both sides in the “Indian” wars (invariably provoked by the Euro-American side), the expansionists dehumanized the Indigenes by one-sidedly vilifying them as murdering heathen savages.

Secondly, they portrayed white settlement as bringing civilization to an untamed wilderness and falsely portrayed the indigenous peoples as incapable of making productive use of the land. In fact, the indigenous peoples throughout almost the whole of the territory between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River were farmers, who cleared tracts of the woodland in order to raise the crops which included their staple foods (maize [corn], beans, and squash) plus various other vegetables. Meat obtained in the hunt was a supplement to the staples. If the Indigenes did not clear as much of the woodland as the Euro-Americans, this was: because their lower population density and their land rotation practice made it unnecessary; and (until after European contact) because they lacked the steel saws and axes and the draft animals of the Euro-Americans, which made forest removal much easier.

Despite the disparaging propaganda against the indigenous peoples, most settlers sought to avoid conflict with the remaining local natives. Some, as attested in contemporary reports, went further and established neighborly and mutually beneficial trade relations with neighboring Indigenes. It was the avaricious profiteering men of wealth and power who created the conditions for ethnic cleansing and genocidal policies.

Principal sources:

Jack Lynch: “A Principal Source of Dishonor: Indian Policies in Early America” (C W Journal, 2009 Spring).

R Douglas Hurt: “Agriculture, American Indian” (encyclopedia.com, © 2019).

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Charles Pierce.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

Making matters worse, ADF is actively involved in at least one case, Heaps v. Delaware Valley Regional High School Board of Education, that is set to come before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. That means, if confirmed, Bove could preside over cases involving an organization he consulted with during his nomination process – a fundamental breach of judicial ethics.

“The red flags on Emil Bove’s judicial nomination are piling up. Bove has shown unflinching loyalty to his former client and current boss, Donald Trump; has refused to commit to recusing himself on cases involving the President; and is the subject of a whistleblower complaint casting doubt on his integrity and highlighting his lack of respect for the law. Now it’s clear that he has also conferred with a far-right legal organization that has matters before the court on which he would serve,” said Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone. “Bove has repeatedly disregarded the ethical standards of the federal judiciary and the rule of law – his lifetime appointment opens the door for the President and his allies to seek out favorable rulings, no matter how unconstitutional their actions may be. Trust in the judiciary is at an all-time low because of repeated ethical lapses. If the Senate confirms Bove, it will undermine the credibility of the court even further.”

It’s just the latest disqualification for Bove, who is under a whistleblower investigation for misconduct while at the Department of Justice, and has come to be known as the Administration's “hatchet man.” Earlier this month, an Accountable.US research report revealed that Bove has not committed to key recusals ahead of his nomination hearing. In a nomination form, Bove pledged to recuse himself from “situations that present actual conflicts of interest based on my current or prior positions at the Department of Justice” – but he’s refrained from preemptively recusing himself from any future case involving his former client and current boss, Donald Trump.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Skydance and Paramount’s self-censorship and pay-off of the Trump Administration, in pursuit of government approval of an unwise merger, is worthy of condemnation. But it’s important to view Paramount’s action within two broader contexts.

First, it marks but the latest in a long series of attacks by this administration on free speech and the free press in America, including unprecedented attacks on universities, newspapers, and even the oligarchs who control America’s communications platforms. The purpose of antimonopoly regulation is to establish a rule of law to protect individual liberty and the distributions of power on which democracy depends, not extort favors from desperate corporations.

Second, it’s important to remember how CBS and so many other news and entertainment companies came to this point. Today’s assaults on free speech and the free press are the direct result of the fantastically naïve pro-monopoly policies put in place under presidents Reagan and Clinton. It was Google and Facebook, after all, that for 15 years starved American newspapers and broadcasters of the ad dollars on which they always depended, and directly suppressed the ability of readers and viewers to connect with the reporters and publishers of their choice.

CBS and Paramount have been in deep trouble for years now. Many leading liberals helped create that crisis.

One immediate lesson stands out. Democracies around the world must beware. As the Trump administration tries to use tariffs and trade policy to loosen regulation of tech monopolists, theoretically in the name of free speech, remember always that their goal is the exact opposite.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Janine Jackson interviewed the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ Iman Abid about the economy of genocide for the July 18, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Al Jazeera (7/1/25)

Janine Jackson: Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, has called down all manner of official and unofficial grief for saying what any thinking person would know: that a mass extermination and displacement project, such as Israel is carrying out in Palestine, doesn’t fund itself.

As US citizens, we know we’re involved, that our “tax dollars” are used by politicians we may or may not have elected to do things that we don’t condone, much less endorse. But what US elite news media seem to hate above all things is the connecting of dots, the recognition that we are all related across borders and boundaries.

That the thing that brought US sanction was Albanese’s naming of defense companies providing weapons used by Israel’s military, makers of equipment used to bulldoze Palestinian homes, is telling. Watching corporate media try to maintain the notion that, yes, Citizens United said money is speech, and you can’t curtail that, but no, you absolutely cannot say that people might not want to support companies who are funding a genocide. Well, that’s telling about media as well.

Joining us now to talk about this is Iman Abid. She’s director of advocacy and organizing at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Iman Abid.

Iman Abid: Thank you so much.

JJ: The statement in Albanese’s report, “While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many”—I mean, it’s only in a weird world of elite media that that would be something that you can’t say. That should just be a point of information in our understanding, yes?

IA: At any point in time that we target or uplift the war crimes that these large corporations are partaking in, we’ve seen just how silenced or suppressed people are, and Francesca has now been a part of that. She’s brought a lot to light in this new document that has come out, information that many people, in various forms, have already uplifted, but has done a really incredible job at trying to both consolidate and make the information a lot more accessible. And so, since it is a lot more digestible to see, it’s easier to access. Weapons manufacturers and large corporations have been extremely disappointed in what the world is able to finally see.

Iman Abid: “Weapons manufacturers and large corporations have been extremely disappointed in what the world is able to finally see.” (Photo: Thomas Morrisey, Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.)

JJ: Right. Transparency is their enemy.

IA: Yeah, exactly.

JJ: And you would think that journalists—whatever they want to say about it—would support the idea that the public can understand exactly what’s happening. And yet that’s not the response that we’ve seen, from certainly the US officially, but also from journalists. I don’t feel that they are celebrating this report in a way that one would hope.

IA: Absolutely. I think that the reality is that much of the documentation, and the notes that are provided to us for review in this report, showcase not just what has been going on, and what corporations have been enacting for the last two years, throughout the duration of the genocide, but rather for the last few decades. This information has been available to the public, available to journalists and reporters, for a really long time, and for whatever reason, people generally choose to still avoid it.

Now, whether or not they themselves—certain news outlets have partnerships with some of these corporations, and they’re keeping them quiet for that purpose, or if there’s any other reason where maybe they as individuals are profiting off of these corporations themselves, we’ve seen just how silent people are when it comes to uplifting the harms of these corporations.

JJ: What do you hope or think might be the impact? Because it seems, obviously, Marco Rubio saying, “Ah! Shut up! Sanctions!” is telling that this information is important. What do you hope might be used? How do you think it might be used?

IA: My hope is that, especially for the American people, in any point in time, when this administration tries to silence someone, when they implement sanctions or any of that, I really encourage people to take a look at their work. And Francesca Albanese is an incredibly profound, extraordinary being who has spent their career building up and bringing awareness to the atrocities happening to the Palestinian people. This report is only one aspect of the work that she’s been so committed to.

NPR (7/10/25)

And I think that people like Marco Rubio, and other people within the Trump administration, don’t want you to see this, because they themselves are, again, establishing partnerships, or have established partnerships, with these corporations. And even some of the members of Congress, who have also uplifted and supported the sanctions on Francesca Albanese, some of them are war profiteers. They are the ones who are both building up the contracts with the federal government, or supporting the contracts with the federal government, to keep these corporations alive and thriving.

I think the report itself mentions on every single page just how Palestine is being used as this sort of military technology incubator. It’s an opportunity for these companies to use their work, and to see how it works on the Palestinian people. They’re almost using us as dispensable objects for their weapons. And I think that a lot of that is uplifted in this document.

And because of the atrocities that are being highlighted, and because of the direct connection to the United States Congress, the United States administration, it just shows an incredibly bad light on the US. And it also showcases just how harmful the partnerships and the military investment really is, across not only the US, but across the globe.

JJ: Elite media seem vigorously invested in policing lines between “us” and “them,” but it’s not working. Support for Palestinian human rights is growing, even as it’s being seriously criminalized. So where are you seeing daylight? Because I see a lot of people being extremely brave and using information, such as in this Albanese report, to say, “We’re armed. We’re armed with information, and we’re not going to buy the line that we’re being sold.”

IA: Absolutely. I think the movement has grown exponentially, and I think it’s simply because of the fact that we have watched this livestreamed genocide take place. And I think that when people see the level of death, when people see the level of atrocity, especially for those who’ve sat on social media platforms and watched the video footage and documentation of what’s been happening across Gaza, it’s become extremely difficult to deny what’s actually happening.

And people are moved. People are moved to speak up, people are moved to stand up, even against the faces of oppression, the Zionist forces that are trying to silence people, and they’re choosing to say that I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history, I want to take a stand on this, and not just a stand in the streets, but a strategic stand that allows me and my community to actually move towards getting this genocide to end, and for us to stop upholding these atrocities being committed against Palestinians.

Al Jazeera (6/26/24)

It’s been deeply fortunate that so many reports have come out, even just the last two years alone, not only of the weapons that have been used on Palestinians, but just what specific correlation there is between the US, the complicity of the US, and what’s been happening across Gaza and the rest of the West Bank, and even in parts of Jerusalem. And so people are starting to really see that direct line between themselves as US taxpayers, and where and what their money is being spent on, and just how it’s actually being used to abuse, assault and murder Palestinians. And people don’t want to be on that side. People don’t want to be complicit. I don’t think anyone wants to be complicit in war crimes being committed, and mass genocides being committed.

And so I think we’re starting to see just how people are really trying to take that next step, and acknowledge there are different avenues that people can take to really get things to stop. And whether it’s the targeting of weapons manufacturers like Caterpillar or Hyundai or Elbit, whoever is actually equipping Israel with the technology and the software and the technology that’s being used to destroy homes, whatever it may be, people are using these sorts of reports to help uplift the documentation that already exists, to bring attention to these corporations that we, as the United States, as US taxpayers, are investing in.

And they’re choosing to say that we don’t want this. We don’t want this to continue. And we, again, as taxpayers can do something about it.

JJ: And I’ll end on the media thing, that it calls out the media hypocrisy, because when folks were pouring out their Bud Light because they had a trans person in an ad, media were sort of celebrating: Oh, you’re using your consumer voice, you’re speaking with your dollars, right? And then out of the other side of their mouth, they want to say, Well, BDS is criminal. You’re not allowed to not shop at a store, or whatever, that supports genocide. So to me, it tells the tale on US media’s understanding of what a consumer gets to do with their voice.

IA: Absolutely. Again, yes, the exceptionalizing of Palestine, the exceptionalizing of the BDS movement, still exists, but we are seeing a shift. We are seeing people break beyond that, and actually start to question and start to ask themselves, why has the BDS movement actually existed for as long as it has?

Again, boycotting, divestment, sanctions is not an area that’s just particular to the Palestinian movement. It’s been used with South Africa, it’s been used in other parts of the world, because it is something that actually works. When we stop the transfer of dollars to these corporations, and to these entities like Israel that are actually upholding the genocide and the mass expulsion of Palestinians, we do start to see the shifting of it.

Mondoweiss (5/8/25)

And the Israeli economy, as a matter of fact, is actually beginning to decline, because of the level of education and the expansion of the Palestinian solidarity movement across the globe. And people are trying to be wiser about where they’re spending their dollars. And so I think that we’re not in the exact place we want to be just yet, but we are moving the needle towards where we want to go, and people are being wiser about where money is going.

And so while governments and elected officials are really still working hard to suppress any sort of BDS movement, whether it’s through the anti-BDS proposals, or if it’s through the sanctioning of certain individuals, the people themselves are starting to actually say: “Well, wait a minute. Why are you choosing to suppress us for engaging in this, when we know it’s the right thing to do?”

And members of Congress are starting to be a little more alert, and start to say, “Wait a minute, this isn’t actually a winning issue for me if I choose to engage in it. And it’s not necessarily something that I should really be pushing for.” Because people are becoming more attentive. And it’s allowing us, again, to move the needle where we really want to see us going.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Iman Abid from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. They’re online at USCPR.org. Iman Abid, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

IA: Thank you so much.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

On the Northeastern Brazilian coast, in the region of Alcântara, Maranhão, there are dozens of traditional villages of Black communities. Their families have lived here for generations — farming and fishing. They are known as quilombos. These villages were founded by their ancestors, who were either freed or who escaped enslavement on the plantations of Brazil.

There are thousands of quilombos across Brazil. But only a small number have the titles to their lands. And many are under threat from development projects, resource extraction, Big Ag, and real estate. This was the story in Alcântara, where these communities have faced removal and threats from Brazil’s Alcântara Space Center. 

But they have fought back.

This is episode 59 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

Sign up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed, either in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, or wherever you listen.

Please consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox’s reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews. 

Written and produced by Michael Fox.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.

As the planet gets hotter and its reservoirs shrink and its glaciers melt, people have increasingly drilled into a largely ungoverned, invisible cache of fresh water: the vast, hidden pools found deep underground.

Now, a new study that examines the world’s total supply of fresh water — accounting for its rivers and rain, ice and aquifers together — warns that Earth’s most essential resource is quickly disappearing, signaling what the paper’s authors describe as “a critical, emerging threat to humanity.” The landmasses of the planet are drying. In most places there is less precipitation even as moisture evaporates from the soil faster. More than anything, Earth is being slowly dehydrated by the unmitigated mining of groundwater, which underlies vast proportions of every continent. Nearly 6 billion people, or three quarters of humanity, live in the 101 countries that the study identified as confronting a net decline in water supply — portending enormous challenges for food production and a heightening risk of conflict and instability.

The paper “provides a glimpse of what the future is going to be,” said Hrishikesh Chandanpurkar, an earth systems scientist working with Arizona State University and the lead author of the study. “We are already dipping from a trust fund. We don’t actually know how much the account has.”

The research, published on Friday in the journal Science Advances, confirms not just that droughts and precipitation are growing more extreme but reports that drying regions are fast expanding. It also found that while parts of the planet are getting wetter, those areas are shrinking. The study, which excludes the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, concludes not only that Earth is suffering a pandemic of “continental drying” in lower latitudes, but that it is the uninhibited pumping of groundwater by farmers, cities and corporations around the world that now accounts for 68% of the total loss of fresh water in those areas, which generally don’t have glaciers.

Groundwater is ubiquitous across the globe, but its quality and depth vary, as does its potential to be replenished by rainfall. Major groundwater basins — the deep and often high-quality aquifers — underlie roughly one-third of the planet, including roughly half of Africa, Europe and South America. But many of those aquifers took millions of years to form and might take thousands of years to refill. Instead, a significant portion of the water taken from underground flows off the land through rivers and on to the oceans.

The researchers were surprised to find that the loss of water on the continents has grown so dramatically that it has become one of the largest causes of global sea level rise. Moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans.

Most of the water lost from drying regions is from groundwater pumping, which ultimately shifts fresh water from aquifers into the oceans.

The study examines 22 years of observational data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites, which measure changes in the mass of the earth and have been applied to estimate its water content. The technique was groundbreaking two decades ago when the study’s co-author, Jay Famiglietti, who was then a professor at the University of California, at Irvine, used it to pinpoint where aquifers were in decline. Since then, he and others have published dozens of papers using GRACE data, but the question has always lingered: What does the groundwater loss mean in the context of all of the water available on the continents? So Famiglietti, now a professor at Arizona State University, set out to inventory all the land-based water contained in glaciers, rivers and aquifers and see what was changing. The answer: everything, and quickly.

Since 2002, the GRACE sensors have detected a rapid shift in water loss patterns around the planet. Around 2014, though, the pace of drying appears to have accelerated, the authors found, and is now growing by an area twice the size of California each year. “It’s like this sort of creeping disaster that has taken over the continents in ways that no one was really anticipating,” Famiglietti said. (Six other researchers also contributed to the study.) The parts of the world drying most acutely are becoming interconnected, forming what the study’s authors describe as “mega” regions spreading across the earth’s mid-latitudes. One of those regions covers almost the whole of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.

The dramatic depletion of groundwater and surface water plus the melting of glaciers between 2014-24 has connected once-separate arid places, forming “mega-drying” regions that stretch across whole continents.

Watch video ➜

In the American Southwest and California, groundwater loss is a familiar story, but over the past two decades that hot spot has also spread dramatically. It now extends through Texas and up through the southern High Plains, where the Ogallala aquifer is depended on for agriculture, and it spreads south, stretching throughout Mexico and into Central America. These regions are connected not because they rely on the same water sources — in most cases they don’t — but because their populations will face the same perils of water stress: the most likely, a food crisis that could ultimately displace millions of people.

“This has to serve as a wake-up call,” said Aaron Salzberg, a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and the former director of the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina, who was not involved with the study.

Research has long established that people take more water from underground when climate-driven heat and drought are at their worst. For example, during droughts when California has enforced restrictions on delivery of surface water to its farmers — which the state regulates — the enormous agriculture enterprises that dominate the Central Valley have drilled deeper and pumped harder, depleting the aquifer — which the state regulates less precisely — even more.

For the most part, such withdrawals have remained invisible. Even with the GRACE data, scientists cannot measure the exact levels or know when an aquifer will be exhausted. But there is one foolproof sign that groundwater is disappearing: The earth above it collapses as the ground compresses like a drying sponge. The visible signs of such subsidence around the world appear to match what the GRACE data says. Mexico City is sinking as its groundwater aquifers are drained, as are large parts China, Indonesia, Spain and Iran, to name a few. A recent study by researchers at Virginia Tech in the journal Nature Cities found that 28 cities across the United States are sinking — New York, Houston and Denver, among them — threatening havoc for everything from building safety to transit. In the Central Valley, the ground surface is nearly 30 vertical feet lower than it was in the first part of the 20th century.

When so much water is pumped, it has to drain somewhere. Just like rivers and streams fed by rainfall, much of the used groundwater makes its way into the ocean. The study pinpoints a remarkable shift: Groundwater drilled by people, used for agriculture or urban supplies and then discarded into drainages now contributes more water to the oceans than melting from each of the world’s largest ice caps.

People aren’t just misusing groundwater, they are flooding their own coasts and cities in the process, Famiglietti warns. That means they are also imperiling some of the world’s most important food-producing lowlands in the Nile and Mekong deltas and cities from Shanghai to New York. Once in the oceans, of course, groundwater will never again be suitable for drinking and human use without expensive and energy-sucking treatment or through the natural cycle of evaporating and precipitating as rain. But even then, it may no longer fall where it is needed most. Groundwater “is an intergenerational resource that is being poorly managed, if managed at all,” the study states, “at tremendous and exceptionally undervalued cost to future generations.”

That such rapid and substantial overuse of groundwater is also causing coastal flooding underscores the compounding threat of rising temperatures and aridity. It means that water scarcity and some of the most disruptive effects of climate change are now inextricably intertwined. And here, the study’s authors implore leaders to find a policy solution: Improve water management and reduce groundwater use now, and the world has a tool to slow the rate of sea level rise. Fail to adjust the governance and use of groundwater around the world, and humanity risks surrendering parts of its coastal cities while pouring out finite reserves it will sorely need as the other effects of climate change take hold.

1. The process starts when deep underground aquifers are tapped to make up for a lack of water from rainfall and rivers.
2. Worldwide, 70% of fresh water is used for growing crops, with more of it coming from groundwater as droughts grow more extreme. Only a small amount of that water seeps back into aquifers.
3. Instead, most of the water runs off the land into streams, eventually flowing into rivers.
4. The rivers ultimately drain into the ocean, where fresh water becomes salt water. For that water to be usable again, it must either be industrially treated or return to the land as rain. But with climate change, these same drying regions are seeing less rainfall.

If the drying continues — and the researchers warn that it is now nearly impossible to reverse “on human timescales” — it heralds “potentially staggering” and cascading risks for global order. The majority of the earth’s population lives in the 101 countries that the study identified as losing fresh water, making up not just North America, Europe and North Africa but also much of Asia, the Middle East and South America. This suggests the middle band of Earth is becoming less habitable. It also correlates closely with the places that a separate body of climate research has already identified as a shrinking environmental niche that has suited civilization for the past 6,000 years. Combined, these findings all point to the likelihood of widespread famine, the migration of large numbers of people seeking a more stable environment and the carry-on impact of geopolitical disorder.

Peter Gleick, a climate scientist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, lauded the new report for confirming trends that were once theoretical. The ramifications, he said, could be profoundly destabilizing. “The massive overpumping of groundwater,” Gleick said, “poses enormous risk to food production.” And food, he pointed out, is the foundation for stability. The water science center he co-founded, the Pacific Institute, has tracked more than 1,900 incidents in which water supplies were either the casualty of, a tool for or the cause of violence. In Syria, beginning in 2011, drought and groundwater depletion drove rural unrest that contributed to the civil war, which displaced millions of people. In Ghana, in 2017, protesters rioted as wells ran dry. And in Ukraine, whose wheat supports much of the world, water infrastructure has been a frequent target of Russian attacks.

“Water is being used as a strategic and political tool,” said Salzberg, who spent nearly two decades analyzing water security issues as the special director for water resources at the State Department. “We should expect to see that more often as the water supply crisis is exacerbated.”

India, for example, recently weaponized water against Pakistan. In April, following terrorist attacks in Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi suspended his country’s participation in the Indus Waters Treaty, a river-sharing agreement between the two nuclear powers that was negotiated in 1960. The Indus system flows northwest out of Tibet into India, before turning southward into Pakistan. Pakistan has severely depleted its groundwater reserves — the region is facing one of the world’s most urgent water emergencies according to the Science Advances paper. The Indus has only become more essential as a supply of fresh water for its 252 million people. Allowing that water to cross the border would be “prejudicial to India’s interests,” Modi said. In this case, he wasn’t attempting to recoup water supply for his country, Salzberg said, but was leveraging its scarcity to win a strategic advantage over his country’s principal rival.

What’s needed most is governance of water that recognizes it as a crucial resource that determines both sovereignty and progress, Salzberg added. Yet there is no international framework for water management, and only a handful of countries have national water policies of their own.

The United States has taken stabs at regulating its groundwater use, but in some cases those attempts appear to be failing. In 2014, California passed what seemed to many a revolutionary groundwater management act that required communities to assess their total water supply and budget its long-term use. But the act doesn’t take full effect until 2040, which has allowed many groundwater districts to continue to draw heavily from aquifers even as they complete their plans to conserve those resources. Chandanpurkar and Famiglietti’s research underscores the consequences for such a slow approach.

Arizona pioneered groundwater regulations in 1980, creating what it called active management areas where extraction would be limited and surface waters would be used to replenish aquifers. But it only chose to manage the water in metropolitan areas, leaving vast, unregulated swaths of the state where investors, farmers and industry have all pounced on the availability of free water for profit. In recent years, Saudi investors have pumped rural water to grow feed for cattle exported back to the Arabian Peninsula, and hedge funds are competing to pump and sell water to towns near Phoenix. Meanwhile, four out of the original five active management areas are failing to meet the state’s own targets.

“They like to say, ‘Oh, the management’s doing well,’” Famiglietti said, but looking out over the next century, the trends suggest the aquifers will continue to empty out. “No one talks about that. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say it’s an existential issue for cities like Phoenix.”

Both California and Arizona grow significant portions of America’s fruits and vegetables. Something has to give. “If you want to grow food in a place like California,” Famiglietti asked, “do you just bring in water? If we deplete that groundwater, I don’t think there’s enough water to really replace what we’re doing there.” The United States might not have much choice, he added, but to move California’s agriculture production somewhere far away and retire the land.

Chandanpurkar, Famiglietti and the report’s other authors suggest there are ready solutions to the problems they have identified, because unlike so many aspects of the climate crisis, the human decisions that lead to the overuse of water can be speedily corrected. Agriculture, which uses the vast majority of the world’s fresh water, can deploy well-tested technologies like drip irrigation, as Israel has, that sharply cut use by as much as 50%. When California farms reduced their take of Colorado River water in 2023 and 2024, the water levels in Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, jumped by 16 vertical feet as some 390 billion gallons were saved by 2025. Individuals can reduce water waste by changing simple routines: shortening showers or removing lawns. And cities can look to recycle more of the water they use, as San Diego has.

A national policy that establishes rules around water practices but also prioritizes the use of water resources for national security and a collective interest could counterbalance the forces of habit and special interests, Salzberg said. Every country needs such a policy, and if the United States were to lead, it might offer an advantage. But “the U.S. doesn’t have a national water strategy,” he said, referring to a disjointed patchwork of state and court oversight. “We don’t even have a national water institution. We haven’t thought as a country about how we would even protect our own water resources for our own national interests, and we’re a mess.”

Data Source: Hrishikesh. A. Chandanpurkar, James S. Famiglietti, Kaushik Gopalan, David N. Wiese, Yoshihide Wada, Kaoru Kakinuma, John T. Reager, Fan Zhang (2025). Unprecedented Continental Drying, Shrinking Freshwater Availability, and Increasing Land Contributions to Sea Level Rise. Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0298

Visual editing by Alex Bandoni. Additional design and development by Anna Donlan.

July 25, 2025: This story originally included a quote from Jay Famiglietti characterizing Arizona’s water supply as facing total depletion by the end of the century. Famiglietti communicated a correction to that assertion to ProPublica, which failed to incorporate it before the story was published. The quote has been adjusted to reflect Famiglietti’s view that Arizona’s water supply will be diminished but may not disappear.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by .

As the planet gets hotter and its reservoirs shrink and its glaciers melt, people have increasingly drilled into a largely ungoverned, invisible cache of fresh water: the vast, hidden pools found deep underground.

Now, a new study that examines the world’s total supply of fresh water — accounting for its rivers and rain, ice and aquifers together — warns that Earth’s most essential resource is quickly disappearing, signaling what the paper’s authors describe as “a critical, emerging threat to humanity.” The landmasses of the planet are drying. In most places there is less precipitation even as moisture evaporates from the soil faster. More than anything, Earth is being slowly dehydrated by the unmitigated mining of groundwater, which underlies vast proportions of every continent. Nearly 6 billion people, or three quarters of humanity, live in the 101 countries that the study identified as confronting a net decline in water supply — portending enormous challenges for food production and a heightening risk of conflict and instability.

The paper “provides a glimpse of what the future is going to be,” said Hrishikesh Chandanpurkar, an earth systems scientist working with Arizona State University and the lead author of the study. “We are already dipping from a trust fund. We don’t actually know how much the account has.”

The research, published on Friday in the journal Science Advances, confirms not just that droughts and precipitation are growing more extreme but reports that drying regions are fast expanding. It also found that while parts of the planet are getting wetter, those areas are shrinking. The study, which excludes the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, concludes not only that Earth is suffering a pandemic of “continental drying” in lower latitudes, but that it is the uninhibited pumping of groundwater by farmers, cities and corporations around the world that now accounts for 68% of the total loss of fresh water in those areas, which generally don’t have glaciers.

Groundwater is ubiquitous across the globe, but its quality and depth vary, as does its potential to be replenished by rainfall. Major groundwater basins — the deep and often high-quality aquifers — underlie roughly one-third of the planet, including roughly half of Africa, Europe and South America. But many of those aquifers took millions of years to form and might take thousands of years to refill. Instead, a significant portion of the water taken from underground flows off the land through rivers and on to the oceans.

The researchers were surprised to find that the loss of water on the continents has grown so dramatically that it has become one of the largest causes of global sea level rise. Moisture lost to evaporation and drought, plus runoff from pumped groundwater, now outpaces the melting of glaciers and the ice sheets of either Antarctica or Greenland as the largest contributor of water to the oceans.

Most of the water lost from drying regions is from groundwater pumping, which ultimately shifts fresh water from aquifers into the oceans.

The study examines 22 years of observational data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites, which measure changes in the mass of the earth and have been applied to estimate its water content. The technique was groundbreaking two decades ago when the study’s co-author, Jay Famiglietti, who was then a professor at the University of California, at Irvine, used it to pinpoint where aquifers were in decline. Since then, he and others have published dozens of papers using GRACE data, but the question has always lingered: What does the groundwater loss mean in the context of all of the water available on the continents? So Famiglietti, now a professor at Arizona State University, set out to inventory all the land-based water contained in glaciers, rivers and aquifers and see what was changing. The answer: everything, and quickly.

Since 2002, the GRACE sensors have detected a rapid shift in water loss patterns around the planet. Around 2014, though, the pace of drying appears to have accelerated, the authors found, and is now growing by an area twice the size of California each year. “It’s like this sort of creeping disaster that has taken over the continents in ways that no one was really anticipating,” Famiglietti said. (Six other researchers also contributed to the study.) The parts of the world drying most acutely are becoming interconnected, forming what the study’s authors describe as “mega” regions spreading across the earth’s mid-latitudes. One of those regions covers almost the whole of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and parts of Asia.

The dramatic depletion of groundwater and surface water plus the melting of glaciers between 2014-24 has connected once-separate arid places, forming “mega-drying” regions that stretch across whole continents.

Watch video ➜

In the American Southwest and California, groundwater loss is a familiar story, but over the past two decades that hot spot has also spread dramatically. It now extends through Texas and up through the southern High Plains, where the Ogallala aquifer is depended on for agriculture, and it spreads south, stretching throughout Mexico and into Central America. These regions are connected not because they rely on the same water sources — in most cases they don’t — but because their populations will face the same perils of water stress: the most likely, a food crisis that could ultimately displace millions of people.

“This has to serve as a wake-up call,” said Aaron Salzberg, a former fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and the former director of the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina, who was not involved with the study.

Research has long established that people take more water from underground when climate-driven heat and drought are at their worst. For example, during droughts when California has enforced restrictions on delivery of surface water to its farmers — which the state regulates — the enormous agriculture enterprises that dominate the Central Valley have drilled deeper and pumped harder, depleting the aquifer — which the state regulates less precisely — even more.

For the most part, such withdrawals have remained invisible. Even with the GRACE data, scientists cannot measure the exact levels or know when an aquifer will be exhausted. But there is one foolproof sign that groundwater is disappearing: The earth above it collapses as the ground compresses like a drying sponge. The visible signs of such subsidence around the world appear to match what the GRACE data says. Mexico City is sinking as its groundwater aquifers are drained, as are large parts China, Indonesia, Spain and Iran, to name a few. A recent study by researchers at Virginia Tech in the journal Nature Cities found that 28 cities across the United States are sinking — New York, Houston and Denver, among them — threatening havoc for everything from building safety to transit. In the Central Valley, the ground surface is nearly 30 vertical feet lower than it was in the first part of the 20th century.

When so much water is pumped, it has to drain somewhere. Just like rivers and streams fed by rainfall, much of the used groundwater makes its way into the ocean. The study pinpoints a remarkable shift: Groundwater drilled by people, used for agriculture or urban supplies and then discarded into drainages now contributes more water to the oceans than melting from each of the world’s largest ice caps.

People aren’t just misusing groundwater, they are flooding their own coasts and cities in the process, Famiglietti warns. That means they are also imperiling some of the world’s most important food-producing lowlands in the Nile and Mekong deltas and cities from Shanghai to New York. Once in the oceans, of course, groundwater will never again be suitable for drinking and human use without expensive and energy-sucking treatment or through the natural cycle of evaporating and precipitating as rain. But even then, it may no longer fall where it is needed most. Groundwater “is an intergenerational resource that is being poorly managed, if managed at all,” the study states, “at tremendous and exceptionally undervalued cost to future generations.”

That such rapid and substantial overuse of groundwater is also causing coastal flooding underscores the compounding threat of rising temperatures and aridity. It means that water scarcity and some of the most disruptive effects of climate change are now inextricably intertwined. And here, the study’s authors implore leaders to find a policy solution: Improve water management and reduce groundwater use now, and the world has a tool to slow the rate of sea level rise. Fail to adjust the governance and use of groundwater around the world, and humanity risks surrendering parts of its coastal cities while pouring out finite reserves it will sorely need as the other effects of climate change take hold.

1. The process starts when deep underground aquifers are tapped to make up for a lack of water from rainfall and rivers.
2. Worldwide, 70% of fresh water is used for growing crops, with more of it coming from groundwater as droughts grow more extreme. Only a small amount of that water seeps back into aquifers.
3. Instead, most of the water runs off the land into streams, eventually flowing into rivers.
4. The rivers ultimately drain into the ocean, where fresh water becomes salt water. For that water to be usable again, it must either be industrially treated or return to the land as rain. But with climate change, these same drying regions are seeing less rainfall.

If the drying continues — and the researchers warn that it is now nearly impossible to reverse “on human timescales” — it heralds “potentially staggering” and cascading risks for global order. The majority of the earth’s population lives in the 101 countries that the study identified as losing fresh water, making up not just North America, Europe and North Africa but also much of Asia, the Middle East and South America. This suggests the middle band of Earth is becoming less habitable. It also correlates closely with the places that a separate body of climate research has already identified as a shrinking environmental niche that has suited civilization for the past 6,000 years. Combined, these findings all point to the likelihood of widespread famine, the migration of large numbers of people seeking a more stable environment and the carry-on impact of geopolitical disorder.

Peter Gleick, a climate scientist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, lauded the new report for confirming trends that were once theoretical. The ramifications, he said, could be profoundly destabilizing. “The massive overpumping of groundwater,” Gleick said, “poses enormous risk to food production.” And food, he pointed out, is the foundation for stability. The water science center he co-founded, the Pacific Institute, has tracked more than 1,900 incidents in which water supplies were either the casualty of, a tool for or the cause of violence. In Syria, beginning in 2011, drought and groundwater depletion drove rural unrest that contributed to the civil war, which displaced millions of people. In Ghana, in 2017, protesters rioted as wells ran dry. And in Ukraine, whose wheat supports much of the world, water infrastructure has been a frequent target of Russian attacks.

“Water is being used as a strategic and political tool,” said Salzberg, who spent nearly two decades analyzing water security issues as the special director for water resources at the State Department. “We should expect to see that more often as the water supply crisis is exacerbated.”

India, for example, recently weaponized water against Pakistan. In April, following terrorist attacks in Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi suspended his country’s participation in the Indus Waters Treaty, a river-sharing agreement between the two nuclear powers that was negotiated in 1960. The Indus system flows northwest out of Tibet into India, before turning southward into Pakistan. Pakistan has severely depleted its groundwater reserves — the region is facing one of the world’s most urgent water emergencies according to the Science Advances paper. The Indus has only become more essential as a supply of fresh water for its 252 million people. Allowing that water to cross the border would be “prejudicial to India’s interests,” Modi said. In this case, he wasn’t attempting to recoup water supply for his country, Salzberg said, but was leveraging its scarcity to win a strategic advantage over his country’s principal rival.

What’s needed most is governance of water that recognizes it as a crucial resource that determines both sovereignty and progress, Salzberg added. Yet there is no international framework for water management, and only a handful of countries have national water policies of their own.

The United States has taken stabs at regulating its groundwater use, but in some cases those attempts appear to be failing. In 2014, California passed what seemed to many a revolutionary groundwater management act that required communities to assess their total water supply and budget its long-term use. But the act doesn’t take full effect until 2040, which has allowed many groundwater districts to continue to draw heavily from aquifers even as they complete their plans to conserve those resources. Chandanpurkar and Famiglietti’s research underscores the consequences for such a slow approach.

Arizona pioneered groundwater regulations in 1980, creating what it called active management areas where extraction would be limited and surface waters would be used to replenish aquifers. But it only chose to manage the water in metropolitan areas, leaving vast, unregulated swaths of the state where investors, farmers and industry have all pounced on the availability of free water for profit. In recent years, Saudi investors have pumped rural water to grow feed for cattle exported back to the Arabian Peninsula, and hedge funds are competing to pump and sell water to towns near Phoenix. Meanwhile, four out of the original five active management areas are failing to meet the state’s own targets.

“They like to say, ‘Oh, the management’s doing well,’” Famiglietti said, but looking out over the next century, the trends suggest the aquifers will continue to empty out. “No one talks about that. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say it’s an existential issue for cities like Phoenix.”

Both California and Arizona grow significant portions of America’s fruits and vegetables. Something has to give. “If you want to grow food in a place like California,” Famiglietti asked, “do you just bring in water? If we deplete that groundwater, I don’t think there’s enough water to really replace what we’re doing there.” The United States might not have much choice, he added, but to move California’s agriculture production somewhere far away and retire the land.

Chandanpurkar, Famiglietti and the report’s other authors suggest there are ready solutions to the problems they have identified, because unlike so many aspects of the climate crisis, the human decisions that lead to the overuse of water can be speedily corrected. Agriculture, which uses the vast majority of the world’s fresh water, can deploy well-tested technologies like drip irrigation, as Israel has, that sharply cut use by as much as 50%. When California farms reduced their take of Colorado River water in 2023 and 2024, the water levels in Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, jumped by 16 vertical feet as some 390 billion gallons were saved by 2025. Individuals can reduce water waste by changing simple routines: shortening showers or removing lawns. And cities can look to recycle more of the water they use, as San Diego has.

A national policy that establishes rules around water practices but also prioritizes the use of water resources for national security and a collective interest could counterbalance the forces of habit and special interests, Salzberg said. Every country needs such a policy, and if the United States were to lead, it might offer an advantage. But “the U.S. doesn’t have a national water strategy,” he said, referring to a disjointed patchwork of state and court oversight. “We don’t even have a national water institution. We haven’t thought as a country about how we would even protect our own water resources for our own national interests, and we’re a mess.”

Data Source: Hrishikesh. A. Chandanpurkar, James S. Famiglietti, Kaushik Gopalan, David N. Wiese, Yoshihide Wada, Kaoru Kakinuma, John T. Reager, Fan Zhang (2025). Unprecedented Continental Drying, Shrinking Freshwater Availability, and Increasing Land Contributions to Sea Level Rise. Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adx0298

Visual editing by Alex Bandoni. Additional design and development by Anna Donlan.

July 25, 2025: This story originally included a quote from Jay Famiglietti characterizing Arizona’s water supply as facing total depletion by the end of the century. Famiglietti communicated a correction to that assertion to ProPublica, which failed to incorporate it before the story was published. The quote has been adjusted to reflect Famiglietti’s view that Arizona’s water supply will be diminished but may not disappear.

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This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – July 25, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.