A Guardian investigation reports 1,500 civilians were killed in an April attack on Sudan’s massive Zamzam displacement camp by the rebel Rapid Support Forces. It was the single most deadly massacre in Sudan’s two yearlong bloody civil war. The three-day attack ended in the RSF gaining control of the huge Zamzam camp where half a million people have taken refuge from the war northern Darfur.
(“Assault of Sudan’s Zamzam Refugee Camp May Have Killed More than 1500 Civilians,” Guardian, Aug. 7, 2025)
The Trump administration is developing a powerful data tool it claims will let states identify non citizens registered to vote. But Democratic critics, data experts and democracy defenders warn this database could allow the federal government to collect vast quantities of information on American voters for unclear purposes. Stateline News reports some Democratic election officials and opponents of the effort fear President Trump wants to build a federal database of voters in order to target his political opponents, or cherry-pick rare examples of noncitizen voters to fuel a sense of crisis that would be exploited to further suppress Trump and Republican party opponents.
(“Trump Wants State to Feed Voter Info into Powerful Citizenship Data Program,” Stateline, Aug. 15, 2025)
If Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist is elected mayor of New York City this November, his toughest job may be to reform the 35,000 member New York Police Department while maintaining control of the political narrative around crime and public safety. New York City’s last progressive Mayor Bill DeBlasio retreated from confrontations with an aggressive police union and took months to deal with the fallout from the police killing of Eric Garner, who died in an illegal chokehold by police officers.
(“Zohran Mamdani Must Confront the NYPD. He’s What He Can Do,” Nation, July 24, 2025; “He Once Mocked a Cop. Now He May Run the Nation’s Largest Police Force,” Politico, July 31, 2025)
