US news - 7/17/2025

Israel-Palestine Conflict Escalates

• Israeli forces have continued to attack civilians in the Gaza Strip, killing at least 93 Palestinians over the past 24 hours.
• Overnight, Israel bombed two schools in Gaza, killing at least four people sheltering there.
• Two women were killed when an Israeli tank fired on a church in northern Gaza, where Christians and Muslims were sheltering.

Global Response to Israel's Actions

• A group of 30 countries has announced measures aimed at halting Israel's attacks on Palestine and ending the "era of impunity."
• Only 12 countries have agreed to implement the steps so far.
• Brazil has confirmed it will soon announce its formal joining of South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

US Politics

• The Republican-led Senate has voted in favor of Trump's plan to claw back $9 billion in already-approved funding for foreign aid and public media.
• The cuts would have a minimal impact on the national debt but could be a death knell to vital programs addressing global health, emergency food and shelter assistance, peacekeeping, and economic development.

Immigration

• The US has expelled five immigrant men to Eswatini, where local authorities say they are holding them in jail before deporting them back to their home countries.
• Immigration lawyers in Hawaii say an increasing number of immigrants detained in the continental United States are being transferred to prisons in Hawaii and deprived of access to legal counsel.

Trump Administration

• The Trump administration has fired longtime US Attorney Maurene Comey, who helped lead the successful prosecution of serial sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.
• Trump dismissed questions about whether he would order the release of Justice Department files on Epstein as "boring" and said he backed the release of any "credible" documents related to Epstein's case.

Global News

• A group called Writers Against the War on Gaza has published a dossier accusing The New York Times of pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian bias.
• Protests are planned across the United States today under the banner "Good Trouble Lives On" – a reference to the late civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis.