President Donald Trump’s acting head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reportedly told staff that he was not aware that the U.S. has a hurricane season — despite leading the agency primarily responsible for responding to disasters in the U.S. FEMA chief David Richardson made the comment during a meeting on Monday, according to four sources who spoke to Reuters.
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Republicans are mocking and belittling Americans who have expressed concerns that they are going to lose Medicaid coverage under the party’s major legislative push that puts tens of millions of people at risk of losing that crucial lifeline. In recent statements, Republicans have either outright lied about the effects that their reconciliation bill will have —claiming they are not pursuing…
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Senior Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) openly fantasized about sinking a civilian ship staffed with activists aiming to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel is targeting and killing Palestinians trying to reach food and water. In a post on X on Sunday, Graham shared an article about the ship bound for Gaza, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
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President Joe Biden’s top State Department spokesperson has acknowledged in an interview that Israel has “without a doubt” committed war crimes in Gaza — after he spent 15 straight months defending the genocide and denying that it was in violation of international humanitarian law. Former Biden official Matthew Miller at long last recognized what experts and pro-Palestine advocates have long…
A Republican senator has dismissed her constituents’ concerns that the GOP’s sweeping cuts to Medicaid could kill people by saying that “we all are going to die” in a comment on Friday. As Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst answered a question about the GOP’s cuts in a town hall, constituents concerned over the future of crucial lifesaving programs yelled, “people are going to die.” “Well…
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The White House’s keystone health report outlining its agenda for Americans’ health is riddled with artificial intelligence “hallucinations,” with fabricated citations and broken links reflective of the administration’s embrace of non-scientific approaches to public health. An analysis by The Washington Post uncovered numerous citations in the “Make America Healthy Again” report with the…
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Israeli officials have announced a plan to advance settler colonialism in the occupied West Bank by establishing 22 new settlements, in open defiance of international law. Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who have previously pushed for the total annexation of the West Bank, said in a statement that the expansion is aimed at furthering Israel’s goal of…
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Universities should ensure that their research output is “in sync” with Trump administration goals in order to keep their federal funding, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said on Wednesday, as scientists across the U.S. warn of dire consequences brought by the administration’s massive cuts. “Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they’re abiding by the laws and…
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced new visa restrictions that he claims are targeted at foreign officials who perpetuate “censorship” of Americans on social media platforms — while his agency, under his direction, is scouring the social media accounts of immigrants in the U.S. for dissent. In a statement announcing the policy on Wednesday, Rubio cited supposed concerns over free…
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The UN has dubbed Israel’s killing of a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) rescue worker in March a “summary execution,” sharing new details regarding Israel’s widely condemned paramedic massacre that killed 15 first responders and aid workers. The UNRWA worker, identified by the agency as Kamal, was wearing a UN vest and was driving a clearly marked UN vehicle when he…
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A group of UN human rights experts is raising alarm over a recently-passed Israeli law that allows children as young as 12 years old to be sentenced to life in prison, saying that the legislation is likely a violation of international human rights law. The experts say that the law, passed late last year, is crafted specifically to target Palestinian children, as Israeli authorities often…
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One of President Donald Trump’s top immigration officials was recently paid an undisclosed amount to consult for a major immigrant jail operator that is poised to profit from the administration’s fascist immigration crackdown, new reporting finds. Financial filings show that Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, consulted for GEO Group in the two years prior to his appointment in January…
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The Trump administration has put a pause on new student visa application interviews as it prepares to expand its surveillance of the social media activity of those seeking to study in the U.S., Politico reports, in the latest instance of the administration’s crackdown on immigrants and the left. The expected new guidance was announced to U.S. embassies and consulates in a cable sent Tuesday…
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Dozens of the roughly 200 cryptocurrency traders who were invited to a private dinner held by President Donald Trump last week hold other crypto assets with symbology linked to far right ideologies, white nationalism and neo-Nazism, a government watchdog says. According to a recent report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), 50 of the invitees hold crypto assets…
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military veteran Jake Wood has resigned from his position as executive director of the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) just weeks after its launch, amid heavy criticism from organizations that say that the U.S.- and Israel-backed group will hinder, not help, aid delivery in the starvation-stricken enclave. Wood cited concerns over violations of “humanitarian principles” in…
The over $150 billion allocated for boosting militarization in the U.S. in Republicans’ reconciliation bill could, instead, be used to keep millions of people enrolled in Medicaid and food assistance programs, a new report finds. According to a report released Thursday by Public Citizen, the reconciliation bill proposes a boost of over $163 billion to militarized spending…
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A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s revocation of Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students, threatening the legal status of thousands of students, after the school sued to stop the ban. The administration’s ban is a “blatant violation” of the First Amendment and due process protections, the university said in its lawsuit. A federal judge granted a…
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A House Republican has called for Gaza to be “nuked” akin to the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and said that “Palestinianism” is “evil” in genocidal remarks on Fox News following the shooting of two Israeli embassy workers on Wednesday. When asked about the killing of the two embassy workers in Washington, D.C., Rep. Randy Fine (Florida) launched into a tirade…
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President Donald Trump’s sweeping deregulatory agenda was dealt a blow on Thursday when a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to block Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Department of Education and ordered reinstatements of laid off workers. Massachusetts federal Judge Myong Joun wrote in an order that the administration has provided no evidence to back its arguments that they…
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israel will not end its genocide in Gaza until it achieves its goal of the total forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza, as outlined by U.S. President Donald Trump in his “Riviera” plan that experts say would violate international law. In a press conference on Wednesday, Netanyahu said that the goal of the current offensive is…
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Israeli forces opened fire “directly and heavily” toward a diplomatic delegation representing over 20 countries on an official visit to Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, as numerous countries have ratcheted up pressure on Israel amid an escalation of its genocide in Gaza. Israeli forces admitted to firing the shots, which it categorized in a statement as “warning…
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Republicans’ marquee reconciliation bill would redistribute wealth from the poorest to the richest Americans over the next decade, new estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) show. An analysis of the bill, dubbed by President Donald Trump as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” finds that the poorest 10 percent of Americans would experience a 4 percent decrease in their household…
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President Donald Trump has chosen a concept plan for his “Golden Dome” missile defense system that he says would cost $175 billion — but that other government officials say could cost over $800 billion in the next 20 years. The president said in remarks in the Oval Office that the system, inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome, would be “fully operational before the end of my term” in 2029.
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Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem gave an outrageously incorrect definition of the basic and key legal term habeas corpus on Tuesday, as the Trump administration is exploring suspending the fundamental right in what would represent a massive step toward authoritarianism. Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) asked Noem to simply define habeas corpus — which allows people to challenge…
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The U.K. government said on Tuesday that it is suspending free trade talks with Israel and imposing sanctions on some settlements in the occupied West Bank over Israel’s recent escalation in Gaza — an announcement being slammed by pro-Palestine advocates as “grotesquely inadequate.” In remarks to Parliament, Foreign Secretary David Lammy criticized Israel’s recent escalation of its assault on…
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This story originally appeared in Truthout on May 20, 2025. It is shared here with permission.
Thousands of babies in Gaza may die over the next two days if Israel does not lift its near-total humanitarian aid blockade and allow the entry of a flood of food and other basic necessities, the UN’s humanitarian chief warned on Tuesday.
“There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, in an interview on the BBC.
“This is not food that Hamas is going to steal,” Fletcher went on, contradicting Israel’s narrative about humanitarian aid. “We run the risk of looting, we run the risk of being hit as part of the Israeli military offensive, we run all sorts of risks trying to get that baby food to those mothers who cannot feed their children right now because they’re malnourished.”
The interview came after Israel allowed the entry of just five aid trucks into Gaza on Monday — a “drop in the ocean” of what Palestinians need. But any small measure of relief those supplies may bring is moot as even those trucks haven’t reached any Palestinians so far, Fletcher said.
“Let’s be clear, those five trucks are just sat on the other side of the border right now, they’ve not reached the communities they need to reach,” Fletcher said.
Meanwhile, the UN has said that there are thousands of trucks carrying crucial goods like baby food lined up and ready for entry at Gaza’s border, just miles away from the babies Israel is starving.
The UN said that Israel has cleared 100 trucks to enter Gaza on Tuesday — still a far cry from the hundreds of trucks per day that humanitarian groups say are needed to fulfill basic needs and relieve starvation for millions of Palestinians in the Strip.
Though the trucks have theoretically been approved for entry, Israel may still block the trucks from entering the region; indeed, though Fletcher said on Monday that Israel had approved the entry of nine trucks, only five were ultimately allowed in.
The starvation crisis in Gaza is dire, with food insecurity experts warning that the entire region is on the brink of or experiencing famine after nearly three months of Israel’s total aid blockade. It has been over a month since the UN said that its agencies had given out its last food stores in the region, with community kitchens forced to shutter their operations in recent weeks as a result.
Many Palestinians say that the starvation is even worse than Israel’s bombardments, having been starved by varying levels of Israel’s blockade for 19 months and with food costs constantly on the rise. The total aid blockade ushered in the worst conditions of the genocide so far; one Palestinian reporter said in March that children in the region are so hungry that they’re drawing pictures of food in the sand.
The World Food Programme has estimated that there are 14,000 children in Gaza with severe acute malnutrition, a deadly condition marked by a skeletal appearance and extreme weight loss, causing damage that can last a lifetime if untreated. According to an assessment by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, nearly 71,000 children are expected to experience acute malnutrition in the next year due to Israel’s blockade.
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Thousands of babies in Gaza may die over the next two days if Israel does not lift its near-total humanitarian aid blockade and allow the entry of a flood of food and other basic necessities, the UN’s humanitarian chief warned on Tuesday. “There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN’s under-secretary-general for humanitarian…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israeli officials touted their allowance of five trucks loaded with humanitarian aid into Gaza on Monday, marking the first aid to enter the Strip in nearly three months — and representing less than 1 percent of what humanitarian groups say is needed to fulfill daily needs even under pre-genocide conditions. The Israeli defense ministry said on Monday that officials allowed the entry of five…
The ability to afford basic needs and wants in line with living a “dignified life” in the U.S. is increasingly out of reach, new research finds, naming wage stagnation and soaring prices as factors driving unaffordability. According to an analysis released by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) last week, a “minimal quality of life” is out of reach for the bottom 60…
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised a top Israeli minister after he vowed that Israel will carry out the “conquering” and “cleansing” of the Gaza Strip, as the military escalates its genocide in order to implement its permanent occupation plan. In a statement on Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Israel’s goal is “destroying everything that’s left of the…
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