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A Beacon Of Hope and Woke Bullshit
Citing the value of “keep(ing) the flame of democracy burning," the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for (her) people." Machado called the award an “immense recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans." With their usual grace, MAGA-ites blasted the choice of "some lady in Venezuela" and not a mad king terrorizing brown people, siccing troops on his citizens, and murdering fishermen. America: Fuck that guy.
Machado is a key but divisive figure in Venezuela: She's been called "the smiling face of Washington’s regime-change machine" and CAIR has blasted her for supporting Israel's right-wing Likud Party and anti-Muslim fascists. She's also faced years of political persecution under Maduro’s regime while building a powerful grassroots democracy movement from a once-fragmented opposition. A 58-year-old industrial engineer, she was blocked by the courts from running against Maduro in 2024; facing death threats and bogus charges, she has been living in hiding since then.
The Nobel Committee praised Machado as "a brave and committed champion of peace" struggling "to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” They also called her a symbol of civilian courage and "a beacon of hope for Latin America." Possibly sending a message to those of us facing growing autocracy, they affirmed the value of “keep(ing) the flame of democracy burning during a growing darkness" and said she "has shown that the tools of democracy are also the tools of peace.”
International leaders praised Machado's "tireless struggle for freedom and democracy (that) has touched hearts and inspired millions"; the EU Commission's Ursula von der Leyen called the award a tribute to her courage and “every voice that refuses to be silenced.” She joins the ranks of other distinguished women honored in recent years for championing human rights, including Iran's Narges Mohammadi, Myanmar's Daw Aung San Suu Ky - both still imprisoned - Tawakkol Karman of Yemen and Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, joint recipients in 2011.
Announcing this year's award, the Nobel Committee seemed to especially take note of and aim at the looming threat posed by Trump. "When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognize courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist," they wrote. "Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended - with words, with courage, and with determination." (And, sometimes, blow-up animals costumes."
Told the news before the announcement in an emotional, early morning call from Kristian Berg Harpviken, Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Machado sounded shocked and tearful. "Oh my God, Oh my God," she repeatedly exclaimed. "I have no words." She quickly added, "I hope you understand this is a movement, this is an achievement of a whole society. I am just, you know, one person. I certainly do not deserve this." Harpviken graciously assured her that both she and the movement did deserve the honor.
In grotesque contrast were the denizens and Narcissist-In-Chief of MAGA land, outraged the prize was not awarded to a racist, lying, vindictive despot who's busy threatening political opponents, ordering violent roundups of immigrants, deploying his military against cities whose leaders disagree with him, cracking down on dissent and undertaking extrajudicial killings of fishermen in the Caribbean who may not have done anything wrong while boasting about "ending" several imaginary wars and whining that not winning the award would be "a big insult to our country."
Somehow, shamefully, some mainstream media took seriously Trump's longtime, petulant claim to deserve what many consider the world's most prestigious prize - for many, proof of how low American media have fallen during the reign of a guy who still boasts about his "perfect score" on a basic cognitive test that requires naming a camel and lion, who is arguably more likely to win a Heisman Trophy or Miss Teen U.S.A., and who now joins the estimable ranks of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Putinm, and "all the Kims" to rightly fail to win a Nobel.
With discomfiting, possibly strategic generosity, Machado later dedicated her prize not only to "the suffering people of Venezuela," but to Trump for "his decisive support of our cause." Trump giddily twisted that mention into claims he'd “been helping her along the way,” she accepted the prize "in his honor," and he was "happy because I saved millions of lives." Still, MAGA officials and fans were pissed, and a White House statement charged the Committee "proved they place politics over peace" by rejecting Trump, who "has the heart of a humanitarian."
Supporters called the decision "unbelievable," "a disgrace," "an utter joke," "woke bullshit." "They hand it to someone nobody's (aka I've) ever heard of," said one. "The prize is garbage now, a Crackerjacks prize." Right-wing activist Laura Loomer called the choice "an absolute joke." "Everyone knows President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize," she said. "More affirmative action nonsense." From The MAGA Voice: "Some random person that nobody knows... TRUMP COULD HAVE CURED CANCER" (if he hadn't halted cancer research.)
"Dear Snobs, Accredited Clowns and TDS-driven socialists of the European elite," wrote one Sebastian Adlercreutz, whose bio reads, "No woke lefties...Jesus is my Lord." "You have yet again managed to turn the Nobel Peace Price into a worthless trinket." Several GOP Reps raged online: One argued, "The Nobel Peace Prize does not deserve Trump," one proposed Congress give Dear Leader their own Nobel Peace Prize - it's unclear how that might work - and one thought they should create their own Trump Peace and Prosperity Award as a sort of participation trophy.
"TOTAL FIX," fumed a Truth Social post evidently from Trump. "Norway - a tiny country with expensive fjords and weak politicians - has the nerve to lecture AMERICA...Their leader (is) a LIBERAL lightweight and globalist puppet, a clowen in Oslo's palace, and his Nobel cronies are a disgrace." Announcing 100% tariffs on Norwegian goods, it charged "they RIGGEDED the nobel to embarass ME" and declared, "We will FIGHT. We will EXPOSE them. Norwegian Marxists will not humiliated AMERICA and get away with it!" Eventually, it turned out the post was a parody. We think.
Oct 10, 2025
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Lancet Study Warns Cancer Deaths Could Surge Nearly 75% by 2050
An ominous new study in the Lancet medical journal projects that deaths from cancer will surge over the next two-and-a-half decades, with lower-income countries set to be the hardest hit.
The study, which was released on Wednesday, estimates that there will be 18.6 million cancer deaths and 30.5 million cancer cases in 2030. The estimated number of cancer deaths would represent a nearly 75% increase from the estimated 10.4 million cancer deaths in 2023.
The study explains that the forecasted death increases "are greater in low-income and middle-income countries" than in wealthy nations, and that most of the projected increases are likely to come from an older population, not a rise in the lethality of cancer overall.
All the same, the study warns that the total increase in cancer cases and deaths will put a strain on global health systems.
"Effectively and sustainably addressing cancer burden globally will require comprehensive national and international efforts that consider health systems and context in the development and implementation of cancer-control strategies across the continuum of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment," the study says.
Meghnath Dhimal, chief research officer at the Nepal Health Research Council, who worked on the study, told Euronews that the projections showed "an impending disaster" for low-income nations. Dhimal also said that these nations needed to do more to improve their citizens' access to cancer screenings and treatments to prevent their systems from potentially being overwhelmed.
"There are cost-effective interventions for cancer in countries at all stages of development," he said.
Dr. Theo Vos, a researcher at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation who helped author the study, told Euronews that the incidence of cancer could be significantly reduced by lowering tobacco use, unsafe sex, obesity, and high blood sugar, among other factors.
"There are tremendous opportunities for countries to target these risk factors, potentially preventing cases of cancer and saving lives," Vos explained.
Sep 25, 2025
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Top French Economist Says Ex-Prime Ministers Should Have Embraced Wealth Tax
On the heels of France losing yet another prime minister, Politico on Tuesday published an interview in which world-renowned French economist Gabriel Zucman argued that the recently departed leaders should have supported his proposed wealth tax.
Zucman, who leads the EU Tax Observatory and teaches at French and US universities, has advocated for imposing a wealth tax of at least 2% for the ultrarich in France and around the world. However, Sébastien Lecornu, who resigned as prime minister on Monday, after less than a month in office, did not embrace that approach, the economist noted.
Former Prime Minister François Bayrou also didn't support the "Zucman tax." He was in the post when the French National Assembly voted in favor of a 2% minimum tax on wealth exceeding €100 million, or $117 million, in February—and when the Senate ultimately rejected the policy in June. He resigned in early September, after losing a no-confidence vote.
Before both of them, Michel Barnier was prime minister. He resigned last December, also after losing a no-confidence vote. He, too, didn't embrace the tax policy, despite polling that shows, as Zucman put it, "there is a very strong demand among the population for greater tax fairness and better taxation of the ultrarich."
"The executive has so far remained completely deaf to both parliamentary work and popular democratic demands," Zucman told Politico's Giorgio Leali. "They didn't try to have a real dialogue with the opposition on this."
"The very wealthy individuals affected by this measure, and the media outlets they own, have spoken out very vehemently on the subject in an attempt to discourage the government from engaging in any form of reflection or discussion," he added.
On social media, Leali shared a quote from Zucman tying the former prime ministers' attitudes on the tax proposal and broader budget fight to the country's current political crisis—in which "increasingly isolated" President Emmanuel Macron faces pressure from across France's political spectrum to hold a snap parliamentary election or resign.
As Reuters reported Tuesday, "Resignation calls, long confined to the fringes, have entered the mainstream during one of the worst political crises since the 1958 creation of the Fifth Republic, France's current system of government."
Even Édouard Philippe—who, as France 24 noted, was "Macron's longest-serving prime minister from 2017 to 2020"—is urging him to step down, saying that the president must help France "emerge in an orderly and dignified manner from a political crisis that is harming the country."
After the anti-austerity "Block Everything" protests across France on September 10, Mathilde Panot of the leftist party La France Insoumise (LFI) announced that 100 members of Parliament endorsed a motion to impeach Macron.
LFI founder Jean-Luc Mélenchon said Monday that "following the resignation of Sébastien Lecornu, we call for the immediate consideration of the motion tabled by 104 MPs for the impeachment of Emmanuel Macron."
"Emmanuel Macron is responsible for the political chaos," he said, calling out "those in power" for failing to respond to not only the demonstrations on September 10 but also the union mobilizations on September 18 and October 2.
"The president is rejected by public opinion, which desires his departure, and he has lost the support of ALL the parties in his political coalition," Mélenchon added Tuesday. "Why does he remain? A return to coherence for the country requires his departure and a return to the voice of the people."
Oct 07, 2025
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Mike Johnson Sits Stone-Faced as GOP Voters Plead With Him to Cave to Dems' Healthcare Demands
House Speaker Mike Johnson has stuck to the Republican Party's script regarding the US government shutdown that began more than a week ago when the GOP refused to include an extension of healthcare subsidies in a spending bill—but voters from both sides of the aisle made clear to him Thursday on "Washington Journal," the C-SPAN call-in show, that they aren't buying the claim that Democrats are holding crucial spending hostage.
“I’m begging you to pass this legislation,” said a Republican caller named Samantha, who identified herself as a military mom from Virginia. “My kids could die.”
Samantha explained that her children are "medically fragile" and said a missed paycheck for her partner, a service member, on the 15th would be catastrophic for her family.
“If we see a lapse in pay come the 15th, my children do not get to get the medication that’s needed for them to live their life,” she said. “As a Republican, I am disappointed in my party and I’m very disappointed in you because you do have the power to call the House back."
Republican C-SPAN caller to Mike Johnson: "As a Republican, I'm very disappointed in my party,and I'm very disappointed in you, because you have the power to call the House back. You refuse to do that just for a show." pic.twitter.com/3gxdXxtsDj
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 9, 2025
Johnson (R-La.) has not called the House back into session since September 19. Military members' paychecks are affected by government shutdowns like the one that began October 1 after the GOP refused to sign on to a Democratic stopgap proposal to keep the government funded through the end of the month, with $1 trillion in the Republicans' Medicaid cuts restored and Affordable Care Act (ACA) chbsubsidies extended.
Republicans including Johnson have persisted in claiming the Democratic proposal would give free healthcare to undocumented "non-Americans" and have demanded that Democrats relent and vote for a continuing resolution to keep the government funded for seven weeks.
Johnson told Samantha that "Democrats are the ones preventing you from getting a check"—but she made clear that she wasn't convinced of that.
“You could stop this and you could be the one that could say: ‘Military is getting paid,'" said the caller. "And I think it is awful and the audacity of someone who makes six figures a year to do this to military families is insane.”
Johnson said earlier this week that he supported calling the House back to vote on a stand-alone bill to ensure service members and air traffic controllers are paid during the shutdown, but walked back his support on Wednesday.
Another Republican caller from Texas asked Johnson, considering that the GOP passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allows the ACA subsidies to expire and could raise monthly premiums by an average of 75% for millions of households, whether the party has a plan to improve the program.
The House speaker offered only more claims that "illegal aliens" and "able-bodied men without dependents" have been "draining the resources" in the Medicaid program and said the Republicans "have a lot of ideas to fix" the ACA.
C-SPAN CALLER: What is your plan to fix Obamacare?MIKE JOHNSON: Great question. There's a lot of improvement that's needed. Obamacare did not do what was promised. We gotta fix that. In the big beautiful bill we reformed Medicaid.
[image or embed]
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 9, 2025 at 8:59 AM
Mimi Gergees, the host of "Washington Journal," pressed Johnson on whether there is "a plan that we can read and find out more about," but the GOP leader replied only that congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump are "setting up the conditions" to develop a healthcare proposal.
A poll by KFF found last week that 78% of Americans want Congress to extend the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance through the ACA's exchanges. A CBS survey released this week showed that more Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown than Democrats.
Other callers lambasted Johnson on Trump's efforts to federalize National Guard troops and deploy them to cities including Chicago and Portland, Oregon, where Republicans have insisted the White House is responding to crime, chaos, and "war-ravaged" conditions caused by immigrants and anti-fascist protesters.
“Everybody is smiling here" following Trump's deployment of the National Guard to Washington, DC, said Johnson. "The sun is shining again.”
A Democrat from Colorado called in to say that the comment, made amid reports of federal agents pointing weapons at civilians and using force against protesters and journalists in Chicago, was "dystopian and insane."
Oct 10, 2025
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Judge Shuts Down Trump's Chicago Troop Deployment And Questions Administration's Grasp on Reality
A federal judge on Friday night released her full opinion justifying an earlier decision to block President Donald Trump from deploying Texas National Guard troops in Chicago, and she even went so far as to question his administration's grasp on reality.
In her ruling, Judge April Perry began by citing a lengthy quote from the Federalist Papers in which Alexander Hamilton addressed concerns that a tyrannical US president would use a militia from one state to invade and occupy another state.
After giving the matter brief consideration, Hamilton dismissed fears about a would-be tyrant carrying out such a scheme on the grounds that "it is impossible to believe that they would employ such preposterous means to accomplish their designs."
And yet, Perry noted, this exact scenario is one that the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago claim is happening right now, as they argue that "National Guard troops from both Illinois and Texas have been deployed to Illinois because the president of the United States wants to punish state elected officials whose policies are different from his own."
Perry went on to consider circumstances in which the president may federalize the National Guard, and concluded that the administration's case for sending the National Guard to Chicago did not meet any of them.
Perry noted that the president may federalize the National Guard if "there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority" of the US government, but she argued there has historically been a "very high threshold for deployment" that is not justified by current circumstances.
"In the late 1800s and early 1900s, 'rebellion' was understood to mean a deliberate, organized resistance, openly and avowedly opposing the laws and authority of the government as a whole by means of armed opposition and violence," she explained. "As an example, during the late 1800s, after the close of the Civil War, the Supreme Court and several statutes referred to the Civil War as constituting a 'rebellion.'"
She then found that the administration itself has not claimed any Civil War-like rebellion is occurring in the US right now.
"In all of the memoranda actually deploying the National Guard to Illinois, the court does not see any factual determination by President Trump regarding a rebellion brewing here," she wrote. "This is sensible, because the court cannot find reasonable support for a conclusion that there exists in Illinois a danger of rebellion."
Elsewhere in the ruling, Perry examined the government's claims that local law enforcement officials have been unable to contain demonstrations at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Broadview, Illinois, which has become a focal point for protests in recent weeks.
Although there have been incidents in which local law enforcement has had to intervene to keep protesters from getting too close to the facility, Perry said, there has never been a level of disorder that would justify the deployment of the National Guard.
"The ICE Processing Center has continuously remained open and operational throughout the protest activity," she wrote. "Broadview Police are not aware of any occasion where an ICE vehicle was prevented from entering or exiting due to activity by protestors."
This led her to remark upon a "troubling trend" of the Trump administration "equating protests with riots" and "a lack of appreciation for the wide spectrum that exists between citizens who are observing, questioning, and criticizing their government, and those who are obstructing, assaulting, or doing violence."
"This indicates to the court both bias and lack of objectivity," she wrote. "Ultimately, this court must conclude that defendants'... perceptions are not reliable."
Oct 11, 2025
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Fetterman Joins GOP to Kill War Powers Resolution Against Trump's Extrajudicial Venezuela Bombings
With Democratic Sen. John Fetterman joining Republicans in opposing a measure to rein in President Donald Trump's ability to unilaterally bomb ships in the Caribbean Sea, the US Senate narrowly failed to advance a war powers resolution Wednesday.
Since the beginning of September, Trump has conducted four strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela which the administration has alleged, with little evidence, are carrying "narco-terrorists" spiriting illegal drugs to the United States.
Trump has also deployed thousands of sailors and marines to the Venezuelan coast and is reportedly considering strikes on the Venezuelan mainland, which has stoked fears within the country and across Latin America of another regime-change war.
In a quote to Responsible Statecraft, John Ramming Chappell, an advocacy and legal fellow at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said that even if the ships attacked by Trump do contain drug-runners, the strikes carried out by Trump have been "summary executions and extrajudicial killings" that are "manifestly illegal under both US and international law."
But by a 51-48 vote, largely along party lines, the Senate opted not to discharge a resolution introduced by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) from the Foreign Relations Committee that would have halted Trump's ability to carry out more strikes without congressional approval.
"The president has used our military to strike unknown targets on at least four occasions, and he is promising more," Schiff said in his speech introducing the resolution on the Senate floor. "With at least 21 people dead, and more killing on the way, with the president telling us that strikes on land-based targets may be next, we ask you to join us and reassert Congress' vital control over the war power."
Kaine added: "Americans want fewer wars—not more—and our Constitution clearly grants Congress alone the power to declare one. Yet President Trump has repeatedly launched illegal military strikes in the Caribbean and has refused to provide Congress with basic information about who was killed, why the strikes were necessary, and why a standard interdiction operation wasn't conducted."
Two Republican senators, Rand Paul (Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), joined Democrats in voting to advance the resolution.
Paul, a libertarian who is typically more skeptical of foreign interventions than others in the GOP, has been an outspoken critic of Trump's assertion of unchecked authority to bomb ships and the lack of evidence provided.
He previously sparred with Vice President JD Vance online after Vance said, "I don't give a shit" that striking unarmed civilians without due process is a "war crime" under international law.
On the Senate floor, Paul said: "Perhaps those in charge of deciding whom to kill might let us know their names, present proof of their guilt, show evidence of their crimes... Is it too much to ask to know the names of those we kill before we kill them?"
Paul previously said in an interview with Bloomberg: "I think it might lead to regime change. And some of the more skeptical among us think that maybe this is a provocation to lead to real regime change, a provocation to get the Venezuelans to react so we can then insert the military."
Murkowski added: "We all want to get rid of the drugs in this country, absolutely. But the approach that the administration is taking is new, some would say novel, and I think we have a role here."
Even with two Republican defectors, it was not enough for the resolution to advance, especially with an assist from Fetterman (Pa.), the Democratic Party's leading war hawk, who joined Republicans in voting the motion down.
It's the second time in a matter of months that he's voted against imposing a congressional check on Trump's ability to carry out acts of war. In June, he was also the lone Democrat to vote against a Senate resolution to require congressional approval for future strikes against Iran, even as the president made regime change threats.
Nick Field, a correspondent for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, noted that "voting against a war powers resolution seeking to curb Trump's executive powers" was "not how John Fetterman campaigned in 2022, 2018, or 2016," when he acted as a strident opponent of everything Trump stood for.
Fetterman has not publicly commented on his decision to vote against the resolution. His office did not respond to a request for comment from Common Dreams.
Despite the vote's failure, Schiff said it likely will not be the last attempt to limit Trump's war-making authority. Similar resolutions were introduced late last month in the House of Representatives by Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Jason Crow (D-Col.).
"Sadly, as these strikes get worse, support will only grow for another War Powers Resolution to stop them," Schiff said. "Let's hope by then we are not in a full-fledged war."
Oct 09, 2025
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ICE Threatened to Shoot Ambulance Driver Picking Up Injured Portland Protester, Medics Say
The incident comes as immigrants' rights advocates warn ICE's tactics in US cities are growing increasingly violent.
Oct 14, 2025
Amid report after report of increasingly aggressive tactics used by federal immigration enforcement, a pair of Portland medical workers say that an agent threatened to shoot them as they tried to transport an injured protester last week.
According to publicly archived dispatch records reported by Willamette Week, an ambulance crew was attempting to transport a protester with a broken or dislocated collarbone from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in southern Portland on October 5.
The facility has been a flashpoint in recent weeks as the site of several small but persistent protests, which the Trump administration has attempted to characterize as violent provocations by "antifa" in order to justify its deployment of military troops.
After entering through the facility's front gate around 9:19, the two medics were able to load the patient into the ambulance without issue. But at 9:40, the driver reported to dispatch that "we are still not being allowed to leave by ICE officers."
Confidential incident reports filed by each of the two medics, and obtained by WW, describe in more detail what was happening at the scene.
Each of the drivers' separate reports says the agents had demanded to ride along in the ambulance en route to the hospital. The driver replied that without arrest paperwork, they were not permitted to ride along. Agents continued to insist that the vehicle would not be allowed to leave until an officer was permitted to accompany them.
"I repeated again," the driver said in their report, "that no officer is permitted to ride in the ambulance and that they can meet us at the hospital and that we needed to be let out of the facility. Officers then began walking away from me whenever I spoke. At that point, a group of 5-8 civilian-dressed men walked into the garage and just stared at me. No identification on any of them. I walked back to the ambulance and got into the driver's seat. I flipped the emergency lights on and put the car into drive. I inched forward slowly out of the garage."
A man described as being in civilian clothes and a neck-wrap then stepped in front of the vehicle and ordered the ambulance not to leave, according to the report. As more agents amassed about 15 feet in front of the vehicle, the driver assumed they were preparing to escort the ambulance off the property and continued to slowly inch the vehicle forward. But agents continued to obstruct the ambulance's path. As of 9:39, a dispatch report said there were "50-60 fed agents completely blocking the road."
At this point, the crew member in the passenger's seat exited the vehicle to attempt to reason with the officers. After putting the vehicle into park, the driver began to exit as well. They said that as they opened the side door, "I looked up and suddenly the entire group of officers… were crowded around the open car door, some of them leaning forward towards me, inches from my face."
The driver recalls that an agent "pointed his finger at me in a threatening manner and began viciously yelling in my face, stating, 'DON'T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN, I WILL SHOOT YOU, I WILL ARREST YOU RIGHT NOW." The vehicle had rolled forward slightly after the driver put it in park, apparently leading the agents to believe the medics were attempting to hit them.
"I was still in such shock," the driver later wrote, "that they were not only accusing me of such a thing, but crowding and cornering me in the seat, pointing and screaming at me, threatening to shoot and arrest me, and not allowing the ambulance to leave the scene. This was no longer a safe scene, and in that moment, I realized that the scene had not actually been safe the entire time that they were blocking us from exiting, and that we were essentially trapped."
The ambulance was finally allowed to leave after being delayed for more than 20 minutes. An unmarked vehicle followed the ambulance to the hospital, where several men in civilian dress exited and walked in.
The incident reports provide the latest account of what Portland city officials described to WW as a pattern in which "federal agents have in several cases needlessly intensified situations that might have easily remained far more calm."
Over the same weekend, peaceful demonstrators and journalists were ambushed with pepper spray, flash-bang grenades, and rubber bullets without clear provocation. In one viral incident earlier that week, a demonstrator who danced at protests in an inflatable frog costume had pepper spray shot directly into his air intake vent by an officer as he attempted to help a fellow protester who was injured.
The reports come as experts say ICE has been intensifying its tactics around the country, which have been captured in several videos taken by bystanders.
One video in Hyattsville, Maryland, shows an officer who dropped his gun while pinning a man to the ground, before picking it up and pointing it towards onlookers.
In another video from Alamosa, Colorado, agents were filmed hopping out of a car and immediately pointing their weapons at a young couple whom they'd boxed in at an intersection. As the woman in the car shouted that the driver's 1-month-old baby was riding in the back seat, an officer in a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) hat used his baton to smash open the car's driver's side window, spilling glass into the vehicle.
Another video from the Chicago area, where President Donald Trump has surged ICE as part of "Operation Midway Blitz," shows agents firing pepper spray upon a pastor who was speaking outside a facility.
And a recent photo shows a masked agent in the passenger's seat of an unmarked van pointing a weapon at a woman who was attempting to film him from the neighboring car.
On October 4, CBP agents in Chicago shot a woman, 30-year-old Marimar Martinez, whom they similarly claimed had provoked them by ramming them with her car. Body camera footage would not only contradict this claim, but show that the agents had in fact plowed into Martinez's vehicle after one of them shouted "Do something, bitch."
Prosecutors said Martinez had a licensed gun in her car. But her attorneys say she did not brandish the weapon, and she was not charged with any weapons-related offense. She was the second person shot by immigration agents in the area in less than a month—the other was also unarmed.
In the meantime, the Trump administration has attempted to describe peaceful demonstrations against ICE's behavior as acts of "terrorism," with deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller calling those in Portland "an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers."
Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, told NPR that the latest spate of attacks by federal agents "are just the tip of the iceberg."
"This administration," he said, "overall seems more interested in heightening the tensions instead of trying to ramp them down."
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3 Palestinian Children Injured by Likely IDF Unexploded Ordnance in Gaza
Experts say it could take more than a decade to clear the Gaza Strip of Israeli bombs that did not detonate upon impact.
Oct 13, 2025
Three more Palestinian children were injured Monday in the Gaza Strip by what was likely Israel Defense Forces unexploded ordnance, a danger that United Nations experts say could take more than a decade to defuse.
Gaza Civil Defense said in a statement that the three children were "injured with varying degrees of wounds due to the explosion of a suspicious object from the remnants of the Israeli occupation near Al-Shifa Hospital"—which was repeatedly bombed, besieged, and invaded by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops.
The children were reportedly playing with the object when it exploded. Children are particularly vulnerable to death and injury from certain types of unexploded ordnance (UXO), which can appear similar to toys. This is especially true of cluster munitions, which the IDF denies using in Gaza.
However, the IDF's history of using such weapons—which are banned under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, to which Israel is not signatory—and reports by human rights groups and others suggest the denials could possibly, like so many other Israeli claims, be lies.
In past wars, IDF troops have dropped toys and other civilian objects booby-trapped with explosives that killed and maimed children and others. Gaza Civil Defense reported earlier this month that IDF troops have left such toys behind during their current withdrawal from Gaza.
According to the Gaza Government Media Office, Israeli forces dropped around 200,000 tons of explosives on Gaza during what dozens of nations, United Nations experts, genocide scholars, jurists, human rights groups, and others say was a genocidal war. Warfare experts have said the IDF assault on Gaza—which killed or wounded more than 247,000 Palestinians including at least 64,000 children—was, in the words of one US historian, "one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history."
Of those 200,000 tons of explosives, experts at the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) and elsewhere say that up to 10% failed to explode upon impact. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in May that the IDF was aware of 3,000 unexploded bombs in Gaza, and that older bombs used by Israel had a dud rate of up to 20%.
The Gaza Ministry of Health, UNMAS, and the Gaza Protection Cluster—a group of humanitarian organizations including the United Nations Children's Fund, and Save the Children—have reported that at least scores of Palestinians have been killed or wounded by IDF UXO in Gaza since October 2023, including numerous children.
UNMAS officials have also warned that in addition to UXO, hundreds of thousands of tons of asbestos exposed by IDF bombardment—which has destroyed or damaged 90% of all homes in Gaza—pose a serious and potentially deadly health risk.
Monday's incident at Al-Shifa Hospital came as 20 Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the October 7, 2023 attack and nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel were released in an exchange that took place three days after a tenuous ceasefire went into effect.
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'Our New Reality': Planet Reaches First Climate Tipping Point With Coral Reef Dieback
“We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” said one researcher. “This is our new reality.”
Oct 13, 2025
Less than two years after researchers at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom warned that the world was nearing numerous climate tipping points, a report out Monday warns that one such "point of no return" has already been reached, with warm-water coral reefs "experiencing unprecedented dieback."
Surging global temperatures, especially in recent years, have pushed the world's coral reefs into a state of widespread decline, with the worst bleaching event on record taking place since 2023. More than 84% of the world's reefs have been impacted.
In the Global Tipping Points Report 2025 released Monday, the researchers warned that "the central estimate" of coral reefs' "tipping point of 1.2°C global warming has been crossed," with planetary heating now at about 1.4°C above preindustrial levels.
The warming waters have caused widespread bleaching of coral reefs, which impacts the nearly a million species of marine animals and organisms that rely on them to support some of the planet's most diverse ecosystems.
“Unless we return to global mean surface temperatures of 1.2°C (and eventually to at least 1°C) as fast as possible, we will not retain warm-water reefs on our planet at any meaningful scale,” the report says. Minimizing non-climatic stressors, particularly improved reef management, can give reefs the best chance of surviving under what must be a minimal exceedance of their thermal tipping point."
The decline of coral reefs also leaves coastal communities without natural barriers against storm surge, compounds the overfishing crisis by depriving fish of a habitat in which to reproduce, and impacts thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in reef tourism each year.
"As we head into the COP30 climate negotiations it’s vital that all parties grasp the gravity of the situation."
"We can no longer talk about tipping points as a future risk,” Steve Smith, a social scientist at the University of Exeter and a lead author of the report, told Nature. “This is our new reality.”
The arrival of the tipping point necessitates immediate, significant reductions in fossil fuel emissions that are driving planetary heating in order to return to a global mean surface temperature of 1.2°C over preindustrial temperatures, but climate scientist Bill McGuire did not mince words Monday regarding the likelihood of mitigating the damage already done to coral reefs.
"We won't reduce temps to 1.2°C as soon as possible, so this is the death knell for most of the world's stupendous reef communities," said McGuire. "Other tipping points will follow."
The report notes that the world is still headed toward other climate tipping points, namely the "large-scale" degradation of the Amazon rainforest, which is projected to "weaken global climate regulation" and accelerate biodiversity loss; the melting of mountain glaciers like Áakʼw Tá Hít in Alaska; and for the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which regulates the climate by transporting warmer waters from the tropics to the northern Atlantic Ocean, whose likelihood of reaching a tipping point "increases with global temperature" rise.
Without rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, the Global Tipping Points report says, the upper threshold of global temperature rise for coral reefs of 1.5°C is likely to be reached within 10 years.
“We are going to overshoot 1.5°C of global warming probably around 2030 on current projections,” Tim Lenton of the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute told The Guardian.
Manjana Milkoreit, a co-author of the report and political scientist at the University of Oslo, told Nature that "we have the knowledge regarding how to stop the Earth from reaching more tipping points."gr
“What we need is a kind of governance that matches the nature of this challenge," she said.
The report also acknowledges "positive tipping points" that could have runaway impacts on the ability to rapidly draw down greenhouse gas emissions, such as the widespread adoption of regenerative agricultural practices and an acceleration in the transition toward electric vehicle and solar power use.
"Solar PV panels have dropped in price by a quarter for each doubling of their installed capacity. Batteries have improved in quality and plummeted in price the more that are deployed," reads the report. "This encourages further adoption. The spread of climate litigation cases and nature positive initiatives is also self-amplifying. The more people undertaking them the more they influence others to act."
Lenton told The Guardian that "the race is on to bring forward these positive tipping points to avoid what we are now sure will be the unmanageable consequences of further tipping points in the Earth system."
As Common Dreams reported last week, global progress toward transitioning away from fossil fuels and expanding the use of renewable energy is surging worldwide—but the US has been left out this year under President Donald Trump, with a major spending bill imposing new fees on solar and wind development and boosting drilling on public lands while the US Department of Energy is investing $625 million in coal.
The Global Tipping Points report was released four weeks before global leaders are set to meet in Belém, Brazil for the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30), where policymakers will be asked to contribute to a Granary of Solutions: "a reservoir of concrete tools and initiatives—scalable, replicable, and aligned with the Paris Agreement—that connect ambition with implementation" in order to trigger "positive tipping points of transformation leveraging solutions that already exist."
"As we head into the COP30 climate negotiations it’s vital that all parties grasp the gravity of the situation,” Mike Barrett, chief scientific adviser at the World Wide Fund for Nature in the UK and a co-author of the report, told Yale Environment 360. “Countries must show the political bravery and leadership to work together and achieve them.”
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