

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.


Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
What to say. Alex Pretti, 37, a kind, principled, hard-working ICU nurse who cared for real soldiers in dire need was executed in the street at close range by a vicious gang of government sociopaths cosplaying as soldiers. After state terror killed him, state terror smeared him with "flat-out insane" lies, because the man who dedicated his life to helping others was murdered by a man who has dedicated his life to hurting others. Pretti died trying to protect two women.
Pretti, 37, was a registered nurse in the intensive care unit at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System; he had also taken part in research projects. His only previous interaction with law enforcement was for traffic tickets. Colleagues describe him as someone who "cared about people deeply" and "always rose to the level above and beyond what we expected of him." "He wanted to help people," said Dr. Dimitri Drekonja, chief of infectious diseases at the VA hospital. "He was an outstanding nurse who'd go out of his way to help." Pretti was also an "infectious spirit, quick with a joke"; the two men often talked about mountain biking, which they both loved. "You could not think of a kinder, gentler, sweeter person," said Dr. Aasma Shaukat. ”It really, truly gave him joy to interact with patients. And he always spoke about doing the right thing. He was a very principled person."Videos from Saturday morning's protest in Minneapolis show Pretti, dressed in brown, directing traffic and filming federal agents; forensic video analysis clearly shows his right hand holding up his phone, and his left hand empty. When agents start pushing protesters and observers back, Pretti retreats with them but keeps filming. As one thug violently shoves a woman to the ground, Pretti moves to help her, in response, the thug pepper sprays both Pretti and the woman in the face. As Pretti struggles to continue filming and protecting the woman, a swarm of six or seven nearby agents in full tactical gear rush in to pull Pretti away from her; they slam him to the ground, pin his arms down, and begin beating, punching, kicking him; one appears to pistol-whip Pretti about the head as other protesters yell for them to stop.
An agent suddenly shouts Pretti has a gun; he was reportedly carrying a legally registered handgun, in what is an open-carry state, as part of a community-led first-responder network. One goon steps in, pulls it out of Pretti's waistband and walks away from the melee; seconds later, as Pretti strains to get up on one knee, another thug pulls out his gun and shoots him point-blank in the back. As Pretti collapses, at least one other agent begins shooting too; both continue firing 8 or 10 times as Pretti lies motionless on the ground. The closest sick fuck to Pretti claps as the shots ring out, and turns triumphantly away. Around them, people are screaming, crying and filming. "What the fuck did you just do?! What the fuck did you just do?! shrieks a woman, then "Oh my God, oh my God." She starts sobbing, but keeps recording. "You fucking people, you're fucking killing us," she wails. "Why would you do that?!"
Even more than the murder of Renee Good, Pretti's execution was brutally documented by eyewitnesses. When the firing begins, there's video from a suddenly shocked guy inside a donut place across the street: "What?! Are you fucking kidding me?" There are painstakingly detailed forensic analyses- here and here - that clearly show Pretti holding his phone (not gun), helping the observer, pinned to the ground when he was shot. There's video from the weeping, resolute woman recording behind him, and two sworn affidavits - for an ACLU lawsuit - based on testimony from her and a physician who watched from his apartment, went to the scene and insisted on checking for a pulse when agents (again) failed to do so: "I asked if (Pretti) had a pulse and they said they didn't know"; they were focused on counting how many times he'd been hit.
Virtually all that first-hand evidence contradicts every absurd claim the regime - lying goons, lying DHS, lying so-called president - has subsequently made in an ongoing response "at best indifferent to the evidence available (and) at worst completely fabricated." "This is a documented execution, down to evidence staging," said one critic after a curated White House photo of a handgun Trump called "the gunman’s gun.” The bullshit started within minutes when mini-Nazi Greg Bovino announced that as brave thugs were conducting a "targeted operation" against a Very Scary "illegal alien," "an individual approached (them) with a 9 mm handgun. The agents attempted to disarm the suspect but he violently resisted and an officer, fearing for his life, fired defensive shots...This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do MAXIMUM DAMAGE and MASSACRE law enforcement." Also, then, "rioters."
Their scripted claptrap kept coming, a shameless, venomous flood of lies from a cohort of comic-book villains. Fucking ICE Barbie echoed fucking Bovino, with flourishes: An "armed suspect," now "brandishing" his weapon, approached agents "to inflict maximum damage and kill law enforcement...I state the facts as they unfolded." Stephen Goebbels called Pretti "a would-be assassin" who tried to murder feds and blasted Democrats who "side with the terrorists.” Dems replied, "You’re a f*cking liar with blood on your hands.” Drunktank Pete raved, "Thank God for the patriots of @ICEgov...You are SAVING the country." The White House reminded zealots to call Pretti "a terrorist" in messaging, and Trump babbled Walz and Frey are covering up billions in "Theft and Fraud,” his racist pretext for starting the mayhem when, per Aaron Rupar, "None. Of. This. Was. Necessary."
Nor is it normal, or often, legal. Again, corrupt feds blocked state investigators from access to the murder scene. They tried to block city cops too, but the police chief ordered them to stay and do their work. Bovino says his thugs, murderers among them, are all back on the streets, and Kash's Keystone FBI are on the case; they just arrested four perps for damaging an FBI vehicle and stealing stuff. But their abuses have grown so unhinged even some Repubs are saying, "Enough," and the Wall Street Journal just urged the regime to step back from "what is becoming a moral and political debacle.” Highlighting the federal government's literal lethal war on blue states - "Obey or die" - evil Pam Bond said the quiet, election-stealing part out loud, effectively warning Minnesota officials the killings will continue until they fork over voter rolls. All of us are in peril, activists insists, not just Minnesota: "We’re performing CPR on what may already be a corpse called the Constitution."

AOC calls Alex Pretti's murder - again, point-blank, broad daylight- "a momentous, pivotal moment." Maybe. Certainly, as Tim Walz argues, "They're telling you not to trust your eyes and ears," and as others argue, "Every person who voted for Trump has blood on their hands." For now, Jonathan Last writes, our task is to at least bear witness. In the wake of the murder of Renee Good, "The murder of Alex Pretti was not a mistake, or a tragedy, or a misunderstanding. It was a choice. The president (and) his regime saw what its masked agents had done to (Good) and decided to do more of it...Killing Alex Pretti was (their) policy...which means the federal government is at war with the citizenry. Or at least the part (it) deems undesirable." "If people in Minneapolis can be treated this way, Americans anywhere can be treated this way," he concludes. "To avert your eyes from this reality is to insult the sacrifices Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti made for our country."
Alex Pretti's parents apparently found out about their son's death, not from those responsible for it, but from an AP reporter who asked them about it. No federal official contacted them; in fact, none has yet picked up a phone to them. After struggling to get any information from DHS or other federal law enforcement, they called the county medical examiner's office, who said, yes, they had a body matching the name and description of their son. In the wake of such horrors, Minnesota organizer Keith Edwards began an "Alex Pretti is an American Hero" fundraising campaign. The initial goal was $20,000. Reflecting Americans' rage and grief, it has now raised over a million dollars, with donations ranging from $10,000 to, often, $5 or $10. Edwards has thanked donors with, "You are what America can look like at our best."
Many moving comments come from "a whole family of us nurses who will carry him in our hearts." They "mourn for the innumerable lives Alex WOULD have saved and the lives he WOULD have touched," for "a life taken too soon" while "honoring the calling we all share." From a fellow critical care nurse in the UK: "Sent with love, disbelief and abject horror. Rest in Power Alex." Many thank his parents: "For raising someone brave who will be remembered as a beacon at the turn of the tide," for "raising such a beautiful soul who stood up for what is right, and showed what love and dignity look like...We will not let your son be forgotten...Alex is any of us, and all of us." "Be Good, be Pretti," they wrote. "Murdered for being a good human being," and, "Your actions were more than just an intervention - they were a profound hymn of human courage...Your light will guide the way for so many who follow."
Protests continue in Minneapolis, people's breath mixing with plumes of tear gas in the frigid air. Fed-up prison officials are exposing the regime's lies, the National Guard are giving out doughnuts, more furious white citizens are saying, "This is not OK." George Conway: "I just checked...The Constitution does *not* say ‘a bunch of sociopaths (can) do whatever the f*ck they want and make sh*t up as they go along.’” New video shows a woman sobbing as her husband is brutally tackled by more roving goons; she tells a pastor at her side they were just trying to escape the tear gas. Mister Rogers: "Look for the helpers." After Alex Pretti's murder, many noted the wrenching final act of his life was trying to help a woman assaulted by the masked sadists who then killed him. His reported last words were to ask her, "Are you okay?" Later, the son of a veteran who Pretti cared for in his final hours posted video of Pretti's "final salute" honoring him. "Today, we remember that freedom is not free," he says "We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it... We grant him our honor and our gratitude.”

As ratepayers and environmentalists continue sounding the alarm over a push to rapidly build data centers to support artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency across the United States, scientists stressed Wednesday that powering such facilities with clean energy could save trillions of dollars in climate and health costs over the coming decades.
"US electricity demand could increase by 60% to 80% between 2025 and 2050, with data centers accounting for more than half of the increase by 2030," according to the new Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) report, Data Center Power Play. "Estimates of the cumulative electricity costs attributable to data centers from 2026 to 2050 range from $886 billion to $978 billion."
"Without stronger clean energy policies, the additional fossil fuel generation used to power data centers results in an increase in annual US power plant emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) of 19% to 29% (229 to 342 million metric tons—MMT) by 2035," the document warns. "Restoring federal clean energy tax credits would reduce total US power plant emissions of CO2 by 33% between 2026 and 2035, even if data center demand more than doubles."
Reviving those tax credits is just one of the "forward-looking policies" for which the report advocates. It also calls for "establishing binding emission reduction targets and carbon-free electricity standards, adopting strong power plant carbon standards, and providing incentives to increase transmission capacity."
💡It's the smartest, quickest way to meet growing electricity demand while protecting people’s health, wallets and the climate. 🏛️$248 billion in wholesale electricity costs could be avoided by 2050 by restoring federal clean energy tax credits slashed by the Trump administration.
— Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) January 21, 2026 at 10:47 AM
The report further pushes for making large electricity customers, including data centers, cover additional costs and requiring utilities to not only conduct long-term planning for data center load growth but also meet that growth with new low-carbon or zero-carbon generation.
"State and federal policymakers should require data center companies and utilities to negotiate power purchase agreements and grid interconnection terms in public proceedings rather than behind closed doors and nondisclosure agreements," the publication argues. "Policymakers should also require data center companies and utilities to publicly report power needs, onsite and induced emissions, water use, and other data—and to do so with enough advance notice for communities to make informed decisions."
In a statement, Mike Jacobs, senior energy analyst at UCS and author of a recent report about costs being pushed onto the public, highlighted that "data centers are already secretly increasing peoples' electricity bills."
"While some utility companies and data center developers are intentionally misdirecting scrutiny, others are willfully ignorant about their roles in passing costs onto consumers," he explained. "In a future with immense data center growth, ratepayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize Big Tech's profits at the expense of their own health, climate, and pocketbooks. State utility regulators have clear authority to assign costs to those that cause them—it's time they require data center developers to pay their fair share for energy needs that can dwarf that of entire cities."
The new report emphasizes that "additional policies to nearly decarbonize the power sector by 2050 would help limit future damages from extreme heat, drought, wildfires, flooding, and other climate impacts. These policies would also deeply cut harmful air pollutants that contribute to respiratory ailments, heart attacks, other illnesses, and mortalities."
Reducing US power sector CO2 emissions 70% by 2035 would result in...🌎 More than $1.6 trillion in avoided global climate damages🌱 Reduce air pollution from fossil fuels, resulting in $40 billion in avoided health costs nationally
— Union of Concerned Scientists (@ucs.org) January 21, 2026 at 10:47 AM
UCS found that "the cumulative global climate benefits from reducing US heat-trapping emissions total $1.3 trillion to $1.6 trillion between 2026 and 2035, growing to $8 trillion to $13 trillion by 2050. Cumulative health benefits from reducing local air pollution range from $120 billion to $220 billion by 2050."
The report's lead author, UCS director of energy research Steve Clemmer, said Wednesday that "the climate and health benefits and net cost savings of building clean energy to meet future electricity needs are obvious and enormous, but they will not materialize without political support and responsible management of data center load growth."
Julie McNamara, associate policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS, took aim at Big Oil-backed President Donald Trump, whose administration "has repeatedly worked to derail clean energy deployment precisely when we need it most."
"With surging demand from data centers, the need for plentiful, affordable power has never been higher," she said. "Yet instead of clearing the path for the fastest, cheapest, cleanest resources to deploy, President Trump is sidelining renewables just to boost the interests of the fossil fuel industry. People will pay the price: in higher bills, in dirtier air, in lost local investments, and in worsened climate impacts."
President Donald Trump has long insisted, in the face of decades of research by economists, that foreign producers are the only ones who are paying for his tariffs on imported goods.
However, a major new study released Monday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an economic think tank based in Germany, shows that US businesses and consumers are shouldering the burden for the vast majority of Trump's tariffs.
After examining more than 25 million shipment records of goods imported to the US last year, the institute found that foreign exporters only absorbed 4% of the $200 billion in tariff payments, with the remaining 96% being passed on to US importers and consumers.
"This finding has profound implications," the study explains. "If foreign exporters do not reduce their prices in response to tariffs, then the entire burden of the tariff falls on US buyers. The tariff functions not as a tax on foreign producers, but as a consumption tax on Americans. Every dollar of tariff revenue represents a dollar extracted from American businesses and households."
The study identifies several factors to explain why exporters did not slash their prices to remain competitive in the lucrative US market, including exporters shifting their sales to other markets where they will not face such high tariffs; firms not being able to shoulder the high price cut that would be needed to overcome the tariff rates set by the president; and companies not wanting to give Trump an incentive for further tariffs by rewarding US consumers with lower prices.
Julian Hinz, research director at the Kiel Institute and an author of the study, described the Trump tariffs as an "own goal" that has harmed Americans far more than it has harmed foreigners.
"The claim that foreign countries pay these tariffs is a myth," explained Hinz. "The data show the opposite: Americans are footing the bill."
The Kiel Institute study came out two days after Trump vowed to slap even more tariffs on European countries opposed to his efforts to take over Greenland.
In an analysis published Monday, economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) said that the latest Trump tariffs on Europe amounted to a "$75 billion tax increase" in an attempt to fulfill the president's "demented dreams" of taking over the self-governing Danish territory.
"Well over 90% of the cost of a Trump tariff is borne by consumers or importers in the United States, not by the exporting countries," Baker contended. "When Trump starts yelling 'tariff, tariff, tariff,' he is yelling 'tax, tax, tax,' and we’re the ones paying it. And $75 billion is not trivial. It’s 1% of the budget, more than twice the cost of the enhanced premiums for Obamacare policies that Trump says we can’t afford."
President Donald Trump offered a one-word answer—"No"—when asked Tuesday if Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will resign following her decision to smear Alex Pretti as a violent domestic terrorist immediately after he was gunned down by border security agents on a Minneapolis street, but Democrats in Congress noted that many in the Republican Party have not appeared so confident regarding Noem's conduct following the killing.
Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee emphasized that since "Operation Metro Surge" in the Minneapolis area led to the killing of a second US citizen by Border Patrol agents on Saturday, and Noem accused Pretti of approaching officers with a gun and resorting to violence despite the fact that footage from multiple camera angles showed nothing of the sort, "she has been rebuked by Republicans in Congress, by her own senior staffers, and even the president."
Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said Noem's comments "came before all the facts were known and weakened confidence," while Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called for Noem and the heads of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other immigration agencies to testify before Congress.
Former DHS general counsel John Mitnick, an architect of the agency, said he was "enraged and embarrassed by DHS’s lawlessness, fascism, and cruelty" and demanded Trump's impeachment, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted on Monday to distance the administration from Noem's response to the killing.
The Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee posted MS NOW's fact-check of Noem's comments directly after Pretti was killed, along with their demand: "She lied about Alex Pretti... She needs to be fired, resign, or she will be impeached."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) released a statement outlining why—regardless of how—Noem must leave her position leading DHS.
"Taxpayer dollars are being weaponized by the Trump administration to kill American citizens, brutalize communities, and violently target law-abiding immigrants," said the Democratic leaders. "Dramatic changes at the Department of Homeland Security are needed. Federal agents who have broken the law must be criminally prosecuted. The paramilitary tactics must cease and desist. Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for Americans, not kill them in cold blood."
"Kristi Noem should be fired immediately, or we will commence impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives," they added. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."
On MS NOW, Jeffries on Tuesday called Noem "a despicable, corrupt, pathological liar."
Hakeem Jeffries: "Kristi Noem is a despicable, corrupt, pathological liar. We've seen her slander not just one, but American citizens, patriotic Americans who were killed without justification on the streets of Minneapolis ... we are prepared to initiate impeachment proceedings… pic.twitter.com/MEnBXIJDdt
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 27, 2026
The GOP-controlled House is not likely to move forward with impeaching Noem, but a resolution to do so now has 150 Democratic cosponsors, with more than two-thirds of the party's House members backing the call to bring charges against the homeland security secretary and former South Dakota governor. Should Democrats win back control of the House in the November elections, they could move forward with the effort if she is still in office.
"Secretary Noem has blood on her hands," Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) who introduced the impeachment articles, said in a statement. "Under her leadership, Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good were murdered."
As President Donald Trump terrorizes immigrants and Americans alike with his deadly mass deportation blitz while warning European leaders to tighten their borders by raising the racist specter of "civilizational erasure," Spain's government is moving against the xenophobic tide by offering hundreds of thousands of migrants a chance at permanent legal residency.
The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the leftist Podemos party reached an agreement Monday following the collection of more than 700,000 petition signatures in favor of a legislative initiative to legalize up to 500,000 undocumented migrants.
Those who can prove that they were in Spain for at least five months before December 31, 2025 and have no criminal record will be eligible for permanent legal residency with permission to work.
Spanish Migration Minister Elma Saiz (PSOE) said during a press conference that "today is a historic day" for starting the process of legalizing hundreds of thousands of immigrants in a country that has made great strides in overcoming its legacy of racism and xenophobia.
The far-right Vox party called the legalization plan "madness" that promotes "barbarity."
However, Saiz said that legalization will help Spain “recognize, dignify, and give guarantees” to people who already live and work in the country.
“We’re reinforcing a migratory model based on human rights, on integration, and on coexistence that’s compatible with both economic growth and social cohesion,” she added.
Responding to arguments that legalizing so many migrants would severely strain Spain's social safety net, Podemos Secretary General Ione Belarra said on social media, "What overwhelms public services are your cuts and privatizations."
Belarra also said that some opponents of legalization are angry that they will no longer be able to exploit migrants by paying them less than legal workers.
Podemos Political Secretary Irene Montero said Tuesday that "we have a legal obligation to guarantee [migrant] rights and that is what this regularization is, which we hope will reach all the people without papers in Spain who were here before December 31, 2025."
Spain's population is approximately 49.4 million. Legalizing half a million immigrants would be the equivalent of granting permanent residency to about 3.6 million migrants in the United States. There were believed to be about 7.1 million foreign nationals living in Spain at the beginning of last year, of whom an estimated 840,000 were in the country without authorization.
Sánchez's PSOE-led government has been supportive of immigrants since coming to power in 2018, offering safe harbor for migrants arriving in Europe by sea when other European Union nations have moved to restrict their entry. More than 10,000 migrants died trying to reach Spain in 2024, according to the Spanish advocacy group Caminando Fronteras (Walking Borders).
Meanwhile, Trump's latest National Security Strategy, released last month, urges the US to "cultivate resistance" to immigration in Europe, espousing racist "great replacement" ideology while warning of “the real and stark prospect of civilizational erasure."
“Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less," the document states.
European nations including Denmark, Germany, Greece, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have recently tightened their migration and asylum policies, in some cases partially due to pressure from Washington.
Responding to Trump's deadly anti-immigrant crackdown—which has killed both immigrants and US citizens—Montero said Tuesday that “in the United States at the moment there are millions of people who are afraid in their own homes because Trump’s migration policy enters people’s homes and takes them away."
“We cannot accept that there are people who live in fear and without rights," she added. "We cannot accept racist violence. Racism is answered with rights. If they kidnap children and murder, we give papers."
A cameraman and CBS News contributor was among three journalists killed Wednesday by Israeli forces while working in Gaza, prompting some observers to ask when—or if—Bari Weiss, the network's pro-Israel editor-in-chief, would condemn the attack.
Anas Ghneim, Mohammed Salah Qashta, and Abdul Raouf Shaat were using a drone to record aid distribution by the Egyptian Relief Committee in al-Zahra in central Gaza when, according to eyewitness accounts, an airstrike targeted one of the group's vehicles accompanying the journalists.
"The Israeli army criminally targeted this vehicle," Egyptian Relief Committee spokesperson Mohammed Mansour told AFP.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed its troops "identified several suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas in the central Gaza Strip, in a manner that posed a threat to their safety," and then "struck the suspects who activated the drone."
Israeli officials often claim—almost always without conclusive evidence—that journalists, aid workers, and other civilians it kills are Hamas "terrorists."
CBS News said that Shaat, a 30-year-old newlywed, "worked for years as a cameraman for CBS News and other outlets."
Among those outlets were Agence France-Presse, which issued a statement condemning the attack and remembering Shaat as a "kind-hearted colleague, with a gentle sense of humor, and as a deeply committed journalist."
"AFP demands a full and transparent investigation into his death," the agency said. "Far too many local journalists have been killed in Gaza over the past two years while foreign journalists remain unable to enter the territory freely."
Shaat's CBS News colleagues in London remembered him as a "brave journalist" who was "deeply loved by everyone who knew or worked with him."
However, one prominent CBS figure has so far been conspicuously silent on Shaat's killing. As of Thursday afternoon, CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss has said nothing publicly about the incident. Weiss is a self-described Zionist whose outlet Free Press—now a division of CBS following its acquisition by Paramount Skydance—is staunchly pro-Israel and has shown indifference toward Palestinian suffering.
For example, FP called the officially declared Gaza famine, which claimed at least hundreds of lives, a "myth" and published other reporting on Gaza that critics said fueled genocide denial.
Paramount Skydance chairman and CEO David Ellison and his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, are also both reportedly close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Standing in stark contrast with Weiss and CBS News, media advocacy groups were quick to denounce the journalists' killings. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate blasted what it called a "deliberate assassination" and "a war crime and a crime against humanity under international humanitarian law."
Condemnation also came from groups including Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
“CPJ condemns Israel’s strike on a clearly marked civilian vehicle in central Gaza that killed freelance photojournalists... amid an ongoing ceasefire,” CPJ regional director Sara Qudah said in a statement. “Israel, which possesses advanced technology capable of identifying its targets, has an obligation under international law to protect journalists.”
CPJ calls for a transparent investigation after an Israeli drone strike on a vehicle killed three journalists in central Gaza during the ongoing ceasefire:⚪️Abed Shaat⚪️Mohammad Qeshta⚪️Anas GhnaimRead more ⤵️cpj.org/2026/01/isra...
[image or embed]
— Committee to Protect Journalists (@pressfreedom.bsky.social) January 21, 2026 at 10:45 AM
While it is difficult to know precisely how many journalists have been killed in Gaza—where Israel bans foreign reporters from entering—CPJ says at least 208 Palestinian media workers have been killed there. RSF says the number is at least 220. The United Nations puts the figure at over 260.
The deadliest Israeli massacre of media professionals in Gaza occurred last August 10, when six journalists were killed in a tent bombing outside al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Later that month, an Israeli "double-tap" strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis killed at least 21 people, including five journalists.
According to Gaza officials, Israeli forces have committed more than 1,200 violations of the ceasefire with Hamas since it took effect last October, killing over 460 Palestinians including upward of 100 children. Officials said at least 11 Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza late Wednesday and into Thursday, including the three journalists, three children, and a woman.
Since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israel's US-backed genocidal war on Gaza has left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, and around 2 million others forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened.
Israel also continues to restrict the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, causing preventable deaths. For example, at least 10 children and infants have died of cold-related causes this winter, according to local officials.
"If David Lammy wishes to see me dead, if Keir Starmer wishes to see me dead, they can come and do it themselves," said 22-year-old activist Umer Khalid.
After 17 days without food and three without water, the 22-year-old British pro-Palestine activist Umer Khalid ended his hunger strike after being hospitalized on Monday.
Khalid is the last of the eight young activists with the group Palestine Action to remain on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment without trial and the criminalization of pro-Palestine speech in the UK.
“At the hospital… I was given a choice between treatment and likely death within the next 24 hours due to kidney failure, acute liver failure, and potential cardiac arrest,” said Khalid, in a statement shared by the Prisoners for Palestine group, which is supporting the strikers. He said that he decided to end his hunger strike because, “I am too strong, too loud, too powerful… and there is so much we can do to effect change.”
The activists are being held in prison on remand, meaning they were denied bail and have not yet been given a trial for vandalizing military equipment used to support Israel's genocidal war in Gaza.
Earlier this month, several of the strikers, some of whom had refused food since November, ended their strike after the UK rejected a $2.7 billion contract for a subsidiary of Israel’s largest weapons maker, Elbit Systems.
Four of them were arrested after allegedly breaking into an Elbit facility and destroying equipment. Khalid is among four others accused of trespassing at a British Royal Air Force base and vandalizing airplanes.
Khalid, who suffers from Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy and suffered multiple organ failure during the strike, ended his protest after Amy Frost, the governor of the Wormwood Scrubs prison where he is being held, agreed to meet with him to discuss the conditions of his confinement. After the meeting, he received mail and clothes that the prison had withheld from him, and restrictions on outside visitors that had been in place since July were lifted.
A spokesperson for Prisoners for Palestine said Khalid "absolutely must have compassionate bail in order to heal, all the hunger strikers should."
In addition to protesting the restrictive conditions of their confinement, the strikers were seeking to draw attention to the criminalization of Palestine Action. The UK government, currently led by Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer, added the group to a list of banned "terrorist" organizations in July, meaning that even peaceful support for the group or identification as a member can result in imprisonment.
Since the ban went into effect, more than 2,700 people have been arrested across the UK over support for or involvement with Palestine Action, in many cases for actions like holding a sign or chanting a slogan in support of the group.
The British government has been repeatedly pressed to intervene on behalf of the strikers, who have alleged mistreatment and neglect while in confinement.
Khalid previously went on a 12-day hunger strike, which the Canary reported "made Khalid seriously unwell and unable to walk." According to the outlet, "the prison mismanaged his refeeding by giving him protein shakes and biscuits, dangerously unsuitable."
Other strikers have said recovery from weeks or months without food has been exceedingly difficult. Shahmina Alam, a healthcare worker and the sister of Kamran Ahmed, who refused food for 67 days, said the strike showed that "the prison healthcare system is not fit for purpose" and that "there are systemic failures to provide care which is dignified, timely, or even lifesaving."
"These prisoners are not treated as patients or even humans," she continued. "They are dehumanised, handcuffed in their sleep and in the shower, and are given no privacy, confidentiality, or respect."
Despite calls from medical experts and members of Parliament, David Lammy, the secretary of state for justice, has refused calls to meet with the strikers to discuss their demands, which have included immediate bail, an end to the censorship of their communications, and an end to the ban on Palestine Action.
Khalid said he made his decision to end the strike in part because members of the government "have shown without a doubt that they have no concern for our lives and they do not care if we die in these cells."
He said, "If David Lammy wishes to see me dead, if Keir Starmer wishes to see me dead, they can come and do it themselves."
The Department of Homeland Security has denied it has a database of protesters or legal observers, but the agency sent a memo to agents asking them to collect data on dissenters in Minneapolis.
About a week before Alex Pretti was fatally shot by US Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, he had another encounter with federal officers who objected to him observing an immigration raid, and his name was known to them—raising new questions about the "database" that Trump administration officials and agents on the ground have threatened dissenters with recently.
CNN reported Tuesday that Pretti, the Minneapolis nurse who was fatally shot by Border Patrol agents while acting as a legal observer and trying to help a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by one officer, was known to federal officers before his killing last weekend. About a week earlier, he had been tackled by a group of agents who broke his rib when he was protesting the detention of a community member.
The outlet reported that earlier this month, the US Department of Homeland Security sent a memo to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deployed in the Minneapolis area that provided a form called "intel collection non-arrests," urging them to fill in personal data about protesters and people the department labeled as "agitators."
"Capture all images, license plates, identifications, and general information on hotels, agitators, protestors, etc., so we can capture it all in one consolidated form,” the DHS guidance read.
It was not clear whether Pretti's information was gathered on one of the forms or if the Border Patrol agents last Saturday knew who he was when they fatally shot him after throwing him to the ground on a Minneapolis street.
But the news that he had had a previous encounter and that officers in Minneapolis knew his name came amid numerous reports of federal agents behaving aggressively toward nonviolent protesters, and as top officials in the Trump administration as well as officers on the ground have issued threats to demonstrators and legal observers that DHS would be collecting information about them.
After a video taken by a Maine resident went viral last week, showing a federal immigration agent telling her that she would be considered a "domestic terrorist" by the Trump administration and included in a "nice little database" for filming him, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin denied that such a database exists.
“There is NO database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS," McLaughlin told CNN when asked about the video taken in Maine. "We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults, and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement. Obstructing and assaulting law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime.”
Her response didn't explain why the agent in the video threatened a woman who was merely filming him, an activity that is broadly protected by the First Amendment.
Despite McLaughlin's denial, President Donald Trump's own border czar, Tom Homan, told Fox News earlier this month that he aimed to "create a database where those people that are arrested for interference, impeding, and assault, we’re going to make them famous."
🚨 BREAKING:
Tom Homan says the Trump admin is building a database of people attacking ICE and plans to broadcast their names and faces publicly.
Then he says they’ll contact employers, schools, and neighborhoods to expose them.
“We’re gonna MAKE ‘EM FAMOUS!”
That’s not law… pic.twitter.com/nrhtABt687
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) January 16, 2026
The White House has frequently claimed that there's been a "more than 1,000% rise" in assaults against federal immigration agents, but an analysis of federal court records by Colorado Public Radio showed in September that the reports of attacks on officers appeared exaggerated, with the increase closer to 25% from the previous year.
In Pretti's first encounter with federal agents, he told the source who spoke to CNN that he had stopped his car and began blowing a whistle and shouting when he saw ICE officers chasing a family on foot.
The agents then tackled him and leaned on his back, breaking his rib.
"That day, he thought he was going to die,” said the source, who spoke anonymously with CNN out of fear of retribution.
DHS told CNN it had "no record" of the initial encounter with Pretti.
Journalist Jasper Nathaniel said the revelation about Pretti's earlier encounter showed that it is "completely urgent to identify his killers and investigate whether they had access to the database" that officials have alluded to.
Questions about how the alleged database has been used in Minneapolis and elsewhere were raised as another viral clip taken by a legal observer in the city showed an ICE agent telling him, "You raise your voice, I will erase your voice.”
WOW! An ICE agent in Minneapolis tells an American citizen "If you raise your voice, I will erase your voice."
Stop telling me that the Trump administration isn't Fascist. They are threatening people for "raising their voice," and how exactly will ICE "erase our voice?"
Kill… pic.twitter.com/h0pRcWrsc1
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) January 27, 2026
In Maine, legal observers have reported that ICE agents have shown up at their homes to confront them about filming and monitoring immigration enforcement.
One observer, Liz Eisele McLellan, told the Portland Press Herald that one agent said to her: “This is a warning. We know you live right here.”
Making the film taught Martin that "it is completely undeniable" that the US military "is the greatest threat to all living things on Earth."
It’s a commonly repeated statistic that the US military is the world’s largest institutional polluter, but what exactly does that mean?
The quest to find a real answer to that question led journalist and documentary filmmaker Abby Martin and her husband and co-director Mike Prysner on a five-year journey from defense contractor conferences and international climate gatherings to the Rim of the Pacific military training exercises and the fight against the construction of a military base in Okinawa that would fill in its iconic Oura Bay.
The result is Earth’s Greatest Enemy, released this year independently through Martin and Prysner’s own Empire Files, with editing by Taylor Gill and an original score by Anahedron. The film uses personal narrative, research, investigative reporting, interviews, and live footage to detail all the ways in which the Pentagon poisons the planet, including greenhouse gas emissions, the ecocide of war, and the toxins left behind long after the fighting has stopped.
"When you combine all of this, it is completely undeniable that this force that is upheld by extreme violence is the greatest threat to all living things on Earth,” Martin told Common Dreams.
RIMPAC training exercises are shown in a still from Earth's Greatest Enemy. (Image via Empire Files)
Toward the beginning of the film, Martin sets out to explain how the Pentagon can count as the world’s largest institutional polluter, and why the numbers behind that fact actually undersell its impact.
It turns out, Martin told Common Dreams, that this statement is only based on the amount of oil the US military purchases on paper, which comes to 270,000 barrels per day. This puts its emissions at 55 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, more than 150 countries.
This itself is a staggering amount of carbon pollution.
As Martin explains in the film: “It would take the average American driver over 40 years to burn as much fuel as a single flight of a Boeing Pegasus. The US flies more than 600 of these tankers.”
"You have to look at the military as actually the institution that's actually keeping the fossil fuel infrastructure in place through brutality and violence.”
But it’s also only the tip of the melting iceberg. Through an interview with scientist Stuart Parkinson, Martin reveals how that 55 million keeps ballooning when considering life cycle emissions from military equipment and from the equipment purchased by NATO allies, projected to reach 295 million metric tons by 2028, or more than half of all countries. And that figure excludes the use of military equipment in war, or the emissions from reconstructing cities leveled by US-made bombs.
In one particularly candid interview, a major general tells Martin that it’s great to develop alternative energy sources, “but let’s not walk away from what fuels today’s national security, which is oil. You have to have it.”
And until something is developed that can completely replace oil, “I think you need to keep the alternatives in check," he says.
Statements like these give the lie to the idea that the US can have a “green military empire,” Martin said.
They also show how difficult it is to separate the US military’s carbon footprint from that of the fossil fuel industry itself.
“Everything has really been wrapped up into securing the fossil fuel, building the infrastructure for fossil fuel, and maintaining that infrastructure empire in order to maintain a fossil fuel economy,” she told Common Dreams. “So you have to look at the military as actually the institution that's actually keeping the fossil fuel infrastructure in place through brutality and violence.”

A helmet and dog tag are seen in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina in a still from the film Earth's Greatest Enemy. (Image via Empire Files)
The film also makes clear that carbon pollution isn’t the only kind of pollution the military generates.
“Once you get into the research, you realize every stone unturned is an entire other documentary because it's not just emissions, it's the totality of pollution that the military is emitting on a daily basis, the dumping of toxic waste, the legacy contamination, that alone is still killing people every day,” Martin said.
The film spends much of its run time digging into the landfill of military waste, from melted down pucks of plastic dumped off Navy boats and unused munitions exploded in the desert to decades of water contamination at Camp Lejeune, the 26 million marine mammals the US Navy is permitted to harm or kill over five years of training, and the more than 250,000 bullets left behind in Iraq and Afghanistan for every person killed.
Martin said that almost every fact or anecdote she unearthed surprised her.
"We're fighting for service members and every living person on Earth, because we are all victims of this.”
“No matter what you think you know, it's worse. It's actually worse because of how big it is and how every face is a story, every victim is a story,” she said.
One of the most devastating stories comes at the film’s beginning, as viewers spend time with Lavon Johnson, an Iraq War veteran who once starred in a US Army commercial and is now living on Veterans Row, a stretch of tents bearing American flags lined up outside the Veterans Affairs hospital in Brentwood, Los Angeles. “My life is so fucked!” he declares as he lifts his hands from the piano he furiously plays despite the nerve damage caused by exposure to hydraulic fluid while in the Army.
In the next scene, viewers see the camp being demolished by police, juxtaposed with images of war, pollution, and environmental destruction, such as soldiers breaking down doors or dumping trash off of boats, oil pump jacks working, and beachside homes collapsing into a rising tide.
Martin said she was inspired to open the film with Johnson because of a letter that late Iraq War veteran Tomas Young wrote to former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney before he died, referring to himself and other victims of the invasion as “human detritus your war has left behind.”
“That always stuck with me, that line, ‘the human detritus,’” Martin told Common Dreams. “And that is exactly what they do to veterans. That is exactly what they do to veterans… they're churned up and spit out. They're the cannon fodder of the system. And for what?”
Prysner is an Iraq veteran who spoke out against the war, and Martin is very clear that veterans are not the target of the pairs’ critique.
“This isn't about service members,” she said. “This isn't about hating the military. This is about accountability and justice for them. We're fighting for service members and every living person on Earth, because we are all victims of this.”
The demolition of Johnson’s camp cut through with clips of war and weather disaster illustrates this point, and could serve as a sort of thesis for the film, showing that the US military ultimately turns everything it touches into detritus, including, if it’s not stopped, the planet itself.
“Everything on Earth is in Lavon’s tent,” Martin said.

People march against US militarism at COP26 in Glasgow, in a still from Earth's Greatest Enemy. (Image via Empire Files)
This sense of connection is ultimately why Martin decided to keep Earth’s Greatest Enemy as a two-hour feature documentary rather than pivoting to a documentary series, despite the fact that, the more she dug, the more she realized “it could be 10 documentaries.”
She also ran into roadblocks when seeking Hollywood distribution. While environmentalist distributors would praise the film and compare it to Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, they also said frankly, “You’re never going to be able to get anyone to buy this stuff.”
But, Martin said, “I was so committed to making a movie because movies were what radicalized me,” citing inspiration from films like The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, War Made Easy, and Michael Moore's filmography.
Ultimately, her stubbornness paid off.
“After we educate everyone, I hope to decommission the military empire."
“It shows that everything from ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to Gaza to the climate, that everything is connected,” she said. “Veterans, soldiers, the Indigenous people on the receiving end of this. If you care about cold water and good air, you can't walk away from this not being impacted. And that was the goal. The goal is to lock people in and explain the totality and to bring you down to the depths of hell.”
She added: “We have to understand those depths, and you can't get that with a 20-minute segment. You just can't. You have to go through the pain of all the victims in this community and come out the other side empowered with the truth and the resolve that we have to change this.”
Change is a large part of Martin’s motivation for making the film, by educating people about the scope of the military’s destructive force and connecting them into a broader coalition.
Martin speaks in the film about coming to political consciousness and beginning her career as a journalist during the Iraq War, meeting Prysner through their shared opposition to war and empire, and developing "profound climate anxiety" following the birth of the pairs' first child. She lamented that the climate and anti-imperialist movements have been largely siloed over the past two decades, though that is beginning to change.
Through local screenings, she said she wanted to “try to build the environmental movement with the anti-war movement together because… even though the consciousness is expanding, it's not happening fast enough. And we are simply out of the luxury of time.”
The sense of urgency has only increased with President Donald Trump’s second term. While the film does not cover this period, it points to many developments that have shaped the past 12 months, including Trump’s claim that he attacked Venezuela for oil, his imperialist push to control Greenland, and his deployment of ICE to terrorize US cities.
Toward the end of the movie, Martin includes a segment on the militarization of US policing and warns that “this is our system’s big plan for the climate crisis.” She also films a panel on “Domain Awareness and Air Superiority in the Arctic” in which the generals speaking tell US companies they have an “open invitation” to experiment in Alaska.
“We know what they want the Arctic for, and it's to pillage every last drop,” Martin said. “So if environmental organizations are not thinking this together, we have to do it for them. We have to do it for them quickly.”
So far, she has seen encouraging signs, with several Sierra Club chapters stepping up to host screenings and enthusiasm from the mainstream environmental groups, parks departments, and other city officials she has invited to attend.
But education is not her only goal.
“After we educate everyone, I hope to decommission the military empire,” Martin said.
For Martin, that doesn’t mean not having a military for self-defense, but rather decommissioning the 800 or so bases the US military maintains around the world and transforming the infrastructure into something that could help local communities in a climate-friendly way. It also means accountability for harm caused and redirecting military spending toward basic needs like housing and healthcare, and certainly not giving the Pentagon another $600 billion as Trump desires.
While that may seem like an impossible task given the current political climate, Martin maintains a sense of revolutionary optimism, encouraged by the global mobilization against the genocide in Gaza and the way that people are increasingly seeing the links between the multiple crises and struggles around the globe.
“There's so many of us,” Martin told Common Dreams. “We care about the planet. We have a vested stake in life. And that's our vision.”
“It's like they have a vision of death and destruction for profit,” she continued. “Our vision is life, and we have to fight for it with every fiber of our being. And let this movie assist you however you can do that.”
To attend a screening of Earth’s Greatest Enemy, see the schedule here. To host a screening of your own, email theempirefiles@gmail.com.