Some blue states not taking climate change seriously enough

 New Republic -  With Trump in death-drive mode on climate, canceling renewable energy projects left and right and even forbidding federal agencies to use language such as “climate change,” “green,”or “sustainable,” blue-state governors are well positioned to distinguish themselves and their party on the issue. They also have a responsibility: The states are our best hope for policy at a scale to match the problem. Yet a worrying trend is taking shape: Blue-state governors are making a big show of battling the Trump administration, but on climate issues they’ve been disappointing—and sometimes downright infuriating.

Last month’s climate package wasn’t the California Democrats’ first flub this year. Over the summer, in what Politico dubbed the state’s “Great Climate Retreat,” they weakened limits on the carbon intensity of transportation fuels, rolled back environmental reviews for new housing, and lifted a cap on oil industry profits. “California was the vocal climate leader during the first Trump administration,” Chris Chavez, deputy policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air, told Politico. “It’s questionable whether or not that leadership is still there.”

In Maryland, a climate advisory panel appointed by Governor Wes Moore has hit the brakes on a carbon trading measure, and late last month the state Department of the Environment, or MDE, appeared to cave to the Trump administration in abandoning some environmental justice metrics, which many fear means abandoning Black and brown communities to the whims of polluters. “It just appears to me that MDE blatantly does not want to be accountable in the massive pollution and the overburden of these heavy industrial industries,” Kamita Gray, a community leader in Brandywine—a majority-Black town that’s home to gas-fired power plants, a coal ash dump, and a Superfund site—told Maryland Matters.

Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania too is under fire from climate critics. As attorney general, he authored a solid road map for protecting Pennsylvanians from the harmful environmental and health effects of fracking, but in his two years as governor he has allowed companies to be secretive about the chemicals used in fracking, and has not pushed to pass any laws curbing the industry. The Environmental Health Project, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit, said “residents are still waiting for meaningful action. Our assessment concludes that the Shapiro administration has not fulfilled the commitments the governor made to Pennsylvanians in general and to frontline communities in particular.”

And then there’s New York. Governor Kathy Hochul has been failing to follow the decarbonization timeline that was outlined in the state’s 2019 climate law, prompting environmental justice groups to sue her. She has delayed plans for “cap and invest” and is dragging her feet on building public renewables (despite the state’s landmark Build Public Renewables Act, which passed in 2023). She has seemingly caved to Trump by going ahead with gas pipelines she previously rejected. And it’s unclear whether she will sign a repeal of the outdated “100 foot rule,” which requires utility ratepayers to subsize the cost of connecting new customers to the gas system, a reform that has long been a priority of the state’s climate movement.

Donald Trump

Via Miles Taylor

Trump regime

Via Annie

 

Meanwhile. . .

The Independent, UK - WLIVE Fabric recalled about 76,500 dressers sold on Amazon on Tuesday, warning that the furniture poses serious risk of injury or death if it tips over when not properly anchored to a wall. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the 12-drawer fabric dressers can become unstable and fall over or trap a child if left unsecured.

Trump says the word 

Polls

Pew Research Center -  Seven-in-ten Americans say the country’s higher education system is generally going in the wrong direction, up from 56% in 2020. Majorities across major demographic groups share this view. Additionally, many Americans give U.S. colleges poor marks in areas like affordability and preparing students for well-paying jobs.

Majorities in both parties say that those who call out others on social media for potentially offensive posts are mainly holding people accountable for their actions. Smaller shares say these callouts mainly punish people who didn’t deserve it. Partisan views on this question have shifted since 2022, especially among Republicans. 

The 119th Congress is the most racially and ethnically diverse in history, according to our January analysis. As of its first day in session, 139 senators and representatives identified as Black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American.  

Across the country, generation Z women ... represent the most leftwing demographic in modern US history.  Such is not the case with the men of gen Z, whose views tend to skew more in line with the national average, according to a recent 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll. The polling found that only 26% of gen Z women approve of the job president Trump is doing, compared with 47% of gen Z men. The national average is 43% approval.

A survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers from Medallia discovered that Gen Z was twice as likely to leave feedback on third-party review sites or social media and four times as likely to include complaints. 

 

World's oceans losing their greenness

 The Guardian -  The world’s oceans are losing their greenness owing to global heating, according to a study that suggests our planet’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide could be weakening.

The change in the palette of the seas is caused by a decline of phytoplankton, the tiny marine creatures that are responsible for nearly half of the biosphere’s productivity.

The findings, which also have alarming implications for oxygen levels and food chains, are based on a groundbreaking study of daily chlorophyll concentrations in low- to mid-latitude oceans from 2001 to 2023.

Chlorophyl is a green pigment responsible for photosynthesis, the process by which plants, algae and phytoplankton convert sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. It is one of the foundation blocks of life on Earth.

Shutdown

The Guardian -   The US supreme court is expected to run out of federal funding on Saturday, according to Patricia McCabe, the court’s public information officer.

“At that point, if new appropriated funds do not become available, the Court will make changes in its operations to comply with the Anti Deficiency Act,” McCabe said in a statement, referring to the law that prohibits government agencies from spending money that hasn’t been appropriated by Congress.

“As a result, the Supreme Court Building will be closed to the public until further notice,” reads the statement. “The Building will remain open for official business. The Supreme Court will continue to conduct essential work such as hearing oral arguments, issuing orders and opinions, processing case filings, and providing police and building support needed for those operations.”

Guns

Jarvis DeBerry, MSNBC-  Nick Wilson, who works as the senior director of gun violence prevention for the Center for American Progress (CAP), told me, “Even for me, it was very surprising to see just how much Mississippi and other kind of more rural places top the list” of places with the worst gun homicide rates. Wilson was referring to a list CAP put together using data from hospitals and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The left-leaning think tank found that of the 20 U.S. counties with the highest “annualized gun homicide rate” between 2021 and 2024, 11 counties are rural. Mississippi counties account for eight of the top 20 and five of the top 10.

8 facts about divorce

Jeffrey Epstein

 Miami Herald- Jeffrey Epstein had multiple appointments, phone calls and dinners with Matthew Menchel — the Miami U.S. Attorney’s office chief criminal prosecutor who spearheaded Epstein’s sweetheart deal in 2007, newly released documents show.

A tranche of over 8,500 pages of records from Epstein’s estate — released by the House Oversight Committee Friday — show that Epstein’s calendars and emails reflect that Menchel, who left the DOJ in 2007, had multiple meetings or dinners with Epstein in 2011, 2013 and 2017. Lawmakers also referred to a photograph of Menchel on a ski trip with Epstein sometime in the 2000s, but didn’t produce the photo.

Immigration

ProPublica - The government doesn’t track how many citizens are held by immigration agents. We found more than 170 cases this year where citizens were detained at raids and protests.

More than 20 citizens have reported being held for over a day without being able to call their loved ones or a lawyer. In some cases their families couldn’t find them.

 Agents have arrested about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, for allegedly interfering with or assaulting officers, yet those cases were often dropped.

 The Independent, UK -  A clarinet player was arrested after playing her instrument to the tune of the “Ghostbusters” theme song outside of a Portland ICE facility, which has recently become a site of daily clashes between federal agents and demonstrators.

Oriana Korol, 38, was playing “Ghostbusters” with her group — the Unpresidented Brass Band — during a massive protest outside the ICE facility in Oregon’s largest city Sunday evening when federal agents arrested her, her loved ones said. She has since been taken to a jail in Washington as her husband and bandmates demand answers about her arrest.

“Why are they targeting a clarinet player? A clarinet player standing on the sidewalk far away from the street, following instructions,” her husband wondered, noting they share a three-year-old child.   Korol was “peacefully protesting,” her band said in a social media post Monday. “Taking us citizens out of state to detain them without charge is a new action from the Feds and should be opposed.”

 

Venezuela

Common Dreams - With President Donald Trump floating potential military action within Venezuela and authorizing operations by the Central Intelligence Agency after launching several deadly strikes on boats near the South American country, three lawmakers from both sides of the aisle on Friday said they would force a new vote on blocking the White House from carrying out an attack there.

Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) last week introduced a measure to rein in Trump’s bombing of boats in the Caribbean, which the White House has claimed are being used to traffic drugs into the US and present an imminent threat.

The measure failed, with one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (Pa.) joining most of the GOP in opposing it and two Republicans, Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), supporting it.

Kaine and Schiff on Friday were reportedly hoping that a new bipartisan measure, introduced with Paul, would garner more support from the Republicans.

They said they would force a vote on a war powers resolution to block the use of force by US troops “within or against” Venezuela unless it was “explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force.”

The 1973 War Powers Act requires Congress to consider and vote on resolutions regarding a president’s power to enter an armed conflict without congressional authorization.

“Congress has not authorized military force against Venezuela. And we must assert our authority to stop the United States from being dragged—intentionally or accidentally—into full-fledged war in South America,” said Schiff.

“Americans don’t want to send their sons and daughters into more wars—especially wars that carry a serious risk of significant destabilization and massive new waves of migration in our hemisphere.”

The lawmakers announced the resolution as it was reported that two survivors of the military’s most recent drone strike on a boat have been detained by US forces, with legal experts questioning whether they are prisoners or war or criminal suspects.

Prince Andrew dumps his titles

• Prince Andrew announced he will no longer use his titles and honors in a statement released by Buckingham Palace
• "In discussion with The King, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family," he said
• "As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me," he added
• Story 

Election reform

 Fair Vote - Last week, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences – a leading cross-disciplinary research center and society founded by John Adams and John Hancock in 1780 – released an important new report on how to fix our broken Congress...  which makes a powerful case for a shift to proportional representation . 

The authors highlight how proportional representation can empower voters and improve governance:

 The Perfect Neighbor - A new documentary, now on Netflix, shows how disconnected from one another Americans have become—and also how cohesive some of us still are.

Shutdown

NBC - Members of Congress’ pay is protected under Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, which states: “The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.”

 

But some lawmakers don’t like the optics of that, given that they are the ones with the authority to force or end a shutdown. Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., for instance, is one of a handful of lawmakers asking that their paycheck be withheld during the shutdown.

 

Presidents also get paid during a funding lapse. President Donald Trump donated his government salary during his first term and said he’s doing the same this time as well.

Roll Call -  Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Thursday that the food stamp program will run out of funds in two weeks because of the partial government shutdown, potentially leaving nearly 42 million people without monthly benefits. Read more...

Donald Trump

 NBC News - President Donald Trump said Friday that he had signed a commutation that would immediately release former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., from prison.

“George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated,” Trump posted on Truth Social Friday evening. “Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!” In April, Santos was sentenced to more than seven years in prison.

Last year, he pleaded guilty to charges of committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, conduct that prosecutors said was part of a yearslong scheme that preyed upon the campaign finance system and his own political party, donors and family members to line his own pockets.

Trump regime

Ralph Nader  - Professor Emeritus Roddey Reid could have retired from the University of California San Diego to a life of deserved leisure. Instead, he has just published a Handbook on Political Intimidation/Bullying, which is increasingly dominating government, business, and civil society....

Reid argues, Newt Gingrich launched this political onslaught in 1994 when he took over the GOP, led the Republicans to victory and became House Speaker. “To be clear,” Reid continues, “political intimidation and public bullying are forms of psychological and physical political violence…meant to injure, humiliate, isolate, coerce, and even destroy opponents and entire communities.” These interviews should spark a civic rebellion.

The political intimidation operates in both open sight – from the belligerent bully-in-chief Trump, and in the shadows with serious anonymous threats to members of Congress, judges, and their families. Combined, this viciousness has meant the difference in razor-thin votes in Congress. For example, the violent-talking, unfit Secretary of Defense being confirmed by the Senate.  Other Trump nominees, who are also staggeringly inexperienced, totally obeisant to Trump’s wrecking of America in daily violation of the Constitution and federal laws, have also squeaked through Senate confirmation votes.

 NY Times - Higher Obamacare prices — which Democrats have made central to the standoff behind the government shutdown — have become public in a dozen states. The sharp increases came to light as Trump threatened new shutdown-related cuts to federal aid and workers. 

 Roll Call - It’s been a year full of money grabs by an executive branch that puts less weight on Congress’ “power of the purse” than any since the Nixon administration.

But President Donald Trump’s latest budget maneuver — paying military salaries out of unrelated research funding — has so openly flouted federal law as to make lawmakers’ appropriations authority, and Congress itself, practically irrelevant, critics argue.

“President Trump has been ignoring Congress’ authority to say which funds should be spent since the early days of this administration. He is now increasingly disregarding the requirement of an appropriation before spending money,” said David Super, a Georgetown Law professor and expert in federal budget law.

“This renders the appropriations process essentially meaningless if the president continues along this course,” Super said.

Roll Call - Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Thursday that the food stamp program will run out of funds in two weeks because of the partial government shutdown, potentially leaving nearly 42 million people without monthly benefits.

“We’re going to run out of money in two weeks. So you’re talking about millions and millions of vulnerable families, of hungry families, that are not going to have access to these programs because of this shutdown,” Rollins said outside the White House.

The Agriculture Department later in the day released an Oct. 10 letter to regional SNAP directors directing them to stop work on November benefits. 

“Considering the operational issues and constraints that exist in automated systems, and in the interest of preserving maximum flexibility, we are forced to direct States to hold their November issuance files and delay transmission to State EBT [electronic benefit transfer] vendors until further notice. This includes on-going SNAP benefits and daily files,” the letter said. 

The Agriculture Department has limited options to find another source of money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, after the GOP budget reconciliation law earlier this year drained the Commodity Credit Corporation, a possible funding option.

 

Court cases

MSNBC -  [The] death penalty theme continued in another case this week, in which the Republican-appointed majority declined to halt an execution despite the defendant raising what Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson deemed an important constitutional question. That led Sotomayor to write that the majority “abandons its duty” in declining to step in, “even though a man’s life is in the balance.” The majority had nothing to say for itself in response, instead denying the stay without explanation in the latest shadow docket outing. 

MSNBC - Trump’s tariffs will be the main event when the justices retake the bench for the two-week hearing session that starts Nov. 3. The pivotal tariffs hearing will take place Nov. 5, and the president said this week that he might attend himself.  

Money

Sen Elizabeth Warren - Price increases for "things" under Donald Trump: Coffee is up 26% Baby strollers are up 25% Beef is up 14% School supplies are up 7% Electricity is up 5% Car prices are at a record high. And thanks to Republicans in Congress, health insurance premiums are about to double.

 

Via 

Morgan J. Freeman

  

JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon has ... expressed that the rising U.S. debt is a “big deal,” in an interview on Fox’s “Mornings With Maria.” According to Kelly, the debt-to-GDP ratio could climb above 100% by next year, meaning the U.S. will owe more than its yearly output.

“There are good reasons to believe, however, that the debt will rise even faster than this,” he said.

But this already gloomy forecast is only if the economy doesn’t crash before then, Kelly said.“Finally, this all assumes no recession and no need for other major spending on domestic or international priorities,” he said.

The Guardian - Alarm bells are ringing on Wall Street. The recent collapses of Tricolor, a used car seller and sub-prime auto lender, and First Brands, an auto parts supplier, have put the finance industry on edge, almost two decades after problems in the sub-prime mortgage lending market set the stage for the global financial crisis.

“When you see one cockroach, there are probably more,” Jamie Dimon, the JPMorgan Chase CEO, ominously cautioned analysts this week, after the US’s largest bank disclosed a $170m charge tied to Tricolor’s bankruptcy. “Everyone should be forewarned on this one.”

 

Immigration

 Immigration Agents Have Held More Than 170 Americans Against Their Will

• Americans Detained: The government doesn’t track how many citizens are held by immigration agents. We found more than 170 cases this year where citizens were detained at raids and protests.
• Held Incommunicado: More than 20 citizens have reported being held for over a day without being able to call their loved ones or a lawyer. In some cases their families couldn’t find them.
• Cases Wilted: Agents have arrested about 130 Americans, including a dozen elected officials, for allegedly interfering with or assaulting officers, yet those cases were often dropped.

 Time - For months, the White House and federal agencies have drawn outrage from critics for social media posts promoting President Trump’s immigration agenda. Some of the posts deploy jokes or memes. Others use language or images seen as racist dog whistles. This week, the Department of Homeland Security drew pushback for a post that was just one word: remigrate.

The term, which has been embraced among Trump’s MAGA base, has a fraught history in Europe, where it has ties to white nationalism and has been seen as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing.  The short post on X was followed by a link to a government site promoting self-deportation.

The term “remigration” has traditionally been used in Europe to refer to the mass deportation of non-white immigrants.

Appeals Court Maintains Block on Trump’s Troop Deployment to Illinois

NY Times -  A federal appeals panel on Thursday agreed with a lower court judge who had blocked the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to the Chicago area.

The 18-page preliminary ruling by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit concurred with the reasoning of Judge April M. Perry of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, who put a temporary block on deployments in her state on Oct. 8.

“The facts do not justify the president’s actions in Illinois” under the statute the Trump administration invoked in its attempt to deploy the National Guard, the appeals panel wrote, though it left open the possibility that could change in the future.

The decision means that National Guard troops cannot be stationed on the streets outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Broadview, Ill., where protesters have gathered as the Trump administration has carried out an immigration crackdown in the Chicago area.

Former security and intelligence officials say America is headed toward authoritarian rule

The Guardian - The United States is “on a trajectory” toward authoritarian rule, according to a sobering new intelligence-style assessment by former US intelligence and national security officials, who warn that democratic backsliding is accelerating under the Trump administration – and may soon become entrenched without organized resistance.

The report, titled Accelerating Authoritarian Dynamics: Assessment of Democratic Decline, was released on Thursday by the Steady State, a network of more than 340 former officers of the CIA, the NSA, the state department and other national security agencies.

To conduct the assessment, the authors applied the same analytic methods used by US intelligence agencies to assess the fragility of democracies abroad but turned them inward for what the group called a “first-of-its-kind” analysis of domestic democratic decline.

“We wrote it because the same tools we once used to assess foreign risks now show unmistakable warning signs at home,” the group said in a statement upon its release.

Susan Stamberg

 NPR ‘founding mother’ Susan Stamberg, the first U.S. woman to anchor a nightly national news program, died yesterday at the age of 87. See photos showcasing her legacy here. 

 Inside Radio -  Stamberg, the first woman to anchor a national evening news program, hosted “All Things Considered” for 14 years before taking the helm of “Weekend Edition Sunday” and later serving as a Special Correspondent covering the arts. Along the way, she earned induction into both the National Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and nearly every major broadcasting award.

“Susan Stamberg is the voice of NPR… She has been our franchise,” remarked Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon. “She is one of the great figures in American broadcast history.”

High tech for your Iphone

 Sam Smith - Get yourself a 2.5x3 inch lined pad, tear off a sheet and tape it to the back of your 3 inch wide I-phone. I've been doing this about a year and my notes have improved my memory dramatically. I know I could go to the phone's page for notes but why waste the time?

Polls

Newsweek - California Governor Gavin Newsom has gained ground on Vice President JD Vance in a new hypothetical poll of the 2028 presidential race.  According to polling by Emerson College, if the two were pitted against each other in the next election cycle, 46 percent would support Vance while 45 percent would opt for Newsom.  While this shows Vance slightly in the lead, the 1 percent margin he leads by is smaller than in previous surveys by the pollsters.

 Newsweek -  President Donald Trump's approval rating has plummeted in North Carolina, a key swing state that he has won three times during his three presidential runs.

According to an Elon University Poll, Trump's net approval rating in the state is -11 percentage points. This is a five-point decline on the university's previous poll in April and also a decline on previous polling conducted earlier this year by a different pollsters

Fox News - Zohran Mamdani, maintaining a substantial lead in the New York City mayoral race as voters see him as best to handle the city’s top problems. He also receives positive personal reviews and has more supporters who are enthusiastic and committed to voting.

All that gives the self-described Democratic socialist a 21-point lead among New York City registered voters: 49% back Mamdani, while 28% go for independent candidate Andrew Cuomo and 13% favor the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa.

7 In 10 Americans Could Be Considered Obese Under New Definition

 Drudge Report 

Adding waist size to BMI raises U.S. obesity rates from 42.9% to 68.6%, according to a major JAMA Network Open study.

One in four adults have “hidden” belly-fat obesity despite a normal BMI.

Older adults and Asian participants saw the biggest increase in obesity classification.

Venezuela

NY Times -  The military commander overseeing the Pentagon’s escalating attacks against boats in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration says are smuggling drugs said on Thursday that he was stepping down.

The officer, Adm. Alvin Holsey, is leaving his job as head of the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees all operations in Central and South America, even as the Pentagon has rapidly built up some 10,000 forces in the region in what it says is a major counterdrug and counterterrorism mission.

It was unclear why Admiral Holsey is suddenly departing, less than a year into what is typically a three-year job, and in the midst of the biggest operation in his 37-year career. But one current and one former U.S. official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said that Admiral Holsey had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats.

Chicago

Axios - A judge ordered federal agents in Chicago to turn on their body cameras during encounters with protesters, saying she was "startled" after seeing images of clashes between agents and the public. Go deeper.

New Yorker Daily  - Throughout Chicago, activists, religious leaders, and other residents have maintained a steady resistance to the Administration’s efforts. In the Broadview neighborhood, protesters have organized demonstrations outside an ICE facility for weeks. In a new report from the city, Geraldo Cadava speaks with one protester, a Presbyterian pastor, who says he’s witnessed federal agents shooting protesters with pepper balls, dousing them with pepper spray, throwing flash-bangs, and wrestling people to the ground. The pastor, who has attended political demonstrations for decades, says, “I’ve never seen the brutality, just completely unprovoked, that I’ve seen at Broadview.”

Elsewhere in the city, immigration attorneys are trying to insure due process for their clients and buy them time to stay in the country. They are also, as one lawyer tells Cadava, trying to “slow down an authoritarian within the existing system.”

Trump’s assault on Chicago is now part of a pattern, which also involves use of the U.S. military. The President has deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. He called Portland “war ravaged” and has tried to send troops there.

Gaza

The Guardian - The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that infectious diseases are “spiralling out of control”, with only 13 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals even partially functioning. “Whether meningitis … diarrhoea, respiratory illnesses, we’re talking about a mammoth amount of work,” Hanan Balkhy, regional director for the UN health body, told AFP in Cairo.

Newsworthy - The systematic targeting of Gaza’s water and energy infrastructure has created an environmental disaster of historic proportions. United Nations assessments reveal that 57% of water infrastructure lies destroyed or damaged, while desalination output has plummeted by 85%. The destruction extends beyond physical damage, representing what experts describe as the weaponization of essential resources against civilian populations.

The collapse of water treatment and sanitation systems has unleashed a public health emergency affecting Gaza’s entire population. Disease outbreaks including cholera and typhoid now threaten over 500,000 people, with many forced to consume contaminated water sources. Medical organizations report that the water crisis compounds existing humanitarian suffering, creating conditions ripe for epidemic spread among vulnerable displaced populations.

Israel’s Mounting Ceasefire Violations in Gaza

The Guardian - The United Nations said on Friday it would take time to reverse a famine in the Gaza Strip and urged the opening of all crossing points into the war-shattered Palestinian territory. “It’s going to take some time to scale back the famine,” the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) spokesperson Abeer Etefa told a media briefing in Geneva, saying the WFP had five distribution points up and running but wanted to get to 145 in order to “flood Gaza with food” 

Roll Call - Gaza faces rebuilding challenges as the first phase of the ceasefire remains in place. The territory has no money, unexploded bombs are hiding amongst the rubble, and around 90% of the buildings are damaged or destroyed. 

 The first step for Palestinians is clearing the rubble, and then getting supplies needed for reconstruction, says NPR’s Greg Myre, who is in Tel Aviv. Cement is a basic building supply, but Israel says in the past Hamas has siphoned it in Gaza to build hundreds of miles of concrete tunnels for its fighters. Israel doesn’t want this to happen again and plans to keep a close eye on the construction materials, meaning the flow of supplies entering Gaza could slow down

Censorship

NBC -  Indiana University fired its director of student media amid growing tension between the school and the student newspaper over what content was allowed in the print edition.