SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Hoo boy. The stupid and evil, somehow accelerating, burn. America's so-called leader, the "Worst That Has Ever Drawn Breath," manifests ever more cognitive dissonance on steroids. Absurd, addled, vindictive, looming above "a circus of death and chaos," he commits war crimes, guts voting rights, plots devastation, abases decency, murders mercy, yet whines about mean jokes. But as America reels, Banksy, Bruce, Platner and others increasingly declare, "We are not fucking doing this anymore."
Amidst what the head of Amnesty International calls "the year of the predators," humanity itself is under attack, most notably by our ludicrous narcissist and his "casual, bewildering cruelty." Despite his foolishness, Nesrine Malik writes, "This is what evil looks like": See history's portrayals of Hitler - "the startling insignificance of this man who has set the world agog" - and Mussolini, "that funny man, that consummate buffoon." Trump's "farcical puniness," Malik notes, is "a projection onto the world, not of large intent, but of smallness and fear...The consequences of his violence are secondary to the validation that comes from inflicting it (to) erase his terror of humiliation (and) feed his sociopathic appetite for escalation." Thus can deeply silly still equal dangerous.
Daily, the large and small atrocities are both, albeit without the resonance of the label "fascist" only because he lacks the wit, intent and coherence it requires. The war in Iran veers on: "Another day, another pivot. Trump flails." It's won, not, won but not by enough, it's not a war, we made a deal, we don't want a deal, talks are going well, we don't wanna talk, Iran struck a school full of young girls, or if we did it's Obama's fault. Give me ballroom or give me death: The solution to gun violence that kills 12 children a day, wounds 32 more and has affected over 390,000 kids since Columbine - is to build one rich white guy who's never expressed any grief over any of them a gilded bunker of his own. The way to keep more people safe is to kill as many as possible, including by firing squad.
Also, Bill Maher, Hakeem Jeffries, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel are low IQ losers, James Comey tried to kill and "inflict bodily harm on" him with "aggravated beachy seashell pictures," he's so "young, vital, vibrant" he could've joined the Artemis II astronauts easy like he aced his three screening tests for dementia - "A lion, a giraffe, a bear, and a shark. Which one is the bear?" - which the Villages audience def couldn't do, ditto sketchy Harvard Law graduate Hussein Obama. America's response to his musing what we'd do if a con man moron turned up - "How do you get to be president and you're stupid?": "That would suck - we'd probably have unprovoked wars, high gas prices and all our allies would hate us," "He's so close to getting it," "The Irony Meter is dead after spontaneously combusting," and "You're a fucking moron." Also, so grotesquely weird.

Meanwhile, the Orwellian rules for what you can/can’t see/say keep spooling out, lies sold as half-truths to justify a brazen, racist, whitewashing of both present and past under the shameless moniker of content “inappropriately disparaging Americans past or living,” but always white. Among dozens of changes at our National Parks, gone are signs about the contributions of Native Americans and women, warnings about climate change "not grounded in real science," evidence of Founding Fathers owning slaves and explorers' atrocities against Native tribes. But you do get Trump's loathsome mug plastered on park passes, like on our money, buildings, passports ad nauseum. Happily, fighting back for years have been patriots like the Resistance Rangers, the Alt National Park Service and whatever genius slapped these "Sex Offender" flyers across D.C.'s parks.
Hence incrementally, far too slowly but feeding vital hope and our frayed spirits, the flip side of our grim absurdist timeline begins to emerge as Trump and his monstrous clowns flail, fail, dig their own dank holes. So many horrors should have sparked it -Gaza, ICE, USAID, the boundless greed, cruelty, stupidity. Instead, prices did it, a non-stop, staggering incompetence that saw people being screwed once too often and lied to about one too many senseless wars. Last week, Banksy registered his own anti-imperialist protest in a middle-of-the-night dropping into the heart of ceremonial London a large statue mocking such Blind Patriotism. Mirroring the classical style of surrounding monuments celebrating the British Empire's inglorious colonial past, he presents a suited man, his flag flying into his face, one foot poised to step off into his own demise. Much like, you know.

Kicking off his Land of Hope and Dreams American tour several weeks ago, Bruce Springsteen offered his own fiery rebuttal to "a corrupt, incompetent, racist, reckless and treasonous administration," which drew roars from a huge first night crowd in Minneapolis. Equal parts celebration and call to action, The Boss insisted, "This is still America, and - shades of the Big Lebowski, "this will not stand." Summoning "the righteous power of art, music and rock and roll in dangerous times," he asked the crowd to "join with us in choosing hope over fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption, resistance over complacency, unity over division, and peace over....(lights come up to segue into) "WAR! What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!" complete with Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello shredding a solo. A righteous, dynamic pair.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
In contrast, standing grotesque and slumped-shouldered in a dingy, empty corner, is the small, mad man-child who spent Monday bellowing to a weary world that Iran will be "blown off the face of the Earth" if it targets U.S. ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which his inane recklessness closed in the first place. Online, in "the most desperate shit" to ever make its demonic way from the White House, a juvenile lackey posted him saying, "Winning it" on a loop for over 60 minutes, which still didn't make it so. The text read, "Can't stop, won't stop." Please fucking do. A horrified America: "This is a real tweet from a real account about a real man who leads a real country." Kyle Kulinski, on "the war criminal of all war criminals" who makes genocidal threats and bleats about insults: “We are not fucking doing this anymore. You don't get to say shit."
Still, one Tom Wellborn says it best in, “A Eulogy for the Worst That Has Ever Drawn Breath,” subtitled “Being a Complete and Unflinching Account of the Most Loathsome Specimen Ever to Consume Resources, Occupy Space, and Insult the Patience of a Universe That Deserved So Much Better." "There are villains, and then there are monsters, and then there are creatures so cosmically, transcendently... terrible that language itself recoils," he begins. "Grammar buckles. Syntax weeps...He is this thing. He is the thing past the thing past the thing. He is the sub-basement of the human condition, the moldy crawlspace beneath that sub-basement, and the writhing centipede beneath that."
"He has no morals. Not a single one. Not even the bad morals that at least imply a moral framework: the corrupt cop who loves his dog, the mob boss who goes to church. No. He exists in a morality vacuum so total that ethicists have proposed naming it after him...A being entirely without moral content. Not evil, because evil requires intention. Simply absent of the entire apparatus...A moral negative space shaped vaguely like a man...He has no empathy....like a raisin...He is incapable of the most basic social theater that even sociopaths manage....He takes without asking. He takes everything without asking. He takes things that aren’t takeable...The principle being: I can....He is stupid in a way that is almost majestic...His stupidity (is) total. Unified....He has been wrong about everything, always, without exception..."
"He is callous the way concrete is callous: not through malice, not through choice, but through an utter material inability to register (another) person’s pain...You could show him the face of grief, and he would wonder aloud if there was parking nearby...He is vicious the way a blunt instrument is vicious: through sheer, undirected force, through the momentum of his own awfulness...He is smelted fury with no purpose, unforged, unbent, uselessly molten....(He is) a statistical outlier so extreme that evolution seems to be embarrassed by him, a glitch in the long project of civilization...And the most horrifying part...He will never know any of this. He will never know what he is." Name it, damn it, take it down. Maine's Graham Platner hopes to help do that. We wish him well.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Colombian President Gustavo Petro warned on Tuesday that the current model of fossil fuel-driven capitalism was leading the world into "barbarism" and "fascism."
According to a Wednesday report from The Guardian, Petro told attendees of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels being held in Santa Marta, Colombia that capitalism's insistence on continued fossil fuel dependence was "suicidal" and driving the world toward more conflict.
"There is inertia in the power and the economy of this archaic form of energy—fossil fuels—that lead to death," said Petro. "Undoubtedly, that form of capital can commit suicide, taking with it humanity and [other] life... The question that needs to be asked is whether capitalism can truly adapt to a non-fossil energy model.”
Petro also warned that the consequences of sticking with a model of capitalism that centers fossil fuel energy won't be merely economic but also political.
"We are heading towards barbarism," he said. "And barbarism is the prelude to, or the very essence of, fascism."
As reported by Common Dreams last week, the conference in Colombia, which wraps up Wednesday, has featured more than 50 nations discussing strategies to phase out energy based on coal, oil, and gas.
Ralph Regenvanu, minister for climate change of the island nation of Vanuatu, told NPR on Wednesday that his country has been seeing the impacts of the climate crisis up close in the form of rising sea levels and spiraling energy costs.
Because of this, Regenvanu said his government has accelerated plans to begin solar energy and electric vehicle projects, telling NPR that "the decision on EVs was directly stimulated by the crisis."
France was also a major presence at the conference, reported The Guardian, as French climate envoy Benoit Faraco outlined an ambitious plan to make his country a major renewable energy producer.
"This process has made us realize we want to be an electro-superpower," said Faraco. "We want to be the electricity Saudi Arabia of Europe, selling green electrons to the UK, Ireland, Germany, and other countries."
But Tzeporah Berman, founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, told The Guardian that the ability to transition away from fossil fuels will be much harder for many developing nations, even though these nations are the ones most adversely impacted by the climate emergency.
"There are many fossil-fuel producing countries in the Global South that are being pushed into expanding fossil fuel production just to feed their debt," Berman explained. "There is an expanding debt crisis in the Global South. It is impossible for countries to even imagine a fossil fuel transition with such limited fiscal space."
Advocates warned that the conference did not appear set to produce new commitments to fund climate action in the Global South, but discussions were taking place about tackling massive subsidies that have been granted annually to fossil fuel giants.
"It is a space where conversations can take place about, for instance, subsidy reform," Leo Roberts of the think tank E3G told The Guardian, "to take the $1.5 trillion in [annual] fossil fuel subsidies and repurpose them to somewhere else.”
As celebrities prepared to attend the 2026 Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on Monday, a coalition of nearly three dozen civil society groups warned that with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—currently the fourth-richest person on Earth—chairing the annual fundraiser, the gala risks "artwashing the harms of extreme wealth."
Groups including Greenpeace International, Patriotic Millionaires, and War on Want signed a letter organized by the Tax the Superrich Alliance, calling on the museum and Vogue magazine, which hosts the event, not to honor Bezos and warning that the billionaire is using the two cultural institutions as tools "to launder his public image."
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a celebrated collection of art spanning centuries, many of it made "in defiance of power—work that exposed injustice, gave voice to the silenced, and held the powerful to account," reads the letter.
But the tech mogul chosen to chair the gala "has made his loyalties clear" since President Donald Trump first took office in 2017 and during the Republican's second term, said the groups, pointing to Bezos' purchase of The Washington Post, the mass firing of hundreds of the newspaper's reporters this year, and his remaking of the publication's opinion section into one focusing on "free markets."
He "gutted" the Post "while reportedly pouring $75 million into a film promoting Melania Trump," reads the letter, referring to the Amazon-produced documentary film Melania.
"A 2% wealth tax on just three necklaces previously worn by celebrities to the Met Gala’s red carpet could fully fund New York City’s home energy assistance program, helping 1 million households heat and cool their homes."
"He is not just a bystander to Trump’s administration," wrote the organizations. "He is one of its enablers. This is not philanthropy. This effectively is influence bought and paid for by Bezos’ pocket change—and the Met Gala is his latest purchase."
The groups added that in addition to aligning himself with the White House through his ownership of the Post, Bezos and Amazon—a government contractor where he is still the largest individual shareholder—is working with Trump to "make possible a concentration of power that not only threatens lives in the US but across the world as well."
"While so many of these policies aren’t new, they have been exacerbated under Trump and with the help of people like Bezos—from families torn apart by ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids reportedly enabled by Amazon's own technology, to a White House emboldened to threaten and carry out military action against sovereign nations without consequence—including to ‘destroy a whole civilization’ in Iran—with no accountability," reads the letter.
The Tax Justice Network, one of the signatories, emphasized that just a fraction of the money that goes to the $100,000-per ticket Met Gala could alleviate the economic inequality that's grown worse under the Trump administration.
"A 2% wealth tax on just three necklaces previously worn by celebrities to the Met Gala’s red carpet could fully fund New York City’s home energy assistance program, helping 1 million households heat and cool their homes," said the Tax Justice Network, citing its analysis released Monday.
Bezos is among the billionaires who have contributed donations to Trump's pet projects—a luxury ballroom and a 250-foot-tall arch in Washington, DC—while the president has tried to cut the home energy assistance program, said the group.
“There’s a thin line between celebrating glamorous fashion and artwashing extreme wealth, and that line gets bulldozed when your poster boy is an ICE-profiteering billionaire bankrolling Trump’s vanity projects and a top spender on anti-worker lobbying,” said Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network.
In the first two hours of the Met Gala, Cobham added, "Bezos’s wealth will grow by the equivalent of 130,000 hours of a teacher’s labor... This extreme distortion throws economies out of whack. Our economies are supposed to let people earn the wealth they need to lead secure and comfortable lives, but most countries’ tax rules make it easier for the superrich to collect wealth than for the rest of us to earn it."
It's a thin line between celebrating glamor & artwashing extreme wealth. That line gets bulldozed when your patron is an ICE-profiteering billionaire bankrolling Trump’s vanity projects & a top spender on antiworker lobbying. Don't let Bezos artwash his at the Met Gala taxjustice.net/press/2-tax-...
[image or embed]
— Tax Justice Network (@taxjustice.net) May 4, 2026 at 3:25 AM
"In Bezos’ case, it’s easy to see how that undertaxed collected wealth goes towards lobbying further against workers’ rights and pay, while his company Amazon remains one of the biggest recipients of US subsidies," said Cobham.
According to the Tax Justice Network's analysis, Bezos accumulated $3.8 million every house from 2023-25, when his total wealth grew by more than $100 billion.
"If Bezos were to continue to accumulate wealth at this rate," said the group, "he would accumulate $7.6 million in the first two hours of the Met Gala event, which is the equivalent of 110 NYC Public Schools teachers’ starting salaries"—$68,902.
Those organizing the gala can and must "stop celebrating those destroying our countries and humanity itself," reads the letter sent by the Tax the Superrich Alliance, by not honoring Bezos and backing the fair taxation of the wealthiest households and corporations.
"End the oligarchy," reads the letter. "Tax the super rich. Now."
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a proponent of taxing the rich to pay for crucial public programs and services, planned to skip the Met Gala in a break with tradition. Last month Mamdani announced plans for a tax on second homes valued at $5 million or more in New York City.
Celebrities who are reportedly planning to skip the event include Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid, who has spoken out against ICE and in favor of Palestinian rights, and actress Zendaya.
Organizers in Missouri on Sunday said they reached an important milestone in a campaign to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot this year that would stop Republican officials in the state from trying to sabotage ballot initiatives.
Respect Missouri Voters, a coalition aimed at protecting and strengthening the state's ballot initiative process, announced that it has delivered more than 367,000 signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State's office in favor of a constitutional amendment that enact two key policies to protect voter-passed laws.
First, as the Fairness Project summarized on Monday, it would "require that all future ballot measures in the state be summarized for voters in fair, clear, and easily understandable terms"; and second, it would demand "that any attempt by the Legislature to refer a voter-approved measure back to the ballot clear an 80% threshold in each chamber, a high bar designed to prevent politicians from undoing what voters have already decided."
The first part of the amendment is aimed at addressing problems created by Republican Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, who has repeatedly been taken to court for writing ballot initiative summaries that advocates say are misleading or provide incomplete information about what the initiatives would do.
As the Missouri Independent reported in February, a total of five summaries written by Hoskins have been thrown out by courts since October, as "judges at every level of Missouri’s court system have stepped in to block or rewrite ballot language" drafted by the secretary of state.
The second part of the amendment, meanwhile, was written in response to Republican legislators' efforts to overturn ballot initiatives passed in 2024 that legalized abortion in Missouri and established mandatory paid sick leave.
Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, a key backer of Respect Missouri Voters, said the gathering of more than 367,000 signatures is "a promising milestone for Missouri voters and for direct democracy."
"Perhaps more than in any other state, voters in Missouri understand what is at stake,” Hall added. "It’s in Missouri that extremist politicians have worked overtime to undermine the will of their voters, whether it’s been fighting to reinstate a wildly unpopular ban on access to abortion care, gerrymandering congressional districts, or undermining the ballot measure process. What voters are saying now is that democracy is sacred."
However, it's not just Missouri where direct democracy is under attack. The Fairness Project reported last September that “extremist” legislators across the United States “escalated their efforts to dismantle the ballot measure process in 2025 by 95%.”
The US Supreme Court on Monday temporarily restored access to mifepristone, a medication commonly used for abortion and early miscarriage care, through the mail while the justices review a decision requiring it to be dispensed in person by a medical provider.
Justice Samuel Alito, who is part of the high court's right-wing supermajority, oversees the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He issued a one-week stay for the appellate court's Friday dispensing decision, which critics had condemned as "sweeping and dangerous."
"This is not particularly surprising from Alito. He's the circuit justice here, acting—in essence—until the full court can act," explained Law Dork's Chris Geidner. He noted that both Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, another right-winger, "have issued administrative stays in the past until the full court can rule in similar circumstances, regardless of their ultimate votes on the matters."
The drug companies Danco Laboratories, which makes the brand-name version of mifepristone, Mifeprex, and GenBioPro, which makes the generic pill, asked the country's top court to intervene following Friday's ruling, which threatened patients nationwide.
"Even this Supreme Court can see that this 5th Circuit decision is reckless," declared Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, on Monday. "While mifepristone access returns to where it was on Friday morning, the whiplash and chaos that patients and providers are navigating have already had real consequences for real people's lives and futures."
Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation, similarly highlighted how "this back-and-forth has created confusion and chaos," but welcomed that the high court's "decision provides critical, if temporary, relief for patients and providers and ensures that people can continue to access this essential medication through telehealth while the court considers the case."
"The lower court's ruling disregards the well-established safety and efficacy of the use of mifepristone via telehealth, and any future restriction will create medically unnecessary barriers to care for patients across the country," Fonteno added. "Mifepristone has been safely used for more than 25 years, and is essential to abortion care and miscarriage management in the United States. For many patients, especially those in rural areas or facing financial and logistical barriers, access to telehealth is a critical component of holistic reproductive healthcare."
Since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the anti-choice movement and right-wing politicians have ramped up attacks on reproductive freedom at the state level. Meanwhile, the Biden administration's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permanently lifted mifepristone's in-person dispensing requirement in early 2023, allowing doctors in pro-choice states to serve patients across the country via telehealth and the mail, regardless of local laws.
Louisiana responded to the eased restrictions on mifepristone—which is generally taken with another drug, misoprostol, for abortions—by suing, which led to the battle that has now reached the Supreme Court. Prior to Friday's decision by the infamously far-right 5th Circuit, a district judge in the state paused the case due to what the ACLU on Monday called "a sham FDA review announced by the Trump administration," which is ongoing.
"While this is a positive short-term development, no one can rest easy when our ability to get this safe, effective medication for abortion and miscarriage care still hangs in the balance," Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney for the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, stressed Monday. "The Supreme Court needs to put an end to this baseless attack on our reproductive freedom, once and for all."
This article has been updated with comment from the National Abortion Federation.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday condemned Israel's twice-extended detention of two Global Sumud Flotilla members abducted last week off the coast of Greece while attempting to break the decadeslong Israeli blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to its people amid an ongoing genocide.
"Maintaining the imprisonment of Brazilian citizen Thiago Ávila, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, is an unjustifiable action by the Israeli government, causes great concern, and must be condemned by all," Lula said on X.
"The detention of the flotilla activists in international waters had already represented a serious affront to international law," he added. "For this reason, our government, together with that of Spain, which also had a citizen detained, demands that they receive full guarantees of safety and be immediately released."
Spain's government has also condemned Israel’s capture of Abu Keshek and demanded his immediate release, and like Lula, called the detention illegal because it occurred in international waters. Abu Keshek is also a citizen of Sweden, which has not condemned his detention—or even mentioned him by name—but has asked that "the rights of any Swedish citizens will be respected."
Adalah Legal Center, the Palestinian group in Israel representing Ávila and Abu Keshek, said Tuesday that the Ashkelon Magistrates’ Court approved Israel's request to extend the pair's detention through May 10. This, after the court on Sunday prolonged their detention by two days.
“The court’s decision to extend the detention of humanitarian activists abducted in international waters amounts to judicial validation of the state’s lawlessness,” Adalah assertedad, vowing to appeal the decision, which the group said was based on "secret evidence."
Adalah noted that “because the activists were abducted over 1,000 kilometers away from Gaza and are not Israeli citizens, Israeli domestic law does not apply to them."
Israel contends that it is enforcing a lawful naval blockade of Gaza Strip, and that under the laws of naval warfare, that blockade can be enforced not only in its territorial waters, but also on the high seas.
Adalah said, "Crucially, the court granted the full six-day extension requested by the state without imposing any limitations or judicial constraints on the interrogation period,” adding that the stated purpose of their continued detention is further interrogation.
"Ávila reported being subjected to repeated interrogations lasting up to eight hours,” the group reported. “Interrogators have explicitly threatened him, stating he would either be ‘killed’ or ‘spend 100 years in jail.'”
“Both activists remain in total isolation, subjected to 24/7 high-intensity lighting in their cells, and kept blindfolded whenever they are moved, including during medical examinations,” Adalah said, accusing interrogators of "trying all the time to connect the humanitarian aid with Hamas to present it as a service to Hamas."
Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that both men were affiliated with the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad, which the US government accuses of "clandestinely acting on behalf of" Hamas, the militant Palestinian resistance group that led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Still, no charges have been filed against the pair, who Adalah said have been on hunger strike since April 30 in protest of their detention.
Abu Keshek and Ávila were among the more than 170 Global Sumud Flotilla members intercepted and seized last week in international waters 45 nautical miles west of the Greek island Kythira and 600 nautical miles from Gaza in what many critics have called an act of piracy.
All of the other flotilla members have been released. Many said they brutally abused by their Israeli captors, who threatened to kill them. The Washington Post reported 34 people—including citizens of Australia, Colombia, Italy, Ukraine, and the United States—required medical attention for broken ribs, noses, and other injuries. Detained activists also said they were denied food and water, and were forced to sleep on deliberately flooded floors. Both Abu Keshek and Ávila had visible facial injuries during their first court appearances.
In a statement issued on Monday, Global Sumud Flotilla said Abu Keshek and Ávila "are being subjected to systemic psychological torture and explicit threats to the lives of their families."
The statement also noted the growing calls for their release from advocacy organizations and governments.
"We urge the international community and their representatives to immediately take action for the safety and freedom of Saif and Thiago, the freedom of all Palestinian hostages, and the end of Israel's illegal siege of Gaza and its genocide," Global Sumud added.
American journalist Alex Colston, who was aboard the flotilla on assignment for Zeteo, said he was beaten by his captors, and corroborated accounts of broken bones, concussion symptoms, and other signs of abuse inflicted by Israeli forces on flotilla members, as well as death threats, property theft, and other mistreatment.
Hannah Smith, a representative of the flotilla's public affairs team who was also aboard one of the vessels, told Democracy Now! on Monday that, after intercepting the boats, Israeli forces "pointed guns at us. They had lasers pointed at us. We had our hands in the air. They threatened lethal force."
"Many people were subject to aggressive physical force," she said. "We were denied access to adequate water. We were denied access to sanitary supplies."
Smith continued:
The nights were extremely cold. People’s jackets were stolen. When I advocated for one of the participants, who’s a doctor, who was pacing for two hours trying to stay warm—she had a short-sleeve shirt in like 50-degree weather that was cold and damp. When I advocated for blankets, they flooded the sleeping area. And then we had a dozen people pacing, trying to stay warm, trying not to get hypothermia.
When we nonviolently resisted, many people were beat. Many people were dragged. I was held in a stress position for many hours... I heard people screaming. I heard people being dragged around. And it was absolutely horrifying.
The reports of torture and other abuse are consistent with Israeli forces' brutal treatment of members of past Gaza flotillas, including Ávila, who has taken part in at least three such missions. Victims have included Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, who was allegedly dragged, beaten, and made to kiss an Israeli flag in which she was allegedly wrapped after Israeli forces intercepted last October's Global Sumud mission.
It's not just activists who reported Israeli brutality. Journalist Noa Avishag Schnal—who was covering last October's flotilla—described rape threats and being “hung from the metal shackles on my wrists and ankles and beaten in the stomach, back, face, ear, and skull by a group of men and women guards, one of whom sat on my neck and face, blocking my airways.”
In 2010, Israeli forces raided one of the first Freedom Flotilla Coalition convoys carrying humanitarian aid intended for Gaza, which Israel blockaded three years earlier. The Israeli attackers killed nine volunteers aboard the MV Mavi Marmara, including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan.
In a letter to his daughter dictated to his lawyer from prison, Ávila said, "I’m sorry for not being home with you right now."
"Today over a million children are suffering a genocide, being starved to death, being amputated without anesthesia, and suffering from horrific, hateful ideas, despite not knowing what Zionism and Imperialism is," he continued.
More than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023. Around 2 million others have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and Israel is facing an International Court of Justice genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by numerous nations, including Brazil and Spain.
"Your world will be safer because many parents decided to give everything to build this better world for you," Ávila added. "I hope someday you understand that because I love you so much there was nothing more dangerous for you and for other children than living in a world that accepts genocide."
One press freedom advocate said the reported FBI investigation "would be outrageous even if The Atlantic reported classified information, which it didn’t."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday denied that it launched a reported probe into The Atlantic, which recently published a damning account of FBI Director Kash Patel’s alleged drunkenness, though magazine leadership and press freedom advocates remain alarmed.
As reported by MS NOW on Wednesday, the FBI is conducting a criminal leak investigation into The Atlantic's Sarah Fitzpatrick, whose reporting on Patel cited two dozen anonymous sources to document concerns about the FBI director's behavior.
MS NOW noted that the investigation into Fitzpatrick's reporting is "highly unusual because it did not stem from a disclosure of classified information" on the part of government insiders.
One source told MS NOW that the FBI agents assigned to the case have expressed serious reservations about its scope and purpose.
"They know they are not supposed to do this," the source said. "But if they don’t go forward, they could lose their jobs. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don't."
FBI spokesperson Ben Williamson denied to MS NOW that the agency had launched an investigation into Fitzpatrick, saying that "every time there’s a publication of false claims by anonymous sources that gets called out, the media plays the victim via investigations that do not exist."
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said the magazine was working to learn more about the alleged investigation, but "if true, this would be an outrageous, illegal, and dangerous attack on the free press and the First Amendment."
"We will defend Sarah and all of our reporters who are subjected to government harassment simply for pursuing the truth," Goldberg added.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, also condemned the reported investigation, which he said "would be outrageous even if The Atlantic reported classified information, which it didn’t."
"The FBI is reportedly conducting an invasive leak investigation merely to settle a personal vendetta," added Stern. "Separately, it doesn’t make much sense for Patel’s FBI to investigate leaks from what Patel’s lawsuit over the same reporting called ‘sham sources.’ Fake sources can’t leak."
Patel last month filed a $250 million defamation suit against The Atlantic for its report on his behavior, which the magazine said included "episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences."
The Atlantic vowed to fight the lawsuit, saying it stood by its reporting while describing Patel's complaint as "meritless."
"The secretary knows very well the damage and suffering that the criminal oil siege he himself proposed to his president is causing the Cuban people today," said Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
Peace advocates joined Cuba's top foreign relations official on Wednesday in accusing US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of blatantly lying about the existence of a blockade on oil exports to Cuba, which Rubio denied at a press briefing on Tuesday.
Anti-war group CodePink pointed to comments made by the US chargé d'affairs to Cuba, Mike Hammer, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on January 29 threatening other countries with tariffs if they provided the communist country with oil and accusing the Cuban government of harboring terrorists—a claim officials have vehemently denied.
"Now there's going to be a real blockade," said the diplomat at the time. "Nothing is getting in. No more oil is coming."
Cuba's primary source of fuel had been cut off earlier in January after the US invaded Venezuela, killed dozens of Venezuelans and Cubans while abducting President Nicolás Maduro, and took control of the country's oil supply.
However, on Tuesday Rubio claimed that Venezuela had freely decided to no longer supply Cuba with "free oil"—an apparent reference to a barter system agreed to by the two countries.
"This is a lie," said CodePink in response to Rubio's comments.
Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez added that Rubio had "simply chosen to lie" about the Trump administration's policy, contradicting both Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
"In four months, only one fuel tanker has arrived in Cuba. All our suppliers are intimidated and threatened in violation of free trade rules and freedom of navigation," said Rodríguez.
He also pointed to Trump's new executive order, signed last Friday, which imposed new sanctions on Cuba's energy, finance, and security sectors and threatened to further isolate Cuba from international finance systems by authorizing sanctions on foreign banks that conduct major transactions with designated Cuban entities.
"The secretary knows very well the damage and suffering that the criminal oil siege he himself proposed to his president is causing the Cuban people today," said Rodríguez.
In late March, Leavitt said that an oil tanker from Russia had been permitted by Trump to reach Cuba for "humanitarian reasons," but denied there had been any policy change regarding allowing international fuel shipments to be sent to the island.
Decisions about shipments “are being made on a case-by-case basis,” said Leavitt at the time. "There has not been a formal change in sanction policy.”
Since Trump ramped up the blockade in January—intensifying a sanctions policy that the US has imposed on Cuba for more than six decades—nearly 100,000 Cubans, including about 11,000 children, have been left waiting for surgeries as the fuel shortage has led to rationing and frequent blackouts that have impacted the healthcare system. Healthcare workers have reported shortages of syringes, antibiotics, and IV supplies.
The Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) also found last month that Trump's tightened sanctions and policies regarding Cuba, starting in his first term, have contributed to an “unprecedented increase” in the country's infant mortality rate, which soared 148% from 2018-25.
“It is clear that the increase in sanctions is responsible for this huge increase in infant deaths,” said Alex Main, director of international policy at CEPR, on Wednesday. “The oil blockade has been especially inhumane, disrupting the operation of ventilators, inhalers, and other crucial medical equipment and crippling emergency transportation. More than 80% of Cuba’s electricity is based on oil and oil products.”
US lawmakers who visited the island in April denounced the oil blockade as "cruel collective punishment" that has caused a water shortage, forced businesses and schools to shut down, and left cancer patients without lifesaving medications.
"Rubio is willfully lying" about the blockade, said Mexico City-based journalist José Luis Granados Ceja.
At Tuesday's press conference, after denying the blockade exists, Rubio pivoted to the Trump administration's position that Cuba's "economic model doesn't work" and blamed the country—whose healthcare system and literacy rates are frequently ranked higher than those of the US—for the crisis it's facing.
"Incompetent communists run that country. They don’t know how to fix it," said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants. "So it’s an unacceptable status quo, and we’ll be addressing it."
While joining Israel in waging war on Iran in recent months, the Trump administration has repeatedly suggested it hopes to take military action against Cuba.
Last Friday, the president said the US military "will be taking [Cuba] over almost immediately."
On Wednesday, CEPR and YouGov released a new poll that found 64% of Americans oppose a US military takeover of Cuba.
"This should make President Trump think twice about another ‘war of choice,’” said Mark Weisbrot, senior economist and co-director of CEPR. “Almost all of the experts on Cuba would laugh at the idea that Cuba presents a security threat to the United States. And the war against Iran has already cost Trump and his party significant support.”
One Brazilian lawmaker said Teresa Regina de Ávila e Silva's death occurred "against a backdrop of extreme distress for the family, with the unjustifiable detention of Thiago in Israel."
The mother of detained Brazilian Gaza flotilla activist Thiago Ávila died Tuesday while her son is allegedly being abused in Israeli custody after being seized off the coast of Greece last week.
Brazilian media reported that Teresa Regina de Ávila e Silva, 63, died after a decadeslong affliction with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disorder.
The Civil Police Union of the Federal District in Brasília—where Luana de Ávila, Ávila e Silva's daughter, is vice president—said in a statement that "Teresa Regina is remembered as a woman of admirable joy and strength, whose life was marked by her ability to face life with lightness, dignity, and love."
"Throughout her journey, she built strong bonds with everyone around her, leaving behind a legacy of affection, presence, and care for her family," the statement continued. "Later in her life, she faced a delicate condition, which she confronted with courage and serenity, always supported by the unconditional dedication of her children, grandchildren, nephews, and all her family and friends."
Erika Kokay, a member of Brazil's ruling Workers' Party representing Brasília in the Federal Chamber of Deputies, said on X that "Teresa will be remembered as a woman of strength and joy, who faced life's challenges with dignity and left a legacy of love for her family."
"My solidarity is even deeper when considering that this grief is unfolding against a backdrop of extreme distress for the family, with the unjustifiable detention of Thiago in Israel," Kokay added. "He was arrested while on a humanitarian mission headed to the Gaza Strip, enduring violations of his rights."
Thiago Ávila and at least 175 other Global Sumud Flotilla members were intercepted and abducted by Israeli forces on April 30 approximately 45 nautical miles from the Greek coast and more than 600 nautical miles from Gaza while trying to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory in dozens of boats.
After allegedly enduring abuse and brutal attacks that left over 30 flotilla activists with injuries including concussions and broken ribs and noses, all but two of the convoy's members were released.
Ávila and another member of the Global Sumud Flotilla steering committee, Spanish-Swedish national Saif Abu Keshek, were taken to Israel, which claims without evidence that the pair have links to Hamas, the militant Palestinian resistance group that led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Israeli authorities have twice extended the pair's detention. According to the Global Sumud Flotilla, Ávila and Abu Keshek “are being subjected to systemic psychological torture and explicit threats to the lives of their families.”
Adalah Legal Center, which represents the pair, said Ávila is being "subjected to repeated interrogations lasting up to eight hours," and “interrogators have explicitly threatened him, stating he would either be ‘killed’ or ‘spend 100 years in jail.’”
“Both activists remain in total isolation, subjected to 24/7 high-intensity lighting in their cells, and kept blindfolded whenever they are moved, including during medical examinations,” the group added.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and their respective governments have condemned the activists' detention and demanded their release.
On Wednesday, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights joined calls for the pair's release, asserting that "it is not a crime to show solidarity and attempt to bring humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population in Gaza, who are in dire need of it."
Gazans are suffering from 31 months of what UN experts say is a genocidal war and siege perpetrated by Israel, whose leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is a fugitive from the International Criminal Court. The Hague-based tribunal accuses Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
Since October 2023, more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded—including thousands of bodies still buried beneath rubble—and most of the Gaza Strip's more than 2 million people have suffered forced displacement, starvation, or illness caused by Israel's onslaught.
Ávila isn't the first high-profile person to lose his mother while jailed by Israel. Samiha Abu Safiya died of a heart attack attributed to “severe sadness” after her son, Kamal Adwan Hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, was imprisoned by Israeli forces, including in the notorious Sde Teiman prison. Abu Safiya—who has allegedly been subjected to torture including electric shock and has suffered broken ribs—is still being held by Israel.