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'Complicit in the Genocide': First Muslim Biden Appointee Resigns Over Gaza
A political appointee at the U.S. Interior Department on Tuesday became the youngest—and first Muslim American—appointee of President Joe Biden's to resign as his administration continues to "fund and enable Israel's genocide of Palestinians." "Marginalized communities in our country have long been denied the justice they deserve. I joined the Biden-Harris administration with the belief that my voice and diverse perspective would lend a hand in the pursuit of that justice," Special Assistant and Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Maryam Hassanein, 24, said in a statement. "However, over the past nine months of Israel's genocide in Gaza, this administration...
Jared Golden Op-Ed on Trump Called 'Unconscionable Surrender to Fascism'
Breaking with many of his fellow Democrats, Maine Congressman Jared Golden suggested Tuesday that former Republican President Donald Trump's return to the White House wouldn't threaten U.S. democracy—and was sharply ridiculed for that take."After the first presidential debate, lots of Democrats are panicking about whether President Joe Biden should step down as the party's nominee," Golden wrote in a Bangor Daily News op-ed. "Biden's poor performance in the debate was not a surprise. It also didn't rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: While I don't plan to...
Researchers Warn of Imminent 'Death Spiral' for Rapidly Melting Alaska Ice Field
The melting of Alaska's Juneau ice field—which contains more than 1,000 glaciers—is accelerating and could reach a tipping point much sooner than predicted, according to research published Tuesday. The study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, shows that ice loss from the Juneau ice field began accelerating rapidly after 2005. The paper's authors found that "rates of area shrinkage were five times faster from 2015-2019 than from 1979-1990," while glacier volume loss—which had remained relatively consistent from 1770-1979—doubled after 2010. "Forty years from now, what is it going to look like? I do think by then the Juneau ice field will...
'Corporate Greed': Biden, Sanders Tell Big Pharma to Stop 'Ripping Off' Americans
President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called for prescription drug companies to lower prices and stop "ripping off" Americans. The message from Biden and Sanders (I-Vt.) came in a joint op-ed in USA Today in which they laid out the reforms they've already pushed through, called out two pharmaceutical companies in particular for the "unconscionably" high prices they charge to Americans, and vowed to take governmental action to end the "corporate greed." "There is no rational reason why Americans, for decades, have been forced to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for the prescription drugs they...
Risk of Trump Win 'Too Great': First House Democrat Calls On Biden to Step Aside
Crediting U.S. President Joe Biden with spearheading "transformational" changes since taking office three-and-a-half years ago, Rep. Lloyd Doggett on Tuesday became the first Democratic member of Congress to call on the president to withdraw from the 2024 electoral race, warning that a potential victory by former President Donald Trump would "usher America into a long, dark, authoritarian era."With just four months until Election Day, and weeks until the Democratic Party formally nominates its presidential candidate, Doggett (D-Texas) said in a statement that the party's "overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian...
'Historic' Category 5 Hurricane Beryl Offers Terrifying View of Future
As Hurricane Beryl barreled toward Jamaica on Tuesday after killing at least four people in the Caribbean's Windward Islands, climate scientists warned the record-breaking Category 5 storm is a present-tense example of what's to come on a rapidly heating planet. Even before the Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an 85% chance of above-normal activity and 17-25 total named storms this year. Matthew Cappucci, a meteorologist for The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang, highlighted some records Beryl has already broken. "There is a strong, well-documented link between the effects of human-induced climate change...
Rudy Giuliani Permanently Disbarred in New York State
Rudy Giuliani—onetime mayor of New York City, federal prosecutor, and attorney for former President Donald Trump—was permanently disbarred in New York state on Tuesday for lying about the 2020 presidential election being "stolen" by Democrats. The New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division unanimously disbarred Giulian, calling his propagation of Trump's "Big Lie" about 2020 election fraud a threat to the public interest and the legal profession. The panel found that Giuliani—whose law license was suspended in 2021—"flagrantly misused his prominent position as the personal attorney for former President Trump and his campaign" and "repeatedly and intentionally made false statements, some...
'Monumental': Advocates Applaud Federal Rule to Protect Workers From Extreme Heat
Labor advocates celebrated on Tuesday following the Biden administration's announcement of a proposed rule to protect workers from extreme heat—the first national workplace heat safety standard. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor, published the rule, which the administration says would protect about 36 million indoor and outdoor employees from heat-related injuries and illnesses. It follows similar regulations that five states have approved in recent years. Labor groups said the rule was the result of decades of advocacy by farmworkers and others subjected to extreme heat, who tend to be working-class people...
Israeli Bombings Kill More Palestinians as 250,000 Ordered to Evacuate Khan Younis
Hearing once again from the Israel Defense Forces that they must evacuate to a so-called "humanitarian zone," hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Tuesday were forced to search for safety ahead of a likely ground offensive in the city.The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said that roughly 250,000 people are living and seeking shelter in the evacuation zone—more than 10% of Gaza's population of 2.3 million. The evacuation order, which was posted on social media on Monday, also includes nearby localities...
Bernie Sanders: Right-Wing Supreme Court 'Out of Control' and Must Be Stopped
In the aftermath of the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court's potentially deadly rampage against federal regulators, its ruling in support of the criminalization of homelessness, and its decision to grant former President Donald Trump sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution, Sen. Bernie Sanders said late Monday that nation's highest judicial body is "out of control" and must be reined in before it can inflict even more damage. "Over the years, among other disastrous rulings, this right-wing court has given us Citizens United, which created a corrupt, billionaire-dominated political system," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. "It overturned Roe v. Wade, removing women's constitutional...
'Absurd and Nakedly Partisan': Trump-Appointed Judge Blocks Biden LNG Pause
A Trump-appointed judge on Monday blocked the Biden administration's pause on approvals of new liquefied natural gas export permits, the latest move by the nation's conservative-dominated judiciary to stop the federal government from taking action against the worsening climate emergency. Judge James D. Cain Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana sided with more than a dozen Republican-led states that sued over the pause earlier this year, claiming it would harm their economies. Cain wrote in his ruling that the pause, which temporarily halted the approval process for facilities exporting LNG to countries without a free...
Planned Parenthood Warns House GOP Appropriations Bills Attack Global Health
As the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives uses the appropriations process to promote the GOP agenda ahead of the November elections, Planned Parenthood Action Fund on Monday highlighted how the spending bills attack health within and beyond the United States. "Once again, anti-abortion rights politicians in Congress are manipulating the federal appropriations process to push for a recycled slate of dangerous and unpopular provisions to block access to sexual and reproductive healthcare across the country and around the world," states the new Planned Parenthood Action Fund memo.The document details anti-health policies in spending legislation for fiscal year...
Campaign Collects 730,000+ Signatures for Ohio Amendment to End Rigged Maps
The campaign for an Ohio ballot measure for a state constitutional amendment to end gerrymandering has collected more than 730,000 signatures, according to the initiative's organizers. The Citizens Not Politicians campaign said it delivered 731,306 signatures to the office of Ohio's secretary of state in Columbus on Monday, significantly more than the 413,487 valid signatures needed to qualify for November's ballot. If approved, the Citizens Not Politicians Amendment will: Create the 15-member Ohio Citizens Redistricting Commission made up of Republican, Democratic, and Independent citizens who broadly represent the different geographic areas and demographics of the state; Ban current or former politicians, political party officials,...
New Report Argues Private Rail Is a Train Wreck, Public Ownership Needed
Railword Workers United and a Brown University fellow on Monday published a white paper calling for the institution of a public rail system to replace America's corporate railroad giants. The 110-page white paper, written by Brown University undergraduate Maddock Thomas and published as part of RWU's Public Rail Now campaign, argues that U.S. railroad corporations such as BNSF, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, and CSX have failed on safety, workers' rights, service, electrification, and expanding capacity to meet rising freight demand. Instead of using profits to invest in critical infrastructure, the railroads have lined shareholder pockets with dividends and buybacks, Thomas...
'A Full-Fledged War Crime': Israel Condemned Over New Human Shield Footage
The latest video evidence of Israel's use of Palestinians as "human shields" during combat was condemned by one human rights advocate on Monday as "horrifying but not surprising," as campaigners emphasized that the Israel Defense Forces has long used civilians in Palestine to shield their own soldiers from harm while bombarding Gaza and the West Bank. Footage released by Al Jazeera on Sunday night showed Israeli forces attaching body cameras to handcuffed Palestinians who they had detained, dressing them in IDF uniforms, and sending them into buildings and tunnels to ensure the locations weren't rigged with explosives.The footage presented "evidence...
AOC Vows to File Articles of Impeachment After Supreme Court Trump Ruling
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday said she will file unspecified articles of impeachment U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority ruled that former President Donald Trump is entitled to "absolute immunity" for "official acts" performed while he was in office, a decision that prompted dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor to declare her "fear for our democracy." Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said on social media that "the Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control." "Today's ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture," she added. "I intend on filing articles of...
'The President Is Now a King Above the Law,' Sotomayor Warns in Chilling Dissent
In her dissent against the U.S. Supreme Court's Monday ruling in Trump v. United States, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor listed several acts that she argued the high court's right-wing supermajority has effectively sanctioned as unprosecutable exercises of presidential authority. "Orders the Navy's SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune," wrote Sotomayor. "Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune." The high court's 6-3 decision along ideological lines granted former President Donald Trump "absolute immunity" for acts that fall within the scope of the "responsibilities of the executive...
Justice Jackson Warns New Ruling Could 'Devastate' Federal Regulators
As the U.S. Supreme Court dealt yet another blow to the federal government's regulatory authority, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Monday stressed that "the ball is in Congress' court" to enact legislation to "forestall the coming chaos" wrought by the right-wing supermajority's decision. The justices ruled 6-3 in Corner Post Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System that the Administrative Procedures Act's (APA) statute of limitations period does not begin until a plaintiff is adversely affected by a regulation. The ruling reverses a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Corner Post—a North Dakota truck stop...
Newly Released Gaza Hospital Director Alleges 'Almost Daily Torture' in Israeli Detention
The director of Gaza's main hospital said at a press conference on Monday that he was tortured while being held without charges for the last seven months at an Israeli detention center.Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of the Al-Shifa hospital, once Gaza's main medical center, made the claims after he and 54 other Palestinian detainees were released and arrived back to the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces had raided the hospital in November and alleged that Abu Salmiya was involved in making it a Hamas command center. They later destroyed the hospital.Abu Salmiya said detention guards broke his finger and beat him...
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