Elise Garofalo

I’ve been having a few too many conversations like this. Them: Hi Kate, how are things with your work, with the world? Me: the university is under attack, democratic norms being broken in half, so, pretty bad. Them: But everything is going to come back and be okay after the midterms. Me: Uhh, no.

A non-profit will carry out the largest evacuation of children from Gaza to the U.S. This week, HEAL Palestine, a non-profit organization, will carry out the largest known evacuation of wounded children from Gaza to the United States. Co-founder Zeena Salman shares some of the childre...

A young Palestinian girl who lost her mother and brother in a blazing fire after Israel struck their tents has just been reunited with her aunt in the U.S. through an evacuation by HEAL Palestine... Rahaf will get treatment in Boston for her severe burns.

www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n...

Protesting over Gaza’s starvation feels like screaming into a void – but we mustn’t stop | Nesrine Malik Political platitudes and a few trucks of aid won’t save the children dying now. But they show leaders can’t ignore public opinion for ever, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

"rhetoric seems to be part of an elaborate game, in which everyone dances increasingly performatively around what needs to happen... Action that never comes"

Freed U.S.-Israeli hostage's brother says war in Gaza 'is how hostages are murdered' ***

Keith and Lee Siegel continue to work to free the remaining hostages, with Lee saying continued war "is how hostages are murdered"

president trump tells bbc he’s “disappointed” with putin, “but not done with him.”

and asked if he trusts him: “i trust almost nobody, to be honest with you.”
(fact check: true)

Officials Pushed for Better Warning System for Years Before Deadly Floods A sheriff in 2016 recalled pulling ‘kids out of trees’ in summer camps as leaders repeatedly discussed installing a siren system, but didn’t do so.

A former sheriff pushed Kerr County, where dozens are dead from flash floods, nearly a decade ago to adopt a more robust flood-warning system. That suggestion, from him and others, was never adopted.

Executions in Saudi Arabia reach a record high mostly over drug cases, Amnesty says Amnesty International says executions in Saudi Arabia hit a record high last year, with 345 people put to death.

“The billions spent on so-called reforms, designed to promote a more tolerant and inclusive kingdom under the crown prince’s rule, mask an authoritarian state where daily executions for drug crimes are now the norm.”

apnews.com/article/saud...

After decades in the US, Iranians arrested in Trump’s deportation drive Some Iranians are getting arrested by immigration authorities after living decades in the United States.

“…what it seems like ICE has done is basically give out an order to round up as many Iranians as you can…”

‘Never seen him like this’: Marine vet speaks out after shocking video of his father being beaten by ICE Marine Corps veteran Alejandro Barranco speaks to NBC News' Jacob Soboroff and MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace about his father's violent detainment on Saturday by ICE agents in Los Angeles. Narciso Barranco,...

more of our extended conversation with Alejandro Barranco, who had just visited his dad in ICE custody where he says he is “in a cage, you can say, with at least 70 other people.  No privacy.  One toilet.  He's received water maybe once a day.” youtu.be/OgIXyY1xzho?...

Mamdani’s stunning rise gives Democrats a playbook — and some perils The swift ascendance of a 33-year-old democratic socialist in the race for New York mayor has sparked a fierce debate over the future of the Democratic Party.

"... the people of New York City tonight have spoken. They have spoken out against the lily-livered, lack-of-courage approach of Democrats in fighting authoritarianism.”

The Mounting Crisis of Militarizing Immigration Enforcement When part-time soldiers police their neighbors, federal authority displaces state and local officials, and strains civil-military relations.

“domestic use of the military is often fraught and is just as often corrosive to American democracy”

www.justsecurity.org/114395/the-m...

‘La migra!’: Day laborers recount ICE raid outside Los Angeles Home Depot Workers who witnessed the ICE raid outside a Los Angeles Home Depot say officers arbitrarily detained migrants. The sweep was one of several that sparked protests.

Great interview with the Los Angeles day laborers who weren't grabbed in the raid that kicked off the protests. “I’m starting to feel something ugly,” Josue said. "It’s a familiar feeling not unlike the sense of insecurity I felt in my own country." www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

EXCLUSIVE: Wife of Kidnapped Georgetown Scholar Speaks Out in Heartbreaking Interview Mapheze Saleh describes what her husband Badar Khan Suri has faced in detention, why fellow detainees see him as Gandhi, and how their kids have dealt with his absence

.@zeteo_news EXCLUSIVE: Wife of Kidnapped Georgetown Scholar Speaks Out in Heartbreaking Interview

She shares that fellow detainees call Badar Khan Suri "Gandhi" because he's teaching about peace and political justice

Israel Approves Plans to Occupy Gaza, Control Aid Distribution Israel’s security cabinet voted to approve a new ground operation that includes occupying the Gaza Strip while also agreeing to a plan to take control over aid distribution.

Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic—as part of a military strategy,” according to aid groups

Arabic for Professionals - NaTakallam ARABIC FOR PROFESSIONALS Master Arabic in Your Field with Our Arabic for Professionals Series Select Your Focus Select Your Focus Arabic for business Arabic for healthcare Arabic for journalism Arabic...

What an excellent resource - @NaTakallam offers Arabic tutoring courses (provided by refugees) specifically for journalists:

Abuse survivors demand next pope enact zero-tolerance policy, identify cardinals with poor records A coalition of survivors of clergy sexual abuse are demanding that cardinals entering the conclave will pick a pope who will adopt a universal zero-tolerance policy for abuse.

“The sexual abuse crisis is not a matter of the past. It is present.” Clergy sexual abuse victims demand next pope enact zero-tolerance policy.

I asked top media execs to share their unfiltered, anonymous takeaways from Donald Trump's first 100 days in office. Here's what one told me. Read the rest in @status.news: www.status.news/p/donald-tru...

Trump administration unwinds efforts to investigate Russian war crimes The Trump administration has backed away from several initiatives intended to hold Moscow accountable for war crimes in Ukraine, including an intelligence coordinator office.

The Trump administration has been engaged in a concerted effort to undo initiatives aimed at holding Russia accountable for alleged war crimes in Ukraine

Inside GU Basketball’s Links to ICE Deportation Planes On Dec. 14, hours after the Georgetown University men’s basketball team defeated the Syracuse University Orange, a chartered GlobalX airplane with tail number N837VA took off from Syracuse, N.Y., and ...

Georgetown U students used open data to discover that the planes athletes take to games are the exact same planes being used by ICE for deportations (h/t to Bellingcat)
thehoya.com/news/inside-...

This is very eyebrow-raising. An un-retracted lie by Columbia that’s possibly contributed to the detaining of one of their students.

As one professor put it to me: “we have never seen so clear a line between language the university has used and the Trump attacks on individuals.”

Trump Is Sending People To The Camps “More than a prison, El Salvador’s CECOT has many if not all...

TPM’s @hunterw.bsky.social makes a convincing case - citing experts - that we should be referring to CECOT as a “concentration camp,” “penal colony,” or “permanent prison camp.”

Based on its features (no due process, indefinite detention) he says: “President Trump is sending people to the camps.”

This is exemplary leadership by Van Hollen and it is beyond outrageous that a White House atrocity necessitates it.

A whistleblower's disclosure details how DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data A whistleblower tells Congress and NPR that DOGE may have taken sensitive labor data and hid its tracks. "None of that ... information should ever leave the agency," said a former NLRB official.

Whistleblower against DOGE had a threat taped to his office door - including overhead photos of him walking his dog that appeared to be taken with a drone

U.N. says Israel’s aid blockade has opened ‘floodgates of horror’ in Gaza U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, in some of his strongest language on the crisis so far, described Gaza as “a killing field.” Israel accused him of “spreading slander.”

“As the occupying power, Israel has unequivocal obligations under international law,” Guterres said. “The current path is a dead end — totally intolerable in the eyes of international law and history.”

US immigration officials look to expand social media data collection U.S. immigration officials are asking the public and federal agencies to comment on a proposal to collect social media handles from people applying to benefits such as green cards or citizenship, to c...

Concerning - US immigration officials look to expand social media data collection

apnews.com/article/soci...

Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal The administration has downplayed the importance of the text messages inadvertently sent to The Atlantic’s editor in chief.

babe, wake up, Houthi PC small group attack plans just dropped

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

‘I would prefer this over killing children:’ Why some Israeli teens are choosing jail over the army | CNN At a military prison in central Israel, 18-year-old Itamar Greenberg sat in a US Army-issued army uniform as the Hollywood blockbuster “American Sniper” blared from the rec room’s TV.

“Elam said he was hoping his protest would help fellow Israelis to understand that ‘the pain of Palestinians is the same as Israelis.’”

www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/m...

Trump is seeking to deport another academic who is legally in the country, lawsuit says Badar Khan Suri, a fellow at Georgetown, says he is being punished because of the suspected views of his wife, a U.S. citizen with Palestinian heritage.

As a Hoya, horrified to see the Trump administration target a Georgetown fellow -- an expert in **conflict resolution**

www.politico.com/news/2025/03...

Live updates: More than 400 killed as Israel strikes Gaza, breaking ceasefire with Hamas, officials say The rate of Palestinian casualties flooding through hospital doors was making it nearly impossible to keep track of numbers, one doctor said.

American surgeon in Gaza describes some of the victims of Israeli attacks:

"There had been a 2- or 3-year-old girl with shrapnel in her brain and her spleen; a 6-year-old boy whose heart had briefly stopped and whose belly was sliced through with shrapnel"

www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

With his nation at war, Winston Churchill dressed in a wartime onesie Winston Churchill made a political statement by wearing a wartime onesie he called a “siren suit,” which could be quickly donned and zipped up during an air raid siren. The world ate it up.

Another wartime leader for whom suits were not appropriate - Winston Churchill:

“That strange costume Mr. Churchill wore was recognized... as a ‘siren suit’, a zipper coverall to be donned quickly in the event of air raid alarms"

www.washingtonpost.com/history/2025...