🚨🇸🇩 The Blood is Visible From Space
Peter Rothpletz on the genocide in Sudan, Trump’s latest weaponization of the DOJ, and 'journalists' from The Free Press wreaking havoc on both sides of the Atlantic.
🎂 On this day in 1981, Donald Trump’s favorite child, Ivanka, was born. Not that the president is really the gift-giving type, but no present could ever top the some $640 million she raked in as a nepo baby during his first administration. Except perhaps a fat tub of Goya beans?
Good morning! Peter here with a confession. I think I’m close enough with y’all to come clean… I practiced falconry in high school. Yes, I hunted small game with trained hawks, eagles, owls, and other birds of prey. Was I a massive nerd/loser? Duh! But you already knew that! So get over it!
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ the Sudanese RSF militia’s massacre in the Darfur region, Trump’s DOJ indicts Illinois Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, communities reckon with absolute ruin in Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa, and there are two Bill de Blasios??
Currently, anyone can read ‘First Draft,’ but it won’t always be free or without a paywall. Subscribe today to ensure you always get ‘First Draft’ in your inbox, unpaywalled, and if you’re already a subscriber, you can always support our journalism even further with a donation.
‘There Will be No One Left to Save’
Thousands of civilians are feared dead after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been fighting the Sudanese army since 2023, captured El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state.
It was the last government stronghold in the region.
As the RSF closed in, countless civilians attempted to flee.
Many were captured on the outskirts of El Fasher and held for ransom. Far more were shot and killed on sight.
The sand in and around the city of approximately 400,000 is so caked with blood that you can see evidence of the RSF’s war crimes via satellite imagery, according to Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL).
If you’re queasy now… buckle up, my brothers and sisters. This is your belated trigger warning. This will not be a cheeky, sardonic, fun Lede.
Yale’s HRL has further asserted it has evidence of “door-to-door clearance operations.” The lab claims “El Fasher appears to be in a systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing of... indigenous non-Arab communities through forced displacement and summary execution.”
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization reported it had learned that more than 450 people were massacred — on that day alone — in the last functioning hospital in El Fasher.
For months, America’s attention has been elsewhere, transfixed (rightfully) by Gaza, distracted (frustratingly) by horse race politics at home, and overwhelmed (infuriatingly) by Donald Trump’s fascist threat du jour.
But the genocide in Sudan must end now. The global community must intervene.
If not, Emi Mahmoud told NPR, “there will be no one left to save.”
The fighting there has raged for the last two-and-a-half years, resulting in an estimated 40,000 deaths and over 10 million displaced.
El Fasher fell this week after enduring some 18 months of siege – a siege made possible by the RSF constructing an extensive, miles-long “earthen wall” to prevent civilians from receiving food, water, and medical supplies.
Yale’s HRL says the group built “a literal kill box around El Fasher.”
According to Al Jazeera, countless civilians who have tried to flee have been shot on sight. Again and again and again.
It’s a sickening state of affairs. But it can be halted with political pressure from the US government. As the Wall St Journal reported on Wednesday, “U.S. intelligence agencies say the United Arab Emirates sent increasing supplies of weapons, including sophisticated Chinese drones to [the RSF] this year, bolstering a group that has been accused of genocide and pouring fuel on a conflict that has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.”
As with Gaza, where the US president could have ended the genocide at any time with a single phone call to the prime minister of Israel, the US could end the genocide in Sudan too with a single phone call to our other close ally, the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Pick up the phone, Donald Trump. Call the Sheikh. You (falsely) claim to have ended eight wars – why not call it nine?
🗞️ What You Need to Know
Nuclear nightmare: Mere minutes before Donald Trump was set to meet with Xi Jinping, the US president took to social media to threaten to resume nuclear testing for the first time in 33 years. Is this the Art of the Deal??
Shutdown meeting? Senate Majority Leader John Thune expects to engage “pretty soon” in a rare bipartisan meeting with a group of Senate Democrats aimed at ending this epic government shutdown.
Bill de Blasi-faux: As we told you about yesterday, The Times of London published an epic story unearthing former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s concerns on Zohran Mamdani’s tax plans. Just one problem, we’ve now learned: They reached out to the wrong Bill de Blasio. He was just a random guy – also called… Bill de Blasio! What’s more, per Semafor, the botched story was assigned by a former editor of The Free Press. LOL.
CBS shakeup: Speaking of which, Bari Weiss, the Free Press founder who is now heading CBS News, issued mass layoffs. On the chopping block are at least two primetime shows, along with – wait for it – the Race & Culture unit. With Weiss in the driver’s seat, expect an alt-right overhaul shortly.
Immigrants at work: Starting today, work permits will no longer be automatically extended when people file to renew them, following an abrupt rule change by the Department for Homeland Security in the administration’s latest assault on the immigrants that make America great.
Law & Disorder: The Justice Department placed two federal prosecutors on leave after they filed a sentencing memo seeking a 27-month prison sentence for a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter who brought guns and ammo to Barack Obama’s neighborhood in 2023. The new memo from the Justice Department removes any language relating to Jan. 6 and Trump’s posting of Obama’s address on Truth Social.
‘Accountability has begun’: The Illinois sheriff deputy responsible for killing 36-year-old Black woman Sonya Massey was convicted of second-degree murder. Massey was shot in her home by the officer in July of 2024 after calling 911 for assistance with a potential prowler.
Trump Indicts Another Democratic Party Critic
Zeteo’s senior political correspondent, Swin Suebsaeng, is here with the latest on the Trump administration’s crackdown on dissent:
On Wednesday, Kat Abughazaleh, an Illinois Democratic congressional candidate, revealed that Trump’s Justice Department charged her over protests at a Broadview ICE facility.
I reported weeks ago on how the Trump White House is pressuring the Justice Department to ramp up criminal charges against those they can tag, however flimsily, with “obstructing” ICE – even if those indicted are peaceful protesters or politicians. In my reporting, I found that when senior Trump administration officials discussed Dems they wanted to charge, Abughazaleh’s name came up. I was in the Chicago area this month with Zeteo’s Liam Mann and asked Abughazaleh about this. She replied:
“You can arrest me, but it doesn’t make it right … It doesn’t surprise me at all that they bring up my name or other people who are out in the streets peacefully protesting for what they know to be right … We bring songs and chants and signs. I bring my knitting. If they are trying to criminalize that, they’re going to be criminalizing everyone.”
Days after we spoke, Trump’s government indicted her, as it accelerates its warfare on dissent, free speech, and the left.
Be sure to watch the video of Swin and Liam’s on-the-ground coverage from Trump’s war on Chicago.
Editor’s note: Abughazaleh is a former video contributor to Zeteo.
🧠 Pop Quiz!
What do Leonardo DiCaprio’s girlfriends and ICE have in common?
Keep your eyes out for the answer below!
🇵🇸 Don’t Forget Gaza
Gaza massacres: Did Israel bomb the Strip again, violate the ceasefire, and kill over 100 Palestinians, including more than 40 kids, because of an attack on its troops involving “a Hamas cell that had been in the tunnels for a long time and may not have known about the ceasefire”? Zeteo’s Minnah Arshad has the latest.
Violations continue: Despite saying it had returned to the ceasefire on Wednesday, Israel launched another round of strikes in Khan Younis overnight.
Hamas out? Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said yesterday that Hamas is willing to give up governing power over Gaza, though the group has not fully agreed to disarm itself.
And over in the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops stormed the town of Qabatiya with military vehicles and deployed infantry units. In the village of Anza, south of Jenin, soldiers raided a house and patrolled neighborhoods.
🌏 Anywhere But America
🌀🇯🇲🇧🇸 Hurricane Melissa hit the Bahamas last night, following the storm’s devastating landfall in Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba earlier this week. Jamaica is in critical condition, with over a million people affected by Melissa’s impact and significant damage to infrastructure, property, roads, and energy, according to a UN official.
🇧🇷 Police in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro carried out their deadliest raid, with at least 132 dead. Officials said over 110 people were arrested in the operation targeting organized crime and drug trafficking.
🇮🇱🇱🇧 Lebanon’s president ordered the military to confront any Israeli incursions after a raid by Israeli forces killed a municipal worker. The raid came as Israel escalated strikes on southern Lebanon, despite a ceasefire.
🇨🇳🇰🇷 Trump hailed a “truly great meeting” with Chinese President Xi Jinping in which the two leaders agreed to a one-year truce in their escalating trade war. Trump agreed to cut tariffs on China, and the Chinese leader agreed to allow the export of rare earth elements and the purchase of American soybeans.
🇳🇱 The Netherlands could see its youngest and first openly gay prime minister after the country appears to have sent a stunning rebuke of the country’s far-right party led by Geert Wilders. The center-left Democrats 66 (D66) party made major gains in the election and is on track to win as many seats in parliament as Wilders’ Party for Freedom, which appears to have suffered the biggest losses. The results could open a path for D66’s Rob Jetten to attempt to form a government.
🚨 Don’t Miss It!
Join Zeteo contributor John Harwood and popular historian Heather Cox Richardson TODAY at 2 pm ET / 6 pm GMT on Substack for a lively discussion about Trump’s authoritarianism, growing white supremacy, and how the MAGA cult is bent on rolling back the clock. They’ll be taking your questions, too!
📊 Chart of the Day
The US GDP has taken an estimated $7 billion hit as the government shutdown has officially entered its fourth week, according to a new projection from the Congressional Budget Office. The agency warns that the figure could double if the shutdown continues for another month.
🧠 Trivia answer: Both ICE and DiCaprio’s girlfriends are younger than 25 years old!
ICYMI From Zeteo
Zeteo’s Melanie Riehl, Akshay Gokul, and Minnah Arshad contributed to this newsletter.
Still want to get Zeteo content, but not this newsletter? You can unsubscribe directly from ‘First Draft’ by going to ‘manage subscription’ in Substack, scrolling down, and toggling the button for ‘First Draft’ off.
Love First Draft.
If Israel doesn’t prosecute BiBi and his thugs to the fullest extent of the law , they will have fallen as low as the US in maintaining a felon, rapist, pedo and now killing leader and administration.