Argentina’s Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM, in Spanish) filed a criminal complaint Monday against national government officials over the police operation that left more than 550 people injured during the fifth federal university march in Buenos Aires.
The complaint, submitted to the Federal Court led by Judge Sebastián Ramos, calls for an investigation into both the officers who took part in the operation and the political authorities who ordered the security deployment during the day of protest.
A report prepared by the autonomous body found that the police intervention stretched on for more than three hours.
Security forces fired rubber bullets horizontally at the bodies of demonstrators, deployed water cannons at high pressure and launched more than 120 tear gas grenades in what the report described as a disproportionate use of force.
The formal filing also stated that the attacks reached medical assistance teams, press workers and human rights observers. At the same time, the National Committee for the Prevention of Torture monitored the street actions and warned of an abusive use of force that led to the detention of four adults and two teenagers.
The figure of more than 550 people affected or injured gives the operation a scale recorded in Argentine protests. The Argentine Provincial Commission for Memory report documented the trajectory of the rubber bullets, the intensity of the water cannons and the volume of chemical agents deployed against a crowd that included students, teachers and ordinary citizens.
The fifth federal university march brought thousands of people into the streets across the country to demand that President Javier Milei enforce the University Financing Law. The legislation, approved by the National Congress and reaffirmed after being vetoed by the executive branch, has the backing of the judiciary to guarantee the budget of the public education system.
Human rights organizations demanded the urgent delimitation of criminal and institutional responsibilities in the face of the reported escalation of violence. Torture prevention bodies stressed that the use of less lethal weapons requires strict protocols to protect the integrity of those exercising their constitutional right to protest.
The advance of the legal actions keeps the conduct of the Ministry of Security and the management of social conflict in the Argentine capital at the center of national debate. The complaint before Judge Ramos seeks to establish who ordered the deployment and who allowed the operation to continue for hours despite the growing number of injuries.
University communities announced that they will maintain institutional and street actions to demand the budget allocation that the law grants to higher education institutions. The protest movement shows no sign of retreat, even as the judicial process begins to examine the events of the march.
The Provincial Commission for Memory (CPM, in Spanish), an autonomous body with a long record of documenting state violence, placed the operation within a broader pattern of concern. Its report argues that the use of force crossed the line separating legitimate public order maintenance from punishment aimed at those who dissent.
The case now rests with the Federal Court, which must decide whether to summon the security agents and the political officials identified in the filing. The outcome will shape how Argentina addresses the use of force against social protest, a question that has divided the country since the march left its toll of injured demonstrators on the streets of the capital.
San Francisco's federal courthouse held the detention hearing for Abdulrahman Alfozan, the arrested and fired OpenAI engineer, on Monday.
Brennan Smart/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Abdulrahman Alfozan will stay jailed pre-trial, a San Francisco judge decided Monday.
The engineer is accused of bugging a conference room at OpenAI, and he has been fired.
Alfozan posed a risk of non-appearance, the judge said, after discussing his ties to Saudi Arabia.
A former OpenAI engineer accused of bugging the AI startup's office was denied release by a San Francisco judge on Monday, meaning he'll have to mount his defense from jail.
The Justice Department arrested Abdulrahman Alfozan on October 9 and charged him with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications. He's accused of placing a recording device behind a television in an OpenAI conference room — an FBI affidavit includes photos of the device wrapped in toilet paper, and a man they say is Alfozan peering behind the TV.
On Monday, the engineer wore a yellow surgical mask and a jail-issued orange sweatshirt to the San Francisco courthouse. Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse prodded Alfozan's legal team about the risk that he might not appear for a future court hearing.
Tse said that Alfozan's wife and son had traveled to Saudi Arabia with no plans to return, and went back and forth with Yasin about a one-way ticket that Alfozan had previously booked to the country. Tse said that Saudi Arabia and the US do not have an extradition agreement, and expressed skepticism that he had sufficient ties to the Bay Area to prevent his departure.
William Pernik, Alfozan's attorney, argued that, rather than being detained, Alfozan should be fitted with an ankle monitor, ordered to stay home, and have limits placed on his use of technology. The lawyer also said Alfozan is willing to put up "essentially all the money his family has" as bond, including a roughly $1 million investment account.
"Everything this man has, he's willing to surrender, and say, 'I'm not going anywhere,'" Pernik said.
Pernik and Nas Yasin, another of Alfozan's attorneys, cited his coming naturalization interview as evidence of his local ties.
"He was weeks away from achieving every immigrant's dream in this country," Pernik said.
Yasin told Tse that she learned Alfozan's wife had obtained a short-term visitor visa to return to the US, to help improve her husband's case for ties to the Bay Area.
Tse also asked Alfozan's legal team a slew of questions about his relationship with Saudi Arabia, including a commitment by the Saudi consulate to pay his bond and support his legal effort.
Nick Parker, an assistant US attorney, appeared for the prosecution. He argued that the threat of forfeiting a $1 million bond wouldn't be enough to convince Alfozan to return if he made it out of the US, because he might be able to earn more money in Saudi Arabia.
"There is a real threat here that once he leaves, the case is over," Tse responded.
The judge scheduled the case's next hearing for early November.
OpenAI called the recording device "sophisticated" when the arrest went public, though it said it hadn't found signs that he'd taken AI model weights, source code, or customer information. OpenAI fired Alfozan.
Alfozan's charge carries a maximum penalty of 5 years. Pernik said in a statement last week that the allegations "appear wholly out of character for him."
Alfozan, 35, has a green card that makes him a lawful permanent resident of the United States. He attended MIT, then worked at Facebook (now Meta) from 2017 to 2023. After a stint at the engineering startup Nash Technologies, Alfozan joined OpenAI in 2025.
FBI agents have already taken Alfozan's Saudi passport.
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Israel continues to imprison her without charge or trial. Her lawyers have not been able to visit her. Her prolonged solitary confinement is a violation of international standards – Supporters ask the Red Cross to urgently intervene
The EU has demanded a reform of Ukraine's notoriously corrupt and politicized prosecution service and called for making the procedure for picking the prosecutor general less political and more merit-based. Meanwhile, anti-corruption activists and pro-reform lawmakers have accused the Ukrainian authorities of sabotaging rule of law reforms and resisting the demand for depoliticizing the Prosecutor General's Office.
A man described as Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national employed as an OpenAI engineer, looks behind a television where a recording device has been placed in a conference room at OpenAI.
DOJ/Reuters
Prosecutors say an ex-OpenAI employee accused of planting a recording device appears to have received support from the Saudi government.
A federal magistrate judge ruled on Monday that Abdulrahman Alfozan should remain in custody.
Prosecutors said that Alfozan frequently communicated with a member of the Saudi Royal Family.
Prosecutors made the disclosure in a motion to keep Abdulrahman Alfozan, a Saudi national and former OpenAI employee, in custody pending trial. US Magistrate Judge Alex G. Tse ruled on Monday that Alfozan should remain in custody.
Alfozan had been in contact as recently as October 5 with an unnamed member of the Saudi Royal Family, whom he frequently communicated with on WhatsApp over the last two years, prosecutors said.
"In May 2026, the individual told the defendant, 'Saudi needs you more then [sic] the US!' to which the defendant responded '100,"' indicating he agreed," prosecutors wrote.
The FBI arrested Alfozan on October 9. According to a criminal complaint, Alfozan planted a recording device in the back of a TV in an OpenAI conference room where sensitive discussions take place. OpenAI's security cameras caught Alfozan near the conference room on multiple occasions, despite his lack of authorization to the high-level meetings held there, prosecutors said.
"In the days surrounding the time period that the device was installed, OpenAI executives met with government officials in that very room," prosecutors wrote in a filing on Sunday. "Defendant's conduct could pose a danger to the national security of the United States."
The complaint included a photo of what prosecutors said was Alfozan peering behind the TV where the recording device was found.
In addition to his WhatsApp messaging, prosecutors wrote that an unnamed member of the Saudi military booked a flight for Alfozan's wife and son on October 11, despite an existing reservation for an October 12 flight, which prosecutors said was "paid for by the Saudi government."
Prosecutors also disclosed more information about Alfozan's alleged efforts to plant the device. According to the filing, Alfozan's iPhone had photos of "what appear to be the input/output panels on televisions and other electronic devices in various locations in OpenAI buildings."
Those locations, prosecutors wrote, included "another conference room where sensitive meetings frequently occurred."
Other files on the phone, including a note modified as recently as September 13, listed "Riyadh tasks" like "finding an apartment and a job for the defendant's wife, as well as obtaining an ID and a Saudi passport for his son," the filing said.
Another note titled "OpenAI leave" suggested that Alfozan "was planning an '[e]arly … pick up' of the devices he had installed or intended to install and then extending his planned parental 'leave to full.,'" prosecutors wrote.
As part of their reasons for requesting that the former OpenAI engineer remain in custody, prosecutors wrote that Alfozan's wife and son left the US without him and are now in Saudi Arabia. The filing also said "both of his parents and all (or all but one) of his siblings" are in Saudi Arabia.
In a separate filing, William Pernik, Alfozan's attorney, said that the former OpenAI engineer did not pose a flight risk.
"Mr. Alfozan was made aware of OpenAI finding the device per its own filings and OpenAI's public statements, approximately eight to ten days before he was arrested," Pernik wrote. "If his intention was to flee, he would have done so at that time."
Pernik said that prosecutors' previous disclosure that Alfozan had purchased a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia lacked context.
"Seventy percent of the airline bookings in his email since January 2021 (96 of 138) were one-way tickets," Pernik wrote.
It all begins in Ravenna, a historic city and major Italian port on the Adriatic coast. The port of Ravenna is a civilian port: bulk cargo, fertilizers, containers, cruise ships. Yet in a brief filed this summer with the Council of State, the State Attorney General’s Office attributed “military significance” to it within the country’s maritime defense system. The reason lies in a single sentence: making certain data public would pose an unacceptable risk because “a ‘piecemeal’ and ‘hybrid’ world war is underway, involving, among others, Italy as well.”
The data did not consist of routes, schedules, or ship names. They were aggregate figures: the amount of military equipment that left the port in 2025, broken down by four-month period and categorized as exports or transit. Journalist Linda Maggiori had requested this information in January under the general right of access to public information—Italy’s equivalent of the FOIA—which does not require justification. On October 13, Il Fatto Quotidiano turned the statement into a national issue. On October 16, the Sixth Section of the Council of State rejected the Customs Agency’s appeal.
In February, the Customs Agency, which reports to the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), denied the request entirely, citing national security, public order, and commercial confidentiality. Maggiori, represented by attorney Andrea Maestri, filed an appeal with the Emilia-Romagna Regional Administrative Court (TAR), which on July 1 partially upheld the appeal: the quantities must be made public because the numerical data is “neutral,” while the destinations may remain confidential. Customs, represented by the State Attorney’s Office, filed an appeal. The Council of State upheld the Regional Administrative Court’s ruling: the administration failed to demonstrate either the necessity or the concrete nature of the harm. It also noted “apparently contradictory” conduct, as the Livorno Customs Office had previously provided similar data without objection.
In February 2025, approximately 13 metric tons of forged parts bound for an Israeli defense company were seized in Ravenna without export authorization; the proceedings are ongoing, and the presumption of innocence applies. It appears that on October 14 of this year, another 4 metric tons were at the port.
What does “war” mean, who decides, and the arms law
The word has three meanings, and memory confuses them. The first is constitutional. Article 11 establishes that Italy “rejects war as an instrument of aggression against the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolving international disputes.” Article 78 entrusts the Chambers with the authority to declare a state of war and to grant the necessary powers to the government; Article 87 assigns the declaration of war to the President of the Republic. In the history of the Republic, a state of war has never been declared: neither in 1991, nor for Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Libya.
The second meaning is international: under international humanitarian law, armed conflict exists de facto, but supplying weapons to a belligerent party—according to prevailing legal opinion and that of the International Committee of the Red Cross—does not make one a party to the conflict. The third issue is political-strategic. “Hybrid warfare” (cyberattacks, sabotage, disinformation below the threshold of armed conflict) and “proxy war” are analytical tools, not legal categories. In a judicial ruling, therefore, a political term was used to justify an exception to a legal right. The Council of State rejected the postponement.
Parliament declares a state of war, authorizes missions (Law 145/2016), and receives the annual report on exports. The government authorizes exports through the UAMA of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Prime Minister is the sole custodian of state secrets (Law 124/2007), under the oversight of COPASIR. The President of the Republic chairs the Supreme Defense Council. The Ministry of Defense signs the classified aid packages for Ukraine. The State Attorney’s Office, which reports to the Prime Minister’s Office, defends government agencies in court: its briefs are legal documents, not foreign policy statements. No minister has yet clarified whether they agree with the statements made therein.
Moreover, the information has never been classified as a state secret. Customs authorities have invoked the relevant provisions of Article 5-bis of the Transparency Decree (Legislative Decree 33/2013), which allow for a refusal only if necessary to avoid “concrete harm” to national security, defense, or international relations.
Law No. 185 of 1990 prohibits the export and transit of arms to countries engaged in armed conflict in violation of Article 51 of the UN Charter, to countries whose policies conflict with Article 11, to countries under embargo, or to those responsible for serious human rights violations. However, it excludes government-to-government transfers and transits for NATO forces. The annual report to Parliament (Art. 5) lists authorizations by country and company, not by port: no public document specifies how much passes through a single port. This is the gap that the Ravenna petition sought to fill. According to the Peace and Disarmament Network, the government’s reform bill, approved by the Senate in 2024 (A.C. 1730), would reduce the data included in the report; based on the sources consulted, it has not yet been definitively approved.
Those who defend confidentiality argue that harmless data—aggregated and cross-referenced with maritime tracking data—could reveal supply routes: this is the argument used by the Trieste Customs Office to deny an identical petition. Also important are obligations to allies and corporate confidentiality. Those advocating for transparency point out that Law 185 stems from the idea that arms require more public oversight, not less, because they pertain to Article 11 and, in the case of free transfers, involve public funds. An annual total does not enable hostile actions, and data published in Livorno does not become dangerous simply because it is in Ravenna.
Secrecy has a legitimate place. The Constitutional Court has linked it to national security since Ruling 86/1977 and reaffirmed this in the Abu Omar case (106/2009). Secrecy becomes problematic when it loses its criteria: concrete evidence of harm, proportionality, a time limit, consistency among agencies, and oversight by a judge or Parliament. The argument of a “piecemeal world war” failed on all counts. It did not identify any harm, rejected the Regional Administrative Court’s (TAR) compromise solution, treated data from a past year as if it were an ongoing operation, and contradicted the Livorno ruling. If merely invoking a widespread conflict suffices, then that justification applies to any data and indefinitely: hybrid wars, as described in official documents themselves, have no declared beginning nor anticipated end.
That language has a specific origin: the Ministry of Defense’s non-paper from November 2025, according to which Italy is already embroiled in a hybrid conflict. Committees and unions believe that part of Ravenna’s cargo is destined for Haifa and Ashdod: the withheld data would make it possible to verify this.
The political paradox
The government states in Parliament that Italy is not at war; one of its agencies writes the same in court to conceal a figure. The case was successfully closed, but only thanks to a journalist willing to pursue the matter through two levels of appeal. Yet, even with the case closed, the gravity of what was stated remains.
If the state deems the international situation serious enough to restrict the right to information, that assessment cannot be confined to a customs office or a legal brief. The logic of Article 78 applies even on a small scale: whoever invokes the exception must answer for it before Parliament. All that is needed is the uniform publication of quantities for each port—as requested by the Ravenna Region and Municipality—their inclusion in the report on Law 185, and a review of the classifications by COPASIR, with predefined deadlines.
An emergency becomes permanent when no one declares it and no one revokes it. One question remains for Parliament: if the State considers itself to be at war, why does it not state so where the Constitution requires it to do so? And if it does not consider itself to be at war, by what authority does one of its bodies write as much?
Cooley has made billions doing what law firms do: hire great lawyers, bill for their time, and keep clients happy. Artificial intelligence is scrambling that formula. If machines can do in minutes what once took an associate hours, what exactly should clients be paying for?
Rachel Proffitt thinks she has the answer.
On a toasty October afternoon in San Francisco, I met Proffitt for lunch to talk about the future of the global law firm she now leads. When the check arrived, neither of us knew how much the restaurant paid the dishwasher or how many minutes the chef spent preparing our meal. We were paying for the experience, not the labor behind it.
Why, she wondered, should legal services be so different?
"Clients have never been excited about the fact that it took us 82 hours to do something. They don't care," she says. "They just want the outcome. They want the results."
The billable hour is only the beginning. AI is forcing law firms to rethink how many associates they really need and how those young lawyers learn their craft. Client relationships are changing as companies use software to get a head start on the work they send to outside counsel. Some of that work may never reach a lawyer at all.
If tech is about to reinvent law firms, Cooley should be one of the firms with the clearest view of what's coming. From its early days on San Francisco's Market Street, it worked with semiconductor manufacturers and venture capitalists when the valley was still covered in fruit trees and canneries. Cooley grew up alongside the tech industry, and today it is as comfortable defending Meta in court as it is helping Andreessen Horowitz round up billion-dollar funds.
That evolution has been lucrative. Cooley says its gross revenue jumped from $912 million in 2015 to $2.4 billion last fiscal year. Its crosstown rival, Wilson Sonsini, brought in $1.7 billion in 2025, according to The American Lawyer. Still, the gulf between Cooley and Big Law's largest firms remains enormous. Kirkland & Ellis, the industry's revenue leader, cracked $10 billion last year. Latham & Watkins, another go-to firm for Silicon Valley, hit $8.3 billion.
The next wave of tech public listings promises a fortune in legal fees for the chosen few. Gibson Dunn landed SpaceX's IPO. Anthropic tapped Wilson Sonsini for its coming listing. And Cooley is reportedly sharing OpenAI's IPO work with Wachtell Lipton, one of Wall Street's most formidable law firms.
The irony is hard to miss. Big Law is fighting for a piece of the biggest technology companies in the world, even as those companies build the tools that could upend the business of law itself.
Proffitt came up as a lawyer under the old rules. Her next task is to figure out what it will take to build a great law firm under the new ones.
'The winner's circle'
Rachael Wright for BI
Profitt didn't grow up wanting to be a lawyer but liked how law school taught her to think. Litigation was out of the question: Public speaking during mock trials made her stomach turn. "It was transactional law or bust," she says.
She started her career as a summer associate at Wilson Sonsini and worked her way up to partner. She fell in love with the intensity of the work, pulling all-nighters at the financial printers where she marked up securities filings by hand. She recalls the Christmas Eve when her father marveled that she had made it through the day without taking a work call. After 15 years at the firm, she left for Cooley in 2017.
Three years ago, Proffitt got a call at home that she didn't see coming. Joe Conroy, then Cooley's chief executive, wanted to know whether she would consider succeeding him.
She was flattered, but also "a bit terrified," she says. She spent two decades helping startups, including Unity Software, Procore, and Instacart, raise money and go public. Running a firm with 3,000 employees was another matter. She talked to her family, then put herself forward for the job. She started in 2024.
Proffitt couldn't have guessed how quickly AI would jolt her industry from its steady state. It wasn't too long ago that clients insisted that the technology go nowhere near their work, fearing what would happen if their data disappeared into someone else's model.
"It was clear to me then that we don't get to just exist as we are and continue to be at the top of our game," she says.
Cooley had remade itself once before. The firm's Silicon Valley roots were both a strength and a liability, said Conroy in an interview. Cooley was known for helping startups get off the ground. The conventional wisdom was that as those companies grew, they would graduate to one of the elite New York law firms for their biggest deals and courtroom battles.
To keep clients from the garage to the boardroom, as Conroy put it, Cooley needed to expand. It opened new offices and built out its litigation and capital markets practices. The firm also spent years courting Wall Street banks, says Proffitt, so that when a company asked which law firm to hire for its IPO, Cooley would make its shortlist.
Today, its client roster reads like a Kiplinger roundup of hot tech stocks: Nvidia, Uber, Snowflake, and Zoom, to name a few listings it worked on. Since 2016, Cooley has advised issuers on 183 IPOs that raised nearly $59 billion, making it the second-most active firm by deal count after Latham, according to Deal Point Data. Proffitt wouldn't discuss reports that Cooley has landed OpenAI's IPO work.
For 16 years, Conroy pushed Cooley toward what he calls Big Law's "winner's circle." Proffitt's job is to get it there.
Startup speed
Rachael Wright for BI
Her strategy starts with making Cooley move more like the tech companies it represents.
Proffitt recruited David Wang, a former lawyer turned legal technology executive, with an ambitious mandate. She didn't just want to make Cooley's lawyers more productive, Wang said in an interview. She wanted to change how clients interact with them altogether.
Earlier this year, Cooley launched a tool with the startup Legora that lets Y Combinator founders review common contracts without calling a lawyer. OpenAI helped it build a tool for Cooley's lawyers to prepare paperwork for companies going public. Next, Cooley is working with Google on an AI agent that scans documents for confidential information before they're filed in court, then suggests redactions for lawyers to review.
There's something almost cannibalistic about a law firm building software that could eat into its own billable hours. But Cooley sees a bigger risk in letting someone else do it. In-house legal teams are increasingly using chatbots to take the first crack at work they would otherwise send to outside counsel. A new breed of "AI-native" law firms is promising cheaper, faster services.
Big Law does not want to be caught flatfooted. Firms are throwing money at startups like Harvey and Legora, and increasingly, they're building their own technology. Kirkland has committed $500 million to proprietary software, starting with a platform for private equity fundraising built with Palantir. Latham bought its own Nvidia servers so it can customize models in-house. Like Cooley, Wilson Sonsini has self-service tools that let companies handle basic legal work.
For Proffitt, the danger isn't lost billable hours. It's the missed connections. The scrappy startup that needs a contract reviewed today might need help closing an acquisition later. But if the bots take care of the small stuff, Cooley could miss its chance to build the relationship.
Proffitt says Cooley must find new ways to connect with clients. Putting technology in their hands is one option, even if it means giving away a little of the work.
"When you need the next thing that matters, the thing that you don't trust to put into the machine," she says, "how do I ensure that you want to talk to our team?"
The firm is also rethinking its own structure for the new era. Wang now leads Cooley AI, a wholly owned subsidiary designed to operate at something closer to startup speed. The separate company gives his team more freedom to hire engineers and put new technology through its paces, he says, without getting bogged down in the parent firm's bureaucracy.
The irony, Proffitt says, is that all this technology could leave lawyers with more time for the human stuff. Lawyers may visit their clients more. Talk through thorny decisions. Drop in on the strategy session to learn how their advice fits into a client's business.
Keeping those relationships alive might require a little more old-fashioned schmoozing. When I asked Proffitt whether the answer was throwing great parties, she didn't entirely disagree. "Everyone loves a party," she says.
The future of legal work
Proffitt doesn't pretend to have a crystal ball. She has ideas, though.
The billable hour? Not dead yet. She expects law firms to offer clients a menu of pricing options, from hourly rates to flat fees and outcome-based pricing.
Hiring slowdowns at the junior level? "Too early to tell," she says.
The apprenticeship model? That gets trickier. If software can write first drafts and spot issues, how will young lawyers get the practice they need? Proffitt says Cooley is exploring ways for associates to sharpen their skills on simulated legal matters, starting with AI-powered mock depositions.
Proffitt came up in an era when canceled dinners and all-nighters were a badge of honor. She's betting that the next generation won't need quite so many of them to become great lawyers. Her test will come a decade from now, when today's junior associates are ready to make partner.
If Cooley has found a better way to teach them, perhaps the old model won't be missed. If it hasn't, no amount of AI can make up the difference.
Melia Robinson is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, where she writes about how artificial intelligence is changing the legal industry.
Last week, not only did Oregon's restrictive gun laws fail to stop a shooter intent on killing innocent people, but a passing good Samaritan had to violate those laws to end the murder spree. Fortunately, authorities don't appear intent on prosecuting Kaylub Giamanco, father to two girls who attend the school, for ignoring the ban on guns on school grounds to save lives. But the law is clearly more of a threat to people with good intent than it is to those bent on doing harm. Such laws should and must be defied, but lawmakers need to remove these legal minefields before they do more damage.
A Hero Dad With a Gun Stops a Murder Spree
"I want to start by thanking and praising the quick thinking and courage of the Silver Rail Elementary School staff and parents—and the first responders who rushed to the scene," Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek commented in a press release after the attack by a 16-year-old shooter at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon. "And to the community member who heroically intervened to stop further loss of life, your actions carry a heavy emotional burden—and my thoughts are with you."
That community member was Kaylub Giamanco, who had two daughters at the school. He was reportedly driving past when he saw the shooter approaching Silver Rail with a shotgun in hand. Giamanco parked his vehicle, grabbed his firearm, and followed the shooter, who had blasted his way through the facility's locked doors.
The shooter murdered four people, but Giamanco was able to kill him before he did any more damage. In the incident, the murderer obviously violated the law. But so did Giamanco.
Restrictive Laws That Had To Be Ignored
"Oregon gun laws are rated as the 12th strictest in the nation according to data collected by gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety, but they didn't stop the shooting of four elementary school children and two teachers at a Bend elementary school on Thursday," wrote Lillian Mongeau Hughes of The Oregonian. (Reports say three children and a teacher were murdered, with two others injured.)
The gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety boasts that "Oregon has passed a broad range of gun safety laws in recent years, including a requirement that guns be securely stored whenever they are not in their owner's immediate control, a prohibition on guns at the state capitol, and a law that gives universities the authority to prohibit guns on their grounds."
The similarly restriction-oriented Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence gives Oregon an A- for its laws, ranking the state 11th out of 50. The group notes that the state "allowed local governments to limit firearms in government buildings."
Of specific interest in this case, the state adopted a law in 2021 that, among other things, says "the governing board of a community college or a district school board" may adopt policies banning guns on school grounds, even for those "licensed to carry a concealed handgun."
Importantly, the Bend–La Pine Schools, which include Silver Rail, mandate that "no person on grounds of the schools controlled by the Board of Directors for Bend–La Pine Schools (including in school buildings) shall bring to, possess, conceal or use a weapon or firearm at any property under the jurisdiction of Bend-La Pine Schools, any activities under the jurisdiction of the district, or any interscholastic activities administered by a voluntary organization (i.e., Oregon School Activities Association). This prohibition includes those who may otherwise be permitted by law to carry such weapons or firearms."
The prohibition applies to the Silver Rail murderer, though it was unlikely to be a concern to a person already intent on slaughter. It also applies to Giamanco, who stopped the attack and who must now—probably successfully, given the case's high profile—rely on the authorities to not enforce their own laws.
A Long History of Defensive Use of Firearms
Giamanco is by no means alone in taking the initiative to stop an attack. I've written in the past about Jordan Salinas and others in the Twin Falls incident, as well as Elisjsha Dicken at the Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana. The actions of bystanders are crucial given the evidence that would-be mass murderers must be countered with defensive force within the first 30 seconds to avoid a double-digit body count.
There were 634 active attacks in the United States between 2000 and 2025, according to the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) Center at Texas State University. ALERRT defines an "active attack" as an incident in which "an individual or individuals is actively killing or attempting to kill multiple unrelated people in a public space." Of those, 374 were resolved before police arrived, with 29 concluded by civilians shooting the perpetrator and another 60 attackers otherwise subdued by civilians.
That's certainly not a full count of actions by armed citizens to defend themselves and others. The 2026 National Firearms Survey finds that "guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 2.2 million incidents per year. In most defensive incidents no shot was fired (76.3%), about half (50.8%) involved more than one assailant, and in 70.6% of incidents respondents report that the defensive use was successful, such that no crime remained to be reported to the police."
Undoubtedly, many of those incidents aren't reported to the police because people who have just averted a threat to themselves or others don't want to get entangled with a legal system that is all too often hostile to self defense. If all has ended well, why risk arrest for violating a law that would have prevented you from defending yourself or that you may not even have known about?
As The Oregonian points out, Oregon's "strong laws" didn't stop the shooting. Those laws ban murder, of course. They also specify that "guns be locked, stored in gun safes or in specialized gun rooms as a way to keep children from accessing firearms," according to the report. "Police have not said if those laws were violated." They also ban guns on the grounds of schools with restrictive policies.
Authoritarian Laws Don't Deter Evil and Should Be Defied
The thing about criminals, though, is that they don't obey laws. That's especially true of those who plan murder sprees they don't intend to survive. The consequences the perpetrators anticipate involve death, and if that's not a deterrent, the potential prosecution of their moldering corpses holds little weight.
Unfortunately, legal peril can be a deterrent to good people who intend no harm. The threat of authoritarian laws and malicious prosecutors who enjoy state protection could convince some people to leave the means of self defense at home. Fortunately, Kaylub Giamanco wasn't one of them.
Giamanco's example at Silver Rail Elementary School is one to be emulated. If we're to protect ourselves, our children, and our neighbors, we have a right and a duty to defy laws that seek to disarm us and put us at the mercy of human predators. But we shouldn't have to suffer the threat of such laws to exercise our natural self-defense rights. Given the inability of weapons restrictions to deter crime and the harm they pose for good people, government officials need to eliminate these embarrassing restrictions and get out of our way.
What happens when the state entrusts a local authority with the responsibility of protecting the environment, without providing it with the necessary powers, staff or financial resources to fulfil that responsibility?
Can a local authority be held accountable for problems relating to waste, water, noise or urban development when it does not have the means to address them effectively?
This question has acquired particular significance in Cyprus following the reform of local self-government. The transfer and redistribution of competences have created increased expectations of local authorities and the new district government organisations.
Yet decentralisation cannot be limited to the transfer of responsibilities. To be meaningful, it must be accompanied by the necessary powers and resources.
A new European framework
This is precisely the issue that an important initiative of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe seeks to address.
In October 2025, the Congress called on the Committee of Ministers to consider drawing up an Additional Protocol to the European Charter of Local Self-Government specifically concerning environmental protection at local level.
The European Charter of Local Self-Government enshrines fundamental principles concerning the autonomy, competences and financial resources of local authorities.
The new proposal seeks to give more specific expression to these principles in the field of environmental protection, recognising that municipalities and regional authorities are on the front line in addressing climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
The significance of the proposal lies in the fact that it does not merely seek to impose new obligations. The draft Additional Protocol provides that local authorities should have appropriate competences in environmental matters, as well as adequate financial resources for implementing local action and achieving environmental objectives. It also provides for consultation with local authorities before decisions are taken by state or regional bodies that affect them.
Equally important is the dimension of transparency and participation. The proposal recognises the need for local authorities to have access to environmental information and for citizens to participate in the formulation of environmental policies.
It also provides for a right to judicial protection for local authorities where they consider that the rights afforded to them under the protocol have been infringed.
The challenge for Cyprus
For Cyprus, this discussion should provide an opportunity to take the next step in the reform process.
Every new environmental competence assigned to a municipality or district government organisation should be accompanied by an assessment of its financial and administrative cost and by the provision of the corresponding resources, staff and technical support.
Otherwise, there is a risk that decentralization will become merely a decentralization of responsibility, without any genuine decentralization of power.
At the same time, local authorities should participate in shaping the state’s environmental policies that they are subsequently called upon to implement.
It is institutionally inappropriate to expect local self-government to achieve objectives in waste management, water management, urban planning or the response to climate change if it has not first been given a meaningful voice in their design.
This is where the real challenge for Cyprus lies following the 2024 reform.
Its success should not be judged solely by the new structures that have been created or by the number of competences that have been transferred.
It should be judged in practice by whether the new and reorganized local self-government authorities possess the financial autonomy, expertise, human resources and institutional capacity necessary to exercise their competences effectively.
Proposal
It would therefore be appropriate for every future transfer of environmental competence to local self-government to be accompanied, as a mandatory requirement, by a financial and administrative impact assessment identifying the resources required and the means by which they are to be funded.
At the same time, an effective mechanism for prior consultation with local authorities should be institutionalised before state decisions are taken that directly affect their environmental responsibilities. This would constitute a practical application of the principles promoted by the proposed Additional Protocol.
Ultimately, the Council of Europe’s proposal establishes a simple but fundamental principle: environmental responsibility must be accompanied by a genuine capacity to act.
Environmental protection cannot be decentralised merely as an obligation. Responsibility must be accompanied by the decentralisation of powers, resources and decision-making capacity.
Otherwise, what we have is not meaningful local autonomy, but rather the transfer of responsibility without the means necessary to exercise it.
Thousands of sailors remain stranded near the Strait of Hormuz amid escalating attacks on commercial ships, the United Nations' top maritime official warned Sunday after Iran accused the U.S. military of using an international emergency radio channel to threaten civilian crews.
The warning also came amid reports that 24 ships had been attacked on the waterway over roughly two weeks, underscoring growing concerns about maritime safety in the region, according to Financial Times.
"The situation continues to be severe and critical when it comes to international shipping," International Maritime Organization (IMO) Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez told Fox News Digital.
"There is a double blockade and too many vessels have been attacked, particularly in recent days.
"Seafarers have continued to perish in these attacks and around 6,000 seafarers remain trapped since the beginning of the conflict," he warned, adding that his message was not to transit the Strait of Hormuz or put seafarers at risk "until we have guarantees."
Dominguez's warning followed an Oct. 9 letter to the IMO in which Iran alleged that the U.S. military used VHF Channel 16, an internationally designated maritime distress and safety channel, to intimidate Iranian crews in the Persian Gulf.
"VHF Channel 16 has been repeatedly occupied for prolonged periods by the United States military forces operating in the Persian Gulf," the letter stated.
"During such transmissions, Iranian seafarers have been addressed in Persian with threatening, abusive and provocative language and in certain instances urged to abandon their vessels."
"The U.S. naval blockade has been in place for months and is professionally communicated to all international mariners," CENTCOM said.
"Vessels that refuse to comply with blockade enforcement receive multiple warnings, with ample opportunity to comply.
"American forces remain highly vigilant, focused and professional while fully enforcing the naval blockade against Iran."
Iran's complaint was submitted by Seyed Ali Mousavi and its ambassador to the IMO and circulated to member states on Oct. 9, according to a copy reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Tehran also accused American forces of turning the maritime safety channel into an "instrument of military intimidation and psychological pressure against civilian crews."
The letter cited commercial vessels, shipping companies and maritime operators but provided no recordings, transcripts or specific details of the alleged exchanges. Fox News Digital could not independently verify the accusations.
"Seafarers are not trained for combat, and they are not guilty of any conflicts that are happening around the world," Dominguez said.
"And we have seen this in several parts of the world where Channel 16, that should not be used for this kind of communication, starts receiving messages that may be perceived as actually threatening or that are outside the remit of why it was created."
Iran also asked the IMO to raise its allegations with member states and relevant international organizations, potentially including the International Telecommunication Union.
Dominguez said the IMO could review its regulations and procedures to determine whether stronger safeguards are needed, though he did not announce a formal investigation.
"Our role here at IMO is that when those situations take place, we will then look into any technical measures or any operational aspects that we may need to clarify further within our regulatory framework," he said, stressing that member states have equal rights to raise concerns, regardless of the conflict.
"We have a responsibility, and I have a duty as well, to circulate letters and notes that the countries actually put forward when they're also being affected."
"We take all that information, meet at the level of different meetings of the organization and have the discussions," Dominguez added.
"If it's demonstrated that we probably need to improve our rules in order to avoid communications issues, or that we need to enhance the knowledge of how these channels should be used, that is a role for us."
The IMO had recorded 100 confirmed maritime incidents across the region as of Oct. 9, with 24 seafarers killed since the conflict began Feb. 28. Dominguez also warned that fraudulent ship registrations and false flags have become major contributors to the danger.
"What we've also seen right now is an increase in fraudulent registries with false flags that are taking the risk and acting as shuttle tankers in order to bring goods in and out," he said. "That's one of the reasons that we're seeing an escalation.
"And it's the irresponsible shipowners that are taking the risk in order to actually be able to trade and move some of the goods and the cargoes."
"For me, any single case, any vessel that is attacked, any life of a seafarer that is lost, is a critical situation for me, because they are all relevant, they are all important."
Despite the confrontation, Dominguez said diplomatic channels with Iran remain open, though he has no direct contact with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
"I have communications with all the member states of IMO, and that includes the Islamic Republic of Iran," he said.
"Of course, that's through the diplomatic channels. I don't have direct contact with the IRGC.
"I have conversations with them and they respond to my messages. You know, the information flows. What is difficult is to get final decisions because of the conflict that is ongoing."
AI has already been trained on the works of Australian artists including Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave without compensation, the peak global body for music rights has claimed, as the Australian government has been warned against giving in to “strong-arming” from tech companies seeking to weaken copyright law.
The International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) – which represents Sony, Warner and Universal as well as thousands of independent publishers on six continents – has warned that of the dozens of countries approached to water down copyright laws, Australia appears to be the only to consider doing so.
I went to bed on Saturday (17 October) glued to my X feed on the French riots and it was impossible not to react emotionally to images of familiar landmarks in Paris in flames.
It was a mistake to have followed things on the far-right propaganda tube of racist US oligarch Elon Musk, which both glorified and reviled its AI-curated clips of violent clashes between mostly white policemen and young black or Arab men.
But in any case, I felt pity for police facing Molotov cocktails and cobble stones and angry about their use of stun grenades that left young people maimed.
I was shocked to see public buildings and luxury shops in Lyon, Marseille, and Paris set on fire and looted in what looked like pure criminality, rather than liberté, égalité, fraternité.
But the anarchist adrenaline in me also said: “Fuck Louis Vuitton! A shop that sells luggage for the price of most families’ monthly incomes is a perfect symbol of the social inequality at the heart of this eruption of public anger”.
I woke up on Sunday thankful to learn from professional media, such as the BBC, that even if Paris looked like a war zone, no one had been killed, and even though police had made over 1,800 arrests, aggressive thugs were a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of people who had peacefully protested for better living conditions and education.
But the political harm of Saturday’s X-streamed violence, which also broke out in Italy and Belgium, was still enormous and it will help the EU and French people’s enemies – the far-right in Europe, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and US president Donald Trump.
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Andrew Left's lawyers asked the judge to toss his conviction on 13 counts of securities fraud.
Dania Maxwell/Bloomberg/Getty Images
A witness who testified against Andrew Left has himself become involved in an insider trading probe.
Left's lawyers asked a judge to toss the jury verdict that found him guilty of securities fraud.
Prosecutors said they didn't learn about the investigation until after the trial was over.
A witness who testified against Andrew Left has himself become involved in an insider trading probe, bringing a new twist to the bombastic short-seller's fraud conviction.
Left's lawyers this month asked the judge who oversaw his trial to toss the jury's verdict convicting him of 13 counts of securities fraud. The trial was irredeemably unfair, they said, because they never had the chance to ask the witness about the investigation and attack his credibility.
"A new trial would probably produce an acquittal," Left's lawyers wrote.
In June, a federal jury in Los Angeles found Left guilty of 13 counts of securities fraud. Prosecutors said he deceived investors by using social media and research reports to set target prices for stocks — including Tesla, Nvidia, and Palantir — while quietly trading them at different prices with his own money.
The founder of Citron Research, Left is something of a short-seller celebrity. He placed bets against GameStop at the same time it became a meme stock, which pitted him against some retail traders on social media. For years, he was a fixture on CNBC and Bloomberg, where he shared his views on stock prices.
Left hasn't been sentenced. In addition to the criminal case, he faces a parallel civil lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission that remains unresolved.
One of the trial's prosecution witnesses was Daniel Bachus, the CFO of Grand Canyon Education, a publicly traded technology company that provides services to universities. Left's lawyers say that Bachus was the only witness who testified that Left used his Citron Research reports to lie about a company, not merely omit information.
On August 21 — weeks after the trial ended — Grand Canyon Education placed Bachus on paid administrative leave "in connection with an ongoing governmental investigation" involving a non-employee's trades of the company's stock, the company said in an SEC disclosure. The prosecutors in Left's case referred to it in their own filings as an "insider trading investigation."
No government agency has publicly accused Bachus or Grand Canyon Education of any misconduct in connection with the investigation. In the SEC disclosure, the company said it wasn't the focus of the investigation. Representatives for the SEC and for Grand Canyon Education declined to comment. Bachus didn't respond to Business Insider's requests for comment.
Left's lawyers say they should have been informed about the investigation at the time of the trial so that they could cross-examine Bachus and try to convince the jury that he wasn't a credible witness.
"This evidence would have destroyed the credibility of the government's only false-statements witness," they wrote in a filing.
The prosecution team told Left's lawyers it didn't learn about the investigation until after the trial was over. It's not clear which government agency opened the investigation, nor when Bachus or Grand Canyon Education became aware of it. Many of the filings about the issue remained sealed or redacted on the court docket for Left's case.
In court filings, Justice Department prosecutors said Left's lawyers overstated Bachus' role in the short-selling case, which alleged securities fraud involving more than a dozen different public companies. They said Left wanted to conduct "his own shadow investigation into Bachus" to try to discredit him as a witness.
"The law does not permit fishing expeditions in search of a claim," prosecutors said.
Left declined to comment. Left's attorney Eric S. Rosen said he could not comment because many relevant documents remained under seal.
A spokesperson for the US Attorney's office in Los Angeles declined to comment.
From a press release last month, just posted on Westlaw:
N.C. Detective Agency, a Durham-based security company, will pay $65,231 in compensatory damages and back pay, and take other corrective actions to voluntarily resolve a religious discrimination investigation by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.
The EEOC's investigation found reasonable cause to believe that an employee requested to be excused from work due to a Muslim religious holiday, but the request was denied. The company was aware of the employee's need for a religious accommodation but did not engage in the legally required interactive process, and instead terminated her in June 2025 when she did not report for duty.
And from another press release two weeks later, also just posted on Westlaw:
Reynolds IGA Foodliner, Inc., owner and operator of a chain of grocery stores, will pay $65,000 and provide other equitable relief to settle a religious discrimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.
According to the suit, shortly after she was hired as a deli clerk at the Piggly Wiggly store in Hazlehurst, Georgia, the employee requested Sundays off to observe her Sabbath. The employee's supervisor denied the request, claiming that, if the store gave the employee Sundays off, it would have to do the same for all other employees. The employee continued to request the accommodation, and the company fired her in January 2025.
More from the second press release:
"Employers cannot deny religious accommodation requests simply for fear of upsetting other employees," said Marcus G. Keegan, regional attorney for the EEOC's Atlanta District. "The EEOC remains committed to enforcing federal anti-discrimination law and protecting employees' rights to religious freedom."
Darrell E. Graham, director of the EEOC's Atlanta District, said, "Employers must thoughtfully consider each request for religious accommodation on an individual, case-by-case basis and otherwise make good-faith efforts to accommodate their employees' religious beliefs. Employers must be aware of their obligations under federal law to provide reasonable religious accommodations absent undue hardship."
Finally, from a third press release from last month (it was published in between the first two, but was again just posted on Westlaw); this one involves a lawsuit and not a settlement:
Blue Bell Creameries, Inc., a Brenham, Texas-based frozen snack manufacturer and distributor with a production facility in Sylacauga, Alabama, unlawfully terminated a Jewish body shop technician soon after he requested a beard‑related religious accommodation, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today.
Even supporters of bans on religious discrimination by private employers might debate whether employers should be required to give religious exemptions from generally applicable rules (exemptions that could themselves be seen as discrimination in favor of religious observers). But Congress has indeed mandated such exemptions: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, as amended in 1972, generally requires employers to accommodate religious objectors' requests for exemptions from generally applicable work rules, unless doing so would pose an "undue hardship" for the employer.
That extends to time off for religious holidays: Indeed, the leading recent case on the subject, Groff v. DeJoy, involved a Christian employee's request for an exemption from having to work Sundays. And of course it extends, as it must, to all religions.
Ukraine and the EU have agreed to establish a joint working group to accelerate rule-of-law and anti-corruption reforms. This will help Kyiv meet the interim benchmarks for EU accession, Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos says on X after talks with Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi.
Ukraine’s path into the EU runs through its courts and anti-corruption agencies, and the bloc releases membership progress and much of its money only as Kyiv delivers those reforms.
“Ukraine is among the countries making most progress towards EU membership,” Kos says, adding that the group will work through outstanding requirements on the rule of law and the fight against corruption.
The move follows a breakthrough on the accession track. On 13 October, the Council of the EU opened two more negotiating clusters for Ukraine after the Ukrainian Parliament passed a minority-language education law on 12 October, clearing Hungary’s veto.
Why the reforms decide the money and the timeline
The group lands amid pressure on both fronts. Kos cast the education law as proof the system can work, crediting Ukrainian lawmakers with the consensus needed to adopt the reforms membership requires.
Meanwhile, Koretskyi expects the remaining clusters to open by the end of the year.
“Our success will require unity and commitment from all involved Ukrainian partners,” Kos emphasizes.
The official made clear the outcome depends on Ukraine keeping its side. The reforms are the same ones tied to Ukraine’s wartime financing, with billions in EU aid released only as Kyiv meets its commitments.
Billions in EU money hang on laws Ukraine has not passed
The stakes are financial as well as political. Ukraine is deep in a budget crunch and leaning on EU financing to keep the country running, and the Ukrainian Parliament returned from a month-long break this week to work through reform bills tied to that support.
As of 12 October, none of the needed laws had passed, according to anti-corruption activist Vitaliy Shabunin, who said the delay is already costing the country and blamed lawmakers who have stalled the reforms the money is tied to.
“As of today, Ukraine has NOT received several BILLION euros from the EU and others, because members of parliament have blocked the reforms to which that money is linked,” Shabunin said.
From Lajara v. McMenamin, decided Wednesday by Pennsylvania Superior Court judge Brandon Neuman, joined by Judges Jack Panella and Carolyn Nichols:
Mother argues the trial court erred by entering paragraph 111 of the final custody order, which allows Child to decline attendance at religious or faith-based events beginning at the age of 14, and prohibits both parents from influencing, restricting, or limiting Child's participation in those events before or after age 14. In doing so, Mother claims this provision "infringe[s] upon the parties' First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion and the parties' fundamental right to parent their child." …
Under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a parent has a fundamental right "to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of the child." Under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, an individual has a right to religious freedom. Read together, parents have the constitutionally-protected "right to direct the religious upbringing of their children." [Under Pennsylvania precedent,]
[A] court may prohibit a parent from advocating religious beliefs, which, if acted upon, would constitute a crime. However, … it may do so only where it is established that advocating the prohibited conduct would jeopardize the physical or mental health or safety of the child, or have a potential for significant social burdens….
[E]ach parent must be free to provide religious exposure and instruction, as that parent sees fit, during any and all period of legal custody or visitation without restriction, unless the challenged beliefs or conduct of the parent are demonstrated to present a substantial threat of present or future, physical or emotional harm to the child in absence of the proposed restriction….
While the harm involved may be present or future harm, the speculative possibility of mere disquietude, disorientation, or confusion arising from exposure to 'contradictory' religions would be a patently insufficient 'emotional harm' to justify encroachment by the government upon constitutional parental and religious rights of parents, even in the context of divorce….
As noted by Mother, "[n]either party in this matter requested the trial court order any form of relief regarding the exercise of their religious beliefs or … [C]hild's attendance and participation in religious activities. No evidence regarding either party's religion or … [C]hild's attendance and participation in religious activities was presented at trial." The trial court explained its reasoning for this provision, stating:
This trial court was forced to anticipate, to the best of its ability and in light of the factors proscribing stability and consistency for … Child, that a high level of conflict is more than likely to arise as it pertains to religious activities. To put it simply, these parents have demonstrated that any disagreement or dispute has and can easily escalate quickly into full scale conflict that does nothing more than cause instability and emotional trauma to … Child.
As such, this trial court proactively prescribed a solution to any issues that may arise regarding … Child's attendance and participation in religious activities. This trial court acknowledges that neither parent raised the issue of religious activities[;] however, the tumultuous history of this case does not produce any optimism on the part of this trial court that they will be able to communicate and cooperate if religious participation becomes an issue. As such, it is in … Child's best interests to preemptively place parameters on his attendance and participation in religious activities….
Though we recognize the parties' behaviors do not produce optimism that religion will not become an issue in the future, based on the record before us, the restrictions set forth in paragraph 111 are contrary to our case law since there is no indication the parties' religious beliefs or practices present a "grave threat of harm," "a substantial threat of present or future, physical or emotional harm to the child[,]" or that the physical or mental health, or safety of the child would be jeopardized absent a restriction. Accordingly, the trial court erred in setting forth paragraph 111 of its January 6, 2026 order. Consistent with precedent, both parents shall be permitted to practice his or her religion with Child during their respective periods of custody, so long as there is no substantial threat of present or future physical or emotional harm to Child….
Il 9 ottobre 2026 il Comitato norvegese per il Nobel ha assegnato il Premio per la pace a Navanethem Pillay, giurista sudafricana di 85 anni, già giudice della Corte penale internazionale e Alta commissaria Onu per i diritti umani. La motivazione parla di una persona che ha aperto la strada a un ordine giuridico globale più completo. Il presidente del Comitato, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, ha aggiunto che il premio è un messaggio per chi attacca e mina il sistema internazionale e le sue istituzioni. Il verdetto è dichiaratamente politico, ed è su questo piano che va discusso.
La stessa figura che nel 2011 avrebbe «abbattuto» Gheddafi, spianando la strada al saccheggio del petrolio libico e alla schiavitù dei migranti africani, ora «abbatterebbe» Netanyahu, e preparerebbe così la riabilitazione di Israele. Il filo logico non sarebbe la morale né la pace, ma l’agenda dell’Open Society di George Soros: sacrificare i soggetti diventati scomodi, mai l’essenza del progetto. Qualcuno l’ha battezzata «pal-washing». La domanda di fondo è seria, perché chiede se dietro premi e giurisdizioni dell’ordine liberale ci sia una regolarità.
Occorre sottolineare che il copione è già noto. Vi ricordate quando Barack Obama ricevette il premio Nobel per la pace, inaugurando guerre su guerre? O vi ricordare i personaggi in cerca d’autore come Machado, Mohammadi, o i difensori dei criminali Ucraini? Ma andiamo per ordine.
Atto Primo: la Libia
Nel febbraio 2011 Pillay, Alta commissaria, chiese al Consiglio per i diritti umani un’azione vigorosa per fermare le violenze e chiamare i responsabili a risponderne; il Consiglio condannò le violazioni e istituì una commissione d’inchiesta. Il passaggio successivo toccò al Consiglio di sicurezza: il rinvio alla CPI con la risoluzione 1970, poi la 1973, approvata con dieci voti favorevoli e cinque astensioni (Brasile, Cina, Germania, India, Russia). Nessuno sostiene che Pillay abbia deciso la guerra. Conta la sequenza: il linguaggio dei diritti umani aprì la porta, quello della protezione dei civili autorizzò la forza, e l’operazione scivolò verso il cambio di regime. Già in aprile Lavrov accusava la NATO di eccedere il mandato, e un ministro francese ammetteva che il cambio di regime avrebbe richiesto un nuovo voto.
Poi i costi. Nel 2017 l’OIM documentò aste di migranti subsahariani nel sud della Libia, venduti per somme tra 200 e 500 dollari. Il nesso con il crollo dello Stato dopo il 2011 è la lettura più plausibile, benché la fonte documenti il fenomeno e non la sua causa. Il prezzo lo pagarono la Libia e i migranti; la cornice giuridica ne uscì, sul piano formale, intatta, anche se la controversia sul mandato avrebbe poi pesato sui veti di Mosca e Pechino in altri dossier.
Atto Secondo: Bibi
Il 21 novembre 2024 la Camera preliminare I della CPI emise mandati d’arresto per Netanyahu e per l’ex ministro della Difesa Gallant, per crimini di guerra e crimini contro l’umanità. Pillay aveva lasciato la Corte nel 2008, ma ha presieduto la Commissione d’inchiesta Onu che il 16 settembre 2025 ha concluso che Israele ha commesso genocidio a Gaza. Qui il «pal-washing» trova il suo meccanismo. Il diritto penale internazionale lavora su persone: un imputato, un’imputazione, un periodo. Se il caso si chiude con la sorte di un leader, si apre una cesura narrativa, il prima e il dopo di un uomo, dopo la quale lo Stato può presentarsi come reintegrato. La Libia offre l’analogia: là il caso si chiuse con la caduta di un uomo.
I limiti del percorso giocano a favore della lettura. La Corte non ha una polizia e l’esecuzione dei mandati dipende dagli Stati parte; la Commissione non è un tribunale e non parla a nome dell’intera Onu; lo stesso Comitato, riferisce AFP, ha detto che spetta a una corte stabilire se vi sia genocidio. Il premio non produce effetti giuridici, lo sappiamo, però produce legittimazione per un circuito che promette giustizia e non può garantirla.
Dobbiamo, poi, considerare che dinamiche del genere le abbiamo già viste più volte all’interno dell’ordine globalista che domina in Occidente. L’Open Society Foundations si presenta come il maggiore finanziatore privato al mondo di gruppi per giustizia, democrazia e diritti umani, attivo in oltre cento paesi, e Pillay ha ricevuto lo Stockholm Human Rights Award, lo stesso che nel 2011 è andato a Soros e a Neier. Sembra proprio che si ripeta di nuovo il pattern della agenda sorosiana, fatta di fondazioni, ONG, tribunali, commissioni e burocrazie che condividono un lessico e un orizzonte, quello di un ordine liberale da perfezionare e mai da rimettere in discussione. Chi opera dentro quel lessico può denunciare un governo, un leader, perfino uno Stato, ma non può contestare i presupposti dell’ordine che gli dà legittimità.
Alcuni obietteranno che la Commissione di Pillay attribuisce la responsabilità a Israele come Stato, non soltanto ai suoi leader, il che contraddice l’idea di un’operazione puramente personalizzante. Il secondo è la reazione. Netanyahu ha accusato il Comitato di aver perso la bussola morale, il Ministero degli Esteri israeliano ha parlato di una grottesca strumentalizzazione del premio, e Washington ha annunciato sanzioni contro la CPI poche ore dopo l’annuncio. Tutto vero. Ma avrebbe senso e valore se il sistema occidentale non fosse marcio fin dalle sue fondamenta, se il suo sistema giuridico funzionasse, ma così non è, sotto nessun aspetto (e abbiamo avuto già sufficienti dimostrazioni – non scordiamoci anche il caso Epstein).
Se nei prossimi dodici mesi la caduta politica di Netanyahu verrà presentata come chiusura del caso, anziché come una tappa di un procedimento che riguarda lo Stato, il «pal-washing» guadagnerà peso. Se i procedimenti proseguiranno oltre la sua persona, e se gli Stati parte eseguiranno i mandati, forse ne perderà. Allo stato delle prove la tesi è plausibile e, fino a smentita comprovata, questo è l’ennesimo Nobel della non-Pace, che non possiamo chiamare “guerra”.
Human rights NGOs in Europe are not doing well. Funding cuts, legal restrictions, administrative burdens and smear campaigns are taking their toll.
I see organisations drastically downsizing or closing altogether and staff burning out. If we are to reverse our fortunes, the traditionally legally-focused movement needs to rebalance its skill-set to include more communicators and organisers.
Traditionally, human rights NGOs have been staffed mainly by lawyers. This is understandable. Human rights are legal standards contained in national, European and international law. If your main tools for getting human rights implemented are advocacy and litigation, then you need legal experts. But advocacy is becoming less effective because decision makers increasingly see supporting human rights as politically risky.
And litigation as a tool is partly limited by increasing political interference with the courts in some countries, or because – again – politicians see potential political brownie points in not complying with (or see potential political costs in complying with) judgments that enforce human rights standards.
It’s not just that NGOs’ traditional tools are losing their power. It’s that legal training does not equip us with the tools do we need to reverse our fortunes.
Our main lever for restoring human rights and the organisations that promote them is public opinion. For as long as we live continue to live in democracies, pressure from voters can have an impact on decision makers. Which means we need communicators who can help the public realise how important human rights are to them.
David Attenborough pointed out a few years ago that “saving our planet is now a communications challenge. We know what to do, we just need the will”.
The same goes for human rights.
But legal training does not make you good at communicating with folks outside your bubble.
‘Legal-ese’ is not the right lingo
I know from personal experience. I trod a path to human rights through a law degree, masters, doctorate and then academia. Human rights folks talk about them in a way that conveys a fraction of their value and power. If you’d asked me 15 years ago why human rights are important, I’d have said things like this: ‘they protect us from abuse by the government’, or ‘they’re minimum standards of protection the state can’t breach’, or ‘they exist to protect the vulnerable’.
These things are true. They’re also not very persuasive to people outside our base of support. Because the kinds of human rights breaches the movement foregrounds tend to affect ‘other people’. And lawyers are used to thinking about rights in the context of legal disputes.
So human rights get reduced to a shield that protects groups or institutions that most people don’t care about, don’t understand, or who live in other countries.
Human rights are not just a passive defence. They are transformational. Human rights are tools. Tools we use to demand that our leaders use the powers and resources with which we’ve entrusted them to do what’s best for all of us. Tools that we use to create the lives we want to live and the communities we want to live in. This is how we need to talk about them, especially when it comes to civil and political rights.
People outside our base cannot be made to care about media freedom, the right to protest or democracy itself just on principle or because they’re enshrined in legal standards. To care about human rights, most people need to know what these things deliver.
Folks will see that protest is important when we explain how it allows people like them to come together and make their leaders listen to their concerns, whether it’s about climate change or better pay for teachers. I’ve seen it first-hand when testing messages in focus groups.
Empathy, not stereotypes
The same goes for stimulating support for the rights of people from marginalised groups. Right now, most people have trouble caring because they been fed negative stereotypes that cause them to regard some people as ‘others’ and ‘outgroups’, meaning that they will tolerate lower standards of treatment for them.
Using legal arguments and evidencing rights violations by focusing on the harm being suffered doesn’t work because it does nothing to address the reason people don’t care. For that, we need to stimulate empathy and dissolve negative stereotypes through techniques like storytelling. Once people empathise and recognise our common humanity, they’re much more likely to support equal treatment.
When we communicate in a way that allows our audience to see how human rights deliver things they find important to them, they don’t just start to support human rights as standards. They also start to support the organisations that promote them. That means they’re more likely to listen to them, stand up for them, get involved in their work and even donate.
It’s not just about communicating better. We also need organisers who can help people come together to carry effective messages and make the strength of public support felt by our leaders.
Folks with legal training are still essential.
If you’re going to make phones, you need engineers. But we don’t see the engineers being given the job of persuading folks to buy the phones, do we?
Unless they’ve had proper communications training. The human rights movement’s legalistic centre of gravity needs to shift to make room for knowledge and skills that can meet the moment.
In the short-term we could achieve this by retraining staff and joining forces with other progressive movements that know how to organise and mobilise, like environmental NGOs.
We could also tackle the issue upstream by working with universities that produce human rights graduates to develop more holistic curricula that cover communications and organising and not only law.
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