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Global anti-Israel protest network organizes 736 Nakba 78 events worldwide
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A global network of anti-Israel activist groups is mobilizing coordinated “Nakba 78” protests across the United States and around the world today, with organizers using the anniversary of Israel’s founding to challenge the Jewish state’s right to exist.
A Fox News Digital investigation found that about 425 organizations — including communist groups, Muslim advocacy organizations and anti-Israel activist coalitions attributed with blatant antisemitism — are working together in a coordinated transnational protest network with a combined funding footprint of about $1 billion in annual revenues.
The groups have organized an estimated 736 events across 39 countries this weekend in locations including New York , Chicago, Los Angeles, London and Sydney, according to an analysis of protests listed at a website organizing actions against Israel. Organizers describe the demonstrations as marking the “Nakba,” an Arabic word for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians to describe the founding of Israel on May 14, 1948, the displacement of Palestinians and their historical grievance.
The “Nakba 78” protests reflect a “sinful marriage between the radical left and radical Islamism, the groups that hate Western liberal democracies and desire to destroy them,” Dalia Ziada, a Middle East scholar and Washington, D.C.-based coordinator at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, told Fox News Digital.
500 GROUPS WITH $3B IN REVENUES ARE BEHIND THE #NOKINGS PROTESTS AND COMMUNIST CALL FOR ‘REVOLUTION’
Global network
Critics say that the coordinated organizing of the mass protests reveals a global antisemitic movement that presents itself as humanitarian while mainstreaming rhetoric that denies Jewish self-determination and the right of Israel to exist as a state.
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In New York City yesterday, the People’s Forum, a pro-communist activist hub and a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, funded by a Marxist tech mogul, Neville Roy Singham, made signs at an “art build” for a protest today against the “ongoing Nakba.” Their Marxist comrades within the Party for Socialism and Liberation are fanning out across the country to rail against Israel’s existence.
ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS CLASH WITH NYPD OFFICERS NEAR SYNAGOGUE
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., a member of the Senate Judiciary and Finance Committees, told Fox News Digital that she is very concerned about the Chinese Communist Party and its sympathizers using the U.S. nonprofit industry to create an infrastructure to pull people together to undermine the United States.
“One of the things we know about the Singham group and about the Chinese Communist Party is they are going to look for a fellow bad actor… and they’re going to try to partner with them in causing chaos in our cities,” Blackburn said.
CHINA’S AMERICAN MAO: INSIDE SINGHAM’S BLUEPRINT TO ‘WAGE WAR’ FOR A ‘NEW WORLD ORDER’
Blackburn added that such efforts are part of a broader strategy.
“There is no limit to what the Chinese Communist Party will do to create chaos in the United States,”: she said.
On Feb. 14, 2018, Jodie Evans, co-founder founder of CodePink, and Neville Roy Singham, founder of Thoughtworks, attend V20: The Red Party, a 20th anniversary celebration of V-Day and The Vagina Monologues, featuring a performance by playwright Eve Ensler and an after-party at Carnegie Hall in New York City. (Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)
Follow the money
Over almost a decade, Singham has funneled $278 million into a network of nonprofits, including the People’s Forum, CodePink and BreakThrough BT Media, which have organized a steady wave of anti-Israel protests in the United States, particularly after the brutal Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis by Hamas militants, and they are now supporting this year’s “Nakba 78” protests.
A Fox News Digital investigation identified the flow of Singham’s money into nonprofits promoting the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party, and U.S. Treasury, Justice, State Department officials are investigating their funding structures and operations in the U.S. Lawmakers in the House Judiciary, Oversight and Ways and Means committees are also investigating the Singham network and the nonprofits it supports for possibly violating laws that require agents of foreign interests to register with the Justice Department, as well as other possible improprieties.
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A Fox News Digital investigation of mobilization materials, social media posts, event graphics, coalition lists and public announcements found that the “Nakba 78” campaign isn’t about a ceasefire to conflicts or a two-state solution, but the dismantling of the state of Israel itself.
The U.S. is the No. 1 hub for events with 187 events, followed by the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Canada, Spain, France, Ireland and Australia, all countries with organized Muslim and Palestinian diaspora communities.
Organizers say they are standing against “genocide,” “apartheid’ and U.S. “imperialism.”
MAY DAY PROTESTS ACROSS EUROPE AND ASIA TURN INTO ANTI-AMERICAN, ANTI-ISRAEL POLITICAL BATTLEGROUNDS
In the San Francisco Bay Area, University of California, Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian is slated to speak at a three-day “Islam, Memory and the Nakba” conference in Burlingame, Oakland and Los Gatos. In Brooklyn, activists with the Palestinian Youth Movement, Al-Awda and Within Our Lifetime are continuing a “Nakba Week of Action” that included violent protests directed at Jews at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue and Brooklyn’s Young Israel of Midwood earlier this week.
In London, police are preparing for a major “Nakba 78” march amid warnings about hate speech and public disorder. In Sydney, activists are calling demonstrators to town hall for a protest declaring, “Stop the Genocide! Free Palestine!”
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march through the city center during a protest against the recent Israeli strike on Lebanon and continued offensives in Gaza, Aug. 3, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pa. (Matthew Hatcher/AFP via Getty Images)
Anti-Israel rhetoric
Fox News Digital used a large-language model to analyze scores of “Nakba 78” protest literature and found that 85% of the protest language repeatedly parrots the language of U.S. adversaries, framing the United States as a “fascist” and “imperialist” nation and Israel as a “genocidal settler state,” a “Zionist entity,” a “Zionist project” and part of a “grand settler-colonial design,” erasing any use of the country’s name. The other 15% frame the protests as “solidarity with Palestine.”
The organizers’ materials call for “Unity, Liberation, Return,” an arms embargo and end to U.S. aid to Israel and the “right of return” for millions of Palestinian in the diaspora, in a demand Israel’s defenders argue would demographically end Israel as a Jewish state. The chants on social media are filled with the battle cry to destroy Israel “from the river to the sea,” a phrase that critics argue denies Israel its existence.
Under a working definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, criticism of Israel isn’t antisemitic, but antisemitism may include “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” including by claiming that Israel’s existence is a “racist” endeavor, applying double standards to Israel or comparing contemporary Israeli policy to that of “the Nazis.” The definition isn’t legally binding but widely used by governments, law enforcement and civil society groups as an educational and analytical tool.
“Nakba 78” protesters reject that charge, framing their activism as “anti-Zionist,” “anti-colonial” and “anti-imperialist.”
The network analysis found that the Palestinian Youth Movement, which works closely with the far-left activists at the People’s Forum in midtown Manhattan, is a central organizing node across many North American events, appearing with socialist, Muslim, student and local activist partners in city after city. The Party for Socialism and Liberation, Freedom Road Socialist Organization and Democratic Socialists of America chapters provide an “anti-imperialist” infrastructure, while groups such as American Muslims for Palestine, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Muslim American Society and Students for Justice in Palestine broaden the campaign into Muslim spaces.
The result is a synchronized campaign running on three tracks: street protest, ideological education and “agitprop,” a Soviet-era tactic used to describe “agitation propaganda” designed to foment discord in a society.
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LONDON, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 07: Protesters from a number of London universities attend an anti-Israel demonstration on Oct 7, 2025 in London, England. On the same day as people mark the second anniversary of the Hamas attacks on Israel which led to more than 1200 deaths and 251 hostages taken. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Coordinated global protests
In New York City, organizers have structured the demonstrations as a “Nakba Week of Action,” following clashes outside synagogues earlier this week involving groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement New York City, Al-Awda New York/New Jersey and Within Our Lifetime.
STANDING UP TO ANTISEMITIC MOBS SHOULDN’T LAND YOU IN PRISON
They plan to gather today at 4:30 p.m. in Washington Square Park, with the rallying cry, “RESISTANCE SINCE 1948,” and another protest is set for 2 p.m. on Saturday at 72nd St and 5th Avenue in Bay Ridge, in a neighborhood filled with Muslim halal meat grocery stores and local mosques.
Within Our Lifetime, co-founded by a local activist Nerdeen Kiswani, has long been one of New York’s most confrontational anti-Israel groups. The Anti-Defamation League says Kiswani has promoted “extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric,” including calls for “Zionists” to be excluded from community spaces.
Brooke Goldstein, executive director of The Lawfare Project, a nonprofit that challenges antisemitism in the courts, told Fox News Digital that authorities should closely monitor conduct at the demonstrations, particularly near Jewish institutions and places of worship.
THE GLOBAL INTIFADA IS HERE. HAMAS-ALIGNED NETWORKS BROUGHT TERROR TO US SOIL AND WE NEED TO STOP IT
“When there is assault, vandalism, trespass, obstruction, targeted harassment, discriminatory denial of access, or coordinated conduct that creates a hostile environment in schools, workplaces, or federally-funded institutions, this is action. Not protected speech,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein said Jewish communal spaces are increasingly being treated “as proxies for the Israeli government,” adding that authorities should closely watch for obstruction, intimidation and violence targeting Jewish communities.
In Los Angeles, a May 16 protest is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Israeli Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard, but organizers are calling the location the “Zionist Consulate.” Local partners include the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the ANSWER Coalition – another major Marxist group in the Singham network – and Nodutdol, a pro-communist Filipino group. The materials reviewed by Fox News Digital describe the conflict as part of a “grand settler-colonial design” targeting “sovereignty and freedom” across the Middle East.
ANTISEMITIC VIOLENCE ERUPTS IN AMERICA AS SOME INVOKE INTIFADA AND TARGET JEWS
In Boston, the Palestinian Youth Movement Boston and the Party for Socialism and Liberation teamed up on Wednesday with the National Iranian American Council, which supports the theological regime that runs the Islamic Republic of Iran, for a teach-in, “Arab Gulf States and U.S. Imperialism,” at the Boston Liberation Center in Roxbury, followed by an action today at 4 p.m. at the “Zionist consulate” on Washington Mall.
In Detroit and nearby Dearborn, Mich., the campaign fuses foreign policy with domestic economic grievances. In promoting their protests, the organizers accuse the U.S. and Israel of threatening “genocidal attacks” from Palestine to Iran and Lebanon, while arguing that “illegal wars” are driving up fuel prices and making basic needs harder for working-class Americans to afford.
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On July 24, 2024, Zaid Mohammed Mahdawi, 26, a leader of the Richmond chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, climbed atop a monument at Columbus Circle in front of Union Station and spray-painted an ominous message: “HAMAS IS COMIN’.”
‘Axis of Resistance’
In Chicago, organizers from local chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and American Muslims for Palestine, two groups that UC Berkeley lecturer Bazian established, are rallying to also support the Islamic Republic of Iran and its “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and the U.S.
“What we are seeing is the spread of jihadist radical Islamist racist ideologies married to extreme-left Marxism,” said Goldstein. She noted these groups “don’t agree on anything other than destroying America and killing Jews.”
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Internationally, the mobilization is also escalating. London police said the Nakba Day protest will form up in Exhibition Road in Kensington before marching to Waterloo Place via Brompton Road and Piccadilly, with a rally at the endpoint.
In Sydney, the site of an assault on Jewish worshipers earlier this year by a pair of father-son Muslim extremists, organizers plan a nationwide “Nakba Day” protest today at 6 p.m. at Town Hall, according to event listings, alleging Palestinians are living through “another modern day Nakba.”
Across the materials, the “Nakba 78” label functions as more than a historical commemoration. It links 1948 to the present day, presenting Israel’s founding, U.S. support for Israel, the war in Gaza, and regional conflicts involving Iran, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq as one continuous struggle. Fox News Digital’s review found the repeated use of “ongoing Nakba,” “78 years of genocide,” “apartheid,” “settler-colonialism,” “U.S. imperialism” and “resistance” as unifying slogans.
Ziada said the alliance between the far-left and Islamists intensified after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas militants, creating a “moral umbrella” for the movement and giving organizers “moral legitimacy to go on and accelerate the process of destroying the West.”
Ziada said that “they all agree on one thing, which is destroying the United States or weakening the western world.”
Late Friday, as protesters readied their pre-printed signs, a video rallied their foot soldiers: “The harder they attack, the stronger we fight back!”
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Fox News Digital’s Kyle Schmidbauer, Tessa Hoyas and Preston Mizell contributed to this report.
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Finland ends drone alert amid regional fears of Ukraine war spillover | Russia-Ukraine war News
Finnish authorities scramble fighter jets; defence chief says false alarm but warns of potential repeats while Russian war persists.
Finland has stood down its defence forces after sounding an alarm over suspected drone activities in its airspace.
The authorities said on Friday that suspected drone activity above the Helsinki region no longer posed a threat and that the situation was returning to normal hours after launching an emergency response, including the launch of fighter jets and closure of the capital’s airport.
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list of 4 itemsend of listThe alarm illustrates the tension stalking the region as Finland and the Baltic states eye Russian aggression and daily missile and drone attacks amid Moscow’s continued war on Ukraine.
The Helsinki City Rescue Department had warned the nearly 2 million inhabitants of Finland’s Uusimaa region to stay indoors starting about 4am local time (1:00 GMT), as fighter jets were scrambled. Helsinki’s airport was also closed for about three hours.
Later, President Alexander Stubb wrote on X that authorities had “demonstrated their readiness and capacity to react”, adding that the country was now facing “no direct military threat”.
Kimmo Kohvakka, director general for rescue services at the Ministry of the Interior, called the response a “precautionary measure” and said “daily life can continue.”
The incident arose amid growing concerns about regional spillover from the Ukraine war.
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have reported a series of suspected Ukrainian drones headed for Russia entering their airspace, prompting domestic criticism over their ability to respond to military threats.
The situation has led to a full-blown government crisis in Latvia. Prime Minister Evika Silina resigned on Thursday after a coalition partner pulled support. The move followed the ousting of the defence minister after a drone crashed at a fuel storage facility.
In March, two drones crossed into Finnish territory and crashed after flying low over the sea and southeastern Finland.
Finnish authorities did not indicate the source of Friday’s drone activity.
However, defence forces operations chief Kari Nisula suggested that Finland had received information from Ukraine about drones potentially straying into the country, according to the Reuters news agency.
The military head added that there was no evidence that drones had entered Finland, but that such situations could happen again as long as Russia continues its war on Ukraine.
Prisoner swap
The incident in Finnish airspace unfolded as Ukraine maintained its drone attacks on Russian oil and energy infrastructure, and Kyiv continued counting the costs of a huge strike that killed two dozen people.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Friday that its air defence systems shot down 355 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow overnight, as well as the border regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk.
Among the targets was an oil refinery in the central city of Ryazan, about 200km (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, according to the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces.
![Fire and a plume of smoke rise in the vicinity of the Ryazan oil refinery, May 15, 2026. [Supplied via Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-05-15T083203Z_1005115005_RC2K9LASNB6E_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-1778833986.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C421&quality=80)
The attack killed three people and wounded 12, regional Governor Pavel Malkov wrote on Telegram. Two high-rise apartment buildings were struck, he said, while debris fell on the grounds of an industrial enterprise.
Meanwhile in Kyiv, the death toll from a Russian barrage on an apartment building on Thursday rose to at least 24 people, including three children, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Forty-eight people were wounded.
Amid the ongoing violence, Russia and Ukraine have moved ahead with a prisoner swap that saw 205 POWs repatriated on each side on Friday. It was the first step of a swap that is planned to ultimately see 1,000 people on each side return home.
The two sides also conducted an exchange of those killed in the fighting, with Russia handing 526 bodies to Ukraine and receiving 41 in return. Both Kyiv and Moscow thanked the United Arab Emirates for mediating the swap.
Zelenskyy wrote on social media that most of the prisoners returned to Ukraine had been in Russian captivity since 2022.
“We will continue to fight for every single person who remains in captivity,” he said.
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Hollywood director Adam McKay slams White liberals in Democratic Party critique
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Hollywood director Adam McKay unloaded on White liberals during an interview on Wednesday in a fiery critique of the Democratic Party.
“I could go on with a list of 400 things, the same party that kept healthcare private,” McKay told host Jesse Damiani during his “Urgent Futures” podcast after railing against prominent Democratic Party members. “That, you know, on and on and on. And it was like, we are being hit with the high grade marketing and no group is worse than White liberals.”
“I mean, they are the worst. I’ve tried to talk to them about climate. They are so smug and captured. And really, it boils down to privilege. I mean, when you talk to White money liberals, they’re getting a lot from this broken system. So at some point, I realized these are bad-faith arguments and conversations,” he said.
McKay said he couldn’t support a party that didn’t back universal healthcare.
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Filmmaker Adam McKay attends the 94th Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles, Calif., on March 27, 2022. (Dan Steinberg/Variety/Penske Media)
“You can’t support a party that doesn’t want universal healthcare. The Democrats don’t have that in their party platform. Kamala, Hillary never brought it up. If you were in like Norway or France or Australia. And you were like, we don’t need universal healthcare. People would be like, ‘You are a Nazi,'” he said.
McKay continued, “Like even the neo-Nazi parties in Europe don’t campaign against nationalized healthcare. So I think the U.S. is essentially an island country and no group of people has, you know, heads full of bees more than White liberals. Like, I’ve heard the craziest s— from White liberals.”
McKay argued that White liberals benefit from the system and only care about their class and social scene.
“I almost can say I despise American White liberals,” he said. “They are the grossest of the gross.”
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McKay announced in 2024, following President Donald Trump’s election victory, that he would be leaving the Democratic Party.
“It is time to abandon the Dem Party,” McKay wrote on X at the time. “I’m registering Green Party or Working Families. But am open to ideas.”
A paper donkey, symbol of the Democratic Party, hangs from the ceiling at the Virginia Victory Coordinated Campaign Field Office in Arlington, Va., on Oct. 8, 2016. (Leigh Vogel/WireImage)
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The director ripped the Democratic Party for what he deemed a series of missteps leading up to Election Day, including how it handled former President Biden bowing out of the race to make way for former Vice President Kamala Harris on the ticket.
McKay has in recent years championed progressive causes and has donated millions of dollars to fight climate change. His activism has also bled into his work. His movie “Don’t Look Up,” for instance, served as a critique of a lack of action when it comes to protecting the environment. The 2021 satire film centered on two scientists who tried in vain to warn the world about a planet-destroying comet.
Then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris attend President Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (Saul Loeb/Pool/Getty Images)
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McKay claimed in December 2024 that “America has never been more right wing and propagandized,” after predicting that the film “Wicked” would eventually get canceled.
“On a pure storytelling level, ‘Wicked Part 1’ is right up there as one of the most radical big studio Hollywood movies ever made,” McKay posted on X.
Fox News’ Cortney O’Brien contributed to this report.
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XLSMART and ZTE partnering for a boundless digital Indonesia
7,000 5G sites added in eight months, and now serve 73 million subscribers on Indonesia’s first blanket 5G network.
Partner Content In Indonesia, the magic of “Bumbu”, that perfect spice blend, creates unforgettable flavors. Today, in the digital world, an even grander “fusion” is taking place.
Facing the challenge of unifying seperate networks across Indonesia’s diverse geography, XLSMART partnered with ZTE on a landmark dual-network convergence project, integrating over 20,000 4G base stations and deploying more than 7,000 new 5G sites in just eight months.
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Leveraging digital-intelligent tools and ecosystem collaboration, the project significantly enhanced coverage, capacity, and user experience for 73 million subscribers — turning complex delivery challenges into measurable gains in speed and efficiency.
Fusion for the Future. Watch how the converged network is powering Indonesia’s digital growth.
Contributed by ZTE.
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ICE violently arrested a US citizen and filmed it ‘like a documentary’, videos reveal | ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
Christian Cerna, 28, was driving with his partner and their two young children through Los Angeles, when two vehicles rammed his car and a group of men jumped out and trained their guns on them.
It was 11 June 2025, and as Cerna exited his vehicle with his hands raised, he realized the masked men weren’t street criminals as he initially feared. They were Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Cerna, a carpenter, is a US citizen and southern California native. But ICE was targeting him after a border agent reported that Cerna had “assaulted” him during a rowdy anti-ICE protest days earlier. The officers arresting Cerna detonated flash-bang grenades and pointed assault rifles at his car, with his infant and toddler inside.
The agents, court records show, were also filming high-quality footage of the arrest operation, which they would later post to social media.
The tactics, a federal judge later said, were part of ICE’s “vindictive effort” to “impose extrajudicial punishment”.
“It was like they were trying to make a movie,” Cerna said in a recent interview, speaking publicly for the first time about his arrest. “They were like the bullies in high school taking photos to humiliate me … and to prove a point – to say, if you say anything against what we’re doing, there will be consequences.”
The story of Cerna’s arrest and prosecution provides a window into the anger and fear sparked by the Trump administration’s brutal crackdown on immigrant communities and how federal officials have sought to forcefully suppress dissent and demonize protesters in the media – leaving a lasting impact on families caught in the crossfire.
A childhood shaped by deportation
For Cerna, the decision to protest was deeply personal.
Born in Long Beach, California, Cerna is the son of two immigrants from Mexico and spent his childhood frequently moving across southern California.
When Cerna was about 12 years old, he and his mother were pulled over by immigration agents who were looking for his father, he recalled. At the time, they were living in a desert community east of Los Angeles, and his father was out of town working at a marina. On the day of his father’s expected return, Cerna’s older brothers broke the news: ICE had arrested their dad.
Cerna was inconsolable, barricading himself in the family’s garage. When he had a chance to speak to his father by phone, he refused: “I didn’t want to talk to my dad on the phone. I wanted to see him.”
His father was deported, and the family moved in with an uncle, seven relatives crammed in one room. Cerna stopped going to school: “I hated ICE, because they ruined everything.”
That memory was on his mind the morning of 7 June last year when a neighbor knocked on his door sharing rumors that ICE was at the Home Depot near his home in Paramount, a south LA suburb that is 81% Latino.
Cerna, now a father of two, thought of how powerless he felt as a child to save his dad. “I’m a grown man now. I have a voice. If I see something, I’m going to say something. I’m going to express the emotions I’ve held onto for so long.”
He hopped in his car and drove to Home Depot.
The protest: ‘Like a combat zone’
Tensions were high across LA that week. ICE had targeted the city’s garment district and day laborers with highly publicized raids, marking the Trump administration’s first large-scale surge of officers into a major city. As confusion reigned, local protests broke out in several parts of the city. It was unclear which federal agencies were in charge, and anxiety and uncertainty about ICE’s plans spread across the region.
When Cerna arrived at the Home Depot in Paramount, he didn’t see ICE. But down the street, while heading home, he spotted a vehicle with border patrol, another Department of Homeland Security (DHS) division working with ICE on the crackdown in the region. He pulled over.
“What are you guys doing here?” Cerna shouted while filming. “I’m a US citizen. I don’t want to see your guys around here!’”
Cerna got out of his car. The scene, outside a DHS office, quickly became chaotic. Dozens of federal agents arrived, as did more protesters and observers, some insulting and filming the officers and trying to block their vehicles, while agents shouted commands and at times got into heated confrontations with demonstrators. Many officers donned heavy tactical gear.
Cerna was outraged at the sight of their assault rifles and military garb, and cursed at and taunted officers while livestreaming, at one point saying if they gave him a gun, “I’ll take all you down.”
“All I could do was use my words … I tried to intimidate them like they were intimidating us, and I made ridiculous comments,” Cerna recalled. “They looked like they were preparing to do raids on al-Qaida … This is not a combat zone. You want to go to war with American citizens?”
Videos showed chaotic scuffles between officers and demonstrators. As tensions escalated, an agent was filmed forcefully shoving a protester before a group of officers took the protester and another demonstrator to the ground. Cerna was standing nearby, and grainy social media footage shows a border agent, later identified as Eduardo Mejorado, appearing to grab at Cerna and then shortly after Cerna swinging his hand at the agent’s face.
DHS officials have said Cerna “punched” the agent, striking him in the face. Cerna and his lawyers have said the agent “lunged” at Cerna and that Cerna is a trained boxer, who reflexively swung back at the agent with an open hand, but did not make contact. There were no allegations in the government’s follow-up reports that the agent was injured.
Soon after that encounter, officers, now in helmets and more riot gear, started firing projectiles. Cerna recalled being hit by multiple pepper balls. A teargas canister struck his face, which left a clear burn mark visible in photos.
Also on the scene was Gregory Bovino, a California border patrol leader who went on to become the face of Trump’s deportation agenda before he retired in March.
Body-camera footage disclosed in court captured him rallying his officers: “This is our fucking city!” Bovino said, though he and many others were stationed 200 miles away.
“Arrest as many people that touch you as you want,” Bovino said. “Those are the general orders all the way to the top. Everybody fucking gets it if they touch.”
The arrest: ‘I have kids!’
Cerna returned home from the protest with bruises, feeling depleted and anxious. After several sleepless nights, on the morning of 11 June, he and his partner, Abby Chavez, and their five-month-old daughter and two-year-old son got in the car to visit relatives and get tacos.
At around the same time, records show, officers with ICE’s homeland security investigations division, which focuses on criminal investigations, had used social media to confirm Cerna was the protester who “assaulted” an agent. As they prepared to arrest him, officers started filming themselves. Footage disclosed in court showed agents planning the arrest and arming themselves with assault rifles, combat vests and other weaponry.
An internal strategy document said ICE would use a drone to track Cerna’s movements, with four vehicles of officers monitoring and following him. An officer filmed from inside a vehicle as they followed Cerna on the freeway.
Cerna started to suspect he was being followed, he recalled, and changed lanes to see if the vehicle behind him would continue trailing him, but there were no sirens and he wondered if he was just being paranoid.
After Cerna exited the highway in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights, two unmarked ICE vehicles crashed into his car, surveillance footage showed. Cerna said he did not hear any commands to pull over before the collision. The video from a nearby business shows white smoke exploding by Cerna’s car as the officers fired flash-bangs within seconds. The officers exited their cars with assault rifles and handguns drawn.
Chavez said she initially thought it was a car accident, then worried the men were criminals trying to abduct them. Cerna exited the car in hopes of drawing the guns away from his children.
Soon, an officer arrived filming with what appeared to be a handheld tripod.
“I have kids!” Cerna said, as one officer pointed an assault rifle at him at close range.
“Shut the fuck up and listen!” another officer responded.
Chavez, hyperventilating inside the car, filmed officers pointing firearms at them. Her toddler held a toy car as he stared at the men.
Mejorado, the victim of Cerna’s alleged assault, was also present as Cerna was handcuffed, the videos show.
“Remember Saturday … Remember me?” asked Mejorado.
“I remember when … you put your hands on me,” responded Cerna, who had not been told of his Miranda rights, the right to remain silent before being questioned, as required by the constitution.
It was unclear why Mejorado was present. ICE’s strategy document shows neither he nor border patrol was part of the arrest team.
The agents transported Cerna to a DHS office where he was further questioned, and a public affairs official arrived to take photos. Chavez, who doesn’t drive, was left behind with their car and two children. She was concerned about possible injuries from the crash, and she and the kids were taken by ambulance to the hospital.
A DHS spokesperson said in an email that agents observed Cerna leaving his home and then saw him “driving erratically … putting other drivers and his passengers, who were later identified as his wife and two minor children, at risk”. The spokesperson did not answer questions about whether agents took steps to pull him over before the crash, saying he “refused to comply with a vehicle stop” and officers “performed a vehicle interdiction/pin maneuver to halt his vehicle”.
DHS declined to answer questions about why Mejorado was present and said Cerna was read his Miranda rights. Records show a different officer said he told Cerna of his right to remain silent at a later point in the day. Mejorado could not be reached for comment.
Kristi Noem’s ‘message’
As footage of the crash quickly spread online, local news initially reported the incident as a hit-and-run. DHS started posting its videos of the operation on X shortly after, writing: “This was a targeted arrest of a violent rioter who punched a [border patrol] officer,” and claiming he “attempted to flee”. The message directly contradicted the footage, which showed Cerna’s immediate surrender.
The post referenced then DHS secretary Kristi Noem, saying her “message to the LA rioters is clear: you will not stop us or slow us down”, adding, “If you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will be prosecuted.”
ICE’s X account posted the high-resolution arrest footage that evening and shared it again the following day with a television emoji, along with a photo of him being handcuffed and a YouTube link to “watch the full video”.
Scott Tenley, Cerna’s lawyer and a former federal prosecutor, said in 20 years of criminal defense, he had never seen officers film themselves planning and executing an arrest: “You’re not making a documentary. You’re supposed to be fighting crime.”
DHS declined to answer questions about its social media strategy and why it filmed the arrest operation.
Cerna was charged with felony assault, the government alleging he deliberately punched Mejorado.
The government’s case faced an initial challenge: The Department of Justice in LA, which was pursuing a string of similar cases at the time, named a different protester and the wrong victim in its indictment, a serious error. The case nonetheless proceeded, with a charge carrying a possible eight-year sentence.
From jail, Cerna tried to assure Chavez he was OK and told her not to put his crying two-year-old son on the phone since it was only making him more upset. Privately, he feared his life was over: “I thought the government was going to throw me under the bus and bury me … They were trying to incite fear into people and make an example out of me.”
Cerna was released after a week and put on house arrest with GPS monitoring.
The stress overwhelmed his family. His infant daughter developed a full-body rash, which Chavez suspected was stress-related. Chavez struggled to eat and lost 20lbs. Cerna was hospitalized with a ruptured appendix, which, according to court records, his doctors attributed to stress. He went on disability leave and stopped working as a carpenter.
Their son was hit the hardest. He sobbed when Cerna came home from jail, then began screaming and crying any time he was separated from his father, even if Cerna was just in the bathroom, Cerna said. At night, “He’d wake up screaming with nightmares, ‘Dad! Dad!’ and I’d say, ‘Relax, I’m right here,’” Cerna said.
Chavez and Cerna said they have both experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, including panic attacks, sometimes triggered by the sight of suspicious cars. As the case dragged into the fall, they became eager for a resolution.
A judge’s rebuke
Cerna didn’t want to risk a possible lengthy prison sentence from a felony conviction.
In December, he pleaded guilty to simple assault on an officer, a lesser misdemeanor that doesn’t require any allegations of physical contact and carries a maximum one-year sentence. The agreement said he “intentionally swung at” the border agent’s face, but did not say he punched or injured the officer.
Prosecutors argued in filings that Cerna should be jailed for eight months, citing his verbal threats during the protest and submitting footage of Cerna at one point throwing a water bottle and firecracker in the direction of officers. Cerna’s lawyer argued he should get no jail time, saying officers had used unnecessary force and violence at the protest, Cerna had not made contact with the agent, and only threw objects after he was hit in the face by a teargas canister. Cerna’s lawyer noted he had already faced significant consequences, including a brutal arrest, a week in jail and two months of home confinement.
The DoJ declined to comment.
At sentencing in March, Chavez sat with their daughter in her arms as US judge Cynthia Valenzuela announced Cerna’s fate.
Valenzuela criticized Cerna for making “violent threats”, saying his protest actions were “inappropriate” and “dangerous”. She also said he appeared to be a “hard-working, honest and respectful man” and had no criminal history. She acknowledged the trauma of his father’s deportation and violence he witnessed in his youth had influenced his actions. She said there was no evidence the agent was injured.
Then she denounced ICE for its “troubling” arrest tactics. Pinning his car, she said, was unnecessary and endangered his family and the public. She noted officers pointed assault rifles “even as he surrendered peacefully and begged them not to harm his children” and said it was concerning Mejorado showed up and interrogated Cerna without giving him a Miranda warning.
The judge noted the DHS’s promotion of the arrest video on social media, saying: “The circumstances of the arrest suggest a vindictive effort by government officials to impose extrajudicial punishment and to circumvent protections of due process to which defendant was entitled.”
She sentenced him to one year of probation and no jail time.
Outside court, Cerna and Chavez embraced and cried.
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Medicaid fraud costs taxpayers $100 billion yearly as states fail to act
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Just how bad is Medicaid fraud? Six months ago, Minnesota dominated the news for losing an estimated $9 billion to thieves since 2018. Yet now the federal government is saying that medical providers are likely fraudulently billing about $100 billion every year. The good news is that the Trump administration is now fighting to close what is likely one of the biggest loopholes behind this unprecedented theft of taxpayer money.
On April 21, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — Dr. Mehmet Oz — announced that his agency will require states to develop stronger plans to review their Medicaid providers. Nationwide, there are millions of such providers, and by law, states must revalidate their enrollment in the program at least every five years.
Through this process, states check providers’ medical licenses and confirm their compliance with all relevant state and federal laws. Revalidation is expressly designed to prevent fraudsters from cheating taxpayers.
But states are failing this basic job. My organization has submitted Freedom of Information Act requests to 48 states and D.C., seeking their data on how many Medicaid providers have been revalidated. Roughly two-thirds of states haven’t responded at all, while still others provided partial responses with useless data. Still, among those few states that have taken our request seriously, the data they provided points to a deeply concerning nationwide trend.
READ: DR. OZ PUTS ALL 50 GOVERNORS ON NOTICE OVER BILLIONS LOST TO MEDICAID FRAUD
President Donald Trump and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz discuss the TrumpRx.gov prescription website at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 5, 2026. (Pool / Fox News)
Consider Georgia. The state has a record of 374,774 Medicaid providers, yet roughly 21,000 are longstanding providers that haven’t been revalidated in the past five years. Things are far worse in Illinois. Of the 222,000 Medicaid providers in the state, more than 25% have gone longer than five years without proving the validity of their participation in the program. One Illinois provider hasn’t been revalidated in more than nine years.
It’s unlikely that all these Medicaid providers are defrauding taxpayers. But without strict state enforcement, fraud inevitably becomes more common. Revalidation looks at license verification, checks providers against death records, flags providers excluded from participating in Medicaid, and otherwise confirms that these providers are who they say they are and do what they say they do. The Trump administration cracked down on 447 hospices in Los Angeles alone for fraudulent billing — the very sort of thing revalidation can identify.
Revalidation can also ferret out providers that are banned from practicing in one state yet still bill Medicaid in another state. For example, my organization’s research on the “Little Mogadishu” complex in Minneapolis found multiple healthcare providers that were placed on Minnesota’s Medicaid exclusion list, but not the federal exclusion list.
One was an adult day care where its license was revoked for 35 violations — including staff failing to interact with patients. Separately, an Inspector General’s report found 12% of all providers terminated for cause in one state were participating in another state’s Medicaid program just months later.
Revalidation can even flag providers that are using the identity of someone else — say, a doctor who retired years before. In California, con artists stole the identities of doctors —two of whom were deceased — to fraudulently bill millions for hospice care.
Operation Never Say Die in April 2026 charged multiple individuals for $60 million in fraudulent billings through phantom hospice clinics. When states don’t look into their Medicaid providers, scams like this abound.
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Dr. Oz has given states 30 days to tell his agency how they’ll strengthen their legally required review of Medicaid providers. History shows how urgently necessary this is. Some 1.6 million providers in the separate Medicare program were revalidated in the early 2010s, and more than 500,000 had their status deactivated and another 34,000 had their status revoked altogether, saving taxpayers $2.4 billion. Today, if better provider revalidation prevented even just five percent of improper payments in Medicaid, taxpayers would save billions annually.
It’s unlikely that all these Medicaid providers are defrauding taxpayers. But without strict state enforcement, fraud inevitably becomes more common.
It remains to be seen how states will respond to the Trump administration’s demands, which are more than justified for the sake of taxpayers. Yet even if governors get serious about revalidation, the five-year timeline is still too long. Over the course of a half-decade, bad actors could easily bilk Medicaid for enormous sums, then rinse and repeat under a different provider name in the same state or somewhere else.
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It would be far better if states had to review providers every few years. The Trump administration could pursue this via regulation — or better yet, legislation like another reconciliation bill.
In the meantime, every state should follow Dr. Oz’s lead and come up with a serious plan to confirm that every single Medicaid provider is above board. Because states have gotten lazy, untold billions of taxpayer dollars have been stolen. The Trump administration is right to demand immediate change, so that the Medicaid fraud crisis doesn’t become even more mind boggling than it already is.
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Greens suggest they will properly contest byelection in blow for Burnham | Byelections
The Greens are going to campaign for the upcoming Makerfield byelection, complicating Andy Burnham’s potential route back to parliament against what is expected to be a strong Reform UK challenge.
A statement from the Greens said candidate selection was in process and that the party had learned from its win in another Greater Manchester seat in February, when they overcame a 13,000 Labour majority in Gorton and Denton.
Labour has a smaller majority of just over 5,000 in Makerfield, where Reform came second in the 2024 election. The sitting MP, Josh Simons, announced on Thursday that he would stand down, saying he wanted Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, to replace him.
Burnham has said he will seek the Labour nomination, and while the decision is for the party’s national executive committee (NEC), which blocked him from fighting Gorton and Denton, Downing Street has indicated it will allow him to contest Makerfield.
With Reform having won all nine seats being contested for the constituency on Wigan council in local elections last week, Burnham is gambling that his personal appeal will counteract Labour’s poor national poll ratings and take him to a win.
There had been speculation that the Greens might not field a candidate in Makerfield or barely contest it, to avoid splitting the leftwing vote and letting Reform in. One possible mooted deal would have been for the Greens to stand down if Burnham agreed to look at electoral reform if he became prime minister, something he has already indicted he might do.
But in a statement on Friday morning, a Green spokesperson said: “We are looking forward to the campaign. We’ve learned from our campaigning and wins in Gorton and Denton and the recent local elections, and we’ve shown we can beat Reform. We’re a democratic party and our local members choose their candidates. We have already started the candidate selection process for any potential byelection in Makerfield.”
The Greens are highly decentralised, meaning that even if the leadership wanted to stand aside, it would be up to the local party.
One Green source in Greater Manchester said that while the local party would have to make its own decision, much would depend on whether the weight of the national organisation was put behind the campaign. “With Gorton and Denton we showed that the national party operation focusing on an area can make a pretty monumental difference,” they said.
In 2024 the Greens came fifth behind Labour, Reform, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. However, the party has since surged in the polls under Zack Polanski, and in Gorton and Denton it was able to mobilise huge numbers of volunteers to canvass and campaign.
Burnham confirmed on Friday that he would ask the NEC to allow him to stand in the contest. This would require a byelection for his mayoralty, with concerns that Reform could win this.
Burnham said much bigger change was needed at a national level, singling out the cost of living crisis as a priority for his campaign, in a statement that set out why he wanted to return to Westminster.
“This is why I now seek people’s support to return to parliament: to bring the change we have brought to Greater Manchester to the whole of the UK and make politics work properly for people,” he said.
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Ibuprofen and exercise may ease chemo brain symptoms, Rochester study finds
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A common over-the-counter medication combined with a home exercise program could help ease cognitive issues for cancer patients.
That’s according to a study from the University of Rochester, which tested the effects of physical activity and low-dose ibuprofen on patients receiving chemotherapy treatment.
“Chemo brain” (also called chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment, or CRCI) is a known side effect of cancer treatment that can affect memory, concentration and multitasking ability. Up to 80% of people who receive chemo experience some degree of cognitive impairment, previous studies have shown.
BRAIN AGING MAY ACCELERATE AFTER CANCER TREATMENT, STUDY SUGGESTS
Rochester’s phase 2 trial studied 86 adult cancer patients in New York undergoing chemotherapy who were experiencing cognitive problems. The average age was 53 and nearly 89% of participants were women, according to a university press release.
Participants who took only ibuprofen also showed greater cognitive improvements than the placebo group. (IStock)
Patients were randomly assigned to one of four groups. One group participated in home exercise designed specifically for cancer patients, a second group combined the exercises with ibuprofen (200 milligrams, or one pill, twice a day), the third group took ibuprofen alone and a fourth took a placebo alone.
TWO POPULAR TYPES OF EXERCISE COULD REDUCE CANCER GROWTH, STUDY FINDS
The exercise program consisted of low to moderate-intensity activity, including progressive walking and training with resistance bands.
“This is one of the first studies specifically designed to assess these interventions for cancer-related cognitive impairment during chemotherapy in patients with multiple diseases using both performance-based cognitive assessments and patient-reported outcomes,” said lead author Michelle C. Janelsins, Ph.D., MPH, of the University of Rochester and the Wilmot Cancer Institute, in the press release.
Up to 80% of people who receive chemo experience some degree of cognitive impairment.
After six weeks, exercise was linked to the clearest improvements in attention and cognitive function, according to input from family and friends. Those in the group who combined exercise and placebo showed better attention levels compared to those who took just a placebo.
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Participants who took only ibuprofen also showed greater cognitive improvements than the placebo group.
The findings suggest that ibuprofen may provide some improvement in cognitive function, although the benefits appeared to be smaller and less consistent than those seen with exercise.
“Chemo brain” (also called chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment, or CRCI) is a known side effect of cancer treatment that can affect memory, concentration and multitasking ability. (iStock)
This suggests that inflammation may contribute to cancer-related cognitive impairment, and that anti-inflammatory medications could be an effective therapeutic approach.
“We are encouraged by the findings of this trial that suggest possible benefits of both interventions for some cognitive domains,” Janelsins said. “Clearly, we saw a more pronounced effect with exercise, which is notable considering the multiple health benefits of exercise for cancer survivors.”
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No adverse side effects were reported during the trial.
The findings were published in Cancer, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
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There were some limitations of the study, the researchers noted, including the small sample size and short duration. The effects were also not consistent across every measure of cognitive function.
As the majority of participants were women, the findings may not be generalized to broader populations.
“Clearly, we saw a more pronounced effect with exercise, which is notable considering the multiple health benefits of exercise for cancer survivors,” the researcher said. (iStock)
Researchers are planning larger phase 3 trials to confirm whether ibuprofen and exercise can effectively improve chemo-related cognitive impairment.
“Since we saw cognitive benefits in some domains and not others, we will also consider additional doses and longer durations in future research trials,” said Janelsins.
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Investigators emphasized that patients should speak with their oncology team before starting ibuprofen or exercise interventions during chemotherapy, as certain treatments or medical conditions could increase the risk of side effects and complications.
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