STATE OF INEQUALITYThe Unkindest Cut: Slashing Medicaid Threatens the Medically Vulnerable
Are California’s in-home caregivers on Republicans’ chopping block?
https://capitalandmain.com/the-unkindest-cut-slashing-medicaid-threatens-the-medically-vulnerable

Published on May 8, …2025
By Mark Kreidler
For Maria Paredez, the slashing of Medicaid funding is no political football, or some abstract argument emanating from Republicans in Congress about the size of government. It hits her where she lives: a small house in a small town in Tulare County, where she struggles to get from one month to the next.

Paredez is not a victim, though — she’s an employee. She has for the past three years cared for her grandmother, who’s now 88, through a program exclusive to California called In Home Supportive Services (IHSS). The IHSS pays people to take care of Medi-Cal eligible Californians who are elderly, blind or disabled, allowing those folks to hire their caregivers, 70% of whom are relatives. They can thus remain in their homes or with family rather than being funneled into costly care centers or nursing facilities, for which the state would have to pay.


The work is difficult and the compensation is minimal. Paredez, who told me she is in her 40s, makes $17.10 an hour, a wage set by Tulare County officials. Despite, she said, being with her grandmother day and night after the elderly woman suffered a stroke and began requiring constant care, Paredez is paid for only 116 hours per month — a little less than $2,000, before taxes. She took a part-time second job to make ends meet.

“Our family wants to care for Grandma, and I was the best person to do it,” Paredez said. “But it’s been hard to make it all work. It’s not easy.”

It could get harder. If the GOP follows through on its resolution to cut Medicaid spending by $880 billion over the next decade, California’s budget for Medi-Cal (the state’s version of Medicaid) could take a heavy hit. For In Home Supportive Services, which uses federal dollars to fund more than 50% of its program, the result might be a reduction in services — and in hours for people like Paredez.

And should Paredez, who has the auto-immune disease lupus, become ill herself, it would be a double whammy. “I also use Medi-Cal for my own health needs,” she said. “If they cut Medi-Cal services, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

* * *

Paredez is not alone. According to research by the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center, more than half of all state home health care workers rely on Medi-Cal for their own health coverage.

That is perhaps not surprising, considering what they earn. Using the MIT Living Wage Calculator as a guide, the Labor Center found that none of California’s 58 counties pay home health care workers enough to afford basic living expenses. The hourly wage ranges from the state minimum of $16.50 in Siskiyou County to $22 in San Francisco County, and it’s negotiated on a county-by-county basis.

A bill by Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), currently making its way through the California Legislature, would enable IHSS workers to bargain on a statewide basis and seek uniform wages and health care benefits based upon the state itself becoming the employer of record. The bill is co-sponsored by two unions that represent IHSS workers, United Domestic Workers and the Service Employees International Union. (Disclosure: UDW and SEIU are both financial supporters of Capital & Main).

The Berkeley Labor Center estimates that, depending upon the timing and mechanisms for slashing the program, California could lose between $10 billion and $20 billion per year in federal Medi-Cal funds. Laurel Lucia, the center’s Health Care Program director, said the next several weeks should bring some clarity about how Republicans plan to carry out the massive cuts. Lucia said the center estimates job losses of between 109,000 and 217,000 in the state.

“If federal Medicaid spending is cut,” Lucia said, “it would affect health care providers and health care jobs.” Less funding means less service, fewer providers getting paid, and/or those providers’ rates for service being slashed.

The loss is multiplied for businesses that support Medi-Cal, which serves roughly 15 million Californians, about a third of the state’s population. An overall shrinking of Medi-Cal, for example, would hit food and laundry services and other contractors that work with hospitals and care facilities. Health care workers, Lucia said, could also find themselves with less to spend at local restaurants and retail stores.

* * *

There’s still plenty unknown about what Congress will do. It is also not clear how Gov. Gavin Newsom and his staff will try to account for potential Medicaid cuts in their revision of the proposed 2025-26 state budget, which is due within the next week.

Lucia said the state can’t just absorb the range of federal cuts that the Labor Center is predicting. Even the lower end of its $10 billion to $20 billion projection is nearly what the state budgets over a full year for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ($13.9 billion).

The numbers are huge. Their effect, though, is local. In Yreka, in Siskiyou County, 30-year-old Alice Demers is caring for her partner, who has a rare skin condition that requires constant care, and who, she said, has been in declining health for years.

Demers is paid $16.50 an hour under IHSS, but the program has authorized only 80 hours a month for her partner’s care. She drives about 30 minutes to care for another client a couple of days a week, but Demers said she and her partner were still forced to move into Section 8 low-income housing several months ago.

In past times of budget stress, the state has cut hours for IHSS workers across the board. Such cuts now would mean less income for Demers, but she has another concern: A Medi-Cal patient herself, she’s been putting off needed surgery to repair a nerve issue that causes shattering pain in her face. She relies on the program for the medications that help with the pain so that she can put in her hours as a caregiver.

“All of my partner’s health care comes from Medi-Cal, and mine — and in a way our income does too,” she said. “We could really get screwed over here.”

The Unkindest Cut: Slashing Medicaid Threatens the Medically Vulnerable

Are California’s in-home caregivers on Republicans’ chopping block?

capitalandmain.com

The first driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes
…https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/01/business/first-driverless-semis-started-regular-routes?Date=20250501&Profile=CNN&utm_content=1746135768&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawKKVAtleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETEybjF1aTBUSkhZcGxFemNlAR6H1cI785fXQcUnz6XtYfKHTJW8piK3gzzDsME8eWcYG9Xhw2U6nvMLvLR7Ng_aem_gjJ6Zi8v7qn1s4ptG2ODoQ

By Alexandra Skores, CNN

Updated 8:41 PM EDT, Thu May 1, 2025

Washington, DCCNN —
Driverless trucks are officially running their first regular long-haul routes, making roundtrips between Dallas and Houston.
On Thursday, autonomous trucking firm Aurora announced it launched commercial service in Texas under its first customers, Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, which delivers time- and temperature-sensitive freight. Both companies conducted test runs with Aurora, including safety drivers to monitor the self-driving technology dubbed “Aurora Driver.”Aurora’s new commercial service will no longer have safety drivers.

Driverless rides on Uber now challenging Elon Musk’s Tesla in its backyard
“We founded Aurora to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly, said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora, in a release on Thursday. “Now, we are the first company to successfully and safely operate a commercial driverless trucking service on public roads.”
The trucks are equipped with computers and sensors that can see the length of over four football fields. In four years of practice hauls the trucks’ technology has delivered over 10,000 customer loads across 3 million miles with human supervision. As of Thursday, the company’s self-driving tech has completed over 1,200 miles without a human in the truck.
Aurora is starting with a single self-driving truck and plans to add more by the end of 2025.
One of Aurora's trucks on the road.

Self-driving technology continued to garner attention after over a decade of hype, especially from auto companies like Tesla, GM and others that have poured billions into the tech. Companies in the market of autonomous trucking or driving, tend to use states like Texas and California as their testing grounds for the technology.
California-based Gatik does short-haul deliveries for Fortune 500 retailers like Walmart. Another California tech firm, Kodiak Robotics, delivers freight daily for customers across the South but with safety drivers. Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, had an autonomous trucking arm but dismantled it in 2023 to focus on its self-driving ride-hailing services.

However, consumers and transportation officials have raised alarms on the safety record of autonomous vehicles. Aurora released its own safety report this year detailing how its technology works.

Unions that represent truck drivers are usually opposed to the driverless technology because of the threat of job loss and concerns over safety.
Earlier this year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rejected a petition from autonomous driving companies Waymo and Aurora seeking to replace traditional warning devices used when a truck broke down with cab-mounted beacons. The Transport Workers Union argued the petition would hinder safety.

The first driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes | CNN Business

Driverless trucks are officially running their first regular long-haul routes, making roundtrips between Dallas and Houston.

www.cnn.com

The first driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes
…https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/01/business/first-driverless-semis-started-regular-routes?Date=20250501&Profile=CNN&utm_content=1746135768&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawKKVAtleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETEybjF1aTBUSkhZcGxFemNlAR6H1cI785fXQcUnz6XtYfKHTJW8piK3gzzDsME8eWcYG9Xhw2U6nvMLvLR7Ng_aem_gjJ6Zi8v7qn1s4ptG2ODoQ

By Alexandra Skores, CNN

Updated 8:41 PM EDT, Thu May 1, 2025

151 comments
Interior of one of Aurora's driverless trucks.
Courtesy Aurora
Washington, DCCNN —
Driverless trucks are officially running their first regular long-haul routes, making roundtrips between Dallas and Houston.
On Thursday, autonomous trucking firm Aurora announced it launched commercial service in Texas under its first customers, Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines, which delivers time- and temperature-sensitive freight. Both companies conducted test runs with Aurora, including safety drivers to monitor the self-driving technology dubbed “Aurora Driver.”Aurora’s new commercial service will no longer have safety drivers.

RELATED ARTICLEDriverless rides on Uber now challenging Elon Musk’s Tesla in its backyard
“We founded Aurora to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly, said Chris Urmson, CEO and co-founder of Aurora, in a release on Thursday. “Now, we are the first company to successfully and safely operate a commercial driverless trucking service on public roads.”
The trucks are equipped with computers and sensors that can see the length of over four football fields. In four years of practice hauls the trucks’ technology has delivered over 10,000 customer loads across 3 million miles with human supervision. As of Thursday, the company’s self-driving tech has completed over 1,200 miles without a human in the truck.
Aurora is starting with a single self-driving truck and plans to add more by the end of 2025.
One of Aurora's trucks on the road.

Self-driving technology continued to garner attention after over a decade of hype, especially from auto companies like Tesla, GM and others that have poured billions into the tech. Companies in the market of autonomous trucking or driving, tend to use states like Texas and California as their testing grounds for the technology.
California-based Gatik does short-haul deliveries for Fortune 500 retailers like Walmart. Another California tech firm, Kodiak Robotics, delivers freight daily for customers across the South but with safety drivers. Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, had an autonomous trucking arm but dismantled it in 2023 to focus on its self-driving ride-hailing services.

However, consumers and transportation officials have raised alarms on the safety record of autonomous vehicles. Aurora released its own safety report this year detailing how its technology works.

Unions that represent truck drivers are usually opposed to the driverless technology because of the threat of job loss and concerns over safety.
Earlier this year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rejected a petition from autonomous driving companies Waymo and Aurora seeking to replace traditional warning devices used when a truck broke down with cab-mounted beacons. The Transport Workers Union argued the petition would hinder safety.

The first driverless semis have started running regular longhaul routes | CNN Business

Driverless trucks are officially running their first regular long-haul routes, making roundtrips between Dallas and Houston.

www.cnn.com

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/houston-area-voters-reject-right-wing-school-board-candidates-vouchers-may-be-to-blame/ar-AA1EmhJF?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=8bb1e055e54e42d18683564dd2036e4c&ei=13

Houston-area voters reject right-wing school board candidates. Vouchers may be to blame.

Several conservative candidates with right-wing support lost their bids for Houston-area school boards Saturday night, a change that some experts …

www.msn.com

‘Who Killed Shireen?’
Zeteo uncovers the hidden identity – and fate – of the Israeli soldier who killed the famous Palestinian-American journalist in 2022.
https://zeteo.com/p/who-killed-shireen-abu-akleh
TEAM ZETEO
MAY 07, 2025

After a months-long investigation, …Zeteo is finally releasing what is undeniably one of our most important works yet, supported and funded by you: our exclusive documentary, “Who Killed Shireen?”

Watch the 40-minute film above, about Israel’s shocking killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin in 2022, and be one of the first people to see and hear the ground-breaking revelations from our award-winning team of journalists.
In this investigative documentary, Zeteo, for the first time, identifies the Israeli soldier who killed the famous reporter – a closely guarded secret up until now, as Israel had refused to divulge his name even to top American officials, according to our sources.
The documentary also reveals a shocking Biden administration cover-up, with former US officials divulging exclusive new information and telling us that the Biden administration “failed” Shireen in order to maintain its relationship with the Israeli government.
The film features exclusive interviews not just with former US officials but also former top Israeli officials and soldiers, as well as journalists who knew Shireen personally.
This is an eye-opening investigation that only Zeteo was prepared to fund and has only been possible because of the financial support of our paid subscribers. No corporations. No sponsors. Nothing else.
Paid subscribers to Zeteo can watch the full film above. Free subscribers can watch an 8-minute preview. If you would like to watch the full documentary, and support this type of journalism and the work we’re doing at Zeteo, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Your small contribution goes a long way toward supporting accountability journalism like this… the kind that other outlets are still afraid to take on.
Should you want to help expensive, ambitious, and important journalistic projects like this even further, you can always donate to us here.
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“Who Killed Shireen?” is an investigation for Zeteo led by an award-winning team of journalists and District Bear Media:
Dion Nissenbaum
Dion is an award-winning journalist who has spent more than two decades working as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and McClatchy Newspapers. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist in international reporting, Dion has been based in Kabul, where he covered the US war in Afghanistan, Jerusalem, where he reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Istanbul, Beirut, and Washington.
Fatima AbdulKarim
Fatima is currently a journalist for the New York Times, reporting from the Occupied West Bank. Born in Jerusalem, and raised between Amman and Sharjah, UAE, Fatima is a journalist with 18 years of experience reporting from the front lines in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and working with other major news outlets such as the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, and +972 Magazine. Fatima was a friend and colleague of Shireen in the tight-knit Ramallah-based Palestinian journalist circle.
Conor Powell
Conor is a podcast host, multimedia producer, and veteran TV journalist with more than a decade of experience covering major news stories, including wars and conflicts in the Middle East. Conor runs District Bear Media with Atia Abawi and also hosted and wrote the award-winning podcast “The Lords of Soccer: How FIFA Stole the Beautiful Game” for iHeartRadio.

EXCLUSIVE: Watch Our Explosive New Documentary, ‘Who Killed Shireen?’

Zeteo uncovers the hidden identity – and fate – of the Israeli soldier who killed the famous Palestinian-American journalist in 2022.

zeteo.com

Let’s stop the capitalists’ race to war with the internationalist class front of the exploited and oppressed masses around the world | United Front Committee for a Labor Party

…https://ufclp.org/lets-stop-the-capitalists-race-to-war-with-the-internationalist-class-front-of-the-exploited-and-oppressed-masses-around-the-world/

LET’S STOP THE CAPITALISTS’ RACE TO WAR WITH THE INTERNATIONALIST CLASS FRONT OF THE EXPLOITED AND OPPRESSED MASSES AROUND THE WORLD
Posted by MBayram_y2k@Yahoo.com | May 8, 2025 | Labor, UFCLP Statements | 0 |
Let’s stop the capitalists’ race to war with the internationalist class front of the exploited and oppressed masses around the world
CALL TO THE INTERNATIONALIST CONFERENCE AGAINST THE IMPERIALIST WAR: JUNE 13TH TO 15TH IN NAPLES (ITALY)
Protesta propalestina en el País Vasco
Eighty years after World War 2 the world working class and proletarians in general are facing, as never before, a shared, and gloomy perspective: the prospect of a new world war, which is evident in the direct intervention of the capitalist powers in interlinked conflicts, while each of them increases its militarization, not only through military budgets but also through growing internal repression, seeking to prepare the conditions for sending workers to die for the interests of “their” capitalist states. More than 30 years ago, bourgeois ideologues proclaimed the final victory of capitalism with the full incorporation of the countries of so-called real socialism into the global capitalist market. This incorporation has not, however, been the “end of history,” but has increased capitalist competition and led to an unresolved crisis since 2008 that coexists with and fuels the decline of the United States, whose state, army, and currency have been for decades at the very heart of the current system of world imperialist domination as the hegemonic power.

It is the increasing capitalist crisis, the result of insurmountable contradictions of the system, that are undermining the domination of capitalists over capital accumulation and social reproduction, and pushing them to resort increasingly to using state support through tariffs, sanctions, embargoes, weaponizing finance, money and currencies. The big transnational monopolies from the old dominating countries of the West are confronting the new monopolistic competitors rising in “emerging” capitalist countries, with China in the first place, but at the same time they are pitted against each other, as we have seen with Brexit and the tendency toward a breakup of NATO between the U.S. and the EU, and tensions between the US and Canada. In this economic struggle, which is taking new forms, they are destroying the political, commercial, and financial institutions that enabled them to rule the world since the post-war period. And day after day, year after year, this exacerbated competition is also transferring to the military level: a generalized rearmament race to brace for the next world war, while they are feeding the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, the wars in Sudan and Congo – just to mention the bloodiest ones.

The common goal in these industrial, trade, financial and military wars is to grab a bigger share of the wealth generated through the exploitation of workers, poor peasants and nature worldwide. The clashing powers are gathering around the two biggest capitalist powers: the United States and China, which are at the center of the fight, while tensions between the United States and Europe, and even Japan, are intensifying. The alignments of the powers are shifting, as can be seen in the decision to swell the military budgets of the European countries or in the discussion of a trade agreement between China, Japan, and South Korea.

Trump’s U.S., to recover its declining supremacy, is strong-arming the rest of the world, including allies, to submit to its interests with a gangster-like policy of looting minerals, oil, the wealth of other peoples. They are not giving up on their strategy of advancing against China and Russia, although the list of their military defeats is long, starting from Vietnam of fifty years ago to arrive at today’s Ukraine. And there is a direct link between Trump’s proposals for war and territorial expansion and his fascist attempt to militarize society: the hysteria against immigrants and LGBT+ community is part of the social regimentation for war that is fully expressed by the far right that the Trump’s power block promotes internationally.

China, on the strength of its growing manufacturing supremacy and financial surplus, is raising the free-trade flag and enticing other capitalist classes into business deals under Beijing’s Global Development Initiative (giant ports, mega transportation/energy projects, etc.) that leave the local workers massively exploited. European imperialists seek to defend the plundering and militarization of Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and other regions of the world, while they present themselves as defenders of democracy, multilateralism, and human rights as opposed to Trump’s arrogance.

The support of NATO to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, together with the territorial annexations in the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon to form a “Greater Israel”, are part of the same international confrontation and function as a weapon aimed against China. We reject the bombing and threats toward Yemen and Iran that the US and Israel are intensifying. At the same time we must underline that the expulsion of Zionism will not come from the reactionary regimes of the region, which have collaborated with it in different ways since its creation, but from the united socialist struggle of the exploited and oppressed masses of the Levant. We salute the workers’ and popular rebellion against these regimes, as we have seen in Lebanon and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has exterminated and dispersed a whole generation of brave revolutionary militants and mercilessly oppresses the working class, the poor masses, and disadvantaged women in that country, while hypocritically pretending to support the Palestinian cause.

All big and regional capitalist powers are building up their armies, by increasing their military budgets at the expense of savage cuts to social benefits, from the EU’s € 800 billion plan to the US $ 1 trillion military budget, and China’s steady 7.2% yearly growth, while Japan is revising its disarmament Constitution and making up for the time lost as a defeated power in World War II.

This increasingly accentuated and accelerated tendency to war is the only “solution” that the capitalist class can give to the historical crisis of its social system – a crisis in the process of accumulation and in the political international order that for the first time in history is intertwined with a looming climate catastrophe and an unprecedented crisis of social reproduction and sociality itself, with an impressive and corrosive spread of individualism and violence in inter-personal relationships.

These clashes between big capitalist powers are also becoming increasingly violent in Latin America, mainly as a result of U.S. pressure to contain Chinese economic interests and political influence in the continent, while workers and the masses are subjected to austerity measures and hardship under right-wing governments such as Milei’s in Argentina. For Latin American workers and peasants, the alternative does not lie in aligning with the BRICS. Even countries that have experienced great revolutions, uprisings and anti-imperialist struggles (Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela) are experiencing reactionary retreats, as they join a camp which is against the West, but clearly follows the rules of market economy with the exploitation of the working class within them. The common battle to expel old and new capitalist powers raises the struggle for the Socialist Unity of Latin America. At the present time it is necessary and urgent to confront Trump’s expulsion of Latin American immigrants in alliance with workers in struggle within the US.

Capitalism can only offer this bleak picture. Millions of workers and humans in general are suffering from this tightened competition in terms of increased exploitation and welfare cuts, and are being killed, wounded, and displaced by wars. In spite of the enormous hatred and resistance generated by the governments of hunger and wars, to date, the response of the working class and the oppressed masses is not enough to stop this race to the abyss, also due to the political bankruptcy of the so-called “Left”, now completely co-opted into the capitalist establishment.

In imperialist countries, as well as in the “global South” mainstream bourgeois parties, as well as most of the so-called “Left”, support preparations for war and measures against the working class. They have sided with the ‘camp’ to which their countries belong, with a minority winking at the opposite capitalist camp. And all of them are maneuvering to drag the workers after them by threat and deception.
This integration of the political and union leadership of the working class into the capitalist state contrasts sharply with the large social explosions, strikes, and mass demonstrations against repressive and austerity policies in various regions of the world, as well as the global emergence of the enormous movement against the Zionist genocide, in support of Palestinian Resistance and the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and lands, in which youth and students play a central role.

Our organizations are among the few that have dared to go against the current and steadily oppose both imperialist camps in the Ukraine war as well as in all other conflicts, taking steps to build the internationalist proletarian camp – a camp potentially including the huge majority of humankind.

The Conference we are calling in Naples on 14 and 15 June is a step forward in this construction work, which some of us began in previous meetings such as the important Buenos Aires Conference in 2024. We call to join all those who rely and put their hopes on the working class and their struggles, not on the power of any existing state – all being capitalist states. We oppose nationalism that ties workers to their exploiters with internationalism, that unites workers with their fellow-workers in other countries.

Liberation of the oppressed people can only be achieved through a struggle led by the working class, never by the capitalists. If we unite internationally, we become a power, a very big power, and attract the support of exploited masses in all countries. The enormous potential strength of our front of struggle was seen precisely in the international solidarity movement that Palestinian resistance aroused.

Our most urgent fight is against rearmament, militarization of society, war economy and welfare cuts, and against government policies in preparation to war, as well as against the ‘internal war’ for suppression of social struggles, attacks on immigrants, blaming all hardships on them to divide the working class. Militarism goes hand in hand with state repression while the entire legislative framework/judiciary takes a reactionary direction against labour, social and democratic rights. The dangerous trend of the rise of the far right in a number of countries becomes the battering ram of the bourgeois system of power in order to subordinate class to nation. This rise is an expression of capital’s aggression against labour and tendencies to question capitalist politics and domination. Against the far-right agenda the fight for real equality of women and men, the fight against individual and collective patriarchalism, the fight to all forms of racism and discrimination against national and ethnic minorities and LGBT+ people, the fight against environmental destruction, are an integral part of our struggle. The far right has emerged thanks to the social disasters produced by neo-liberal policies and the renunciation of the class struggle by the organizations of the old workers’ movement. Class collaboration is not the answer to this, only the united front of the working class, in the streets, strikes, and picket lines, can respond to every blow and defeat their offensives.

In imperialist countries “the main enemy is at home”, and nowhere is the capitalist “enemy of our enemy” our friend!

The Trump Administration is reshuffling the cards, dealing blows on the North American partners and European allies, trying to lure Russia into a partition deal for Ukraine leaving the greedy European warmongers out in the cold. Zelensky does not embody a struggle for national defense; rather, he is a puppet of NATO, placing Ukraine’s fate in the hands of his masters. Whether Putin will ever make the “peace” deal or not, the result will be robbery, the sole possible outcome – except for revolution – of a war of robbery. If a treaty of colonial plunder is indeed agreed upon, this will not prevent the march toward war between the big capitalist powers. We stand for the fraternization of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers and workers against imperialist war, and we advocate the overthrow of the Zelensky and Putin regimes, which are both anti-proletarian and anti-communist, against the 1917 Revolution and Lenin’s policy on the national question.

We firmly stand against the U.S. MAGA bullying policies, as against the imperial ambitions the EU and the European governments are attempting to resurrect, whether they ever manage to build the reactionary United States of Europe, or as most likely they rearm separately to the teeth to advance their separate – and competing – interests. We firmly stand against Japan’s rearmament to confront China in alliance with the United States. We denounce the present-day capitalist China, which is not the daughter of the Chinese Revolution, but of the capitalist counterrevolution, the oppressor of the largest working class of the world with its AI police state, and a paradise for the billionaires on a par with the U.S. Nor we can support in any form the military-state Russia using its poorest youth as cannon fodder to try to restore the czars’ empire along with its reactionary role. The BRICS project is not a “multilateral” alternative to Western imperialism, but a contradictory bloc of reactionary and exploitative states.

Faced with our governments’ wars, we take up the best socialist traditions of revolutionary defeatism, we stand for fraternization between soldiers on opposite fronts, for the transformation of imperialist war into revolution that overthrowing the rule of capital and establishing worker’s power puts an end to exploitation and wars, devoting productive forces to the satisfaction of social needs, and not of the greed and profits of the few.

The signing organizations have joined forces to build the proletarian revolutionary camp. We intend to work with all our strength for the rebirth of a new proletarian International that will treasure all the great battles of the past, both the won and the lost ones. The struggle for a revolutionary International is inextricably linked to the building, in each of our countries, of revolutionary parties of the working class. And we can only move forward on this path by banning all forms of chauvinism and opportunism. More organizations will join, as workers’ vanguards choose to stand up not only for a fair wage, but to put an end to the wage slavery, and to reject being cannon fodder for their exploiters.

No to rearmament and war! Stop the genocide in Gaza and the war in Ukraine, Sudan, Congo!

Defend the purchasing power of wages and reduce working hours: work less to work for all!

Freedom for all prisoners and politically persecuted!

United front of workers and oppressed peoples against imperialism, racism and fascism!

For the power of workers and the exploited masses! Let’s fight for a classless society without exploitation and oppression! Let’s fight for international socialism!

Workers of the world, unite!

Communist Liberation – Greece

Workers Party (PO) – Argentina

Socialist Workers Party (SEP) – Turkey

Socialist Workers Party (SWP) – Great Britain

International Revolutionary Tendency (TIR) – Italy

Marxist-Leninist Party of Deutschland (MLPD) – subscribed fo Monika Gärtner-Engel, responsible of internationalism

United Front Committee For a Labour Party (UFCLP) – USA

Tribuna Classista- Brazil

Fuerza 18 de Octubre – Chile

Agrupación Vilcapaza – Perú

Comunistas – Cuba

Let’s stop the capitalists’ race to war with the internationalist class front of the exploited and oppressed masses around the world | United Front Committee for a Labor Party

Let’s stop the capitalists’ race to war with the internationalist class front of the exploited and oppressed masses around the world Posted by…

ufclp.org

On “National Security” Grounds: Most (But Not All) VA Workers Lose Union Bargaining Rights?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/05/08/on-national-security-grounds-most-but-not-all-va-workers-lose-union-bargaining-rights/
STEVE EARLY – SUZANNE GORDON
MAY 8, 2025

Photo by …Stephen Tafra on Unsplash
When President Trump’s cabinet picks trooped up to Capitol Hill earlier this year for Senate confirmation hearings, hardly any boasted about their past union connections. But Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins did.
He helped win broad bipartisan approval for his nomination from a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee (SVAC) that includes Bernie Sanders (I-VT) by mentioning that he belonged to the United Food and Commercial workers, while working for five years at a Georgia grocery store chain. Said Collins: “I believe that the employees of the VA, whether they’re union or not, are very valuable and I respect that… I get the issue.”
At another point in the hearing, he pledged to “be the biggest cheerleader for every VA employee out there who is getting up every morning, doing it right [and] making sure we are taking care of our veterans.” And during questioning about President Trump’s intention to end remote work arrangements at the agency, Collins acknowledged that “a large portion of the VA workforce is unionized and they’re in contracts” so “we’re going to have to work together to get people back to work.”
Four months later, there’s little evidence of Collins and VA unions working together on anything. Instead, Collins has been an eager implementer of Trump’s attempted cancellation of collective bargaining rights for most VA union members—on the grounds that they’re engaged in “national security work.”
A Broader Exclusion
Trump issued an executive order based on this far-fetched claim in late March. It invoked a provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA), which has long allowed the federal government to exclude intelligence agency and some federal law enforcement personnel from union representation. Under Trump’s sweeping new interpretation of CSRA, two-thirds of the federal workforce, in 18 different agencies, would be ineligible for contract coverage because of national security considerations.
According to recent guidance provided by Trump’s Office of Personnel Management, this clears the way for Trump cabinet members to fire large numbers of employees, as part of their upcoming reduction in force plans, without regard for existing collective bargaining agreements.
The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which represents other federal workers, secured a preliminary injunction on April 25 against Trump’s executive order, as it applied to its own members in other agencies. Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). hailed that result as a helpful precedent for “restoring collective bargaining rights that federal employees are guaranteed by law.”
To further weaken labor organizations, federal agencies also ended payroll deduction of union dues in April. VA unions affected by this change include AFGE, the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), National Nurses United (NNU), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its affiliate, the National Association of Government Employees (NAGE).
On behalf of 400,000 of the VA’s 482,000 workers, all five unions have recently sued the Trump Administration over multiple issues, including its mass firing of probationary workers throughout the federal government and attempted dismantling of entire agencies. (This pushback was, of course, perceived to be a “declaration of war on President Trump’s agenda,” as a White House “fact sheet”helpfully explained.)
A Waiver for Some VA Unions?
As more than 120 members of Congress (including Senators who voted to confirm Collins) argued in an April 8 letter to the VA Secretary, Trump’s directive is, thus, “primarily retaliatory in nature”—payback for “unions that have stepped up to defend employees’ rights in the face of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) attacks.”
The letter signers urged Collins “to act quickly and decisively to defend the VA workforce from this Executive Order by requesting a waiver for all Department Employees,” because the EO “cloaks itself in the false cover of ‘national security” and is in “likely violation of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS). Under that law, to be exempt from collective bargaining, an agency must demonstrate that its “primary function” involves intelligence, counter-intelligence, investigative, or national security work.
Collins responded with an April 17 notice-posting in the Federal Register, in which he “specifically concurs with the President’s determinations” about who is and is not doing “national security work.” In a move that won’t help the administration’s legal defense of its VA de-unionization effort, Collins signaled that his HR department would continue to deal with local unions affiliated with the Laborers, Machinists, Teamsters, Electrical Workers, Firefighters, American Federation of Teachers, and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees.
None of these labor organizations ever had the “national consultation rights” of the larger AFL-CIO affiliates targeted by Trump because their bargaining units within the VA are small and miscellaneous. But, as Everett Kelley points out, many of their members do the same jobs as AFGE-represented “cemetery workers, house-keepers, cooks, mechanics, nurses, and other health care employees.”
So how, Kelley asks, could some “patriotic public servants” be allowed to keep their contract protections, while others performing equivalent duties—and posing no greater “threat to national security”—were stripped of theirs?
Adapting to New Conditions
While that question gets litigated by AFGE and other VA unions, they must still adapt to workplace conditions even worse than those created by Robert Wilkie, the right-wing Republican who was Trump’s second VA Secretary during his first term. All of them have long operated on the “open shop” basis mandated by federal law. But now workers who voluntarily join and financially support federal unions must switch their dues paying to alternative methods, like AFGE and NNU’s “E-dues”collection systems, because payroll deduction of dues has been discontinued.
The AFL-CIO has tried to help fill any representational void by recruiting and training 1,000 lawyers in 42 states to serve as a Federal Workers Legal Defense Network. This group will provide legal advice and support for individual employees who face adverse action by their agencies, but still retain civil service rights and protections.
Federal workers, newly awakened to the dangers facing them, are also joining the Labor Notes-assisted Federal Unionist Network. FUN is a cross-union network of rank-and-filers who organized a successful “day of action” in February, with what was then minimal support from their respective national unions.
FUN co-founder Colin Smalley, an employee of the Army Corps of Engineers, is among those warning co-workers that federal sector labor relations have reverted, for the time being, to what they were before 1962, when the Kennedy Administration first recognized the right to unionize.
Despite that challenging new/old terrain, “federal workers still have legal protections against retaliation and reprisal for collectively using their workplace rights.” Even in the absence of a union contract, they can “act like a union” by following the advice contained in a new guide prepared by Smalley and posted by the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee.
Among its recommended responses, FUN counsels to: “Speak out: get creative with whistle-blowing. A well-scripted ‘march on the boss’ or a petition are great ways to take collective action that’s protected by the Whistleblower Protection Act, so long as they disclose any violation of law, regulation, rule, or policy, or an abuse of authority.”
VA Defenders
On April 16, members of the NNU, which represents 16,000 registered nurses at the VA nationwide, held a protest rally in San Diego against staffing cuts and union contract cancellation—one of many events around the country, involving VA patients, their families, labor and community allies.
“No matter who you cut from the VA, veterans are going to be affected,” warned RN Safiah Dhada. “If you cut housekeeping, nurses will be bagging trash, taking time away from patient care. If you cut supply techs, nurses will need to chase down supplies, delaying care…Our veterans deserve timely care, not delays that negatively impact health outcomes.”
One veteran of struggles against Trump during his first term is Irma Westmoreland, NNU secretary-treasurer and a nurse for 26 years who works at the VA Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia.
She’s optimistic about the outcome of the fight this time around, because “we came out stronger last time.” Nothing that Doug Collins does, she says, “will keep us from doing the things we need to do to represent VA nurses.” But “taken together, all of these actions are aimed at crippling and then privatizing the VA… And only the unions are standing in the way of privatization.”

On “National Security” Grounds: Most (But Not All) VA Workers Lose Union Bargaining Rights?

When President Trump’s cabinet picks trooped up to Capitol Hill earlier this year for Senate confirmation hearings, hardly any boasted about their…

www.counterpunch.org

The Turkish government’s grip on journalism is tightening

With 90% of the country’s media now controlled by the state, it is becoming harder and harder to report independently

…https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2025/05/turkish-governments-grip-journalism-tightening-media/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKJz8JleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETEySDY5elBEQ3ZCQVB2MjhBAR7R9Mb89wa4naRCvgTfSYpJzIWwM72zFwTncQZ7Z8hTAxUhJvcTibV2L1us8A_aem_KZAtRONeOe8hn77QLR_Q3Q

By Kaya Genç

08 May 25

Europe and Central Asia | News and features | Turkey

Prior to his arrest, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu meets with the public in February 2024 ahead of local elections in Istanbul and across Turkey. Photo by Tolga Ildun / ZUMA Press WiZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Live News

The alarming escalation in the persecution of Turkey’s media workers is part of a calculated strategy. With the detention of Istanbul’s democratically elected mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on 19 March, the Turkish government has sent a chilling message to the public: nobody is safe, anyone can be arrested, so everybody should take caution.

Journalists make up a significant sum among the more than 1,879 detained in last month’s protests, 260 of whom were formally arrested. A further 382 people were reportedly arrested in Istanbul last week for “non-authorised demonstrations”.

Photographers, reporters, videographers, YouTubers, and social media commentators have been detained. Many have been taken into custody following dawn raids. Wearing visible press badges hasn’t helped reporters and videographers who filmed scenes of clashes outside the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality building in Saraçhane, where the opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), had organised week-long protest rallies. Covering the events became a crime as government officials warned that TV networks that gave airtime to these events would be shut down.

This was not an empty threat. On 24 March, 11 journalists were arrested in one day, including Yasin Akgül of the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Bülent Kılıç, a World Press Photo award winner and one of Turkey’s most accomplished photographers. BBC’s long-time Istanbul correspondent, Mark Lowen, was taken from his hotel in Istanbul on 26 March, held for 17 hours, and expelled from the country where he had lived for five years.

Arbitrary releases have followed the arbitrary arrests. After being released, the AFP photographer Akgül and his colleagues were reportedly re-arrested the same day, before being re-released a few days later.

Turkey’s Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK) and Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) have used these arbitrary shock-and-awe tactics over the past weeks.

On the day of İmamoğlu’s detention, BTK imposed widespread restrictions on social media and messaging platforms in Istanbul, including YouTube, Instagram, X, and TikTok.

Because of the restrictions, neither locals nor tourists could use messaging apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal for days. The impact was significant, given that Istanbul has a population of more than 15 million residents, making it the most populous and wealthiest city in Turkey.

BTK achieved the digital shutdown through bandwidth throttling, which significantly slows down internet access. The global internet censorship watchdog NetBlocks confirmed the use of bandwidth throttling.

The government, meanwhile, neither accepted nor denied throttling the internet for more than 15 million citizens, adding an air of mystery to the technical operation. Imposing restrictions without any announcement or explanation is part of the same political strategy that placed İmamoğlu behind bars.

A few days later, RTÜK issued a 10-day broadcast suspension for the leading opposition network, Sözcü TV. The TV channel’s coverage of protests “incited hatred and enmity among the public”, according to RTÜK.

Officials from the board continue to threaten the opposition media by revoking their licences. This means they could be shut down for good if network editors don’t abide by the government’s rules.

“Let’s see what will happen tomorrow morning,” mused Fatih Portakal, the Sözcü TV anchor, during a news bulletin shortly following the announcement of the 10-day suspension. Portakal told viewers his channel would go dark and display RTÜK’s decision for ten days. Sözcü continued its YouTube broadcasts and is now back on air on cable television.

The Turkish government already controls 90% of the media. From TV channel CNN Turk to newspaper Hurriyet, once respected mainstream media brands now operate as government mouthpieces. The government’s biggest concern is the remaining pockets of free expression: media outlets such as Bianet, Agos, Açık Radyo, and Medyascope have been demonised by the right-wing press, charged with serving foreign interests. In response, readers and viewers have been supporting these publications through donations.

But the level of government oppression has reached new heights, even by Turkey’s standards. In March, after the opposition party CHP launched a boycott campaign against firms with links to the government’s financial networks, a court shut down BoykotYap.com, the website containing the list of boycotted firms.

Hours later, the CHP launched a new website with an altered web address, BoykotYap.net. “Transform your consumption power into resistance. We will not see those who do not see the people!” CHP MP Pınar Uzun Okakın posted on X after announcing the new website’s URL.

In the eyes of the government, the unrest that followed the jailing of Istanbul’s democratically elected mayor is an opportunity. RTÜK recently announced that it would require two YouTube channels to register with the government to continue their streams, or their accounts would be blocked. Neither channel has applied for a licence and RTÜK hasn’t yet closed them down.

Fatih Altaylı, one of the targeted journalists, has nearly 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube, several times larger than pro-government channels like Yeni Şafak (712,000) and Sabah (373,000). The move follows RTÜK announcing last September that, under new regulation, YouTubers would need to obtain a licence in order to broadcast news. While the law is yet to be fully implemented, it is clearly already being used as a threat, and licenses can already be obtained. In the ideal world of the Turkish government, its bureaucrats would be permitted to censor content about Turkey regardless of platform.

The reaction to this vision of opacity and widespread censorship has been immense. Mass street protests and social media campaigns included a boycott against government-controlled media channels CNN Türk, the Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), and the news agency Demirören News Agency (DHA).

As government intimidation continues to increase, Turkey’s media workers will likely develop new outlets: YouTube channels, Substacks, websites, anything that allows them to reach a growing audience hungry for objective news that is produced by reporters on the ground, despite all dangers.

The Turkish government’s grip on journalism is tightening – Index on Censorship

With 90% of the country’s media now controlled by the state, it is becoming harder and harder to report independently

www.indexoncensorship.org

NJ Transit and IBT BLET train engineers union say strike is imminent as two sides bicker over wages
https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/05/06/nj-transit-and-train-engineers-union-say-strike-is-imminent-as-two-sides-bicker-over-wages/
BY: SOPHIE NIETO-MUNOZ – MAY 6, 2025 5:43 PM

An …NJ Transit train pulls into Newark Penn Station on May 6, 2025. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)
With 10 days to go before NJ Transit train engineers potentially walk off the job, the CEO of the state’s transit agency again traded barbs with the engineers union, and both sides are predicting that a strike will begin next week.

Appearing at Newark Penn Station on Tuesday, NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said the latest offer from the union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, would give the average engineer a $90,000 salary hike, to $225,000. A union spokesman fired back by saying its offer differed from NJ Transit’s demands by only 2 percent, and he called Kolluri’s criticism of the union “fiction.”

When NJ Transit averted its last potential strike in 2016, the two sides did not agree to a new contract until the day before a planned walkout. But Kolluri said the union’s latest offer, which he said would give engineers a larger raise than they would have received under the union’s previous proposal, does not give him hope that a deal will emerge before the deadline, 11:59 p.m. on May 15.

“I think it is a clear signal that they intend on striking and not seeking a solution,” he said.

Tom Haas, the union’s general chairman, also predicted a work stoppage, but pinned the blame on NJ Transit rejecting the union’s latest offer.

“This sets the stage for an expected lockout of locomotive engineers by NJ Transit,” Haas said.

NJ Transit and its roughly 420 train engineers have been feuding over a new contract since 2020, and federal rules over railroad strikes have delayed any work stoppage.

The union has said big salary hikes are needed to prevent NJ Transit from losing engineers to higher-paying jobs for New York-based railroads.

Kolluri said the average NJ Transit engineer earns an annual pay of $135,00. A tentative contract agreed to in March would have raised that to $172,000, but union members overwhelmingly rejected it. Kolluri said Tuesday that the union’s suggested salary hike to $225,000 came after it had suggested a raise to $190,000.

“I will never leave the bargaining table. I’ll always meet them, but they have to understand that in a negotiation you don’t go from trying to meet somebody halfway to even worse than they were before they started the negotiation,” Kolluri said. “If that is their tactic, I’m not sure if they understand how to negotiate.”

Haas said the union remains willing to negotiate for a fair agreement.

“Despite the BLET presenting a new proposal, that included new concessions to NJT, wage increases that differ from NJT’s demands by only two percent, and an additional three years to provide stability through June of 2030, NJT management rejected the offer and declined to continue bargaining,” he said in a statement.

The union has argued that Kolluri’s salary statistics are skewed by overtime pay. Kolluri scoffed at the union’s claim that they offered concessions, saying one of them was that if an engineer trainee quit within a year, they’d have to pay back $9,300 to NJ Transit.

The strike threatens to strand many of the nearly 200,000 commuters who use NJ Transit trains to get to and from work daily. The agency has said it is prepared in the event of a strike, though it has cautioned that planned extra bus service would handle just a fraction of the number of people who use its trains every day. Last week, transit officials urged commuters to consider working from home if a strike happens.

NJ Transit and train engineers union say strike is imminent as two sides bicker over wages • New Jersey Monitor

Both NJ Transit’s CEO and an official with its train engineers union predicted on Tuesday that a strike will begin next week as the two sides bicker…

newjerseymonitor.com

NJ Transit and IBT BLET train engineers union say strike is imminent as two sides bicker over wages
https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/05/06/nj-transit-and-train-engineers-union-say-strike-is-imminent-as-two-sides-bicker-over-wages/
BY: SOPHIE NIETO-MUNOZ – MAY 6, 2025 5:43 PM

An …NJ Transit train pulls into Newark Penn Station on May 6, 2025. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)
With 10 days to go before NJ Transit train engineers potentially walk off the job, the CEO of the state’s transit agency again traded barbs with the engineers union, and both sides are predicting that a strike will begin next week.

Appearing at Newark Penn Station on Tuesday, NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said the latest offer from the union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, would give the average engineer a $90,000 salary hike, to $225,000. A union spokesman fired back by saying its offer differed from NJ Transit’s demands by only 2 percent, and he called Kolluri’s criticism of the union “fiction.”

When NJ Transit averted its last potential strike in 2016, the two sides did not agree to a new contract until the day before a planned walkout. But Kolluri said the union’s latest offer, which he said would give engineers a larger raise than they would have received under the union’s previous proposal, does not give him hope that a deal will emerge before the deadline, 11:59 p.m. on May 15.

“I think it is a clear signal that they intend on striking and not seeking a solution,” he said.

Tom Haas, the union’s general chairman, also predicted a work stoppage, but pinned the blame on NJ Transit rejecting the union’s latest offer.

“This sets the stage for an expected lockout of locomotive engineers by NJ Transit,” Haas said.

NJ Transit and its roughly 420 train engineers have been feuding over a new contract since 2020, and federal rules over railroad strikes have delayed any work stoppage.

The union has said big salary hikes are needed to prevent NJ Transit from losing engineers to higher-paying jobs for New York-based railroads.

Kolluri said the average NJ Transit engineer earns an annual pay of $135,00. A tentative contract agreed to in March would have raised that to $172,000, but union members overwhelmingly rejected it. Kolluri said Tuesday that the union’s suggested salary hike to $225,000 came after it had suggested a raise to $190,000.

“I will never leave the bargaining table. I’ll always meet them, but they have to understand that in a negotiation you don’t go from trying to meet somebody halfway to even worse than they were before they started the negotiation,” Kolluri said. “If that is their tactic, I’m not sure if they understand how to negotiate.”

Haas said the union remains willing to negotiate for a fair agreement.

“Despite the BLET presenting a new proposal, that included new concessions to NJT, wage increases that differ from NJT’s demands by only two percent, and an additional three years to provide stability through June of 2030, NJT management rejected the offer and declined to continue bargaining,” he said in a statement.

The union has argued that Kolluri’s salary statistics are skewed by overtime pay. Kolluri scoffed at the union’s claim that they offered concessions, saying one of them was that if an engineer trainee quit within a year, they’d have to pay back $9,300 to NJ Transit.

The strike threatens to strand many of the nearly 200,000 commuters who use NJ Transit trains to get to and from work daily. The agency has said it is prepared in the event of a strike, though it has cautioned that planned extra bus service would handle just a fraction of the number of people who use its trains every day. Last week, transit officials urged commuters to consider working from home if a strike happens.

NJ Transit and train engineers union say strike is imminent as two sides bicker over wages • New Jersey Monitor

Both NJ Transit’s CEO and an official with its train engineers union predicted on Tuesday that a strike will begin next week as the two sides bicker…

newjerseymonitor.com

New Film Names Soldier in Palestinian American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh Shooting
After Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the West Bank in 2022, the Israeli military never revealed the identity of the soldier who fired at her. A documentary said it had confirmed his name.

…https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/world/middleeast/israel-soldier-shireen-abu-akleh-palestinian-american-journalist-shooting.html

Banners with a woman’s face are affixed to low walls amid a row of trees.
The site of Shireen Abu Akleh’s fatal shooting in Jenin, the West Bank, in 2022. The killing of the U.S. citizen prompted the Biden administration to push Israel to more rigorously investigate her death. Credit…Samar Hazboun for The New York Times
Patrick Kingsley.png
By Patrick Kingsley
Reporting from Jerusalem
May 8, 2025, 6:59 a.m. ET
When Shireen Abu Akleh, a renowned Palestinian American broadcaster, was shot and killed in 2022 in the northern West Bank, Israeli officials initially suggested that she may have been hit by a Palestinian militant. Months later, the military changed its account, acknowledging that she most likely was shot by an Israeli soldier — whom it declined to identify.

Three years later, a new documentary has identified and named an Israeli soldier as the shooter, apparently solving a mystery that was a major focus at the time of the incident.

Zeteo News, a left-leaning online news outlet, named the shooter as Capt. Alon Scagio, then a 20-year-old marksman in an elite commando unit, citing another soldier in his squad.

Two Israeli military officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, confirmed the documentary’s conclusions to The New York Times. Asked by The Times to confirm the identity of the soldier, the Israeli military said it had made “no definitive determination regarding the identity of the individual responsible for the shooting.” At the same time, it passed along a message from the Scagio family requesting that journalists avoid publishing the captain’s name.

Ms. Abu Akleh, a veteran reporter for Al Jazeera, was a household name in the Middle East. Her death set off mourning across the region and prompted greater global scrutiny of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Her U.S. citizenship also prompted unusual concern from the Biden administration, leading to friction between the American and Israeli governments.
Image
Demonstrators at a rally hold pictures of a woman journalist who had been shot dead in the West Bank..webp
Demonstrators hold pictures of Ms. Abu Akleh during a rally in Brooklyn in 2022.Credit…Mostafa Bassim for The New York Times
According to a biography posted on the Israeli Defense Ministry’s website, Captain Scagio was a career soldier who trained as an elite sniper and fought in the West Bank for eight months in 2022. Later, he served in Gaza, following Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023, before being transferred back to the West Bank, the biography said.

Captain Scagio was killed in the West Bank city of Jenin last June, age 22, after his convoy was hit by a roadside explosive, the biography said.

Zeteo’s documentary concluded that Captain Scagio had fired on Ms. Abu Akleh in the same city more than two years earlier. She had been covering an Israeli military raid and clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants. The Zeteo team was led by a former Wall Street Journal correspondent, Dion Nissenbaum, and included a regular freelance contributor to The New York Times,

Wearing protective gear marked with the word “press,” Ms. Abu Akleh was hit while walking with a group of similarly dressed journalists toward a small convoy of Israeli military jeeps. An investigation by The Times in 2022 found that the bullet that killed Ms. Abu Akleh was fired from the approximate location of the Israeli military convoy, most likely by a soldier from an elite unit.

The evidence reviewed by The Times showed that there were no armed Palestinians near her when she was shot. It contradicted Israeli claims that, if a soldier had mistakenly killed her, it was because he had been shooting at a Palestinian gunman.
Image Investigators’ yellow tape is seen on a tree around bullet holes..webp
Investigators’ tape on a tree marks holes from the bullets fired toward Ms. Abu Akleh in 2022. She was wearing protective gear marked with the word “press.”Credit…Samar Hazboun for The New York Times
As an American citizen, Ms. Abu Akleh’s killing prompted the Biden administration to push Israel to more rigorously investigate her death. Later, the Biden administration was itself accused of downplaying Israeli culpability, a charge dismissed by the State Department, which concluded that while Israeli soldiers may have killed the journalist, they did not target her intentionally.

The Zeteo documentary, citing an anonymous source, said that U.S. officials had initially decided after a site visit that Ms. Abu Akleh had been deliberately targeted, before changing their conclusions in the final version of the report to avoid upsetting Israel.

A senior U.S. official familiar with the report said its conclusions were never altered and no draft version had ever concluded that Ms. Abu Akleh had been intentionally killed. The official also said that the American officers who visited the site of the shooting were unable to reach a definitive conclusion on the soldier’s exact line of sight, let alone the shooter’s intention, because the Americans did not assess the site from within an Israeli military vehicle.

The Times investigation was also unable to determine the shooter’s exact field of vision or intention.

The Office of the Security Coordinator — the unit of the State Department that investigated the incident — declined to comment.

Ms. Abu Akleh’s funeral attracted global outcry after Israeli police officers assaulted mourners carrying her coffin, causing them to drop it.

Documentary Identifies Israeli Soldier as Shooter of Palestinian American Journalist

After Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the West Bank in 2022, the Israeli military never revealed the identity of the soldier who fired at her. A…

www.nytimes.com

THE WAR ON THE VA! Workers, Veterans, Community Speak Out at SF VA Hospital Against Cuts & Privatization
https://youtu.be/72uJUfTHIhk
VA workers and veterans are growing increasingly angry about the continued assault on the VA by the Trump Musk government. Participants said there are …more proposed cuts of another 80,000 workers. They and also community supporters spoke out at a weekly rally on Wednesday at the San Francisco Veterans hospital. They also reported there will be a national march and rally of Veterans on June 6, 2025 in Washington DC.
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STOP The Layoffs! Fed Workers Rally Against Musk & Trump & Speak Out At Tesla SF
https://youtu.be/YQodycfTXjk
Tesla Fremont Auto Worker Quits In Protest Of Racist & Fascist Musk & Trump
https://youtu.be/__SK3Sz2f1U
Hundreds Protest Fascist Musk At Berkeley Tesla Dealership-Time To Fight Back
https://youtu.be/t2A7BHTnYuU
Tesla Fremont MLK Rally Protesting Elon's Racism, Union Busting &Supporting Swedish Tesla Mechanics
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Musk, Sign A Contract Or Get Out! Nordic Workers To Elon Musk On Tesla Swedish Mechanics Strike
https://youtu.be/UKwj4k0j7P0
Swedish Dockers Blockade Tesla Cars In Solidarity With Striking Tesla Mechanics-No Union Busting
https://youtu.be/6BQ-HN0eu_4
Elon Musk Union Busting & Swedish Tesla Mechanics Fighting For A Contract
https://youtu.be/U-A46C55LWQ
Musk's Tesla Plantation With Nooses & Lynching
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2022/02/10/noose-drawing-lynching-reference-left-up-for-months-at-teslas-fremont-factory-civil-rights-lawsuit-claims/
Musk's Criminal Workers Comp Fraud Scam
https://www.revealnews.org/article/how-tesla-and-its-doctor-made-sure-injured-employees-didnt-get-workers-comp/?fbclid=IwAR0oyUjcA5sGI0RfBiD6CYrFjuNdsopW6wE1wblKfSGvP207xooxe7rvWQc Musk Twitter Moderation?
https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/16/23076428/buffalo-shooting-video-elon-musk-twitter-content-moderation
I Was Illegally Fired By Elon Musk For Trying to Unionize Tesla
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt0aCuN1BFc&t=14s
JAIL Tesla Billionaire Elon Musk & Defend Health & Safety: Workers Speak Out On At Tesla
https://youtu.be/GBB5y5Q6cZI Musk's Systemic Racist Discrimination https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-02-11/la-fi-tesla-race-discrimination-lawsuit
Silencing Black Twitter
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-04-25/elon-musk-buying-twitter-will-silence-black-twitter
Musk Above The Law-Tesla Stayed Open During Covid Shelter In Place Order
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/13/tesla-alameda-reopen-plant/
Some Tesla factory employees say they’re being coerced and pressured to return to work by Elon Musk
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/13/some-tesla-factory-employees-say-theyre-being-pressured-to-return-to-work.html?ref=hvper.com
A user’s guide to Tesla’s worker safety problems https://www.revealnews.org/blog/a-users-guide-to-teslas-worker-safety-problems/
Tesla to continue production at Fremont plant for days after shelter in place rule
https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Inside-Tesla-s-Fremont-factory-car-production-15143877.php
Workers Comp Fraud: Tesla reportedly failed to tell regulators about dozens of factory injuries, then claimed without evidence that regulators praised its record-keeping
https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-factory-injuries-incomplete-records-osha-california-2020-3
Elon Musk's Workers Comp Fraud: How Crooked Tesla and its corrupt doctor made sure injured employees didn’t get workers’ comp
https://www.revealnews.org/article/how-tesla-and-its-doctor-made-sure-injured-employees-didnt-get-workers-comp/?fbclid=IwAR0oyUjcA5sGI0RfBiD6CYrFjuNdsopW6wE1wblKfSGvP207xooxe7rvWQc
Group gathers to protest Tesla employees going back to work
https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/group-gathers-to-protest-tesla-employees-going-back-to-work/
Frustrated protesters outside Fremont Tesla factory want to see CEO Musk put behind bars
https://www.ktvu.com/news/frustrated-protesters-outside-fremont-tesla-factory-want-to-see-ceo-musk-put-behind-bars
Workers Want Elon Musk in Jail After He Announces Tesla Restarting Operations Illegally but Gov Newsom Says Criminal Musk Can Open Without Proper Health and Safety Protection
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/elon-musk-says-tesla-will-restart-operations-willing-to-be-arrested-for-it-2616005.html
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net

Stop The Cuts & Layoffs At VA Hospitals! Workers, Veterans and Community Speak at SF VA Hospital

VA workers and veterans are growing increasingly angry about the continued assault on the VA by the Trump Musk government. Participants said there …

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