Almost 60 Palestinian journalists detained in Israeli prisons since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack have been beaten, starved and subjected to sexual violence, including rape, a report alleges.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reviewed dozens of testimonies, photographs and medical records documenting what it describes as serious abuses by Israeli soldiers and prison guards against Palestinian reporters. The report draws on in-depth interviews from 59 Palestinian journalists. Of those interviewed, 58 reported being subjected to what they described as torture while in Israeli custody.
“While conditions varied at different facilities, the methods those interviewed recounted – physical assaults, forced stress positions, sensory deprivation, sexual violence, and medical neglect – were strikingly consistent,” the report states.
The Israeli prison service and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have both strongly rejected the allegations.
Journalist Sami al-Sai, who has reported for the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera Mubasher and the local broadcaster Al-Fajer TV, said he was taken to a small cell in Megiddo prison, and soldiers removed his trousers and underwear, and penetrated him with batons and other objects.
“I did not speak to anyone inside the prison about what happened, except for two senior detainees who have been imprisoned for 25 years,” Sai said.
Dozens of Palestinian journalists beaten, starved or raped, report alleges
Israel responsible for two-thirds of record 129 press killings in 2025, says CPJ
A record 129 journalists and media workers were killed in the course of their work in 2025, two-thirds of them by Israeli forces, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
It was the second consecutive year in which killings of members of the press reached unprecedented levels, and the second year running in which Israel was responsible for roughly two-thirds of the total, the New York-based independent organisation, which documents attacks on journalists worldwide, said in its annual report published on Wednesday.
sraeli fire killed 86 journalists last year, the CPJ said, the majority of them Palestinians reporting from Gaza. The toll also included 31 media workers killed in a strike on a Houthi media centre in Yemen, described by the group as the second deadliest attack on journalists it had ever recorded.
Israel was responsible for 81% of the 47 killings that the CPJ classified as intentionally targeted, or “murder”. It said the actual figure was probably higher, owing to access restrictions that made verification difficult in Gaza.
Count of Russian Soldiers, Officers Confirmed Killed in Ukraine Passes 200,000
The confirmed count of Russian soldiers, officers, sailors and airmen confirmed killed in action or dead of combat injuries in Ukraine has passed 200,000, the research group Mediazona announced on Tuesday, citing new survey findings.
The group, working alongside BBC Russian Service and volunteers in and outside Russia, confirmed all of the Russian military losses, by name, using cross-referenced data from individual obituaries, civil death certificates, geo-located graves, unit rosters, social media updates, funeral announcements, cemetery records and obituaries.
A leak of confidential government data on some 23,000 security checks of individuals found to have been dead by police investigators was a key “breakthrough” for the group’s tracking work, a Mediazona statement said.
As of midday Wednesday, the total count of verified Russian dead in Ukraine stood at 200,186 men. The figure “remains a conservative floor, not a ceiling,” the statement said in part.
Mapping by the group identified 26,600 cities, towns or villages across all thirteen of Russia’s time zones as the homes of men losing their lives in Ukraine. All Russian cities, without exception, have received remains of soldiers sent to Ukraine who then died there, the report said.
Judge orders Greenpeace to pay $345m over Dakota Access pipeline protest
A North Dakota judge has said he will order Greenpeace to pay damages expected to total $345m in connection with protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline from nearly a decade ago, a figure the environmental group contends it cannot pay.
In court papers filed Tuesday, Judge James Gion said he would sign an order requiring several Greenpeace entities to pay the judgment to pipeline company Energy Transfer. He set that amount at $345m last year in a decision that reduced a jury’s damages by about half, but his latest filing did not specify a final amount.
The long-awaited order is expected to launch an appeal process in the North Dakota supreme court from both sides.
Last year, a nine-person jury found Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc liable for defamation and other claims brought by Dallas-based Energy Transfer and subsidiary Dakota Access.
Ilhan Omar guest arrested for standing at Trump’s State of the Union address
A guest of congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, was arrested by Capitol police during the State of the Union address.
Omar had invited Aliya Rahman, a US citizen and Minneapolis resident who in January was removed from her car and dragged by immigration agents in the city as part of the Trump administration’s increased efforts to arrest and deport alleged undocumented immigrants. The officers had been shouting at her to move.
A guest of congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, was arrested by Capitol police during the State of the Union address.
Omar had invited Aliya Rahman, a US citizen and Minneapolis resident who in January was removed from her car and dragged by immigration agents in the city as part of the Trump administration’s increased efforts to arrest and deport alleged undocumented immigrants. The officers had been shouting at her to move.
“I’m disabled trying to go to the doctor up there, that’s why I didn’t move,” Rahman told officers as they pulled her from the car. The officers caused her shoulder injuries, she later said.
During Donald Trump’s speech, Rahman “started demonstrating”, which violated rules for the event, according to the Capitol police.
“The guest was told to sit down, but refused to obey our lawful orders,” the police said in a statement. “It is illegal to disrupt the Congress and demonstrate in the Congressional Buildings.”
Rahman was arrested for unlawful conduct and disruption of Congress, the police stated.
Rahman told the Democracy Now broadcast on Wednesday that she had been standing silently before she was arrested.
“No buttons, no facial expressions, no gestures, no signs, not one sound,” Rahman said. “There are only two things you can do at the State of the Union, and they are, sit down and stand up. All kinds of people were standing up all night. Me too. I stood up at the moment that I heard this man say some of the most racist things I have heard come out of any leader’s mouth about the people of my city.”or
Justice Department Sues Over Supposedly Antisemitic Work Environment At UCLA
President Donald Trump’s administration has sued the University of California system over alleged discrimination against Jewish and Israeli employees at UCLA involving what the Justice Department called an antisemitic hostile work environment.
Tuesday’s lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, marks the latest instance of the Trump administration acting against a U.S. university and represents its latest dispute in Democratic-governed California.
Trump last year tried to freeze hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds for UCLA over pro-Palestinian protests but a judge directed that those be restored.
The Republican president has attempted to crack down on universities over pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza, transgender policies, climate programs and diversity initiatives, leading to concerns over academic freedom, free speech and due process.
The lawsuit filed by the Justice Department seeks a court order requiring UCLA, part of the University of California system, to investigate and address antisemitism complaints and provide training on anti-discrimination policies. It also seeks an unspecified amount in monetary damages to go to two UCLA professors who alleged being subjected to antisemitism.
NY governor calls for $13.5B in tariff refunds
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is calling on the Trump administration to refund approximately $13.5 billion to New York residents after the Supreme Court ruled last week that the bulk of President Trump’s tariffs are unconstitutional.
“These senseless and illegal tariffs were just a tax on New York consumers, small businesses and farmers — and that’s why I’m demanding a full refund,” Hochul, who is up for reelection this year, said in a statement Tuesday.
“I’ll never stop fighting for New Yorkers, and that means staying focused on putting more money back in your pockets — not ripping it away,” she added.
Her office cited Yale Budget Lab estimates that the average New York household shouldered an additional $1,751 in added costs as a result of the tariffs, totaling $13.5 billion for the state.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision Friday, delivered a blistering ruling against the Trump administration, rejecting the president’s expanded use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs on nearly every country.
Nobel Prize-winning Columbia neuroscientist resigns over Epstein ties
A Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist at Columbia University resigned from some of his positions with the institution over his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Richard Axel, co-director of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, won a Nobel Prize in 2004 for discovering over 1,000 special receptors in the nose that send olfactory information to the brain.
“My past association with Jeffrey Epstein was a serious error in judgment, which I deeply regret. I apologize for compromising the trust of my friends, students, and colleagues,” Axel said in a statement obtained by NewsNation, The Hill’s sister network. “I recognize the problems this has caused, and I will work to restore this trust.”
He added, “What has emerged about Epstein’s appalling conduct, the harm that he has caused to so many people, makes my association with him all the more painful and inexcusable.”
2 Missouri deputies killed, 2 wounded after suspect opens fire
Two Missouri sheriff's deputies were shot and killed and two more were injured after a suspect opened fire during a traffic stop and led authorities on an hours-long manhunt that ended in a shootout, authorities said.
The suspect, 45-year-old Richard Dean Bird, was also killed in the exchange of gunfire, authorities said.
Bird was pulled over by a deputy on the afternoon of Feb. 23 near Highlandville, Missouri, a small city in Christian County about 20 miles from downtown Springfield. During the traffic stop, Bird allegedly shot and killed Christian County Sheriff's Deputy Gabriel Ramirez, 30.
Bird fled, and local and state authorities began a search that would last about nine hours and stretch into the night, reported the Springfield News-Leader, part of the USA TODAY Network. The Missouri State Highway Patrol issued a "Blue Alert," used when a law enforcement officer is killed or seriously injured in the line of duty, which was canceled at about 1 a.m. on Feb. 24, the News-Leader reported.
Late on the night of Feb. 23, law enforcement agencies found Bird's vehicle and began searching a wooded area. At about 11:38 p.m. on Feb. 23, Bird began firing with a rifle, Christian County Sheriff Brad Cole said at a news conference. Two deputies were wounded and Deputy Michael Hislope, 40, was also killed, the sheriff's office said. Bird was then shot and killed by law enforcement.
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