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You Got This: Amidst the Carnage, A Beautiful Moment
Needing a break, we honor the rare sweet sliver of comity during Monday's Boston Marathon when two runners, both on course to achieve their personal best, instead stopped to help Ajay Haridasse, collapsed on the ground and unable to stand back up, over the finish line just ahead - because, they explained, "This is what it's all about...Two is better than one." Hallelujah: For now, still human after all these years.
The "beautiful moment" of compassion and sportsmanship came almost at the end of the grueling, 26.2-mile marathon known as "the runner's Holy Grail" for its tough qualifying standards and steep terrain, including Newton's iconic "Heartbreak Hill." The world's oldest marathon was inspired by the inaugural 1896 Olympics and begun the next year; widely considered one of the most difficult races anywhere, it attracts 500,000 spectators and over 20,000 dogged participants from 96 countries. "It’s a slog. It’s a grind. It’s brilliant," said one aspirant. Another: "Nothing is like it. Runners train and train and train for this race."
So did Ajay Haridasse, a 21-year-old senior at Northeastern running his first Boston Marathon having grown up nearby and faithfully watched it for years. Haridasse had passed the 26-mile mark when, he later said, "the wheels kinda fell off." After running almost three hours and struggling against cramps, his legs abruptly gave out 1,000 feet from the finish line, when he wobbled and fell to the ground. As runners streamed by, he painfully tried to stand up again, fell, tried to stand up, fell. "You got this!" a woman yelled from the sidelines, as others joined in. "You were made for this! You can do it! You got it!"
"After falling down the fourth time, I was getting ready to crawl," Haridasse later recalled. That's when Aaron Beggs, a 40-year-old runner from Northern Ireland, suddenly appeared at his left. Beggs stopped, pulled Haridasse to his feet and tried to hold him upright; Haridasse began collapsing again, only to be caught from behind on his right by Robson De Oliveira, a 36-year-old runner from Brazil who swooped in. Beggs and De Oliveira quickly lifted Haridasse’s arms around their shoulders and put their arms around his waist; then the three men jogged and stumbled toward and over the finish line as the crowd roared.
"No marathon is easy - there's no fooling this distance," says one runner of a two, three, four hour challenge run on grit and blisters, and those who embrace it often cite the importance of "athletes taking care of each other." "It's not always about crossing the finish line first, but lifting others when they fall," said one. "We do it together." When Beggs, a member of North Down Athletic Club, paused to help Haridasse, sacrificing his own time and standing, he "embodied everything our club stands for - integrity, compassion and true sportsmanship," said Club chair Jamie Stevenson, who hailed him as "a superstar (who) couldn't pass an athlete in distress. What a gentleman!"
Beggs later said he saw Haridasse fall a couple of times out of the corner of his eye, and "my instinct was just to go over (and) do the right thing." He doesn't blame those who ran past: "It’s a once-in-a-lifetime achievement. You have to put yourself in front of others. This time, I just happened to put somebody else in front of me...It's one of those things in life - you've got an option at any moment in time. It could be me on my next marathon." As they crossed the finish line, a wheelchair "flew past." He thought it was for Haridasse, but it was for De Oliveira, who'd passed out: "He used everything in him to get Ajay across the line."
"It was a split-second decision," De Oliveira later wrote of stopping when he saw Haridasse collapse. “I knew I wouldn’t have the strength to help him on my own. In that moment, I thought, ‘God, if someone stops, I’ll stop too and help him. And God was so generous...because two are stronger than one." In the end, De Oliveira's time was 2hr 44min 26sec, followed by Haridasse at 2:44:32 and Beggs at 2:44:36. All three qualified for next year's race, and all plan to run again - "God willing," said De Oliveira. Haridasse later thanked his two rescuers; despite his own near-obliteration, he called the race "the greatest experience ever."
In a searing piece about the 2013 Boston Marathon terrorist bombing that killed five and wounded almost 300 - "All My Tears, All My Love" - Dave Zirin contrasted that tragedy with the historic joy of the Marathon. In 1967, Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run it, registering as K.V. Switzer and dressing in loose sweats. Five miles in, when a rabid official noticed her and tried to force her out, male runners fought him off: "For them, Kathrine Switzer had every right to be there." The moment, Zirin wrote, "gave us all a glimpse of the possible...of the world we'd aspire to live in." This week, Beggs and De Oliveira gave us another.
"If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon." - Kathrine Switzer
Apr 23, 2026
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Green Groups Sue Trump to Stop 'Exceptionally Risky' Deep-Water Drilling Project in Gulf of Mexico
Determined to prevent a "sequel" to the worst oil spill in US history, BP's deadly Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, six environmental protection groups on Monday sued the Trump administration over what they said was its illegal approval of the British fossil fuel giant's $5 billion plan to drill in the body of water's lowest depths off the coat of Louisiana.
BP has boasted that its planned Kaskida oil field is a "world-class project that reflects decades of technological innovation," but environmental legal firm Earthjustice argued that the company has failed to prove its has the "experience, expertise, and certified equipment to conduct safe drilling under extreme conditions" in waters deeper than 5,600 feet, where opponents of the plan say extreme pressure and temperatures will make a blowout and oil spill more likely than they'd be in a typical drilling project.
A "loss of well control" was blamed for the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill that killed 11 people, harmed and killed more than 100,000 birds and marine animals as well as untold numbers of fish, and devastated local economies—and that type of accident is 6-7 times more likely in an ultra-deep drilling project like Kaskida, according to Earthjustice.
The organization wrote in a regulatory filing last year when it was trying to block the project that "deep-water and ultra-deep-water oil spills and accidents are also much more difficult to respond to and contain.”
"BP did not show in its proposals that it will have the necessary containment capabilities in case the company needs to stop a blown-out well from spilling 4.5 million barrels of oil or more across the Gulf."
The group is representing Healthy Gulf, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Habitat Recovery Project, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity in the lawsuit, which argues that President Donald Trump's Interior Department adopted in its environmental analysis of Kaskida a severe underestimation—by about half a million barrels of oil—of what a worst-case scenario oil spill would look like.
"BP did not show in its proposals that it will have the necessary containment capabilities in case the company needs to stop a blown-out well from spilling 4.5 million barrels of oil or more across the Gulf," said Earthjustice.
Rachel Mathews, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said it was "appalling that the Trump administration has authorized this deep-water drilling project without having information critical to preventing harm to marine life."
“This will put Rice’s whales, sea turtles, and other Gulf wildlife at terrible risk," said Mathews. "Ultra-deep-water drilling is ultradangerous, full stop.”
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM) approval of the Kaskida project was preceded by several industry-friendly actions by the Trump administration, including a meeting last month of the federal Endangered Species Committee, which voted to exempt fossil fuel companies from following policies intended to protect endangered species in the Gulf. Advocates argued that the decision was made illegally because the panel is required to meet publicly.
The administration has also proposed weakening "well control" rules for offshore drilling operations, and the White House is consolidating the BOEM and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement—two agencies that were intentionally separated following the Deepwater Horizon disaster after an investigative commission found that conflicts of interest were created when they acted as one regulatory agency.
“Kaskida is emblematic of a new era in offshore oil extraction: corporate hoarding of risky, ultra-deep water leases in an attempt to monopolize the future of oil production, with little to no oversight from the Trump administration. We, as citizens of the Gulf South, are not standing for it,” said Martha Collins, executive director of Healthy Gulf. “BP has shown how they handle oil spills on this anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster—their risky drilling and inexperience at this great depth will ensure their continued legacy of the Gulf never being the same again.”
Despite the fact that the Trump administration has taken numerous actions to ramp up oil and gas production—as the US already produces record amounts of fossil fuels—those measures are doing little to reduce oil prices, noted Earthjustice.
“Offshore drilling is one of the riskiest kinds of oil extraction, but the Trump administration is ignoring the law to allow Big Oil CEOs to endanger coastal communities for the sake of corporate profit,” said Devorah Ancel, senior attorney at Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program. “This permit would allow BP to develop multiple ultra-deep high-pressure wells, which is already exceptionally risky, and with BP’s track record in the Gulf, coastal ecosystems face extraordinary danger. We’re suing the Trump administration to ensure the coastal communities that would suffer the consequences of BP’s actions get their day in court.”
Apr 20, 2026
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As Americans Struggle With Soaring Prices, Trump Says $4 Gas Is ‘Not Very High'
President Donald Trump on Thursday brushed off Americans' concerns about paying $4 per gallon of gas, telling a group of reporters that this price is "not very high."
While speaking with journalists on the White House lawn, Trump was asked by a reported from ABC News how long Americans should expect to be dealing with high gas prices, which have soared since the president launched an unconstitutional war of choice with Iran more than six weeks ago.
"They're not very high," Trump said. "If you look at what they were supposed to be to get rid of a nuclear weapon, with the danger that entails, so the gas prices have come down very much over the last three or four days."
Q: How much longer will American continue to see these high gas prices?
TRUMP: Well, they're not very high
Q: $4 a gallon still
TRUMP: That's what ABC says, but the stock market is up. Everything is doing really well. pic.twitter.com/yIxHXKqXII
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 16, 2026
In fact, Trump-appointed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said under oath during congressional testimony that Iran's uranium enrichment program was "obliterated" by US airstrikes last year, and that there had been no effort by the Iranians no effor to rebuild their enrichment capability since.
Additionally, gas prices have not come down "very much" over the last four days. According to AAA, gas prices in the US currently average $4.09 per gallon, a slight decrease from the $4.16 they averaged the week prior.
After the reporter informed Trump that gas was still over $4 a gallon, he replied, "Well, that's what ABC says, but the fact is, if you look at the stock market, it's up. Everything's doing really well."
Shortly after Trump shrugged off concerns about high gas prices, he posted a message on Truth Social discussing the security features he wants to see in the luxury ballroom he's been planning to build on White House grounds.
Among other things, Trump said he wanted the ballroom to have "Bomb Shelters, a State of the Art Hospital and Medical Facilities, Protective Partitioning, Top Secret Military Installations, Structures, and Equipment, Protective Missile Resistant Steel, Columns, Roofs, and Beams, Drone Proof Ceilings and Roofs, Military Grade Venting, and Bullet, Ballistic, and Blast Proof Glass."
Apr 16, 2026
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Senate GOP Blasted for Trying to Give Trump's ICE and Border Patrol Another $140 Billion
Congressional Democrats and advocacy groups on Tuesday slammed Senate Republicans' proposed budget resolution, which authorizes up to $140 billion in new deficit spending for Department of Homeland Security agencies responsible for President Donald Trump's deadly immigration crackdown.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced the fiscal year 2026 budget resolution, which the senator's office described as "the blueprint that unlocks the pathway for a targeted reconciliation bill that will provide funding for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP)" for at least the remainder of Trump's term.
"The resolution includes reconciliation instructions allowing for up to $70 billion of deficit increases each for the Judiciary and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees," explained the advocacy group Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
ICE is already flush with a $75 billion funding boost thanks to Republicans' so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed last July 4.
“The threats to our homeland from radical Islam are only getting more intense," Graham said, despite there being no significant attack by such forces on US soil in a decade. "Now is not the time to defund Border Patrol, and now is certainly not the time to put ICE out of business."
"These men and women have been dealing with the consequences of the over 11 million illegal immigrants that came to the United States during the Biden administration," the senator added.
There is no evidence that anywhere near that number of undocumented migrants entered the US during former President Joe Biden's tenure.
Responding to Graham's proposal, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said: "Earlier today, we caught our first glimpse of the Senate Republicans’ budget resolution. Forget being on the same page, Republicans aren’t even on the same planet as the American people."
"They want to give $140 billion for ICE and Border Patrol without reforms, but $0 to lower Americans’ costs," he continued. "Let me say that again: $140 billion for ICE and Border Patrol—no reforms, no accountability, no strings attached; $0 to lower Americans’ costs."
"That’s their priority. That’s why they are dragging the Senate through the arduous, convoluted reconciliation process: to put money in the coffers of Trump’s rogue agencies, rather than in Americans’ pockets," Schumer said.
"Democrats want to lower Americans’ grocery, gas, healthcare, and housing costs. Senate Republicans want to appease Donald Trump... by giving ICE and Border Patrol tens of billions of dollars to continue spreading violence in our streets," he added.
Center for American Progress (CAP) senior director of federal budget policy Bobby Kogan called the GOP budget proposal "a missed opportunity to help Americans."
"In addition to doing nothing to rein in DHS, many civil and human rights abuses, congressional Republicans’ reconciliation plan misses an opportunity to do affirmative good for struggling households," he said.
Kogan continued:
While there was broad agreement in Congress on the funding levels for the agencies within DHS itself, congressional Democratic leadership asked for a handful of reforms to try to prevent more killings of citizens and noncitizens and avoid another wave of other civil rights violations from being undertaken by the department. Congressional Republican leadership has rejected calls for legislative reforms to ICE and Border Patrol operations and is now instead using this process to provide funding with no oversight.
The Republican proposal comes as immigrant deaths in ICE custody have soared, with at least 17 people dying since January. DHS officers have also killed two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during the Operation Metro Surge blitz in Minneapolis.
Apr 21, 2026
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'Hateful, Bigoted' Chip Roy Introduces MAMDANI Act in Congress
Journalists and rights advocates reacted on Monday with a mix of bemusement and anger over US Rep. Chip Roy's display of "blatant Islamophobia" as the Texas Republican introduced a bill that appeared as intent on personally targeting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as it was on unconstitutionally expelling immigrants from the US over certain political and religious views.
"Blatant Islamophobia aside, Roy's staff probably wasted days trying to land this acronym," said Ravi Mangla, press secretary for the Working Families Party, after Roy unveiled the Measures Against Marxism’s Dangerous Adherents and Noxious Islamists (MAMDANI) Act.
According to Roy, the legislation would enact "sweeping" changes to US immigration law that would deport, denaturalize, and deny US citizenship or entry to any immigrant "who is a member of a socialist party, a communist party, the Chinese Communist Party, or Islamic fundamentalist party, or advocates for socialism, communism, Marxism, or Islamic fundamentalism."
The bill was introduced nearly four months after Mamdani was sworn in to office. Roy had suggested that the political rise of the democratic socialist, who is a Muslim immigrant from Uganda, risked bringing what he believes to be "Sharia law"—actually a broadly defined set of personal theological and ethical guidelines rather than a national law—to the US.
In reality, Mamdani has taken steps toward enacting a universal childcare program, opening a network of city-owned grocery stores to compete with corporations, and convincing the state to tax the second homes of wealthy New Yorkers.
The legislation introduced Monday comes days after a Washington Post analysis found that Roy has been particularly fixated on promoting the view that allowing Muslims to immigrate to the US and practice their religion—in accordance with the US Constitution—will harm the nation.
Including one recent post that explicitly said, "No more Muslims," Roy has posted from his campaign and official accounts about Muslims, Islam, and "Sharia law" more than 244 times since January—more than any other member of Congress, including Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.), who has faced called to resign for numerous anti-Muslim comments that have attacked public figures like Rep. Ilham Omar (D-Minn.).
The Council on American Islamic Relations said in a report last month that last year, it received 8,683 complaints from people facing anti-Muslim bias or attacks—the highest number of complaints in a single year since the group began compiling civil rights reports in 1996. Employment discrimination was the most common complaint, with immigration and asylum discrimination and hate incidents rounding out the top three.
Gun control and human rights advocate Cameron Kasky said that "many moderate Democrats and the mainstream media have played a pivotal role in normalizing this dangerous, escalatory Islamophobia."
A number of influential establishment Democrats suggested Mamdani's victory in the mayoral race last year could endanger Jewish New Yorkers, and refused to endorse him. Party leaders also continue to support arming Israel—which has spent the last two-and-a-half years attacking Palestinians in Gaza and has now returned to assaulting Lebanon—claiming the Israeli government needs US weapons to defend itself against other countries and groups in majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East.
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) warned that while Roy's bill targets socialists and Muslims whom the congressman says subscribe to "fundamentalism," the party will likely "expand their list of targets—little by little, hoping you do not notice—until their is no one left to stand against their agenda."
Apr 20, 2026
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Israel Condemned for Bombing Rescue Workers Trying to Reach Journalist Buried Under Rubble
The Israel Defense Forces were condemned on Wednesday following reports that the IDF dropped a grenade on Red Cross workers as they attempted to rescue a Lebanese journalist believed trapped beneath rubble in southern Lebanon.
Two journalists from the local media outlet al-Akhbar, Amal Khalil and Zeinab Faraj, were attacked by the IDF after arriving to report at the scene of a previous strike that had killed two civilians in a car in the village of Al-Tiri, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Heidi Pett.
The journalists, who were wounded, found that their own car was stuck under rubble from the second strike and that they were unable to leave.
Red Cross workers then spent hours attempting to reach the reporters. But according to the National News Agency (NNA), other Israeli attacks targeted a major road leading to the village "to prevent ambulance teams from reaching the two journalists.”
Faraj was rescued and brought to the hospital, where she is being treated for severe injuries that require surgery. The NNA and other Lebanese outlets reported that as she was transported to the hospital, the Red Cross vehicle came under Israeli fire, leaving visible bullet holes.
While Faraj was evacuated, however, Khalil remained trapped. According to Reuters, the Lebanese army asked the Israeli military to allow rescuers to retrieve her.
Lebanon's president, Joseph Aoun, also urged the Lebanese Red Cross to cooperate with the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers to "carry out the rescue operation in the shortest possible time.”
But as the rescue workers lifted Khalil from the rubble, an Israeli drone dropped a stun grenade on them, believed to be a warning, which forced the workers to withdraw from the town, according to the Lebanese outlet LBCI. The Red Cross is expected to return later to continue the search for Khalil.
A recent profile of Khalil in the Beirut-based Public Source magazine celebrated her more than two-decade career, which began shortly before Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006. Though she resisted the label of "war correspondent," much of her work since 2023 has again focused on covering what she's described as "resistance" to Israeli aggression.
"I always highlight the steadfastness of ordinary people in their border villages, like the farmers who continued tending their land while the Israeli settlements across from them in northern Palestine were empty," Khalil said. "I debunk the enemy’s narrative of targeting only military sites by showing evidence of them bombing homes, farms, and killing children. After the [2024] ceasefire, I also started documenting how the destruction that followed was many times greater than what had occurred during the war itself."
According to Reporters Without Borders, Khalil previously received death threats from an Israeli phone number in September 2024, while she was reporting on the war that broke out between Israel and Lebanon earlier that year.
She received a message reading, "We know where you are, and we will reach you when the time comes." The message concluded, "I suggest you flee to Qatar or somewhere else if you want to keep your head connected to your shoulders."
The deliberate killing of journalists who are civilians constitutes a war crime under international humanitarian law.
The IDF said it was aware of reports that journalists were injured in Wednesday's attacks, but did not confirm them to The Associated Press. The IDF denied that it was preventing rescue teams from reaching the area. The military also said it “does not target journalists and acts to mitigate harm to them.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found that last year was the deadliest year for journalists in the more than three decades since they began collecting data. An unprecedented 129 journalists and media workers were killed on duty last year. Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the press killings in 2024 and 2025, most of whom were Palestinians in Gaza.
Lara Bitar, editor of Public Source magazine, wrote on social media Wednesday that Khalil and her rescuers had come under attack “because Israel treats journalism as a crime.”
Bitar said, "Amal has been tirelessly and lovingly covering communities impacted by war, occupation, and displacement for decades."
Apr 22, 2026
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Outrage Grows Over GOP Plan to Take Food Aid From Millions of Women and Children
"There is no doubt that this appropriations bill would only deepen America’s hunger crisis," said the president of one anti-hunger organization.
Apr 23, 2026
House Republicans faced mounting anger on Thursday after proposing hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to a program that provides food aid to millions of vulnerable women and children across the United States.
The cuts were proposed in an appropriations bill to fund the US Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies. The Republican legislation would cut $200 million from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in the coming fiscal year at a time when families nationwide are struggling to afford groceries.
The GOP bill would cut by $141 million a WIC benefit that helps provide fruit and vegetables to toddlers, preschoolers, and pregnant and postpartum women. Around 5.4 million people would lose fruit and vegetable benefits under the Republican bill, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).
"There is no doubt that this appropriations bill would only deepen America’s hunger crisis," Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center, said in a statement. "Families are already struggling in the face of rising grocery prices and would be forced to stretch tight budgets even further. In turn, they would be forced to make difficult choices such as paying for food, housing, or other basic needs."
Rep. Sanford Bishop Jr. (D-Ga.), the top Democrat on the House agriculture subcommittee, said Thursday that "it is hard to make America healthy again when this bill takes fruit and vegetables from over 5 million women, infants, and children and eliminates the Healthy Food Financing Initiative."
For 30 years, Congress has fully funded #WIC to ensure all eligible families who apply can receive full benefits. The House agriculture appropriations bill would break this promise: it would underfund WIC & cut benefits for WIC participants in every state. https://t.co/lHjESmgkuN
— Ty Jones Cox (@TyJonesCox) April 22, 2026
The damage from the Republican proposal wouldn't be limited to people in the United States. Eric Mitchell, president of the Alliance to End Hunger, noted that "globally, the bill would cut a drastic 25% from Food for Peace at a time when worldwide hunger emergencies are spiking, and the availability of emergency food is in doubt."
"Countless families in the United States and around the world are struggling to get the food they need for themselves and their families. Conflict abroad is spurring emergencies while raising costs for food and agriculture across the globe, and continued economic uncertainty is continuing to put a strain on the limited resources of those most in need of food assistance," said Mitchell. "Hungry people and families cannot afford to shoulder the burden of decreasing federal spending."
The House GOP's proposed cuts would compound the ongoing damage inflicted by the unprecedented $200 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump approved last summer.
CBPP noted in an analysis released Wednesday "that SNAP participation nationwide fell by 2.5 million people (6%) between the law’s July 2025 enactment and December of that year, the latest month of data from the US Department of Agriculture."
"The declines started before HR 1’s enactment, suggesting factors at play in addition to that law," the think tank observed. "But in many states they accelerated after HR 1, and we expect that trend to continue."
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'We're Literally Starving Them': GOP Senator Gloats That Iranians 'Can't Feed Themselves' Because of Trump Blockade
One foreign policy analyst said the senator was effectively admitting that “we’re literally committing crimes against humanity.”
Apr 23, 2026
A Republican US senator proudly declared that President Donald Trump's blockade of Iranian ports is "starving" Iranians on Wednesday, in yet another piece of counterevidence to the idea that the president's war there is meant to "liberate" the people.
"We have this embargo working, this blockade, and we're literally starving them," said Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) during an interview on Newsmax. "Both financially, and they can't feed themselves either, very long."
During the same interview, Marshall said Trump must “take everything into consideration” to finish the war against Iran and compared the decision Trump must make to "President [Harry] Truman’s decision on dropping the bomb, and D-Day for President [then-Gen. Dwight] Eisenhower.”
The comments came after Trump announced that he would extend a two-week ceasefire while continuing his naval blockade of Iranian ports, enacted as a counter to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused chaos and inflation across the global economy.
It was yet another 180-degree spin from Trump, who just days before had issued another genocidal threat to "blow up" the "whole country" of Iran, including civilian infrastructure, if it did not capitulate to his demands in a ceasefire agreement, which was roundly condemned by international organizations as a pledge to commit war crimes.
The Iranian population suffered tremendously under Trump's "maximum pressure sanctions" before the war, which fueled 58% food inflation year over year in September 2025.
The war launched by the US and Israel in February has only heightened the pain: Last month, Iran's inflation rate hit a record 72%, and the cost of its staple food basket soared to 134% compared with the previous year.
More than 750,000 jobs had been lost as of last week, and the United Nations Development Program predicted that Iran's economy could contract by as much as 10% as a result of the war. In just 40 days of war, the UNDP found that 3.5-4.1 million Iranians have fallen below the poverty line.
Trump's blockade of Iranian ports has tightened the noose even more, cutting off about 90% of the nation's maritime trade.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the blockade immediately affected nearly a million tons of grain and oilseeds. Prices for commodities like rice, which have already increased sevenfold in recent months, are expected to soar even further.
While Iran is much larger and more self-sufficient than Cuba, the blockade mirrors the economic warfare Trump has waged against the island in what he has said is an effort to force its leadership from power or outright "take" it for the US.
The blockade of fuel shipments to the island enacted through tariff threats has paralyzed its economy and resulted in rolling blackouts that have disrupted hospital care, agriculture, and every other facet of daily life for the Cuban people, drawing condemnation from United Nations human rights experts, who have called it a "serious violation of international law" and an act of "extreme unilateral economic coercion."
The Trump administration and its cheerleaders in Congress have not been shy about their goal for sanctions in Iran—to inflict suffering upon the people of Iran in hopes that they will rise up and overthrow their governmen. But Marshall's declaration that Trump was trying to "starve" Iran was seen by critics as an even more explicit endorsement of collective punishment than most.
Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said it confirmed that Trump was pitching "genocide as a tactic in Iran."
In less than two months, at least 1,700 civilians have been killed, including more than 250 children, according to the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency. More than 26,000 people have been injured, according to the Iranian Health Ministry.
The international affairs researcher Derek Davison wrote that by cheering a policy he said was "literally starving" Iran, Marshall was basically saying: "We're literally committing crimes against humanity. It's awesome."
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Lebanese PM Condemns Israel's Killing of Journalist Amal Khalil as 'Clear-Cut War Crime'
"Israel’s targeting of media professionals in the south while they are performing their professional duties is no longer a matter of isolated incidents; rather, it has become a proven pattern."
Apr 23, 2026
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam late Wednesday accused the Israeli military of war crimes after rescue workers recovered the body of journalist Amal Khalil from the ruins of a house in southern Lebanon that Israel bombed hours earlier.
"Targeting journalists, obstructing the access of relief teams to them—and indeed, re-targeting their locations after these teams have arrived—constitutes a clear-cut war crime," Salam wrote on social media. "Israel’s targeting of media professionals in the south while they are performing their professional duties is no longer a matter of isolated incidents; rather, it has become a proven pattern—one that we condemn and reject, just as it is condemned and rejected by all international laws and norms."
Khalil, who was reporting on Israel's assault on southern Lebanon for the daily newspaper Al-Akhbar, took cover in a local house after an Israeli strike nearly hit her car. Israeli forces then attacked the house, trapping Khalil and fellow journalist Zeinab Faraj under rubble.
A Red Cross team granted access to the scene was able to evacuate Faraj, who was badly wounded, before coming under attack by Israeli forces. The Associated Press reported that Khalil "remained under the rubble for hours before the Lebanese army, civil defense, and the Lebanese Red Cross were able to get to the scene hours later."
"Khalil’s body was retrieved shortly before midnight, at least six hours after the strike," AP noted. The Israeli attacks were seen as flagrant violations of the 10-day ceasefire that took effect on April 16.
Civil Defence crews were finally able to access the site where Leb journalist Amal Khalil was trapped under rubble but only hours later. They retrieved her body. Her newspaper Al Akbar has put out a video tribute. Lebanon’s Minister of Information condemned the incident… https://t.co/usLPJVjDF9 pic.twitter.com/J4Vvf0JmhW
— Alex Crawford (@AlexCrawfordSky) April 22, 2026
Paul Morcos, Lebanon's minister of information, confirmed Khalil's death and said she was "targeted by the Israeli occupation army while performing her professional duty" in southern Lebanon, which has been under intense Israeli assault since early March. Khalil is the fourth media worker killed by Israeli forces in Lebanon since March 2.
"Targeting journalists is a heinous crime and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, which we will not remain silent about," Morcos said in a statement. "We reiterate our call to the world and supporting international organizations to take action to stop it and prevent its recurrence."
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an organization that works to protect press freedom worldwide, pointed to "reports that Khalil had received a direct death threat attributed to the [Israel Defense Forces] in September 2024" as potential evidence that Israel deliberately targeted her.
“The repeated strikes on the same location, the targeting of an area where journalists were sheltering, and the obstruction of medical and humanitarian access constitute a grave breach of international humanitarian law,” Sara Qudah, CPJ's regional director in the Middle East and North Africa, said Wednesday. "CPJ holds Israeli forces responsible."
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