Thousands of demonstrators surrounded the perimeter of the White House in a sea of ‘ fabric Saturday, saying they were drawing a red line for President Biden and calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.
Washington, D.C
Thousands circle White House to demand Biden enforce Gaza ‘red line’
Biden said last month that he would suspend delivery of offensive weapons to Israel if it went into population centers in Rafah. But the White House has so far said Israel had not crossed Biden’s “red line” with its campaign there, infuriating Saturday’s demonstrators.
“If Joe Biden’s red line was a fiction … and it was designed to make us become quiet, instead of that, we are going to become louder,” said Brian Becker, a leader of the ANSWER Coalition, one of the organizers of the march. “Only we can be the red line against genocide.”
For Mohammad, a leader in the Palestinian Youth Movement who addressed the demonstrators before the march, it’s personal.
His aunts and uncles are in Rafah, not far from where an Israeli strike killed dozens of people at a tent camp. His parents and other family are in North Gaza. He remembers the first call he got from his family members after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that ignited the deadly war.
“They told me, ‘We go to sleep knowing we might not wake up in the morning. The sun rises and we hope Gaza is still there,’ ” recalled Mohammad, who did not share his last name for safety reasons.
Palestinian authorities have estimated more than 36,000 civilians, many of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, drawing escalating international condemnation. Those who were driven to join the march said they felt they could not be silent as civilian Palestinians and children continued to die, and as U.S. aid to Israel continued.
Many who came were students.
Aiya, a George Washington University student and a leader of GW Students for Justice in Palestine, said the student activism has “really lit a fire under the Free Palestine movement, because it has pushed the bounds of what we here in the United States and the diaspora are willing to sacrifice.” Before police shut it down last month, hundreds of GWU students set up a pro-Palestinian encampment — one of numerous throughout the country.
Aiya, who did not share a last name for privacy reasons, said students wanted Gazans to know they are “not alone.”
“We say at campus protests, ‘We will not rest till you divest,’ and we mean that. We have been out here tirelessly,” Aiya said. “I mean, how could we tire when we see the people of Gaza endure through literally hell on Earth?”
Shafi Goodwin, 36, a demonstrator who was holding the red line during the march, said he found the student activism at campuses nationwide “tremendously inspiring” — moving him to leave home in Durham, N.C., at 7:30 a.m. to get on a bus and join the protest in Washington.
“Seeing how the students experienced backlash for standing up for the innocent, it struck a deep nerve with me,” Goodwin said.
Many demonstrators expressed conflicted emotions or disillusionment about Biden and the presidential election. In states including Michigan and Minnesota, thousands of voters selected “uncommitted” in their vote for president in the Democratic primaries to send a message of disapproval to Biden.
“He chooses to keep silent to please Israel,” said Arianna Streeter-Floyd, who took a 20-hour bus ride from Des Moines to join the march.
Leo Delgiacco, 22, who came to the demonstration with her sister Jonna, said it was “discouraging knowing there’s no good option.”
“I’m not going to vote someone in who’s committing genocide,” added Jonna, 25. “I don’t want to pick one evil over another evil.”
A spokesperson for the White House did not respond to a request for comment in response to the messages demonstrators blared outside the executive mansion Saturday.
The demonstration and march remained largely peaceful. A D.C. police spokesperson said the agency had not made any arrests, while the U.S. Park Police did not respond to an inquiry on arrests.
Mohammad, the Palestinian Youth Movement leader, told the demonstrators he did not want them to feel their persistent activism has been “for naught,” noting how demonstrators have shut down streets and bridges throughout the country. Members of his family who have fled Gaza are asking, “When shall we go home? When can I return to Gaza, my dear Gaza?” he said.
Some of his relatives relocated to Rafah, only for Rafah to fall under Israeli assault, he said. He goes days without hearing from family members in Gaza as they lose internet and phone connections, he said, with many fearing they may not see tomorrow.
“We’re not ready for them to be gone,” he said.
Kyle Swenson contributed to this report.
BALTIMORE (WBFF) — A Maryland man was sentenced to over two decades in prison for sextorting young girls through social media platforms, the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Monday.
25-year-old Isaiah Poole, of Suitland, was sentenced to 25 years in prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release, for one count of producing child sexual abuse material.
The sentence was announced by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, Kelly O. Hayes, alongside Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul, FBI Baltimore Field Office.
According to official records, Poole manipulated and coerced at least six girls — ranging from ages 9-14 — to send him sexually explicit photos and videos of themselves through Snapchat and other social media accounts.
Pretending to be a teenage girl, Poole manipulated the girls to produce and send him the images under the ruse of playing truth or dare.
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He would direct the young girls to expose their genital areas and engage in sexual conduct, according to authorities.
After some of the girls informed Poole that they didn’t want to send him any more images, he would then threaten to send the images to their families and friends.
Additionally, Poole distributed the sexually explicit images he received from two of the girls.
U.S. Attorney Hayes commended the FBI for its work in the investigation, along with the Maryland State Police and Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office for their valuable assistance.
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Ms. Hayes also thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alex Treiger and Brooke Oki who prosecuted the case.
Washington, D.C
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Washington, D.C
Lake City’s ArtFields helps bring S.C. stories to national stage in Washington, D.C.
LAKE CITY, S.C. (WPDE) — A community art project with roots in Florence County is now on display on one of the nation’s biggest cultural stages.
ArtFields, the nationally recognized art festival based in Lake City, was selected as South Carolina’s official host for the National Scrollathon, a collaborative artmaking project that brings together people from across the country to share their stories through fabric scrolls.
The project is now being unveiled at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., giving Lake City and the Pee Dee region a place in a nationwide artistic celebration.
Created by brothers and artists Steven and William Ladd, Scrollathon invites participants to design personal fabric scrolls that reflect their experiences, hopes and dreams.
The individual pieces are then combined into a larger work of art that represents communities from across the United States.
Earlier this year, dozens of residents in Lake City participated in the project through an initiative called “Tied Together,” creating scrolls that shared their personal stories and connections to their community.
Carla Angus, an ArtFields consultant, said the project’s impact comes from bringing people together through creativity and storytelling.
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“Everyone who was invited receives these strips of material and fabric, and they select their colors, they select what they want to put together and they create a story behind their scroll,” Angus said. “That’s what’s so powerful about the project because it brings all these different people together with different backgrounds and different experiences.”
In addition to Lake City, Scrollathon events were held at other South Carolina cultural institutions, including the Gibbes Museum of Art and the International African American Museum.
Now, those local contributions are part of a much larger display.
More than 250,000 participants from all 50 states and U.S. territories contributed to the National Scrollathon.
The collection is being showcased at the Kennedy Center, where visitors can experience what organizers describe as a visual representation of the American story.
For Angus, seeing scrolls created in Lake City displayed alongside contributions from across the country is a proud moment.
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“When I look at those scrolls, I know those are thousands upon thousands of individuals that have shared their stories,” Angus said. “Now they have become one unified piece of artwork.”
Angus described the experience as surreal and said it demonstrates how art can connect people regardless of where they come from.
“It’s almost surreal because what we want to do is connect people through the arts,” Angus said. “To be a part of something that is so large, bringing so many states together, it shows how powerful art can be.”
The National Scrollathon will remain on display through Labor Day as part of the Kennedy Center’s yearlong celebration of America’s 250th anniversary and the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
For Lake City and Florence County residents, the exhibit represents an opportunity to see their stories become part of a national conversation, one scroll at a time.
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