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The US Department of Justice has moved to eliminate rules protecting LGBTQ+ people from sexual abuse in prisons, a shift advocates say is “reckless and dangerous” and will lead to increased assaults behind bars.

A justice department memo issued on Tuesday said “effective immediately”, prisons and jails will no longer be held responsible for violations of standards meant to shield LGBTQ+ people from harassment, abuse and rape. It also directed inspectors to stop auditing facilities for compliance with those protections. The justice department is in the process of seeking formal updates to the rules, the memo said.

The directive relates to regulations under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (Prea), a longstanding federal law which says incarcerated people should be screened for their risk of facing sexual assault when officials place them in housing and that assessments must consider LGBTQ+ status.

Prea, passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, includes standards aimed at addressing the high levels of violence that transgender, gender-nonconforming and queer people face in jails and prisons across the US. Prea applies to all correctional facilities.

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Arafat Qaddous worked construction jobs in Israel.

He was one of around 130,000 Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank with permits from the Israeli authorities to cross the separation wall into Israeli territory as a laborer. With his lawful employment inside the Green Line, which separates the West Bank from Israel, he was able to go back and forth from his hometown of Iraq Burin, near Nablus in the north, to whichever Israeli city offered work.

Before the Covid pandemic, the 51-year-old Qaddous’s work in Israel sustained his wife and five children.

His brother Qusai said Arafat’s living conditions worsened over the years, as work opportunities dried up during the pandemic, his family’s needs grew, and the West Bank’s economy tanked.

“There are hardly any jobs in the West Bank,” Qusai said, “and prices of food and goods are extremely high.”

Things got even worse after October 7, 2023: Israel indefinitely paused Palestinian workers’ permits after Hamas’s attack, and Qaddous lost his permit. So when an opportunity presented itself — a job in Taybeh, inside Israel — he took a chance.

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The State Department issued a terse statement last week saying, "an awareness day is not a strategy." The result is that on December 1, the United States is not commemorating World AIDS Day. It's the first time the U.S. has not participated since the World Health Organization created this day in 1988 to remember the millions of people who have died of AIDS-related illnesses and recommit to fighting the epidemic that still claims the lives of more than half a million people each year.

By contrast, last year former President Joe Biden held a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House with the AIDS Memorial Quilt — with coffin-shaped patches each honoring someone who had died of AIDS-related causes — spread out on the grass. And this year, despite the Trump administration's change of heart, countries around the world are marking the day with proclamations, public health campaigns and commemorative ceremonies.

President Trump has nothing planned for this year and the State Department has instructed employees not to mark the day.

Tommy Pigott, a spokesperson for the State Department, confirmed the decision not to commemorate the day, writing in a statement that the country is "modernizing our approach to countering infectious diseases" and that "under the leadership of President Trump, the State Department is working directly with foreign governments to save lives and increase their responsibility and burden sharing."

Some HIV/AIDS activists reacted with frustration to the news — and with protests.

"I think it's emblematic of an administration that doesn't seem to care," said Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC, a global HIV prevention organization based in the U.S.

The U.S. has consistently been the top financial supporter of the global fight against HIV/AIDS, primarily through President George W. Bush's President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which has invested more than $110 billion into the global effort since it launched in 2003.

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An Israeli lawyer has alleged that his Palestinian client is being tortured and sexually assaulted in custody, saying the abuse intensifies each time he visits the detainee.

Speaking in an interview with a known journalist, Samira Mohyeddin, lawyer Ben Marmarelli said his sole client, a Palestinian political prisoner, is subjected to severe mistreatment by Israeli authorities, including repeated sexual violence.

“It’s gotten to the point where he asks me not to come anymore because every time I come, they rape him,” Marmarelli said.

He added that sexual assault, while alarming, is only one part of a broader pattern of abuse. 

“I want to say something about the rape. Everyone talks to me about the rape like it’s the big issue. The rape is not the big issue. The rape is the least of his problems,” he said. “The issue is the conditions of the prisoners, and the rape is just one of the many pieces of the puzzle, which is Israel torturing the Palestinian prisoners.”

Marmarelli said his client has shown him “boot marks on his back,” deep marks on his wrists from tight handcuffs, and “bruises all over his body.” According to him, the sexual assaults occur “once every few weeks” and appear to coincide with his visits.

“Palestinian political prisoners don’t get any visits for years. Their only connection to the outside world is a lawyer’s visit,” he said.

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A college freshman trying to fly from Boston to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving was instead deported to Honduras in violation of a court order, according to her attorney.

Any Lucia Lopez Belloza, 19, had already passed through security at Boston Logan international airport on 20 November when she was told there was an issue with her boarding pass, said attorney Todd Pomerleau. The Babson College student was then detained by immigration officials and within two days sent to Texas and then Honduras, the country she left at age seven.

“She’s absolutely heartbroken,” Pomerleau said. “Her college dream has just been shattered.”

The day after Lopez Belloza was arrested, a federal judge issued an emergency order prohibiting the government from moving her out of Massachusetts or the US for at least 72 hours. ICE did not respond to an email on Friday from the Associated Press seeking comment about violating that order. Babson College also did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Lopez Belloza, who is staying with her grandparents in Honduras, told the Boston Globe she had been looking forward to telling her parents and younger sisters about her first semester studying business.

“That was my dream,” she said. “I’m losing everything.”

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According to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an immigration judge ordered Lopez Belloza deported in 2015. Pomerleau said she wasn’t aware of any removal order, however, and the only record he has found indicates her case was closed in 2017.

“They’re holding her responsible for something they claim happened a decade ago that she’s completely unaware of and not showing any of the proof,” the lawyer said.

The ceasefire is broadly holding in Gaza, with Israeli forces inside the strip having pulled back to the so-called "yellow line." Still, renewed Israeli strikes killed dozens of Palestinians last week in response to what Israel alleged was a ceasefire violation by a Hamas gunman.

The bodies of two deceased hostages are still thought to be in Gaza. Israeli authorities have been releasing Palestinian prisoners and the bodies of deceased Palestinians detainees in exchange for the return of hostage remains.

Elsewhere, Israel is continuing strikes on what it says are Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire agreement there signed last November. On Sunday, Israel launched an airstrike in the capital Beirut for the first time in several months, killing Hezbollah chief of staff Haytham Ali Tabataba'i.

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