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Oct 21, 2026 - World

Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander was detained by Israeli troops in the West Bank while helping Palestinian farmers harvest olives, an Israeli rights group said.Lander, the former New York City comptroller, announced his detention Wednesday in a post on X that included a selfie taken aboard a bus.About 90 volunteers with Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli group, were detained near Nahalin, a village outside Bethlehem, the Jerusalem Post reported. A source told the Post that Lander was later released with a warning.“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers. We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank,” Lander wrote. “The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”Lander won the Democratic nomination for New York’s 10th Congressional District in June, defeating Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), PoliticsNY reported. He faces Republican Jennifer Moore in November, according to News 12.In a video posted by the group Israelis for Peace, Lander said, “They’ve just told us that all of the non-Israelis, all of the internationals who have been harvesting today, are gonna get on that bus. That is to say, we’re being arrested by the Israeli military for harvesting olives.”“We were not causing any problem or making any threats to anyone,” he said. “[Palestinians] haven’t harvested it since Oct. 7 because they’re afraid Israeli settlers will come and beat them or burn their olive trees.”Anton Goodman, acting executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, said in a statement quoted by the Post, “We came to accompany farmers to land they had been unable to access for three years, and after two hours of peaceful olive harvesting, large numbers of troops arrived and closed off the area.”“Instead of protecting people working their land, the army is keeping them away from it and detaining those who came to accompany them for identification,” Goodman said.Troops declared the field a closed military zone, an area off-limits to civilians, the Post reported. Activists told the outlet they agreed to go but were detained anyway.Palestinian olive pickers were detained along with the activists, the Times of Israel reported, citing Palestinian media.Police took the foreign volunteers to a regional military headquarters for questioning, a source told the Post. One detainee told the outlet that no one was harmed. The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to the Post’s request for comment.Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of the rabbinic human rights group T’ruah, and former Israeli Deputy Attorney General Yehoshua Schoffman were among those detained, the Post reported.Jacobs said in a statement that the military “forcibly removed those who came to provide a protective presence.”Gilad Kariv, a member of Israel’s parliament from the Democrats party, said that the group "did not break any laws or violate any lawful orders, nor did they confront anyone.”Israeli authorities are inclined to deport the foreign activists, a source told the Post.

Oct 21, 2026 - World

About 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers held near Nahalin in West Bank and taken to police stationThe Israeli military has detained about 80 US, Israeli and British volunteers helping Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem, including the New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander, several rabbis and Israel’s former deputy attorney general.“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis and volunteers,” Lander posted from a bus taking him to a police station. “We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nahalin in the West Bank. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.” Continue reading...

Oct 21, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump is facing the very real possibility that members of his own party may try to throw up roadblocks to his growing alliance with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, The Hill reported.Trump signed an executive order late Friday waiving sanctions on Russia that Congress passed last month, days before most of them were set to take effect, the Associated Press reported. The Senate approved the Lindsey Graham Russian Sanctions Act 86-11.The Hill reported that the prospect of a deal on Ukraine with Russia and China has also left some GOP senators "alarmed." The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Putin "proposed a summit" with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss ending the war. A senior U.S. official told the Journal that Trump had not agreed to it but could be receptive.Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said a potential summit involving Putin to decide Ukraine’s fate is “foolhardy” and “morally wrong.”“Ukrainians have got to be part of any peace deal. It’s not only essential because otherwise we won’t have peace, but it’s also the right thing to do,” he told Sirius XM’s “The Julie Mason Show.” “Russia is trying to kill Americans around the world, covertly and overtly.”Cassidy is not alone.Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said in a CNN interview that “Putin is playing President Trump like a fiddle.” Even Trump allies are uneasy. Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told The Hill last month that inviting Putin to the G20 summit in Miami in December was “giving [Vladimir Putin] more credit than he deserves.”The sanctions waiver followed Ukrainian complaints that Washington had restricted its access to Starshield, the satellite network Ukrainian forces use to operate drones. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, ordered the slowdown, citing people familiar with the matter, and that Musk and Trump discussed the decision after it became public. Reuters had reported that the order came from inside the White House, and a senior U.S. official told Reuters the president never made such a request.Four Republican senators, Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Tillis, signed a bipartisan letter Thursday to Pentagon Inspector General Platte Moring "demanding an investigation" into whether senior Pentagon officials ordered or knew in advance about the slowdown.The controversy came days after Trump announced a deal with Putin to import Russian diesel to combat high fuel prices. Senate Republican Policy Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said she was “surprised” by the announcement and that "it raised questions" about whether the administration is following the law and Congress’s wishes, according to The Hill.

Oct 21, 2026 - World

Flights to third countries where the detainees have no ties are scheduled as early as Wednesday, relatives detailSend us your questions about immigration and the midtermsRelatives of gravely ill detainees at two Florida immigration jails say authorities are about to deport their loved ones to unknown countries in Africa despite worsening medical conditions.Flights are scheduled as early as Wednesday, according to the families and the immigration advocacy group the Workers Circle, which has been monitoring conditions and speaking with detainees inside two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in south Florida. Continue reading...

Oct 21, 2026 - World

President Donald Trump's Special Envoy for Peace Missions, Steve Witkoff, prostrated himself before Russia's Vladimir Putin at a summit on Wednesday — despite Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, butcher of civilians, and the lack of any progress in getting him to back off his demands for territorial and political control of his neighbors."You talk so much about my president, President Trump, being a humanitarian," said Witkoff. "You are a humanitarian also, sir, and I salute that, I commend you, and I thank you again."This display earned disgust and horror from commentators on social media, both in the U.S. and around the world."Holy s---, Witkoff just called Putin a 'humanitarian,'" wrote the account "Vatnik Soup." "Because of Putin, thousands of Ukrainian civilians are dead, hospitals lie in ruins, and people are suffering from hunger, torture and Russian terrorism.""What is clear is Putin is playing rope a dope with Trump/Witkoff: Release a hostage here, feign interest in peace talks there, signalling willingness to listen, while blaming Ukraine for intransigence. But never actually agreeing to change course," wrote John Foreman, an independent defense consultant and former British defence attaché in Moscow."The sheer insanity of American diplomacy under Trump is becoming difficult to comprehend," wrote Substacker Gandalv. "Steve Witkoff, a New York property developer somehow entrusted with negotiating Europe’s most consequential war since 1945, has just saluted Vladimir Putin as a humanitarian. The man who invaded Ukraine, ordered the destruction of its cities and presides over a state accused of abducting Ukrainian children. Apparently, releasing an American whom Russia wrongfully imprisoned makes Putin a humanitarian. Imagine sending a property salesman to negotiate with a war criminal, only to discover he cannot distinguish between a humanitarian gesture and the man responsible for creating the humanitarian catastrophe. They are so cringe.""US humiliation level 100," wrote Czech political analyst Vláďa Foltán."Absurd simpering obsequiousness from a representative of the most powerful country on earth, and another American humiliation, to add to the growing, growing list," wrote Kyiv Independent correspondent Jimmy Rushton.