Articles & Videos

Africa’s largest economy once refined its own fuel, but is now wholly dependent on imported petrol, diesel, and jet fuel, leaving it vulnerable to major disruptions.

The refinery agreed in 2024 to set depot prices in the local currency following a government deal that involved sourcing crude oil domestically.

Some of the storm’s most vulnerable victims — river dwellers — suffered dramatically when raging waters washed them downstream. Conservationists say it will take years to recover the damage. CLICK PLAY TO LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLES SOUNDSCAPE Hans Lohmeyer is standing in a lively park on the outskirts of Asheville as children and dogs gambol [...] The post Helene’s smallest sufferers: The river dwellers left behind appeared first on DCReport.org.

President Trump took to Truth Social to tell Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to continue doing traffic stops after the third person was killed in an immigration enforcement operation in the past week.“The men and women of ICE are doing a GREAT job, one that has to be done. CRIME IS WAY DOWN IN AMERICA, in many cases with numbers that haven’t been seen in decades. The Open Border Policy of Sleepy Joe Biden allowed 25,000,000 people to pour into our Country, unchecked and unvetted. Many were Criminals, and we have to get them out. In order to do this, we must be strong, tough, and smart, and we CANNOT give up one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!” Trump wrote early on Wednesday morning.ICE announced Tuesday that it would temporarily end traffic stops after an ICE agent shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian man who was here legally, while he drove with his three-year-old daughter in Maine. And the next day, a man in Florida was struck and killed by a tractor trailer while being chased by ICE.Last Tuesday, an ICE agent shot and killed longtime Houston resident and father of three Lorenzo Salgado Araujo while he was driving, claiming that he tried to ram the officers—a claim the other men in the car have denied.And yet Trump is still pressing for ICE to continue this particularly fatal exercise as he continues to struggle to reach his delusional goal of one million deportations.“In speaking with numerous ICE sources today, most are expressing frustration that this will cause their arrest numbers to fall off a cliff while in effect. A large majority of their arrests involve vehicle stops. They will now largely have to rely on court arrests, detainer transfers, USCIS interviews, or ‘consensual encounters’/roving patrols on foot to make arrests in bigger numbers,” Fox News’s Bill Melugin wrote on Tuesday. “ICE prefers to target people in their vehicles instead of their homes because homes require a judicial warrant to enter, and vehicles are considered safer (someone can run into a home and grab a weapon, etc.) and targets can be followed to public areas where warrants aren’t required.”These killings have led to wide, renewed calls for ICE to either be abolished or overhauled. But Trump wants the terror to continue, as it seems he couldn’t care less that at least 11 people have been fatally shot during his second-term immigration crackdown.“The Radical Left Dumocrats would like to see this done, but it won’t happen on my watch. I.C.E., be judicious, fair and smart, and go back and do your very important job. Keep those Crime Stat Records coming!” Trump continued. “Remember, you are loved and respected in America. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

After Paramount Skydance secured its multibillion-dollar merger with Skydance Media, it gave Federal Communications Commission officials who approved the deal some very pricey gifts. ProPublica reports that the company gave away expensive tickets to the Kennedy Center honors gala worth thousands of dollars. Commissioner Olivia Trusty, whose vote was needed to approve the merger, went to the black-tie event with a guest, thanks to tickets gifted by Paramount worth $12,000. FCC Chair Brendan Carr got even more expensive seats for himself and his wife: private skybox tickets with Paramount CEO David Ellison and other company executives worth $125,000 each. These weren’t the first gifts from Paramount to FCC commissioners. Ethics disclosures show that the company has gifted tickets to the gala to seven of the 10 commissioners over the last decade, a glaring conflict of interest for government employees responsible for regulating broadcasting companies like Paramount. Carr has accepted Kennedy Center tickets at least seven times since his appointment in 2017, totaling $63,000, according to his financial statements.  Ethics experts told ProPublica that gifts like these compromise the impartiality of the FCC, and that commissioners who accepted them shouldn’t take part in any decisions concerning Paramount’s merger. “There’s no way that any top federal regulator should ever, ever accept a gift from a regulated company with interests their work will foreseeably affect,” Walter Shaub, director of the Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017, told ProPublica. “The appearance of taking gifts like that is terrible. What’s at stake is nothing less than the public’s trust in government.”The FCC’s final seal of approval is one of the last barriers to Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros., which would put one company in charge of the networks CBS and CNN, the streaming services Paramount+ and HBO Max, and dozens of other media entities. Critics fear it could hand a powerful media conglomerate over to David and Larry Ellison, staunch supporters of President Trump who would likely force CNN to produce right-wing news coverage. Twelve Democratic-led states sued to stop the merger on Monday, and the Writers’ Guild, a union representing 18,000 media workers, also filed a lawsuit the next day against the deal in federal court, saying that it threatens the workers’ livelihoods. The British government signaled last month that it would investigate whether the new entity would hurt competition in the entertainment industry. Like many business deals in Trump’s second term, this one has a whiff of corruption. The FCC has been tainted, and Trump openly supports a deal that could stifle critical news coverage of him, while giving his supporters control of a large swath of the entertainment industry. His own FCC appears to be in Paramount’s pocket. 

“From aid to partnership”, the US and Israel are set to become even more united in genocide Nuvpreet Kalra In June 2026, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu wrote to Republican Representative Marlin Stutzman of California, saying that “the time has now arrived [for Israel] to move from aid recipient to partner” with the United States. Yesterday, […]

Twelve Democratic-led states led by California sued this week to block Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount is run by David Ellison, whose father, Larry Ellison, is the billionaire founder of Oracle and a prominent ally and financial backer of President Donald Trump. Under the proposed deal, CNN and CBS News, streaming services HBO Max and Paramount+, as well as film and television studios, would all be combined under a single entity controlled by the Ellisons. The states’ lawsuit comes after the Trump administration approved the megamerger last month. “This proposed merger breaks the law,” says California Attorney General Rob Bonta. “It’s anti-competitive. It will raise prices. It will lower quality.”

Israeli settlers armed with clubs, rocks and a knife attacked a convoy of journalists in the West Bank on Saturday, the latest targeting of foreign journalists documenting the Israeli occupation. Four settlers have reportedly been detained over the attack. The convoy, which included CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, were accompanying the father of Palestinian American Saif Musallet to the site where he was beaten to death by Israeli settlers one year ago. To date, no one has been arrested for Musallet’s killing. Independent journalist and Palestine solidarity activist Adele Shoko, who was in one of the cars, says the attack is part of an “unprecedented” escalation of settler activity in the occupied West Bank, taking place in so-called Area A, which is nominally under the full control of the Palestinian Authority. “Area C is almost entirely ethnically cleansed by the settlers backed by the Israeli state, and they moved to Area B, attacking big villages. But Area A is another level.” We also speak with Jasper Nathaniel, who was also in the convoy and has been attacked multiple times while reporting in the occupied West Bank. He says pro-Israel advocates who accuse journalists, activists and other international observers of staging “publicity stunts” are downplaying how routine settler intimidation and violence has become. “If you spend enough time in the West Bank — and by enough time, I mean a couple days — something like that is going to happen to you,” says Nathaniel.

Stories about young queer people coming of age and finding love have touched people across age and identity, bringing healing after the AIDS crisis and harsh upbringings.