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Gaza flotilla activist recounts being raped by Israeli prison guards

Gaza flotilla activist recounts being raped by Israeli prison guards

The Guardian reports: The third time Anna Liedtke was subjected to an illegal strip-search in Israeli detention, female prison guards forced her on to her knees, covered her mouth to stop her screaming and raped her, according to interviews and a criminal complaint filed in Israel. She described hearing male guards laughing during the attack, which she believes they watched and may have filmed. It took place in an area separated from the prison hallway by a partially drawn curtain…

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Bipartisan group of senators introduces legislation to avert looming Social Security shortfall

Bipartisan group of senators introduces legislation to avert looming Social Security shortfall

The Associated Press reports: With Social Security’s looming insolvency date roughly six years away, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a proposal Tuesday to grapple with one of the most consequential financial challenges facing the federal government. The Protecting Retirement Opportunities and Maintaining Income Security for Everyone, or PROMISE Act, comes on the heels of the latest Social Security Board of Trustees’ annual report, which found that Social Security’s retirement trust fund is projected to face a funding shortfall in…

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Why Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz after decades of holding back

Why Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz after decades of holding back

By Ben Soodavar, King’s College London US forces have struck hundreds of Iranian targets – including in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas – over three consecutive nights in a bid by the US president, Donald Trump, to regain some modicum of control over the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has also inscribed the US as the “guardian” of the vital waterway. He has revived a naval blockade of Iranian ports and briefly demanded a 20% charge on all cargo…

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ICE orders suspension of most vehicle stops after two killings in a week

ICE orders suspension of most vehicle stops after two killings in a week

Nick Miroff writes: Late last night, at the end of a day that started with the killing of a 26-year-old Colombian man in Maine, the second fatal shooting involving a vehicle stop in a week, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement official Liana Castano sent out an email to top ICE supervisors around the country. “Effective immediately,” Castano wrote, “vehicle stops are suspended until further notice.” It was an extraordinary directive to ICE officers on the street, essentially telling them to…

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Judges grow increasingly skeptical about DOJ’s use of grand juries

Judges grow increasingly skeptical about DOJ’s use of grand juries

Politico reports: An “arbitrary fishing expedition.” “An unconstitutional effort to coerce.” “A convenient pretext for launching a criminal investigation.” Federal judges are increasingly peering under the hood at the Trump-led Justice Department’s use of grand juries aimed at well-known adversaries of President Donald Trump. And they don’t like what they’re seeing. These judges are scrutinizing the conduct of federal prosecutors and the legitimacy of high-profile probes that appear to stem from Trump’s personal vendettas or his efforts to bend perceived…

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White House explores entrenching U.S. concentration camps worldwide

White House explores entrenching U.S. concentration camps worldwide

Andrea Pitzer writes: Last week, I got a message from journalist Charles Davis. He asked me to comment for an article about a call for contractors he’d noticed on Sam.gov. The U.S. government, it seemed, was looking for businesses to partner with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, and to fulfill other U.S. Government operational needs overseas. This particular search for partners to collaborate with DHS was framed as maintaining a fleet of aircraft for use in its operations….

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‘Stop threatening your friends’: Idaho fires back against Trump DOJ’s threats over noncitizen voting

‘Stop threatening your friends’: Idaho fires back against Trump DOJ’s threats over noncitizen voting

Democracy Docket reports: Idaho’s Republican attorney general’s office accused President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice of potentially violating state ethics rules by threatening the state’s top election official with a criminal prosecution while suing him for the state’s voter rolls. In a sharply worded letter sent Friday, the office of Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador told DOJ Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon to stop contacting Secretary of State Phil McGrane (R) directly and urged the department to dismiss its…

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Wisconsin election commissioners refer complaints, say Elon Musk violated state’s bribery law

Wisconsin election commissioners refer complaints, say Elon Musk violated state’s bribery law

WISN 12 reports: The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission has referred two complaints to the Brown County District Attorney after finding probable cause that Elon Musk violated the state’s election bribery law ahead of the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court election. The commission voted 5-1 in closed session late last week to find probable cause that Musk, the tech billionaire and one-time advisor to President Donald Trump, violated state law “by making a social media post that offered one million dollars to…

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Judge slams Trump’s IRS lawsuit as ‘improper,’ refers acting AG Blanche to bar to face sanctions

Judge slams Trump’s IRS lawsuit as ‘improper,’ refers acting AG Blanche to bar to face sanctions

Democracy Docket reports: President Donald Trump and his two eldest sons’ $10-billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was brought for “an improper purpose,” a Florida-based federal judge ruled. The judge also recommended attorney sanctions for the Trumps’ lawyers. In a blistering ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued the strongest rebuke of Trump’s lawsuit from the judiciary yet, characterizing it as an unparalleled expression of self-dealing. “The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the…

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Driver in Maine, not target of a warrant, shot and killed by ICE in front of three-year old daughter

Driver in Maine, not target of a warrant, shot and killed by ICE in front of three-year old daughter

The Daily Beast reports: An ICE-involved shooting has left one man dead in Maine, with an eyewitness saying he was killed in front of his three-year-old daughter, who was wearing Bluey pajamas. The Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition identified the victim as a 26-year-old Colombian man. The group said he was authorized to work in the U.S. and had been issued a Social Security number. He was reportedly heading to work at the time he was shot. The account appeared to…

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U.S. to take over Strait of Hormuz, charge 20 percent fee for cargo shipped through, Trump imagines

U.S. to take over Strait of Hormuz, charge 20 percent fee for cargo shipped through, Trump imagines

Politico reports: President Donald Trump on Monday said the U.S. will take over the Strait of Hormuz — and will be reimbursed “at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped” for overseeing one of the world’s most critical oil passageways that has been at the center of the U.S.’s re-escalating war with Iran. “We will become guardians of the strait,” Trump said during an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning. “We’re going to hit [Iran] very hard…

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T-shirt saying, ‘Bombing kids is not self defense,’ offends United Airlines flight attendant

T-shirt saying, ‘Bombing kids is not self defense,’ offends United Airlines flight attendant

CBS News reports: A New Jersey man says his T-shirt nearly got him kicked off a United Airlines flight. Sam Saadeh, of Linden, was on a flight traveling from Atlanta to Newark Liberty International Airport on June 4 while wearing a T-shirt that said, “Bombing kids is not self defense.” Saadeh, who is of Palestinian descent, said the T-shirt holds a deeper meaning and advocates for children. According to a recent United Nations report, more than 20,000 children have been…

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Vance’s tough talk on Israel is alienating some Jewish GOP donors

Vance’s tough talk on Israel is alienating some Jewish GOP donors

Politico reports: JD Vance has an Israel problem. The vice president’s pugnacious defense of a ceasefire agreement with Iran that rattled Israeli diplomats — and his tough talk on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — has damaged his standing with some pro-Israel GOP donors who have backed the party under President Donald Trump. “It’s hard to find any support for him at all in the Jewish community,” said Eric Levine, a prominent GOP fundraiser and board member of the Republican…

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Aspiring to regional domination, Iran is ready to escalate over Strait of Hormuz

Aspiring to regional domination, Iran is ready to escalate over Strait of Hormuz

Yaroslav Trofimov writes: For the Iranian regime, keeping a chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz has turned out to be more important than the tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief from the Trump administration. That is because Tehran is playing a long game. Iranian officials believe the country has finally emerged as a regional hegemon, after the U.S. and Israel failed to achieve their main goals in the war they unleashed in February. And, as long as Tehran…

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How Trump failed to secure the Strait of Hormuz in his poorly developed ‘deal’ with Iran

How Trump failed to secure the Strait of Hormuz in his poorly developed ‘deal’ with Iran

The New York Times reports: For two months, under a quiet arrangement with the U.S. Navy, commercial tankers turned off their transponders to avoid detection by Iran as they crossed the perilous Strait of Hormuz to carry oil and gas out to the world. The military offered some air cover in case Iran attacked, as naval officers directed the vessels over the radio to hug Oman’s coast, opposite Iran’s shore. That enabled a steady increase in traffic through the strait…

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Lindsey Graham: The quintessential corrupt politician of this era

Lindsey Graham: The quintessential corrupt politician of this era

Anne Applebaum writes: In his way, the late Lindsey Graham, who unexpectedly died Saturday evening, was the consummate politician of our time. The Republican senator from South Carolina was the epitome, the poster child, the quintessence of our era. Graham’s background and biography made him, during the first part of his career, a fervent American patriot, with a special devotion to the cause of American leadership in the democratic world. Born and raised in a small town in South Carolina,…

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