All news stories researched and summarized by me without the use of AI. Audio recorded by me.
Last week, activists with the organization Ende Gelaende blocked rail lines leading to the Port of Hamburg in an effort to stop the transport of military equipment and weapons.
As reported by frontline photographer roteblende, for years, the Port of Hamburg has been one of the central hubs for global arms exports. At least 1,000 containers of ammunition are shipped annually. In addition to crates of ammunition, heavy military equipment such as tanks, rocket launchers, warships, and thousands of small arms regularly leave the Hanseatic city. In the first quarter of 2020 alone, exports of armored vehicles and warships rose to a value of 200 million euros, while in the first quarter of 2023, nearly 2,900 armored vehicles or their individual parts, as well as nearly 290 warships and their components, were exported via the port. Exports of pistols and assault rifles also saw a rapid increase, rising from 500,000 euros in 2017 to over 13 million euros in 2019.
And as reported last month, Germany approved nearly $930M in arms exports to Israel amid the ongoing Gaza genocide. The brave actions taken by these organizers therefore represent a vital tactic in the continued pushback against genocide and global militarization.
they have force, we have resolve.
they have terror, we have care.
they have death.
but we, we have life.
Did you know that under New York state law, voluntarily intoxicated victims of sexual assault are NOT defined as “incapable of consenting” meaning they are not eligible for a criminal trial.
In the case of the Cornell rapists (do NOT call them the Cornell 7, that’s a fucking boy band name), Jane Doe drank at a bar before accepting a drink at the fraternity house where she was later raped. Because of this, she is considered voluntarily intoxicated and therefore her rapists are likely to not face any criminal charges.
Organizations such as the New York based non-profit Community For a Cause have been organizing around this issue, pushing for the passage of bills that make it clear that intoxication is not consent and that consent be defined as a “knowing, voluntary, and mutual decision between all participants” as opposed to just a lack of violently fighting for one’s life.
The fact that this needs to be codified into law speaks to the violent foundations of our justice system, and the cultures that perpetuate this terrorism, something I wrote recently about in my essay “Eleven Nazis.”
As noted in one of my earlier Substack posts, in a court filing against OpenAI, Microsoft’s Director of Applied Science said that “millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions.”
And if you know anything about the history or present of this wonderful nation of ours, you’re likely thinking, as I did, well, that fits. Because this whole top-heavy mess is predicated on astonishing theft vis a vis colonialism and capitalism.
Theft of land, theft of freedom, theft of culture, tradition, community. The theft of dreams they demand we construct knowing we’ll never be all that we can be in this shit storm of a system. The theft of wages, of time, of life.
This system cannot actually exist without theft.
So OpenAI (and its various counterparts) is but a mirror image of the system upon which it is based. It is the computer image of its creator. And it’s why AI as a technology cannot ever be for us, because in its current form, it is but an appendage to a system that is against us.
Last week, some 150 unionized doctors at two Twin Cities area hospitals began a four-day strike in what’s believed to be the first walkout by private-sector hospital doctors in U.S. history.
In reporting by Raw Story, union leaders say the strike — and potential disruption to patient care — is a necessary last resort after negotiating for more than three years for a first labor contract governing wages and working conditions.
Their fight, they say, goes beyond pay and benefits: It’s a fight against profit-focused hospital executives who demand workloads so punishing that doctors are burning out, with patients’ care at risk.
Relatedly, in reporting by The Cool Down, AI billing software pushed hospital costs up $942 million with no rise in care.
The report found that despite the higher costs, the patients weren’t sicker nor did they receive more intensive treatment. Luke Chalker, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's senior vice president of product and data science, said the core issue is the disconnect between coding and care.
"If patients are truly sicker, we'd expect to see more treatment," Chalker said. "The disconnect between diagnoses and treatment suggests that AI is identifying more billable conditions, not sicker patients."
Or you could just give us fucking universal healthcare instead of sending robots to bill more…
In a recent report by the Economic Policy Institute, annual earnings for the top 1% have grown 182% since 1979, while wages of the bottom 90% have grown just 44%.
If the wages of the bottom 90% had grown at the average pace over this period—meaning that wages grew equally across the board—then wages for the bottom 90% would have grown by 65%, far higher and roughly 50% faster than the actual growth experienced.
Similarly, tracking the ratio of pay of CEOs at the 350 largest public U.S. firms to the pay of typical workers, in 1965, these CEOs made 21 times what typical workers made. As of 2025, they make 325 times typical workers’ pay.
The same report notes that one of the main causes of wage suppression and rising wage inequality is the decline of collective bargaining, which lowers the wages of both union and nonunion workers. Collective bargaining not only raises wages for organized workers but also leads other employers to raise the wages and benefits of nonunion workers to come closer to union wage standards.
In reporting by Project Salt Box, the DHS will pay Akima Infrastructure Protection, which runs migrant detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, $7.2 million to build a tent facility for detained women near Buffalo, N.Y., after the state barred county jails from holding people for immigration authorities.
Because when a state tells you know, you find a god damn loophole, through a tent. Because, state’s rights, am I right?
Here’s a little something for your trivia team: what law, passed 30 years ago last week, set in motion the mass detention and deportation machine we see today?
Ding ding ding! As reported by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996, built a new foundation that criminalized immigrants - making imprisonment and punishment a central feature of our immigration system.
Amongst a host of changes to the way our immigration system is designed, IIRAIRA spawned the federal government’s modern fixation on border surveillance and militarized enforcement, fast-tracked deportations by expanding categories of minor criminal violations that made immigrants eligible for removal, erected new barriers for legal relief, withheld access to certain public assistance programs for undocumented families, and instituted new bars against readmission for visa overstays.
Can’t think of a birthday I’d be less likely to celebrate…maybe the creation of Israel.
Speaking of which, the genocide in Gaza continues. At almost a year out from the “ceasefire” signed on October 11, 2025, Israel has killed at least 1,439 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 5,052, while 834 bodies have been recovered. Again, this is an undercount as the official count only includes identifiable bodies that die as a direct result of the attack.
Israel also continues its attacks on truth-tellers, and on Wednesday murdered Palestinian journalist Mohammed Abdul Aziz al-Najjar. This brings the official journalist death toll to 263.
As a reminder, my work with artists in Gaza continues, sharing art as frontline reporting, cultural survival, personal release, and fundraising during a genocide. Check out ArtFromGaza.com to learn more and support.
And here’s another little something for your trivia team: starting October 1st, Maryland became only the third state after California and Louisiana to declare rap lyrics and other works of creative expression no longer admissible as evidence in juvenile or criminal court proceedings.
The Protecting Artists’ Creative Expression (PACE Act) states that “creative expression of a criminal defendant or juvenile respondent is not admissible against the defendant or respondent” unless there are certain findings or an exception. Forms considered “creative expression” include music, visual and performance art, movement, poetry, film and more. In criminal and juvenile proceedings, the art forms will be considered inadmissible unless evidence finds that the expressions meet every one of four separate tests.
Those tests are: 1. The art in question was meant to be literal, rather than fictional or figurative; 2. There is a “close temporal and factual nexus” between the creative expression and the alleged crime; 3. The artwork is relevant to a factual issue the two sides are disputing; and 4. The evidentiary value of the artwork outweighs the harm it would do to admit it.
I mean I’m no stranger to the power of art but the fact that only three states now have it on the books that a song or poem can’t be enough to legally incriminate you is just…well, it’s very America.
The “News That Didn’t Make the News” series is part of my work for Project Censored and is available in audio and video format via the Project Censored social media pages and wherever you listen to podcasts.
"This system cannot actually exist without theft."
This sums it all up in a nutshell. A system that steals from creatives, bilks us for more money in for-profit health care, steals lives and hope by supporting genocide... Time for revolution!