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We Shall Prevail: An Echo That Doesn't Die
More than 50 years after the murder of iconic Chilean folk singer Victor Jara, the last man convicted of killing him has been tracked down and brought to justice. In 1973, a day after Pinochet's coup, Jara was seized, tortured, his hands broken to silence what was deemed music "more powerful than a thousand machine guns." Today, in a world tilting right, he remains an enduring symbol of resistance. Manifiesto: “A song has meaning/ When it beats in the veins/ Of a man who will die singing.”
On Sept. 11, 1973, troops under brutal, U.S.- backed General Augusto Pinochet bombed and stormed the presidential palace in Santiago to depose Salvador Allende, a Chilean physician who'd become the first democratically elected Marxist head of state in Latin America. Barricaded inside the palace, Allende gave a final speech defending Chilean democracy. "My words do not have bitterness but disappointment.," he said. "May they be a moral punishment for those who have betrayed their oath." He thanked the country's workers, farmers, miners, women, intellectuals, students for their heartfelt loyalty to "a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice." "I will always be next to you," he said. "My sacrifice will not be in vain. History is ours." Then he shot himself under the chin with an assault rifle.
A Marxist activist and singer hugely popular with Allende supporters, Jara had re-written the 1969 song Venceremos - composed by Sergio Ortega with original text by Claudio Iturra - as an anthem for Allende’s 1970 Popular Unity election campaign. Born to a poor farm family, Jara was mestizo, a mix of Indigenous Mapuche and Spanish heritage. He once said his first memory was hearing his mother sing folk songs as she worked in their garden or kitchen; after she died when he was 15, Jara went to seminary school but eventually decided against the priesthood. After military service, he studied theater and music at university, then turned to writing songs that merged tender folk music with political themes - rural working-class stories, brutal evictions of squatters: "We began to create a new kind of song. It was music that was born out of necessity."
In September 1973, widely recognizable, he was seized by soldiers the day after the coup and taken to Estadio Chile, a Santiago stadium now named for him, where about 5,000 people were being held. For four days, he was beaten, tortured, humiliated. An officer threw a cigarette on the ground and made him crawl for it; others played Russian Roulette with him; eventually, they broke both his hands before parading him through the stadium; later, through split lips, he sang a final Venceremos - "We Will Prevail." On his last day, said a fellow detainee, he found a pen and notebook and scribbled one more song, or harsh poem, Estadio Chile, later smuggled out. Two hours later, he was killed, his body dumped near a cemetery. His body had 44 bullet wounds 56 broken bones, including a shattered skull. He was 40 years old.
The Pinochet dictatorship went on to kill or disappear over 3,000 people, and detain and torture up to 40,000 during its brutal 17-year reign. It ended in 1990 through a constitutional process wherein voters rejected extending its rule and elected a civilian president. After years of legal efforts to hold Pinochet accountable, in 1998 a Spanish judge issued an international arrest warrant for his human rights abuses; he was detained in the U.K during a medical visit after the House of Lords ruled he did not have immunity, but Britain ultimately released him back to Chile in 2000 for health reasons. There, Chilean judges pushed their Supreme Court to strip him of immunity to face trial for murders and kidnappings tied to military death squads, but he died under house arrest of a heart attack in 2006, age 91, having never been formally tried or convicted for his crimes.
Victor Jara, one of the regime's most beloved and recognizable victims, swiftly became an enduring international symbol of resistance after the deadly, public silencing of his music. In 2003, Estadio Chile was renamed Estadio Víctor Jara; in 2009, Victor’s body was reburied in a public funeral attended by thousands of mourners; today, an annual 1,000 Guitars event held in his honor at that stadium also draws thousands. Still, the moral arc of the universe moved slowly. Over time, Chilean courts convicted hundreds of military officers and secret police for human rights abuses, but it was not until 2018 that eight retired officers were charged with Jara's murder, and that of Allende's director of prisons Littré Quiroga Carvajal. In August 2023, after five years of appeals and 50 years of evading justice, Chile's Supreme Court convicted them all in a unanimous decision.
The Court sentenced the eight, several in absentia, to 15 years and a day for the murders of both men, and 10 years and a day for their kidnappings, for a total of 25 years. A ninth was given eight years for concealing the crimes. The Court also dismissed all their appeals for annulment, and ordered the state to pay large reparations to the families of both men. Of those sentenced, 86-year-old Gen. Hernán Chacón killed himself moments after police arrived to arrest him at his home in a wealthy district of Santiago. Another, Pedro Barrientos, had fled Chile for the US in 1989; he was extradited back in 2023 after he was arrested in the US during a traffic stop. During his trial, one former soldier testified Barrientos liked to brandish his pistol in a crowd and declare, “I killed Víctor Jara with this!"
Five others have been in jail since then. Only one, Nelson Haase Mazzei, had remained missing since he failed to appear in court in 2018. A retired colonel, Haase Mazzei joined the Chilean army’s notorious Tejas Verde brigade in 1972 and was part of Pinochet’s brutal secret police; he worked closely with its head, Manuel Contreras, sentenced to over 500 years in jail for crimes against humanity before his 2015 death. Last weekend, in likely the final act of a too-long quest for justice, Chilean police announced they'd arrested Haase Mazzei, now 80, in rural Puyehue, south of Santiago. A judge ordered his immediate imprisonment to start his 25 year sentence; one article noted, "Impunity Takes Another Hit." Another said his defense lawyer has requested his transfer to Punta Peuco, a ritzy jail already housing many of the Pinochet era's murderers.
Through the Víctor Jara Foundation, started by Victor's widow Joan, a British dancer and activist who died in 2023 at 96, their daughter Amanda said she welcomes the news of Haase's arrest but, "Half a century after the murders, it is difficult to see this as justice." Still, Jara's songs live on from when Allende, after he won the presidency, spoke before a banner reading, "You can’t have a revolution without songs." "They were on the radio and television," said Joan in 1975. “The song movement was a tremendous weapon." Since then, music has continued fighting the fear authoritarianism depends on, transforming "political grievance into a shared language of survival" - Miriam Makeba, Mikis Theodorakis, Pussy Riot, America's Woody Guthrie to Dylan to Bad Bunny, who launched his 2026 tour in Chile with Jara's song, dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, The Right to Live in Peace.
In 2020, James Dean Bradfield, lead vocalist and guitarist for the Welsh alt-rock band Manic Street Preachers, released Even in Exile, a concept album dedicated to Jara's life and work, along with a three-part podcast. Bradfield discovered Jara as a teen, taken aback by a tenderness he didn't associate with "one of the only truly Marxist musicians. The truth...floats to you like a dream.” He learned more about Jara from poet Patrick Jones, whose brother is Bradfield’s bandmate; Jones had found two compilations of Jara songs in a thrift shop, became "obsessed" and wrote dozens of poems about Jara that, shared with Bradfield, became the album's songs. For Jones, the story of Jara's life and death is "a warning from history" that deeply . resonates with today's rise of the right: "Power is always afraid of those who stand up and say, 'There’s another way.'"
For the album, Bradfield wanted songs that span Jara's life, from his rural childhood to his final hours. He was moved by his singing of Venceremos near the end - "He died defiantly, but with grace" - yet felt, "If you just focus on his death, you ignore the journey." Above all, he wanted to highlight Jara's daunting courage and conviction throughout his life, a "naked truth" that rendered him what Phil Ochs called, when he met Jara in 1971, "the real thing." For Bradfield, it reminded him of the Preachers' 1998 song, If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next. He also deliberately chose to include Jara's final Estadio Chile - "How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror/ Horror which I am living, horror which I am dying” - which he calls "an anthem that became a prophecy." Of Jara's life and work, he hears "the echo time and time again. I wanted to show here’s an echo that doesn’t die."
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Aug 01, 2026
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'Making a Killing, Literally and Figuratively': Big Oil Profits Set to Double Amid Deadly Heat
An analysis published Tuesday highlights how the world's top fossil fuel companies are expected to rake in nearly twice as much in second-quarter profits as they did during the first quarter of 2026, a windfall that comes as their polluting products help fuel extreme heat that kills hundreds of thousands of people around the world annually.
Oxfam International's analysis warns that the profits of the world’s six largest oil and gas companies are on track to skyrocket from $23 billion during the first quarter of the year to $45 billion in Q2 as emissions from their products intensify deadly heatwaves.
"Projected full-year profits of BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies amount to $147 billion, more than their combined profits over the previous 21 months (Q2 2024 to Q4 2025)," the report states. "Among the biggest winners, Chevron is expected to report that it has quadrupled its profits to $1,200 a second in the last three months, while ExxonMobil’s profits are expected to have tripled to $1,800 a second."
"Oil and gas corporations share an outsized responsibility for the climate crisis," the publication continues. "Emissions from BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies were sufficient to cause around 1 in 4 heatwaves reported globally between 2000 and 2023—heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without human-made climate change."
New Oxfam analysis finds that emissions from 5 major fossil fuel corporations were enough to cause 1 in 4 heatwaves between 2000 and 2023. Heatwaves that would have been virtually impossible without climate change.It’s time to #MakeRichPollutersPayMore: bit.ly/BigOilQ2prof...
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— Oxfam International (@oxfaminternational.bsky.social) July 28, 2026 at 12:00 AM
Conflicts like the US-Israeli war of choice on Iran and the ongoing Russian invasion and occupation of Ukraine, as well as Big Oil greed, are among the leading factors blamed for spiking fuel costs.
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that top US fossil fuel executives have sold nearly $400 million in their own companies' stock since Trump launched the Iran War on the last day of February.
“Fossil fuel corporations are making a killing, literally and figuratively," Mariana Paoli, Oxfam's climate policy lead, said in a statement Tuesday.
"As extreme heat, floods, and storms devastate communities across the world, the industry is preparing another bonanza of profits," she continued. "Families are paying the price three times over—through destroyed homes and harvests, through soaring energy prices, and through a cost-of-living crisis worsened by dependence on fossil fuels."
"Big Oil’s greed is incompatible with a livable planet, and unless governments rein it in, they will make a mockery of international climate targets,” Paoli added.
The report comes amid a summer of dangerous heat events in the United States, including prolonged “heat domes” that have pushed temperatures to life-threatening levels and contributed to at least dozens of deaths, as well as more record heatwaves in Europe that have left thousands dead and fueled massive wildfires.
"Yet rather than scaling back fossil fuel production and accelerating the transition to renewable energy, the six largest fossil fuel corporations plan to increase oil and gas production by 14% by 2030 compared to 2024 levels, equivalent to pumping an additional 2.5 million barrels of oil a day," Oxfam noted.
Paoli said Tuesday that "while Big Oil fuels extreme weather events, rich countries are refusing to increase the public climate finance that poorer countries urgently need to cope with the climate crisis."
“Until governments make the richest polluters pay, fossil fuel corporations will keep driving us deeper into climate chaos," she added. "Taxing the richest polluters could help close the gap in funding for climate adaptation and speed the transition towards renewable energy. Fossil fuel corporations must feel the heat, not us."
Oxfam contends that the "rich polluter profit tax" it has modeled could raise as much as $400 billion globally in its first year based on 2024 figures, compared with the estimated $290 billion to $1 trillion needed annually by 2030 to compensate for the loss and damage caused by climate change in the Global South. Unlike one-off windfall profits taxes, the rich polluter profit tax would be permanent.
"We are facing a climate emergency, therefore governments should each impose this tax swiftly," Oxfam said last month. "Countries across all continents should form a ‘coalition of the willing’ to coordinate and speed up their efforts and counter fossil fuel company lobbying and tax avoidance."
The Oxfam analysis follows the release earlier this month of a World Health Organization (WHO) report showing nearly 500,000 annual heat-related deaths worldwide in the years 2000-19—a figure expected to grow as extreme temperatures driven by the climate emergency become the new normal.
"Mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions is imperative and urgent to limit the magnitude of human costs from extreme heat," WHO said.
Jul 28, 2026
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'Every Single Thing He Says Here Is a Lie': Trump Adviser Claims Data Centers Are 'Good for Towns'
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on Friday drew sharp criticism after he claimed that energy-devouring artificial intelligence data centers are "good for towns" across the US.
During an appearance on Fox Business, Hassett made the case that Americans should welcome data centers into their communities because they would supposedly deliver real economic benefits.
"Data centers are very good for towns, because they create so many jobs and bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses and stuff like that," said Hassett. "So if you take a sleepy town that hasn't seen much in the last 20, 30 years and put a data center there, there are gonna be a whole bunch of happy residents in that town."
Hassett: "Data centers are very good for towns, because they create so many jobs and bring people in with high incomes that can buy houses and stuff like that. So if you take a sleepy town that hasn't seen much in the last 30 years and put a data center there, there are gonna be… pic.twitter.com/K1gymIK2Bw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 31, 2026
A March Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans were opposed to building AI data centers in their local areas, with 48% registering strong opposition.
In the poll, many Americans cited concerns about data centers' uses of local water and electricity resources as their primary reason for opposition, as well as general concerns about their impact on the environment and the local quality of life.
Additionally, data centers have not proven to be a significant source of job creation in communities where they are built because their systems are so automated that they require very little staff to maintain.
Trump administration critics were quick to slam Hassett for peddling such outright falsehoods about data centers.
"Every single thing he says here is a lie," remarked Ben Collins, CEO of the satirical news website The Onion. "A Potemkin Village Imaginarium."
Jeffrey Vagle, professor at the Georgia State University College of Law, similarly saw little connection between Hassett's description of data centers and reality.
"Has Hassett ever been inside a data center?" Vagle asked. "He should do so then put together an employee per square foot analysis to compare with other businesses. Data centers are largely automated, operating with very few actual employees, none of them executives."
Vagle's analysis was echoed by journalist Philip Bump, who wondered "what high-paying long-term jobs do they pretend exist" when AI data centers move in.
"A data center isn't a place where execs come and do Big Deals," Bump explained. "Go to the server room at your workplace; are there lots of rich people in there spending money?"
Democratic pollster Stephen Clermont sarcastically encouraged Hassett to speak more about the purported virtues of data centers.
"The White House needs to keep with this messaging and keep using Hassett as a surrogate," Clermont wrote. "The Forgotten Man will be forgotten no more in the data center utopia."
Liberal Fox News personality Jessica Tarlov similarly argued that Hassett's happy talk about data centers could be good for Democrats.
"Take the opening Democrats!" she wrote. "Americans hate data centers. The utility bills. The noise. The pollution."
Glenn Elliott, former Democratic US Senate candidate in West Virginia, argued Hassett's pitch for data centers showed what the Trump administration really thinks of its core voting base.
"The disdain this administration has for the very people living in rural America who helped bring it to power is staggering," Elliott wrote.
Jul 31, 2026
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'So It Begins': Trump's Medicaid Work Requirements—as Designed—Wreak Havoc and Pain
A growing chorus of Democratic lawmakers, policy experts, and advocacy organizations is calling on the Trump administration to immediately rescind a rule imposing more strict work reporting requirements on Medicaid recipients, a demand that came as Nebraska began kicking people off the healthcare program for not complying with the new mandates.
Under the expanded requirements, which were established by a 2025 Republican budget package that President Donald Trump signed into law, certain Medicaid recipients must document at least 80 hours per month of work or another qualifying activity to continue receiving assistance. In a statement late last week, Families USA executive director Anthony Wright warned that "these new paperwork requirements will push patients off coverage—not because they aren’t working or not eligible, but because of bureaucratic burdens."
Wright noted that under new rules stemming from the 2025 GOP budget law, even people with terminal cancer and other serious illnesses aren't necessarily exempt from the work reporting requirements, which apply to people between the ages of 19 and 64 who don't have a disability and aren't pregnant, in states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
"The requirement that a patient doesn’t just need to have cancer or another condition but must produce the equivalent of a doctor’s note with a finding that the conditions leave them unable to work," said Wright, "is nowhere in the underlying statute, and unworkable."
A pair of Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ), similarly warned in a letter late last week that the Trump administration's implementation of the new work requirements "transforms Medicaid from a healthcare program into a bureaucratic maze that will fail eligible Americans, by design."
"It will strip coverage from people not because they are not already working or refuse to work, but because they cannot navigate a complex web of forms, passwords, and deadlines," the lawmakers wrote. "Implementing ineffective, exclusionary work reporting requirements will create costly administrative barriers and deny Americans access to health care, resulting in poorer health, higher mortality, and reduced financial security."
Wyden and Pallone urged the Trump administration to withdraw what the lawmakers described as a "disenrollment scheme" as Nebraska became the first in the US to disenroll Medicaid recipients for failing to comply with the reporting mandates.
The advocacy group Nebraska Appleseed has warned that the work requirements could put 40,000 Nebraskans at risk of losing Medicaid coverage. The requirements took effect in Nebraska on May 1—eight months ahead of schedule—and the state began disenrolling people for purported noncompliance on August 1.
In a blog post published last week, Nebraska Appleseed observed that the three months between the start of the work requirements and the first round of disenrollments was marked by "mass confusion," with Medicaid recipients experiencing "long call center waits, inoperable language lines, understaffed and undertrained caseworkers, policy questions gone long-unanswered, and the lack of public state data."
Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, pointed with alarm to local reporting about the early impacts of the work reporting mandates in Nebraska.
"So it begins," Alker wrote in a social media post on Monday. "Pregnant woman disenrolled by mistake. Long waits to get through to the call center for help. No clarity on the rules. Medicaid work reporting requirements don’t work."
Aug 03, 2026
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Critics Warn US Bilateral Health Deals With African Nations Threaten Pandemic Equity Efforts
US Department of State text messages detailing health agreements between the Trump administration and African nations have sparked fresh alarm among public health advocates, who warn that the coercive deals could allow the United States to secure access to virus samples and valuable data while failing to guarantee that countries providing them will receive vaccines, treatments, and other benefits in return.
Public Citizen said Thursday that it had analyzed documents concerning the Trump administration's terms for sharing pathogen data in health agreements with African nations. The consumer advocacy group described these terms as "unfair" and said that they threaten "to undermine the core equity bargain of the [World Health Organization's] Pandemic Agreement negotiations."
The conditions of the proposed deals, said Public Citizen, "would require African states to share viral samples and pathogen information with the US and allow the US to share that information with drugmakers, but provide no credible expectation of benefits in return or access to medical tools developed from those samples."
"This undercuts the federated proposal for viral sharing with access benefits put forward this month at WHO negotiations by the Africa+ Group, which includes all countries for which bilateral specimen agreements are available," Public Citizen added.
At the center of the controversy are agreements that tie US health assistance—which has been eviscerated by the Trump administration with widespread deadly consequences—to commitments involving disease surveillance, data sharing, and, in some cases, the exchange of pathogen samples.
Supporters argue the deals strengthen America's ability to detect and respond to emerging infectious diseases while providing partner countries with much-needed funding after devastating cuts to US aid. Public health advocates, however, contend the agreements shift power away from multilateral institutions and toward one-on-one negotiations in which lower-income countries have less leverage against the world's wealthiest and most powerful nation.
As Common Dreams reported last month, President Donald Trump's so-called “America First” approach to global health strategy is characterized by transactional agreements with African governments to restore some funding. Human rights advocates have raised concerns about the possibly coercive nature of this strategy.
“Trump is exploiting African states’ urgent need to restore lifesaving health aid and pushing them to give up a shot at real lifesaving medical access and equity, for which so many people have worked, bled, and died,” Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines program, said Thursday in a statement. "African states at WHO have led the way in efforts to secure a fair deal and cooperation to fight pandemics, but individually, these states are vulnerable to Trump’s threats.”
Jul 30, 2026
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IDF Closes Investigation Into Brutal 2023 Settler Attack on Palestinians Without Charges
As the Israeli government faces increasing scrutiny for its enabling of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the Israel Defense Forces has reportedly closed an investigation into one of the most brutal assaults documented in recent memory. Nobody has been charged.
Haaretz reported on Friday that the Military Advocate General’s Office has closed its investigation into an incident from October 12, 2023, in which about two dozen armed settlers attacked the village of Wadi as-Seeq, about 10 miles east of Ramallah, where most residents had been driven out by violence by a nearby Israeli outpost.
Three Palestinian men who'd remained in the village to help evacuate the local Bedouin community were detained by the gang of Israelis, who they said tortured them for hours, stripping them naked, beating them, urinating on them, burning them with cigarettes, and sexually abusing them.
Several Israeli peace activists also said they were attacked during the incident and corroborated much of the testimony of the Palestinian victims.
A photo of the three men stripped, bound, and blindfolded quickly made international headlines and drew condemnation from human rights organizations and even some pro-Israel groups like the US-based Israel Policy Forum, which called the reports "sickening and inexcusable."
The military prosecutor's office apparently found it very excusable. According to Haaretz:
The Military Advocate General's Office decided that the evidence collected did not establish the involvement of specific soldiers to the standard required for criminal prosecution.
The decision was made even though, following the initial publication, several soldiers who were present at the scene—including the unit's commander—were dismissed.
The soldiers were from the IDF Desert Frontier unit, a unit that recruits "hilltop youth," radical and often violent settler youths from illegal West Bank outposts. Some of the victims said that settlers also took part in the assault alongside the soldiers.
The dismissal of the case comes amid what the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) described as "an unprecedented surge in settler-related violence" this year, particularly this summer. June saw a record 460 settler-related attacks, and the trend has continued into July, with 360 documented incidents between July 1-24.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned on Wednesday that settler violence was at an "all-time high," noting that 18 Palestinians have been killed so far this year in incidents linked to settler attacks, more than the 17 who were killed all of last year.
The Israeli government, meanwhile, approved over $430 million to establish 34 new settlements in the West Bank earlier this year.
"The increase is part of a broader upward trend in settler violence that has been developing since 2023 but has accelerated significantly in 2026," said Nasser Khdour, Middle East Assistant Research Manager at ACLED. "Recorded incidents include attacks on Palestinians and their property, land seizures, looting activities, uprooting trees, grazing on Palestinian land, and clashes with Palestinians."
As The Times of Israel noted on Friday: "Israel has largely failed to crack down on such attacks, with arrests rare, indictments even rarer, and convictions almost unheard of. The current government has been accused of turning a blind eye to the phenomenon or even tacitly supporting it."
Members of the IDF have often been documented either directly participating in the violence or providing protection to settlers who are.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed during a CNN interview that his government was working hard to bring violent settlers to justice and conducting "real investigations."
But he also minimized the problem of settler violence that has become rampant, boiling it down to about “150 or so juvenile delinquents" causing mayhem while stating that they don't represent the broader settler community.
There have been no reported charges coming from this month's deadly attacks, which have resulted in the deaths of at least eight Palestinians and many more injuries, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
A Guardian analysis on July 21 found that Israel has not once prosecuted any of its citizens for killing a Palestinian in the West Bank at any point this decade.
Jul 31, 2026
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Gaza Holds Mass Funeral for 112 Palestinians Slaughtered by Israel in 2023
"O nation, why are children getting killed in Gaza? Why are women getting killed in Gaza?" asked a Civil Defense spokesperson at the service. "Why are massacres committed against innocents in Gaza?"
Aug 04, 2026
Palestinians on Tuesday held a mass funeral in the Gaza Strip for more than 100 people killed in a 2023 Israeli attack as the local Ministry of Health's confirmed death toll for Israel's genocidal assault climbed to at least 73,377.
Since Israel launched its war on Gaza after the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack, experts have warned the true toll could be much higher, with an unknown number of remains trapped beneath the ruins of the besieged territory.
Tuesday's funeral in Gaza City was for 112 people, including 40 children, who were among the over 300 killed in a November 22, 2023 Israeli attack on the Sabra neighborhood, in which "warplanes flattened a residential block," according to The Associated Press.
For the funeral, the bodies were wrapped in Palestinian flags, with photos of the dead attached.
As CBS News detailed:
One mourner showered flower petals over the covered bodies of the Hassayna and Abu Sharia clan as women and children watched from atop partly demolished buildings around the earthen square. A banner with the faces of dozens of children served as the backdrop of a speech from the spokesperson of Gaza's Civil Defense.
"O nation, why are children getting killed in Gaza? Why are women getting killed in Gaza?" asked Mahmoud Basal at the service. "Why are massacres committed against innocents in Gaza?"
The words "Stop the genocide in Gaza," in both Arabic and English, had been scrawled on the podium he spoke from.
Mourners also held signs with messages in both languages. One said in English, "Children of Gaza have the right to live."
Gaza's Civil Defense said that while these remains were found in wrecked buildings in the area, as part of a search operation launched nearly two weeks ago that involved 136 hours of "arduous" work, at least 157 others are still missing.
Given the limited equipment in Gaza, despite months of a supposed ceasefire, "the crews were digging with their hands through masses of reinforced concrete," said Mohammed Abu Dan, who supervised the operation, according to Reuters.
"Many bodies disintegrated and evaporated because of the intensity of the explosion," he explained.
After the funeral prayers, one relative, Taysir al-Hassayna, told the AP, "The only crime of these martyrs was that they remained steadfast and resilient in their homes, believing that these homes would protect them."
For those who haven't been found, al-Hassayna added, it's "as if their bodies had evaporated without a trace."
Al Jazeera reported that surviving relatives used the funeral "to renew accusations that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza and demanded international investigations into the attack and the hundreds of bodies still believed to be buried under rubble across the territory."
The International Criminal Court in November 2024 issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, citing alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes, and Israel faces a genocide case led by South Africa at the International Court of Justice.
The latter tribunal has directed Israel to "take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations" of violations of the Genocide Convention, but a report published Monday details how Israeli soldiers and civilian contractors are systematically removing potential proof from Gaza.
Specifically, the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that at least 10 million tons of rubble "have been removed, crushed, or moved from their original sites within the areas under Israel's unlawful military control, which encompass about 66% of the Gaza Strip."
Meanwhile, as Common Dreams reported earlier Tuesday, US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace for Gaza appears to be going back on the disarmament deal it reached last week with Hamas, potentially jeopardizing the entire process—a development that didn't surprise Tariq Kenney-Shawa, the associate director of editorial for the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
"The Board of Peace is just the administrative and fundraising arm of Israel's occupation of Gaza," he said. "It exists to facilitate Gaza's ethnic cleansing and concentration camps in a way that is palatable and profitable for the international community."
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Ellison Takeover of CBS ‘Unquestionably Aided’ White House Epstein Cover-Up: Democratic Senator
Wyden's claims about CBS came on the same day its parent company's CEO, David Ellison, defended the proposed megamerger between Paramount and Warner Bros.
Aug 04, 2026
Sen. Ron Wyden on Tuesday charged that the takeover of CBS by David Ellison, the son of right-wing billionaire Larry Ellison, helped President Donald Trump's White House cover up information about the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Wyden's (D-Ore.) claims about CBS came on the same day his office released a report alleging that top Wall Street banks "looked the other way and allowed Epstein to have ready access to the mountains of cash he used to lure, harbor, and transport his victims."
In a social media post, Wyden revealed that he was interviewed several months ago by former "60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, where he presented evidence his office had gathered about big banks' role in facilitating Epstein's illicit activities.
The interview never aired, Wyden said, because CBS "subsequently... pulled the segment and fired the reporter."
Wyden added that "the MAGA buyout of media has unquestionably aided the Trump administration’s cover up here."
David Ellison, whose father was a megadonor to Trump's 2024 campaign, assumed control of CBS last year after his media company Skydance merged with Paramount, the network's parent company.
Shortly afterward, Ellison hired right-wing commentator Bari Weiss to serve as CBS News' editor-in-chief, and she has since gone on a firing spree of several longtime "60 Minutes" producers and journalists, including Alfonsi, Scott Pelley, Tanya Simon, and Cecelia Vega.
The Paramount CEO's ambitions for controlling media properties extend well beyond CBS, as his company is currently in the process of acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of both CNN and HBO.
A federal judge last month paused the $110 billion megamerger between Paramount and Warner Bros., citing “compelling evidence that the combined firm resulting from the transaction will possess substantial market share in the wide-release theatrical distribution market,” making it “likely to violate antitrust laws.”
The New York Times on Tuesday published an editorial by Ellison in which he defended the merger and insisted that he could be trusted as a good steward of CNN, vowing to give its news team "independence."
"Our journalists will continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve—not to any party or cause," Ellison wrote. "These were founding principles for both CNN and CBS News, for legends like Ted Turner and Edward R. Murrow, and it is exactly that kind of independence that has always fueled the greatness of '60 Minutes.'"
However, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter noted in a Tuesday news analysis that Ellison's Times op-ed made no mention about "upheaval" that Weiss has caused at CBS News, which has led to a decline in ratings at both the network's evening news program and its morning show.
"His first year owning CBS News has been defined by ratings struggles, shakeups, and controversies, mostly stemming from his appointment of Weiss as editor-in-chief," Stelter explained. "I don't hear anyone making the case that CBS News has earned back a whole lot of trust... Ellison's op-ed sidesteps the debate altogether."
Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta similarly expressed skepticism of Ellison's claims in a social media post.
"Ellison appointed Bari Weiss to run CBS News and look at the damage done there," Acosta wrote. "Stands to reason he’ll do the same at CNN. Watch what they do. Not what they say or write."
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Board of Peace ‘Betraying the Very Agreement They Just Made' by Accepting Israel’s Refusal to Withdraw Troops in Gaza
"This tweet is Netanyahu’s way of sabotaging the agreement," said one analyst.
Aug 04, 2026
US President Donald Trump's Gaza Board of Peace appears to be going back on the disarmament deal it reached last week with Hamas in order to meet Israel's demands, and it may throw the entire process into jeopardy.
A roadmap agreed to last week, which Trump touted as a massive diplomatic breakthrough, stated that Hamas would begin to decommission its arms in tandem with Israel halting its attacks and withdrawing its forces to the so-called "yellow line" agreed to during the first phase of the ceasefire in October 2025.
In the ten months since the deal, Israel has been gradually advancing its forces deeper into Gaza beyond the ceasefire line to the point where it now controls around 60-70% of Gaza, while its more than 2 million inhabitants are crammed into an area that has largely been reduced to rubble.
Last week's peace roadmap said explicitly that the gradual decommissioning of Hamas' heavy weapons, arms depots, production facilities, and tunnels "shall be linked to an Israeli withdrawal, in phases." Trump echoed this last week, stating that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would withdraw as disarmament proceeds.
Though Trump claimed Israel was "very happy" with the deal, its leaders have spent days crying foul, stating that withdrawal would only occur after Hamas completely disarms. Meanwhile, Hamas said it would only go along with the disarmament if Israel withdraws at the same time.
In defiance of the agreement's language calling to honor ceasefire commitments "without delay," Israel launched attacks across Gaza on Sunday that killed at least 18 Palestinians, the largest daily toll in weeks. Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet, told Israel's Army Radio that there was no deal for it to halt attacks on Gaza.
The strategy appears to have worked. Following meetings between Netanyahu and the Board of Peace Gaza envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, on Monday, the board released a statement posted to social media that essentially rewrote the original agreement to match Israel's demands and claimed it had been part of the agreement from the start.
"Contrary to inaccurate reports, we note that the withdrawal of the IDF beyond the Yellow Line will take place only once decommissioning is complete, as Hamas committed to the mediators," the board said. "This applies to light weapons, heavy weapons, and the tunnels alike."
Hamas responded by reiterating that it and other armed factions in Gaza “remain committed to what was agreed regarding the implementation of the second phase of the ceasefire agreement, including all parties’ obligations,” and called for “a clear and official response” from Mladenov regarding what was agreed upon.
The new statement from the Board of Peace directly contradicted Mladenov's flat statement on Thursday that "withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning."
Muhammad Shehada, a political analyst from Gaza at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that the Board of Peace was "betraying the very agreement they just made" and "taking Netanyahu’s side fully."
"The roadmap explicitly said withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning," he wrote on social media. "It never said withdrawal would happen only after decommissioning is fully completed."
"The roadmap made a distinction between 'heavy weapons' (e.g. tunnels, rockets, RPGs) and 'personal/light weapons,' and allowed Palestinian factions to retain light weapons for protection in case Israel reneges," he added. "Including light weapons now in this tweet is Netanyahu’s way of sabotaging the agreement."
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, the associate director of editorial for the Institute for Middle East Understanding, said the Board of Peace's abrupt reversal "shouldn’t surprise anyone."
"The Board of Peace is just the administrative and fundraising arm of Israel’s occupation of Gaza," he said. "It exists to facilitate Gaza’s ethnic cleansing and concentration camps in a way that is palatable and profitable for the international community."
Since the so-called “ceasefire” went into effect last October following two years of genocidal war, Israeli attacks have killed more than 1,200 Palestinians, bringing the official death toll above 73,000. Experts warn the true number of Palestinians who have been killed since Israel began its attacks in October 2023 is likely far higher.
July was the deadliest month for Palestinians this year, with more than 150 Palestinians killed. Israeli leaders have discussed fully "conquering" the strip, controlling it indefinitely, and moving in illegal Israeli settlers.
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AIPAC’s 2026 Spending Tops $100 Million—Including $30 Million Against El-Sayed in Michigan
AIPAC has spent at least $104.3 million during the 2026 election cycle—a figure that's "likely to swell before the midterms are through," notes a new analysis.
Aug 04, 2026
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization widely known as AIPAC, has poured more than $100 million into the 2026 midterm elections, with around $30 million dedicated to defeating progressive epidemiologist Abdul El-Sayed in Tuesday's Democratic US Senate primary in Michigan.
The $30.6 million that AIPAC's political action committee and super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), have spent on the Michigan contest is the most money the organization has ever devoted to a single race, according to an analysis published Monday by Sludge. El-Sayed and his supporters have repeatedly called out his opponent, US Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), for benefiting heavily from AIPAC cash.
"The Michigan Senate primary is a fight as to whether billionaires and their super PACs will continue to control American politics, or whether we can have a government that represents working families," US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is supporting El-Sayed, wrote in a social media post on Monday. "Let’s elect Abdul El-Sayed."
More broadly, AIPAC has spent at least $104.3 million during the 2026 election cycle—a figure that's "likely to swell before the midterms are through," Sludge noted. The investigative outlet observed that AIPAC's super PAC—whose ads often include no mention of Israel—had $80 million of cash on hand as of the end of June.
The $104.3 million total does not include spending by super PACs quietly bankrolled by AIPAC. The American Prospect reported earlier this summer that AIPAC has been "routing campaign cash through anodyne-sounding pop-up shell PACs like 'Elect Chicago Women' or 'Affordable Chicago Now,' which received $5.3 million from United Democracy Project back in February for four races in Illinois, which resulted in two wins and two losses."
In addition to spending big to defeat El-Sayed in Michigan, AIPAC is backing incumbent US Rep. Wesley Bell against progressive challenger Cori Bush in Tuesday's Democratic primary race for Missouri's 1st Congressional District. Bell unseated Bush in the district's 2024 Democratic primary with the help of millions of dollars in AIPAC spending.
AIPAC's super PAC pumped more than $3 million into the Missouri primary last month, The Intercept's Akela Lacy reported over the weekend.
"One thing Bell does not have is Bush’s grassroots army," Lacy added. "Though he’s far outraised Bush and has outside spending in his corner, Bush is buoyed by organizers with the St. Louis chapter of Democratic Socialists of America... After being saturated with negative ads and mail from AIPAC and other groups that spent on the 2024 primary, St. Louis residents are slightly more prepared this time around, said organizers backing Bush’s campaign."
US Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), who is facing progressive challenger Donavan McKinney on Tuesday, has also received significant campaign funding from AIPAC.
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‘They Are Murder Victims,’ Sen. Tim Kaine Says of People Killed by Trump Boat Strikes
"I urge you to halt this illegal, costly, and ineffective operation."
Aug 04, 2026
Sen. Tim Kaine on Monday accused the Trump administration of committing murder with its campaign of military strikes against purported drug trafficking vessels, which has killed at least 221 people since its launch in September 2025.
In a letter sent to President Donald Trump, Kaine (D-Va.) said that he reviewed classified notifications sent to Congress related to the boat strike campaign and concluded that the US "is engaged in violent and fatal attacks against people far beyond those" whom the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) said would be legitimate military targets.
Kaine didn't go into detail about the OLC's classified legal opinion justifying the strikes, but he said the evidence he has gathered suggests the US "has killed individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking."
"They are murder victims," Kaine emphasized.
Kaine also pointed to a recent analysis conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration, first reported on by The Washington Post last month, which found that the boat strike campaign "has had no effect on the flow of illegal drugs into the United States."
Kaine concluded his letter by urging Trump to "closely examine the circumstances of these strikes, to ensure that you are personally aware of the extent to which the leadership of the Department of Defense has exceeded your July 2025 directive, incurring massive expense and operating with dubious legality, and with no progress towards your stated objective."
"And once you have done so," Kaine added, "I urge you to halt this illegal, costly, and ineffective operation."
Despite Kaine's warnings, there is little sign that the administration is rethinking its boat strike campaign.
US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) on Monday announced the formation of the Joint Task Force Western Hemisphere, a new command structure aimed specifically at combating international drug cartels.
Journalist Juan Esteban Silva described the announcement of the task force as "major shift" in US security strategy that is putting "Colombia and Venezuela... at the center of the conversation."
An analysis published by The Diplomatic Insight on Tuesday said the SOUTHCOM announcement "aligns with Trump administration’s anti-narcotics campaign under a permanent command structure with expanded geographic reach, part of what the administration has described as a 'maximum pressure' policy against transnational criminal networks in the hemisphere."
The analysis also noted that the new command structure replaces Joint Task Force Southern Spear, which has been responsible for carrying out boat strike operations in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean.
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'Words Are Not Enough': Senate Democrats Say Trump Must Take Action to Prevent More Mass Atrocities in Sudan
The US, said a group of senators led by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, must suspend weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates, which arms the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan.
Aug 04, 2026
Writing to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Monday led 20 members of the Democratic Caucus in demanding that the Trump administration go beyond simply denouncing the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary group in Sudan that has been accused of war crimes in the country's civil war, and take "concrete action" to stop more mass atrocities as the group encircles the city of El Obeid.
"These actions should include ceasing certain US arms sales to external actors that are fueling this war, including the United Arab Emirates, which continues to arm the RSF," wrote the senators, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
The lawmakers wrote to Rubio as an estimated 500,000 civilians were at risk in El Obeid, where many people have sought safety following RSF attacks across the Kordofan region.
The letter came as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said civilians are facing drone attacks in El Obeid, with humanitarian assistance also put at risk by the assault.
A number of the signatories, including Van Hollen and Sanders, have previously called on the Trump administration to end its complicity in RSF attacks like those that occurred in El Fasher last October, which United Nations investigators said bore the "hallmarks of genocide" after the group killed more than 6,000 civilians in the first three days of its offensive in the besieged city.
The senators described attacks like those on El-Saudi Hospital in El Fasher, where RSF forces "proceeded to search the wards and killing those they found, including patients, accompanying persons and medical personnel," killing an estimated 460 people before pursuing civilians who tried to escape.
Reports described "the perpetrators chasing people in open fields, firing at them with automatic rifles and mounted submachine guns, and running over fleeing persons with vehicles, causing mass casualties," the senators wrote.
More than 14 million people have also been forcibly displaced by the civil war.
But the scale of atrocities would likely not have been possible without the RSF's support from the UAE, for which the Trump administration fast-tracked a weapons sale in May after having provided the country with $7 billion in weapons just two months earlier.
Also in May, said the senators, Human Rights Watch released a report showing that the UAE trained hundreds of Colombian mercenaries who then took part in the atrocities in El Fasher and trained RSF recruits, including child soldiers.
Now, they wrote, the RSF's "encirclement and systematic crippling of resources in El Obeid increasingly parallels El Fasher, and this administration must use its leverage and influence to prevent a repeat of El Fasher’s horrors in El Obeid before it is too late."
They pointed out that the administration has acknowledged that further "mass atrocities could be imminent” in Sudan, as a State Department spokesperson said on June 22. In November 2025, Rubio himself said that the RSF was "clearly receiving assistance from outside" and that “something needs to be done to cut off the weapons and the support the RSF is getting as they continue their advances.”
Despite those acknowledgments, said the senators, the Trump administration has shown a "grave failure to act despite the chorus of alarm bells."
"What occurred in El Fasher is a stark warning of what could unfold in El Obeid and across Sudan if this administration—and the international community—continues this current pattern of inaction," wrote Van Hollen and his colleagues.
"While we welcome the State Department’s expression of concern about the escalating situation in El Obeid, words are not enough," they said. "The United States must use the leverage and influence at our disposal to prevent further atrocities in El Obeid and help bring this brutal war in Sudan to an end."
The senators called for a response to their letter by August 17, urging the administration to provide "an update on what other actions the administration is taking, beyond just words, to prevent mass atrocities in El Obeid."
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'Recipe for Catastrophe': Trump Moves to Weaken Arctic Drilling Safeguards
"We should be banning drilling in the Arctic Ocean, not making it easier for industry to exploit and pollute."
Aug 04, 2026
The Trump administration on Monday proposed weakening Obama-era safeguards for fossil fuel drilling in the Arctic Outer Continental Shelf, a move condemned by environmental groups as another industry handout that would make disastrous oil spills more likely.
The US Interior Department characterized the proposed changes, which will face a 90-day public comment period, as "targeted revisions" aimed at reducing "unnecessary regulatory burdens" that are limiting resource extraction off Alaska's coast. The new proposal, according to the agency, "would update requirements related to blowout preventer real-time monitoring, Arctic source control and containment equipment, relief rig capability, subsea isolation devices, mudline cellars, oil spill response plan-holder reviews, crane operations on artificial islands, and suspensions of operations and production."
The Trump administration unveiled the proposal as it pushed for a massive expansion of offshore drilling, even as the climate impacts of fossil fuel extraction continued to intensify across the US and worldwide. Joseph Gordon, campaign manager at Oceana, called the combination of expanded drilling and weakened safety standards "a recipe for catastrophe."
"This attempted rollback would make it even harder to prevent oil spills or tackle the horrors that inevitably follow in the remote and fragile Arctic," said Gordon. "Giving oil companies a pass on safety measures like blowout preventers would set a dangerous precedent that will put Alaska's waters, wildlife, and people at risk."
Cooper Freeman, Alaska director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that "weakening rules for Arctic Ocean drilling is a truly terrible idea that threatens coastal communities and wildlife like bowhead whales and polar bears."
"Arctic oil drilling is one of the most dangerous extractive activities out there, and cleaning up a spill would be nearly impossible," Freeman added. "Stronger safeguards for Arctic offshore drilling came on the heels of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, where we learned that just one mishap can cause a catastrophe."
President Donald Trump, whose 2024 campaign was boosted by fossil fuel industry donations, began targeting Alaska drilling regulations on the first day of his second White House term, signing an executive order attacking "punitive restrictions implemented by the previous administration that specifically target resource development on both state and federal lands in Alaska."
In November, the Interior Department—led by Big Oil ally Doug Burgum—released a drilling plan targeting "every available offshore area in Alaska, including the High Arctic, which stretches 200 miles into the Arctic Ocean, with over 20 lease sales through 2031."
"We should be banning drilling in the Arctic Ocean, not making it easier for industry to exploit and pollute," Freeman said Monday.
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Mother Says ICE 'Negligence' Killed Second Man to Die at Notorious NJ Lockup
"I don't want my son's death to go unanswered. If justice isn't served, they'll just keep doing this, and there's no telling how many more people in this country we might lose."
Aug 04, 2026
The mother of a man who became the second immigrant held at the notorious Delaney Hall US Immigration and Customs Enforcement lockup in Newark, New Jersey to die in ICE custody said Monday that she believes her son's death was the result of medical negligence.
Longtime Plainfield resident Edwin Jovanny López Cornejo, a 41-year-old Salvadoran national who had reportedly entered the United States as a child, died Saturday at University Hospital. He had a 12-year-old daughter.
According to ICE, López Cornejo "experienced a medical emergency," and staff at Delaney Hall—which is run by prison profiteer GEO Group—"responded immediately and called 911 for emergency medical services."
However, in a video interview posted on Facebook by the immigrant justice group Movimiento Cosecha, López Cornejo's mother, María Cornejo said that her son had been prescribed medication for diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizures, and that she suspects that staff at Delaney Hall may not have given him his medicines during the six weeks he was held there.
Cornejo said Lopéz Cornejo called her the night before his death and said that something was wrong.
“He said his right hand and face were numb," she said. "He told me he was going to be examined, but I don’t know if he actually received care. I also don’t know if he was being given his medication.”
According to Cornejo, University Hospital informed her of her son's death, saying he arrived at the facility lifeless.
Congressman Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said ICE told him that López Cornejo was administered CPR during some of the 37 minutes it took for first responders to arrive.
"That is one of the reasons that I believe caused the death of my son, the negligence—that he wasn't given his medication that he had to take," Cornejo told Movimiento Cosecha.
ICE said that "while in custody, López Cornejo received proper medical care and was seen by medical professionals."
Numerous Democratic politicians from New Jersey and beyond called for the immediate closure of Delaney Hall, which has become a symbol of broader concerns about President Donald Trump's deadly anti-immigrant crackdown, detention in what some critics call concentration camps, aggressive enforcement, and prison profiteering.
Among them was recently elected progressive Congresswoman Analilia Mejia, who represents the district adjacent to the one in which Delaney Hall is located.
"My gravest concerns about conditions for medically vulnerable people at Delaney Hall are now confirmed," she wrote in a statement.
"Under these conditions, medically vulnerable people are being given death sentences due to the lack of care."
"This is not the first life we’ve lost inside that facility," Mejia continued, referring to Haitian national Jean Wilson Brutus, also 41, who collapsed and died there in December of what a medical examiner said was a lung blockage.
New Jersey’s own health inspectors have been denied full access, including the medical unit, again and again. If there’s nothing to hide, there’s no reason to keep them out," Mejia said.
"DHS must carry out a full, independent investigation," she demanded. "This family, and New Jersey, deserve real answers, justice, and accountability. Under these conditions, medically vulnerable people are being given death sentences due to the lack of care."
"Delaney Hall must be shut down," Mejia added. "Abolishing and replacing ICE is the only way to correct this—a system that lets this happen again and again cannot be reformed. It must be rebuilt around human dignity.”
At least 56 people have died while in ICE custody during Trump's second term.
Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) said that López Cornejo's "detention alone was an act of cruelty, and if he indeed was denied his medication as his family reports, the operators at Delaney Hall should be charged with homicide."
"A second person has died at the for-profit prison. Delaney Hall is a stain on our country. Its continued use is a daily reminder of the cruelty of our immigration and criminal justice systems. It should be shut down at once, and those responsible for its inhumane conditions should be investigated and tried.”
Delaney Hall has become one of the nation's most controversial immigration detention centers since reopening in 2025. Detainees have reported inadequate food, poor sanitation, overcrowding, retaliation for protests, and delayed access to medical treatment. Earlier this year, hunger strikes and demonstrations drew national attention, while lawmakers who repeatedly sought access to inspect conditions inside the facility were attacked along with protesters.
Democratic New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said she was "deeply disturbed" by López Cornejo's death.
"I have long opposed the use of private, for-profit prisons operating in a space that should be reserved for government,” Sherrill said in a statement. “Corporations should not have the right to monetize imprisoning people while avoiding public accountability. This is why we are fighting to close Delaney Hall, and why we will continue using every tool available to stop new private detention facilities—like the proposed facility in Roxbury—from opening their doors."
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, a Democrat, released a statement on social media:
Civil rights and immigrant defense groups condemned López Cornejo's death.
"This tragedy is another devastating result of the rampant inhumane conditions at Delaney Hall and detention centers across the country, including the routine denial of proper medical care, sanitary conditions, and food," ACLU of New Jersey executive director Amol Sinha said in a statement.
"The Trump administration’s detention and deportation machine continues to terrorize and traumatize communities at an unprecedented level, yet numbers cannot encapsulate the grief and devastation that these abuses cause," Sinha added. "We demand accountability from ICE, the immediate closure of Delaney Hall, and an end to immigration detention once and for all.”
Jorge Torres, organizing director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said that “Edwin Jeovanny López Cornejo should be alive today. His death was preventable, and his family deserves answers, accountability, and justice."
Cornejo told Movimiento Cosecha that she wants "justice" for her son.
“These men go around grabbing hard-working people,” she said of federal immigration enforcers. “This country moves forward because of immigrants... But they don’t see that. They only see the damage they are doing, but they don’t see the good things one does in this country.”
"I don't want my son's death to go unanswered," Cornejo added. "If justice isn't served, they'll just keep doing this, and there's no telling how many more people in this country we might lose."
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Israel 'Destroying Crucial Evidence of Genocide' in Gaza: Monitor
"The systematic removal of rubble at this pace conceals the evidence of appalling crimes Israel committed in Gaza, especially those related to genocide, such as summary executions and killing unarmed civilians."
Aug 03, 2026
A new report published Monday details how Israeli soldiers and civilian contractors are systematically removing potential proof of genocide from the Gaza Strip, an apparent violation of an order issued by the World Court for Israel to preserve evidence of genocidal acts committed in the Palestinian exclave.
The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that Israeli forces and contractors "are conducting a wide and organized operation to process and clear the rubble from neighborhoods and facilities they have destroyed in the Gaza Strip and relocate it from areas under their military control to outside the strip."
"This is occurring without any official record of the quantities removed or independent oversight, and before international and local investigative committees have had the chance to survey, examine, and document the sites," the group noted. "This risks destroying crucial evidence of genocide and the remains of victims still unaccounted for under the rubble."
"The systematic removal of rubble at this pace conceals the evidence of appalling crimes Israel committed in Gaza, especially those related to genocide, such as summary executions and killing unarmed civilians," Euro-Med said. "These sites need careful examination and thorough criminal investigation before any intervention that might change or erase their features."
"The debris scattered throughout the Gaza Strip includes possible locations of unlawful killings and bombings that targeted entire families, as well as sites believed to contain mass graves or bodies buried within destroyed homes, hospitals, shelters, and civilian facilities," the group continued. "These sites hold evidence critical for identifying the weapon, attack sequence, victim and attacker positions, firing ranges, cause and manner of death, as well as fragments, projectiles, spent cartridges, biological traces, and personal belongings."
Euro-Med cited an April report published jointly by the World Bank, United Nations, and European Union, whose authors estimated that around 68 million tons of rubble are spread across Gaza's 141 square miles after nearly 34 months of ongoing, ceasefire-flouting bombing and other attacks that have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
With the carnage of the war on Iran, the world has forgotten what US-UK-EU-backed Israel did to Gaza.
Survivors of the genocide live in a hellscape of rubble and ash, which looks like the aftermath of a nuclear war…
And the world looks away. https://t.co/J8XsgtvFzE pic.twitter.com/NKechLozxR
— Afshin Rattansi (@afshinrattansi) July 18, 2026
"Crushing, mixing, and transporting rubble can erase evidence, location details, and connections within the crime scene," Euro-Med said. "This process also disrupts the chain of custody, potentially making it impossible to trace where evidence was collected or to link it to a particular incident or victim. This damage cannot be reversed by aerial photographs or subsequent testimony, as investigating international crimes also requires tangible evidence that can be examined, compared, and legally verified."
Thousands of Palestinians remain missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of the nearly 200,000 buildings, or over 80% of all structures, that were destroyed or damaged by Israeli attacks. Palestinian victims of Israeli aerial massacres are still being unearthed, with the remains of 112 Gazans—including 40 women, 38 children, and seven people with disabilities—largely exhumed by hand over 136 hours in the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City last week.
At least 10 million tons of rubble "have been removed, crushed, or moved from their original sites within the areas under Israel’s unlawful military control, which encompass about 66% of the Gaza Strip," Euro-Med said.
"Approximately 400 heavy pieces of excavation, demolition, crushing, and transport machinery, operated by Israeli civilian companies under military protection, are active across eastern and southern Gaza," the group added. "They demolish remaining structures, crush rubble from destroyed neighborhoods, and load the debris onto trucks for transportation away from the original sites."
Euro-Med continued:
The debris in the Gaza Strip comprises more than just rubble; it includes private and public property, essential building materials like steel, stone, and concrete that can be recycled and reused, as well as other valuable assets necessary for Palestinians to reconstruct their homes, roads, and infrastructure. It may also contain property documents, official records, and personal belongings that are part of individuals’ and families’ rights and memories.
Removing rubble from the Gaza Strip and commercially exploiting it without the owners’ consent or compensation may, depending on the circumstances and intent of the seizure, constitute unlawful confiscation or pillage. Such acts are prohibited under international humanitarian law, especially Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the relevant provisions of the Rome Statute.
"These actions are part of a broader pattern that has involved bulldozing sites believed to contain mass graves, storming and damaging hospitals and medical facilities after they were suspected of being sites of grave crimes, ongoing demolition of buildings in military-controlled zones, and targeting Palestinian journalists," the group added.
The International Court of Justice's provisional orders of January and May 2024—which came as the ICJ began weighing a genocide case against Israel filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 nations—directed Israel to "take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations" of violations of the Genocide Convention.
Israel has been accused of violating those ICJ orders and another issued by the Hague-based tribunal in March 2024 ordering Israel to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza, whose people were being deliberately starved by the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, according to arrest warrants issued in November 2024 by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Haaretz, Israel's oldest daily newspaper, last year published an investigation detailing how a loosely supervised Israel Defense Forces unit has been operating in Gaza outside normal chains of command and oversight. IDF soldiers and civilians, including settler colonists from the illegally occupied West Bank, used Palestinian civilians as human shields while they demolished homes and other buildings in Gaza.
Israeli soldiers and settlers use bulldozers and other heavy equipment made by Caterpillar, Hyundai, and other manufacturers to demolish buildings and remove rubble, desecrate graves, and "level" or "flatten" Gaza, as numerous Israeli and US officials, including President Donald Trump, have advocated. Caterpillar D-9 bulldozer variants are part of the billions of dollars in annual armed aid the US provides for Israel despite the ally's increasing international isolation over not only what a UN commission of inquiry last year called a genocide in Gaza but also occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
"States where the implicated companies or machinery manufacturers are based should mandate a halt to any actions that could lead to property demolition, evidence removal, or rubble seizure," Euro-Med said. "They must also preserve all relevant contracts, correspondence, and operational data, and carry out independent investigations into the accountability of their directors and staff."
"Any efforts to remove rubble or rebuild in the Gaza Strip must be led by Palestinians, involving local residents, property owners, and families of the missing," the group added. "These initiatives should ensure the protection of evidence, recovery of remains, clearance of unexploded ordnance, sorting of hazardous materials, local reuse of rubble, preservation of property maps and urban fabric, and prevent reconstruction from being used to cement control or alter [Gaza's] geographic or demographic makeup."
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House Progressive Chair Says 'Every Single Cent' of Trump Tariff Refunds Should Go to Consumers
Consumers bore the vast majority of the costs of Trump's illegal tariffs, but it's the large corporations that raised prices who are seeing massive refunds.
Aug 03, 2026
Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) said on Monday that "every single cent" of the refunds for President Donald Trump's illegal tariffs should go to consumers who bore the brunt of the financial strain rather than the large corporations currently receiving them.
"Apple got a $2.2 billion tariff refund. Amazon got $600 million," Casar wrote in a post to social media. "Trump is sending the 'refunds' to the companies, not working people."
The Supreme Court struck down many of Trump's sweeping tariffs in February, ruling that he could not impose them unilaterally using powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.
A group of 25 Democratic states sued the Trump administration on Monday for once again attempting to reimpose the tariffs under a different law, the 1974 Trade Act.
According to the Congressional Budget Office report from February 2026, about 70% of the tariffs were being passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices, while businesses absorbed about 30% of the cost.
Companies were able to pass on even more of the costs to consumers by hiking prices of domestic goods as well, meaning ordinary people were forced to swallow about 95% of the overall cost.
Yale's Budget Lab estimated that Trump's full tariff regime was costing the average household about $2,400 annually. Even after the Supreme Court rolled them back, the Budget Lab estimates that households will pay an extra $1,100 per year.
But the system for refunding the approximately $166 billion taken as part of the unlawful tariff regime allows only "importers" to apply for reimbursement, meaning the refunds have largely flowed to big companies who get to decide how much, if any, of the windfall they want to trickle down. So far, it does not seem to be very much.
Amazon disclosed on Thursday that it was participating in the refund process and that it had received over $600 million from the federal government in quarter two.
Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s finance chief, said there was a "limited set of circumstances” in which the company could find examples of it directly passing prices along to consumers, since third-parties are the importers for most products, but said it would refund them when they could be identified.
He added that the refunds would also be invested in “low prices for customers," though he provided no details on how that would work.
Apple, meanwhile, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the refunds. In a press release on Thursday, the company celebrated that the tariff refunds on their own were worth “2 percentage points” of its 50.1% gross margin, which AppleInsider calculated put the total refund at about $2.2 billion, though its most recent earnings report did not disclose the full amount.
But there's no indication that any of that windfall will be seen by consumers, even through lowered prices, let alone through any sort of reimbursement program.
"While Apple is celebrating its margins, it won’t stop your next MacBook Air from becoming more expensive and more scarce," wrote Kyle Barr on Monday for Gizmodo. "Last month, Apple increased prices for practically all its various products."
Other companies have also received or are expecting refunds in the billions or hundreds of millions, including Ford, General Motors, UPS, Nike, and Walmart, though only some have indicated plans to pass on even part of the savings to consumers.
Rep. Mark Pocan said it was "just another transfer of wealth from everyday Americans to mega-corporations."
Several pieces of legislation have been introduced in Congress aiming to provide tariff relief for consumers.
One bill introduced by Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Frank Mrvan (D-Ind.) would require companies to reduce prices in accordance with the size of the refund they receive. Another from Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) would create an individual tariff refund tax credit and tax corporations unless they absorbed tariff costs rather than passing them to consumers.
None of these bills have advanced out of committee or received a floor vote.
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