Educate!
Education is the foundation of political change. In this section we provide news and analyses of current events that you won’t likely read or hear in the corporate media. Our sources are from organizations and independent media outlets free of corporate and government propaganda. We strongly encourage you to share these articles by email and social media so that together we create an echo chamber that overcomes the influence of the oligarchy. You will find large social media sharing buttons on the left side of each article when you open the article to read.
On Wednesday, April 9, Trump announced that he is raising the tariffs on China to 125%. Earlier that day, China raised its tariff on all American imports to 84% in response to the US raising the total tariffs on Chinese exports to 104% on Monday. The new rates will be effective from Thursday, the Chinese state council said in a brief statement.
China also issued a white paper on Wednesday about its trade relations with the US. Published on the same day that Donald Trump’s so-called “reciprocal tariffs” regime went into effect, the white paper refutes his claims of a massive trade deficit with China.
Pentagon Head Makes Military Threats In Visit To Panama
April 10, 2025
La Izquierda Diario Costa Rica, Left Voice.
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China, Panama, Panama Canal, Pete Hegseth, Trump Administration, US Imperialism
On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited Panama to attend the Central American Security Conference, an initiative of the U.S. military’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM). SOUTHCOM is one of the 11 unified combatant commands in the U.S. Department of Defense, responsible for contingency planning, operations, and security cooperation in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
During the conference, Hegseth announced a series of joint military operations with the Panamanian military, scheduled to take place from April 8 to 10.
Yale Professors Flee To Toronto School Linked To Massive Human Rights Abuses
April 10, 2025
Owen Schalk, Canadian Dimension.
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Canada, Higher Education, Human Rights, Toronto
In late March, three professors at Yale University—scholars Marci Shore and “fascism experts” Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder—announced that they were leaving the United States to teach at the University of Toronto. They made the decision in the face of Donald Trump’s intensifying attacks on higher education, a deeply alarming trend that has seen agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abduct student activists off the streets with the aim of forcibly deporting them. Stanley and Snyder cite the complicity of the Columbia University administration in Trump’s assault on student activism as a major reason for moving to Canada.
Elon Musk’s DOGE Reportedly Installed Artificial Intelligence At The EPA
April 10, 2025
Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter.
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Artificial Intelligence (AI), DOGE, Elon Musk, Surveillance
Two people familiar with the use of technology by Elon Musk’s DOGE team told Reuters that the team has setup artificial intelligence to spy on employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The objective, according to the two media sources, is to look for “language in communications considered hostile” to Musk or President Donald Trump.
“Trump-appointed officials who had taken up EPA posts told managers that DOGE was using AI to monitor communication apps and software, including Microsoft Teams, which is widely used for virtual calls and chats,” the sources additionally claimed.
Trump Terror, Complicit Local Leadership: The Assault Against Southeast D.C.
April 10, 2025
Oliver Robinson, Black Agenda Report.
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Gentrification, Systemic Racism, Trump Administration, Washington D.C.
On March 27, 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing the “Safe and Beautiful” federal task force for Washington, DC. Framed as a public safety and beautification campaign, the initiative is led by his Homeland Security Advisor, Stephen Miller—a figure known for his hardline white nationalist policies. Under the guise of civic improvement, this task force seeks to further entrench surveillance, policing, and state control over DC’s most marginalized communities, particularly Black working-class residents in the Southeast neighborhood.
Trump Administration Revokes Hundreds Of Student Visas
April 9, 2025
Michael Arria, Mondoweiss.
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Campus Movement, Deportations, Free Speech, Palestine, Repression, Student Activism, Trump Administration
The Trump administration has reportedly revoked hundreds of student visas, amid a widening crackdown on the U.S. Palestine movement.
In recent days, dozens of schools have announced that draconian measures by the Trump administration have targeted some of their students. The list includes UC Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, Ohio State, Minnesota State University, the University of Kentucky, Northeastern, and Harvard.
Last month Secretary of State Marco Rubio guessed that he had revoked about 300 visas since arriving in office.
“I don’t know actually if it’s primarily student visas,” Rubio told reporters.
Pentagon Prepares To Expand ‘Unrelenting’ Attacks Against Yemen
April 9, 2025
News Desk, The Cradle.
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Israel, Pentagon, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism, Yemen
The US signaled on 7 April that it is planning to step up its violent campaign of airstrikes on Yemen, which have killed dozens since last month, including women and children.
"It's been a bad three weeks for the Houthis, and it's about to get worse," US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Monday in the Oval Office, while seated near US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“It's been a devastating campaign, whether it's underground facilities, weapons manufacturing, bunkers, troops in the open-air defense assets – we are not going to relent, and it's only to get more unrelenting until the Houthis declare they will stop shooting at our ships,” Hegseth added.
Shuttering Of Department Of Homeland Security Oversight Arm Freezes Cases
April 9, 2025
J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam, Pro Publica.
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Accountability, Department of Homeland Security, Human Rights, ICE, Trump Administration
On Feb. 10, more than a dozen Department of Homeland Security officials joined a video conference to discuss an obscure, sparsely funded program overseen by its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The office, charged with investigating when the national security agency is accused of violating the rights of both immigrants and U.S. citizens, had found itself in the crosshairs of Elon Musk’s secretive Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
It began as a typical briefing, with Homeland Security officials explaining to DOGE a program many describe as a win-win.
Over 4,000 Factory Workers Laid Off As Tariffs Spark Economic Chaos
April 9, 2025
Alexis Sterling, NationofChange.
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Democrats, Donald Trump, Mass Layoffs, Tariffs, Trade, Worker Rights and Jobs
More than 4,000 American manufacturing workers lost their jobs this week, the latest evidence of mounting economic instability tied to former President Donald Trump’s tariff policies. Congressman Ro Khanna and labor leaders are raising urgent concerns as layoffs sweep across the industrial sector, hitting plants in more than a dozen states and leaving thousands of union workers without employment or clear prospects.
Automaker Stellantis announced Thursday that it would temporarily lay off 900 workers in the United States due to production disruptions at its Canadian and Mexican facilities—disruptions directly linked to recently announced tariffs.
Exterminator Netanyahu In Washington, DC Again
April 8, 2025
Colonel (Ret) Ann Wright, Popular Resistance.
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Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, Gaza, Genocide, Palestine, Wars and Militarism
The chief of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Exterminator-in-Chief, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu jumped on his plane and jetted from one International Criminal Court denier, authoritarian leader, Victor Orban of Hungary, to another ICC denier in Washington, DC, Donald Trump.
Trump is the second U.S. president to give Netanyahu the green light for the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Biden was guilty of 17 months of complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza, while Trump is 2.5 months and counting.
Craig Murray: This Hell
April 8, 2025
Craig Murray, Consortium News.
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Collective West, Genocide, Israel, Palestine, State Repression
It is all a part of the same phenomenon.
Western governments actively assisting genocide in Gaza; attacks on benefits for the disabled; a deliberate official narrative of Russophobia; rampant Islamophobia boosting the rise of extreme right-wing parties and fueled by government anti-immigrant rhetoric; an incredible accumulation of wealth by the ultra-rich; rampant erosion of freedoms of speech and expression.
It is not happenstance that all of this is happening at the same time. It represents a radical shift in Western philosophy.
This shift is not simple to trace because anti-intellectualism is an essential part of the new philosophy.
Response To Trump’s Order To Restore ‘Truth’ To American History
April 8, 2025
Jim Mamer, Scheer Post.
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discrimination, Education, History, Racism, Sexism, Trump Administration
I have now read almost a dozen of President Trump’s executive orders issued since January. It has been an experience I will remember. They all begin with the same statement, “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered…”
So, I feel I have a right to respond similarly: By the authority vested in me as a citizen of the United States, protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, I hereby respond to the Executive Order of March 27, 2025 on Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.
The Absurd Excuse Notre Dame Gave Me When They Canceled My Talk
April 8, 2025
Eman Abdelhadi, In These Times.
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Censorship, Free Speech, Genocide, Notre Dame University, Palestine
Mary E. Gallagher, dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, wrote University of Chicago Professor and In These Times columnist Eman Abdelhadi on Saturday morning to tell her that her upcoming keynote speech was canceled.
“We were unaware of your planned lecture, and since this conference overlaps with two other annual events on campus, we cannot provide security at short notice,” Gallagher wrote in an email. “For this reason, we respectfully request that you do not participate in the conference.”
Abdelhadi is a widely celebrated academic, organizer, author and journalist. She frequently speaks on campuses across the country and from 2023-24 was a faculty fellow at Notre Dame.
Iran Confirms ‘Indirect’ Nuclear Talks With Washington
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on 8 April that Tehran will engage in “indirect” nuclear negotiations with the US via Oman, coming after US President Donald Trump claimed the two countries will be holding direct talks.
“Iran and the United States will meet in Oman on Saturday for indirect high-level talks. It is as much an opportunity as it is a test. The ball is in America's court,” the foreign minister said in a post on X early on Tuesday.
An anonymous Iranian official was cited by Reuters as saying that the talks are indirect. Three Iranian sources told the New York Times (NYT) that Tehran is open to direct negotiations if the Omani-mediated talks go well.
Meet The DC Think Tanks Impoverishing Masses Of Latin Americans
April 8, 2025
John Perry, The Grayzone.
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Cuba embargo, Ivan Duque, Leopoldo Lopez, Maria Corina Machado, Nicaragua, Think Tanks, US Sanctions, Venezuela
Sanctions are a form of hybrid warfare that harms or even kills the target populations at little cost to the country imposing them. In Latin America alone, US sanctions (correctly known as “unilateral coercive measures”) have killed at least 100,000 Venezuelans. The US blockade of Cuba has been so destructive that one in ten Cubans have left the country. Sanctions have similarly deprived Nicaraguans of development aid worth an estimated $3 billion since 2018, hitting projects such as new water supplies for rural areas.
Who formulates these devastating sanctions, covers up their real effects, works with politicians to put them into operation and promotes them in corporate media?