#press-freedom

#press-freedom

The project was prompted by a new practice requiring all journalists or outlets who received any non-Russian funding to self-identify as "foreign agents." At first, the reactions of TV Rain on-air host Anna Nemzer and her colleagues, forced to read an absurd disclaimer at the beginning of every story, is one of typically Russian dark humor.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Wednesday's briefing alongside Gen. Dan Caine, accused the American press of covering U.S. service member deaths in Iran for one reason only: to make the president look bad. The comment landed like a grenade in a briefing room that was already a stage with One America News Network and The Daily Wire called on first, and the BBC only summoned, per CNN's Brian Stelter, because Hegseth apparently liked anchor Tom Batemans tie.

We've been locked out, banned, denied, restricted for more than 2 years. The Israeli government has refused to allow journalists into Gaza to report independently, to show the world the reality of war and this fragile ceasefire from every angle. It is long past time for Israel to lift this ban and let us in.

In a ruling on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge William Porter seemed to indicate the government could not be trusted to stick to its narrow search without exposing more than 1,000 of Natanson's government sources to the Justice Department. It immediately fell like a dash of good news for the press.

The court rejected the government's first two requests for a search warrant because they were too broad. The court was "concerned about both the scope of the proposed search warrant and the government's apparent attempt to collect information about Ms. Natanson's confidential sources." The search warrant ultimately approved by the court was limited to information that Natanson received from Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones and information related to Perez-Lugones that could be evidence in the case against him.

A federal judge in Virginia on Friday declined to immediately rule on the Washington Post's request for the government to return devices seized from reporter Hannah Natanson in a January raid of her home. But the judge, William B. Porter of the eastern district of Virginia, acknowledged the enormity and significance of the seizure during the afternoon hearing. Ms Natanson has basically been deprived of her life's work, he said.

Alican Uludag is a well-known investigative journalist who focuses on reporting about corruption," said Massing. He is very well-connected and has access to important sources. This makes him dangerous to the government, in their eyes. The fact that a journalist is being treated like a serious criminal, taken away by 30 police officers and brought directly to Istanbul, serves as a deliberate act of intimidation and shows how severely the government is suppressing press freedom. Our colleague must be released immediately.

About 15 migrants who are not from Cameroon have been sent to the country by the United States since January, according to Alma David, one of the attorneys advocating for the deportees. The deportations to Cameroon come amid broader efforts by the Trump administration to pressure foreign nations into signing onto secretive third-country deportation agreements, which allow the federal government to remove migrants from the U.S. and send them to places other than their country of origin.

This recognition is a reminder of why public records laws have teeth - and why someone has to be willing to use them.

PG&E scaling up to provide power to new data centers is beyond comical. They can't even deliver reliable power to residential customers. My area of San Jose, including my own home, has experienced over a dozen power outages since 2022, the longest lasting eight and nine hours back-to-back during the 2022 heatwave. Before we rely on PG&E to supply power to these new data centers, city leaders should be asking the utility how committed they are to serving their residential customers.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

The amnesty law for political prisoners in Venezuela is delayed. The Chavista regime had hoped for a swift debate of the bill, but the suspension of Tuesday's parliamentary session made it clear that it won't be so simple. The issue is even at risk of not being included on the agenda of the National Assembly meeting scheduled for Thursday. These delays stem from conflicting views within Delcy Rodriguez's government regarding the scope of ending years of political persecution in Venezuela.

Figures released by the Interior Ministry showed that a total of 818 crimes targeting "media" were registered with the BKA, Germany's federal investigative police force, between April 1, 2024 and November 30, 2025. That averages out at roughly 41 cases per month over a 20-month period, and compares to 290 crimes, for an average of roughly 24 per month, in the calendar year 2023. The increase equates to roughly 71%.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The email landed in Lizzie Johnson's in-tray in Ukraine just before 4pm local time. It came at a tough time for the reporter: Russia had been repeatedly striking the country's power grid, and just days before she had been forced to work out of her car without heat, power or running water, writing in pencil because pen ink freezes too readily.

One journalist, who spoke anonymously out of fear that being named would place more pressure on my family, said their father had been detained and warned by security forces that they were monitoring overseas journalists. They knew everything about me somehow, the journalist said. They said they know where I live. They even gave my father the address, the telephone number, where I'm sitting exactly in the newsroom.

Justice Department Struggles Under Weight of Immigration Crackdown; Current and former prosecutors say they can relate to the government lawyer who told judge she was overwhelmed": Sadie Gurman and Hannah Critchfield of The Wall Street Journal have this report.