If it's anything like how in 2017 Kellyanne Conway did a West Wing TV interview telling people to "go buy Ivanka's stuff," nothing will change www.washingtonpost.com/politics/con...

White House photo op for the president's granddaughter's new $130 sweatshirt line

Some personal news...

Revenue from the presidentially imposed tax on US consumers to be presidentially directed to US farmers, do I have that right?

Want to learn about suspicious ships operating in international waters? We're live now with @pa.nton.cx in our Discord Server: discord.gg/bellingcat?e...

WOW. The lead plaintiff is a Latino man who's been here legally for 24 years. He was grabbed off the street by plainclothes federal agents who didn't even ASK about his status. He was detained overnight and only released once a supervisor realized he had been illegally arrested.

I filed a FOIA request with DHS back in May for a copy of the pitch for this show. They just denied it in full because releasing it could reveal trade secrets. lolol what trade secret? that America is nightmare bizarro land?

Fields full of fiber-optic cables from #drones are visible along the battlelines in #Ukraine, as seen here in this video. The tens-of-thousands of drones live thousands of kilometers of these cables trapping wildlife and will pose a massive undertaking in post-conflict clean-up t.me/sylasvobody/...

To be clear, there are no data that provide a link between short-term use of Tylenol during pregnancy and autism. In fact, one of the best prospective studies w/ sibling controls, if anything, pointed to a protective effect for use less than 7 days acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Making Gaddafi's speech look very rational.

"Your countries are going to hell." — US President Donald Trump at the United Nations, 2025.

Earlier this month, an ICE officer shot and killed Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant, in a Chicago suburb. We analyzed surveillance, body cam and bystander videos, and found that key aspects of the DHS description of events do not hold up. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Joint HRW/Syrians for Truth & Justice/Syrian Archive report I contributed to on the open source side of things, covering the March coastal massacres www.hrw.org/report/2025/...

Our researcher @koltai.bsky.social has been investigating sites advertising non-consensual AI porn for some time. She recently spoke to @newamerica.org about her work for their recent report on the use of this imagery as a threat against women in politics.

Breaking: Jimmy Kimmel to return Tuesday.

Sharaa jokes to Petraeus, “my mission in Syria is more difficult than yours in Iraq was—you had the choice to leave” Credit @simnasr.bsky.social

David Petraeus greeting Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Concordia Summit in NYC. When Petraeus was a 3-star in Iraq in 2004-6, Sharaa was fighting the US as a member of the al-Qaida branch there; when Petraeus was a 4-star, Sharaa was teaching fellow Camp Bucca detainees classical Arabic

Even if this is all true, the drugs at issue here are notably not fentanyl—a key distinction the administration is happy to elide. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/u...

When I published this story after the first of now 4 incidents of Trump using the US military to kill boatloads of people, I didn't want to use video of the attack for the image, stills from a snuff film. Instead, I went with a Coast Guard interdiction from summer, what this normally looks like.

APNewsAlert: CAIRO (AP) — Egypt releases activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah after 6 years behind bars following presidential pardon.

A fourth boat bombed in international waters. Total death toll now 19 What I dont get is, if these boats are "carrying fentanyl" as Trump says (they absolutely arent. Even the DEA says VZ doesnt produce fentanyl), then why not seize one and show us? www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-...

Israeli drone strike kills 5, including 3 children, in southern Lebanon Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said the children and their father were U.S. citizens Via @chehayebk.bsky.social apnews.com/article/leba...

Nick Kristof went to talk to some of the moms losing their beloved children to Trump’s aid cuts. We are paying storage on already existing food rather than release it to starving kids. “I loved my child so much” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/20/o...

This is wildly illegal and he has no authority to do this

My analysis in @justsecurity.org on Trump's asserted license to kill. 2/n www.justsecurity.org/120568/carib...

This appears to be the 3rd lethal US strike in the Caribbean. Once again, the specific "terrorist" entity targeted is not identified. No legal justification is offered for this premeditated killing. President Trump is asserting a license to kill outside of the law. 1/n

70+ worshippers at the Al-Safiya Mosque in El Fasher were killed in an RSF drone strike today, Friday, when Jumah services means mosques are full. The UAE, which backs the RSF despite it being accused of genocide, continues to face no scrutiny from its western security partners, including the US.

It's a journalist's job to ask questions of government officials, no matter which party is in power. That often means respectfully knocking on doors to get answers people deserve to know. Tips and evidence are essential to our nonpartisan work: www.propublica.org/tips/

1/ An image of remnants purportedly connected to the August 25 strike on the Nasser Hospital in Gaza has been added to the OSMP. It shows parts of at least three fin-stabilised tank gun projectiles, consistent with those used by Israel. osmp.ngo/osmp1650/

They just tear-gassed us. They tried to run us over in a van holding a peaceful protester. They shot us with pepper balls. They dragged another protester into the facility.

In June last year, Bellingcat assessed the loss of cultural heritage sites in Gaza due to the conflict. Many more sites have now been impacted since. In February 2025 the World Bank reported that fifty-three percent of heritage sites were damaged or destroyed. www.bellingcat.com/news/2024/06...

On Sunday the al-Kawthar building, a temporary warehouse for artefacts found in Gaza, was hit. The archeologist caretakers told the BBC they had to scramble to evacuate the artefacts. But they said that some items were still inside when the building was destroyed: www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

Another historical site about 2km away from Tell Ali Muntar, the Aybaki Mosque, was also recently hit in an Israeli airstrike on September 16. This video shows the strike and aftermath on the 13th century mosque. www.youtube.com/shorts/M0NbU...

The @planet.com imagery shows that the nearby Tell Ali Muntar cemetery has also been partially cleared as well. In the most recent image from September 15, there's a tank parked overlooking it at the time of capture.

Dr. Louise Steel, an archeologist surveyed the site in the 90’s. In her paper recounting the work, she wrote that the “Middle Bronze Age sherds" found there might indicate that the site "was occupied at least as early as ancient Gaza, and possibly even earlier.” www.academia.edu/4195805/Gaza...

The latest SkySat imagery from @planet.com taken on September 15 shows how much of the hill has been transformed into a fortified position. Two sets of earthen berms ring the hill and multiple vehicles are visible. A comparison image from October 15 2023 shows how much the area has been altered.

Tell Ali Muntar — an archeological mound in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood — has been gradually turned into a fortified position for the IDF, potentially damaging material dating to the Bronze Age. In March an IDP camp was present, by April it had been cleared as the IDF dug dirt berms.

Israeli forces continue to push into Gaza City, but in recent days important historical and cultural sites have also been further damaged by IDF operations across Gaza. Many of these sites held unexplored archaeological data that could now be lost 🧵

Reporting reflects the widespread confusion in the executive branch that designating an entity as a “foreign terrorist organization” by itself authorizes the use of force. It does not. 1/n

“The US FOIA was already slow and creaking, and Trump’s second administration has been marked by ‘obstruction, secrecy, and lawlessness’. As well as document shredding and avoiding FOIA, it appears that some officials who deal with requests, and even entire teams, are being removed.”

APNewsAlert: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Defense minister says #Pakistan's nuclear program 'will be made available' to Saudi Arabia if needed under defense pact.

reporters like Jeff Schogol who cover the defense beat are invaluable, kind, and often thankless advocates for the average service member A paragraph like this doesn’t have to be in there. But can’t tell you how much it means that Jeff makes it a part of the story, part of the conversation

This week's newsletter covering: -Gov't/SDF clashes in Aleppo and Deir ez-Zour -CENTCOM cmdr visits al-Shar' -Turkish Police/Jandarma vacated Afrin bases -al-Shar' and Erdogan meet in Doha -ENKS invited to Damascus -Ocalan's letter to Arab tribes and more... akmckeever.substack.com/p/this-week-...

First Amendment watch: Trump now explicitly says you cannot be on TV and say bad things about him, if you do you may lose your show.

I challenge anyone to answer this question in a way impervious to a sufficiently motivated inquisitor.

Our work at @eamena.bsky.social @unioxarchaeology.bsky.social on these sites will continue with sites visits to the camps in the near future. They also featured on a recent documentary on the Nabataean kingdom #Jordan #RomanFortThursday www.channel4.com/programmes/b...

Israeli strikes were carried out when staff of the 26 September newspaper were printing the paper. “Staff were gathered at the publishing house to prepare for distribution, significantly increasing the number of people present in the compound” www.hrw.org/news/2025/09...

If the Trump administration thinks these lethal strikes in the Caribbean were lawful, they should: 1) Disclose the legally relevant facts, including about the operation and the targets 2) Disclose the relevant legal advice 3) Disclose who provided that legal advice www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

On FCC Chair's threat to ABC/Jimmy Kimmel Executive Order 14149 (Jan. 20, 2025): Purpose: "The First Amendment ... essential to the success of our Republic..." Purpose: Stop "coercive pressure" to advance "Government's preferred narrative." Policy: Ensure no federal officer abridge free speech.