The Education Department has announced that it is restarting student loan collections on borrowers in default for the first time since March 2020, plunging millions of Americans into further financial uncertainty even as the Trump administration is supposedly seeking to dismantle the agency entirely. In a press release on Monday, the department said that it will start involuntary collection…
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In a letter from an immigrant detention center in Louisiana, pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil has pleaded for his case to spur the public into action against the rapid erosion of civil liberties in the U.S., warning of dire consequences if the crackdown on pro-Palestine activists continues. “It’s 3 a.m. as I lie sleepless on a bunk bed in Jena, Louisiana, far from my wife, Noor…
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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) was finally granted a meeting with Kilmar Abrego García in El Salvador on Thursday evening, just hours after he accused Salvadorian officials of violating international human rights law in a press conference over their treatment of the deported Maryland father. Van Hollen posted about the meeting on social media on Thursday evening. “I said my main goal of…
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Israel’s assault on Gaza health facilities and workers has completely “decimated” the health care system and has left Palestinians with “zero” options for care, a UN expert has warned. Earlier this week, Israel struck Al-Ahli Hospital, rendering it inoperational and forcing all of its patients to evacuate. The horrific attack killed a child who died due to a lack of oxygen and worsened wounds…
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Autopsies of the paramedics who were killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave in Gaza last month found that many had been shot in the head and chest, according to new reports on the massacre that has sparked international backlash. Autopsies for 14 out of 15 of the medics found that four of them had been shot in the head, while six were shot in the chest or back, The New York Times…
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Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) was denied entry to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) by El Salvador officials on Thursday as he attempted to check on the condition of Kilmar Abrego García, a Maryland man abducted and deported from the U.S. by the Trump administration — even as Republicans post selfies they’ve taken inside the notorious torture prison online. In a post on social…
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio touted the closure of a State Department office focusing on foreign disinformation in a self-congratulatory statement crediting himself for being a harbinger of free speech on Wednesday — as he is working tirelessly to hand-pick activists for deportation in a sweeping campaign to crush dissent. In the press release, entitled “Protecting and Championing Free…
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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly claimed in a memo that pro-Palestine activists protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza are undermining the U.S.’s supposed goal of a “peaceful” end to the violence, new reporting finds, providing a glimpse into the paradoxical reasoning being employed by the White House to justify its erosion of free speech rights. The memo was prepared to supposedly…
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Israel’s defense minister has pledged a permanent military occupation of the “buffer zone” that constitutes over half of Gaza and an indefinite continuation of the total aid blockade, vowing an escalation of Israel’s plans for the genocide as Israeli officials dubiously accuse Hamas of rejecting ceasefire deals. In a statement on Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the Israeli…
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A Maryland senator has vowed to travel to El Salvador in attempts to negotiate the release of Maryland father Kilmar Abrego García as El Salvador’s president and the Trump administration are seemingly working in tandem to defy court orders and continue his imprisonment. Democrat Sen. Chris Van Hollen said in a statement on Monday that he is planning to travel to El Salvador this week if the…
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A labor board worker received a threatening note after he became a whistleblower on the all-out raid of the agency by Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” during which Musk’s minions apparently stole a huge amount of sensitive information about workers and union organizers, a new bombshell NPR report finds. The whistleblower, Daniel Berulis, works in the IT department for the…
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Immigration officials abducted a Palestinian Columbia University student, Mohsen Mahdawi, in Vermont on Monday, after they summoned him for what was supposed to be his final test to obtain his American citizenship. Mahdawi, a green card holder, received an email this month from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) notifying him of an interview that was supposed to be his…
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El Salvador President Nayib Bukele is refusing to return Kilmar Abrego García — a Maryland man with protected status who the Trump administration deported to El Salvador — to the U.S. In a White House press conference on Monday, Bukele, who was sitting next to Donald Trump, claimed that he lacks the power to return Abrego García — a claim immigration experts and advocates have said is an…
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The U.S. has killed over 100 people in Yemen in less than a month of bombardments, Yemen health officials say, killing dozens of civilians as the Trump administration escalates its attacks on the region. The Yemen Health Ministry reported on Monday that U.S. airstrikes have killed at least 123 people in Yemen since March 16, and wounded at least 247 others. This includes a strike on a…
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The State Department internally found no evidence supporting the Trump administration’s reasoning for abducting and pushing to deport Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, new reporting finds, just days before immigration officials snatched her off the streets and took her to a horrific immigrant detention center anyway. The Washington Post reported on Sunday…
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This story originally appeared in Truthout on Apr. 09, 2025. It is shared here with permission.
The Senate has confirmed former Arkansas governor and fervent Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee as the U.S.’s next ambassador to Israel after numerous rights groups called on the Senate to oppose his nomination.
Huckabee was confirmed 53 to 46, in what was a largely party line vote — except for Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), who voted with Republicans in favor.
Advocates for Palestinian rights have long raised alarm about Huckabee’s nomination over his clear bias toward Israel and his numerous statements dehumanizing Palestinians.
He has visited Israel over 100 times and espouses his beliefs as a Christian Zionist who believes that Jewish people must take over Palestine in order to fulfill a Biblical prophecy; many anti-Zionists have pointed out that Christian Zionists often hold antisemitic beliefs in their support of this goal.
Huckabee has backed President Donald Trump’s plan for the total ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza, and has called for Israel to annex the West Bank — the latter of which he refers to as “Judea and Samaria,” a term used by Zionists to erase Palestinians’ name for the region and imply Israel’s supposed “right” to the land. He refuses to acknowledge that Israel is occupying Palestine, despite international authorities recognizing Israel’s illegal occupation.
Huckabee also once said, at a campaign stop in 2008, that there is “really no such thing as a Palestinian,” erasing the existence of an entire people and stripping them of their cultural identity — much like Trump and Israeli officials seem to be seeking to do with their genocide in Gaza.
When asked about this comment during his confirmation hearing, he denied that this comment had anything to do with the forced expulsion of Palestinians, saying, “I simply referenced the biblical mandate that goes all the way back to the time of Abraham, 3,500 years ago.”
Dozens of rights and faith groups had protested Huckabee’s confirmation, and have sent numerous letters urging senators to vote against him. Advocates for Palestinian rights have condemned Huckabee’s confirmation.
“The Senate’s decision to confirm Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel is a threat to Palestinians and Israelis, and to Jews, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color in the United States,” said IfNotNow in a statement. “He has claimed Palestinians do not exist & has allied with Israel’s violent settler movement and extremist evangelicals in the United States — and will undoubtedly pursue his dangerous Christian Nationalist worldview as ambassador.”
Many have specifically called out Fetterman, who is facing increasing isolation from his voter base and fellow Democrats over his zealous support of Israel since he took office.
“Fetterman was the only ‘Democrat’ who voted for Trump’s [Attorney General] Pam Bondi, who is ripping up the Constitution. Now he is the only ‘Democrat’ to vote for Huckabee — who wants to bring about Armageddon by ethnically cleansing Palestinians,” said the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project. “Pennsylvania deserves a new Senator.”
This post was originally published on The Real News Network.
The Senate has confirmed former Arkansas governor and fervent Christian Zionist Mike Huckabee as the U.S.’s next ambassador to Israel after numerous rights groups called on the Senate to oppose his nomination. Huckabee was confirmed 53 to 46, in what was a largely party line vote — except for Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), who voted with Republicans in favor.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that it is monitoring immigrants’ social media accounts for supposed “antisemitism” — a seeming code word for speech criticizing Israel’s U.S.-backed occupation of Palestine and genocide of Palestinians. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the initiative in a press release on Wednesday, saying that it is…
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The latest phase of Israel’s genocide in Gaza has made the Strip into “a killing field,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned as Israel is blocking the entry of all humanitarian aid and is continuing its relentless bombardments. “More than an entire month has passed without a drop of aid into Gaza. No food. No fuel. No medicine. No commercial supplies. As aid has dried up…
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The strike on Yemen that was celebrated by Trump administration officials in a now-infamous leaked Signal chat killed a newborn baby and charred and killed a 5-year-old boy, according to new witness testimony of the strike. In a New Yorker interview published on Tuesday with a man who survived the strike, identified by the pseudonym Hassan, the man said that he and his neighbors rushed to the…
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The Israeli military is now occupying over half of the land area of Gaza after having massively expanded the “buffer zone” spanning the entirety of Gaza’s border and systematically destroyed everything in it, as Israeli and U.S. officials are pushing a plan for the total ethnic cleansing of the besieged enclave. The buffer zone, which Israel has forcibly evacuated of all Palestinians…
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The Trump administration’s latest sweeping cuts to international food aid will kill millions of people across the world if implemented, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has cautioned, in the latest warning of the deadly consequences of the Elon Musk-led USAID cuts. Citing numerous officials and organizations, The Associated Press reported on Monday that the Trump administration has ended…
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The Trump administration has reportedly advanced a shipment of over 20,000 assault rifles to Israel that was paused by the Biden administration over concerns that the weapons would be used by settlers to further their illegal occupation of the occupied West Bank. The State Department notified Congress of the sale totalling $24 million in value last month, Reuters reports.
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On Thursday, the Senate rejected Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vermont) resolutions to block the sale of $8.8 billion in weapons to Israel by an even wider margin than in similar votes last year — despite Israel having since violated the Gaza ceasefire agreement. The Senate’s opposition to the resolutions comes as Israel has maintained a total humanitarian aid blockade on Gaza for over a month.
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The first known Palestinian child to be killed in an Israeli prison, Walid Khalid Abdullah Ahmad, was starved, had untreated diseases, and was repeatedly beaten by guards before he died last month, his autopsy report shows. The autopsy shows that Ahmad suffered from “extreme body muscle and fat wasting, evidenced by a sunken abdomen,” caused by “extreme, likely prolonged malnutrition,”…
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Lack of access to health care has hit a new high in the U.S., with over a third of Americans now unable to access quality care due to cost, new West Health-Gallup polling finds. The poll, released Wednesday, finds that 35 percent of Americans say they wouldn’t be able to afford quality health care if they needed it today, compared to 29 percent in 2021, when Gallup began polling this question.
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President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Waltz and his staff have used personal Gmail accounts to conduct government business, a new report released Tuesday reveals, in the latest instance of Waltz seemingly using methods of communication that are unsecured and vulnerable to breaches. In at least one instance, a senior aide to Waltz used Gmail to discuss “sensitive military…
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President Donald Trump is reportedly considering pushing “shadow president” Elon Musk out of his administration after the billionaire spent $25 million to elect a Republican to the Wisconsin state Supreme Court — and lost badly. Sources within the administration have told Politico, later confirmed by ABC, that Trump has informed top advisers that Musk may be stepping out of his “special…
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Israeli forces bombed a UN clinic in Gaza serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians on Wednesday, killing at least 22 people just days after officials discovered 15 first responders who had been executed by Israeli soldiers and buried in a mass grave in Gaza. The military bombed a UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) clinic in Jabalia refugee camp…
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