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Giants’ Jaxson Dart, Marissa Ayers rock flashy outfits during Kentucky Derby weekend
New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart and his girlfriend Marissa Ayers were dressed to the nines as they hit Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.
Dart was dressed in a pinstripe suit, a black button-down shirt and a white hat. Ayers had a light blue dress on with a black and white fascinator.
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Jaxson Dart and Marissa Ayers attend the Kentucky Derby 152 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on May 2, 2026. (Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images)
In a separate video on TikTok, Ayers posted the two in a more colorful getup. Ayers was wearing a pink dress with a pink and white fascinator, while Dart was dressed in a darker pink suit with a light blue shirt and blue pants.
“Me and my derby Ken,” she captioned the clip.
Dart and Ayers’ relationship came into the spotlight during the quarterback’s rookie season with the Giants. The two tried to keep their relationship out of the public eye for the longest time despite Ayers being on the sideline for Dart’s games.
The two went social media official in December.
Marissa Ayers, Jaxson Dart, Kara Dart, and Brandon Dart attend the Kentucky Derby 152 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on May 2, 2026. (Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images)
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Ayers, who graduated from the University of Alabama in May, was a ring girl for Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions. She was seen in the ring for the Jahmal Harvery-Kevin Cervantes and the Paul-Anthony Joshua fights.
Ayers has appeared to hint at her romance with Dart, when she posted a photo of herself wearing an oversized Giants T-shirt. They both also liked an Instagram post by Betr, a sports gambling company, that referred to Ayers as Dart’s girlfriend.
Dart’s expectations will be heightened going into Year 2.
Mississippi Rebels former quarterback Jaxson Dart attends the 2026 Fiesta Bowl semifinal game between the Miami Hurricanes and Mississippi Rebels at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Jan. 8, 2026. (Mark J. Rebilas/Imagn Images)
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He had 2,272 passing yards, 15 touchdown passes, 487 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns during his rookie year. He finished fourth in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting.
Fox News’ Ryan Canfield contributed to this report.
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‘No one better to fight for us than one of us’: Minnesota flight attendant runs for Congress | Minnesota
When the Minnesota state legislature is not in session, Kaela Berg is working in the skies.
Berg has spent the last six years doubling as a state legislator and a flight attendant, taking shifts when the legislature is on break.
“Even as a state legislator, I still live paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “I have to have both of those jobs to make ends meet. I’ve gone without healthcare during the pandemic because I didn’t qualify through my employer. I know what it’s like to worry about medical bills, to not have healthcare.”
A former union leader who has worked as a flight attendant for 30 years, Berg said she’s seen the Trump administration’s attacks against the labor movement and wants to fight for her fellow workers in Congress, where those who know what it’s like to work and still struggle to afford basic necessities are vastly underrepresented.
“These systems are designed to keep working people down.” Berg said. “There is no one better to fight for us than one of us, and working people have not been at the table.”
Berg is one of a string of candidates from the labor movement running for Congress in the 2026 midterms and hoping to win back blue-collar workers. Other union leaders running campaigns include smokejumper Sam Forstag in Montana, ironworker Brian Poindexter in Ohio, organizer Clair Valdez in New York and firefighter union president Bob Brooks in Pennsylvania.
This field of labor candidates come as Democrats seek to capitalize on Donald Trump’s sinking approval ratings – which are hovering around 37%, according to a recent NBC News poll – to retake the House and possibly the Senate as well.
Berg has served as vice-president of her union, Endeavor Association of Flight Attendants, which represents flight attendants for Endeavor Air, a subsidiary of Delta Airlines based in Minneapolis. She has also served as interim president and chair of her local union’s government affairs committee, where she said she learned not only how to negotiate contracts and fight for better pay and benefits, but also how to lobby for policies important to workers.
That labor background and experience inspired her to get involved in public service, culminating in her becoming a state representative for Saint Paul in 2020 while continuing to work as a flight attendant.
“I got involved in the union in my first year of flying, and really found a home there with the values of solidarity, standing up for each other and fighting against the corporations; it really resonated with me,” Berg said. “Being a union member is the best part of being a flight attendant.”
Berg cited the affordability crisis, the dismantling of the National Labor Relations Board and attempts to strip collective bargaining agreements from hundreds of thousands of federal workers as impetus for entering the race to represent Minnesota’s second congressional district, which is being vacated by the incumbent, Democrat Angie Craig, who is running for a Senate seat.
A record 55% of Americans say their financial situation is worsening, according to a recent Gallup poll, and Berg explained that middle-class constituents in her district are struggling to cover necessities like childcare, health insurance premiums, gas and groceries. Policies like universal healthcare, fighting corporations and corruption in Congress, and halting Trump’s tariffs – which have driven up costs for the average American family – would help her constituents handle the affordability crisis.
“I realized that the things that I had learned as an organizer and a labor leader were really important to take into public service, my whole reason for getting involved in politics was to fight for hard-working families,” she said.
Berg faces a competitive Democratic primary that includes Minnesota state senator Matt Klein and former state senator Matt Little. All three are currently fighting for 60% of delegates to secure an endorsement from the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party on 9 May, with the primary set for 11 August. According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, the district favors Democrats by three percentage points.
Among the issues at the center of the race, Berg cited, was the massive immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota in January, where federal immigration officers killed two unarmed civilians, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, inciting mass protests in Minnesota and the ongoing federal law enforcement presence in the state at the behest of the Trump administration.
“We have had a violent occupation of ICE agents in our streets for months on end. They’re still terrorizing our Somali community, especially because of the fraud allegations,” said Berg. “We know the agenda from this administration is to demonize immigrants and our communities, because that’s how they control people, and we’re simply not going to stand for it. I think Minnesota has shown that we’ve been an active participant in that fight, and I will continue to take that to Congress.”
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Hayley Mills says taxes wiped out most of her Disney fortune
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Hayley Mills skyrocketed to fame as a child star under Walt Disney’s wing for seven years — only to see her once-promising fortune slip away.
The actress, whose most memorable roles included “Pollyanna” and “The Parent Trap,” recently appeared alongside her sister, Juliet Mills, on “The Rosebud Podcast.” The appearance celebrated Mills’ 80th birthday.
When host Gyles Brandreth pressed Mills on what became of “the millions” she earned during her Disney years, she replied, “I gave it to the tax man.”
FORMER DISNEY CHILD STAR WOKE UP TO ‘ZERO DOLLARS’ IN BANK ACCOUNT AFTER NEARLY 20 YEARS IN SHOWBIZ
English actress Hayley Mills as identical twins Sharon McKendrick and Susan Evers in the Walt Disney comedy “The Parent Trap,” 1961. (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
“It was rather a big chunk,” she admitted. “It was most of it because it was all put into a trust fund, because super tax was 90% in those days, so they had to do something.”
Hayley Mills’ memoir, titled “Forever Young,” was published in 2021. (Grand Central Publishing)
“I do know the background of this, and it’s partly because you were poorly advised,” said Brandreth. “But also, it was partly to do with the naïveté of your father, I think. There was an innocence about him and a sort of optimism.”
“He had a business manager who made those sorts of decisions,” Juliet, 84, chimed in.
WATCH: HAYLEY MILLS RECALLS PERSONAL BOND WITH WALT DISNEY ON SET
The Mills sisters come from a celebrated British acting family. Their father, Sir John Mills, was one of Britain’s most respected actors and had a career that spanned decades. Their mother, Mary Hayley Bell, was also an actress and a playwright.
“Stanley [Passmore] also advised Daddy, and not very well,” said Mills, referring to the family’s solicitor. “The trust company was set up for me. Stanley was also involved in setting up a trust company for [actor] Jack Hawkins. And the Inland Revenue attacked his trust company, which affected British law. It created the precedent.”
English actress Hayley Mills is pictured with director Roy Boulting and their son Crispian Boulting in the U.K. on July 26, 1974. (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“And so, when I reached 21, instead of being given the key to the door, I was handed an envelope across a green baize tablecloth by Stanley, which was the Inland Revenue basically saying, ‘Thank you. You owe us 90% of your earnings,’” Mills continued. “And I’ve never been good at figures.”
British actress Hayley Mills, circa 1960. (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
“I said, ‘Well, what does this mean? I don’t understand.’ And Stanley laughed and said, ‘Well, I think it means you have to move to America [for work].’ And that’s all he ever said. He was a crook. He didn’t give a flying Dutchman.”
Hayley Mills attends the TV Choice Awards 2019 at Hilton Park Lane in London on Sept. 9, 2019. (Lia Toby/WireImage)
The Times of London reported that when Mills turned 21, she went to collect her money from the trust that her father and Passmore set up for her. However, she discovered that the trust hadn’t been set up correctly, and she had to pay a surtax of 91% on everything in it. While she contested it fiercely, there was no solution beyond suing her father or Passmore, the outlet reported.
On the podcast, Mills said she had a meeting with a prominent lawyer in hopes of fighting the case, but “it didn’t work.”
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Hayley Mills attends the “Trap” world premiere at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on July 24, 2024. (John Nacion/FilmMagic)
Lord Denning, one of Britain’s most powerful judges at the time, briefly gave Mills a win in her fight with the tax authorities. In the 1970s, he ruled in her favor, agreeing that it was unfair to tax her Disney earnings the way the government had. However, the victory didn’t stick. The case went to the House of Lords, which overturned Denning’s decision, leaving Mills on the hook for the massive bill that wiped out much of her fortune.
British teenage actress Hayley Mills places her hands in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre as her parents, actor John Mills and writer Mary Mills, join the celebration. (Getty Images)
Mills pleaded her case to the British government for years, the Los Angeles Times reported. However, her appeal was denied for good in 1975. If she had won, Mills said she would have been able to keep about 2 million pounds, which is well over $17 million today.
Mills kept working.
British actress Hayley Mills is on the set of “That Darn Cat!” directed by Robert Stevenson. (Walt Disney Productions/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis/Getty Images)
“I didn’t have a sensible enough sense of my career and what I ought to be doing, but I didn’t want to do more Disney movies,” said Mills. “I wanted to spread my wings and have a greater choice and not be limited by that.
“[But] I didn’t know what to look for. I didn’t know who I was. There was this moment when we’re growing up where we’re really on that uncomfortable seesaw, being still one foot in childhood and the other foot in being a woman. And I found it awfully difficult to get both feet into womanhood because [there] was a part of me that didn’t want to disappoint people. ‘Oh, she’s not that cute little girl anymore. She’s what?’ I didn’t know what sort of thing to look for.”
Hayley Mills starred opposite Nancy Olson in “Pollyanna.” (LMPC/Getty Images)
After she became a mother, Mills did some stage work and took on a handful of TV gigs in the U.S., the Los Angeles Times reported. She still acts occasionally.
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Hayley Mills appears in a publicity portrait for the 1960 Walt Disney film “Pollyanna.” (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
Back in 2021, Mills told Fox News Digital she was “fortunate” to have had a better outcome than many other child stars in Hollywood.
“I was working for a studio with a boss who was a genuinely good man,” she explained at the time. “He cared about the people who worked for him. I also had the support of my parents, who were both in the business. So I had support. The business can really come at people like an express train. You’re suddenly surrounded by wealth and showered with attention at an immense pace. It’s very intense and very, very easy to lose your way unless you have that support.”
English actress Hayley Mills and her sister Juliet Mills attend the opening of a Wayne Newton show in the U.S. in 1965. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)
“I certainly had my struggles,” Mills admitted. “But I think we all face struggles growing up. You’re trying to make sense of life and who you are, except you’re trying to figure all of this out in Hollywood. When you’re in that environment, it’s hard to hang on to reality. But after I worked, I went home. I went to boarding school in England. So, in some ways, I think I had it better than others.”
Hayley Mills and Juliet Mills attend the Chiller Theatre Expo Fall at the Parsippany Hilton in Parsippany, N.J., on Oct. 25, 2019. (Bobby Bank/Getty Images)
In a recently reshared 2017 interview with “Nostalgia Tonight with Joe Sibilia,” Mills spoke of her close relationship with Disney, who died in 1966 at age 65.
“He was a great friend of my family as a result of my working there,” she told the outlet. “He got on terribly well with my mother and father, particularly my mom, who was very funny and had a wicked sense of humor, which Walt really appreciated. So, I always felt very happy in his company. He was a very warm, kind and sweet man. I loved him. I was really fond of him.”
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American film producer Walt Disney talks to British actress Hayley Mills on the set of their film “The Castaways” on Dec. 14, 1961. (Keystone/Getty Images)
“I always knew he was a brilliant, wonderful, amazing man,” Mills shared. “And he took us around his fantastic Disneyland. He took us all around. And how amazing is that, to be taken around Disneyland by Walt Disney? But I didn’t appreciate at the time how lucky I was to have actually begun my career in that studio with him at the head of it, because he ran it so well, and it was small, and everyone knew everyone else, and everyone knew everyone’s name. And so did he.”
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Fashion’s Faustian pact: the high cost of Jeff Bezos’s Met Gala patronage | Met Gala 2026
The Met Gala in New York is the grandest and ritziest event in the fashion calendar, and an indicator of the growing ties between designers, celebrity and power. But with tech billionaires now joining the cohort, this year’s party may be its most controversial yet.
All eyes are on the guest list – and their outfits – to launch the fashion exhibition Costume Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Beyoncé, Venus Williams and Nicole Kidman are chairing the event with Vogue’s Anna Wintour, and tickets cost about $100,000 (£73,500). But in a plot twist worthy of the new Devil Wears Prada film, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos, the Met Gala’s new honorary chairs, will be joining the 450 guests on the museum steps on Monday.
The billionaires’ involvement as the main source of funding for the exhibition and the party has set tongues wagging, reviving rumours that the Amazon founder will buy Condé Nast, the parent company of Vogue, which oversees the gala. Last year there was speculation that Bezos would snap up the company as a wedding gift – it is thought the couple missed the 2025 gala only because of their starry wedding in Venice, although Sánchez Bezos appeared on Vogue’s digital cover in a Dolce & Gabbana wedding gown.
Skipping the event is Zohran Mamdani, breaking a decades-long tradition of New York mayors attending the gala. Parts of New York have been papered with posters criticising the Bezos’s involvement in the fundraiser, mounted by Everyone Hates Elon, a British activist group, which raised £15,000 in a week and is expected to be present on the night. “I love celebrity culture and fashion as much as anyone, but [Bezos’s involvement] makes Vogue seem irrelevant,” a spokesperson said. “Don’t tell me Bezos has been involved because of his fashion sense?”
Even before the politics, the gala dress code had become a hot topic. Titled “fashion is art”, it takes its cue from the exhibition’s theme, which argues that fashion and art are intertwined, “with bodies wearing clothes the common thread”, according to Andrew Bolton, the curator of the Met’s Costume Institute.
Split into 13 “thematic” body types, from pregnant and ageing to disabled and variations on nudity, the exhibition pairs about 200 sculptures and artworks alongside 200 garments and accessories. “The focus is on bodies marginalised in fashion, and ones that haven’t been valorised in either fashion or western culture,” said Bolton.
Highlights include a contorted corset by Michaela Stark paired with Niki de Saint Phalle’s Nana and Serpent sculpture, and a Sarah Lucas work next to wearable art made out of “Nora Batty-like stockings” by the British designer Harry Pontefract.
A late Roman Venus Pudica sculpture is paired with a dress that uses strategically placed human hair by the British-Turkish designer Dilara Findikoglu. A Burberry trench belonging to the disability activist Sinéad Burke and Batsheva Hay’s Hag jumper also feature, as do Rei Kawakubo gowns and Vivienne Westwood’s Martyr to Love jacket, which resembles a man’s upper body.
As ever, the link between the gala’s dress code and what materialises on the museum steps is tangential. “I’m sure there will be some nakedness,” said Bolton. “I also think we’ll get a lot of goddess gowns. But I do worry people might take the theme literally and come as a painting. Or at least Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup can.”
Still, he thinks the theme has never been more essential. “A lot of the developments fashion has made over the last few years have really eroded,” he said. “I don’t feel as if we’re seeing as much diversity on the runway as you did [then].”
While the theme will no doubt elicit some more literal translations, including Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian-inspired dresses, Cally Blackman, an associate lecturer of fashion history and theory at Central St Martins, hopes it will serve as a riposte to criticism about the value of fashion.
“It is the most powerful form of non-verbal communication that exists, yet we’re always fighting the battle [to prove its worth],” she said. “It’s only in the last 10 years that museums like the Met or the V&A have realised it gets more people over their thresholds.”
Bolton, who is preparing to reveal the Costume Institute’s new permanent home, the Condé M Nast Galleries, agrees. “For an art museum to position fashion in the centre of the building is symbolic,” he said. “I think people are realising not just the aesthetic value of fashion, but the social, cultural and personal ones.”
The gala is one of the most-watched red carpet events of the year, typically attracting 1bn global video views on Vogue’s site alone, and is fast outgrowing its philanthropic purpose, which is to raise funds for the New York museum. Blackman said: “The problem with the gala is that it’s … self-defeating. It’s not about fashion, it’s about publicity. I think a lot of the cachet has gone because it’s funded by Jeff Bezos.”
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SC AG ALAN WILSON, STEPHEN FEDERICO: Logan’s death demands we get serious about crime
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This Sunday marks one year since we lost Logan Federico.
For one of us, she was his daughter, a little girl grown into a beautiful young woman, and for him, along with his wife Melissa and his son Jacob, this is a fight they are facing together as a family. For the other, she represents a promise we must keep to every family in South Carolina.
Logan is more than a headline. She was a daughter, a friend, a young woman with her entire life ahead of her. She had a future full of promise and people who loved her deeply. That is what was taken.
She came to South Carolina to spend time with people she loved.
Instead, she was killed, brutally and unnecessarily, in an act of violence allegedly carried out by a man who had been in and out of prison for years with a lengthy rap sheet.
Let’s call this tragedy what it was. Let’s not shrink from the horror.
According to police reports, he broke into a home and stole an innocent life. He is responsible for his evil, deranged behavior. But the system failed to stop him, and that failure cost a family everything.
One year later, that loss does not fade. It does not get easier. But it does demand something of all of us. It demands action.
That is why we are fighting to fix the system: to close the loopholes, reform the judicial process, and slam the revolving door on career criminals.
It’s about fixing the failures that allow individuals with a long criminal record and multiple prior encounters with the justice system to continue endangering innocent people. Due to antiquated, outdated methods of keeping court and criminal records, and critical breakdowns in how information was tracked and shared, decision-makers did not have the full picture.
MOTHER OF DAUGHTER MURDERED BY MS-13 GANG MEMBER SPEAKS OUT IN FAVOR OF NEW BILL
That can never happen again. It should have never happened in the first place.
We must ensure law enforcement agencies from different jurisdictions, judges, and prosecutors have complete, accurate criminal histories before making decisions that affect someone’s freedom. It is necessary and common sense. And it is long overdue.
If we are serious about protecting our communities, we must take a harder look at sentencing and rehabilitation. Too often, repeat offenders are treated like first-time offenders. Charges are reduced. Sentences are light.
And then they are released and, in some cases, go on to hurt people again.
That is not compassion. That is failure.
Our system must recognize patterns of violent behavior and respond with consequences that protect innocent people.
We also need real judicial reform.
Judges make decisions every day that determine whether someone walks free or is held accountable. Those decisions must be rooted in transparency, accountability, and an unwavering commitment to public safety.
We cannot ignore the growing push toward eliminating cash bail.
I LED PEACEFUL PRO-LIFERS THE BIDEN ‘JUSTICE’ DEPT HUNTED. WE NOW KNOW HOW FAR THEY WENT
Bail is not about convenience. It is about safety. It exists to ensure that individuals who pose a danger are not released back into our communities before trial.
Anyone who poses a threat to innocent lives should not be released. Period.
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Logan Federico should still be alive. This weekend should not be an anniversary. We should not be mourning an innocent life lost. We should still be enjoying time with her.
Her family should not be living with this pain. No family should, and no other innocent life should ever be taken because the system failed to act.
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This Sunday, we remember Logan. We honor her life and everything she meant to those who loved her.
But remembrance is not enough. If we truly want to honor her, we must act.
Stephen Federico is the proud father of Logan Federico.
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Who are the two Gaza flotilla activists abducted by Israel? | Gaza News
Two activists from a Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla have been presented before an Israeli court days after they were abducted following their detention with 175 other campaigners by Israel in international waters near Greece.
Spanish national Saif Abu Keshek and Brazilian Thiago Avila have been on a hunger strike during their detention although they have continued to drink water.
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list of 3 itemsend of listThe Global Sumud Flotilla comprising more than 50 vessels had set sail from France, Spain and Italy on April 12 with the aim of breaking an Israeli blockade of Gaza and bringing supplies to the devastated Palestinian territory.
Gaza has been under an Israeli sea, land and air blockade since 2005, and since October 7, 2023, Israel has tightened its control over what goes in and out of the enclave – home to 2.3 million people.
The activists were intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters off Greece on Thursday. All of them were released except Abu Keshek and Avila.
So who are the two activists and why has Israel detained them?
Here’s what we know:
Who is Saif Abu Keshek?
Abu Keshek is a Spanish-Swedish national of Palestinian origin who was abducted from the flotilla off Crete on Thursday.
According to the website of the Global Sumud Flotilla, he is based in Barcelona and has been organising Palestinian solidarity movements across Europe for more than 20 years. He and his wife have three children, aged one, four and seven.
Before joining this year’s flotilla, “Abukeshek was a lead organiser in the Global March to Gaza and currently chairs the Global Coalition Against the Occupation in Palestine and represents the Intersindical Alternativa de Catalunya (IAC),” the website noted. “He also serves on the General Secretariat of the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad and sits on the board of the European Trade Union Network for Justice in Palestine”.
After Israel intercepted the flotilla on Thursday, Abu Keshek was abducted and transferred to Shikma Prison in Ashkelon. Shikma Prison (also known as Ashkelon Prison) in southern Israel has been frequently accused of harsh treatment and torture, particularly after Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza began in 2023.
Abu Keshek was subjected to torture on Saturday on an Israeli military vessel, the Global Sumud Flotilla said in a statement that was based on accounts from released activists.
The Israeli human rights organisation and legal centre Adalah visited the two men in Shikma Prison in Israel on Saturday and said: “The harrowing testimonies provided by both activists reveal physical violence and being held for prolonged periods in stress positions by Israeli military forces during the past two days they have spent at sea.”
Abu Keshek “reported being kept hand-tied and blindfolded, and being forced to lie face-down on the floor from the moment of his seizure until this morning, resulting in bruising to his face and hands”, it said.
“Avila reported being subjected to extreme brutality by the Israeli military during the seizure of the vessels,” it added, including being “dragged face-down across the floor and beaten so severely that he passed out twice”.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez delivered a message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech on Friday, saying Spain would always protect its citizens and defend international law.
“We demand the release of the Spanish citizen who has been unlawfully detained by Netanyahu’s government,” he said.
Israel’s action has also prompted protests and condemnation from rights groups and governments. Turkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called it an “act of piracy”.
![Brazilian activist Thiago Avila and Spanish activist Saif Abu Keshek at a court in Ashkelon [Ilia Yefimovich/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/AFP__20260503__A9MY7NR__v3__HighRes__TopshotIsraelPalestinianConflictFlotilla-1-1-1777803769.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
Who is Thiago Avila?
Avila is a socio-environmentalist from Brazil. According to the Global Sumud Flotilla’s website, the 38-year-old has a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter with his wife and has dedicated himself to solidarity with Palestine for more than 20 years.
“He is a Steering Committee member of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and was one of the coordinators onboard the Madleen mission that was intercepted and kidnapped by the Zionist entity in June 2025,” the website noted.
Avila was put in solitary confinement in Israel’s Ayalon Prison on June 11, 2025, for several days after he was abducted during the Freedom Flotilla mission.
According to the Brazilian embassy, after his recent detention in Israel in Shikma Prison, Avila reported being subjected to torture, beatings and mistreatment.
“During a monitored visit in which he was separated by glass and unable to communicate freely, embassy officials observed visible marks on his face. He reported significant pain, particularly in his shoulder,” the Global Sumud Flotilla said in a statement.
What did the court say?
On Sunday, the court in Ashkelon, Israel, approved a two-day extension to the detention of the activists who were brought to Israel for questioning.
“The court extended their detention by two days,” said Miriam Azem, the international advocacy coordinator at Adalah, which represents the men, told the AFP news agency.
Israeli authorities had earlier asked the court to extend their detention by four days.
“The Global Sumud Flotilla reiterates that the forced transfer of civilians from international and European waters into custody, combined with credible allegations of torture and the absence of due process, constitutes a serious violation of international law and must be met with accountability,” the flotilla said in a statement.
The organisation has also called on governments, human rights organisations, legal institutions, media outlets and civil society worldwide to demand their release.
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