Katharine Houreld

I've lost my job.

To those kind, strong, determined, courageous people I interviewed or worked with over the years: you will always inspire me.
To every stranger who helped: thank you.
To the arms dealers, liars, thieves, killers of children: I’m keeping my files.

See you all on the other side.

U.S. citizen injured by federal agents in Salem who demanded to see “papers,” union says - Salem Reporter A home care worker and union worker was pulled from her car and injured by federal agents Thursday according to a statement by SEIU 503. To comment on this story, use the form at the end of the repor...

4 federal agents pull over an elderly US citizen for the suspected crime of being brown, break her car window, throw her to the ground, then drive off after they find her US Passport in her purse. The Salem Police, when called, say there’s nothing they can do. www.salemreporter.com/2026/01/31/u...

Two CBP Agents Identified in Alex Pretti Shooting The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raym...

This article is a very good example of why "more training" and "more vetting" isn't the answer. Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez joined Border Patrol in 2018 and 2014 respectively. These aren't new agents. www.propublica.org/article/alex...

Kenyan job seekers were lured to Russia, then sent to die in Ukraine The Post spoke to four Kenyans who fought in Ukraine and relatives of nine other recruits, as a secret pipeline funnels young Africans to Russia’s military.

Serving members of Kenya's security forces have been lured to fight for the Russian army in Ukraine, survivors and families say. They include a member of the elite U.S.-trained SPEAR unit, which guards the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...

Congolese rape survivors search in vain for medicine after USAID cuts In eastern Congo, where rape is widespread, the cancellation of USAID funding for PEP kits has left many victims vulnerable, according to nearly 50 interviews.

Cutting the funds to deliver 116,000 medical kits to treat victims of rape saved U.S. taxpayers $2 million. But it meant many women in eastern Congo could not longer get the pills they needed to prevent medicine, HIV, and deadly sexually transmitted diseases.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

It looks like 2025 will end up at about 1.47°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline, making it likely the third hottest year in the last 120,000+ years.

Meanwhile, the 3-year running average is going to end the year above 1.50°C for the first time.

In Sudan, thousands held hostage for ransom — and killed if they can’t pay RSF fighters in El Fashir have rounded up civilians en masse, survivors told The Post, subjecting them to torture and extorting their families for cash.

Thousands of civilians are being held for ransom after the RSF captured El Fashir, with kidnappers staging torture and executions on camera if families cannot pay. One man could only pay for his wife and children; he was killed in front of them www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

In 2024, renewable energy accounted for over 90% of global power capacity expansion. That is because it makes economic sense. IRENA_DAT_RE_Capacity_Highlights_2025-1.pdf

In Darfur, Sudan’s lost children wander through a landscape of death Around 200 unaccompanied children have arrived in the Sudanese town of Tewila after escaping El Fashir, where RSF fighters have carried out mass killings.

Sudanese children - their parents dead or missing - are wandering alone through a burned desert strewn with bodies, desperately seeking help. Some are badly wounded; all are starving. Many saw parents killed; others just lost them in the chaos www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

Just two decades ago, China had little capacity to manufacture cars — and owning one was considered a novelty.

Today, China produces and exports more cars than any other country in the world.

Meanwhile we in Europe still pretend we can somehow stop EVs from taking off by holding on to old tech.

Paramilitary massacres unfolding in Sudan’s Darfur, videos show RSF paramilitary fighters are carrying out mass ethnic killings in the recently captured city of El Fashir, according to videos, aerial images and interviews.

The intimacy of the cruelty in Sudan's El Fashir: A wounded man appeals to an RSF commander. “I know you,” he tells Abu Lulu. “I called out to you a while ago.”
“I will never have mercy,” the commander responds. “Our job is only killing.”
He shoots him dead.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

To assume all businesses want to strip away green regulations would be very wrong

Companies are complaining about EU failing to deliver on laws originally intended to come into force at the beginning of 2025 to stop commodities tied to deforestation being sold in EU

www.ft.com/content/7593...

Climate-curious but confused? Grab a beer and some cards. Fresk converts the latest climate science into a hands-on card game, helping players understand the causes, effects and feedback loops of climate change.

Climate curious? Don't wade thru the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a 3,000-page tome of jargon heavy enough to knock out a hungry polar bear. You can play a card game with some mates instead - and still get the science.
www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solu...

Trump’s USAID pause stranded lifesaving drugs. Children died waiting. USAID antimalarial and HIV supplies valued at nearly $140 million were delayed in the first half of the year or not delivered at all due to the Trump administration’s foreign aid pause, The Post found...

The girl died, sweating and shivering. The boy's hand slipped from his mother's as she screamed. Both could have been saved by drugs that the U.S. had already bought, paid for and shipped - only a couple of kilometers away. But USAID cuts had stopped deliveries www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

New antiaircraft weapons propel Sudan’s war, imperil global security Fighters now possess antiaircraft weapons that could threaten civilian air traffic and what appears to be a Chinese surface-to-air missile system, experts said.

Sudan's civil war has seen a proliferation of anti-aircraft weapons: deadly drones, MANPADS, and truck-borne surface-to-air missile systems. Even Turkey's advanced Akinci drones, which the military used to help retake the capital, are getting shot down. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Starving and surrounded: el-Fasher residents plead for aid - The World from PRX Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in the besieged Sudanese city of el-Fasher, cut off by 19 miles of earthen berms built by rebel forces now attacking the town. Katharine Houreld and her Was...

Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in the besieged Sudanese city of el-Fasher, cut off by 19 miles of earthen berms built by rebel forces now attacking the town. @khoureld.bsky.social and her @washingtonpost.com colleagues have been speaking with some of those behind the dirt walls.

Starvation or execution: Sudanese under siege face ‘death everywhere’ Families in El Fashir are eating animal feed. Children have been raped while foraging for food. Those who try to escape have been kidnapped and killed.

Love & pain in Sudan's el Fashir
- the father trying to comfort his daughter, raped when she went to pick wild weeds for her starving family. The man praying a last time with his dying brother, shot as they fled. The mother whose young sons are missing.
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

A Farmworkers Visa Promised Her a Better Life. It Was a Trap. Sofi left behind her child in Mexico for the promise of providing him a better life. She ended up a victim of an operation that is alleged to have exploited the H-2A visa program — and the workers it ...

Excellent report by @propublica.org on abuses migrant workers face under the H2A visas. Sex trafficking, kidnapping, beatings, deaths. Sofi ended up bound in the back of a pickup, her abuser smearing her blood on a shrine. Police arrived before he killed her. projects.propublica.org/h2a-visa-far...

Upgrades Begin on Plane Donated by Qatar to Serve as Air Force One The 747 jetliner needs extensive security modifications. Some members of Congress worry that President Trump will pressure the Air Force to do the work too quickly.

The U.S. Air Force has started upgrading the 747 jetliner that the government of Qatar donated to the U.S. this summer, the Air Force said in a statement this week. Industry and Pentagon officials have said the extensive upgrades could cost as much as $1 billion. nyti.ms/4prxszi

Drugs, blood and terror: Inside a paramilitary massacre in Sudan At least 31 people were massacred on April 27 in Salha, a neighborhood south of Khartoum, survivors said. The Post has reconstructed the events of that day.

The last fight for Sudan's capital. Families desperate to escape. An influx of new fighters, drugged up and fleeing defeat. And a massacre denied by RSF leadership, but then proudly owned by a commander on the ground. These were the last days in Salha. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Sheep are destroying precious British habitats – and we taxpayers are footing the bill | Chris Packham Large parts of Dartmoor have been denuded of wildlife, harmed by farming and a mess of government schemes that are costly in every way, says naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham

0.1% of Dartmoor in good ecological condition. And each Dartmoor ewe loses its owner £16.90 – the ecological and economic craziness of the current sheep grazing regime well explained by @chrisgpackham.bsky.social. Time to change how this amazing place is managed. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Foreseeable flaws in Gaza aid project led to shooting of Palestinians The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation program has produced huge crowds near Israeli troops, who opened fire multiple times, according to humanitarian experts, witnesses and visual evidence.

We ran this story yesterday www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

U.S. entrepreneurs want to tear up the international aid system’s rulebook Fogbow is working with combatants to deliver food to some of the world’s most desperate and inaccessible places. Aid groups warn of unintended consequences.

A U.S. company airdropped food to empty villages in South Sudan that had been attacked by government forces. Some were too afraid to get the aid; others crept back, fearful but starving. Here's what happened next: www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal The Trump administration’s cuts to USAID had an immediate and deadly impact in war-ravaged Sudan, according to civilians, doctors and aid officials.

Children clung to life in Sudan by the slenderest of threads, supported by community soup kitchens. Then the USAID funding cuts came, and their mothers watched them starve to death one by one. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

House approves Trump’s massive tax and immigration package
The legislation would extend tax cuts and add billions in new spending — and trillions in new debt. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... (Az delegation’s votes below)

Exclusive: EU explores tweaking methane rules for US gas to help trade talks, sources say The European Union is looking at ways to make it easier for U.S. gas exports to comply with its methane emissions rules, as the bloc attempts to avert a trade war with U.S. President Trump, three sources told Reuters.

U.S. methane gas can never meet the EU methane rules especially with Trump removing regulations. Everybody knew that. So...

The EU has decided to create some loopholes that will make dirty US LNG appear clean.

www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Photographer Fatima Hassona killed ahead of Cannes documentary debut The Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassona, killed along with ten family members in an Israeli air strike on her home in northern Gaza, is the star of a documentary due to be screened at the Cannes film festival next month.

"In an earlier post, she wrote: "As for the inevitable death, if I die, I want a loud death, I don't want me in a breaking news story, nor in a number with a group, I want a death that is heard by the world, a trace that lasts forever, and immortal images that neither time nor place can bury."

Trump Officials Weigh Earth Day Move Against Green Groups White House officials are preparing executive orders that would strip some environmental nonprofits of their tax-exempt status, setting up a possible Earth Day strike against organizations seen as sta...

White House officials are preparing executive orders that would strip some enviro nonprofits of tax-exempt status for Earth Day, by @jendlouhy.bsky.social & @akshatrathi.bsky.social

🎁 Gift Link: Trump Officials Weigh Earth Day Move Against Green Groups www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Revealed: world’s largest meat company may break Amazon deforestation pledges again Brazilian ranchers in Pará and Rondônia say JBS can not achieve stated goal of deforestation-free cattle

Revealed: world’s largest meat company may break Amazon deforestation pledges again www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Starved in Jail Why are incarcerated people dying from lack of food or water, even as private companies are paid millions for their care?

Incredible report by @newyorker: paid providers of care in US jails have allowed inmates to die of hunger and thirst, screaming for help; one had his lower leg rot off; others eaten by rodents or insects after they died. Some "look like famine victims" www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...