In Gaza, the Israeli military continues its methodical demolition of one high-rise residential building after another after issuing an evacuation order for the entire civilian population of Gaza City. The International Association of Genocide Scholars has formally declared Israel's response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,200 civilians a genocide.
The war in Gaza continues to spark protests inside Israel and around the world with the official civilian death toll now more than 65,000, which includes several hundred from starvation. Israel's ongoing gross violation of international law continues unabated, the week after Israel bombed US ally Qatar in a failed attempt to take out Hamas leadership who were in that country to review proposals for a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, the Guardian is reporting Poland's government is maintaining that a recent Russian incursion with drones into Poland's airspace is an attempt by the Kremlin to test NATO's response. Politico is reporting that President Trump has finally labeled Russia as the aggressor in the war against Ukraine.
During the 2024 Presidential campaign President Trump pledged to end conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine with lightning speed, but several months into his second term both wars appear to be expanding.
As if that was not bad enough, the Trump administration got bad news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week that the US job market was much weaker than previously believed and that we had one million fewer jobs in the 12 months ending in March. At the same time, inflation is finally kicking in.
And of course, we had the brutal broad daylight murder of controversial radical right-wing personality Charlie Kirk.
Our reporters' roundtable connects these dismal dots. Washington D.C.-based investigative reporter and editor Dave Levinthal and Laura Jedeed, a freelance journalist based in New York City, actually succeed in making sense of the chaos.
In our B Block, we check in with Alyson McDevitt, Data and Research Journalist with Compliance Week. You may remember the major New York Times exposé last week on the role of bankers like JP Morgan in enabling Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes by failing to report, as required by law, $1 billion in his transactions. As it turns out, Compliance Week’s McDevitt published her blockbuster “The Banks Behind the Epstein Enterprise” back in March 2024.
In the C Block, we got an update from the NonViolent Medicaid Army’s National Campaign as the nation’s healthcare system continues to reel from the “Big Beautiful Bill” that could strip healthcare away from 15 million Americans.
On September 6, the Nonviolent Medicaid Army mobilized across the country to demand an end to the Medicaid cutoffs. Rallies and speak-outs were held in 12 states at various locations to expose the impact of Medicaid cuts and the ongoing attacks on healthcare. Many of the actions were in front of hospitals that were recently closed or in the process of closing.
We finish up with our weekly Pacifica Affiliate reporter notebook with Roy Clark from WEFR in Fairmount, West Virginia. Clark spoke with reporter Caity Coyne of West Virginia Watch, part of States Newsroom. Are new high-tech data facilities and chemical factories the answer to job creation in Appalachia and beyond? Will data centers – built to house computer infrastructure and often automated – actually create local jobs after construction is done? What will rural communities lose in the push for more industrial development?
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