Colombia on edge as attacks come just days after assassination attempt on conservative presidential hopeful.
Southwest Colombia has been rocked by a series of explosions and gun attacks near police stations that have left at least four people dead, according to police, an apparent coordinated attack that authorities have blamed on rebel groups.
The attacks hit Cali – the country’s third-largest city – and the nearby towns of Corinto, El Bordo, and Jamundi, targeting police stations and other municipal buildings with car and motorcycle bombs, rifle fire and a suspected drone, the head of police Carlos Fernando Triana told local radio station La FM on Tuesday.
In Corinto, an AFP journalist witnessed the tangled wreckage of a car that had exploded next to a scorched and badly damaged municipal building.
“There are two police officers dead, and a number of members of the public are also dead,” said Triana.
Police later said at least two civilians were among those killed, and 12 others were injured.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attacks, but military and police spokespeople blamed the strikes on the FARC-EMC, which is known to operate in the area. The group is led by former members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) who broke away from the group after it signed a peace deal with the government in 2016.
Colombia on edge
Triana suggested the attacks may be linked to the third anniversary of the killing of FARC dissident leader Leider Johani Noscue, better known as “Mayimbu”.
The bombings just three days after Uribe’s attempted assassination have set Colombia further on edge.
Uribe, a member of the opposition conservative Democratic Centre party, underwent successful initial surgery on Sunday. The hospital treating him said on Tuesday that he remained stable but in critical condition.
“We continue to take the necessary actions to mitigate the impact of the injuries,” the Santa Fe Foundation hospital added in a statement.
Thousands have taken to the streets in major cities to light candles, pray and voice their anger at the assassination attempt. Authorities say they are investigating who was behind the attack on Uribe. Leftist President Gustavo Petro, who has vowed to bring peace to the country, said on Sunday that he had ordered additional security for opposition leaders in response to more threats.
Many Colombians are fearful of a return to the bloody violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when cartel attacks and political assassinations were frequent, sowing terror across the nation.
Colombia’s government has struggled to contain violence in urban and rural areas as several rebel groups try to take over territory abandoned by the FARC after its peace deal with the government.
Peace talks between the FARC-EMC faction and the government broke down last year after a series of attacks on Indigenous communities.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the nation’s anti-discrimination laws apply equally to all employees, regardless of whether those complaining of bias are white or Black, gay or straight.
In a short and unanimous opinion, the justices rejected as outdated and mistaken the view that “members of a majority group” must show more evidence of discrimination before they can sue and win.
Instead, the justices said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has always prohibited workplace discrimination against “any individual” who suffers discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin and sex, including sexual orientation.
The law “draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said.
The ruling revives a discrimination lawsuit brought by Marlean Ames, an Ohio woman who said she was demoted and discriminated against by a lesbian who became her supervisor. She was then replaced by a gay man who had less experience.
Ames is a heterosexual woman. She sued her employer, the Ohio Department of Youth Services, and alleged she was discriminated against because of her sexual orientation.
But a federal judge rejected her discrimination claim, and the 6th Circuit Court in Cincinnati affirmed that decision. In doing so, the judges said she could not point to “background circumstances” or statistical evidence suggesting that hers was the “unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.”
Law students at the University of Virginia Law School appealed her case to the Supreme Court. They pointed out that the 6th Circuit and several other courts continue to use an outdated, two-track approach to discrimination claims.
This is not the standard in much of the nation, however. For example, they said the 9th Circuit Court based in California does not follow this approach, which would require more proof of discrimination from whites or men or heterosexuals.
But the law students said the court should hear the Ames case and clarify the law nationwide.
Although the case did not directly involve DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion, it gained added attention because of President Trump’s drive to rid the government of DEI policies.
Jackson said the Supreme Court for more than 50 years has steadily rejected the view that discrimination laws apply differently to different groups of people.
In Griggs vs. Duke Power in 1971, “we said that ‘[d]iscriminatory preference for any group, minority or majority, is precisely and only what Congress has proscribed.’”
A few years later, the court rejected the two-track approach, she said, “holding that Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act] prohibited racial discrimination against the white petitioners in th[at] case upon the same standards as would be applicable were they Negroes.”
Lawyers for the Biden and Trump administrations had urged the court to overrule the 6th Circuit and make clear there is no double standard for deciding discrimination claims
In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas noted the “majority” in the workplace differs by workplace.
“Women make up the majority of employees in certain industries, such as teaching and nursing, but the minority in other industries, such as construction.”
“Defining the ‘majority’ is even more difficult in the context of race,” he wrote. “American families have become increasingly multicultural, and attempts to divide us all up into a handful of groups have become only more incoherent with time.”
The court’s ruling in Ames vs. Ohio Department of Youth Services said the Ohio court should reopen and reconsider Ames’ claim of discrimination.
Experts in discrimination law said the decision will have an effect in some regions but not others.
“As a practical matter, more ‘reverse discrimination’ lawsuits may survive a motion to dismiss,” said Evan Parness, an attorney at the Covington law firm in New York.
Although the decision doesn’t significantly change how federal district courts in California operate, it has implications for some courts in other parts of the country that require the higher burden of proof, said Elizabeth Beske, professor of law at American University in Washington.
The “background circumstances” rule was first applied in D.C. courts, after a white man sued the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company arguing he was discriminated against when jobs were instead given to Black and female applicants. The court held that “it defie[d] common sense to suggest that the promotion of a Black employee justifies an inference of prejudice against white co-workers in our present society.”
Columbia Law professor Olatunde C. Johnson said the “opinion is not surprising. It depends on a straightforward and sensible statutory reading of Title VII. The 6th Circuit’s ‘background circumstances’ approach was not typical, so I don’t expect the case to dramatically change employment discrimination litigation on the ground.”
Brian McGinnis, an attorney with the firm Fox Rothschild, said because the decision was unanimous, which is rare, it shows an uncontroversial and “pretty straightforward” perspective that there is no historical basis in case law for requiring extra proof from white, heterosexual or other majority groups.
And it represents an effort by the court to streamline and eliminate the need for additional steps in litigation, he said.
There is some question as to how the change is applied, but McGinnis doesn’t expect any issues.
“There is some potential for mischief, but I don’t think it will have much change on the day-to-day operations of many employers or courts,” McGinnis said. “The short answer is, it should not change much.”
Savage reported from Washington and Hussain from Los Angeles.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the country used armed gangs in Gaza to help fight Hamas, his admission coming after a new wave of military strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip that left at least 52 Palestinians dead.
Netanyahu said the government had “activated” powerful local clans in the enclave on the advice of “security officials”, his video statement posted to X on Thursday coming hours after former Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused him of deploying the tactic.
The statement marked the government’s first public acknowledgement that it had backed the armed Palestinian groups based around powerful families, which stand accused by aid workers of carrying out criminal attacks and stealing aid from trucks as starvation stalks the entire territory due to a punishing Israeli blockade.
An Israeli official cited by news agency The Associated Press said that one of the groups Netanyahu was referring to was the so-called Popular Forces, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, a local clan leader in Rafah.
Last month, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on the group’s activities – though it was named the “Anti-Terror Service” in the report – saying that sources in Gaza claimed it consisted of roughly 100 armed men operating with the tacit approval of the Israeli military.
In recent weeks, the Abu Shabab group announced online that its fighters were helping protect supply shipments to new US- and Israel-backed distribution centres run by the shadowy Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
“The Israeli opposition claims that there was no consultation within the Israeli government or the Israeli cabinet,” said Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut, reporting from Jordan’s capital Amman. “Netanyahu says that these armed gangs … could essentially help the Israelis defeat Hamas in Gaza.”
“But it’s not going down well within Israel, where people are saying that these are armed criminal enterprises within the Gaza Strip. That they should not be armed and that these are Israeli weapons that are being put in their hands,” she said.
‘Human abattoir’
Netanyahu made his statement on another deadly day in Gaza, the military hitting targets throughout the besieged coastal enclave where the crippling blockade has brought the population to the brink of mass starvation.
Deadly incidents, killing more than 100 and wounding many more, at aid distribution sites run by the GHF since last week have sparked widespread condemnation, with Israeli troops opening fire on Palestinians seeking aid on four separate occasions since last week.
Chris Gunness, former spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), told Al Jazeera that the operations of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation had turned Gaza into a “human abattoir”.
“Hundreds of civilians are herded like animals into fenced-off pens and are slaughtered like cattle in the process,” he said.
Amid growing international condemnation, GHF shuttered operations for a full day on Wednesday, saying the next day that it would reopen two aid distribution centres in the Rafah area of southern Gaza. It did not say when aid distribution would resume.
At least 52 Palestinians were killed on Thursday, according to hospital sources who spoke to Al Jazeera. The sources said 31 bodies had arrived at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, with 21 admitted to Gaza City’s al-Ahli Arab and al-Shifa hospitals.
Israel killed four journalists in an attack on al-Ahli Hospital itself, also known as the Baptist Hospital, in Gaza City
Gaza City local Fadi al-Hindi told Al Jazeera that he had seen one of the strikes on al-Nasser Street, near the al-Shifa Hospital, witnessing scenes of death after running outside his tent to check on his children.
“When I arrived, I saw a man in pieces; he had been riding a bicycle, and the lower half of his body was gone. Everyone in the street was injured, and we started to collect the pieces of the wounded,” he said.
At least three Palestinians were killed in the strike, reportedly including children.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa also reported five deaths in areas around Khan Younis, four west of Beit Lahiya in the north, and one south of Gaza City, as well as the injuring of a child near Bureij in central Gaza.
Wafa also reported that Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians trying to reach an aid centre near Wadi Gaza.
In the meantime, Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya has said in a prerecorded speech that the group did not reject a proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza put forward by US special envoy Steve Witkoff, stating that it had instead requested some changes to ensure an end to the war.
Al-Hayya added that Hamas is ready to engage in further talks and that communications with the mediators are ongoing. Israel broke off a previous truce in March to resume the war in Gaza.
WASHINGTON — The widening and increasingly bitter divide between Republicans and Democrats defines American politics, but in recent weeks, it’s the divisions inside each of the two parties that have dominated headlines.
Republicans have denounced 13 of their House colleagues who sided with Democrats earlier this month to pass Biden’s $1.2-trillion infrastructure bill. After conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) posted their phone numbers on social media, some of the 13 reported getting death threats.
What issues create the deep fissures within the two parties, and which Americans make up the conflicting factions?
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Pew released its latest typology on Tuesday, the eighth in the series. The results are key to understanding why American politics works the way it does.
Parties driven by their extremes
For this latest effort, Pew surveyed 10,221 American adults, asking each of them a series of questions about their political attitudes, values and views of American society. Researchers took the results and put them through what’s called a cluster analysis to define groups that make up U.S. society.
The new typology divides Americans into nine such groups — four on the left, which make up the Democratic coalition, four on the right, making up the Republican coalition, and one in between whose members are largely defined by a lack of interest in politics and public affairs.
Nearly all the Democrats agree on wanting a larger government that provides more services; nearly all the Republicans want the opposite.
And nearly all Democrats believe that race and gender discrimination remain serious problems in American society that require further efforts to resolve. On the Republican side, the belief that little — if anything — remains to be done to achieve equality has become a defining principle.
On other issues, however, the parties have deep internal splits. In each, the most energized group — the people who most regularly turn out to vote, post on social media and contribute to campaigns — stands at the edges.
On the right, that would be an extremely conservative, religiously oriented, nationalistic group which Pew calls the Faith and Flag conservatives. At the other end of the scale stands a socialist-friendly, largely secular group it calls the Progressive Left.
On several major issues, those two groups have views that are “far from the rest of their coalitions,” yet they’re “the most politically engaged groups, and they’re driving the conversation,” said Carroll Doherty, Pew’s director of political research.
The Faith and Flag conservatives, who make up about 10% of American adults and almost 25% of Republicans, have shaped the party’s policies on some social issues such as abortion, but have even more strongly affected its overall approach to politics. A majority (53%) of the group, for example, says that “compromise in politics is really just selling out.”
That has strongly shaped the GOP’s approach to legislation and helps explain the bitter, angry response to the Republicans who voted for Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure compromise.
The group is overwhelmingly white (85%), relatively old (two-thirds are 50 or older) mostly Christian (4 in 10 are white, evangelical Protestants) and heavily rural.
Their mirror image, the Progressive Left, is a significantly smaller group, only about 6% of Americans and 12% of Democrats. Despite their smaller size, however, they have had a strong impact, moving their party to the left, especially on expanding government and combating climate change.
That group is in several ways the opposite of the Faith and Flag conservatives: urban, secular and significantly more college-educated than the rest of the country.
Like the Faith and Flag group, however, the Progressives are mostly white (68%) — the only Democratic faction with a white majority.
The groups have one other trait in common — each has a deep, visceral dislike of the other party.
While those two set the parameters of a lot of American political debate, it’s the other groups in each party’s coalition that explain why the Democratic and Republican approaches to government have diverged so widely.
On the Democratic side, the two biggest blocs, which make up just over half of Democratic voters, fit comfortably into the party establishment.
The Establishment Liberals (think Vice President Kamala Harris or Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg) are a racially diverse, highly educated (one-quarter have post-graduate degrees), fairly affluent group that is optimistic in its outlook, liberal in its politics and strong believers that “compromise is how things get done” in politics.
The Democratic Mainstays (think House Democratic Whip James E. Clyburn of South Carolina or President Biden) are more likely to define themselves as political moderates and are significantly more likely than other Democrats to say that religion plays a major role in their lives. Roughly 40% of Black Democrats fit into this group.
The Mainstays are more likely than other Democrats to favor increasing funds for police in their neighborhoods and somewhat less likely to favor increased immigration, but are extremely loyal to the Democratic Party.
Together, those two groups give Democrats a strong orientation toward cutting deals, making incremental progress and getting the work of government done.
Virtually the opposite is true of Republicans, whose two largest groups, the Faith and Flag conservatives and what Pew calls the Populist Right, dislike compromise and harbor deep suspicions of American institutions. Together, those groups, which make up nearly half the GOP’s voters, have produced a party that revels in opposition but has often found itself stymied when trying to govern.
The Populists group, the one most closely identified with former President Trump‘s style of politics, has a negative view of huge swaths of American society — big corporations, but also the entertainment industry, tech companies, labor unions, colleges and universities, and K-12 schools.
Nearly 9 in 10 of them believe the U.S. economic system unfairly favors the powerful, and a majority support raising taxes on big companies and the wealthy. Both of those views put them at odds with the rest of the GOP, helping explain why the party struggles to come up with economic proposals beyond opposition to Democratic plans.
The Populist Right also overwhelmingly says that immigrants coming to the U.S. make the country worse off. That puts them in conflict with the party’s smaller but still influential business-oriented establishment.
About half the Populist group say that white people declining as a share of the U.S. population is a bad thing, more than in any other group.
The Republican establishment faction (think Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky or Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah) is what Pew calls the Committed Conservatives, pro-business, generally favorable to immigration and more moderate on racial issues.
A lot of Republican elected officials fall into that group, but unlike the very large establishment blocs on the Democratic side, relatively fewer voters do — 7% of Americans and 15% of the GOP. That creates a pervasive tension between GOP elected officials and many of their constituents.
Unlike the two larger conservative blocs, in which majorities want to see Trump run again, most Republicans in this group would prefer him to take a back seat.
Each of the coalitions also has a group that is alienated from its party.
A significant number in the Ambivalent Right, a younger, socially liberal, largely anti-Trump group within the GOP, voted for Biden in 2020.
On the Democratic side, the mostly young people in the Outsider Left are very liberal, but frustrated with the Democrats and not always motivated to vote. When Democratic political figures talk about the need to boost voter turnout, those are the potential voters many of them picture.
By the way, there’s a long connection between the Los Angeles Times and the political typology project. The first version of the political typology dates back to 1987 and was developed by the long-ago Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press, a research organization founded by the company that owned The Times.
To allow readers to see how they compared to the political types in that era, The Times published the typology quiz as a full-page in print, inviting people to fill it out, mail it in and get a letter back telling them what group they belonged to. Today, you can do it all online.
Where do you fit?
From the hard-right Faith and Flag Conservatives to the socialist-friendly Progressive Left, with seven stops in between, Pew’s political typology describes nine groups into which Americans can be divided. The typology comes along with a quiz that allows you to see which group most closely matches your views on major issues.
The vice president abroad
On a trip this week to France, Harris is introducing herself to the world in personal terms, Noah Bierman wrote. The trip, he said, has given Harris a chance “to reveal herself on the world stage — highlighting her status as the first woman and the first woman of color to serve in such high office — after 10 months of focusing on responding to the COVD-19 pandemic and other crises,” which have taken a political toll.
Part of Harris’ goal in the trip is to further mend relations with France, which were strained when the administration struck a deal with Australia to help build nuclear submarines, which wiped out a major French contract to build boats for the Australian navy. In her speeches, however, Harris has also tried to make the case that the U.S. has moved past the Trump era and once again can be relied upon as an ally, Bierman wrote. That’s met with some skepticism from Europeans, who wonder what will happen in the next election.
Meantime, Mark Barabak looked at how Harris has adopted a much lower public profile of late. As past occupants of the office, including George H.W. Bush and Al Gore have found, the number-two job is an “inherently diminishing one,” he wrote.
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Their investigation, based on thousands of documents and Transportation Department data, shows that more than 200,000 people have lost their homes nationwide to federal road projects over the last three decades. In many cases, predominantly Black or Latino communities that were torn apart by freeway construction a generation or more ago have been dislocated once more by new projects.
Inflation has seriously damaged several presidencies in the last half century; now, rising prices threaten Biden, Chris Megerian and Erin Logan wrote.
At the international climate conference in Glasgow, the U.S., Britain and 17 other countries agreed to reduce emissions from the shipping industry, which is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases, Anna Phillips reported. Large container ships use fuel that is dirtier by far than the diesel that powers cars. Ships can also be a major source of air pollution in port cities, including Los Angeles.
As Democrats continue to haggle over the details of their big social spending proposal, Jennifer Haberkorn took a look at one of the plan’s largest elements — a major increase in money for early childhood education. The bill would devote about $390 billion over the next 10 years to providing preschool access to all 3- and 4-year-olds. That would mark the largest expansion of free education since high school was added about 100 years ago.
The latest from California
The state’s independent Citizens Redistricting Commission has come up with a draft map of new congressional and legislative districts, and it’s already causing heartburn for a number of incumbent lawmakers, Seema Mehta and John Myers reported.
The new maps may strengthen Latino political clout in California overall, but the most heavily Latino district in the state would be eliminated. The 40th District, represented by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, covers parts of East and South L.A. and would be parceled out among neighboring districts, Mehta reported. Roybal-Allard, 80, has raised very little money amid speculation that she has plans to retire next year. The state is losing one congressional district after last year’s census, and the loss was widely expected to come in the Los Angeles area, which has grown more slowly than other parts of the state.
The redrawn boundaries may force some incumbents to run against each other or run in districts that have suddenly become less politically secure. The Central Valley districts of GOP Rep. Devin Nunes of Tulare and Democratic Rep. Josh Harder of Turlock would both be significantly altered, according to redistricting analysts in both parties. Reps. MikeGarcia of Santa Clarita, Michelle Steel of Seal Beach and Darrell Issa of Bonsall would all find their districts becoming less secure.
But there’s a good chance the maps will change again after a two-week public comment period, which began with the commission’s approval of the maps on Wednesday night.
The Biden administration will extend a major homelessness initiative that has allowed Los Angeles and other cities to rent hotel rooms as temporary housing for thousands of people. As Ben Oreskes reported, the administration will extend the program through March. It was slated to expire at the end of the year.
In another development related to homelessness, a group looking to oust Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin says it has submitted more than 39,000 signatures on recall petitions. If the signatures hold up to scrutiny, that would qualify the measure for the ballot. Bonin’s opponents have accused him of failing to take seriously the impact of crime that they say is connected to homeless encampments.
The bombings mark a sharp escalation by the armed group, which views the new government in Damascus as illegitimate.
ISIL (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Syrian army, representing the armed group’s first strike at government forces since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to analysts.
In a statement released late on Thursday, ISIL said its fighters had planted an explosive device that struck a “vehicle of the apostate regime” in southern Syria.
The bombing appears to mark an escalation by ISIL, which views the new government in Damascus as illegitimate but has so far concentrated its activities against Kurdish forces in the north.
The blast, in the al-Safa desert region of Sweida province on May 22, reportedly killed or wounded seven Syrian soldiers.
A second bomb attack, claimed by ISIL earlier this week, targeted fighters from the United States-backed Kurdish-led Free Syrian Army in a nearby area. ISIL said one fighter was killed and three injured.
There has been no official comment from the Syrian government, and the Free Syrian Army has yet to respond.
Members of the new Syrian government that replaced al-Assad after his removal in December once had ties to al-Qaeda – a rival of ISIL – but broke with the group nearly a decade ago.
However, over the past several months, ISIL has claimed responsibility only for attacks against the Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast.
The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the convoy blast was the first ISIL-claimed operation targeting the new Syrian military.
ISIL was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019 but maintains sleeper cells, particularly in the country’s central and eastern deserts.
While the group’s capacity has been diminished, the latest attacks suggest it may be seeking to reassert itself amid shifting alliances and weakening state control.
A cadre of civil rights groups brought a lawsuit late Wednesday challenging Riverside County’s use of cash bail to detain people as they await trial, citing squalid conditions inside the county’s jails where dozens of inmates have died in recent years.
The class-action suit is the latest to challenge the legality of cash bail systems in California after a 2021 state Supreme Court ruling found it is unconstitutional to jail defendants solely because of their inability to pay their way out from behind bars.
“Every day, Riverside County imprisons people based on nothing more than their inability to pay an arbitrary, pre-set amount of cash that Defendants demand for their release,” attorneys for the civil rights groups argue in the 80-page complaint. “These individuals are not detained because they are too dangerous to release: The government would release them right away if they could pay. They are detained simply because they are too poor to purchase their freedom.”
The suit was brought by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, Public Justice in Oakland and several other law firms on behalf of two people incarcerated in Riverside County jails and two local faith leaders. It names as defendants the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Chad Bianco, the Riverside County Superior Court system and the county.
Lt. Deirdre Vickers, a sheriff’s department spokesperson, said she could not comment on pending litigation, as did a representative for the county court system. The county executive’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
While the suit argues money bail is unconstitutional across California and seeks an injunction ending its use, attorneys said they are focusing on Riverside County following a spate of deaths in the jails in 2022. That year, Riverside County recorded 18 inmate fatalities, the highest number in a decade.
The following year, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, a Democrat, opened what remains an ongoing investigation into complaints about living conditions in the county jails and allegations that deputies use excessive force against detainees.
Inmate deaths have fallen since 2022. The county reported 13 jail fatalities in 2023 and six last year, according to Vickers.
Bianco — a law-and-order conservative who has joined a crowded field of Democrats to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom in the 2026 election — has previously dismissed the state’s investigation into his jails as politically motivated. Bianco maintains the jail deaths, many of which authorities attribute to drug overdoses and suicides, are a reflection of the inmates’ life choices rather than a sign of any problem with the jail system.
“Every single one of these inmate deaths was out of anyone’s control,” Bianco said after news of the state investigation broke. “The fact of the matter is that they just happened to be in our custody.”
The cash bail system has deep roots in the U.S. as a means of pressuring defendants to show up for scheduled court appearances. Attend trial, and the sizable cash payments are returned to you or your family; skip court, and you forfeit your deposit.
Critics argue it effectively creates a two-tiered justice system, allowing wealthy defendants to pay their way out while awaiting trial, and leaving low-income defendants stuck behind bars. Proponents of eliminating the bail system contend that decisions about whether to jail defendants ahead of trial should be based on the severity of their crimes and the risk they pose to public safety, and not hinge on their income status.
Brian Hardingham, a senior attorney with Public Justice, said people sometimes spend days in jail awaiting their first court appearance, only for a prosecutor to decline to file a case presented by local police. That stint behind bars can have an outsize effect on people’s lives, especially if they are low-income, Hardingham said.
“You meet people with 6-month-old kids in jail who, if they’re lucky, there is a partner or a parent or someone who can watch their kids,” he said, adding that even a brief stretch in a county jail can result in people losing their job, vehicle or even their residence.
Supporters of the cash bail system, including many law enforcement groups, say that doing away with it would leave too many defendants free to potentially flee and re-offend, leading to crime spikes.
The issue grew increasingly controversial during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the virus spread with deadly consequences through the state’s jails and prisons. Los Angeles County instituted a zero-bail policy for most offenses in 2020, trying to reduce jail crowding at a time when the virus was spreading rapidly. That policy was rescinded in June 2022.
Despite concerns from police groups, a 2023 report to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors showed re-arrest and failure-to-appear rates remained relatively static among those freed pre-trial while the zero-bail policy was in place.
A similar lawsuit to the one filed against Riverside County prompted Los Angeles County court officials to revise their bail policies in 2023. Under the new system, the vast majority of defendants accused of misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies are now cited and released, or freed under specified conditions after a judge reviews their case. Defendants accused of serious offenses, including murder, manslaughter, rape and most types of assault, still face a stiff cash bail schedule.
Fears that the new system would result in a crime spike have not been borne out. Total crime in areas patrolled by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department fell by about 2% in 2024, the first calendar year the reduced bail policy was in place, according to department data. The city of Los Angeles has seen significant decreases in the number of robberies, property crimes and aggravated assaults committed this year, as of mid-May, records show.
Given the 2021 state Supreme Court ruling and the changes in Los Angeles, Hardingham said he is hopeful other counties will shift their bail policies without having to engage in a court fight.
“We would hope that they would be willing to see the writing on the wall and make the changes that are necessary,” he said.
At least three Palestinians have been killed in Gaza after the Israeli military opened fire on crowds of people who rushed to an aid distribution point set up by a controversial organisation backed by Israel and the United States.
The deadly incident in the southern city of Rafah on Tuesday left 46 others wounded and seven missing, according to authorities in Gaza.
The aid group behind the initiative, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) denied the report, while the Israeli military said its troops had fired warning shots in the area outside the distribution site and that control was re-established.
The incident has prompted criticism from the United Nations and aid groups, but Israel and the US have defended it.
Here’s a round-up of the reaction:
United Nations
A spokesman for the UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, said the images and videos from the aid points set up by GHF were “heartbreaking, to say the least”.
“We and our partners have a detailed, principled, operationally sound plan supported by member states to get aid to a desperate population,” Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
“Humanitarian aid needs to be distributed in a way that is safe under principles of independence [and] impartiality – in the way we’ve always done it… We saw the plan that they’ve [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] published and that they presented to us, and it is not done with the parameters that we feel match our principles, which we apply across the board, from Gaza to Sudan to Myanmar, to anywhere you want to talk about.”
Palestine
The Government Media Office in Gaza condemned the Israeli military’s actions in Rafah.
“The occupation forces, positioned in or around those areas, opened live fire on starving civilians who were lured to these locations under the pretense of receiving aid,” the office said in a statement.
“What happened today in Rafah is a deliberate massacre and a full-fledged war crime, committed in cold blood against civilians weakened by over 90 days of siege-induced starvation.”
The office added: “This incident provides undeniable evidence of the Israeli occupation’s total failure in managing the humanitarian catastrophe it has deliberately created.”
Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the chaos at the GHF site, but said the disruption was brief.
“We worked out a plan with our American friends to have controlled distribution sites where an American company would distribute the food to Palestinian families,” he said. “There was some loss of control momentarily. Happily, we brought it back under control.”
He also claimed that there was no proof of malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, saying, “You don’t see one, not one emaciated [person] from the beginning of the war to the present.”
United States
The US State Department also downplayed the rush at the GHF site and dismissed criticism of the aid programme as “complaints about style”.
“Hamas has been opposed to this [aid] dynamic. They have attempted to stop the aid movement through Gaza to these distribution centres, but they have failed,” said Tammy Bruce, the spokesperson for the State Department.
“In that kind of environment, it’s not surprising that there might be a few issues involved. But the good news is that those seeking to get aid to the people of Gaza, which is not Hamas, have succeeded.”
She added: “The real story is that aid and food is moving into Gaza in a massive scale. We’re looking at 8,000 boxes… This is a complicated environment, and the story is the fact that it’s working.”
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
“The needs on the ground are great. At one moment in the late afternoon, the volume of people at the [distribution site] was such that the GHF team fell back to allow a small number of Gazans to take aid safely and dissipate,” the group said in a statement.
Operations have now returned to normal, the group claimed, adding that it has distributed approximately 8,000 food boxes, which it says will feed 5.5 people for 3.5 days, and adds up to about 462,000 meals.
Refugees International
Hardin Lang, the group’s vice president for policy and programmes, said the US-Israel-backed aid initiative is run by military, rather than humanitarian, logic.
“This is not the way in which you try to feed a population, much less a population that is on the verge of famine,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking from Washington, DC.
“The kind of operation that is required to prevent famine, or stop it if it’s already ongoing, is a tremendously large and complex logistical operation. And it’s not just food. You have to have access to medical facilities, access to acute malnutrition centres … which have not been factored into this plan.”
He added: “This is not set up to meet the needs of people. It very much feels like it’s been designed to locate people into the south of Gaza – into an area that’s been designated by the Israelis as ‘a humanitarian zone’, as opposed to trying to meet the needs of a very desperate population.”
Norwegian Refugee Council
Ahmed Bayram, spokesperson for the NRC, called on Israel and the US to cancel their initiative and let humanitarian organisations do their job.
“What we’re seeing is indeed a summary of the tragedy that the people of Gaza are living,” he said.
“This is not how aid is done; this is not how aid should be distributed, not least obviously an occupier doing that – a country that has destroyed and flattened Rafah, asking people to come back to Rafah, that has displaced people out of Rafah, and now tells them to come back and receive whatever they can get hold of.”
Beirut, Lebanon – For decades, Palestinian groups in Lebanon have run their affairs themselves. In the refugee camps established for Palestinians displaced by Israel in 1948 and 1967, Palestinian factions have overseen security and many have retained their arms.
Those days, however, appear to be coming to a close. Instead, the Lebanese state is attempting to take advantage of a period of weakness for the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, as it struggles to regroup from its war with Israel, to exercise its power over the country.
Lebanon’s new government – formed in February and led by former International Court of Justice judge Nawaf Salam – has the backing of regional and international powers to disarm all non-state actors. That includes the many Palestinian groups that have carried arms since a 1969 agreement that allowed them to have autonomy in the 12 official Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
And on Wednesday, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas gave his blessing during a visit to Lebanon. A joint statement from Abbas and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun declared that both sides had agreed that the existence of “weapons outside the control of the Lebanese state has ended”.
“Abu Mazen [Abbas] came to say that we are guests in Lebanon and not above Lebanese authority,” Mustafa Abu Harb, an official with Fatah, the largest political faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told Al Jazeera. “We do not accept weapons in the hands of anyone other than the Lebanese state.”
Is Hamas on board?
Abbas, on his first trip to Lebanon since 2017, also met Prime Minister Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to discuss the challenging prospect of disarming Palestinian factions in Lebanon and improving the rights and conditions of the estimated 270,000 Palestinians in the country.
Palestinians in Lebanon do not have the legal right to work in a number of professions, they may not own property or businesses and cannot access public service employment or the use of public services, such as healthcare and social security, according to UNRWA, the United Nations body created in 1948 for Palestinian refugees.
“We reaffirm our previous position that the presence of weapons in the camps outside the framework of the state weakens Lebanon and also harms the Palestinian cause,” Abbas said in the meeting with Aoun, according to the Palestinian state news agency Wafa.
However, questions remain as to whether the divisive Abbas, who has not faced an election since 2005, has the authority to disarm the different Palestinian groups.
A senior Hamas official in Lebanon, Ali Barakeh, told the AFP news agency on Wednesday that he hoped the talks between Abbas and Aoun would go further than just Palestinian groups’ disarmament.
“We affirm our respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty, security and stability, and at the same time, we demand the provision of civil and human rights for our Palestinian people in Lebanon,” Barakeh said.
Hamas, which – along with Hezbollah – is considered part of the wider Iranian-allied “axis of resistance” network, has already cooperated with the Lebanese state on at least one occasion since the ceasefire with Israel. In May, the Palestinian group handed over a fighter suspected of firing rockets at Israel, according to the Lebanese army, and called them “individual acts”.
The group has also said it respects the ceasefire and is willing to work with the Lebanese state.
Abbas made his first visit to Beirut in eight years, where he met with Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun [File: Zain Jaafar/AFP]
‘Not our president’
Over the course of his two-decade reign, Abbas’s popularity among Palestinians in Lebanon has sharply eroded.
That lack of support can be seen in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, where posters of Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat, as well as Hamas’s spokesperson, Abu Obeida, can be seen far more than those of the PA leader.
“None of the Palestinians, except Fatah, claim that he’s our president,” Majdi Majzoub, a community leader in Beirut’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, Shatila, said. “This president doesn’t honour us and doesn’t represent us because he supports the occupation and adopts the occupation’s decisions.”
Aside from Abbas’s unpopularity, other factors may lead to a pushback against any attempt to disarm Palestinian groups in Lebanon.
Nicholas Blanford, a nonresident senior fellow with the US-based think tank Atlantic Council, said it “could be interpreted as a win for the Israelis if the Palestinians … were obliged to give [their weapons] up”.
Blanford also pointed out that defenders of the continued presence of armed Palestinian groups in Lebanon point to events such as the Sabra and Shatila massacre, when between 2,000 and 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians were killed over two days by right-wing Christian nationalist forces with Israeli support in 1982.
Blanford, however, believes that the consensus is moving towards the disarmament of at least heavy weaponry from the Palestinian factions in Lebanon, and that some Palestinians welcome the move.
“We as a Palestinian people certainly welcome [the initiative] because things have changed,” Majzoub said.
Majzoub said bad-faith actors have taken advantage of the Lebanese state’s lack of authority over the Palestinian camps to avoid being held accountable for crimes.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon continue despite a ceasefire [File: Rabih Daher/AFP]
Lebanon’s armed forces rarely enter the Palestinian refugee camps.
In 2007, the army besieged the Nahr al-Bared camp in north Lebanon and clashed with the Fatah al-Islam group, which was based in the camp. Hundreds died in the battle, which left large swaths of the camp uninhabitable.
The Lebanese army has also, on occasion, infiltrated camps to arrest individuals.
The security situation can at times be tense in the camps, as it is in other parts of Lebanon.
On Monday, local media reported that armed clashes between rival drug dealers in Beirut’s Shatila camp forced residents to flee.
Among the worst incidents in the past few years were the large-scale battles that erupted in the summer of 2023 between armed groups in Ein el-Hilweh camp, in southern Lebanon, after a botched assassination attempt on a Fatah official. More than two dozen people were killed in the fighting before a ceasefire was negotiated.
Carrying weapons in the camps was once seen as a right of resistance. But after more than seven decades of displacement and insecurity, some Palestinians in Lebanon today feel that carrying arms is undercutting their struggle for liberation.
“Palestinian weapons have become a threat to the Palestinian revolution,” Majzoub said. “Now, it is better for us to live under the protection of the Lebanese state.”
A young man holds a Palestinian flag with a slogan on it during a protest to condemn Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, on Beirut’s corniche, in Lebanon, April 7, 2025 [Bilal Hussein/AP Photo]
WASHINGTON — A humanities federation and a state council have filed a federal lawsuit seeking to reverse local funding cuts made by Trump advisor Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and the Oregon Council for the Humanities, names DOGE, its acting administrator, Amy Gleason, and the NEH among the defendants.
The plaintiffs ask the court to “stop this imminent threat to our nation’s historic and critical support of the humanities by restoring funding appropriated by Congress.” It notes the “disruption and attempted destruction, spearheaded by DOGE,” of a partnership between the state and the federal government to support the humanities.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday, maintains that DOGE and the National Endowment for the Humanities exceeded their authority in terminating funding mandated by Congress.
DOGE shut down the funding and laid off more than 80% of the staff at the NEH in April as part of an executive order signed by President Trump.
The humanities is just one of many areas that have been affected as Trump’s Republican administration has targeted cultural establishments including the Smithsonian Institution, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the National Endowment of the Arts. The moves are part of Trump’s goals to downsize the federal government and end initiatives seen as promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, which he calls “discrimination.”
The humanities groups’ lawsuit said DOGE brought the core work of the humanities councils “to a screeching halt” this spring when it terminated its grant program.
The filing is the most recent lawsuit filed by humanities groups and historical, research and library associations to try to stop funding cuts and the dissolution of federal agencies and organizations.
The funding freeze for the humanities comes when state councils and libraries have been preparing programming for the summer and beginning preparations for celebrations meant to commemorate next year’s 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Requests for comment Friday from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the White House were not immediately returned.
Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claims attack on Djibo military outpost, SITE Intelligence Group says.
An al-Qaeda affiliate has claimed it killed 200 soldiers in an attack on a Burkina Faso army base this week, according to an NGO that tracks armed groups’ online activity.
The base in the northern town of Djibo came under attack on Sunday morning, and a police station and market were also targeted, security sources told the news agency Reuters. Although there was no official toll, three Djibo residents told Reuters that dozens of soldiers and civilians were killed.
Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the death toll. A Burkina Faso military source told Al Jazeera that the armed group was exaggerating the number of casualties.
The United States-based SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online activity of armed groups, said Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) made the claim in a formal statement.
“The operation comes amid increased JNIM activity in Burkina Faso over the past month inflicting a high number of casualties,” SITE said.
The organisation previously said Ousmane Dicko, head of JNIM in Burkina Faso, had appeared in a video urging residents of Djibo to leave the town for their own safety.
Reporting from Dakar, Senegal, Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said the attack took place over a number of days.
“One of the major military outposts that was supposed to protect this town of about 200,000 people was razed to the ground, such was the firepower of the armed groups,” said Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, reporting from Senegal, Dakar.
“This is one of the deadliest attacks in Burkina Faso, and it comes just as Ibrahim Traore [Burkina Faso’s military leader] has been saying that the country has been gaining territory, encouraging people to go back to their homes, but this latest attack proves the opposite,” said Haque.
A video circulating on social media from the al-Qaeda affiliate warned people to leave their homes and said it would seize more territories.
“What we’re seeing here is the pivot point where these armed groups that normally attack villages are now trying to take over towns. It’s a major blow for Burkina Faso’s armed forces,” Haque said, noting the attacks come just as Traore was visiting Russia, asking President Vladimir Putin for more training and arms to fight off armed groups.
JNIM claimed responsibility for another assault this week targeting a military post in Burkina Faso’s northern Loroum province in which the group said 60 soldiers were killed, according to SITE.
The attacks highlight the difficulties the three Sahel nations of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, ruled by military leaders, are facing in containing the armed groups.
Burkina Faso authorities have not commented on the latest attacks.
A notable attack occurred in the Burkina town of Sole, where JNIM fighters raided the army military post and killed soldiers, SITE Intelligence said, without specifying on which day it took place.
A Military government took power in Burkina Faso in 2022, but they have largely failed to provide stability, as more than 60 percent of the country is estimated to be outside government control.
The 21-day army operation was part of India’s offensive against the last remaining groups of the Naxalite rebellion.
Indian security forces have killed 31 Maoist rebels in what the country’s home minister called the “biggest operation against Naxalism”.
Amit Shah said on social media on Wednesday that the operation took place on Karreguttalu Hill on the border of Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
“The hill on which the red terror once reigned, today the tricolour is flying proudly … Our security forces completed this biggest anti-Naxal operation in just 21 days and I am extremely happy that there was not a single casualty in the security forces in this operation,” he wrote on X.
India has been waging an offensive against the last remaining groups of the Naxalite rebellion, a far-left Maoist-inspired fighter movement that began in 1967.
The Karreguttalu Hills used to be the unified headquarters of several Naxalite organisations, where rebels were provided weapons and strategic training.
But the Naxalites have been fighting for what they say is the defence of the rights of the tribal people in the region.
At the group’s peak in the mid-2000s, they controlled nearly a third of the country with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 fighters.
[Al Jazeera]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the news of the success of the operation.
“This success of the security forces shows that our campaign towards rooting out Naxalism is moving in the right direction,” Modi wrote on X.
“We are fully committed to establishing peace in the Naxal-affected areas and connecting them with the mainstream of development.”
Director General Central Reserve Police Force GP Singh also said on Wednesday that the government is “committed to eliminate” Naxalism by March 31, 2026 “through relentless and ruthless operations”.
According to government data, since last year, Indian soldiers have killed at least 400 rebels.
More recently, 11 rebels were killed by Indian troops in the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
In February, security forces killed 11 fighters and killed a further 30 in March.
Moreover, according to a news release by the Foreign Office, 718 Naxalites have so far surrendered in the first four months of 2025.
So-called Hollywood ambassadors Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone joined with a coalition of entertainment industry groups for a letter delivered this week to President Trump urging him to support tax measures and a federal tax incentive that would help bring film and TV production back to the U.S.
The letter is signed by Voight, Stallone, all the major Hollywood unions and trade groups such as the Motion Picture Assn., the Producers Guild of America and the Independent Film & Television Alliance, indicating widespread support from the entertainment industry.
“Returning more production to the United States will require a national approach and broad-based policy solutions … as well as longer term initiatives such as implementing a federal film and television tax incentive,” the letter states.
In the letter, which was obtained by The Times, the groups say they support Trump’s proposal to create a new 15% corporate tax rate for domestic manufacturing activities that would use a provision from the old Section 199 of the federal tax code as a model.
Under the previous Section 199, which expired in 2017, film and TV productions that were made in the U.S. qualified as domestic manufacturing and were eligible for that tax deduction, the letter states.
The letter also asks Trump to extend Section 181 of the federal tax code and increase the caps on tax-deductible qualified film and TV production expenditures, as well as reinstating the ability to carry back losses, which the groups say would give production companies more financial stability.
The tax measures — particularly Sections 199 and 181 — are issues the entertainment industry has long advocated for, according to two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly. The letter itself came together over the weekend, they said. It was intended to present different measures that shared the same goal of increasing domestic production, one person said.
For the record:
3:09 p.m. May 12, 2025A previous version of this story stated Susan Sprung’s title as executive director. She is chief executive of the Producers Guild of America.
“Everything we can do to help producers mange their budgets is important,” said Susan Sprung, chief executive of the Producers Guild of America. “In an ideal world, we’d want a federal tax incentive, in addition to these tax provisions, but we want to advocate to make it as easy as possible to produce in the United States and make it as cost-effective as possible.”
The proposals on the federal level come as states are upping their own film and TV tax credits to better compete against each other and other countries. Late last week, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the state’s budget, which increased the cap for its film tax credit to $800 million a year, up from $700 million.
The expanded tax incentive program allocates $100 million for independent studios and gives additional incentives to companies that produce two or more projects in New York and commit to at least $100 million in qualified spending.
The program was also extended through 2036, which could help attract TV producers, who often want to know that their filming location is committed if they’re embarking on a series.
Production in New York has been slow, and the state needed this boost, said Michael Hackman, chief executive of Hackman Capital Partners, which owns two film and TV studio properties in the state, as well as several facilities in California. The increase from New York could also push California to increase its own film and TV tax credit program.
Last year, Newsom called to increase the annual amount allocated to California‘s film and TV tax credit program from $330 million to $750 million.
Two bills are currently going through the state legislature that would expand California’s incentive, including increasing the tax credit to cover up to 35% of qualified expenditures (or 40% in areas outside the Greater Los Angeles region), as well as expanding the types of productions that would be eligible for an incentive.
“We have the best infrastructure, the best talent, we have everything going for us,” Hackman said. “So if our state legislature can get more competitive with our tax credits, I think more productions will stay. But if they don’t, this will result in more productions continuing to leave the state and going to New York and to other locations.”
![This pictures taken from the southern Lebanese area of Marjeyoun shows smoke billowing from the site of Israeli airstrikes on the hills of the southern Lebanese village of Nabatiyeh on May 8, 2025. [Rabih Daher/ AFP]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/000_44X24T2-1746708607.jpg)
