AI Companies Are Recklessly Racing Toward a Cybersecurity Crisis

May 11, 2026

WASHINGTON - Google researchers announced Monday that cybercriminals recently used an artificial intelligence model to help create a dangerous zero-day vulnerability capable of exploiting computer networks at scale, marking what experts say is a major turning point in the cybersecurity landscape. A “zero-day” vulnerability is a hidden flaw or weakness in software that hackers discover before the company or public knows about it or has a fix available. It’s considered especially dangerous because attackers can exploit the flaw immediately, giving defenders “zero days” to protect themselves.

The findings come as leading AI companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI, continue developing increasingly advanced models capable of identifying and exploiting critical software vulnerabilities. Google warned that malicious actors are already using AI to increase the speed, scale, and sophistication of cyberattacks, while researchers have observed state-backed hacking groups linked to China, Russia, and North Korea leveraging AI technologies to automate and refine offensive cyber operations. The developments have intensified concerns that powerful AI systems are being deployed faster than governments and regulators can establish meaningful safeguards to prevent catastrophic misuse.

In response to the growing concerns, Public Citizen’s AI governance and technology policy counsel, J.B. Branch, issued the following statement:

“Cybersecurity experts are sounding the alarm, yet AI companies continue racing to release increasingly powerful models with little regard for the societal consequences. It is unthinkable and irresponsible to release technologies capable of destabilizing critical systems and then worry about the fallout afterward. Americans are increasingly rejecting this destabilizing AI arms race. We need enforceable AI regulations that require rigorous safety testing, independent review, and meaningful oversight before these systems ever reach the public. Regulators cannot remain in a perpetual game of catch-up while Big Tech gambles with the safety and stability of modern society.”


Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.

‘Hands Off Our Pensions’: Belgian Workers Take to the Streets in General Strike Against Austerity Measures

It’s the latest of several national strikes over the past year and a half against policies that one union leader said will heighten “inequality” and “poverty.”

People take part in a national demonstration against rising energy prices and social reforms by the government, organized by the three national trade unions, in front of the North Train Station in Brussels, Belgium on May 12, 2026.
Photo by Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
May 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Much of Belgium ground to a halt on Tuesday as tens of thousands of workers flooded the streets of Brussels as part of a general strike against government austerity measures.

Schools closed, public transit operated with reduced service, and flights out of major airports were grounded as workers walked off the job. Instead, they marched through the capital clad in red and green, the colors of Belgium’s major labor unions, with some carrying signs that read, “Hands off our pensions” and “We will not pay the price of their wars.”

According to Morning Star, as many as 100,000 people took part in the strike, which was called by the nation’s three biggest trade unions in protest of measures by Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s government that the unions say slash pensions, reduce wages, and attack collective bargaining.




The marchers called on the government to roll back plans to raise Belgium’s retirement age to 67 and have called for an end to what the unions have dubbed a “pension penalty” that would cut benefits for those who retire early.

Amid rising costs caused by the US-Israeli war against Iran, the unions are also outraged by a proposed temporary cap on wage indexation, which requires wages to rise in tandem with inflation.

It’s part of a broader trend of the government loosening labor rules for employers, which unions say has led to longer, more irregular hours and diminished employees’ work-life balance.

“People will have less money left over and will still have to work more flexibly and longer,” said Ann Vermorgen, the chair of the Confederation of Christian Trade Unions. “Even the Planning Bureau says that the reform will promote inequality and that poverty will emerge.”

Tuesday’s general strike was just the latest over the past year and a half, as the unions have refused to let up on their push to reverse De Wever’s agenda.

Gert Truyens, the chair of the General Confederation of Liberal Trade Unions of Belgium (ACLVB), said that with the pension penalty and the other labor proposals, the government was displaying “total disregard” for social dialogue by “unilaterally imposing things without discussing them with the trade unions and employers.”

Mass Protests Erupt in Argentina Over Milei’s Assault on Public Universities

“This government is determined to defund public education,” said one protester.


A crowd protests during the National University March in Plaza de Mayo on May 12 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
(Photo by Guillermo Castro/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Brad Reed
May 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Tens of thousands of Argentines took to the streets on Tuesday to protest against cuts to public universities championed by right-wing President Javier Milei.

As reported by The Associated Press, demonstrators in Buenos Aires marched on the Plaza de Mayo toward the Casa Rosada to demand the government implement funding for public universities that was passed by Congress last year but that Milei’s administration is challenging in court.

The AP reported that university professors’ salaries have declined by roughly one-third since Milei came to power in 2023 due to the rising cost of living in the country, and education unions have rejected the government’s proposals for marginal funding increases as woefully insufficient.

A report from DW noted that “public university budgets been slashed by 40% since 2023 when Milei took power.”

Sol Muñíz, a law student at the University of Buenos Aires, told the AP that Milei’s cuts to the education system aren’t about saving the government money, but are part of a broader ideological project.

“It’s very clear this government is determined to defund public education,” said Muñíz. “University is a source of pride for us. It is the best thing we have.”

Student Renata Lopez said in an interview with Agence France-Presse that Milei’s attacks on education reminded her of the society depicted in Ray Bradbury’s classic book Fahrenheit 451, in which government agents systematically burned their citizens’ books.

“Defunding education isn’t something alien, it isn’t dystopian,” said Lopez. “It’s something that’s happening.”

A demonstrator identified only as Marcelo, a student at the University of Quilmes, told El País that he was demonstrating to “defend our public university, which isn’t a privilege but a right of all Argentinians.”

According to a report from Bloomberg earlier this month, Milei’s popularity in Argentina has been sinking in recent months, as his government has been beset by corruption scandals and economic setbacks that have harmed the image he has tried to cultivate as an anti-establishment reformer.

Waterboarding for Dollars in Cuba

What the United States is doing to Cubans is equivalent to waterboarding them into submission, and all CBS could seem to talk about is Castro.


People transit on a street without power during a nationwide blackout in Havana on March 21, 2026.
(Photo by Yamil Lage / AFP via Getty Images

Jeffrey Mccrary
May 14, 2026

Common Dreams

The CBS Sunday Morning program, “Next: Cuba?” which aired on April 26, presented a discussion of the recent intensification of sanctions on and threats against Cuba. I am disappointed that this program, and several other shorter recent segments on CBS News, did not cover some essential points that must be stated about what is happening in Cuba now. My own experience in Cuba, including the recent delivery of humanitarian aid directly to Cubans, contradicts some perspectives presented by CBS.

Fidel Castro is dead. And, he has been dead for a while. He was a fascinating character who still inspires polemic discussions. Stories of Fidel are legendary on the scale of Paul Bunyan. But we think the choice of focus of these eight minutes on Fidel’s legacy is unjust to the Cuban people. The news of the moment is that Cuba is underwater. The CBS Sunday Morning program, instead of engaging in a discussion of a crisis on the island, entertained us with old, mostly obsolete stories about Castro

Following Pattern Set by Venezuela and Iran Assaults, US Surveillance Flights Off Cuba Surge

Cubans are suffering currently. The US sanctions on Cuba are enormous, by any measure. We find it remarkable that Cuba has withstood for decades sanctions that would bring down any other country of its size and reach within weeks. The recent fossil fuel blockade on the island, however, has placed the people of the island in a choke hold. Cuba’s economy, like those around the world, is dependent on petroleum products for most of its electricity generation, vehicle use, and cooking. Food is rotting in the fields because of a lack of fuel to connect products to markets, and it is rotting in homes because the refrigerators are disconnected.

The recent military blockade prohibiting oil shipments disrupted Cuba’s economy on a level that frightened people, in a way that we would compare to drowning; If something is not done quickly, disaster will occur. The blockade was challenged successfully by a Russian oil tanker, but the sabers from the US State Department continue to rattle loudly.

Cuba deserves to make its path without undue pressure from the US.

A health crisis is happening in real time. The impacts of the sanctions on health are huge. Cubans are accustomed to excellent health services, but hospitals are less able to provide services than ever. Infants who were once saved from preventable risks are now dying, even in the best hospitals. Surgeries are postponed, simply because there are not sufficient provisions, made acute by the recent oil blockade. Let’s be clear: The oil blockade has provoked an epidemiological disaster.

The current suffering has a psychological dimension. A refrigerator that won’t keep food fresh, a stove that won’t cook, darkness all day and night, no transport to the workplace or market, overflowing trash piles every few blocks because the garbage trucks have no fuel, no running water, are not the same as a fun camping trip. Cubans are humiliated as the system they depend on spiraled downward from weakly working to a horror show. The people of Cuba are frightened, in our opinion, not only by the capacity of the US government to cause mayhem, but by their own vulnerability. All Cubans heard President Donald Trump say that he will “take Cuba.” Cubans know what happened in Iran, Gaza, and Venezuela, and these words are designed to make them think they are next. The psychological impact of this pressure compounds the physical hardship.

The intent of the current administration can’t be missing the mark—the effect of the fuel blockade, on top of so many, layered, sanctions and complications, is the same as waterboarding a person. By strengthening the intensity and increasing the duration, a waterboarded subject will eventually stop resisting and walk calmly to the next waterboarding session. That waterboarding may have occurred in Guantánamo, on the same island as the 10 million victims of these sanctions, is ironic. Even now, with a Russian tanker arriving to provide only a portion of the Cuban needs, the US government continues the horror of a tightened blockade to convert Cuba into a compliant state.

Cuban voices should be heard. The positions of Cuban Americans regarding the US sanctions on the island are not unanimous, as the news segment might lead one to believe. Americans should realize that Cuban Americans hold diverse positions on how representative the Cuban government is and how responsive it is to the changing situations regarding the needs of Cubans. This is not reflected in the mentioned segment.

More importantly, not a single Cuban citizen on the island spoke in the CBS Sunday Morning program. Even when including the other recent CBS News segments, very little expression of sentiment on the island is found. The viewers may be surprised, not only by the diversity of positions held among Cubans, but also by their sophistication in the analysis of the role of the Cuban government and the US government in their lives. Cubans don’t need to be represented by a few voices from inside Miami: They can speak for themselves, but the mentioned news item definitely cut them out of the conversation.

Cuba deserves sovereignty. The mentioned program made no mention of the overwhelming castigation of the US sanctions against Cuba that have occurred around the world. The United Nations votes against US sanctions have been occurring yearly for a few decades. Numerous countries are pushing back against the US line on Cuba. Russia dared the US to stop its fuel tankers from supplying the island. Small and large countries alike, ranging from Sri Lanka to Brazil, from Belgium to China, are speaking out against the US sanctions against Cuba. Many are putting their money where their mouth is, with donations and technical assistance, including many organizations and individuals from the US. Their message is simple: Cuba deserves self-determination, not intervention from abroad. They do not deserve the web of financial, travel, commercial, and diplomatic punishments imposed on Cuba and on any business or country that dares to conduct some kinds of business with Cuba.

Cuba is not a threat to any other country or people. It is amply evident that Cuba is not a danger to any group or people or nation outside its country. Even the most stridently anti-communist Cuban Americans travel to Cuba freely. The State Sponsor of Terrorism designation of Cuba, one of the pillars justifying US sanctions, is neither accurate nor helpful. Discussion of this was absent from the mentioned news article, leaving the viewer with a deficient view of why Cubans and their government face our collective wrath.

There are problems inside the country. There are serious problems in both Cuba and the US, both of which need sober, thoughtful discussions. Let’s all be clear: Discontent rages in the US, too. However, no yardstick exists that makes Cuba look like an outlier in either internal human rights or international threats. What does exist is the cry of “but they are communists,” coming from South Florida, and this has no place as a criterion for US foreign policy any longer. And recently, the Cuban government has called for frank discussions with the US government, hopefully, where all issues could be discussed in a framework of sovereignty and the intentions of being good neighbors.

Cubans are capable of handling their own problems, with our cooperation instead of imposition. We all would like to see Cubans happier. We have varying levels of knowledge about Cuba, ranging from first-time visitors to Cuba to citizens and former residents of the island. Our political opinions vary along a wide range, but we are unanimous in one aspect that was left out of the CBS Sunday Morning program: Cuba needs and deserves an end to the US-imposed sanctions.

Cuba deserves to make its path without undue pressure from the US. The CBS Sunday Morning article left out the voices of Cubans, which would have expressed their anxious desire for what now seems impossible: that Cubans be able to conduct their business without undue pressure from the US. Practically no Cuban alive is old enough to know what normal diplomacy from the US is. Let’s give them the most revolutionary present of all—a decent, respectful foreign policy, just like all the rest of the countries in the world.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Jeffrey Mccrary
Jeffrey McCrary recently traveled to Cuba as part of the CODEPINK-Nuestra América Convoy. This people-to-people solidarity delegation delivered humanitarian aid directly to communities across the island while documenting the human impact of US sanctions and fuel shortages.
Full Bio >

House Progressives Demand Pentagon Answer for Alleged Abuse in US-Ecuador Operation

“The United States cannot continue to be complicit in abuses abroad. There must be accountability,” said Rep. Chuy García, who co-led a letter to the Pentagon.


US and Ecuadorian marines take part in a training exercise near Jaramijó, Ecuador on July 11, 2025.
(Photo by US Southern Command)

Jessica Corbett
May 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Backed by anti-war and human rights organizations, 20 “deeply concerned” progressives in the US House of Representatives sent a letter to the Pentagon on Wednesday demanding answers about “reports of serious human rights violations and the bombing of what appear to have been civilian facilities during joint US-Ecuador military operations conducted in northern Ecuador.”

While bombing Iran and boats allegedly running illegal drugs through the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, President Donald Trump deployed US troops to Ecuador in March for a joint campaign combating “narco-terrorists” in the South American country.

Senators Launch Probe Into Hegseth’s Gutting of Programs to Mitigate US Killing of Civilians

Sharing ‘Grim’ Survivor Stories, Amnesty Renews Call for War Crimes Probe of US Strike in Yemen

Led by Democratic Reps. Greg Casar (Texas), Jesús “Chuy” García (Ill.), and Sara Jacobs (Calif.), the lawmakers called for “an explanation of the administration’s legal justification for the involvement of US armed forces in these operations, which have not been authorized by Congress,” as well as their immediate suspension “until these incidents are fully investigated.”

The Democrats’ letter to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cites reporting that one target “appears to have been a civilian dairy and cattle farm with no known links to armed groups or drug trafficking,” where witnesses said “Ecuadorian military personnel interrogated and assaulted unarmed civilians, burned homes and infrastructure, and subjected detainees to torture.”

“Beyond these recent incidents, we are concerned that our military is deepening its ties with the government of Ecuador, even as it undergoes an alarming authoritarian and anti-democratic drift,” the Democrats wrote, pointing out that “President Daniel Noboa has overseen the violent repression of Indigenous-led protests, publicly threatened the Constitutional Court, and frozen the bank accounts of civil society organizations.”

Noboa’s allies “have also pursued questionable cases against his political opponents,” as “Ecuadorians have endured more than two years of a prolonged state of emergency, marked by the military’s domestic deployment to combat so-called ‘narco-terrorists,” the letter continues. “With investigative reporting now linking President Noboa’s family business to drug trafficking and the same illicit networks he claims to be fighting, an independent and transparent investigation into these allegations is warranted.”




The letter stresses that “if US forces provide new or continued security assistance to units that engaged in acts such as torture, extrajudicial killings, or enforced disappearances, and there is no credible investigation or prosecution underway, this would constitute a violation of the Leahy Laws, which prohibit assistance to foreign security forces credibly implicated in gross human rights violations without effective steps to bring those responsible to justice.”

The Democrats—supported by Amnesty International USA, Center for Civilians in Conflict, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Human Rights First, Latin American Working Group, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, StoptheDrugWar.org, Washington Office on Latin America, and Win Without War—demanded “a prompt and complete response” to their list of questions by May 22.

“The United States cannot continue to be complicit in abuses abroad. There must be accountability,” García said on social media.

As El País reported Wednesday, the letter was made public as Noboa began a two-day trip to Washington, DC, during which he is set to meeting with US Vice President JD Vance and Organization of American States Secretary General Albert Ramdin.

Antisemitism Watchdog Rips ‘Blood Libel’ Smear Against NYT for Reporting Israeli Rape of Gazans

“To weaponize the term ‘blood libel’ to dismiss Kristof’s thorough reporting is dangerous. It’s insulting to the term’s violent history and hinders our community’s ability to call out actual blood libels when they occur.”

Palestinians held at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in the Negev Desert are seen shackled and blindfolded in this undated photo.
(Photo by whistleblower via Quds News Network)

Brett Wilkins
May 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A Jewish-led organization dedicated to fighting antisemitism was among the groups and individuals who on Tuesday condemned attacks on The New York Times and one of its most prominent columnists, who published accounts by alleged Palestinian victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Nicholas Kristof’s column, “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians,” combines interviews with 14 former Palestinian detainees and information from reports published by United Nations experts and human rights groups to highlight documented rape and other systemic sexual abuse of Palestinians jailed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops, as well as sexual assaults and other abuses allegedly committed by Israeli settler-colonists. The column features the controversial claim by one former prisoner that he was raped by a dog unleashed upon him by Israeli soldiers.



‘How to Sell a Genocide’: Media Critic’s Book Details Biased Coverage of Israeli Assault on Gaza



Israel Condemned for Bombing Rescue Workers Trying to Reach Journalist Buried Under Rubble

The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded to the column in a social media post alleging that the Times “chose to publish one of the worst blood libels ever to appear in the modern press.”

“In an unfathomable inversion of reality, and through an endless stream of baseless lies, propagandist Nicholas Kristof turns the victim into the accused,” the ministry said.

Responding to the ministry’s post, the Nexus Project—a group “made up of individuals deeply committed to the fight against antisemitism”—said on Bluesky: “To weaponize the term ‘blood libel’ to dismiss Kristof’s thorough reporting is dangerous. It’s insulting to the term’s violent history and hinders our community’s ability to call out actual blood libels when they occur.”

“Kristof’s article is a challenging and important read,” the group added. “It takes courage and care to expose sexual violence.”

On Tuesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry accused the Times of serving “a Hamas-driven narrative,” claiming the newspaper “deliberately timed its piece to undermine today’s horrific Civil Commission report documenting Hamas’ preplanned, systematic sexual atrocities on October 7, [2023] and against hostages thereafter—attempting to create false equivalence and belittle documented crimes.”

The Times refuted a claim by the ministry that the newspaper “said it was not interested” in reporting on Hamas sexual violence on and after the October 7 attack. In fact, the Times updated its earlier reporting on Hamas sex crimes after Israeli investigator called said critical details were “false.”

Critics of the column also cast aspersions upon the alleged Palestinian victims and rights groups that documented the sexual violence they suffered, linking them to Hamas. The Times and other US media have been accused of accepting Israeli claims at their word but treating Palestinian testimonies with skepticism or outright dismissal.



Numerous other pro-Israel accounts, including the American Jewish Committee and EndJewHatred, have either repeated the “blood libel” accusation against Kristof or amplified social media posts that did so.

Many—including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—denied or questioned the veracity of Kristof, his sources, and the Times.



This, despite numerous reports by United Nations experts, as well as Israeli and international human rights groups, of Israeli rape and sexual violence against Palestinian men, women, and children in both Gaza and the illegally occupied West Bank—a pattern that goes back to the Nakba ethnic cleansing of Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel.

Senior Israeli officials including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have defended soldiers accused of gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner in an attack caught on camera at the notorious Sde Teiman prison. The IDF is investigating the deaths of dozens of Palestinians at Sde Teiman, including one man who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.

Right-wing Israeli politicians, pundits, and others publicly argued that IDF troops should have free rein to rape, torture, and murder Palestinians as revenge for the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

An August 2025 investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation featured Palestinian boys kidnapped by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza who said they suffered or witnessed sexual torture committed by their jailers.

Last year, Israel blocked a request from UN sex crimes experts to probe alleged sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas fighters during the October 7, 2023 attack, reportedly to avoid attendant scrutiny of rapes and other abuses allegedly committed by Israeli forces against imprisoned Palestinians.

Other Israelis and their defenders expressed incredulity or proclaimed the impossibility of dogs being trained to rape people.

“My brain does not know how to process the fact that The New York Times—the paper I grew up worshiping and hoping to work for one day—published, on the front page, that Israelis are training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners,” tech entrepreneur and anti-progressive commentator Michelle Tandler said Monday on X.

However, in addition to repeated Palestinian claims of such abuse, female Holocaust survivors have said they were assaulted by dogs specially trained by Nazi SS officer Klaus Barbie. Later, Ingrid Oderock, a Chilean raised in a Nazi colony in the South American country, became one of the most feared torturers during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Her specialty, as noted in the Academy Award-nominated animated short film Bestia, was training dogs to rape jailed female dissidents.

Israel has repeatedly attempted to neutralize criticism of its crimes during the Gaza onslaught—from the deadly famine that’s claimed at least hundreds of lives, to the apparently deliberate shooting of children, to attacks on aid workers and civilian “safe zones,” to the torture of Palestinian prisoners—by smearing those who expose them with accusations of blood libel.

Responding to the common Israeli smear, socialist author Owen Jones said on Bluesky: “Israel’s crimes are not a ‘blood libel.’ They are documented truth.”

‘Albanese Has Done Nothing More Than Speak!’ Judge Blocks Trump Sanctions on UN Palestine Expert

“The interim decision by the US judge gives me respite,” said United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese. “But the battle is not over.”

Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, speaks during an event in Madrid, Spain on June 23, 2025.
(Photo by Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
May 14, 2026

COMMON DREAMS

A federal judge in Washington, DC on Wednesday temporarily blocked Trump administration sanctions targeting United Nations Palestine expert Francesca Albanese, ruling that the punitive measures violated her First Amendment rights.

“Albanese has done nothing more than speak!” wrote US District Judge Richard Leon, a George W. Bush appointee, in his 26-page decision granting a preliminary injunction against the sanctions, which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last summer. Rubio said the sanctions, which barred the UN expert from entering the US and banking in the country, were justified because “Albanese has directly engaged with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries.”




‘A Voice That Upholds the Conscience of the World’: Spain Honors Francesca Albanese for Efforts to Stop Gaza Genocide



‘Spain Does Not Look the Other Way’: Sánchez Calls on EU to Block Israel-US Sanctions on ICC

But Leon wrote in his ruling that “it is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions—they are nothing more than her opinion.”

The decision came in response to a lawsuit filed in February by Albanese’s husband and her daughter, who is a US citizen. They argued the US sanctions against Albanese were “effectively debanking her and making it nearly impossible to meet the needs of her daily life.”

Albanese is an Italian national who currently lives with family in Tunisia. Leon wrote in his ruling that “while the speech at issue occurred outside the United States, defendants have responded by taking action against Albanese’s extensive connections to the United States—including Albanese’s property within the United States and her ability to maintain professional and personal connections within the United States—because of her speech.”

“Accordingly, Albanese (or plaintiffs standing in her shoes) may claim the protection of the First Amendment to challenge defendants’ actions,” the judge continued.

Albanese, who has vocally condemned Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the countries and private corporations that have been complicit, welcomed Leon’s ruling, writing in a social media post that “the interim decision by the US judge gives me respite.”

“But the battle is not over,” she added. “ICC judges and Palestinian NGOs remain sanctioned with no recourse to justice. The stakes are incredibly high.”

Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the US-based Center for International Policy, called Leon’s ruling “the right decision” and said Albanese “was wrongly sanctioned for constitutionally protected speech.”

“War criminals should be held accountable for their crimes,” Williams wrote on social media. “Making it a crime to say that is what is illegal. We must not sacrifice our rights or the rule of law for Israel.”

Europe keeps scrambling fighters to 'intercept' American jets

REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Nick Hilden

May 13, 2026

ALTERNET

Under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the U.S. has taken an increasingly hostile stance toward its membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). And now, according to Stars and Stripes, one NATO nation has scrambled fighter jets to confront U.S. aircraft twice in the past week.

According to Austrian defense ministry spokesman Michael Bauer, the incidents on Sunday then Monday involved Austrian Eurofighters intercepting American PC-12s. Bauer described it as a “priority A” situation, which is typically reserved for urgent military matters, saying that the fighters were dispatched to verify whether the American aircraft matched relevant flight registration. He asserted that the matter would be addressed through diplomatic channels.

All of this comes amid growing tension not only between the U.S. and NATO in general, but between Washington and Austria specifically, as the country was one of several that denied the use of its airspace for U.S. missions relating to the war with Iran. Trump’s aggression toward NATO — which he calls a “paper tiger” — has strained relations between the U.S. and its European allies as the president has sought to leave the security organization. The conflict in the Middle East has further complicated the situation as NATO has balked at Trump’s repeated pleas for help with the war. Now the Austrian interception of American planes suggests a widening divide between the U.S. and its allies across the Atlantic.

While the PC-12 is a Swiss-made jet, as the U.S. military publication Stars and Stripes explained, “Air Force Special Operations Command’s fleet includes the U-28A, which is a modified variant of the PC-12. The planes are typically used for airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations.”

“It wasn’t clear why the Austrians felt compelled to scramble fighters to identify the aircraft,” noted Stars and Stripes. “Assuming that the U.S. planes were traveling with their transponders on and in radio contact, they should have been visible to air traffic control.”

U.S. European Command said in a statement Wednesday that the two American aircraft were following “standard protocol” when they passed over Austria en route to an exercise in Eastern Europe on Monday. The statement did not mention the incident on Sunday.

“This flight took place after an administrative error in the overflight clearance paperwork was corrected,” claimed EUCOM. “The United States continues to work closely with Austrian authorities on any questions regarding overflights and fully complies with Austrian laws and procedures.”When asked on X why Austria felt the need to scramble an air response to the Americans, Bauer said simply that “some things you just have to see.”

'Backwards at warp speed': How the South is systematically erasing Black power

A supporter reacts to early election results at Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris' election night rally during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, at Howard University, in Washington, U.S., November 5, 2024. REUTERS/Daniel Cole TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY/File Photo

Robert Reich

May 12, 2026

ALTERNET

Yesterday I spoke with Tennessee state representative Justin Jones, one of the nation’s young Black leaders who’s been a rising star in Tennessee politics, about the Supreme Court’s shameful April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Jones told me that, at Trump’s urging, Tennessee Republicans had prepared a redistricting map even before the Court announced its decision. Then, despite pleas from Black voters and voting rights advocates, the white Republican legislators moved their meeting to another room without allowing the public in to watch, passed the new map out of committee, and enacted it within 24 hours.

The new map has eliminated Tennessee’s one remaining Democratic district around Memphis, a city of about 610,000 people, about two-thirds of whom are Black — by cracking it into three majority-white district, one stretching hundreds of miles. The map has also divided Nashville, another city with a Black majority, into five white-majority districts.

Jones described Tennessee house speaker Cameron Sexton as the “grand wizard in chief,” explaining that “that’s what they want to do. They want to create a process that is unfair and unequal.”

Other Southern states have joined Tennessee’s rush to redistrict.

Louisiana’s governor has ordered that the state’s ongoing congressional election be set aside while state lawmakers redraw maps to eliminate a Democratic-majority – that is, a Black-majority – seat covering Baton Rouge.

At Trump’s request, Alabama Republicans have approved legislation directing the governor to schedule new primary elections this year under a GOP-friendly map that would end districts represented by Black lawmakers, if courts lift an injunction on its redistricting.

The Mississippi legislature will soon convene in a Confederate-era capitol building that it hasn’t used in 100 years, presumably to eliminate the Democratic majority in the one Mississippi district held by a Black representative.

South Carolina’s Republican majority in the statehouse voted Wednesday to extend its legislative calendar, allowing time to consider whether they should eliminate the state’s sole Democratic-majority, Black-majority district, held by long-serving representative James Clyburn.

Florida was already in a special redistricting session when the Supreme Court announced its decision, enacting a congressional map for its 28 districts that packs Black and brown voters into four districts on the south Florida coast and Orlando, eliminating every other Democratic majority.

“We’re going backwards at warp speed,” Jones told me. “In just over a week, we’ve gone from the 1965 Voting Rights Act back to the era of Jim Crow.”


I asked him what he and other Black political leaders in the South were planning to do.

“There’ll be a lot of litigation,” he said, “but we can’t be optimistic with this Supreme Court.”

“So, what’s the strategy?”

“We need the biggest voter turnout in history this fall. Every Black person, every Brown person, every Democrat, everyone who cares about the moral soul of this nation has to vote for equal voting rights. Take over Congress. Increase our power in state legislatures. This is the only way to respond.”


“I’m with you,” I said, “but I really wonder whether that’s possible.”

“How about a new Freedom Summer?” Jones responded, with a smile. “A multi-racial force of young people fanning out across the South, registering voters, getting them to the polls, just like they did in 1964.”

“I remember. I lost a dear friend in Mississippi Freedom Summer.”

“I have no direct memory, of course,” Jones said. “I was born in 1995, thirty-one years after Freedom Summer. But the South is almost back to where it was then. So, yes, it’s possible. It’s got to be possible.”


I told him I’d share his idea with you, and ask you for your responses.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/

ABC Learns from Past Mistakes, Takes Stronger Stance Against Carr and Trump’s Censorship Campaign


Friday May, 08 2026
Free Press

WASHINGTON - In a filing made public on Friday, ABC accused Federal Communications Commission regulators of violating its free-speech rights and called out FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for attempting to punish the broadcaster for airing political content that displeased the Trump White House.

The FCC had reportedly ordered Houston station KTRK-TV, which ABC owns and operates, to file a formal request asking whether The View qualified for the Equal Time Rule exemption when it booked an interview with Texas senatorial candidate James Talarico. The request wasn’t warranted as the FCC had specifically granted The View this exemption in a 2002 order.

The Equal Time Rule, under Section 315 of the Communications Act, requires that broadcast stations provide equal access and airtime to all legally qualified political candidates if they permit any one candidate to use their facilities. The rule does not apply to bona fide newscasts, news interviews, news documentaries or on-the-spot news events (like political debates).

“The Commission’s actions threaten to upend decades of settled law and practice and chill critical protected speech, both with respect to The View and more broadly,” reads ABC’s filing. “It is therefore imperative that the Commission act quickly to assure broadcasters that it will uphold its long-established standards protecting broadcasters’ good faith news judgment in including political candidates in bona fide news programming.”

ABC has not always defended its free-speech rights. In December 2024, the company paid $15 million to resolve a meritless Trump defamation lawsuit against the network and its anchor George Stephanopoulos. In September 2025, Disney decided to temporarily suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night program after Chairman Carr threatened to take action following comments the comedian made during his opening monologue.

Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González said:

“I’m pleased that ABC has finally learned that bullies don’t stop when companies cower in a corner. The FCC chairman has blatantly and repeatedly abused his power to silence speech that displeases Trump. This doesn’t just violate the First Amendment rights of broadcasters on the receiving end of Brendan Carr’s tactics; it also harms the broadcasters’ audiences. People deserve access to diverse viewpoints over the airwaves, and the ways in which ABC and other broadcasters have repeatedly capitulated to the administration has chilled free expression and access to information.

“Chairman Carr’s overreach is startling and unpopular across the political spectrum. After Donald and Melania Trump demanded that ABC fire Jimmy Kimmel for making a joke they didn’t like, Carr announced that he would conduct an early review of ABC’s broadcast licenses — an abuse of power that Senator Ted Cruz and people of all political stripes condemned. I urge ABC and its parent company Disney to continue fighting for free speech. Doing anything less deprives audiences of the diversity of viewpoints that are critical to the health of a democracy.”


Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.

Nebraska Democrat Wins Senate Primary—But Signals She’ll Drop Out and Back Working-Class Independent Dan Osborn

“We believe Dan Osborn... represents the best opportunity to defeat Pete Ricketts and deliver real results for working families,” said the chair of the state Democratic Party.


Independent US Senate candidate Dan Osborn talks to a voter in Nebraska.
(Photo by Osborn for Senate)

Julia Conley
May 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The winner of the Democratic US Senate primary in Nebraska has no expectation that she’d be able to win the general election in November, and her official website alludes to a plan to drop out of the race—which could ultimately help the party in its goal of wresting control of the chamber from Republicans.

The campaign website of Cindy Burbank, a pharmacy technician who jumped into the Democratic primary race after hearing the Republicans were plotting to place a right-wing “plant” on the ballot, suggests Burbank did some maneuvering of her own to secure a favorable result—even if she has no intention of actually going to the US Senate and instead aims to help Independent candidate Dan Osborn win.

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) “knows he’s losing to Dan Osborn and this is his plan to cheat his way to victory. We can’t let that happen,” reads Burbank’s website. “Support me—and I’ll make sure Pete Ricketts’ stooge never gets anywhere near our November ballot!”

Osborn, a former organizer who came within seven points of beating Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) in 2024, has been endorsed by the state’s Democratic Party, which poured money into Burbank’s campaign before Tuesday’s primary.

In March, state Democratic Party Chair Jane Fleming Kleeb said William Forbes, an anti-abortion rights pastor who has voted for President Donald Trump in recent elections and attended a training run by a right-wing group, had joined the Democratic Party to “deceive Nebraska voters.”

“The Nebraska Democratic Party made a deliberate, principled decision not to field a candidate in the US Senate race,” said Kleeb. “We believe Dan Osborn—a veteran, a mechanic, a Nebraskan, and an independent voice—represents the best opportunity to defeat Pete Ricketts and deliver real results for working families.”

Forbes has denied being a “Ricketts plant,” as Kleeb has called him, and Burbank on Tuesday denied she had joined the race with the intention of dropping out to help Osborn win in a state where a Democrat has not won a Senate race since 2006. She told NBC News that “some people” she had worked with on previous political campaigns had spoken to her about running, but said they were not connected to Osborn’s campaign or to the state Democratic Party.

But she added that following her overwhelming win, with 89% of primary voters supporting her, that Osborn is “a great guy, and we have to keep in mind that he might be able to be on [the ballot].”

“For me to stay on the ballot and take votes away from Osborn, it’s not fair,” she told the outlet.

Burbank added that she “will drop out when and if the time comes that I cannot win in November. And I think anybody with any dignity should do that.”

David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, said Burbank’s resounding victory “suggests a well-educated [Democratic] electorate” and a well-organized push by Kleeb.




Osborn, who has emphasized that he would caucus independently if elected to the Senate, came closer than expected to beating Fischer in 2024, when Trump carried Nebraska by 20 points.

Polling has been limited so far, but Tavern Research found ahead of the primary election that 47% of likely voters were supporting Osborn while 42% backed Ricketts. The same survey found Ricketts 16 points ahead of Forbes, 9 points ahead of Burbank, and 7 points ahead of a generic Democrat. Earlier polls sponsored by Osborn’s campaign found Ricketts just one point ahead of the Independent.

Tavern Research said the polls pointed to “an Independent problem in Nebraska” for Ricketts, whose wealth and financial industry ties have earned him the nickname “Wall Street Pete.”

The state has long been a stronghold for Trump and the GOP, but Cook Political Report currently rates the state’s Senate race as “likely Republican,” downgrading it from “solidly Republican,” ahead of the November election.

Osborn, a US Navy veteran and mechanic, became president of his union while working at the Kellogg’s plant in Omaha and led a successful strike there in 2021, securing benefits for his fellow union workers. He has called his platform the Nebraska Fairness Plan and is vowing to “take on the corporations and their chosen political lapdogs to restore economic liberty and fairness for the working Americans who make this country run.”

He has called to overturn the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that allowed unlimited corporate spending in elections, refuses corporate political action committee donations, and has demanded an end to corporate practices like “shrinkflation” and surveillance pricing.

“We deserve a government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people,” reads Osborn’s platform. “But for decades, career politicians in both parties have been bought and paid for by the corporate cronies and lobbyists pouring money into our political process to bend the system to their will. When I’m in the Senate, I will champion the strongest anti-corruption platform Washington has ever seen.”

‘Morally Reprehensible’: For-Profit Immigrant Detention Centers Exploiting Prison Labor With $1 Per Day Wages

“The dichotomy between the contractors’ profits and the detainees’ pay is outrageous.”



The GEO Group logo is displayed outside of the Adelanto ICE Processing Center detention facility in Adelanto, California on July 10, 2025.
(Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
May 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

As President Donald Trump continues his mass detention and deportation agenda and expands the use of privately owned immigrant prisons, with more than 60,000 people detained across the country, the profits of private contractors like the GEO Group and CoreCivic are skyrocketing—and a new report by a government watchdog reveals one method the multibillion-dollar firms have of extracting profits from detainees.

Public Citizen researcher Douglas Pasternak wrote in a report released Wednesday that approximately 50% of immigrants who are detained for more than a few days end up in the government’s so-called Voluntary Work Program (VWP), earning just $1 per day—12.5 cents per hour—while they keep the detention centers running.



‘Communities Not Cages’: 200+ Actions Across US Protest ICE Warehouse Detention


At facilities like Adelanto Detention Center in Adelanto, California, run by the GEO Group, and CoreCivic’s Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, detainees work as many as 14 hours in a day for just $1—cooking, cleaning, performing maintenance work, and completing other labor essential to the facilities’ operations—and in many cases are forced to use their meager wages only at commissaries also run by the corporations.

“This entire $1-a-day pay scheme is economically unjustifiable, fundamentally unfair, and morally reprehensible,” said Pasternak in a statement.

The companies are notorious for price gouging, forcing the so-called “voluntary worker” to work full-time for 11 days to afford a tube of Sensodyne toothpaste—priced at $11.02 at Stewart Detention Center, compared to just $5.20 on Amazon.

“At these rates, it may take a detainee more than three days of work to purchase a can of tuna fish or more than two days of work to purchase a bar of soap,” said Public Citizen.

The business model has saved the contractors millions of dollars and allowed them to reap massive profits.

Former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger made $7.2 million in compensation last year before retiring, and the company’s profits grew from $68.9 million in 2024 to $116.5 million last year. Both CoreCivic and the GEO Group reported well over $2 billion in revenue in 2025.

“The private contractors running immigrant detention centers are pocketing millions of dollars in profits as tens of thousands of detainees struggle to afford to purchase a bar of soap or a tube of toothpaste.”

When it was sued over its use of the VWP in Washington State, the GEO Group testified that it would have had to pay 85 full-time employees at the state’s minimum wage—$17.13 per hour—if it hadn’t used the labor of detainees. Hiring workers would have cost the company over $3 million per year, but instead the GEO Group spent just over $22,000 paying imprisoned immigrants $1 per hour.

“The private contractors running immigrant detention centers are pocketing millions of dollars in profits as tens of thousands of detainees struggle to afford to purchase a bar of soap or a tube of toothpaste,” said Pasternak. “The dichotomy between the contractors’ profits and the detainees’ pay is outrageous.”

In the case in Washington state, a court found that the GEO Group owed $17 million in back pay to thousands of detainees and owed nearly $6 million to the state for “unjust enrichment.” The company has appealed to the Supreme Court. There are at least six other federal court cases challenging private companies for paying immigrant detainees $1 per day.

The report also describes a nine-bedroom, 11-bathroom, 18,523-square-foot home owned by GEO Group co-founder George Zoley in Boca Raton, Florida—estimated to be worth more than $22.5 million.

“The disparity between Zoley’s wealth and the $1 per day pay to detained immigrants is striking,” reads the report. “The tens of thousands of immigrants detained by the US government deserve better than being paid $1 per day, and the federal contractors building an extensive network of detention camps across the country should not be making excessive profits at their expense.”

Report Details How Trump Did Big Tobacco’s Bidding on Flavored Vapes Despite Risk to Kids

“Trump could not care less about the health consequences and costs of giving teenagers access to addictive flavored poison if it means his tobacco industry donors can make record profits,” said one public health advocate.


Fruit flavor vape refills for e-cigarettes on shelves of a vaping shop, England, UK on December 15, 2025.
(Photo by Alex Segre/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
May 13, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The resignation of a pair of top health officials in the Trump administration this week has brought to light efforts by the president to help Big Tobacco executives and lobbyists sell addictive flavored e-cigarettes that could be marketed to children.

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new guidance allowing cigarette makers to begin marketing and selling fruit- and candy-flavored vape products on store shelves, which were banned under previous administrations due to evidence that they were driving youth vaping.

The policy was enacted despite the strong opposition of then-FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who resigned on Tuesday, reportedly because he could not in good conscience support it.

Makary’s resignation was followed by the departure of Rich Danker, the chief spokesperson for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who similarly warned that the policy “would appeal to children and expose them to nicotine addiction, lung damage, and higher risk of cancer” in a letter addressed to Trump on Wednesday.

Danker did not blame Trump for the policy in his letter; instead, he attributed it to “senior HHS officials in the immediate office of the secretary.”



This is despite the fact that The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump had personally berated Makary over his hesitation to enact the policy and had signed off on a plan to fire him.

A New York Times report on Wednesday confirms the extent of Trump’s direct involvement in strong-arming the FDA into enacting the policy. It found that he pressured higher-ups in HHS to move the policy forward amid a tongue-lashing from tobacco industry lobbyists and executives angry that they could not get in on the highly profitable sale of fruit- and candy-flavored vapes. Despite being illegal and mostly imported to the US from China, these vapes make up about 60% of the total e-cigarette market.

Trump, who ran in 2024 on a pledge to “save vaping” as part of an effort to appeal to young voters, has raked in huge sums of money from the tobacco industry. According to data from OpenSecrets, his inaugural committee took over $3 million from vaping special interests, including $1.25 million from the Vapor Technology Association, and $1 million apiece from Altria and Breeze Smoke.

Altria, which owns Marlboro maker Philip Morris, and Reynolds American, which owns Lucky Strike and Camel, have also offered donations to Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project. Reynolds, the biggest producer of menthol cigarettes, also gave $10 million to the super PAC backing Trump in 2024.

According to The New York Times, executives for Altria and Reynolds were turning the screws on Trump over lunch at his golf club in Jupiter, Florida, in early May because they were “unhappy with the way the Food and Drug Administration was regulating their industry.”

Trump interrupted the conversation to call up RFK Jr. and Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and complained to them about the FDA’s regulation of e-cigarettes.

Within a week, the new policy had been enacted, and its leading opponent, Makary, was gone. He has since been replaced by Kyle Diamantas, whom the healthcare advocacy group Protect Our Care described as “a 30-something lawyer whose qualifications for such a critical public health role seem to begin and end at being Donald Trump Jr.'s ‘hunting buddy.’”

“Donald Trump’s fury at FDA head Makary was motivated by gross political opportunism and fat checks from the big vape industry,” said Jeremy Funk, the deputy director of Protect Our Care’s Public Health Watch team. “Trump could not care less about the health consequences and costs of giving teenagers access to addictive flavored poison if it means his tobacco industry donors can make record profits.”

While youth vaping is at a 10-year low, about 1.6 million middle and high school students were estimated to use vape products in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey. Nearly 90% of them said they used fruit and candy-flavored vapes.

Dr. Jerome Adams, a physician and professor at Purdue University, said in a post on social media that the rise of vaping has fueled a rebound in nicotine usage among college-aged adults.

“Youth combustible cigarette smoking was already at an all-time low and consistently dropping before vaping came on the scene. There is literally no reason to believe that the majority of young people who are now vaping would have otherwise been smoking combustible cigarettes,” he said. “Amongst college-age and young adults, nicotine use is going back up to incredibly high rates—largely due to vaping.”



The new policy enacted by the FDA has so far only authorized the sale of flavored products by one company, the Los Angeles-based Glas Inc., which will be allowed to sell vapes in flavors like mango and blueberry under names like “Gold” and “Sapphire.”

The FDA sought to assuage fears of underage use by pointing to the Glas’ digital age-verification system, which requires the product to be connected to the Bluetooth of a phone owned by a person over the age of 21. However, it is expected that, especially amid industry pressure, more companies will have their products approved soon.

Kayla Hancock, director of Protect Our Care’s Public Health Project, said that while Makary had a “terrible record” as FDA commissioner, having taken actions that slowed vaccine development and launched dubious, politically charged “reviews” of abortion pills long found to be safe, “apparently, it wasn’t terrible enough for Donald Trump.”

“Hesitating to approve flavored vapes and not put American teens on a fast-track to lifelong addiction to harmful nicotine products is the bare minimum anyone could hope for from the Trump FDA,” she said. “But that was a bridge too far for Donald Trump, who sees young people as disposable political pawns that he can appeal to with poison while lining the pockets of his big vape donors.”

She said the ouster of Makary and his replacement with Diamantas “all but guarantees an FDA further consumed by chaos and driven by the wish lists of special interests that want profits put before public health.”