Last Tuesday afternoon, Dean Andrea Baccarelli at the Harvard School of Public Health sent out a brief message announcing that one of the country's most experienced and accomplished public health leaders, Dr Mary T Bassett, would step down as director of the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. The email struck a polite, bureaucratic tone, thanking her for her service and offering an upbeat rationale for a new focus on children's health.
In 2022, AIPAC's PAC spent $2.1 million supporting Foushee, with Democratic Majority for Israel chipping in an additional $300,000 to back the Democrat. They sought to defeat Allam, who has been outspoken in support of Palestinian rights, and who was the first Muslim woman elected to public office in the state. This funding, as well as a $1 million injection from the PAC funded by crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried for Foushee, made the race the most expensive Democratic congressional primary in state history. Foushee ultimately won by nine points over Allam in 2022, with 46 percent of the vote.
Immigration officials sparked outrage after they detained a British and Muslim commentator who frequently speaks out for Palestinian rights amid his speaking tour in the U.S. on Sunday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reports that Sami Hamdi was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday morning. The State Department confirmed that Hamdi was in custody, and that officials have revoked his visa and are working to deport him.
Ireland's new president, Catherine Connolly, is a proud leftist who has served for almost a decade as an independent socialist member of the Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann), a blunt critic of the failures of neoliberalism and corporate globalization, and a visionary advocate for the sort of dramatic interventions that are needed to address the economic inequality that has made life increasingly unaffordable for working-class families.
In what was initially seen as a radical fusion of Judaism and political activism, he engaged in civil disobedience - he was arrested more than two dozen times, including outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility during the first Trump administration - and wrote books that bridged the secular and spiritual, with titles including "Handbook for Heretics and Prophets: A New Torah for a New World" and "Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life."
Marc Lamont Hill speaks with Mahmoud Khalil about detention, dissent and the fight for Palestinian rights. After fleeing Syria's civil war, Palestinian Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil was detained in the United States for more than 100 days after protesting against Israel's genocide in Gaza. He says his arrest was meant to silence dissent and intimidate others from speaking out.
Three Israeli police checkpoints frame the entrance to Damascus Gate, through which most Palestinians access the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. They enter and leave through the impressive gate of the Ottoman era, apparently oblivious to the presence of the Israelis. Since October 2023, I practically never go to Damascus Gate. I use other entry points. I feel better if I don't see the police stationed there, marking the territory, making us feel so unsafe and vulnerable.
The partnership between Zohran Mamdani and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander doesn't just showcase an unusual alliance. It provides a road map for Democrats, whose future success will require a different kind of politics than the left currently favors: one that sets aside purity tests and commits to building coalitions across ideological divides.
As one of the largest companies in the world, Microsoft has immeasurable power to do the right thing: demand an end to this senseless tragedy, or we will cease our technological support for Israel.
The suspect Cody Balmer said he targeted Jewish Governor Josh Shapiro due to perceived injustices against Palestinians, feeling strongly about Shapiro's political actions.
"We are all led to solidarity by a complicated array of emotional, political, material and coincidental experiences. What really matters in the end is what we conclude from all these influences."
