Common Dreams:
"US-Israeli Bombs Strike ‘The Fourth School in 6 Days’ in Iran: Report: 'There are straight lines between what Israel has attempted to do… in Gaza, to completely decimate and collapse the systems that existed there, to what we are seeing in Iran,' said one expert.

US and Israeli missiles have hit a school in Iran for the fourth time in six days, according to videos shared on social media by a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), at least 192 children have been killed across the Middle East since the US and Israel launched a regime change war this past Saturday.

Most of them were girls ages 7-12 who were killed on Saturday during an attack at a girls’ school in the southern Iranian town of Minab. At least 175 people were reported to have been killed in the attack, which unnamed officials have said was 'likely' carried out by the United States, according to Reuters. HuffPost reported that Pentagon officials have briefed Congress that the US 'was most likely responsible.' ”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/fourth-iran-school-bombed

-->The NYT has a different take. It puts forth a narrative of confusing the building to a nearby navel base. For all our grand technology, do we have to keep slaughtering school children? These are crimes against humanity, and the rest of the world knows it.

=====

Common Dreams:
" ‘Beyond Evil’: Medics Say Iran School Massacre Was Double-Tap Strike. 'The second bomb hit,' said one paramedic. 'Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.'

As the US and Israel continued to wage war on Iran Wednesday, paramedics and victims’ relatives said last weekend’s bombing of an elementary school in southern Iran was a so-called 'double-tap' airstrike—a common tactic used by US, Israeli, and Russian forces by which attackers bomb a target and then follow up with a second strike meant to kill survivors and first responders. Iranian officials said that around 175 people—most of them young children—were killed when the girls’ elementary school in Minab was hit Saturday by what they said was a US-Israeli attack.

'When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them,' said one of two Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) paramedics who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity.

'The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children,' the paramedic added. 'But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived... Some parents recognized their children only because of the gold bracelets they were wearing.' ”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/iran-school-double-tap

-->Was it a double strike, a type of attack that waits for medics and families to gather around before they are all blown up? Israel has been using that tactic in Gaza, where it was given its proper name: "crimes against humanity."

=====

Common Dreams:
"Outspoken Pro-Palestinian Pastor Wins Primary to Replace Crockett in House
A group that tracks pro-Israel lobbying said his victory 'proves that the AIPAC era is over.' A pro-Palestine pastor has won the Democratic primary to fill the House seat in Texas that will be left behind by the pro-Israel Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who was a congregant at his church for years.

Frederick Haynes III, who has led the Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas for more than 40 years and was chosen by the late Rev. Jesse Jackson to lead his famed Rainbow PUSH coalition, won the primary for the seat now held by the two-term congresswoman with 72% of the vote.

But where Crockett has faced heat from the Democratic base over her statements and votes in support of Israel amid its genocide in Gaza and her backing by pro-Israel megadonors, Haynes’s credibility was bolstered by his willingness to call out Israel’s human rights abuses against Palestinians when few other Democrats would."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/haynes-wins-crockett-seat

-->The NYT story omitted Crockett's pro-Israel megadonors. Support of Israel probably cost her the election. Will it ever come down to challenging candidates who are fed bribes by AIPAC? You have to read alternative news sources like Common Dreams to get the full story.

Mother Jones:
"Documents unsealed by a federal judge this week confirm the federal government’s attempts to target, arrest, and deport students for pro-Palestine speech on college campuses last year. The court records also make clear the methods of investigation. The government looked to unverified accounts shared on social media and utilized Canary Mission—a shadowy online blacklist created by anonymous authors to smear pro-Palestine activists—to gather evidence against student protestors.

The documents were unsealed only after sustained pressure from journalists and press-freedom groups. News organizations, including the Center for Investigative Reporting (the parent organization of Mother Jones and the Reveal radio show and podcast), challenged the government’s efforts to keep large portions of the record secret, arguing that the public had a right to understand how speech was being scrutinized and punished. In unsealing the documents, US District Judge William G. Young sharply rebuked the Trump administration and called the government’s actions against pro-Palestinian speech an unconstitutional attempt to twist laws to intimidate students.

The new materials confirm previous accounts and reporting about the Department of Homeland Security’s targeting of students."
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/ozturk-khalil-documents-deportation-pro-palestine-protest-canary-mission/

-->This wasn't a big story in our mainstream media. The NYT covered a version of the story last year, but left out this latest story of a federal judge calling it unconstitutional.

=====

Common Dreams:
"An artificial intelligence researcher conducting a war games experiment with three of the world’s most used AI models found that they decided to deploy nuclear weapons in 95% of the scenarios he designed.

Kenneth Payne, a professor of strategy at King’s College London who specializes in studying the role of AI in national security, revealed last week that he pitted Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini against one another in an armed conflict simulation to get a better understanding of how they would navigate the strategic escalation ladder.

The results, he said, were 'sobering.' 'Nuclear use was near-universal,' he explained. 'Almost all games saw tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons deployed. And fully three quarters reached the point where the rivals were making threats to use strategic nuclear weapons. Strikingly, there was little sense of horror or revulsion at the prospect of all out nuclear war, even though the models had been reminded about the devastating implications.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/ai-nuclear-war-simulation

-->This story is more than sobering. If we leave the war making up to AI, there will be no world left. But why did our major media leave this study out?

=====

Palestine Chronicle:
"German journalist Hüseyin Doğru has recently revealed that he has been left without access to any income, stating on the social media platform X that he has “ZERO access to any money” and cannot provide food for his family.

In his post, he directly linked his situation to his journalism, arguing that the sanctions were imposed in connection with his reporting on Gaza and Palestine solidarity coverage in Germany.

He described the measures as punishment for publishing content that challenged Berlin’s position on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The post reignited attention around a case that began in May 2025, when the Council of the European Union added Doğru to its sanctions list under a generic framework targeting what it called 'Russia’s destabilizing actions.' ”
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/german-journalist-sanctioned-by-eu-over-gaza-reporting-who-is-huseyin-dogru/

-->There was very little coverage of this story. Freedom of speech is quietly disappearing in the EU.

Common Dreams:
‘You Should Be Outraged’: Candidates Sound Alarm on Stealth AIPAC Meddling in Illinois. 'They’re using shell organizations to try to crush progressive candidates in secret,' said the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. 'We can’t let them get away with it.'

Progressive congressional candidates in Illinois sounded the alarm Tuesday over efforts by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying organization, to influence congressional races in the state using methods that appear designed to conceal its role as Democratic voters increasingly view the group as politically toxic amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

'This isn’t what Democratic voters want. Even AIPAC knows it, which is why they’re hiding their name behind a shady super PAC and their agenda behind whatever ad they think will poll best,' Junaid Ahmed, who is running to represent Illinois’ 8th District in the US House, said during a press conference alongside other Democratic candidates."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/progressives-aipac-illinois

-->The NYT covered this story, but in a very different way. The Times article said little bout the stealth meddling that AIPAC was doing, funding conservative candidates as long as they favor Israel. The NYT is part of this obscuring the role of Israeli money in US politics.

=====

Adalah:
"Israel Fast-Tracks Death Penalty Bill Targeting Palestinians. Israel’s Knesset is fast-tracking one of the most extreme legislative proposals in its history: a bill that would introduce the death penalty in a manner that overwhelmingly targets Palestinians. Human rights organizations warn that the legislation will lead to racialized capital punishment.
 
The Penal Law (Amendment – Death Penalty for Terrorists), 2025, is being rushed through three consecutive hearings this week in the Knesset’s National Security Committee, one of which has already concluded—an accelerated process that paves the way for final votes in the coming weeks.
 
The bill creates a dual-track death penalty regime. In military courts - which have jurisdiction exclusively over Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory - judges would be required to impose a mandatory death sentence for intentional killing, by simple majority and even where the prosecution did not seek it."
https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/11499

-->Readers of the NYT have been spared this story about mandatory death penalties in occupied Palestine. Our newspaper of record remains one of the Zionist's principal
defenders.

=====

Common Dreams:
" 'An unmistakable majority wants a party that will fight harder against the corporations and rich people they see as responsible for keeping them down,' wrote the New Republic’s editorial director.

Democratic voters overwhelmingly want a leader who will fight the superrich and corporate America, and they believe Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the person to do it, according to a poll released this week.

While Democrats are often portrayed as squabbling and directionless, the poll conducted last month by the New Republic with Embold Research demonstrated a remarkable unity among the more than 2,400 Democratic voters it surveyed.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/aoc-most-favorable-dem

-->The NYT doesn't like enthusiasm on the left. After all, this newspaper can be counted on to keep such firebrands off their pages. Like they did with Bernie as he ran for president.

Common Dreams:
"Democratic voters overwhelmingly want a leader who will fight the superrich and corporate America, and they believe Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the person to do it, according to a poll released this week.

While Democrats are often portrayed as squabbling and directionless, the poll conducted last month by the New Republic with Embold Research demonstrated a remarkable unity among the more than 2,400 Democratic voters it surveyed. ....

This was true with respect to policy: More than 9 in 10 want to raise taxes on corporations and on the wealthiest Americans, while more than three-quarters want to break up tech monopolies and believe the government should conduct stronger oversight of business."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/aoc-most-favorable-dem

-->This is an interesting poll. But the NYT was not interested in the story. Class wars is not their thing.

=====

Aljazeera:
"Indian author Arundhati Roy has announced that she is withdrawing from the Berlin International Film Festival after what she described as 'unconscionable statements' by its jury members about Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

'It is a way of shutting down a conversation about a crime against humanity even as it unfolds before us in real time,' wrote Roy, the author of novels and nonfiction, including The God of Small Things.

'I am shocked and disgusted,' Roy wrote, adding that she believed 'artists, writers and filmmakers should be doing everything in their power to stop' the war in Gaza. 'Let me say this clearly: what has happened in Gaza, what continues to happen, is a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel,' she wrote. 'The war is 'supported and funded by the governments of the United States and Germany, as well as several other countries in Europe, which makes them complicit in the crime,' she added."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/14/arundhati-roy-shocked-by-jurys-gaza-remarks-quits-berlin-film-festival

-->How shocking too is the fact that few US media outlets carried Arundhati's comments. Well, if you want to join Germany and Israel in committing war crimes, you better get use to a little criticism.  

=====

Common Dreams:
"UN Human Rights Chief Calls for End of Trump Oil Embargo on Cuba as Crisis Deepens. The demand came after a group of United Nations experts condemned the embargo as 'a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order.'

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, said in a statement that 'we are extremely worried about Cuba’s deepening socio-economic crisis—amid a decades-long financial and trade embargo, extreme weather events, and the recent US measures restricting oil shipments.'

'This is having an increasingly severe impact on the human rights of people in Cuba. Given the dependence of health, food, and water systems on imported fossil fuels, the current oil scarcity has put the availability of essential services at risk nationwide.' "
https://www.commondreams.org/news/un-human-rights-chief-cuba-blockade

-->This is the third story this week about the US violating international law and committing war crimes. Hey, the US is committing war crimes in the rest of the world!

Aljazeera:
"In the first three months of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in 2023, only four deaths were officially attributed to starvation by health officials in Gaza. By 2024, that number rose to 49.  But it was in 2025 – the year the siege reached its suffocating zenith – that the death toll exploded, reaching 422 deaths in a single year.
This represents a staggering 760 percent increase in starvation deaths in just 12 months.

UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Michael Fakhri told Al Jazeera in August 2025 that the global standard for famine analysis, known as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), tends to be “conservative”.

'The reality on the ground was unequivocal. We raised the alarm when we started seeing the first children dying,' Fakhri explained, noting that the crisis met the strict technical criteria for famine."
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/2/5/starvation-by-design-how-israel-turned-food-into-a-weapon-of-war-in-ga

-->It is hard for our mainstream media to report starvation as a war crime. Recently, there has been even less coverage. You just won't find it recently in the NYT.

=====

Mazin Qumsiyeh ... A bedouin in cyberspace
"We are ruled by the worst people on the planet. The Epstein files have revealed just how morally depraved, intellectually mediocre, stunningly arrogant, extremely entitled, deeply racist and sexist, thoroughly Zionist,
and fundamentally corrupt the richest and most powerful people in the US and the broader West are.

Is it any wonder that they so ruthlessly pillage the planet, impose austerity on the masses while they siphon off all wealth into their own pockets, create wars and aggression everywhere, orchestrate colonialism, and perpetrate genocide without the slightest constraint of conscience, guilt, shame, or pity? And still we vote for them, buy their products, consume their media, and use their services. We are the engine of
our own oppression. The Israeli regime may have created Epstein, but we gave him his operating license. It’s time to take it back"
https://www.palestinenature.org/

-->Mazin is part of the Palestinian resistance to the occupation. Reading about his work gives one a different picture than our mainstream media.

=====

Common Dreams:
"Less than a week after NPR revealed that 'the Trump administration has overhauled a set of nuclear safety directives and shared them with the companies it is charged with regulating, without making the new rules available to the public,' the US Department of Energy announced Monday that it is allowing firms building experimental nuclear reactors to seek exemptions from legally required environmental reviews.

Citing executive orders signed by President Donald Trump in May, a notice published in the Federal Register states that the DOE 'is establishing a categorical exclusion for authorization, siting, construction, operation, reauthorization, and decommissioning of advanced nuclear reactors for inclusion in its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing procedures.' ”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/nuclear-power-trump

-->The NYT has done articles in the past about exemptions for nuclear reactors. But a don't see the story covered in 2026. The NYT has always had a warm spot in its heart for nuclear power plants. It didn't report this story.

The Times of Israel:
"Arab, Jewish protesters turn out in record numbers for Tel Aviv anti-crime demonstration. Head of Arab group lambasts police, gov’t in rare Hebrew speech to raise issues of violence and perceived neglect before Jewish audience: Protest may be ‘turning point’ in Jewish-Arab ties.

Tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish protesters turned out in Tel Aviv Saturday night for a massive rally, accusing the government of neglecting its Arab citizens and allowing violence to run rampant in the community.

The unprecedented demonstration in Habima Square briefly united Israel’s overwhelmingly Jewish anti-government protest movement with the country’s Arab citizens, who have become increasingly vocal in the face of pervasive crime.
The crowd was a highly unusual mix of Arab families and regular protesters against the right-wing government. Organizers estimated that some 40,000 Jewish and Arab protesters were in attendance."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-jewish-protesters-turn-out-in-record-numbers-for-tel-aviv-anti-crime-protest/

-->Perhaps this is a story of Israel's vulnerability. What would happen if the Jews and Palestinians worked together to rid themselves of their kleptocracy? The US media, however, does not want this story to come out.

=====

Code Pink:
"PBS has taken down Voices from the Frontline: China’s War on Poverty, a documentary directed by award-winning Peter Getzels, co-produced by PBS-SoCal with a foundation led by Robert Lawrence Kuhn. PBS is depriving its viewers of opportunities for learning about collective harmony and equality by censoring this documentary and its insight into China's life-saving policies, which took 100 million citizens out of extreme poverty. Tell PBS to liberate the documentary about China! Stop censoring the truth!

In 2019, Dr. Kuhn, a trusted expert on China, worked with award-winning director Peter Getzels to journey across China and document the methods used to bring over 100 million people out of extreme poverty. The film was an exemplary piece of video journalism meant to spread knowledge and awareness of China’s unprecedented accomplishments alleviating poverty. Not only that, but the film marked a beautiful moment of people to people dialogue, displaying the human benefits of local, bottom-up methodologies."
https://www.codepink.org/pbs_liberate

-->Anything positive about China gets cut out of our Western media. And do you still think we have freedom of the press?

=====

The Guardian UK:
"Less than two weeks before Jeffrey Epstein’s death in jail, his lawyers and Manhattan federal prosecutors met and discussed his potential cooperation, several documents within a cache of newly released investigative files state.

'On July 29, 2019, FBI and [prosecutors] met with Epstein’s attorneys, who, in very general terms, discussed the possibility of a resolution of the case, and the possibility of the defendant’s cooperation,' an FBI document titled 'Epstein Investigation Summary & Timeline' stated.

Another document titled 'Jeffrey Epstein Significant Case Notification', which was not attributed to a specific agency, closely resembled this FBI memo, and provided several more details."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/31/epstein-lawyers-discussed-cooperation

-->Why hasn't this story come out in the NYT? Or any other US media? I think it would reveal the depth of the government's coverup, and possibly the assassin who murdered him and made it look like a suicide.

 The Guardian UK:
"Repatriate the gold: German economists advise withdrawal from US vaults. Shift in relations and unpredictability of Donald Trump make it ‘risky to store so much gold in the US’, say experts.

Emanuel Mönch, a leading economist and former head of research at Germany’s federal bank, the Bundesbank, called for the gold to be brought home, saying it was too 'risky' for it to be kept in the US under the current administration.

'Given the current geopolitical situation, it seems risky to store so much gold in the US,' he told the financial newspaper Handelsblatt. 'In the interest of greater strategic independence from the US, the Bundesbank would therefore be well advised to consider repatriating the gold.'
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/24/repatriate-the-gold-german-economists-advise-withdrawal-from-us-vaults

-->This story didn't make it into the NYT. Perhaps because it shows how disruptive Trump's assaults against our allies really are. The empire's newspaper.

=====

Common Dreams:
"Meta, Google Under Fire for Letting ICE Run ‘White Nationalist-Inspired Propaganda’ to Recruit Agents.

A pair of House Democrats on Thursday demanded that the tech behemoths Google and Meta stop allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use their platforms to bolster the Trump administration’s efforts to recruit agents for its mass deportation campaign and lawless assault on communities across the United States.

In letters to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Reps. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote that they are 'alarmed by recent reports that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has partnered' with the tech giants 'as part of a large-scale campaign that uses white nationalist-inspired propaganda to recruit immigration enforcement agents.' ”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/meta-google-ice

-->It is also worrisome that our top newspapers didn't cover this story. When we finally wake up to our fascist state, we will have to blame the NYT for not seeing it coming. Does the "Newspaper of Record" know something the rest of the county does not?
 
=====

Aljazeera:
"Palestinian rights advocates are raising charitable donations in the name of American football player Azeez Al-Shaair, who was fined by the National Football League for displaying an anti-genocide message on his nose tape.

Nimrah Riaz, founder of Siraat Strategies, a sports consulting firm focused on Muslims, said people in the community wanted to turn the $11,593 penalty against the Houston Texans’ linebacker into something positive.

Al-Shaair wore nose tape captioned 'Stop the Genocide' during a pre-game TV interview last week, without specifically referring to a particular conflict. But the message was widely understood to be about the atrocities in Gaza and Sudan.
'If Azeez was going to use his platform to stand up for humanity, and there was going to be a financial consequence, instead of that moment ending in punishment, the community chose to redirect it, so we can all collectively raise funds towards Palestine and Sudan for those who actually need it,' Riaz told Al Jazeera."
https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/1/22/azeez-al-shaairs-anti-genocide-note-muslims-tackle-nfl-fine-with-charity

-->The Western Media didn't cover this story. Imagine getting upset about a nose tape and doing nothing about the 20,000 Palestinian children slaughtered in Gaza.