GABRIEL AGUIRRE, [in Venezuela], [email protected], @WorldBeyondWar    Aguirre is Latin America Organizer for World BEYOND War.  STEVE ELLNER, [email protected], @sellner74    Ellner is a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela. He is now an associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives. DAVID SWANSON, [email protected], @davidcnswanson    In 2023, Swanson wrote the book The Monroe Doctrine at 200 and What to Replace it With. His articles include”The Monroe Doctrine and the Roots of U.S. Hegemony.” NORMAN SOLOMON, [email protected]    Solomon is the author of War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine. He is co-founder of Roots Action and is IPA’s executive director. 

    “U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims about the illegal drug trade regarding both Venezuela and over 100 people thus far killed in boats with U.S. missiles from drones are without evidence and widely considered not even plausible.” See full statement and link to more resources.

In testimony at the U.N. Security Council last year, a Doctors Without Borders representative said the group is afraid Israel will punish his colleagues as a result of his talking about Israeli war crimes.

“Benjamin Netanyahu is arriving in the United States with a familiar list of demands. As NBC News has reported, Netanyahu plans to press Donald Trump for U.S. backing for another round of war with Iran, now framed around Iran’s ballistic missile program. This comes after Trump has repeatedly declared Iran’s nuclear program destroyed, a claim that has politically closed the nuclear file and removed Israel’s most powerful historical justification for U.S. support for war with Iran.“

According to the Washington Post, the Trump administration has “terminated seven grants totaling millions of dollars to the American Academy of Pediatrics, including for initiatives on reducing sudden infant deaths, improving adolescent health, preventing fetal alcohol syndrome and identifying autism early.” The Department of Health and Human Services is trying to justify  these cuts based on AAP’s use of “identity-based language.” 

Drop Site News reports: “At least three killed in continued Israeli attacks on Gaza. A report from The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) finds Gaza still facing starvation. UN warns impacts of Israeli restrictions on NGOs working in Palestine will be ‘immediate and catastrophic.’” Today marks deadline for release of “Epstein files” — the outlet has reported extensively on Epstein’s ties to Israel, see their latest: “Epstein, Israel, and the CIA.”

Responding to the news that the Democratic National Committee is blocking the release of its own autopsy on the 2024 Democratic defeat, RootsAction issued a statement today pointing to the exhaustive autopsy that the group recently released: “The DNC is failing to acknowledge, much less learn from, the Democratic Party’s avoidable failures in 2024. This is a recipe for future disasters.” The RootsAction autopsy is posted at DemocraticAutopsy.org For further information, contact: JEFF COHEN, [email protected]    Cohen is co-founder of RootsAction. 

Drop Site News reports Thursday morning: “A fourth child has frozen to death in Gaza in just 10 days — two of them babies — as Israel continues blocking tents and winter shelter aid, despite UN supplies pre-positioned at the border that could immediately shelter more than 1.3 million displaced Palestinians.”

A mobile billboard in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the group RootsAction, demands an end to warmaking. 

For Vox, Rachel Cohen Booth looked into data about men’s perspectives on falling birth rates, caregiving and domestic labor. The data shows that American men are more likely than women to see falling birth rates as a problem and more likely to desire a return to “traditional gender roles.” Booth contends that “understanding men’s attitudes remains essential.”