Progressive Democrats Slam DNC 2024 Election Autopsy for Gaza Silence

The Democratic Party on Thursday released a 192-page postmortem of its 2024 election defeat, following an initial decision to withhold the document that sparked widespread backlash.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin released the report with an apology to members angered by his initial secrecy. “This report does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards,” Martin said.

Progressive Democrats criticized the report’s content. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told reporters Thursday that it was “pretty unbelievable that Gaza would not be mentioned once in the autopsy report,” adding that Gaza was “very clearly a major dynamic and a major thread that was happening in 2024.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said that “one of the reasons we lost is our blank check to Israel and Netanyahu while they committed genocide in Gaza.”

The postmortem focuses on key demographics Kamala Harris lost, including Latinos, men, and rural voters. “Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate,” the report says. “The math doesn’t work.” It advises Democrats to focus less on “abstract issues and identity politics.”

House Republicans on Thursday canceled a scheduled vote on a war powers resolution aimed at ending U.S. military action against Iran, a measure that likely would have passed had the vote proceeded.

The three top House Democrats — Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark, and Pete Aguilar — called Republican leadership “cowardly” for canceling the vote.

The cancellation, which spared President Donald Trump political embarrassment, signals diminishing congressional support for his military campaign.

The vote has been postponed until lawmakers return from recess in June, when the resolution appears likely to pass.

Newly released body-camera footage shows U.S. immigration officers stopping a van of farmworkers in Oregon, smashing windows, and using facial recognition software to identify one of them.

Videos from the Oct. 30, 2025, operation were disclosed in court as part of a class-action lawsuit challenging Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest tactics and racial profiling. Attorneys for a detained farmworker shared the footage with the Guardian.

The officers lacked warrants to detain the workers, and a federal judge later described the arrests as apparently unlawful and unjustified.

The footage shows an agent using his phone to capture the face of a detained worker; agents later admitted in court they used a facial recognition app. The case highlights ICE’s expanding use of surveillance technology across the U.S., raising privacy and civil liberties concerns, especially as the app can produce inaccurate results.

Israel said it has deported all foreign activists seized from a Gaza-bound aid flotilla following a global outcry over their treatment. The move comes after National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted footage of Israeli security forces abusing activists, drawing widespread condemnation from world leaders.

French President Emmanuel Macron said reparations for France’s centuries-long role in enslaving African people should be addressed, but he offered no specific proposals.

The Trump administration announced charges against 15 individuals accused of defrauding a Minnesota government healthcare program of $90 million.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired the two leaders of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a panel that decides when insurers must provide free preventive care to millions of Americans.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, asked about the Melania documentary in a CNBC interview, said he was not involved but dismissed claims that buying the film for $40 million was an attempt to curry favor with the Trump administration. “By the way, it appears it was a good business decision,” Bezos said. “It did very well in theaters.”

Oscar-winning actor Lupita Nyong’o responded to right-wing criticism of her role in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey,” in which she plays Helen of Troy. “This is a mythological story,” Nyong’o told Elle magazine. “Our cast is representative of the world.”

On May 17, the World Health Organization classified an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a public health emergency of international concern. The Guardian’s Today in Focus examined expert concerns about the outbreak, which has recorded about 600 cases and 139 suspected deaths.

The U.S. will see a below-normal hurricane season this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which forecasts eight to 14 named storms with winds of 39 mph or higher. Experts warn the country is unprepared for hurricane season due to Trump administration cuts to the National Weather Service.

A study of more than 1,000 employees found that rude emails trigger work rumination — replaying an exchange in your head — linked to higher anxiety and depression, writes Clarissa Brincat. She asked experts how to stop the spiral of incivility. Their advice: “Shut your laptop and go for a walk.”

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