Barett L. Snider

⚡️ Federal prosecutors filed an emergency motion to detain a University of Michigan student today, alleging that she destroyed evidence during a raid on her home on October 30. It comes as part of a sprawling case against eight—and now 12—Michigan student protesters. The motion to detain Zainab Hakim stems from a superseding indictment that prompted several cars and an armed tactical team to arrest her partner, Henry MacKeen-Shapiro, as he walked from his teaching job on October 30. He was released on unsecured bail the next day. When police breached Hakim and Mackeen-Shapiro’s home, prosecutors allege that Hakim destroyed a laptop. The accusation is now central to an emergency hearing scheduled for 3:30pm EST today. The case drew sharp criticism from civil-rights groups when the indictment was presented in June. They argued that the government was criminalizing protected political speech. “When an indictment incorporates extensive references to protected advocacy, there is a legitimate concern that it may sweep constitutionally protected speech into the narrative of criminal prosecution,” CAIR-Michigan said in June. Students in the pro-Palestine movement at the University of Michigan said that the case is a smokescreen to distract from their core demand: transparency regarding the university’s $21.2 billion endowment, which they claim is indirectly invested in weapons and surveillance technology through a “black box” of approximately $6 billion in private funds. “They want to portray us as stupid terrorists who don’t understand how investments work,” a spokesperson for the Michigan 12 support movement told Drop Site News yesterday. “But what they’re really doing is trying to hide the way the university functions as this corporate vehicle for American imperialism, and refuse these demands of transparency, accountability, and divestment.”

When we return next week, we’ll get 218 signatures for Epstein Files Transparency Act II, which guarantees a vote. Survivors will be able to get their own records, State Attorneys General can prosecute crimes, and we can take the DOJ to court for keeping critical files hidden.⚖️

For 37 months, as the UK-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza unfolded before the world in real time, the BBC: “The Israeli government would say…” “The Israeli military deny that they are…” “Israel says it is targeting Hamas…” “The BBC has not been able to independently verify these claims…”

Israeli soldiers are killing one woman every other day in Gaza for the past 13 months of the U.S.-monitored “ceasefire,” often by firing directly into tents sheltering displaced families, and often filming themselves firing for fun and posting the videos on social media. At least 1,602 Palestinians, including 160 women and 326 children, have been killed since Israel agreed to a ceasefire 13 months ago, according to Palestinian authorities. Drop Site spoke to the devastated brother of a woman killed today, who said his family spends entire days lying flat inside their tent, terrified of being shot if they stand up and step outside.