Contributing Writers

Israel’s war on Gaza is the deadliest conflict for journalists in recorded history. In an attack on Nasser Hospital in Gaza Monday, Israel killed five more journalists in addition to over a dozen others. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the hospital attack was a “tragic mishap,” but just hours later, Israeli forces killed a sixth journalist. “There is a pattern of targeting and killing journalists that lets us think that there is an intention,” says Francesca Albanese, U.N.

We speak with George Retes, a 25-year-old U.S. citizen and Army veteran who is taking on the federal government after he was detained by ICE for three days and three nights without explanation. Retes was arrested during a raid in July at a cannabis farm in Camarillo, California, where he worked as a security guard. Retes was driving to work when he encountered a checkpoint, where agents broke his car window, pepper-sprayed him and dragged him out of his vehicle for arrest.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who became a symbol of Trump’s anti-immigrant crackdown when the administration illegally sent him to El Salvador earlier this year, is at risk of being deported again — this time to Uganda, a country he has no ties to.
Abrego Garcia was one of hundreds of men sent to El Salvador in March to be jailed in that country’s brutal CECOT mega-prison, despite a court order specifically meant to prevent his deportation.

We speak with UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram in Gaza City, where the world’s top authority on hunger has formally declared a famine. The United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, says the “catastrophic” situation in Gaza’s largest urban center puts about half a million Palestinians at risk of starving to death. Many aid agencies have lifesaving supplies sitting in warehouses outside Gaza that they are unable to distribute due to Israeli restrictions.

Israeli airstrikes on Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza killed at least 20 people Monday, including five Palestinian journalists. Eyewitnesses say Israel carried out a “double-tap” strike on the hospital. A drone initially hit the hospital’s roof, killing one journalist setting up a live stream, and then another strike hit journalists and rescue workers who were responding to the initial strike. “Israel knew exactly who was there,” says Palestinian writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada.

Family and community members are mourning 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, a father and grandfather from Guatemala who died while attempting to escape an anti-immigrant raid at a Home Depot in California last week. Montoya, a day laborer who had lived and worked in the United States for about three years, was struck and killed by a car while fleeing across a nearby freeway.

Shahed Ghoreishi was fired from his position as a press officer for Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the U.S. State Department earlier this week. While no official explanation was given, Ghoreishi was involved in multiple departmental disputes over how to characterize U.S. positions on Israel’s forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the killings of Palestinian journalists.

Democrats and Republicans are locked in a historic battle over congressional representation as Texas Republicans gerrymander the state’s district maps to flip five Democratic seats, at the request of President Trump. California Governor Gavin Newsom says he is fighting “fire with fire,” signing legislation to hold special elections for the public to approve a new gerrymandered map of their own.

President Trump said Tuesday the Smithsonian Institution was too narrowly focused on negative aspects of U.S. history, including “how bad slavery was.” Trump’s social media post minimizing the horrors of chattel slavery came after the White House ordered a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions in order to ensure they align with Trump’s interpretation of U.S. history.

Family and community members are mourning 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, a father and grandfather from Guatemala who died while attempting to escape an anti-immigrant raid at a Home Depot in California last week. Montoya, a day laborer who had lived and worked in the United States for about three years, was struck and killed by a car while fleeing across a nearby freeway.

Shahed Ghoreishi was fired from his position as a press officer for Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the U.S. State Department earlier this week. While no official explanation was given, Ghoreishi was involved in multiple departmental disputes over how to characterize U.S. positions on Israel’s forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the killings of Palestinian journalists.

Democrats and Republicans are locked in a historic battle over congressional representation as Texas Republicans gerrymander the state’s district maps to flip five Democratic seats, at the request of President Trump. California Governor Gavin Newsom says he is fighting “fire with fire,” signing legislation to hold special elections for the public to approve a new gerrymandered map of their own.

President Trump said Tuesday the Smithsonian Institution was too narrowly focused on negative aspects of U.S. history, including “how bad slavery was.” Trump’s social media post minimizing the horrors of chattel slavery came after the White House ordered a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions in order to ensure they align with Trump’s interpretation of U.S. history.

President Trump said Tuesday the Smithsonian Institution was too narrowly focused on negative aspects of U.S. history, including “how bad slavery was.” Trump’s social media post minimizing the horrors of chattel slavery came after the White House ordered a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions in order to ensure they align with Trump’s interpretation of U.S. history.

Family and community members are mourning 52-year-old Roberto Carlos Montoya Valdez, a father and grandfather from Guatemala who died while attempting to escape an anti-immigrant raid at a Home Depot in California last week. Montoya, a day laborer who had lived and worked in the United States for about three years, was struck and killed by a car while fleeing across a nearby freeway.

Shahed Ghoreishi was fired from his position as a press officer for Israeli-Palestinian affairs at the U.S. State Department earlier this week. While no official explanation was given, Ghoreishi was involved in multiple departmental disputes over how to characterize U.S. positions on Israel’s forced expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and the killings of Palestinian journalists.

Democrats and Republicans are locked in a historic battle over congressional representation as Texas Republicans gerrymander the state’s district maps to flip five Democratic seats, at the request of President Trump. California Governor Gavin Newsom says he is fighting “fire with fire,” signing legislation to hold special elections for the public to approve a new gerrymandered map of their own.

We speak with ACLU lawyer Eunice Cho about a new federal lawsuit brought on behalf of immigrants held at the detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” The detainees allege being routinely subjected to human rights abuses, denied due process and access to legal counsel, while families have complained of being unable to find their loved ones “disappeared” into the facility.

President Trump said Tuesday the Smithsonian Institution was too narrowly focused on negative aspects of U.S. history, including “how bad slavery was.” Trump’s social media post minimizing the horrors of chattel slavery came after the White House ordered a far-reaching review of Smithsonian museum exhibitions in order to ensure they align with Trump’s interpretation of U.S. history.

Israel gave final approval Wednesday for a controversial settlement project in the occupied West Bank, sabotaging efforts at creating a future Palestinian state. The project has been on hold for over 20 years, largely due to pressure from previous U.S. administrations.

Israel’s military says it has established a foothold on the outskirts of Gaza City and is calling up an additional 60,000 reservists ahead of a full-scale invasion of Gaza’s largest urban area. This follows days of escalating airstrikes and artillery fire that have killed scores of Palestinians in one of the world’s most densely populated regions.
Dr.

Amanda Trebach, a member of the immigrant rights’ group Unión del Barrio and an ICU nurse, was monitoring ICE operations in the Los Angeles area when she was targeted and arrested herself. Video of the scene shows masked agents in plainclothes forcing her to the ground and briefly kneeling on her head. “They took me into an unmarked vehicle. They did not read me my rights.

We speak with ACLU lawyer Eunice Cho about a new federal lawsuit brought on behalf of immigrants held at the detention center in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” The detainees allege being routinely subjected to human rights abuses, denied due process and access to legal counsel, while families have complained of being unable to find their loved ones “disappeared” into the facility.