Content warning: this article contains discussions around violence, sexual assault and rape, suicide, and extreme misogyny that some readers may find distressing ‘Is rape actually traumatic for a female?’ What a fucking question to start my morning with. The single, jaw-dropping question, pulled from the first page of this particular incel forum, was my grim, […]

By Antifabot

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The staff cuts came following a push by the climate team's lead producer to accurately report on Hurricane Melissa.

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Ukrainian students and faculty have spent years contending with air raids, financial strain, and martial law.

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Several major US corporations in the last month have announced plans to cut thousands of workers as layoffs in the American economy have reached their highest level since 2020, when much of the global economy was shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As reported by Bloomberg on Monday, major firms including Target, Amazon, Paramount, and Molson Coors in October announced plans to lay off a combined total of more than 17,000 workers for a wide variety of reasons ranging from the impact of artificial intelligence to declining sales.

Taken together, these layoffs point to a significantly weakened labor market, which had already ground to a halt over the summer when the last jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed the economy created just 22,000 jobs in the month of August.

And while the BLS has stopped releasing monthly employment reports during the ongoing shutdown of the federal government, Bloomberg pointed to data collected by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showing that there have been "almost 950,000 US job cuts this year through September, the highest year-to-date total since 2020—and that was before the heavy October run of announcements."

Dan North, senior economist at Allianz Trade Americas, told Bloomberg that he has detected a definite shift in the jobs market in recent weeks.

"We’re not just in a low hire, low fire environment anymore," he explained. "We’re firing."

Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US, said in an interview with Reuters that he also expected the labor market to get worse in the coming months due to "adverse policy shocks emanating from Washington," as well as "the change in behavior among corporates who hoarded labor for the past four to five years," and were thus reluctant to carry out layoffs.

"That was never an indefinite behavior," he said. "We're going to see migration up in the unemployment rate."

John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, told CBS News last week that he didn't think that the layoffs announced over the last month were just a blip.

"These are major layoffs, the kind of which we only see in periods of real change in the economy," he emphasized.

One challenge for economists in assessing the current state of the economy is the vast gulf between the experiences of America's highest-earning households and households at the bottom of the economic ladder.

According to a Monday report from CNBC, recent corporate earnings reports have shown signs of a so-called "K-shaped" economy in which well off consumers are maintaining or increasing their spending while low-income consumers are being forced to cut back.

"Last week, Chipotle reported it’s seeing consumers who make less than $100,000 a year, which represents roughly 40% of the company’s customer base, spending less frequently due to concerns about the economy and inflation," CNBC noted. "Coca-Cola said in its third-quarter earnings that pricier products like Topo Chico sparkling water and Fairlife protein shakes are driving its growth. Procter & Gamble reported similar results, saying wealthier customers are buying more from club retailers, which sell bigger pack sizes, while lower-income shoppers are significantly pulling back."

A Monday report from Fortune similarly picked up on evidence that the US is in the midst of a K-shaped economy, as it found that the percentage of Americans taking on subprime loans in the third quarter of 2025 reached its highest level since 2019.

This is significant, Fortune noted, because an increased reliance on subprime loans "adds to signs that many are facing increased financial pressure" to make ends meet. What's more, Fortune pointed to a recent analysis from Moody's showing that the top 20% of households in the US are now responsible for economic growth, while the bottom 80% have essentially been stagnant.

Lucia Dunn, an economist at Ohio State University, told Fortune that this economic disparity could increase instability if not addressed.

"We are losing the middle class," Dunn said. "And when you get to a society where there are a lot of people at the bottom and then a small group at the top, that's a prescription for real trouble."

The reports of the layoffs in corporate American come as a new analysis released Monday by Oxfam offered the latest look at extreme wealth inequality in the US, with the the 10 wealthiest Americans gaining nearly $700 billion so far this year—and as millions of people have lost crucial federal food assistance due to the government shutdown and the Trump administration's refusal to release full benefits.

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In 2025, the share of total US assets owned by the wealthiest 0.1 percent reached its highest level on record.

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Israel's former top military lawyer, who admitted to leaking a video apparently showing Israeli reserve soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman torture prison, was arrested late on Sunday following her disappearance most of the day.

After being reported missing Sunday morning, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, 51, was found "safe and in good health" that evening following a massive search in the coastal area of Herzliya, Israeli police said. She was subsequently arrested and on Monday faced charges of fraud and breach of trust, abuse of office, obstruction of justice, and disclosure of information as a public servant.

Tomer-Yerushalmi resigned Friday and admitted that she "authorized the release" of video footage showing IDF reservists at Sde Teiman from a unit called Force 100 brutally attacking a Palestinian prisoner, who was allegedly sodomized with a metal baton while other soldiers held up shields to conceal the assault.

"I bear full responsibility for any material that was released to the media," Tomer-Yerushalmi wrote in her resignation letter, in which she explained that her motivation for leaking the footage was "to counter false propaganda" against her office by far-right figures who denied the torture as a "blood libel"—a common Israeli tactic used to falsely smear criticism as "antisemitic."

Citing fears that Tomer-Yerushalmi may have tried to kill herself during her disappearance on Sunday—which were matched by concerns that she could be in danger of assassination—Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Israel Prison Service (IPS) Chief Commissioner Kobi Yaakobi said they ordered her placed under increased prison supervision.

According to The Jerusalem Post, this means that Tomer-Yerushalmi will be forced to remain in her cell under the supervision of additional IPS guards and security cameras.

Former military prosecutor Matan Solomesh was also arrested Sunday night in connection with the leaked video.

"Meanwhile," Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan noted on X, "the soldiers seen sexually assaulting and abusing Palestinian detainees are still free."

— (@)

On July 4, 2024, members of Force 100 attacked the Palestinian prisoner for approximately 15 minutes behind riot shields so cameras could not see, leaving him hospitalized with a severe anal injury, ruptured bowel, broken ribs, and lung damage, according to Dr. Yoel Donchin, an Israeli physician at the facility.

Footage of the assault was aired on Israeli television following Tomer-Yerushalmi's leak. While human rights groups called for an investigation into the attack, Israeli leaders including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich furiously demanded a probe not to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find and punish whoever leaked the video.

After a group of alleged participants in the attack were subsequently arrested, a mob of far-right Israelis including senior government officials stormed a pair of military bases in an attempt to free the suspects. While many Israelis condemned the alleged rape, others rallied around the accused reservists.

Ben-Gvir called suspects "our best heroes" and slammed their arrest. Smotrich lauded them as "heroic warriors."

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

Former Palestinian prisoners, IDF soldiers, and Israeli medical professionals have all said they witnessed torture and other abuse of detainees at Sde Teiman and other facilities. Victims ranged in age from children to octogenarians.

Israeli physicians who served at Sde Teiman have described widespread severe injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations. Palestinians taken by Israeli forces have recounted rape and sexually assault by male and female soldiers, electrocution, maulings by dogs, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, and other torture.

At least scores of detainees have died or been killed in Israeli custody, including one who expired after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton. Many bodies of former Palestinian prisoners returned by Israel have shown signs of torture, execution, and mutilation.

The IDF said in February that it had filed charges against five reservists suspected of abusing Sde Teiman prisoners.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder and forced starvation in Gaza—was among those who condemned Tomer-Yerushalmi for exposing IDF abuse.

“This is perhaps the most severe public relations attack that the state of Israel has experienced since its establishment," the prime minister said Sunday, a statement that came amid ongoing deadly attacks against Palestinians during a 759-day genocide that's left at least 249,000 Gazans dead, maimed, or missing and many more forcibly displaced, sick, and starving, according to local officials and international rights groups.

While some observers believe that Tomer-Yerushalmi is a heroic whistleblower for leaking the Sde Teiman video, others noted that she has approved and supports Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza, pointing to her resignation letter's claim that "the IDF is a moral and law-abiding army."

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As Israeli forces continued to violate a fragile ceasefire agreement with Hamas, killing more people in the Gaza Strip on Monday, the largest Muslim civil rights group in the United States renewed calls for cutting off military aid to Israel, citing a new study in The Lancet.

"This new Lancet study offers more evidence of the catastrophic human cost of Israel's genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people," Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) national executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

The correspondence published Friday by the famed British medical journal was submitted by Colorado State University professor Sammy Zahran, an expert in health economics, and Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British Palestinian surgeon teaching at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon.

Zahran and Abu-Sittah provided an estimate of the number of years of life lost, based on an official death toll list published by the Gaza Ministry of Health at the end of July, which included the age and sex of 60,199 Palestinians. They noted that the list is "restricted to deaths linked explicitly to actions by the Israeli military, excluding indirect deaths resulting from the ruin of infrastructure and medical facilities, restriction of food and water, and the loss of medical personnel that support life."

The pair calculated life expectancies in the state of Palestine—Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem—by sex for all ages, using mortality and population data from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs for 2022. They estimated that a total of 3,082,363 life-years were lost in Gaza as a result of the Israeli assault since October 7, 2023.

— (@)

"We find that most life-years lost are among civilians, even under the relaxed definition of a supposed combatant involving all men and boys of possible conscription age (15–44 years)," the paper states. "More than 1 million life-years involving children under the age of 15 years... have been lost."

CAIR's Awad said, "To speak of 3 million years of human life erased is to confront the true scale of this atrocity—generations of children, parents, and families wiped out. It is a deliberate effort to destroy a people."

Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its conduct in Gaza, and the International Criminal Court last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

"The United States and the international community must end their complicity by halting all military aid to Israel and supporting full accountability for these crimes under international law," Awad argued.

A report published last month by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the Costs of War Project at Brown University found that the Biden and Trump administrations provided at least $21.7 billion in military aid to Israel since the start of the war.

Federal law prohibits the US government from providing security assistance to foreign military units credibly accused of human rights abuses. The Washington Post last week reported on a classified State Department document detailing "many hundreds" of alleged violations by Israeli forces in Gaza that are expected to take "multiple years" to review.

With President Donald Trump seeking a Nobel Peace Prize, the US helped negotiate the current ceasefire, which began on October 10, after over two years of devastating retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel. The head of Gaza's Government Media Office said Monday that Israeli forces have committed at least 194 violations of the agreement.

As of Sunday, the ministry's death count was at 68,865, with at least 170,670 people wounded. Previously published research, including multiple studies in The Lancet, has concluded that the official tally is likely a significant undercount.

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The unfolding tragedy in Sudan reminds us in Gaza that wars, hunger, and destruction are not isolated events.

The post From Gaza to Sudan: “Their Pain Is Ours” appeared first on The Intercept.

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A suspect has been charged following Sunday’s horrific knife attack on a train. Plus: Wealthy Britons fleeing the UK to avoid tax may face a new settling-up fee, and the Campaign against Zohran Mamdani. With: Steven Methven & Barry Malone

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The decision could shape whether the use of emergency powers to bypass Congress becomes a tool of routine governance.

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The month of October in Gaza is no longer associated with the sounds of harvesting and the smell of olives, as it was for decades. The olive trees that once stretched across thousands of dunams throughout Gaza are now silent, turned into dead land covered with traces of Israel’s bombing and military vehicles. Israel has […]

By Alaa Shamali

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The Trump administration's recent efforts to target left-wing groups started with attacks on the Palestine movement, following the strategy established by pro-Israel organizations that worked for decades to pave the way for such repression.

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The Trump administration reportedly told members of Congress that the president's deadly, unauthorized airstrikes on vessels in international waters can continue indefinitely, deploying a rationale that the Obama administration applied to its 2011 bombing of Libya.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that "T. Elliot Gaiser, head of the Trump administration's Office of Legal Counsel, made his remarks to a small group of lawmakers this week amid signs that the president may be planning to escalate the military campaign in the region, including potentially hitting targets within Venezuela."

Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, the president has 60 days to terminate military operations not approved by Congress. The 60-day clock starts when the president notifies Congress of military action.

Monday marks the 60th day since Trump informed Congress of his first strike on a boat in the Caribbean in early September. The strike killed 11 people whom the administration accused without evidence of trying to smuggle drugs from Venezuela to the United States.

Trump has since authorized more than a dozen other strikes on boats in international waters, killing more than 60 people in what human rights organizations and United Nations experts have described as blatant violations of US and international law.

The Trump administration has told lawmakers that the US is engaged in "armed conflict" against drug cartels that the president has designated as "terrorist organizations."

But the White House is insisting that Trump's military actions in international waters are not constrained by the War Powers Resolution, claiming the operations "do not rise to the level of 'hostilities'" because the administration says American troops are not likely to be put in danger.

Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the State Department who now works at the International Crisis Group, observed Monday that the Trump administration's narrow definition of hostilities echoes "arguments made by the Obama administration in 2011 with respect to the military intervention in Libya."

"The Obama administration's interpretation of 'hostilities' was not well received, including by the US Congress," Finucane wrote, pointing to a May 18, 2011 letter that Republican senators sent to Obama accusing him of flouting the War Powers Resolution.

One of those GOP senators—Rand Paul of Kentucky—is backing a bipartisan war powers effort to prevent Trump from unilaterally and unlawfully attacking Venezuela.

Finucane stressed that the implications of the Trump administration's decision to interpret hostilities narrowly "are significant," noting that it paves the way for the US government to "continue its killing spree at sea, notwithstanding the time limits imposed by the War Powers Resolution."

"Second, the executive is arrogating to itself greater power over the use of force that constitutionally is the prerogative of Congress," Finucane added. "It is a power grab in the service of killing people outside the law based solely on the president's own say so."

On Saturday, Drop Site reported that the Trump administration has expanded its "drug cartel target list" to include sites inside Colombia and Mexico amid concerns that the president could soon attack Venezuela and launch an effort to overthrow the nation's president, Nicolás Maduro.

"At an Oval Office meeting in early October, Trump administration officials and top generals discussed escalating the pressure on Venezuela to go beyond the semi-regular attacks on boats in the Caribbean," the outlet reported. "The discussed plans include striking on land inside Venezuela... The same October 2 meeting included a previously reported directive from President Trump, who dialed his special envoy Richard Grenell into the call, telling him to cut off diplomatic communications with Maduro."

Asked during a newly aired "60 Minutes" interview if he believes Maduro's days as Venezuela's president are "numbered," Trump responded, "I would say yeah."

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Latin American epidemiologist Jaime Breilh discusses the role of public health and science in a capitalist world.

The post Jaime Breilh: Health is incompatible with capital appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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Come join me, RM Brown, Anders Lee, and Noami Karavani to usher in the glorious Sharia Law Police Defunding Marxist Caliphate.

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The Network of Civil Society Organisations in the Gaza Strip has warned of a rapid deterioration in humanitarian conditions due to the Israeli occupation’s continued refusal to allow the entry of materials needed to rehabilitate the destroyed water networks. In a press statement, civil society organisations in Gaza said that most of the tents used […]

By Alaa Shamali

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Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Monday taunted top rival Andrew Cuomo for receiving a decidedly backhanded endorsement from President Donald Trump.

During an interview on CBS News' "60 Minutes" that aired on Sunday, Trump criticized both Cuomo and Mamdani, but said that he would pick the former New York governor to be New York City's next mayor if forced to choose.

“I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other," the president said. "But if it's gonna be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you."

Trump again says that he prefers that Cuomo wins the NYC mayoral race.

“I’m not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other, but if it’s gonna be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I’m gonna pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you.”pic.twitter.com/pGpdMSvotf
— bryan metzger (@metzgov) November 3, 2025

Mamdani, a Democratic state Assembly member who has represented District 36 since 2021, immediately pounced on Trump's remarks and sarcastically congratulated his rival for winning the endorsement of a president who is deeply unpopular in New York City.

"Congratulations, Andrew Cuomo!" he wrote in a social media post. "I know how hard you worked for this."

A leaked audio recording from a Cuomo fundraiser in the Hamptons in August included comments from the former governor about help he expected to receive from Trump as he ran as an independent in the mayoral race, following his loss to Mamdani in the Democratic primary. Cuomo and Trump have reportedly spoken about the race.

The former governor has also suggested that protests against Trump's deployment of federal immigration agents are an "overreaction," and has declined to forcefully condemn the president's weaponization of the justice system against his political opponents.

The New York City mayoral election will conclude on Tuesday night, and polls currently show Mamdani with a commanding lead over Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that New Yorkers cast 735,000 early ballots this year, which the paper notes is "the highest early in-person turnout ever for a non-presidential election in New York."

The Times also noted that more than 150,000 early ballots were cast on the final day of early voting, driven by a surge in young voters flocking to the polls.

"Turnout among younger age groups lagged early in the week, with about 80,000 people under 35 voting from Sunday to Thursday," the Times explained. "That number jumped from Friday to Sunday, with over 100,000 voters under the age of 35 casting ballots, including more than 45,000 on Sunday."

Laura Tamman, a political scientist at Pace University, told Gothamist on Monday that the surge in youth turnout in the last days of early voting was a "meaningful shift," and likely good news for Mamdani's chances on Tuesday.

In the closing days of the campaign, Cuomo has been accused of employing racist tactics as he has tried portraying Mamdani as an outsider who does not share New York's cultural values, and he pointed to the fact that Mamdani has dual citizenship with the US and Uganda as evidence.

“His parents own a mansion in Uganda, he spent a lot of time there,” Cuomo said during an interview on Fox Business. “He just doesn’t understand the New York culture, the New York values, what 9/11 meant, what entrepreneurial growth means, what opportunity means, why people came here.”

Cuomo also appeared to agree with a recent comment from radio host Sid Rosenberg, who said Mamdani would "be cheering" if "another 9/11" took place.

“This is Andrew Cuomo’a final moments in public life," said Mamdani in response to the remark, "and he’s choosing to spend them making racist attacks.”

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A major MAGA civil war has erupted pitting Tucker Carlson against what Nick Fuentes calls "Israel First" Republicans.

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In one of Gaza’s quiet neighbourhoods, there was a child who ran through the alleys every morning, carrying his small school bag as if it contained the whole world. His name was Sami Bilal Abu Youssef, an eight-year-old boy, pure as the dawn, who loved life as much as a bird loves its wings. Sami […]

By Alaa Shamali

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The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Alliance (LDF) government achieves a unique feat in India which, according to the World Bank, has the world’s largest number of extremely poor.

The post Left-ruled Kerala becomes the first Indian state to eradicate extreme poverty appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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SNAP benefits were halted on Saturday for nearly 42 million, the Trump administration is yet to tap into contingency funds despite court order

The post Future of SNAP benefits for 42 million in the US remains uncertain appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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New research published Monday shows that the 10 richest people in the United States have seen their collective fortune grow by nearly $700 billion since President Donald Trump secured a second term in the White House and rushed to deliver more wealth to the top in the form of tax cuts.

The billionaire wealth surge that has accompanied Trump's return to power is part of a decades-long, policy-driven trend of upward redistribution that has enriched the very few and devastated the working class, Oxfam America details in Unequal: The Rise of a New American Oligarchy and the Agenda We Need.

Between 1989 and 2022, the report shows, the least rich US household in the top 1% gained 987 times more wealth than the richest household in the bottom 20%.

As of last year, more than 40% of the US population was considered poor or low-income, Oxfam observed. In 2025, the share of total US assets owned by the wealthiest 0.1% reached its highest level on record: 12.6%.

The Trump administration—in partnership with Republicans in Congress—has added rocket fuel to the nation's out-of-control inequality, moving "with staggering speed and scale to carry out a relentless attack on working-class families" while using "the power of the office to enrich the wealthy and well-connected," Oxfam's new report states.

"The data confirms what people across our nation already know instinctively: The new American oligarchy is here," said Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America. "Billionaires and mega-corporations are booming while working families struggle to afford housing, healthcare, and groceries."

"Now, the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress risk turbocharging that inequality as they wage a relentless attack on working people and bargain with livelihoods during the government shutdown," Maxman added. "But what they're doing isn't new. It's doubling down on decades of regressive policy choices. What's different is how much undemocratic power they've now amassed."

"Today, we are seeing the dark extremes of choosing inequality for 50 years."

Oxfam released its report as the Trump administration continued to illegally withhold federal nutrition assistance from tens of millions of low-income US households just months after enacting a budget law that's expected to deliver hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to ultra-rich Americans and large corporations.

Given the severity of US inequality and ongoing Trump-GOP efforts to make it worse, Oxfam stressed that a bold agenda "that focuses on rebalancing power" will be necessary to reverse course.

Such an agenda would include—but not be limited to—a wealth tax on multimillionaires and billionaires, a higher corporate tax rate, a permanently expanded child tax credit, strong antitrust policy that breaks up corporate monopolies, a federal job guarantee, universal childcare, and a substantially higher minimum wage.

"Today, we are seeing the dark extremes of choosing inequality for 50 years," Elizabeth Wilkins, president and CEO of the Roosevelt Institute, wrote in her foreword to the report. **"**The policy priorities in this report—rebalancing power, unrigging the tax code, reimagining the social safety net, and supporting workers' rights—are all essential to creating that more inclusive and cohesive society. Together, they speak to our deepest needs as human beings: to live with security and agency, to live free from exploitation."

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The move is a “perverted interpretation of a rule that stops grocers from price gouging SNAP recipients,” said a critic.

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Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MLA Paul Givan remains under pressure to resign following his disgraceful trip to the genocidal apartheid regime of so-called ‘Israel’. At a rally on Saturday, November 1, organised by People Before Profit (PBP), a crowd of over 300 assembled at the gates of Belfast City Hall to express their disgust at […]

By Robert Freeman

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In 2009, the expenses scandal exposed what politicians had been claiming and a kind of wholesale wrongdoing in parliament. More than 15 years on, it appears little has changed, with an estimated two-thirds of MPs engaged in huge claims. This time, the Canary has uncovered that MPs on both sides of the House have been […]

By Alice Charles

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