News Releases

  • Biden’s Executive Order on Asylum Seekers

    “The current numbers [of border crossings] are much lower than in 2023, but still higher than 2,500 daily. These new quotas exclude various groups, including people who arrive with previously-scheduled appointments made with CBPOne App, the app used by Customs and Border Patrol. People from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela also have a special [Temporary Protected Status] program for them. In practice, [the new cap] also probably excludes people from Ukraine, people with young children, and unaccompanied minors. It is unclear who will be counting the entrances: Border Patrol––which tends to overcount people in Mexico––could manage lists and meter entrances…


  • Nuclear Peril: One Year After Death of Daniel Ellsberg

    The one-year anniversary of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg’s death on June 16 is being marked by Daniel Ellsberg Week and the release of a new documentary directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Judith Ehrlich, with never-before-seen footage of Ellsberg warning about heightened dangers of nuclear war. Now premiering online without charge, the 37-minute film “A Common Insanity: A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg About Nuclear Weapons” can be viewed here. Ellsberg’s last book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, points to scientists’ conclusions that a thermonuclear war would cause “nuclear winter” and doom almost all of the Earth’s inhabitants.


  • Biden Allowing More Israeli Atrocities

    A London Times investigation recently found: “The Israeli government insists that Hamas formally sanctioned sexual assault on October 7, 2023. But investigators say the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny.” The piece quotes Orit Sulitzeanu, the executive director of Israel’s Association of Rape Crisis Centers: “The politicization of rape by the Israeli government was part of the political agenda of this government. … I did not think that was sensible. … They didn’t mean ‘believe Israeli women.’ They meant ‘believe Israel.’”


  • U.S. Jury Holds Chiquita Liable for Colombian Death Squad’s Murder of Banana Workers

    Common Dreams reports: “U.S. Jury Holds Chiquita Liable for Colombian Death Squad’s Murder of Banana Workers” that: “In what case litigants are calling the first time an American jury has held a U.S. corporation legally liable for atrocities abroad, federal jurors in Florida on Monday found that Chiquita Brands International financed a Colombian paramilitary death squad that murdered, tortured, and terrorized workers in a bid to crush labor unrest in the 1990s and 2000s.


  • U.S. “Ceasefire” a “Ploy to Sabotage the Rule of Law”

    Reports indicate that the U.S. government is pushing for a vote in the UN Security Council today on a resolution it drafted. UN whistleblower Craig Mokhiber commented: “A distorted U.S. draft that would (1) divert diplomacy from the UN to a U.S. controlled process (2) compel Hamas to accept but not Israel (3) dictate to the Palestinians who will govern them (4) ignore Palestinian prisoners (5) return to the failed two-state ruse (6) NOT demand a ceasefire.”


  • New U.S. ICBM Tests Spark Criticism

    The coordinator of the coalition, Emma Claire Foley, is the author of the landmark report “The Real Cost of ICBMs.” After this week’s tests, in an article titled “America’s Nuclear Missiles Make Its Citizens Less Safe,” she wrote that ICBMs “are not only strategically impractical but a threat to the lives of millions.”


  • The Corporate Power Brokers Behind AIPAC’s War on the Squad

    “AIPAC wading into elections was nothing new. … But the sheer scale of AIPAC’s spending – enabled by Supreme Court decisions that have unleashed the distorting influence of big money in elections – and the tactics being used are more recent developments. These pro-Israel groups now directly intervene in Democratic primary races, flooding the airwaves with negative ads defaming progressives in the eyes of loyal Democratic voters. …”


  • Assessing Race-Neutral Tests for Lung Function

    A new study shows the implications of adopting race-neutral equations when physicians are testing for lung function.


  • 1967 War Myths Key to Gaza Today

    “Most people, even those knowledgeable about the Middle East, if asked how Israel portrayed its invasion of Gaza and Sinai in 1967, will say that it claimed self-defense on a rationale that Egypt was about to invade. In fact, that is inaccurate. In the Security Council, Israel claimed that Egypt had initiated hostilities by shelling three Israeli settlements just across the frontier from Gaza. The United States knew that claim was false, because Foreign Minister Abba Eban had just been in Washington trying to convince the Lyndon Johnson Administration that Egypt would attack. Johnson’s response to Eban was that there…


  • Palestinian Groups Call to Declare Gaza a Famine-Stricken Area

    The groups “call on the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority to immediately declare Gaza a famine-stricken area due to famine, environmental pollution, and the spread of diseases.”


  • Dissenting Voices At a Time of War and Faith

    SISTER EVELYN MATTERN Program associate at the North Carolina Council of Churches, Mattern said today: “Christians have a ‘just war’ teaching that in theory can be used to judge any war. In practice, the teaching serves to bless rather than judge wars. For example, the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops recently invoked the ‘just war’ teaching…

  • * ABM * Bin Laden * Israel * Tribunals

    ALICE SLATER Director of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, Slater said today: “The Rumsfeld report on space [www.defenselink.mil/pubs/space20010111.html] and the Pentagon’s ‘Visions for 2020’ report [PDF: www.peterson.af.mil/usspacecom/visbook.pdf] show that the government plans to militarize space and to dominate and control that military high ground for economic interests. The ABM Treaty stands in…

  • Interviews Available: Stimulus or War Profiteering?

    MICAH SIFRY A senior analyst with Public Campaign, Sifry said today: “It’s obscene that some of corporate America thinks this is the moment to cash in on all their access and influence in Congress with unwarranted tax rebates and unnecessary bailouts. By a margin of 56 to 32 percent, the public chooses increased government spending…

  • Fast Track Showdown: Interviews Available

    CONNIE GARCIA Garcia is a policy advocate for the San Diego-based Environmental Health Coalition, one of the oldest grassroots environmental and social justice organizations in the United States. She said today: “While the evidence is clear that NAFTA has failed to protect the environment, the president is promoting it as a model for the Free…

  • Interviews Available: Sharon vs. Hamas?

    ALI ABUNIMAH Abunimah wrote an op-ed article that appears in today’s New York Times. He is vice president of the Arab-American Action Network. [AAAN’s offices were burned by an arsonist yesterday, according to investigators. No motive is yet known.] More Information More Information RABBI ARTHUR WASKOW Director of The Shalom Center, Waskow said today: “Shortly…

  • The FBI and Domestic Spying

    Attorney General John Ashcroft is apparently planning to loosen safeguards that have restricted FBI surveillance of religious and political groups. The following critics of the move are available for interviews: NKECHI TAIFA Nkechi Taifa is director of the Equal Justice Program at the Howard University School of Law. She said today: “Ashcroft would like us…

  • Behind the Enron Collapse

    DOUG HELLER Consumer advocate with the Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, Heller said today: “Enron created itself through a growing corporate vision: If you want market share, create a market, even if there is no need for it. The ‘make a market’ mantra, in conjunction with Enron chairman Kenneth Lay’s longstanding ties…

  • * Afghanistan * Relatives of 9-11 Victims * Iraq

    ALEXANDER THIER Thier was an officer-in-charge for the UN humanitarian office in Afghanistan. He is co-author of the new report “Planning Considerations for International Involvement in Post-Taliban Afghanistan.” He said today: “Political space must be created in Afghanistan to allow representative, non-military leadership to emerge. At the Bonn meeting, there is a very notable absence…

  • Recession: Now What?

    In the wake of the announcement by a panel of academic experts that the U.S. economy has been in a recession since March, the following analysts are available for interviews: JULIANNE MALVEAUX An economist based in Washington, D.C., Malveaux said today: “It’s not news to anyone that we’re in a recession — most people are…

  • Interviews Available: “Millions Still Face Starvation”

    JIM JENNINGS President of Conscience International, a humanitarian aid organization, Jennings was in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan this May and will soon return to resume humanitarian work. He said today: “The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is far from over — millions still face starvation and disease. The sudden expansion of Northern Alliance territories, although…

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