SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Latest News
Israel Denounced for 'Killing Spree' of Rescue Workers in Lebanon
"Israel’s wanton killing of rescue workers and targeting of medical infrastructure in Lebanon has been one of this war’s most brazen features," Drop Site News noted.
May 22, 2026
Israeli attacks killed at least seven rescue workers in southern Lebanon on Thursday and Friday in violation of a US-brokered ceasefire, part of what critics say is a pattern of deliberate targeted murders of first responders that mirror the genocidal massacres committed in Gaza.
On Friday, paramedics from the al-Risala Association rushed to the site of an Israeli strike in Deir Qanun al-Nah, Tyre district, that reportedly killed a young girl and the village barber, identified by L'Orient Today as Ali Allameh. As they arrived on the scene, the paramedics were hit by a so-called "double-tap" strike—a follow-up bombing meant to eliminate survivors and first responders—that killed would-be rescuers Ali Abboud, Hussein Kassir, and Ahmad Hariri.
Hariri was also a well-known photojournalist who earlier this week documented an Israeli massacre of 14 people—including four children and 11 members of one family—in Deir Qanun al-Nah.
L'Orient Today reported that Israeli forces bombed two Islamic Health Committee centers in Hanouiyeh overnight Thursday, killing four rescue workers and wounding two others. Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli airstrike near the Tebnine Hospital reportedly killed two people and injured another while damaging all three floors of the facility.
Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health said more than 3,100 people have been killed by Israeli attacks since March 2, in addition to the more than 4,000 people, including nearly 800 women and over 300 children, slain in Israel’s 2023-25 attacks on its northern neighbor, where the militant resistance group Hezbollah is based. The dead from the current round of Israeli attacks include nearly 300 women, more than 210 children, and 123 medical and healthcare workers.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says 15 media professionals have also been killed in Lebanon since October 2023. One of them, Al-Akhbar correspondent Amal Khalil, was wounded last month by an Israeli strike while reporting on a previous bombing. Khalil was trapped under rubble, and as Red Cross workers attempted to extricate her, Israeli forces dropped a stun grenade on them as a warning to disperse. They were unable to rescue Khalil, who later died.
As in Gaza—where Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023—attacks by Israel have devastated Lebanon's healthcare infrastructure.
Israel's continued slaughter of Lebanese first responders comes as World Health Organization (WHO) member states gathered this week in Geneva, where they overwhelmingly backed a declaration of alarm over “the impact of the ongoing war on the Lebanese health systems, including attacks on health facilities and health workers, and the closure of dozens of primary healthcare centers and hospitals."
The measure, which also called on the WHO to "scale up" support for Lebanon's health system, passed by a vote of 95-2—with Israel and Honduras against—and 18 abstentions.
"Israeli military action has had unacceptable impacts on civilians and medical care," the United Kingdom said in an explanation of its vote in favor of the declaration. "The conflict has led to the displacement of over 1 million people and the closure of several hospitals and health facilities. The WHO has reported over 150 verified attacks against healthcare, with over 100 healthcare workers killed."
As Drop Site News reported Friday:
Israel’s wanton killing of rescue workers and targeting of medical infrastructure in Lebanon has been one of this war’s most brazen features. For the past five weeks, the relentless Israeli aerial and ground assault has continued despite a nominal ceasefire being announced by President Donald Trump on April 16. Last week, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 45-day extension of the “ceasefire” after holding their third round of direct talks in Washington, of which Hezbollah is not a part. The declaration of a ceasefire has not stopped the Israeli military from continuing its bombardment of Lebanon, mostly in the south and the eastern Bekka Valley.
Rescue teams describe a pattern of repeated Israeli attacks directly targeting their members, often in double—or triple-tap strikes—where after a site is struck, it is struck a second or even third time as emergency crews arrive on the scene.
“We try to be careful and take safety precautions before interventions, like waiting 10 minutes to avoid the double taps,” Abdullah Halal, who leads a Civil Defense rescue team in Nabatiyeh, told Drop Site News.
"But," the outlet noted, "even those precautions have not always been enough. Last week, Halal lost two of his two colleagues in a double-tap strike."
Ali Saad, who is with the Lebanese Red Cross, told UN News on Wednesday that his colleagues share coordinates with Israeli forces and other belligerents, but rescue workers are still being targeted.
“This is why the Red Cross volunteers hug each other and say goodbye before every mission,” he said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
El-Sayed Announces 'We Can Do Better' Tour Across Michigan to Hear From Biden-to-Trump Voters
"Democrats can’t win back voters they refuse to hear," the candidate said. "So we’re coming to listen."
May 22, 2026
Progressive US Senate hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed announced plans to barnstorm his state of Michigan next month as part of an effort to win back voters Democrats lost to President Donald Trump in 2024.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris won about 67,500 fewer votes in the Wolverine State in 2024 than former President Joe Biden did in his victory over Trump in 2020. Trump, by comparison, won more than 166,000 additional voters in 2024 than four years earlier.
El-Sayed, who recent polls show leading in the Democratic primary for the state's open Senate seat, will attempt to reach out to these "Biden-Trump" voters with the simple message: "We can do better."
Beginning on June 12, the former Detroit health director plans to travel to the cities of Allen Park, Dearborn Heights, and Clinton Township, and the counties of Muskegon, Saginaw, and Genesee—each of which saw particularly large swings from Biden to Trump during the last election.
El-Sayed's campaign noted that while each of these shares the commonality of heavy shifts toward Trump, "they represent different perspectives, demographics, and communities."
Muskegon, Saginaw, and Genesee are all lower-income counties where the high inflation and cost of living during the Biden administration played a major role in their rightward swings. Dearborn Heights, meanwhile, has one of the nation's largest Arab-American communities, and Harris saw tremendous losses there due to her support for Israel as it committed genocide in Gaza.
But with Trump's agenda only exacerbating inflation and removing economic lifelines for the working class, while ramping up foreign wars and support to Israel, Democrats have an opportunity to win back these voters.
They might need every last one of them: Current polls show November's general election is virtually tied, regardless of whether El-Sayed or one of his opponents—Rep. Haley Stevens or state Sen. Mallory McMorrow—emerge victorious in the August primary.
"It shouldn’t be this hard,” said El-Sayed in a statement promoting the tour on Friday. “People are paying too much for gas, groceries, rent, and healthcare. Instead of asking why people are fed up, too many politicians on both sides of the aisle are hell-bent on protecting a broken system, rather than taking on the corporations and special interests that have made life so hard."
El-Sayed has thus far found success as the sole candidate in his primary to champion Medicare For All—especially salient as hundreds of thousands of Michiganders are slated to lose Medicaid coverage in the coming years from GOP budget cuts.
In one of America's largest manufacturing hubs, he's tapped into the state's history of labor organizing—calling for stronger union protections and checks on job-killing artificial intelligence. And he's positioned himself as a leading crusader against "oligarchy" by swearing off super PAC donations and promoting taxes on billionaires' capital gains.
He's denounced the US government's "blank-check" funding of foreign militaries, including Israel, but also other authoritarian regimes like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.
The campaign said the communities where El-Sayed plans to travel are those "where frustration with the status quo translated into lost Democratic support in the 2024 election."
Unlike the traditional town hall format, where voters ask candidates questions, El-Sayed is planning to "open the floor to voters in swing communities to voice their frustrations, needs, and concerns."
"I’m interested in hearing and learning from the folks the establishment has left behind," El-Sayed said. "We can and must do better.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Charges Against Kilmar Ábrego García Thrown Out After Judge Finds Vindictive Prosecution
"Our client... is freed of these outrageous, vindictive charges," said an attorney representing Ábrego García. "It’s a good day."
May 22, 2026
A federal judge on Friday dismissed criminal charges against Kilmar Ábrego García, the man whom the Trump administration unlawfully deported to El Salvador last year.
Judge Waverly Crenshaw of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ruled that the US Department of Justice's (DOJ) case against Ábrego García should be thrown out on grounds of selective and vindictive prosecution.
In his ruling, Crenshaw likened the President Donald Trump's DOJ to a prosecutor who picked "the person first and the crime second" when it indicted Ábrego García on human smuggling charges last year.
Crenshaw, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, zeroed in on the fact that the DOJ reopened a three-year-old investigation into a Ábrego García mere days after the US Supreme Court unanimously ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the US, arguing that the timing and other evidence established "likeliness of vindictiveness" of the government's case.
While the government provided arguments attempting to rebut claims of vindictive prosecution, Crenshaw ultimately found them unpersuasive and argued that the "new evidence" the government used to justify reopening the case was something that prosecutors should have discovered before with due diligence.
After an examination of the government's claims, Crenshaw found that its case against Ábrego García was reverse engineered to justify his unlawful removal to El Salvador—where he was imprisoned at the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
"The objective evidence here shows that, absent Ábrego's successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution," Crenshaw wrote in his conclusion. "The executive branch closed its investigation on the November 2022 traffic stop. Only after Ábrego succeeded in vindicating his rights did the executive branch reopen that investigation."
Sean Hecker, an attorney representing Ábrego García, celebrated the judge's ruling shortly after it was issued.
"We are going to savor this one," Hecker wrote in a social media post. "Our client, Kilmar Ábrego García, is freed of these outrageous, vindictive charges. It’s a good day."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, warned that Ábrego García is not yet out of the woods given that the Trump administration is still trying to deport him to Uganda even though he has said he would accept being deported to Costa Rica.
Reichlin-Melnick nevertheless said that this was a major victory against the Trump administration.
"It is extremely hard to win a vindictive prosecution motion," he wrote, "but here the evidence was so strong that the judge had almost no choice but to grant it."
New York University law professor Ryan Goodman described Crenshaw's ruling as an "extraordinary rebuke" of the Trump DOJ, and noted that it highlighted the role played by acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche in the vindictive prosecution "nearly 30 times."
Journalist Nathan Newman said that Ábrego García deserved praise for standing firm in the face of relentless pressure by the federal government and fighting back.
"When history is written," wrote Newman, "the bravery and tenacity of Kilmar Ábrego García in defiance of the Trump administration will deserve a hefty credit for building the resistance to Trump's evil. A good day."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular