With more than 1,700 civilians, including hundreds of children, reportedly killed during US-Israeli bombarding of Iran, one advocacy group said that "more pressure and oversight on these war crimes is urgently needed."While claiming that the subject of civilian casualties is his “passion” before US lawmakers during a US Senate hearing on Thursday, the head of US Central Command was asked directly if he and his team had investigated a litany of reports about civilians being killed or maimed by US bombs in Iran. His answer? No. Commander Adm. Brad Cooper appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee for a hearing on US Central Command (CENTCOM) and US Africa Command (AFRICOM) concerning the Trump administration’s request for $1.5 trillion in military spending authorization for 2027. During the questioning, Cooper refuted reports that US-Israeli airstrikes have hit 22 schools in Iran and raised eyebrows for his answers regarding cuts to Pentagon programs meant to mitigate harm to noncombatants. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)—who last month led the introduction of a defeated war powers resolution aimed at stopping President Donald Trump’s “reckless” attack on Iran—pressed Cooper about US conduct in the war. She cited New York Times reporting that 22 schools and 17 healthcare facilities have been destroyed or damaged since Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the illegal war of choice on February 28. “We have regulations. We have the law of war. We have human rights obligations. We have our own targeting requirements to avoid civilian harm and death,” Gillibrand said. “Have you been implementing all the laws that are required under current law to minimize civilian death?” Cooper replied: "We have executed every operation consistent with the law of armed conflict. The subject of civilian casualties is a particular passion of mine. We pay attention to it."“We follow all the procedures and have gone above and beyond to, in my case, personally warn the Iranian people of several instances during conflict where they were being potentially used as human targets,” the admiral said. Asked by Gillibrand “how did we then bomb 22 schools,” Cooper countered that “there is no indication that we have that has been corroborated.” The Iranian Red Crescent Society claimed last month that at least 60 students and 10 staff members were killed in US-Israeli attacks on 32 universities and 857 schools. Pressed by the senator on “how many schools” the US has bombed, Cooper retorted that “there is one active civilian casualty investigation from the 13,629 munitions” used to attack Iran. The admiral was presumably referring to the February 28 cruise missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, which killed 156 students and staff and wounded 95 others. Trump and senior administration officials initially denied responsibility for the massacre, but physical evidence, journalistic investigations, and a preliminary Pentagon probe indicate US culpability. A skeptical Gillibrand repeated her question about 22 schools “and multiple hospitals” being bombed. “There’s no way that we can corroborate that,” Cooper replied. “No indication of that whatsoever.” The senator asked for clarification: “There’s no way you can corroborate, or no indication of it? Which one?” Cooper answered, “No indication.” “Well, the indication is what’s publicly available,” Gillibrand fired back. “There is indication. Have you investigated those claims?” The admiral replied, “We have not.” Gillibrand continued: “Why have you not? If this is a passion of yours, if you believe that the civilian casualties are not consistent with the law of war and not consistent with human rights obligations... why have you not investigated those allegations when they’re publicly being made on the cover of The New York Times?” The senator then asked how Cooper has “managed the 90% cut to the personnel who are supposed to avoid civilian targets,” a reference to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s gutting of the Biden-era Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP), which laid out a series of policy steps aimed at preventing and responding to the death and injury of noncombatants. The plan, which was implemented after US forces killed an estimated 432,000 civilians since late 2001 during the so-called War on Terror, was skeptically welcomed for its commitment to reducing harm to noncombatants. However, Hegseth said at the outset of the Iran War that US forces would not be bound by “stupid rules of engagement” and would instead prioritize “lethality.” The Pentagon eliminated the entire civilian harm office at Joint Special Operations Command, removed related specialists from target development teams, and slashed CENTCOM’s civilian harm mitigation team from 10 people to just one full-time staffer. Cooper told Gillibrand that he would be “happy to provide any report” on the matter. Iranian officials and human rights groups say more than 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed by US and Israeli attacks since February 28. US and Israeli use of artificial intelligence systems to select bombing targets exponentially faster than any person has also raised concerns regarding a lack of meaningful human oversight. One former IDF officer said AI enabled a “mass assassination factory” in Gaza, where more than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said after the exchange with Gillibrand that “Cooper’s response is woefully insufficient, denying that more than one such bombing took place, despite widespread documentation of bombings destroying protected civilian sites.” “More than 1,700 civilians, including hundreds of children, were killed in the bombardment of Iran,” NIAC added. “Dozens of schools and hospitals were damaged and destroyed by the dropping of massive bombs in urban areas. More pressure and oversight on these war crimes is urgently needed.”
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"What we're seeing is the public experience how more spending does not actually keep them safe," said a researcher at Brown University's Costs of War Project. |
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US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday released yet another ad pitching President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, as new polling showed major skepticism over the idea.
In his latest pitch for the record-breaking defense budget, the former Fox News host insists that “America is not in decline,” even though the US has been unable to compel Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz despite having spent nearly $1 trillion on defense in 2025.
“We remain the strongest military power on Earth,” Hegseth continued. “But that power requires renewal. And with global threats that are constantly evolving, it’s time to make a $1.5 trillion investment.”
A $1.5 trillion military budget would be over 50% more than the 2025 US defense budget and more than four times the money spent on defense by China, the world’s second-biggest defense spender.
Among other things, Hegseth said that the budget would invest $18 billion into Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, which the Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday estimated would cost $1.2 trillion to create, deploy, and operate over the first 20 years of its existence.
Hegseth also said that the Pentagon would be increasing its investment in artificial intelligence by “800%,” although it’s not at the moment clear how well AI helps militaries effectively fight wars.
The defense secretary concluded his video by insisting that “we are expanding our strength, we are restoring our deterrence, and we are putting America first.”
USA Today reported on Thursday that a new poll conducted by ReThink Media and the Costs of War Project at Brown University finds that nearly 60% of Americans think the proposed Trump Pentagon budget is too large, including 40% who say $1.5 trillion is “much too high” to spend on defense.
Breaking the figures down by party, 87% of Democrats said the defense budget was too high, along with 54% of independents, and even 30% of Republicans.
Jennifer Greenburg, a researcher with Brown’s Costs of War Project, told USA Today that Americans were broadly skeptical that plunging more taxpayer money into the Pentagon is really necessary given that the US already doles out more for defense than the next four biggest spenders—China, Russia, Germany, and India—combined.
“In real time, I think what we’re seeing,” said Greenberg, “is the public experience how more spending does not actually keep them safe.”
In a column published by The New York Times on Wednesday, longtime national security reporter Noah Shachtman argued that Hegseth’s $1.5 trillion proposal was “less like a budget and more like a trip to an endless casino buffet” in which the Pentagon spends money in “gut-busting proportions.”
Shachtman also noted that the proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget comes at a time when the Trump administration has wrecked traditional oversight mechanisms, thus making waste and fraud far more likely at a Pentagon that’s never passed an audit.
“One of their early actions was to fire and replace the Pentagon’s inspector general, whose office looks into claims of fraud and abuse in military contracting,” Shachtman explained. “The independent office that tests whether our weapons actually work has been gutted.”
Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argued in an analysis published on Tuesday that Hegseth’s budget pitch at congressional hearings this week was particularly baffling because there is really no imperative behind it on par with the Cold War or the post-9/11 defense buildup.
“Despite presenting no strategic necessity for the largest year-over-year Pentagon spending increase since World War II,” Freeman wrote, “Hegseth repeatedly claimed the $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget was a sound financial decision, arguing in the Senate hearing that ‘at every level we have made it a fiscally responsible budget.’ Yet, the fact is that the entirety of this proposed increase in Pentagon spending would be deficit financed, effectively going on Uncle Sam’s credit card.”
"Susan Collins cares far more about protecting bank executives’ millions than protecting the rest of us from BS overdraft fees," said Platner's campaign manager. |
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Graham Platner’s campaign is accusing Sen. Susan Collins of siding with banking interests after she joined Senate Republicans in blocking a Democratic measure to protect consumers from unexpected overdraft fees.
On Wednesday, the GOP voted largely along party lines against a set of Democratic resolutions aiming to restore Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) policies killed by the Trump administration.
In what its acting director, Russell Vought, has described as an effort to effectively dismantle the bureau, which has been credited with delivering more than $21 billion in consumer relief since its creation, he has rescinded 67 policies that protected Americans from junk fees, medical debt, lending discrimination, and other financial abuses.
One resolution voted down Wednesday would have restored a scrapped CFPB guidance against debt collectors hounding consumers over false or inflated medical debts. Another would have reaffirmed that the bureau can scrutinize financial companies for predatory credit practices aimed at military families.
These Democratic resolutions were not expected to pass in a Republican-controlled Senate, but were instead meant to force Republicans to put themselves on the record as standing against consumer interests.
As President Donald Trump takes a beating from voters on the economy, the votes will serve as ammunition as Democrats run with the message that the GOP has “abandoned consumers and is making life more expensive for them,” as the CFPB’s architect, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), said on Wednesday.
Platner is already deploying that ammunition in one of November’s marquee races, hammering Collins (R-Maine) for voting with the GOP against restoring a guidance enacted by the Biden administration that required banks to obtain customers’ consent before charging overdraft fees for ATM and one-time debit card transactions.
“Last night, Susan Collins voted once again to make it easier for big banks to hit Maine families with predatory overdraft fees,” his campaign said in an email on Thursday. “Her vote to block even a debate on restoring basic consumer protections was just the latest reminder of where Collins’ real loyalties lie.”
“There is no legitimate policy rationale for voting against basic consumer protections on overdraft fees,” said Platner’s campaign manager, Ben Chin. “But Susan Collins cares far more about protecting bank executives’ millions than protecting the rest of us from BS overdraft fees. This vote is yet another example of this deeply unfortunate reality.”
According to data from OpenSecrets, Collins has received nearly $1.8 million this cycle in contributions from the financial sector, including more than $570,000 from private equity and investment firms, which the Platner campaign said were “among the most predatory actors in the American economy.”
She’s also received more than $44,000 from commercial banks and holding companies that have a particular interest in her stance on overdraft fees.
The Pine Tree Results PAC, which has thrown about $12.7 million behind Collins, likewise got nearly a third of its funding from figures in the financial sector, particularly in private equity and hedge funds with a broader interest in neutering the CFPB.
Peasants' unions and other groups are protesting a law that they say would allow corporate control of small farmers' land, as well as fuel shortages and a low minimum wage. |
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An economic crisis and the repeal of a crucial gas subsidy, fuel shortages, and a law that opponents say will allow the encroachment of corporate interests on Indigenous and peasant lands are among the central concerns of thousands of miners and other workers who have joined a march from Bolivia’s northern Amazon territories to La Paz, with a major miners union in the capital joining the protest on Wednesday.
The Federation of Mining Cooperatives of La Paz and an influential peasant union met land workers and Indigenous representatives this week as they arrived in the capital after having marched 1,100 kilometers (683 miles) “for over 20 days from the tropics into freezing high-altitude terrain, many wearing nothing more substantial on their feet than plastic sandals,” as Olivia Arigho-Stiles reported at Jacobin.
At least 50 marchers required medical treatment last week for exhaustion, dehydration, and other ailments, but the unions are showing no sign of ending the general strike that was begun by Bolivian Workers’ Central (COB), with the mass mobilization also including at least 70 road blockades around the country, according to the Bolivia Highway Association.
TeleSUR reported that the entry of the miners union signified “a substantial increase in pressure” on right-wing President Rodrigo Paz, whose resignation some workers’ organizations are calling for.
The Federation of Mining Cooperatives joined the ongoing marches and protests after Paz failed to attend a scheduled dialogue. Miners have been alarmed by the scarcity of fuel, “a dire shortage of essential explosive material, and significant delays in the liberation of new areas designated for mining exploitation,” reported TeleSUR.
The broader protests began in response to stagnant, low wages as well as Law 1720, which the government has claimed will benefit small-scale farmers by allowing them to obtain mortgages after converting their smallholdings into “medium-size” businesses.
But Roger Adan Chambi, an Aymara lawyer and specialist in Indigenous land law, told Jacobin that the measure was passed “without consulting the sectors it was supposed to benefit (peasants and small producers), jeopardizing legal security and constitutional guarantees regarding land ownership.”
“Far from being an opportunity for small producers to access credit, this law weakens the property rights of peasants and Indigenous communities, especially those resisting on the agricultural frontier,” Chambi said. “Structural insecurity and the lack of basic services will, in the future, force them to mortgage or sell their plots, facilitating dispossession and the transfer of land to corporations.”
Oscar Cardoza, a peasant union leader and a representative of the marchers, declared at a public gathering in La Paz this week: “Our life is collective, not individual. The land must be respected; it’s not for sale.”
Al Jazeera reported that the end of a fuel subsidy, which was cut after Paz took office last year during what he called an “economic, financial, energy, and social emergency,” also pushed COB to issue the call for a general strike.
The subsidy had been crucial for working Bolivians, and the cut has made quality fuel increasingly inaccessible.
“Starting today, a general, indefinite, and active strike is declared, until the government understands the people’s demands,” COB secretary-general Mario Argollo told a group of 1,000 supporters on May 1.
The union is also calling for a 20% increase to the nation’s minimum wage, which currently sits at 3,300 bolivianos ($477.71) per month.
"The way to avoid fraud charges under the Trump administration is to hire Trump's personal lawyer and engage in bribery," said one critic. |
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The US Department of Justice is reportedly preparing to drop charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani shortly after he hired one of President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers to represent him.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that the DOJ—now headed by former Trump attorney Todd Blanche—is working on ending its case against Adani, who was indicted in November 2024 along with two colleagues for alleged conspiracies to commit securities and wire fraud, among other charges.
The Times noted that the DOJ’s reversal came after Adani hired a legal team headed by attorney Robert Giuffra Jr., who is currently leading efforts to overturn Trump’s 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records.
According to the Times, Giuffra’s work for Adani “culminated in a previously unreported meeting last month at the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington” that included an offer that “if prosecutors dropped the charges, Mr. Adani would be willing to invest $10 billion in the American economy and create 15,000 jobs.”
Bloomberg reported on Thursday that the DOJ could announce it’s dropping charges against Adani “as soon as this week,” and added that the Securities and Exchange Commission “is also moving to settle a parallel civil fraud case it brought against Adani and others in November 2024.”
The DOJ alleged that Adani, whom Forbes estimates is worth at least $82 billion, “orchestrated an elaborate scheme to bribe Indian government officials to secure contracts worth billions of dollars,” and then subsequently lied about the scheme to secure funding from US investors.
Given Trump’s past pardons of white-collar criminals—including a cryptocurrency magnate who helped boost the value of the president’s personal meme coin—some observers were quick to label the DOJ’s move to drop charges against Adani an act of corruption.
University of Arkansas economist Jeremy Horpedahl commented that the Adani case shows that “the way to avoid fraud charges under the Trump administration is to hire Trump’s personal lawyer and engage in bribery.”
Manish Sharma, leader of the Indian Youth Congress, suggested Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also involved in the effort to get charges dropped for Adani, a longtime political ally.
“Perfect timing, just months after Modi signed that one-sided trade deal with Trump,” wrote Sharma. “Quid pro quo delivered: Compromised PM sells out Indian interests, Trump admin returns the favor to Modi’s favorite billionaire.”
Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for The Nation, criticized the New York Times for describing the quid pro quo proposed by Giuffra on behalf of his client as an “unusual offer.”
“'UNUSUAL OFFER??’ No, headline writers,” wrote Mystal, who then suggested a more accurate headline: “Charges Dropped Against Indian Billionaire Accused of Bribery, After Offering Trump A Bribe.”
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