When Israel’s military fired tank shells, machine guns, and drones at a crowd of Palestinians seeking aid in Gaza, it was the deadliest day so far around the sites of the Israel- and US-backed aid organization GHF.
As the administration of US President Donald Trump intensifies its confrontational rhetoric toward local officials over immigration raids, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has been detained by federal agents at an immigration court.
When a defendant was detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Lander, a key Democratic candidate for mayor, was escorting him out of court on Tuesday in an effort to observe immigration hearings and promote immigration-related legal services.
A post on Lander’s social media account claims to be written by his wife and that “he was taken by masked agents and detained by ICE” while escorting a defendant out of immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza.
The Trump administration has recently taken a harsh stance against Democratic officials who criticize its aggressive approach to immigration enforcement. In recent weeks, federal immigration agencies have increased concerns about immigration courts, which critics claim deters immigrants from taking part in the court system.
In response to protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles, which included Trump’s threat to have California Governor Gavin Newsom arrested, Democratic lawmakers expressed outrage last week when California Senator Alex Padilla was handcuffed after being attempted to interrupt a news conference by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Other mayoral candidates have backed Lander, with former state governor Andrew Cuomo calling it “thuggery” by the Trump administration and New York State Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani calling the arrest “terrorists across the country.”
Before agents, some of whom were wearing face masks, physically separate the two and handcuff the comptroller, Lander appeared to be trying to hold arms with the defendant in a video of Lander’s arrest. Lopez frequently requests a judicial warrant, which is sometimes necessary for immigration arrests. A police officer presents a paper with the word “warranty,” but he does not turn it over.
Federal agents can be heard cuffing Lander and telling him he is “obstructing” as he says they “don’t have authority to arrest US citizens.”
Lander’s wife Meg Barnette said at a press conference shortly after the incident that “they said, “You’re obstructing.” I was “pushed out of the way.”
The lawyer’s attorney, Barnette, remarked, “What I saw was shocking and unacceptable.” The rule of law was not what I saw today, the statement read.
Letitia James, the attorney general of New York State, is suing Elon Musk’s X Corp., challenging a US state law that requires social media companies to disclose how they monitor extremist content and hate speech.
The complaint contends that the First Amendment of the United States forces companies to disclose “highly sensitive and controversial speech,” which the state disapproves.
The law, which was passed in December 2024, mandates that social media companies submit reports to the attorney general detailing their service terms to users.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul stated at the time, “We are taking bold steps to hold businesses accountable, strengthen protections, and give consumers the transparency and security they deserve.”
The Stop Hiding Hate Act, or HHS, is a legal action request from X Corp.
According to X, choosing what content on social media platforms “engenders considerable debate among reasonable people about drawing the correct proverbial line,” adding that “this is not a role that the government may play.”
A letter from two lawmakers who supported the bill, which claimed X and Musk in particular had a “disturbing record” on content moderation that “periodizes the foundations of our democracy,” was also quoted in the complaint.
Social media companies are required to report their progress and share steps they take to remove hate from their platforms under New York’s law. Per violation per day, civil fines could exceed $15,000.
With the aid of the Anti-Defamation League, state Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assembly Member Grace Lee, both Democrats, wrote the legislation.
According to X, New York’s law was based on a nearly identical California law from 2023, which a federal appeals court partially blocked last September due to concerns about free speech.
In a February agreement with X, California and X mutually agreed not to follow the law’s disclosure standards.
The business filed a number of lawsuits against US states over free speech concerns. In April, X filed a lawsuit against the state of Minnesota for using deepfakes to defame political candidates or sway elections.
Musk has long criticized for censoring political voices, but he has also been accused of being a totalist in free speech. Prior to the 2024 presidential election, according to Al Jazeera, Musk, a vocal supporter of Donald Trump, regularly suppressed Democratic voices and suspended several X-channel accounts that had critical views of Trump or Musk.
Under Musk’s leadership, the platform has also been accused of encouraging hate speech. The Center for Countering Digital Hate discovered in 2023 that X failed to respond to users who had subscribed to Twitter Blue, the company’s premium service, with 99 percent of hate-filled postings.
Following the release of a damning report by Baroness Louise Casey, which criticized decades of institutional failure to protect children from so-called “grooming gangs,” the British government has set up a national inquiry into organized child sexual abuse.
It is a remarkable turnaround for the Labour Party’s leadership under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who had previously opposed inquiries for months and had instead decided to concentrate on recommendations made during an earlier seven-year investigation.
But what precisely is the Casey Report and what motivated Labour’s abrupt change of direction?
The Casey Report examines how British institutions dealt with child sexual exploitation, which Starmer initiated earlier this year.
The review focused on “grooming gangs,” which were men who frequently targeted troubled girls for sexual abuse for an extended period of time.
The report identified a lack of institutional safeguards for young girls and girls from rape, exploitation, and serious violence.
The Casey Report made several suggestions, including one that required changes to the law to force adults to rape children under the age of 16 when they intentionally inflict rape on adults in England and Wales.
In her report, Casey argued that too many cases of grooming were downgraded from rape to lesser rape charges because the perpetrator was portrayed as having “loved” or “consented to” having sex with the victim.
Her review also highlighted the authorities’ reluctance to “examine the ethnicity of the offenders,” claiming it was not racist to do so.
According to the local data that the audit looked at from three police forces, there is clear evidence of “overrepresentation among suspects of Asian and Pakistani-heritage men.”
The review also criticized the country’s ongoing inability to collect ethnicity at a national level, with two-thirds of perpetrators missing from the data, making it impossible to “provide any accurate assessment from the nationally collected data.”
Yes.
The government’s response to the Casey Report’s 12 recommendations was confirmed by UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) will oversee a new national criminal operation aimed at grooming gangs.
An independent commission with authority to compel witnesses to give evidence would be in charge of this operation.
Additionally, it would proceed with a national investigation, with Starmer stating that he had read the entire report and would accept Casey’s suggestion for an investigation.
According to Richard Scorer, the head of Slater and Gordon’s Abuse Law and Public Inquiries, it is “inevitable” that there will need to be a public inquiry about it at some point given the scale of the scandal and how many children have been affected by it.
Elon Musk, the head of US billionaire, claimed that the grooming scandal that permeated several towns and cities in northern England pushed the issue “up the political agenda” when he made online references to it ten years ago.
An independent review found that Oldham, a town in Greater Manchester in England, had failed to stop gangs from molesting young girls by preventing sexual exploitation of them in June 2022.
Political leaders at Oldham Council demanded more information from the government two years later, but former Home Office Minister Jess Phillips ruled that the agency should handle the inquiry.
Musk, who goes by the name Tommy Robinson and has been vocal on the subject, put his weight behind far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon in January of this year.
On his own social media platform, he wrote, “Why is Tommy Robinson in a solitary confinement prison for telling the truth,” calling for Robinson, a controversial political figure, to be freed after serving an 18-month prison term for contempt of court.
Starmer was also accused of failing to prosecute child rapists by Musk when he was the prosecutor between 2008 and 2013.
He also criticized Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding, for calling her “a rape genocide apologist.”
Without naming Musk, Starmer responded at the time. The PM said that those who spread lies and misinformation as widely as they can are not concerned about the victims, but rather about themselves.
It’s undoubtedly a positive step, according to experts.
The main benefit, according to William Tantam, a senior lecturer in anthropology at the University of Bristol, was the consistency and clarity of the data from the perspective of the researcher.
Another positive, he said, is that the inquiry panel will be able to compel organizations to participate.
Scorer noted that the report’s inclusion of the NCA to look into cases that haven’t progressed in the past is also very welcome.
He claimed that different police forces in the UK have struggled to coordinate their efforts to stop grooming gangs, so a more in-depth analysis from the NCA might help “a better coordination of police activity.”
More than 800 cases have been identified for formal review, according to Cooper’s statement to the Parliament on Monday, and she anticipates an increase of over 1, 000 in the coming weeks.
Scorer did, however, warn that the government would need to allocate additional funds to carry out the changes Casey had recommended.
Beirut, Lebanon – When Israel attacked Lebanon in September 2024, Fatima Kandil left her home in Beirut’s southern suburbs, known colloquially as Dahiyeh. As the area sustained wide-scale Israeli air strikes, many Lebanese fled Dahiyeh for other parts of the country or, like Kandil, sought refuge in Iraq.
Nearly seven months after the November ceasefire between Israel and the armed Lebanese group Hezbollah – an agreement Lebanon says Israel has repeatedly violated – rockets are lighting up the night sky once again. But this time, Hezbollah is not involved. Instead, Israel and Iran are exchanging direct military attacks.
“We don’t know how this will all end, so we are undoubtedly tense,” Kandil, now back in Lebanon, told Al Jazeera. However, she added that she had a feeling of satisfaction seeing missiles rain down on Israel. “Our revenge is being taken,” she said.
While Kandil’s sentiment is shared by some in Lebanon, others – those who see Iran’s support for Hezbollah, a group that has dominated Lebanon militarily and politically for two decades, as nefarious – cheered on the Israeli attacks against Iran. Many people in Lebanon told Al Jazeera they hoped that stability would prevail and that their country wouldn’t be dragged back into a prolonged conflict or subjected to the ferocity and frequency of the Israeli attacks it suffered last year.
“People are taking precautions,” Karim Safieddine, a Lebanese political writer and academic, told Al Jazeera. “Some are readying their bags.”
Early Friday, Israel struck Iran and assassinated several top commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) along with top nuclear scientists. Numerous civilians were also killed, including children, according to Iranian state media.
Hours later, Hezbollah released a statement condemning the Israeli attacks and offering condolences for the slain Iranian officers. But analysts say the statement was a clear sign that Hezbollah would not be entering the battle in support of Iran.
“Currently, there is no need for Hezbollah to intervene, as Iranian missiles are capable of confronting the Israeli occupation,” said Qassem Kassir, a Lebanese political analyst supportive of the group. “However, if the situation escalates into a full-scale war, nothing prevents the situation from changing.”
Hezbollah, founded amid the Lebanese civil war in 1982 with Iranian backing and funding, draws much of its support from Lebanon’s Shia Muslim community. The group began firing rockets at Israel on October 8, 2023, after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Israeli attacks in Lebanon between October 2023 and November 2024 largely targeted areas where Shia live, killing around 4,000 civilians and fighters, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
Many Lebanese are still reeling from the damage left by Israel’s attacks. Some remain displaced from their villages in southern Lebanon, which was razed. Hezbollah’s priority is to ensure that homes and towns are built in the area.
While Israel is still hitting targets around the country, mostly in southern Lebanon but occasionally in the Beirut suburbs as well, any resumption of military activity by Hezbollah would likely draw an even more intense Israeli response and further disrupt reconstruction efforts.
Much of Hezbollah’s military arsenal was reportedly destroyed during the Israeli attacks, though analysts believe they have retained some arms, including ballistic missiles.
Still, Hezbollah’s lack of intervention in the current Israel-Iran conflict is “evidence of their lack of capacity”, Safieddine said. Hezbollah may not have the means to intervene militarily.
The Israeli campaign on Lebanon also left Hezbollah’s political leadership battered. Many of the group’s most senior military figures, including longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, were assassinated. The group’s political hegemony is now being challenged by the Lebanese state, with pressure from the United States and Israel, as it moves to disarm Hezbollah and bring the use of force under the state’s exclusive authority.
For now, analysts believe there is a consensus and understanding between Tehran and Hezbollah that the group will not intervene.
“Domestic political circumstances make it extremely difficult for Hezbollah to join in Iranian retaliation,” Nicholas Blanford, a nonresident senior fellow with the US-based think tank Atlantic Council, told Al Jazeera. “And the Iranians recognise they can’t call on them.”
While Hezbollah is sometimes referred to as an Iranian proxy, many experts say the group is more accurately described as a close ally of the IRGC and the Iranian government with shared interests and a similar ideology.
During Israel’s heavy bombardment of Lebanon between September and November 2024, Iran’s intervention was relatively limited. Israel invaded southern Lebanon, and while Israeli troops have pulled out of most of the Lebanese territory they entered during the war, they still occupy five points.
“There’s resentment and unhappiness toward Iran by Hezbollah because they feel Iran let them down in the recent conflict,” Blanford said. Iran reportedly asked Hezbollah not to use some of its more lethal weapons, which analysts linked to fears of an Israeli response on Iranian territory.
As for Israel’s attacks on Iran, there’s no indication that Tehran has asked Hezbollah to get involved yet, according to Kassir, the analyst thought to be close to Hezbollah. But that might change if a protracted war draws in actors from around the region.
Blanford said he doesn’t expect to “see Hezbollah joining in full scale”, but noted that if Israel starts to struggle in its fight against Iran, it could lead to “some activity along the Blue Line”, the line traversing Lebanon’s southern border. If that happens, Blanford said, Hezbollah may look to carry out operations in the Israeli-occupied areas of Lebanon.
Israel’s plans for Lebanon and Hezbollah remain unclear, but the sound of Israeli drones, an ever-present buzz during the most severe days of the war, has returned to Beirut’s skies in the last few days.
United States President Donald Trump has said he will not call Minnesota Governor Tim Walz in the wake of weekend shootings that killed a Democratic state lawmaker and injured another.
Trump denounced the shootings as an act of “horrific violence” in a statement over the weekend. But on Tuesday, he confirmed to reporters that he would not reach out to Walz, who served as the running mate to his rival in the 2024 presidential election, Democrat Kamala Harris.
“I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I’m not calling him. Why would I call him?” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “The guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. So I could be nice and call him, but why waste time?”
Walz, for his part, said he was not surprised by Trump’s lack of interest in calling him. He did, however, point out that he had spoken with Vice President JD Vance.
“I’m always open to, you know, people expressing gratitude. Vice President Vance assured us, and he delivered, that the FBI would be there as partners with us to get it done,” Walz said. “That was what needed to be done.”
The suspect in the shootings is 57-year-old Vance Boelter, a father of five who was arrested on Sunday night.
He has since been charged with federal counts of murder and stalking in connection with the shootings early on Saturday, which resulted in the killings of Melissa Hortman, a top Democrat in the Minnesota House of Representatives, and her husband, Mark Hortman.
Boelter is also accused of shooting Democratic state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, both of whom survived.
Prosecutors said that Boelter visited the lawmakers’ homes wearing a face mask and body armour to impersonate a police officer. He allegedly knocked on the Hoffmans’ door, identifying himself as police.
Prosecutors said on Monday that Boelter sent a message to his family after the shootings, which read: “Dad went to war last night.”
Law enforcement officials have said they are still investigating a potential motive in the attack. But investigators have recovered notebooks from the suspect with the names of Democratic lawmakers and abortion rights advocates.
“Political assassinations are rare,” Joseph Thompson, Minnesota’s acting US attorney, said at a news conference. “They strike at the very core of our democracy.”
He added that authorities are searching through Boelter’s notebooks but have not found a “manifesto” clearly laying out his motivations. Boelter’s friends, meanwhile, have told reporters that the suspect was a supporter of Trump and an opponent of abortion rights.
The slayings have spurred increased concerns about political violence in the US. In the past year alone, Trump has faced an assassination attempt, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has seen his governor’s mansion targeted in an act of suspected arson.
Between January 6, 2021, and October 2024, the news agency Reuters said it had tallied upwards of 300 cases of political violence in the US.
In the aftermath of last weekend’s shootings, conspiracy theories claiming that the alleged shooter was a leftist ideologue began to circulate, with support from some Republican lawmakers.
Boelter had previously served with other community members on a state workforce development board under two Democratic governors, including Walz, a fact that helped to fuel the rumours.
He had also worked as the director of security patrols at a security services company whose website said he had been “involved with security situations in Eastern Europe, Africa, North America and the Middle East, including the West Bank, Southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip”.