cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/32689383

By #MEE staff
Published date: 3 July 2025 20:22 BST Last update: 07:00 EDT

"The day before she was released, on Monday, Sakeik was awoken by guards and told that she was going to be removed from the detention facility in Texas, where she was being held. An officer told Sakeik that she was being deported, but then she was not.

Sakeik was first threatened with deportation on 12 June when ICE agents brought her to the tarmac at Fort Worth Alliance Airport and told her they were deporting her to “the border of Israel.”

A US federal judge had previously ordered that Sakeik could not be deported."

'Ward was arrested and almost deported simply because she is Palestinian and ICE thought they could get away with it'
- Chris Godshall-Bennett, lawyer representing Sakeik

Peter Link

2025-07-04 14:54:44

Palestinian woman released from ICE custody after lengthy detention

By #MEE staff
Published date: 3 July 2025 20:22 BST Last update: 07:00 EDT

"The day before she was released, on Monday, Sakeik was awoken by guards and told that she was going to be removed from the detention facility in Texas, where she was being held. An officer told Sakeik that she was being deported, but then she was not.

Sakeik was first threatened with deportation on 12 June when ICE agents brought her to the tarmac at Fort Worth Alliance Airport and told her they were deporting her to “the border of Israel.”

A US federal judge had previously ordered that Sakeik could not be deported."

'Ward was arrested and almost deported simply because she is Palestinian and ICE thought they could get away with it'
- Chris Godshall-Bennett, lawyer representing Sakeik

Palestinian woman released from ICE custody after lengthy detention

A Palestinian woman was released from custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the US government tried for the second time to deport her despite a federal court ruling prohibiting her removal.

^{MEE staff (Middle East Eye)}

British MPs have overwhelmingly voted to proscribe the direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, though several MPs condemned the move as “grotesque” and said they were pressured into voting for the measure.

MPs voted 385 to 26 in favour of the ban, which will make it a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison to be a member of or show support for Palestine Action.

The House of Lords is set to vote on the motion on Thursday. If passed, it will come into force at midnight on 9 July, pending a legal challenge by the group requesting “interim relief” to stay the order.

Handful of MPs condemn Palestine Action ban as vast majority back proscription

^{Katherine Hearst (Middle East Eye)}

Instead of just generating the next response, it simulates entire conversation trees to find paths that achieve long-term goals.

How it works:

• Generates multiple response candidates at each conversation state
• Simulates how conversations might unfold down each branch (using the LLM to predict user responses)
• Scores each trajectory on metrics like empathy, goal achievement, coherence
• Uses MCTS with UCB1 to efficiently explore the most promising paths
• Selects the response that leads to the best expected outcome

Limitations:

• Scoring is done by the same LLM that generates responses
• Branch pruning is naive - just threshold-based instead of something smarter like progressive widening
• Memory usage grows with tree size, there currently no node recycling

GitHub - MVPandey/CAE: A fully functional LLM chat backend with FastAPI and Async operations, with a built in MCTS conversation analyzer

A fully functional LLM chat backend with FastAPI and Async operations, with a built in MCTS conversation analyzer - MVPandey/CAE

^GitHub

This year, like every other year, Americans will celebrate Independence Day with flag-waving, and parades, and fireworks. The political system the flag and the parades and fireworks are supposed to represent is in tatters, but everybody likes a party.

For Americans, the madness gripping their country is a catastrophe. For non-Americans, it is an accidental revolution. This Independence Day, the world is declaring its independence from the US.

The lesson the Americans once taught the British, they are teaching the rest of the world: there are no necessary nations. There are no exceptional countries. There are no permanent global orders

This Fourth of July, the world declares its independence from America

America is turning away from itself, and the rest of the world must follow

^{Stephen Marche (The Guardian)}

I did a search for posts on Google Takeout before posting this and the only one I saw was from a year ago so I guess its ok to post this.

I just learned about it this morning.

The TLDR; is that you can request all the info Google has on you, in my case I want to do something with that data as I move away from Google, but just seeing what they have is nuts.

You might want to consider doing so.

(i would link the url, but its long and ugly, just search for Google Takeout, you will find it)

In a new interview organizer Catherine Jackson-Smith shared that the festival did not want to cancel the group’s headline set.

“It was categorically one of the most horrendous professional discussions I’ve ever had,” she said. “I cannot express clearly enough that I wanted Bob Vylan to perform at our festival. But this was not our decision.”

According to Jackson-Smith, Radar was caught between behind-the-scenes conversations involving the venue, its co-owners AMG and Live Nation, and local authorities. The decision to drop Bob Vylan was presented as an ultimatum: either cancel the band’s appearance or risk losing the entire Saturday program.

Radar Festival Speaks Out on Bob Vylan Cancellation

Manchester’s Radar Festival says it was left with no choice but to pull Bob Vylan from its lineup following their controversial set at Glastonbury.

^{Jessica Lynch (Billboard)}

After the Trump-backed “Big Beautiful Bill” passed both the House and Senate, one social media user protested, “17 million people just lost health care. 18 million kids just lost school meals. 3 million Americans just lost food assistance.”

Van Orden responded to the post, “YES!”

After he received backlash, the post was quickly deleted, with the congressman claiming he had meant to reply to a different post.

As one of the core members of Brics, Delhi has been foundational to the development of the collective.

It has also leveraged its decade-old position in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and now Brics, as well as its proximity to western powers through its growing economy, to stake a claim as a leader of the Global South and an interlocutor with the West.

But under Modi, India has increasingly moved closer to the US, with observers noting that Delhi has sought to clarify that it sees Brics as an economic rather than a geopolitical project.

Delhi has also been seen as insistent on both slowing the expansion of Brics as a means to halt Chinese influence over new members already within its sphere of influence and, therefore, temper what is being interpreted as a group geared to take on western hegemony.

Whereas there has been significant talk of Brics launching its own currency to replace the US dollar, India has shown it has no interest in doing so, opting instead to champion trade among Brics members via their national currencies.

India has also sent weapons to Israel for its war on Gaza, including combat drones and AI weapons, construction workers to replace Palestinian workers, and has refused to endorse an arms embargo on Israel.

Delhi's role has even prompted some observers to advise Washington to consider the Brics as a partner instead of an adversary.

"For some countries, notably South Africa, Brics is also seen as a critical foreign policy component in advancing its ‘South-South’ agenda, which aims to develop deeper bilateral relations with countries from the Global South based on common values and shared historical experiences," Singh adds.

But Singh acknowledges that this agenda has struggled to take shape, by his estimate, because of the inclusion of new initiatives that have detracted from what he describes as the core effort of refining a common agenda towards tackling the international governance system and international financial institutions.

Israel's war on Gaza has exposed 'deep divide' within Brics, experts say

As Brics gears up for its annual summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, the group's reluctance to mobilise against Israel's war on Gaza has left a gaping hole in its credibility as an institution purportedly meant to represent the Global South, experts …

^{Azad Essa (Middle East Eye)}

Britain’s pro-Israel government is cracking down on non-violent direct action, in order to protect its genocidal ally. But as complicit MPs overwhelmingly voted to ban Palestine Action, another similar group has sprung up.

Using the name ‘Yvette Cooper’, actionists have shown solidarity with Palestine Action’s efforts to shut down Israel’s economy of genocide.

As parliament shamefully moved to proscribe Palestine Action, the ‘Yvette Cooper’ group targeted Time Logistics near Birmingham, which “transport weaponry for Israel’s biggest weapons firm”.

Yvette Cooper direct action group targets Israel-complicit company

It's Palestine Action, Jim, but not as we know it... Meet the new direct action group Yvette Cooper going after genocide merchants

^{Ed Sykes (The Canary)}

A group of former European leaders — including Carl Bildt of Sweden and Sanna Marin of Finland — visited Ukraine recently and picked up on the deteriorating mood. They wrote afterwards that ‘while Ukrainians will never stop resisting, without more military support, Ukraine can lose more territory. More cities might be captured’.

Off the record, some western officials are even bleaker, warning of a risk of ‘catastrophic failure,’ if the Ukrainian military is stretched to breaking point — and does not receive a significant increase in military and financial aid from its western allies.

https://archive.today/2025.07.01-064930/https://www.ft.com/content/fd4fe246-3dd7-449a-8740-70bcb0ba08a9

Mamdani, a 33-year-old New York state assemblyman, shocked the political world last month with a primary win over former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned his position in 2021 after several women accused him of sexual harassment.

The Times noted that on the campaign trail, Mamdani touted his Muslim faith and South Asian ancestry. He was born in Uganda in 1991 and moved with his parents to South Africa five years later. Two years later, the family moved to New York.

::: spoiler The Times report cited a figure who goes by the name Crémieux on X and Substack:

• Last month’s cyberattack appears to have been carried out in order to see if Columbia was still using race-conscious affirmative action in its admission policies after the Supreme Court effectively barred the practice in 2023.
• While Mr. Mamdani was not a target of the hack, the information about him was included in a database of millions of student applications to Columbia going back decades. The data was shared with The Times by an intermediary who goes by the name Crémieux on Substack and X. He provided the data under condition of anonymity, although his identity has been made public elsewhere. He is an academic who opposes affirmative action and writes often about I.Q. and race.
  :::

One of the speakers at the conference is billed under a social media alias, Cremieux, but the Guardian has corroborated that the account is apparently run by Jordan Lasker, a long-time proponent of eugenics.

::: spoiler The @cremieuxrecueil X account has been boosted or engaged with dozens of times by that platform’s proprietor, Elon Musk, often on the topic of falling birthrates.

• On 27 November, Musk reposted a Cremieux comment on falling birthrates, adding: “With rare exception, all countries are trending towards population collapse.”
• On 29 April, Cremieux posted: “Only about a third of the world even meets replacement rate fertility. This is the biggest problem of our time.” Musk responded: “Yes.”
• Musk has also boosted or responded favorably to Cremieux posts on other rightwing hobby horses such as crime in Portland, Oregon, and allegations that Democrats had created loopholes in the asylum system.
• Away from X, Cremieux runs a Substack also featuring posts on the supposed relationships between race and IQ. A prominently featured post there seeks to defend the argument that average national IQs vary by up to 40 points, with countries in Europe, North America, and East Asia at the high end and countries in the global south at the low end, and several African countries purportedly having average national IQs at a level that experts associate with mental impairment.
  :::

New York Times Grants Race Science Enthusiast Anonymity in Mamdani Hit Piece

The paper granted the source of the hacked documents anonymity. That person is a known enthusiast of race science.

^{Michael Luciano (Mediaite)}

Mamdani, a 33-year-old New York state assemblyman, shocked the political world last month with a primary win over former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned his position in 2021 after several women accused him of sexual harassment.

The Times noted that on the campaign trail, Mamdani touted his Muslim faith and South Asian ancestry. He was born in Uganda in 1991 and moved with his parents to South Africa five years later. Two years later, the family moved to New York.

::: spoiler The Times report cited a figure who goes by the name Crémieux on X and Substack:

• Last month’s cyberattack appears to have been carried out in order to see if Columbia was still using race-conscious affirmative action in its admission policies after the Supreme Court effectively barred the practice in 2023.
• While Mr. Mamdani was not a target of the hack, the information about him was included in a database of millions of student applications to Columbia going back decades. The data was shared with The Times by an intermediary who goes by the name Crémieux on Substack and X. He provided the data under condition of anonymity, although his identity has been made public elsewhere. He is an academic who opposes affirmative action and writes often about I.Q. and race.
  :::

One of the speakers at the conference is billed under a social media alias, Cremieux, but the Guardian has corroborated that the account is apparently run by Jordan Lasker, a long-time proponent of eugenics.

::: spoiler The @cremieuxrecueil X account has been boosted or engaged with dozens of times by that platform’s proprietor, Elon Musk, often on the topic of falling birthrates.

• On 27 November, Musk reposted a Cremieux comment on falling birthrates, adding: “With rare exception, all countries are trending towards population collapse.”
• On 29 April, Cremieux posted: “Only about a third of the world even meets replacement rate fertility. This is the biggest problem of our time.” Musk responded: “Yes.”
• Musk has also boosted or responded favorably to Cremieux posts on other rightwing hobby horses such as crime in Portland, Oregon, and allegations that Democrats had created loopholes in the asylum system.
• Away from X, Cremieux runs a Substack also featuring posts on the supposed relationships between race and IQ. A prominently featured post there seeks to defend the argument that average national IQs vary by up to 40 points, with countries in Europe, North America, and East Asia at the high end and countries in the global south at the low end, and several African countries purportedly having average national IQs at a level that experts associate with mental impairment.
  :::

New York Times Grants Race Science Enthusiast Anonymity in Mamdani Hit Piece

The paper granted the source of the hacked documents anonymity. That person is a known enthusiast of race science.

^{Michael Luciano (Mediaite)}

Poland’s main opposition party, the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), has proposed an entry ban for people from certain countries in the Middle East and Africa. It says this would help stop Germany’s practice of sending migrants who have illegally crossed the border back to Poland.

The proposal comes amid renewed debate over how to tackle migration, with the Polish government on Tuesday announcing the reintroduction of controls on Poland’s borders with Germany and Lithuania in an effort to prevent the “uncontrolled flow of migrants”.

After Prime Minister Donald Tusk had announced the border controls, the head of PiS’s parliamentary caucus, Mariusz Błaszczak, said that the government’s actions were “too little, too late”.

“This crisis has been going on for months,” he continued. “This issue requires far-reaching action.”

Błaszczak said that PiS would submit a bill to parliament introducing a temporary ban on entry to Poland for third-country nationals from “specific countries outside Europe…whose citizens illegally cross borders”.

Previously, on Monday, PiS party leader Jarosław Kaczyński had called for an “immediate ban on entry to the territory of Poland for people from the Middle East and North Africa”.

PiS has not yet specified which Middle Eastern and African countries would be included in its proposed ban. It says they would be selected based on analysis of data showing which nationalities most often cross borders illegally or are transferred to Poland from Germany.

A government information campaign discouraging people from trying to illegally enter Poland was recently launched in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan and Egypt, countries from which Poland has identified the largest numbers of people crossing the border from Belarus.

Since 2021, tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers – mainly from Asia and Africa – have tried to enter Poland from Belarus, with the encouragement and assistance of the Belarusian authorities.

In response, Poland has heavily fortified its eastern border with physical barriers and electronic monitoring. The government also recently banned asylum claims by people crossing from Belarus. Those measures have led to a dramatic decline in the numbers entering via that route.

In his remarks on Tuesday, Błaszczak made clear, however, that PiS’s proposed entry ban was designed to address the issue that has recently caused most controversy, which is Germany’s policy of sending back to Poland thousands of migrants who crossed the Polish-German border illegally.

Many of those sent back are Ukrainians. Others are non-Europeans, often from Asia and Africa, who have either claimed asylum in Poland – and therefore must remain there while their applications are processed – or have simply passed through it after entering the EU irregularly.

“After the introduction of this [proposed] law, Polish border guards will be able to prevent citizens of these countries from entering our territory,” said Błaszczak. “So those who are today being transferred from Germany by the German authorities, or who are trying to cross from Germany to the Polish side, will not be able to do so.”

The migrant returns carried out by Germany take place under a combination of EU regulations, bilateral agreements with Poland, and the border controls that Berlin reintroduced in 2023. Earlier this year, Tusk declared that Poland may stop adhering to such agreements.

However, some Poles have sought to take matters into their own hands, organising self-declared “citizen patrols” – some of them hundreds strong – at the German border to monitor and prevent migrant returns.

Błaszczak said that PiS politicians will be visiting the German border to make clear that “we support the border defence movement”, which he described as “Polish patriots who took matters into their own hands when Donald Tusk’s state abdicated [its responsibilities]”.

He also pledged that the party “will provide support to those who are persecuted by the current authorities of our country” for undertaking such actions, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Earlier this week, Tusk and interior minister Tomasz Siemoniak criticised the actions of the citizen patrols, saying that they are disrupting the work of border officers and spreading false claims about the number and types of migrants being transferred by Germany.

https://notesfrompoland.com/2025/07/02/polish-opposition-proposes-entry-ban-for-migrants-from-middle-east-and-africa/

www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_salad

The salad was created on July 4, 1924, by Caesar Cardini at Caesar's in Tijuana, Mexico, when the kitchen was overwhelmed and short on ingredients. It was originally prepared tableside, and it is still prepared tableside at the original venue.