Wednesday, October 1, 2025
■ Today's Top News
"History will side with the flotilla," said former UK Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn.
By Stephen Prager,Jessica Corbett
This is a developing story… Please check back for updates…
Israel intercepted multiple boats from the Global Sumud Flotilla seeking to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip late Wednesday, generating outrage and displays of solidarity from across the globe.
“History will side with the flotilla,” said former UK Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who remains in Parliament. “And their bravery will only inspire more people to join our global movement for Palestine.”
Turkey’s foreign ministry described the interception as a “terrorist act... which targeted civilians acting peacefully,” while Colombian President Gustavo Petro booted the entire Israeli diplomatic delegation from his country immediately following the news.
In Barcelona, hundreds of outraged protesters gathered outside the Israeli consulate. Similar scenes broke out in other cities around the world, including Istanbul and Brussels.
The Guardian reported that Israeli forces boarded at least two vessels roughly 75 miles away from Gaza. A livestream from the flotilla showed signals from boat after boat going dark after the convoy was surrounded by over 20 Israeli naval ships.
According to Drop Site News—whose editor Alex Colston has been reporting from one of the vessels—by midnight local time, at least six boats from the flotilla had been intercepted and boarded by the Israeli navy.
After midnight, one sailor shared on the livestream that Israeli ships were spraying the flotilla boats with water cannons. By 1:00 am, the stream only showed the Meteque, where sailors held their hands above their heads as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ordered them to stop their engine.
An earlier video from flotilla activists shows the moment that Brazilian organizer Thiago Ávila received a message from an IDF soldier who ordered the flotilla to turn around.
“You are entering an active war zone,” the female soldier is heard saying over an intercom. “If you attempt to breach the naval blockade, we will stop your vessel and act to confiscate it through legal proceedings in court.”
In response, Ávila pointed to the International Court of Justice’s provisional measures on Gaza and the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ávila asked Israeli forces to “stand down,” “not commit another war crime,” and “not engage with our peaceful, nonviolent, humanitarian solidarity mission for the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Another video shows the people aboard the vessels defiantly chanting pro-Palestine slogans at Israeli ships.
The flotilla’s more than 40 civilian boats are carrying hundreds of humanitarians, journalists, and other noteworthy figures from dozens of countries around the world. They include the late South African President Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela; American actress Susan Sarandon; former Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau; and multiple other European politicians.
Another video shows one of the flotilla’s most famous participants, 22-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, being detained by an IDF soldier.
The flotilla set sail from Barcelona a few weeks ago, in response to Israel’s illegal near-total blockade of humanitarian aid entering Gaza, which has resulted in mass starvation. A group of United Nations experts warned in early September that any attempt by Israel to stop the vessels from delivering aid “would constitute a grave violation of international law and humanitarian principles.”
Throughout their journey toward Gaza, the flotilla members have faced numerous threats from the Israeli government, which has attempted to smear the humanitarian mission as an effort to advance the agenda of Hamas.
Last week, while still off the coast of Greece, the flotilla was swarmed with drones and attacked with flash-bang grenades believed to have been launched by Israel, which has a history of targeting such missions. That attack initially led the governments of Italy and Spain to send naval ships to offer protection to the flotilla, but they have since turned back as the boats moved closer to Gaza.
"Self-righteous book banners don't always get to have their way," the iconic author wrote, urging people to read banned titles. "This is still America, dammit."
By Brett Wilkins
Stephen King was the most banned author in US public schools during the 2024-25 academic year amid “rampant” censorship led by purportedly free speech-loving Republicans, a report published on Wednesday revealed.
According to PEN America, there were 6,870 instances of book bans across 23 states and 87 public school districts during the last scholastic year. Although that’s a significant drop from the more than 10,000 proscriptions recorded by the group during the previous academic term, it is still more than double the number from 2022-23, and brings the total number of prohibitions to nearly 23,000 since 2021.
For the third straight year, Florida topped the dubious list, with 2,304 instances of book bans, followed by Texas, where 1,781 bans occurred, and Tennessee, with 1,622. Right-wing groups and Republican state lawmakers—who often claim to champion free speech—have worked together to pass censorship laws driving bans on books they don’t like, especially titles related to racial justice and LGBTQ+ rights.
“No bookshelf will be left untouched if local and state book bans continue wreaking havoc on the freedom to read in public schools,” PEN America Freedom to Read program senior manager Sabrina Baêta said in a statement.
“With the Trump White House now also driving a clear culture of censorship, our core principles of free speech, open inquiry, and access to diverse and inclusive books are severely at risk,” Baêta added. “Book bans stand in the way of a more just, informed, and equitable world. They chill the freedom to read and restrict the rights of students to access information and read freely.”
King, the bestselling icon of horror novels and short stories, was the most banned author during the 2024-25 school year, with 87 titles banned a total of 206 times. King has been an outspoken critic of both book bans and President Donald Trump, whose presidency he has called a “horror story.”
The most blacklisted title of any author was Anthony Burgess’ dystopian 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange, which PEN America said was banned 23 times.
Responding to becoming the nation’s most proscribed writer, King said on social media, “I am now the most banned author in the United States—87 books.”
“May I suggest you pick up one of them and see what all the pissing and moaning is about?” he added. “Self-righteous book banners don’t always get to have their way. This is still America, dammit.”
"The addition of the derivative steel and aluminum tariffs in the middle of the month... was devastating," said one manufacturing executive.
By Brad Reed
Two reports released Wednesday paint an increasingly dark picture of the American economy under US President Donald Trump, matching predictions that his tax policy and chaotic tariffs would ultimately harm workers and put a drag on the nation’s financial outlook.
First, processing firm ADP estimated in its latest monthly report that the US economy lost 32,000 jobs in September, with contractions in employment happening across multiple industries.
The leisure and hospitality industry was hardest hit, as ADP estimated it lost 19,000 jobs last month, followed by professional and business services, which lost an estimated 13,000 jobs, and financial activities, which lost an estimated 9,000 jobs.
Small businesses took the biggest hit, as they shed 40,000 employees on the month, ADP estimated.
Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, said these latest numbers validate “what we’ve been seeing in the labor market, that US employers have been cautious with hiring.”
The ADP report is not seen as reliable as the monthly jobs report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, although that report will not be released on Friday as previously scheduled due to the current shutdown of the federal government.
In addition to the ADP survey, the latest ISM Manufacturing PMI Report revealed that the “manufacturing sector contracted in September for the seventh consecutive month” amid uncertainty caused in large part by Trump’s tariffs.
Comments made by executives in the new ISM survey point to a dire situation facing many US manufacturers.
“Business continues to be severely depressed,” said one respondent. “Profits are down and extreme taxes (tariffs) are being shouldered by all companies in our space. We have increased price pressures both to our inputs and customer outputs as companies are starting to pass on tariffs via surcharges, raising prices up to 20 percent.”
This executive, who works for a transportation equipment firm, added that “the addition of the derivative steel and aluminum tariffs in the middle of the month—with no announcement—was devastating.”
An executive at an electrical equipment supplier, meanwhile, said that “customer orders are depressed for heavy machinery because tariffs are so impactful to high-end capital equipment.” The executive said their company’s revenue projections were flat for the rest of the year, with “no outlook to improve in 2026.”
Another manufacturing executive simply said, “Steel tariffs are killing us.”
This gloomy sentiment isn’t just shared by business executives, but also US consumers. The Conference Board on Tuesday released its Consumer Confidence Index showing a “sharp deterioration in consumers’ views of the current economic situation” in the US.
Stephanie Guichard, senior economist at The Conference Board, noted that consumer confidence numbers are now the lowest they’ve been since April 2025, when Trump sent shockwaves through the economy by announcing his so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs that he partially backed away from in the face of a cratering stock market.
“Consumers’ assessment of business conditions was much less positive than in recent months, while their appraisal of current job availability fell for the ninth straight month to reach a new multiyear low,” Guichard explained. “This is consistent with the decline in job openings.”
The Conference Board also found that consumers’ short-term outlook for income, business, and labor market conditions was once again below the threshold that “typically signals a recession ahead.”
"The labor movement's message to the administration is clear: Get to work. Fund the government. Fix the healthcare crisis."
By Jessica Corbett
The largest federation of labor unions in the United States called out President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday after a government shutdown began at midnight following failed votes on competing congressional funding bills.
“The federal government is shutting down right now because President Trump and his administration chose chaos and pain over responsible governing,” declared American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) president Liz Shuler in a statement.
“Now,” she said, “countless jobs, the essential government services we all rely on, and the economy powered by our workforce are in jeopardy—all because the administration wants to take one more swing at wrecking the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and throwing working people off our healthcare.”
Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress but need some Democratic support to advance most legislation to a final vote in the Senate. While the GOP wanted to pass a House-approved stopgap bill, Democrats fought to extend expiring ACA subsidies and reverse Medicaid cuts in Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or HR 1.
“It’s not Washington politicians who are at risk here—it’s working people just like us.”
“Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being locked out and stand to lose the paychecks their families depend on,” said Shuler. “Federal contractors, including custodians and cafeteria workers, won’t have the assurance of back pay. It’s not Washington politicians who are at risk here—it’s working people just like us, more than 80% of whom live outside DC, and 30% are veterans.”
Federal workers deemed essential continue working during a shutdown, and those deemed nonessential are furloughed; none receive pay until the government reopens. The Trump administration has threatened to use the shutdown to continue the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) effort to gut the federal bureaucracy.
“These are the people who get our Social Security checks out on time, keep our food and water safe, care for our veterans, and protect us at airports and during natural disasters,” Shuler noted. “Under the administration’s Project 2025/DOGE agenda, federal workers have been fired, rehired, and fired again. They’ve been stripped of their collective bargaining rights and union contracts.”
“Now, President Trump is shutting down the government, using federal workers as pawns and threatening to illegally fire them—all to avoid fixing the mounting healthcare cost crisis that will hurt millions of Americans,” she concluded. “The labor movement’s message to the administration is clear: Get to work. Fund the government. Fix the healthcare crisis. Put working people first.”
Leaders of AFL-CIO affiliates shared similar messages on Wednesday, including American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) national president Everett Kelley, who stressed that “when the government shuts down, American families pay the price.”
“Congress must stop playing politics with the livelihoods of federal workers and the communities they serve, end this shutdown immediately, and stop holding workers hostage,” he said. “These employees should be able to do their jobs free of political interference. Instead, these employees and the services they provide are being thrown into chaos because Congress refuses to act.”
“Making matters worse,” Kelley noted, “President Trump and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought are threatening to illegally fire mass numbers of federal employees during the government shutdown to inflict further pain on communities and workers across the nation—an action we are already challenging in court.”
In the lead-up to the shutdown late Tuesday, AFGE and another AFL-CIO affiliate, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), filed a federal lawsuit in hopes of protecting government workers from mass firings.
Mary Turner, president of National Nurses United, another AFL-CIO affiliate, said Tuesday that “the Trump administration’s only desire appears to be to placate and please the billionaire class and to declare war on our country’s own people. This was abundantly evident in the passage of HR 1, which gave corporations and the ultrarich huge tax breaks while stealing healthcare coverage from 16 million people.”
“When the Republicans passed HR 1, they voted to upend an already fragile system,” Turner added. “If Congress doesn’t act immediately to reverse these cuts, our patients will suffer from going without care. They will have to ration their prescriptions and face bankruptcy just to see a doctor. Experts predict more than 50,000 people will die unnecessarily each year because of these cuts.”
In a letter sent to federal lawmakers before the shutdown, the nurses had urged them to vote for the Democratic measure and “address the looming healthcare crisis that Republican congressional leadership created.”
The union also emphasized that “by refusing to govern, Republicans bear full responsibility for the devastating consequences that would ensue if the government is shut down.”
One New York state senator called the move "extortion, plain and simple."
By Brett Wilkins
A senior Trump administration official said Wednesday that $18 billion in infrastructure funding for New York City is being frozen, citing diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns—however, a White House insider attributed the move to the federal government shutdown, while critics noted that both Democratic congressional leaders represent the Empire State.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said on the social media site X that the $18 billion was “put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles.”
However, a Trump administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told The Associated Press that the federal government shutdown that started at midnight is to blame for the freeze, as Department of Transportation personnel tasked with reimbursing workers have been furloughed.
Some skeptical observers noted that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries both represent New York and are both Democrats—whom Republicans are blaming for the government shutdown. Polling shows that more Americans say Republicans or both parties are to blame for the shutdown than Democrats alone.
President Donald Trump also threatened this week to cut off all federal funding to New York City if democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani wins next month’s mayoral election. This, after the president threatened a federal takeover of the nation’s largest city.
The withheld money is allocated for projects including the Hudson River Tunnel and Second Avenue Subway—which was first proposed in 1920 and has been under construction since 1972.
“You might as well threaten us with taking away the Dodgers.”
Reacting to Vought’s announcement, US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said on social media: “Let’s open our eyes. This isn’t a functioning democracy any longer when—in the middle of a high stakes funding fight—the president illegally suspends federal projects in states run by Democrats as a way to punish the political opposition.”
New York state Sen. Andrew Gounardes (D-26) posted, “Trump Republicans are so cruel and incompetent that they’re now playing games with billions in funding for critical infrastructure projects, putting the literal foundations of our city at risk.”
“This is extortion, plain and simple,” he added.
The radical publishing collective Strangers in a Tangled Wildnerness encapsulated the sentiment of many New Yorkers in a Bluesky post directed at Trump, or perhaps Vought:
As for Vought’s stated reason for halting the funds, Trump, Republican officials, and MAGA luminaries like the late podcaster Charlie Kirk have baselessly cast diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—an effort to mitigate centuries of ongoing systemic and institutional racism—and “woke” hiring practices as a catchall archvillain responsible for a host of ills ranging from transportation accidents to natural disasters.
Ripping on Vought’s DEI claim, history professor Aaron Astor quipped, “Is the Queens Midtown Tunnel woke now?”
Vanessa Cárdenas of America's Voice said Republicans are "scapegoating immigrants to distract from the fact that their policies are taking away Americans’ healthcare and damaging our economy."
By Stephen Prager
The US government officially shut down at midnight on Wednesday after weeks of failed negotiations, following Democrats’ refusal to back a Republican spending plan that did not reverse the GOP’s massive cuts to healthcare spending.
In order to support the GOP’s continuing resolution, which needs 60 votes to advance in the Senate, Democratic leaders have long insisted that Republicans extend a Biden-era tax credit that had significantly lowered insurance premiums for around 22 million people who purchased health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) online insurance marketplace.
KFF found last month that the tax credits have reduced insurance premiums by 44% on average—over $700 per enrollee—and have contributed to the number of people purchasing insurance on the exchanges more than doubling to over 24 million in 2025.
The GOP allowed the credit to expire at the end of the year during negotiations for President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July. If they are not extended, the average recipient can expect their health insurance premiums to more than double in 2026, which KFF estimates will result in over 4 million people becoming unable to afford their health insurance plans.
Democrats have also demanded that Republicans roll back some of the GOP bill’s $793 billion worth of cuts to Medicaid, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will result in about 7.8 million more people becoming uninsured and has begun to result in the closures of rural hospitals around the country.
Instead of negotiating to stave off the coming healthcare apocalypse, GOP leaders came up with a different solution: to make up an overt lie. As the shutdown drew nearer, Republicans abruptly shifted to the talking point that Democrats were holding the government hostage unless Republicans agreed to give free healthcare to “illegal aliens.”
“Democrats are going to shut down the federal government and inflict significant pain on American citizens because President Trump won’t force taxpayers to fund free benefits to illegal aliens,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Vice President JD Vance said Democrats “want to give massive amounts of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, to illegal aliens for their healthcare while Americans are struggling to pay their healthcare bills.”
And shortly after Democratic leaders expressed the belief that they’d gotten through to the president during negotiations, Trump dashed any hopes of a resolution by posting a bizarre artificially generated video of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) talking about his plans to “give all these illegal aliens free healthcare... so they can vote for us” while standing next to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who was edited to appear with a sombrero and a mustache while mariachi music played in the background.
It is a bit that they have continued using to lampoon Democrats who have demanded that Trump treat the negotiations seriously.
“The lie is so big and so brazen that it’s almost not worth addressing, because doing so gives the claim far more credibility than it deserves,” Jonathan Cohn explained for The Bulwark, a right-leaning publication. “But it’s become ubiquitous in Republican talking points, from the president on down. There’s also a chance some people will believe it, because it feeds into some common misconceptions about healthcare and immigration policy, as well as preconceptions of how the parties operate.”
Undocumented immigrants in the United States are barred from applying for federally funded healthcare, including Medicaid and subsidized plans from the ACA. They also cannot receive, as Trump claimed, “Medicare—the Cadillac Medicare.”
Democrats have called for lawful immigrants, including legal asylum recipients, green-card holders, and other legal permanent residents, to have their healthcare restored after the Big Beautiful Bill stripped them of eligibility for these programs.
“Republicans might not want these people to be eligible for those subsidies,” Cohn said. “But these people are not ‘illegal aliens.’ They have permission to be in the United States.”
Another persistent claim has been that millions of undocumented immigrants are lying about their status to obtain benefits they shouldn’t, which Republicans also frequently invoked during the debate over cuts to Medicaid in June, including the audacious lie from Senate Republicans that the bill “protects Medicaid for eligible Americans by removing 1.4 million illegals.”
“Even if it were true that millions of Americans were getting Affordable Care Act insurance through deception or error, there’s no reason to think that large numbers of undocumented immigrants would be among them,” Cohn explained.
This is because enrollment systems cross-check Social Security numbers with information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Meanwhile, Healthcare.gov requires noncitizens to provide other forms of documentation, like green-cards or entry permits, to demonstrate their lawful status.
The only federal healthcare subsidy that even theoretically benefits undocumented immigrants is “Emergency Medicaid,” which reimburses hospitals that provide mostly emergency care to immigrants ineligible for federal healthcare subsidies. The GOP bill cut $28 billion from this program, and Democrats have called for it to be restored, along with other Medicaid cuts.
However, that $28 billion is only about 3% of the total healthcare cuts Democrats are calling to restore and less than 1% of total Medicaid spending. Moreover, only a portion of the beneficiaries are undocumented immigrants—they also include many legal residents who are not yet eligible for government benefits.
“A lot of the money, Cohn said, “is spent on truly emergency services like resuscitating somebody from a heart attack or delivering a baby that hospitals and clinics are obligated to provide, thanks to a 1980s law, signed by Ronald Reagan, that prohibits denying care to people who need stabilizing or lifesaving treatment.”
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act has been one of the least popular pieces of legislation in recent memory. According to the most recent data from Pew Research in August, 46% disapprove of the tax and spending law, while 32% approve. Just 11% said they strongly approve, while 33% said they strongly disapprove.
The bill’s cuts to Medicaid are especially unpopular, but Republicans have managed to push off many of the worst effects until after the 2026 midterms. The same cannot be said about the ACA subsidy cuts, which will be felt immediately in the new year.
Republicans are well aware that being blamed for those cuts could be destructive to their electoral chances. One survey conducted in July by two of Trump’s most trusted pollsters found that for Republicans in the most competitive congressional districts, “a 3-point deficit becomes a 15-point deficit” against the generic Democrat if they allow the healthcare premium tax credit to expire.
As Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice, said Tuesday as the shutdown approached, “The Trump administration and their allies in Congress are going back to their repulsive yet tried-and-true tactic of scapegoating immigrants to distract from the fact that their policies are taking away Americans’ healthcare and damaging our economy.”
