Thursday, Apr 17th
Last update06:11:56 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
Several dozen anti-war student protesters gathered outside Columbia University and Barnard College in New York on Thursday to protest against the expulsion of two students who interrupted a class on Israel last month.
Wearing keffiyehs in solidarity with Palestinians, students chanted a series of anti-war slogans amid a heavy New York police department (NYPD) presence outside the sister schools, where only students and faculty with ID cards are allowed in.
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to suspend the U.S. refugee program.
The ruling came in a challenge filed by several refugee resettlement organizations whose lawsuit earlier this month argued that President Donald Trump's indefinite suspension of the U.S. refugee program was unlawful and causing irreparable harm.
While a president has substantial authority over the program, that authority "is not limitless," U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Washington State said during a court hearing on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
"I cannot ignore Congress's detailed framework for refugee admissions and the limits it places on the president's ability to suspend the same," he said, ruling that a preliminary injunction was warranted given the likelihood of "irreparable harms, including refugees stranded after selling their possessions, agencies laying off hundreds of staff, and family reunifications suspended indefinitely."
The Bureau of Prisons is pushing ahead with plans to move transgender inmates out of prisons that align with their gender identity and into facilities corresponding to their sex at birth. The moves could happen as early as next week, according to federal inmates and a source familiar with the policy who spoke with NPR on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal.
This would mean transgender women currently housed in women's facilities would be moved to men's facilities, and vice versa. It's expected that the moves will impact trans inmates regardless of whether they've received gender transition surgery of any kind.
It's a step that has been anticipated with serious concern by many in the trans and legal communities since President Trump signed an executive order that pushed the BOP to make such a move.
TVNL Comment: Another outrageous, digraceful move against the trans community.
Thousands of federal workers are losing their jobs as part of the Trump administration's efforts to drastically downsize the government.
The sweeping cuts are being felt across areas and agencies, from public health to consumer protection to national parks. Staffers at some agencies say the notification process has been chaotic, leaving their employment status and teams' futures unclear.
To add to the confusion, some employees have received termination notices only to have their firings reversed within days or even hours.
This effort by the informal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — the cross-agency team tasked by President Trump to slash federal spending — is not the first to try to downsize the federal government.
A federal judge in Maryland on Friday temporarily blocked Donald Trump from implementing bans on diversity, equity and inclusion programs at federal agencies and by businesses that contract with the federal government.
US district judge Adam Abelson said the directives by Trump and an order urging the Department of Justice to investigate companies with DEI policies likely violate the first amendment of the US constitution.
“The White House and attorney general have made clear, through their ongoing implementation of various aspects of the J21 order, that viewpoints and speech considered to be in favor of or supportive of DEI or DEIA are viewpoints the government wishes to punish and, apparently, attempt to extinguish,” Abelson wrote in one widely shared passage.
More than 100 medical workers visited the Senate on Wednesday to demand lawmakers help stop Israel’s military offensives against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank — campaigns that the Biden administration supported and the current Trump administration has continued to back.The medical professionals are part of Doctors Against Genocide, a grassroots coalition of health care workers mobilizing against acts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The group has testified before the United Nations and the U.S. government in hopes that political leaders can prevent and intervene acts of violence.
“We’re here to talk to our Congress about our support for what seems to be the worst attack on a civilian population in this century,” Dr. John Brewer, a retired emergency physician, said at DAG’s press conference on Wednesday.
“The attack[s] on women, pregnant women, children, targeting health care workers, doctors being shot, hospitals being destroyed, sewer treatment and water treatment plants destroyed — it’s just unparalleled to anything else at the current moment.”
Optimism in the Arab world that President Trump might bring a permanent end to the war in the Gaza Strip and, with it, stability to the tumultuous Middle East, soared as he was given a lion's share of the credit for ushering in the current ceasefire. But that hope has faded quickly since Mr. Trump suggested a plan to force Gaza's entire population out and to "take over" the decimated Palestinian territory to develop it as a vacation destination.
Mr. Trump said the roughly 2.3 million Palestinians should be moved to Egypt and Jordan, apparently to make way for investors to move in and "just clean out the whole thing."
The president's suggestion sent a shockwave of confusion and anger sweeping across the Arab nations that surround Israel, and beyond.
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