Global
“Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.”
The words are those of Renee Good’s wife Becca. They cut to our heart – our humanity. She was shot in the face by an ICE agent, who then muttered: “Fuckin’ bitch.” The murder of this 37-year-old mom as she tried to drive around the ICE guys who stopped her is national news, of course. Almost everyone has seen at least one of the many videos of the incident and, you might say, the national dialogue about virtually anything else has been put on hold.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested, detained, deported, and/or imprisoned many people that it has unilaterally determined to be undesirables. At first, they claimed they would deport only criminals, but it has already gone beyond that. We at the Free Press consider every person who has been sent to the Tecoluca (El Salvador prison), Guantanamo naval base, or detained in other prisons throughout the country to be innocent until proven guilty. We will include students who have been expelled for protesting genocide. It appears the government will revoke Visa's to get rid of undesirable students. This article will be updated as long as is necessary.
Maybe, just maybe, there are limits to the fawning by the Republican US Congress and the level of corruption and grift that Trump and his family are allowed. I hesitate to generalize because with this crew, it’s whack-a-mole with more that crops up even as restrictions are imposed elsewhere. Regardless, it’s worth celebrating the wins when we have them, even if temporary, and less than we need.
A food co-op in Brooklyn votes bigly to boycott Big Genocide. Next, a handy list of all the bad things Trump does—especially hydrofluorocarbons. Big demos at an immigrant concentration camp and a port shipping death to Palestine—all this in New Jersey. Basque police follow their Israeli trainers’ orders, or ethics, and beat returning flotillistas. In the Kilmar case, a judge rules that vengeance is not a sufficient reason to deport. And Mayor Mamdani continues to antagonize pro-genocide Jewish misleaders by noting the Nakba.
Israel has carried out a targeted strike in Choueifat, which borders Beirut’s southern suburbs, hitting yet another high‑value target. This time, Israel wiped out a Lebanese mother, Fatima Wehbi, and her three‑month‑old daughter, Zahraa, who was born during the ongoing Israeli assault on Lebanon. Mother and child were killed instantly by a single U.S.-made bomb.
Muslim News also reported from London that at least 19 civilians have been killed and 58 wounded in Israeli attacks across Lebanon, according to Lebanese health authorities and the Lebanese Red Cross, as Israel intensifies its assault in the south and issues mass displacement orders throughout the region.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said last Thursday that an Israeli airstrike south of Beirut killed Fatima Wehbi and her infant daughter, Zahraa. The strike hit as the mother was reportedly holding her child. The infant was later seen wrapped in pink blankets after Israel’s military claimed it had “precisely struck” the area—without identifying the target. It marked the first strike on the Lebanese capital in three weeks.
Modern societies often define themselves through a commitment to reducing unnecessary violence. Across law, culture, and moral discourse, the killing of humans is treated as one of the most serious ethical violations. Yet at the same time, these same societies rely on systems that produce and normalize the large-scale killing of sentient animals for food, convenience, and profit. This creates a central tension: violence is morally condemned in principle, but industrialized when directed at nonhuman life. The question is not simply whether humans should eat meat, but how a civilization that claims to reject unnecessary suffering came to organize such suffering on an industrial scale while rendering it socially invisible.
We are all ready to vomit out a primal scream, a cri de coeur of rage and of fury, as so many people are allowing themselves to be beguiled by their own government. We have become, as C.S. Lewis wrote, “men without chests.”
Before facts have time to settle, the mirror machinery of politics is activated. Before evidence is weighed, the labels arrive. Before truth has a chance to breathe, the soulless spin doctors are already hard at work manufacturing certainty for their chosen audience. Too many people are trained to consume it without hesitation, without skepticism, without a mind. No patience. No demand for evidence. Just reflexive tribal belief.
If Donald Trump seriously wants a second career after he destroys the United States and a large part of the world he would be well advised to consider becoming a stand-up comedian. He already possesses a huge supply of jokes consisting of his off-the-wall ad-libs when responding to reporters and the public. Most of his remarks that are not out-and-out lies are insulting and/or incoherent and would in any event be better considered as humorous observations on the deplorable state of politics in America than as serious commentary coming from a respected head of state.