“Nickolay Mladenov, the top diplomat overseeing the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Gaza, said Wednesday the truce hinged on Hamas’ disarmament, a sticking point that has stalled progress on other fronts, including rebuilding the mostly destroyed enclave. The high representative for U.S. President Donald Trump’s International Board of Peace in Gaza, Mladenov, said months without progress implementing the deal benefited neither Israel nor Palestinians. He said the phased deal was paralyzed over Hamas not yet disarming, calling it ‘not negotiable.'” (05/13/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Basically you have two choices: either you believe Israel is a genocidal state that is morally comparable to Nazi Germany, or you believe there’s a giant global conspiracy of mainstream western institutions and media outlets dedicated to making Israel look bad. Believing the second option is the only way to get around believing the first. That’s the only way to believe mainstream outlets like The New York Times are committing antisemitic blood libel with their reporting on the systemic sexual torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. It’s the only way to dismiss the fact that every relevant human rights group on earth says Israel is guilty of genocide, while zero comparable human rights groups say it isn’t. You necessarily need to espouse a wild conspiracy theory. You need to believe the conspiracy goes all the way to the top, with its tentacles in mainstream institutions all across the globe.” (05/13/26)
“In a landmark German case targeting chocolate ‘shrinkflation’, a court has found that the manufacturer of Milka’s classic Alpine Milk bar cheated consumers and broke competition law. Cutting back on the amount of chocolate while having the same kind of wrapper meant that customers were being misled, Bremen regional court ruled. The three-week court case was brought by Hamburg’s consumer protection office (VZHH), which accused manufacturer Mondelēz of deceiving consumers by cutting the weight of the ‘Alpenmilch’ bar from 100g to 90g. Reacting to the ruling Mondelēz told the BBC it was ‘taking the decision of the court seriously’ and would ‘look at it in detail now’. ” (05/13/26)
“Mayor Zohran Mamdani boasted Tuesday that he plugged the city’s multibillion-dollar budget gap for the coming fiscal year — but it’s only ‘balanced’ with gimmicks that guarantee oceans more red ink in the years ahead. With a late assist from Gov. Kathy Hochul’s own flim-flammery, the new, $124.7 billion Mamdani spending plan relies on one-time cash infusions, postponed payments and dubious calculations of future tax windfalls and theoretical savings. The day began with Hochul boldly announcing yet another of her trademark cave-ins: After weeks of insisting she’d given the mayor as much help as she could, the gov magically found another $4 billion for him just hours before he presented his plan. Yet half the windfall comes down to new debt, much of the rest is pretty vaporous — and all of it amounts to just telling the spending addict he can keep on shooting up.” (05/13/26)
“Republican senators in Louisiana advanced a plan Wednesday to eliminate one of two majority-[b]lack, Democratic-held congressional seats following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the state’s U.S. House map as an illegal racial gerrymander. The early morning Senate committee vote came after hours of impassioned testimony from [b]lack residents and Democrats opposed to the move. Republicans opted not to pursue a more aggressive approach, which could have targeted both Democratic seats for elimination. … The redistricting efforts to undo minority districts are the latest variation in a 10-month-long national redistricting battle that already has involved about one-third of the states.” (05/13/26)
“The war in Ukraine has been defined by periodic bursts of certainty that Russia is on the back foot, if not close to collapse, and that Ukraine, conversely, is inches away from victory. We appear to be in the middle of one of these moments of euphoria now. Finnish President Alexander Stubb has declared that Ukraine is ‘on top’ and ‘in a much better place than it has been at any stage in this horrific war’, charging that Russia is unable to recruit enough soldiers to make up for those it’s losing. Ukrainians have ‘a growing self-confidence’ on account of the territory they have supposedly retaken, as one former U.S. ambassador put it, and their growing confidence over military advances ‘is strikingly higher today than a year ago’, charged another. A spate of reports have it that the walls are closing in on Russian President Vladimir Putin.” (05/13/26)
“The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the murder conviction of Alex Murdaugh, who was convicted in March 2023 of double homicide of his wife and son. The court ordered a new trial, saying that Mary Rebecca ‘Becky’ Hill, who served as the court clerk in Colleton County, exercised ‘improper external influences’ during Murdaugh’s first trial. Murdaugh’s attorney Dick Harpootlian said in a statement that Murdaugh will remain in custody. The state supreme court voted unanimously on the decision. ‘Although we are aware of the time, money, and effort expended for this lengthy trial, we have no choice but to reverse the denial of Murdaugh’s motion for a new trial due to Hill’s improper external influences on the jury and remand for a new trial,’ their ruling said.” (05/13/26)
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman
“The late 19th century was a dismal time in American politics. Corruption ran rampant. Congress was governed by staunch partisan loyalties and nail-biting majorities. And redistricting, instead of being confined to after the census every 10 years, was a tool of manipulation and partisan hardball. ‘From 1872 to 1896,’ a political scientist reports, ‘at least one state redrew its congressional districts each year.’ Of course, that era was marred by another phenomenon — one too familiar to us today. It saw a swift rollback in voting rights and representation for the newly freed Black population of the South. In 1875, after the Civil War and the adoption of the 15th Amendment, seven Black men served in the House, and one sat as a senator. Terrorism, political cowardice, and racial backlash ended Reconstruction. By 1902, Congress was once again all white.” (05/13/26)
“Doctors who examined Nobel Peace laureate and activist Narges Mohammadi more than a week after she collapsed at a prison in Iran say she needs months of treatment, her foundation said Wednesday. An angiography procedure showed two of her main arteries have significant blockage and that her vascular disease has significantly deteriorated since she last had the procedure in 2024, the foundation said in a statement. Mohammadi, 53, was urgently transferred from prison to a hospital in northwestern Iran on May 1 after she fell unconscious. She was released on bail nearly 10 days later and transferred to a hospital in Tehran where her specialists examined her. The attending physician said her blood pressure continues to fluctuate, in part due to damage to part of the brain that is responsible for such regulations. The doctors recommended an eight-month treatment course in an environment ‘free from external stressors, where she can receive permanent care and long-term treatment.'” (05/13/26)
“On April 1, 114 guests and 61 crew members, unaware of the presence of a killer virus among them, boarded the MV Hondius. That ship has earned the moniker ‘Ship of Fools.’ Because of the top brass’s reckless disregard of infection control principles, the ship’s passengers and thousands of people around the world have been exposed to the rare Andes strain of the hantavirus, a disease found in rat urine and feces, and which has a 40% mortality rate. Among the passengers who boarded that day was a 70-year-old birdwatcher who had spent his final days ashore traipsing through an Argentinian dump covered with rat feces and looking for rare birds. He was looking for species, not feces, but it’s the feces that did him in.” (05/13/26)
