Aliya Rahman v. DHS: Disabled Woman Dragged from Car Files Claim over Violent Arrest in Minneapolis
http://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/17/minneapolis_lawsuit
Aliya Rahman v. DHS: Disabled Woman Dragged from Car Files Claim over Violent Arrest in Minneapolis
Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident who was violently detained by ICE officers in January during “Operation Metro Surge,” filed a federal tort claim against the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday, claiming the agency used excessive force and violated her rights. Rahman was never charged with any crime. “They battered Aliya. They assaulted Aliya. They were negligent in their medical care for Aliya,” says Jessica Gingold, one of Rahman’s attorneys. “All of those things are illegal, and this is our tool for making sure that they have to pay for that.”
Aliya Rahman was on her way to a doctor’s appointment when her route was blocked by ICE vehicles. Rahman’s window was smashed, and she was violently pulled out of her car. She told the officers she is disabled and autistic, but says they mocked her. Rahman was brought to an ICE jail, where she was denied medical care. She eventually fell unconscious and woke up at a hospital. “My hope is that Americans can see that we have an option that might someday make mass acts of racial violence seem too expensive for these folks, even if they don’t share our values,” says Rahman.
Report from Beirut: Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire Met with "Cautious Optimism"
http://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/17/lebanon_ceasefire
Report from Beirut: Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire Met with “Cautious Optimism”
A 10-day ceasefire has begun in Lebanon. The news is being celebrated across the country, but major questions remain over what happens next. President Trump announced the deal between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday. Hezbollah, which is not a party to the agreement, says it will observe the ceasefire. The Israeli military is occupying a large swath of southern Lebanon, about 10% of the country. Early on in the current war, the Israeli military announced the intention to create a “security zone” from the Lebanese-Israeli border all the way to the Litani River, 20 miles north of the border.
Many in the country are questioning whether Israel will abide by the ceasefire, says Beirut-based journalist Kareem Chehayeb. Israel continued airstrikes on Thursday right up until the ceasefire took effect, including blowing up the last bridge over the Litani River. “With this kind of military mobilization and this ground invasion of Lebanon, many in Lebanon do fear this could lead to some sort of long-term or even permanent occupation, similar to that from 1982 until the year 2000,” says Chehayeb.
Rami Khouri: U.S. & Israel Were "Forced into Two Ceasefires" as Regional Balance of Power Shifts
http://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/17/lebanon_iran_ceasefires
Rami Khouri: U.S. & Israel Were “Forced into Two Ceasefires” as Regional Balance of Power Shifts
“We’ve seen now, in the last six weeks, Iran and Hezbollah almost single-handedly checking — not defeating, but checking — the two biggest military powers in the region, which is the U.S. and Israel,” says Rami Khouri. Khouri says the U.S. and Israel have been “forced into” ceasefires in Iran and Lebanon. This is all a sign “of the evolving balance of power across the region” and demonstrates that Iran’s Axis of Resistance “is still effective.” Khouri is a Palestinian American journalist and public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut.
As Iran Reopens Strait of Hormuz, Are U.S. & Iran Near Deal or Renewed Fighting?
http://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/17/iran_trump_talks
As Iran Reopens Strait of Hormuz, Are U.S. & Iran Near Deal or Renewed Fighting?
President Trump on Thursday repeated his claim that a deal to end the war on Iran is “very close” and that direct talks with Iran could resume in Pakistan as soon as this weekend. Despite the claims, the Pentagon is surging thousands of additional troops to the Middle East, including an additional 6,000 sailors and aviators joining the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier battle group. Around 4,200 others with the Navy and Marines are expected to arrive near the end of the month. Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, says “we might be, at some point, returning to a hot war” because the Iranians, too, have “preserved a degree of retaliatory capacity.” The main question on the negotiating table is whether the Iranians, who “have been saying for years that they don’t want nuclear weapons,” will curb their nuclear activity, and if so, whether the U.S. would “be willing to provide them with economic incentives and sanctions relief.”
Headlines for April 17, 2026
Israel Agrees to 10-Day Ceasefire in Lebanon After U.S.-Brokered Talks; Israelis in Tel Aviv Protest Settler Violence After High Court Lifts Wartime Ban on Gatherings; House Votes 213-214 to Reject War Powers Resolution as Trump Claims Deal with Iran Is “Very Close”; Ukraine Strikes Black Sea Oil Refinery as Russian Attacks Kill 17; Progressive Democrat Analilia Mejía Wins Special Election for New Jersey House Seat; House Temporarily Extends FISA’s Mass Surveillance Powers in Late-Night Vote ; House Votes to Extend Deportation Protections for 330,000 Haitian Immigrants; Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, Who Oversaw Mass Deportation Efforts, to Resign in May; Minnesota Prosecutor Brings Assault Charges Against ICE Agent Who Pointed Gun at Motorists; Texas Governor Threatens to Cut Millions of Dollars from Cities That Limit Collaboration with ICE; Man Shot by ICE in California Last Week Arrested on Assault Charges; Advocates Demand Release of Texas Interpreter Meenu Batra from ICE Jail; Virginia’s Former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax Shoots Estranged Wife in Murder-Suicide; Hampshire College to Close at End of 2026 Amid Financial Woes and Falling Enrollment
"Depths of Hell": Sudan Enters Fourth Year of Devastating Civil War Amid Growing Energy Crisis
http://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/16/sudan_civil_war_enters_fourth_year
“Depths of Hell”: Sudan Enters Fourth Year of Devastating Civil War Amid Growing Energy Crisis
Sudan marked three years since a bloody civil war began between its national army and the powerful Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group. The RSF revolted against the Sudanese Armed Forces after a 2021 military coup left it with diminished political power. The coup itself upended the civilian-led democratic revolution that ousted Sudan’s longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Both the RSF and SAF have been accused of major war crimes since the conflict began, reportedly carrying out ethnic cleansing, systemic sexual violence and starvation tactics on the country’s civilian population.
“This war is not just fought on the bodies of civilians by happenstance. It’s not incidental to the fighting. It is precisely the point. This war is a war of succession between the SAF and the RSF, who want to inherit the military security state,” says Sudanese political analyst Kholood Khair, “and they’re doing so in large part not just by fighting each other, but also by diminishing as much as possible the revolutionary fervor and the calls for civilian democratic rule in Sudan.” Khair adds that the burgeoning U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, separated from Sudan by the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea, threatens to deepen the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, as supply chain disruptions make agricultural production even harder and opportunities for resource exploitation incentivize other countries to turn the conflict into even more of a “proxy war.”
Hormuz Crisis "Only Going to Get More Horrific Before It Gets Any Better": Prof. Laleh Khalili
http://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/16/global_crises_iran_war
Hormuz Crisis “Only Going to Get More Horrific Before It Gets Any Better”: Prof. Laleh Khalili
Amid the ongoing crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, we speak with Laleh Khalili, a professor of Gulf studies who researches the shipping and logistics industry and its impact on the global economy. The U.S. implemented a naval blockade on Iran earlier this week, which Khalili says could lead to its military “firing on ships that it assumes are Iranian or carrying oil from Iran or other cargo to Iran.” Iran, in response, could “interpret this as a belligerent action,” ending the fragile ceasefire agreed to by both parties. “Iran is going to defend itself against this imperial imposition, and how it’s going to do that remains to be seen.”
Meanwhile, explains Khalili, shipping disruptions in the Gulf have affected the supply chains of key resources including oil, aluminum, helium and fertilizer. “Transportation costs are going to be higher, so food prices are going to be higher; people’s MRIs are going to be scheduled out by six months … semiconductor manufacturing is going to be affected,” Khalili says. “The crisis is only going to get more horrific before it gets any better. ”
"Into the Wood Chipper": Whistleblower's Inside Story of DOGE Shredding USAID, 14 Million May Die
http://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/16/usaid_whistleblower
“Into the Wood Chipper”: Whistleblower’s Inside Story of DOGE Shredding USAID, 14 Million May Die
A new book tells the inside story of the second Trump administration’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID. Its author, Nicholas Enrich, worked at USAID for over a decade before he was pushed out of the agency in early 2025, when the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency summarily cut its staff and funding. An estimated 14 million people are projected to die “unnecessarily” over the next five years due to these cuts, and nearly a million, mostly children, already have, says Enrich. His new memoir, Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID, is named after one of Musk’s social media posts from that period, when the South African billionaire wrote, “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” Since its establishment in 1961, USAID has saved the lives of tens of millions around the world by treating and preventing serious health issues such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, malaria and more. By slashing the agency, the U.S. “pulled the rug out from under people around the world,” says Enrich. “We broke promises to millions who were relying on USAID services, and left them hanging out to dry. We broke promises to governments and broke partnerships that will have lasting effects for years to come.”
Headlines for April 16, 2026
Senate Narrowly Rejects Resolutions to Halt Iran War and Arms Sales to Israel; Iran Warns It Will Blockade the Sea of Oman and Red Sea Unless U.S. Ends Its Naval Blockade; Israel Continues Deadly Strikes on Lebanon Even as Diplomats Hold First Direct Talks in Decades; Palestinians Hold Funeral Procession for Five Killed in Israeli Strike on Gaza City; Pentagon Announces Fifth Deadly Strike on Alleged Drug Boat in a Week; Democrats File Articles of Impeachment Against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; The Guardian: Top Oil and Gas Companies Made $30M Per Hour in Windfall Profits from Iran War; Nine Killed as Turkey Suffers Second School Shooting in Two Days; Oklahoma High School Principal Tackles School Shooter While Suffering Gunshot Wound; Jury Finds Live Nation and Ticketmaster Operated as a Monopoly, Overcharging Ticket Buyers; Tax Day Protesters Object to Funding Wars, Genocide and Mass Deportation
Israel's War & Demands "Could Throw Lebanon Back into a Civil War": Ex-Israeli Negotiator Daniel Levy
http://www.democracynow.org/2026/4/15/israel_lebanon_talks
Israel’s War & Demands “Could Throw Lebanon Back into a Civil War”: Ex-Israeli Negotiator Daniel Levy
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the first direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in decades on Tuesday in Washington. Hezbollah, which was not a party to the talks, made clear it will not abide by any agreement that results from their negotiations.
Israel’s demand that Hezbollah be disarmed is “anything but reasonable,” says Daniel Levy, former Israeli peace negotiator under Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Yitzhak Rabin. “What [Israel] is doing here is trying to put something that sounds reasonable on the table, but with the intention of embarrassing and humiliating the Lebanese government,” which Levy says does not have the capacity to disarm Hezbollah.
