News Releases

  • Vaccine Intentions of Parents

    A new study finds that between 35 and 40 percent of pregnant women and parents of young kids in the U.S. plan to fully vaccinate their child on schedule, including Covid and flu vaccines. Women in their first pregnancy expressed the most uncertainty about vaccinations, with 48 percent being unsure of how they would proceed in vaccinating their child. 


  • Not a War in Gaza — It’s Genocide

    “I don’t know of any comparable situation. Recent estimates show that about 70 percent of the structures in Gaza are either completely destroyed or severely damaged. The argument that the I.D.F. [Israel Defense Forces] is conducting a war in Gaza is simply cynical, there is no war in Gaza. What the I.D.F. is doing in Gaza is demolishing it. Hundreds of buildings are being bulldozed every week. This is not a secret, but mainstream media coverage has been insufficient.”


  • ​Medical Debt Rule Struck Down

    A federal judge in Texas has vacated a Biden-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule that removed medical debt from Americans’ credit reports. 


  • Pope Condemns “Barbarity” as Israel Kills People Waiting for Food

    The Guardian reports: “Pope condemns Gaza war’s ‘barbarity’ as 93 reported killed by Israeli fire while waiting for food” and “Christian patriarchs make joint visit to shelled church in Gaza.” The Guardian also reports: “‘Humanitarian city’ would be concentration camp for Palestinians, says former Israeli PM.” America magazine reports: “A Palestinian Christian community is the latest target of settler violence in the West Bank.” KATHY BOYLAN, [email protected]    Boylan is a member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker community in Washington, D.C. and has been is holding a vigil at the Papal Nuncio there, imploring Pope Leo to go to Gaza immediately. See video. She said today: “Pope Pius XII should have visited the Nazi concentration…


  • HHS Moving to Restrict Head Start Access

    The Department of Health and Human Services has announced that it intends to redefine Head Start as a federal public welfare program, not a public education program, barring access to the program for undocumented immigrants. The change is at odds with the way that the Supreme Court has treated K-12 education since 1982, when it ruled that children have a right to free public education regardless of their immigration status. Historically, Congress has not considered Head Start a welfare program. Experts expect there to be legal challenges that would put a temporary restraining order on the change. 


  • Hague Group: Action or More Rhetoric?

    The only thing that Israel understands is power. So governments that would truly enforce international law and protect Palestinians from Israel’s depravity must impose economic pain and render it vulnerable to attack by cutting it off from trade, weapons and fuel.”


  • Will The Hague Group Live up to Their Legal Obligations?

    Colombian president Gustavo Petro is hosting a meeting of The Hague Group in Bogota and recently wrote the piece “Governments like mine have a duty to stand up to Israel. Far too many have failed.”


  • 80 Years After Trinity Atomic Test, “Oblivious to the Threat of Oblivion”?

    Eighty years after the atomic age began with the Trinity bomb test in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, American media and politics are “routinely oblivious to the threat of oblivion,” says an article published today by The Nation.


  • Peace Force for Gaza “the Least” the Hague Group Can Adopt

        “The Uniting for Peace precedent was established to break Security Council deadlocks and to uphold the UN’s founding promise: to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, as well as to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for international law can be maintained. That promise is being tested by Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.” 


  • Measles: U.S. May Soon Lose Elimination Status

    The U.S. is at risk of losing its elimination status for measles after the CDC reported the highest number of cases of the virus in 33 years. Cases have been reported in 38 states, with the highest concentration in West Texas. 


  • Power Struggles in Haiti and Venezuela: Interviews Available

    BILL FLETCHER Executive director of TransAfrica, Fletcher said today: “In recent weeks, the Haitian crisis has been deepening. In addition to mass protests against President Aristide, demanding his resignation, there have been military assaults in several cities and what appears to be a move toward insurrection. The alleged rebels have been described in different ways,…

  • Scandal on Pre-War U.N. Spying by U.S. Now Mushrooming in Mexico and Chile

    Statements from Mexican and Chilean government officials in recent days are bringing renewed interest to the subject of U.S. spying at the United Nations in early 2003 prior to the Iraq war. The story first broke in March 2003 when the Observer newspaper in London published a U.S. National Security Agency memo describing a “surge”…

  • New Support for British Whistleblower Katharine Gun

    Members of Congress today released an open letter to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in support of Katharine Gun, the former British intelligence employee who faces two years in prison for leaking a memo to the press that exposed a U.S. surveillance “surge” against countries on the U.N. Security Council aimed at securing authorization for…

  • Bush’s Nuclear Proposal: Hypocrisy Charged

    JOHN BURROUGHS Burroughs is executive director of the New York-based Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy. He said this afternoon: “While Bush proposes ad hoc measures to limit the capacity of other countries to produce nuclear materials usable in reactors or bombs, his administration has yet to agree to start negotiations on a verified treaty (the…

  • * Bush: A Call for Censure * Prosecuting Protestors

    TREVOR FITZGIBBON Fitzgibbon is a contact person for a campaign being launched today by MoveOn.org and the national coalition Win Without War to censure President George W. Bush for misleading the American people in the lead-up to the war in Iraq. This afternoon a news conference at the National Press Club included a father of…

  • * Bush Iraq Deceptions — Then and Now * Skull vs. Bones?

    JOHN R. MACARTHUR, [via] Author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, MacArthur repeatedly scrutinized Bush’s claims during the buildup to the Iraq invasion, writing the article “Sounds Fishy, Mr. President” in October 2002 [See: www.commondreams.org/views02/1028-09.htm]. In December 2002 he was quoted on an IPA news release: “Recently, Bush cited an IAEA…

  • * Cheney Scandal * Tauzin/PHARMA * Candidates and War Powers

    PRATAP CHATTERJEE Chatterjee, recently back from Iraq, is program director at Corpwatch. He said today: “Newsweek reported Wednesday that the Justice Department has opened up an inquiry into whether Halliburton paid $180 million in bribes to win a contract in Nigeria when Dick Cheney was chairman of the company…. Last year Cheney received two dollars…

  • “Intelligence Failure”?

    RAY McGOVERN McGovern worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years. Before the invasion of Iraq he co-authored the article “Cooking Intelligence for War” with other members of the steering group for Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He said today: “The ‘investigation’ is slated to go past the election. Members will be picked by the…

  • The Economy: Nine Months Before Election Day * Budget * Job Training * The Deficit

    CHRIS HARTMAN, [via Christina Kasica] Research director for United for a Fair Economy, Hartman said today: “Tax cuts by the current administration have shifted the tax burden to the middle class and widened the wealth gap into a chasm…. The annual deficit is of historic proportions, over half a trillion for this year alone. With…

  • Prominent Americans Support British Whistleblower

    An array of high-profile Americans — including Rev. Jesse Jackson, feminist Gloria Steinem, Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, leaders of the ACLU and the Newspaper Guild, and artists such as Sean Penn, Bonnie Raitt and Martin Sheen — released a joint statement Thursday (Jan. 29) in support of Katharine Gun, a British whistleblower. Ms. Gun faces…

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