Politics

Salsabeel ElHelou, an American citizen stuck in Gaza, wakes up everyday and checks that her three children are still breathing. In August, an Israeli airstrike shredded her teenage son’s back — leaving him with an open and untreated wound. Her three kids — 7-year-old Ayham, 12-year-old Banan and 15-year-old Almotasem — are suffering from painful…

The unexpected toppling this weekend of the Assad regime by rebel forces brought a swift end to Syria’s 13-year uprising-cum-civil war and over half a century of authoritarian rule. Syrians around the world have celebrated the development, with thousands walking free from the regime’s hellish prisons.  But in the aftermath, the situation remains volatile. Israel…

Yehya Qasem was having dinner with his family one evening in early October when the unmistakable sound of Israeli airstrikes pierced the air. The series of so-called firebelts were so deafening that his mom and siblings froze in fear, forsaking their meal of canned chickpeas.  Qasem peered out the window to see what was going…

The video was startling. Hours after Luigi Mangione was arrested for his alleged role in killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a clip appeared on a YouTube page bearing the suspect’s name and image. Titled “The Truth,” it began with a countdown timer and the message: “If you see this, I’m already under arrest.” Next,…

In the early morning hours of November 7, more than 12 police officers showed up outside at an address in Springfield, Virginia, knocked, broke down the door, and raided the family home of two Palestinian American students at George Mason University. University and Fairfax County police refused to show the family the warrant. One Fairfax…

Five Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, along with the councils of three villages they hail from, filed a formal regulatory complaint in Germany accusing the media giant Axel Springer of contributing to human rights abuses in Palestine. The villagers said that Axel Springer’s Israeli subsidiary Yad2, a classified ads platform akin to Craigslist, enables…

When questioned about its controversial cloud computing contract with the Israeli government, Google has repeatedly claimed the so-called Project Nimbus deal is bound by the company’s general cloud computing terms of service policy. While that policy would prohibit uses that lead to deprivation of rights, injury, or death, or other harms, contract documents and an…

To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, the Pentagon has gone all out with ceremonies across the United States, from an Air Force-sponsored intertribal powwow in Florida to a celebration of  Native American aircraft nose art in Oregon. The military has also been pumping out feel-good stories about Native American troops: one South Dakota National Guardsman…

Meta’s in-house ChatGPT competitor is being marketed unlike anything that’s ever come out of the social media giant before: a convenient tool for planning airstrikes. As it has invested billions into developing machine learning technology it hopes can outpace OpenAI and other competitors, Meta has pitched its flagship large language model, Llama, as a handy…

In an order on Friday, a federal court rejected OpenAI’s effort to toss a lawsuit filed by The Intercept over using its journalists’ work to train ChatGPT without permission or credit. One of The Intercept’s claims under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act will move forward against OpenAI, although another claim was dismissed, along with all…