Paula Mulvenna

I Want You to Understand Chicago Politics Chicago 2025-11-08 I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time. Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again. An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next. Understand what it is to pray in Chicago. On September 19th, Reverend David Black, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was praying outside the ICE detention center in Broadview when a DHS agent shot him in the head with pepper balls. Pepper balls are never supposed to be fired at the head because they can seriously injure, or even kill. “We could hear them laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” Black recalled. He is not the only member of the clergy ICE has assaulted. Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was violently arrested on October 17th, and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf was shot with pepper balls on November 1st. Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago. On the night of September 30th, federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to execute a raid on an apartment building on the South Sho…

Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

The malign right can't be allowed to destroy the BBC Panorama made mistakes but this ‘scandal’ is the work of populists trying to control the airwaves. They won’t rest

Well said @alastaircampbell2.bsky.social
www.thenewworld.co.uk/alastair-cam...

UN Tax Treaty talks key to unlocking trillions for climate finance and nature protection - Greenpeace International 500 Greenpeace Africa volunteers spell out demands for tax justice on the eve of UN Tax Treaty talks in Nairobi: Tax the Super-rich for People and Planet.

PRESS RELEASE: Hundreds of young people spell out demands to #TaxTheSuperRich on the eve of tax treaty negotiations in Nairobi, Kenya.

UN Tax Treaty talks are key to unlocking TRILLIONS for climate finance and nature protection.

#UNTC #COP30

Covid-19: Excluding doctors from vaccination programme puts patients at risk, clinicians warn Doctors have warned that the government’s decision to exclude health and social care workers from its covid vaccination programme is putting patients at risk and will have a major impact on an overstr...

This is madness - how can they justify yearly flu vaccination for all staff (and seriously encourage staff to have it with various deals) but then ignore the other infection that is hitting staff on regular basis?

I hoped this madness would change with new government - sadly it has not.

In a historic first, working GP Patrick Hart has been suspended from the medical register for 10 months for his actions to sound the alarm on the climate crisis and its threats to health.

Read more here: healthforxr.com/historic-fir...

If Labour cannot denounce mass deportation of permanent residents, Idi Amin style, what is the point of them?

This, this, this. If journalists don’t scrutinize this and explain it properly now then they have failed on their duty and will bear a share of the blame if such policies are enacted (most of the public oppose them and don’t I think realise what is being proposed yet).

Our 60-day Gaza plan is delivering.
Since the ceasefire, we have been able to bring in much more flour, yeast, and fuel for machines. New UN supported bakeries are being opened every day.

Visited the latest, where 300,000 pieces of bread are already being produced daily. @wfp.org

LIVE: ‘No Kings’ protests against the Trump administration across the US YouTube video by Associated Press

AP live feed of No Kings protests, just in case you can’t find anything on MSM:

Gaza has around 20,000 unexploded Israeli bombs amid up to 70 million tonnes of rubble, posing a massive threat to Palestinians, as removal is blocked by Israel’s ban on heavy equipment, according to the Government Media Office.

🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/m73gl0

Really love this. If the fash are about, we all need to counter

Palestine Action: we are not the terrorists Labelling “Palestine Action” as a terrorist group is a threat to freedom of expression – and to democracy. The government must lift the ban

app.thenewworld.co.uk/story/142519...

Trump attacks Tylenol as officials unveil highly contentious conclusions on autism President says acetaminophen – also known as paracetamol - increases risk when taken by pregnant women, assertion contradicted by research

Please know that this is Trump scaremongering.

There is no good scientific evidence linking paracetamol (Tylenol) to autism.

A 2024 Swedish study of 2.4 million births found no relationship whatsoever between exposure to paracetamol in utero & subsequent autism.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Paracetamol, Pregnancy, and Autism: What the Science Actually Says Spoiler: Autism’s causes are complex—paracetamol isn’t one of them.

#Trump says paracetamol in pregnancy causes autism. #RFK Jr. has long pushed similar myths about vaccines.

Both ignore what decades of research show:
🔹 Autism is mostly genetic
🔹 Valproic acid (not paracetamol) is the real medication risk
🔹 Fear spreads faster than science

Elon Musk Should Face 'Full Force of the Law' Says Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey The Liberal Democrat leader tells Byline Times that Musk and his platform are inciting violence and breaking laws designed to protect children online

🔴Elon Musk Should Face ‘Full Force of the Law’ Says Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey

The Liberal Democrat leader tells Byline Times that Musk and his platform are inciting violence and breaking laws designed to protect children online

bylinetimes.com/2025/09/22/e...

Civilians made up 15 of every 16 people killed by Israel in Gaza since March, data suggests Report from independent conflict tracker Acled indicates one of the highest civilian death rates since start of war

In other words, 94% of those killed in Gaza since March 25 were civilians - up from 83% in the first 1.5 years of this genocidal war.
Another symptom of stage 2 of the Gaza Genocide under Trump: fewer casualties so far, but targeting almost entirely civilians.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

'The Media is Failing to Report the Human Impact of the Rising Tide of Racism' News organisations are completely failing to represent the concerns of people of colour amid the rise of far-right groups and open racism, writes Helen Wadia

🔴‘The Media is Failing to Report the Human Impact of the Rising Tide of Racism’

News organisations are completely failing to represent the concerns of people of colour amid the rise of far-right groups and open racism, writes Helen Wadia

bylinetimes.com/2025/09/19/t...

NEW: Extraordinary scenes in Brussels today.

Almost a quarter of a million people on the streets marching for Palestine, calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza.

This footage was captured by freelance photojournalist, Wahaj Bani Moufleh 👏

Israeli military database indicates only a quarter of Gaza detainees are fighters Elderly woman with Alzheimer’s, medical workers and children among 6,000 Palestinians held

1 in 4 detainees from Gaza are identified as fighters. Civilians make up the majority of Palestinians held without charge or trial in abusive prisons. Those jailed without charge or trial include medical workers, teachers,civil servants,media workers, writers, sick and disabled people and children.

👏👏👏

Kemi Badenoch's 'Free Speech' Conservatives Ban Byline Times From Party Conference The ban on covering the party's annual gathering came despite Badenoch's repeated commitment to "fight" for free speech and a free press

I see all the media organisations endlessly parroting the "free speech under threat" rhetoric of the right are now staying completely silent as Reform and the Conservatives openly ban news outlets that criticise them from covering their events
bylinetimes.com/2025/09/04/k...

Angela Rayner: Hands off our allotments

Check out this from We Own It. Allotments are precious.... don't sell out and sell them off @teamlabouruk.bsky.social

weownit.org.uk/act-now/hand...

VACCINE Commentary The dismantling of the U.S. vaccine regulatory framework Gavin Yamey, Chris Beyrer Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

🚨New peer-reviewed commentary that I co-authored with Chris Beyrer is now out in the journal Vaccine, gift link below

We show the ways in which the MAHA & MAGA guys—RFK Jr, Makary, Bhattacharya, Prasad—have dismantled the US vaccine regulatory framework

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lbDt,60n7...

1/5

Thank you @healthxr.bsky.social
healthforxr.com/9th-august-2...

BBC Inside Science - What’s the evidence for vaccines? - BBC Sounds Cuts of $500 million to vaccines research have been announced by the US government.

BBC Inside Science debunks the antivax nonsense

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

#GetVaccinated #VaccinesWork #MRNA #CovidIsNotOver

This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen.

By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza

Israel’s assault on humanitarian norms | Letter Letters: Dr Lee Mordechai and Prof Liat Kozma of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem respond to an article from a senior aid official in Gaza

"For us, as Israeli citizens who believe in the sanctity of all human life, the current moment represents our own failure, alongside the failure of international law, the international community and most media outlets."
My colleagues Liat Kozma and Lee Mordechai

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

“Meta’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza is not less than Israeli war crimes.”

Meta suspended Palestinian poet @mosababutoha.bsky.social’s account a day after he won a Pulitzer Prize, as he risks his life to get stories out, he tells @mehdirhasan.bsky.social

Full intvw: zeteo.com/p/this-is-ma...

Trump destroys our source of information about jobs. This is beyond irresponsible. He hates facts. He rejects truth. He doesn't want the public to know what's really happening.

Thanks @rbreich.bsky.social - a terrifyingly accurate summary:
open.substack.com/pub/robertre...

“Airdrops are totally unnecessary, inefficient, costly, and risky,” our Juliette Touma tells DW News. “There’s a safer, faster, more dignified way: by road.”

During the ceasefire earlier this year, the UN — including UNRWA — brought in 500–600 trucks a day. We must return to that.