NYT Adds Sick Editors’ Note to Viral Photo of Child Starving in Gaza

The New York Times on Tuesday evening issued a statement announcing that it had updated its report on the starvation gripping Gaza—and particularly afflicting children—due to Israel restricting supplies.

The report touched, among other tragic stories, on that of Mohammed Zakaria Al Mutawaq, a 18-month-old suffering from severe malnutrition, whose photo has circulated widely as international attention turns increasingly to Gaza’s starvation crisis.

“We have since learned new information” about the child, the Times stated, “and have updated our story to add context about his preexisting health problems” and give “readers a greater understanding of his situation.”

The added paragraph is as follows:

Mohammed, according to his doctor, had pre-existing health problems affecting his brain and his muscle development. But his health deteriorated rapidly in recent months as it became increasingly difficult to find food and medical care, and the medical clinic that treated him said he suffers from severe malnutrition.

Contrary to those already claiming that this detail proves Israel is not culpable for the crisis unfolding in Gaza, Al Mutawaq is still being starved to death. (As Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs notes, “This actually makes it even more grotesque. Of course the first people to die have pre-existing health problems. Starvation is a eugenic policy which first kills off the weakest and sickest.”)

And the detail doesn’t change the enormity of the crisis in Gaza. Thousands of children are starving—and, it’s worth noting, a doctor cited elsewhere in the Times report observes that “many of the children he sees have no pre-existing medical conditions.” The Times’ description of scenes in Gaza’s strained hospitals—of “hollow-eyed, skeletal children” with “protruding ribs and shoulder blades, and emaciated limbs resembling brittle sticks”—is no less haunting, and no less the result of an Israeli blockade, than it was before.

The man who ordered Justice Department staff to ignore judges to speed up deportations is now a federal judge himself.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted 50–49 to confirm senior Justice Department official Emil Bove, formerly Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, for a lifetime seat on the the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joined Democrats in voting against Bove.

Last month, it was revealed that Bove, while orchestrating the extrajudicial deportations of hundreds of men to El Salvador, “stressed to all in attendance that planes needed to take off no matter what,” although he was well aware of “the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated.”

“Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts ‘fuck you’ and ignore any such court order,” according to whistleblower Erez Reuveni’s report. But instead of having his nomination rescinded for obvious corruption and insubordination, Bove will now hold a powerful judicial position until the day he dies. This is also the same man who fired prosecutors for investigating January 6 and accused the FBI of “insubordination” for not snitching on staffers who worked on the investigation. As a New York state prosecutor, he was described by colleagues as someone who could not “be bothered to treat lesser mortals with respect or empathy.”

“He is a Trumpian henchman—the extreme of the extreme of the extreme. He is openly hostile to the rule of law. He is fundamentally opposed to democratic norms. He lacks the temperament to serve as a jurist,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “And above all, Mr. Bove is religiously obedient to Donald Trump.”

“Shame on you,” Schumer continued after the vote. “This is a dark, dark day.”

Ahead of the deadly shooting in Midtown Manhattan Monday, Donald Trump’s administration cut more than half of federal funding for gun violence prevention from the Justice Department, Reuters reported Tuesday.  

In April, the Trump administration terminated 69 of the 145 community violence intervention grants awarded through the DOJ, cutting a whopping $158 million in grants that previously totaled more than $300 million. 

The grants provided federal funding to community-based organizations, local governments, and universities working on evidence-based strategies to prevent violence. A DOJ official said that the grants had been among thousands currently under review, and had been terminated because they “no longer effectuate the program’s goals or agency’s priorities.”

The Biden-era White House Office for Gun Violence Prevention was also “dismantled on day one” of the Trump administration, according to its former director, Greg Jackson. 

The Trump administration’s efforts to shift funding and focus away from gun violence prevention is especially concerning given that shootings, and mass shootings, are known to surge in the warm summer months. 

In classic Trump style, the president responded to the deadly Monday night shooting in Manhattan with name calling. “I trust our Law Enforcement Agencies to get to the bottom of why this crazed lunatic committed such a senseless act of violence,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social. “My heart is with the families of the four people who were killed, including the NYPD Officer, who made the ultimate sacrifice. God Bless the New York Police Department, and God Bless New York!”

Other Republicans have issued their own weak responses, with Louisiana Senator John Kennedy winning the award for most idiotic comment of the day. 

The status of the U.S.-Vietnam trade deal allegedly reached four weeks ago remains uncertain, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted Tuesday that he hasn’t even seen it.

Trump announced a supposed agreement between the two countries in a July 2 post on Truth Social, claiming that Vietnam’s exports would be subject to a 20 percent tariff and its “transshipped” goods to a 40 percent tariff. In return, Trump said, the United States was getting “TOTAL ACCESS to [Vietnamese] Markets for Trade.”

The announcement, Politico would report days later, shocked Vietnamese negotiators, who thought they’d agreed to a rate of about 11 percent—which Trump reportedly scrapped and nearly doubled during a later phone call with Vietnam’s general secretary, who’d not been involved with initial negotiations.

Complicating the matter was the absence of “any paperwork indicating a final agreement that includes those tariff rates” and the fact that neither country “formally signed off on a deal.”

Accordingly, the day after the alleged agreement, CNBC asked Bessent about its status. He replied: “I haven’t spoken to [Trump trade representative] Jamieson Greer, who’s heading the team. My understanding is that it’s finalized in principle.”

To date, it remains unclear if it’s been finalized in any more meaningful way. Vietnam has yet to confirm the rates about which Trump boasted, leading CNBC to, once again, ask Bessent whether there is an agreement on paper.

Bessent’s answer on Tuesday was similar to the one he gave 26 days ago. “I didn’t work on that deal,” he said. “But I assume that we do.”

“You haven’t seen that paperwork?” CNBC’s Eamon Javers pressed.

“Ambassador Greer, who is a seasoned veteran with an encyclopedic memory and knowledge of all this, keeps all that,” Bessent replied, stumbling slightly over his words.

Bessent based his assumption that there’s a written and signed agreement on the trade deals reached with Indonesia and the Philippines. Notably, Indonesia contests some of Trump’s claims about its deal, and details about the Philippines deal remain scant beyond Trump’s Truth Social posts.

The trade-deal gray area is not just confined to Southeast Asia, as Trump’s approach to his negotiations and announcements has sown widespread confusion.

For instance, the Financial Times reported last week that officials in the U.S. and Japan have significant disagreements over the terms of their deal—which, despite being the “largest deal in history,” according to Trump, is not recorded on paper. In fact, no legally binding one is to be drawn up, the FT reports.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee was forced to clarify that it had not actually un-endorsed Florida Representative Randy Fine for his grotesque statements wishing starvation on Palestinians.

AIPAC responded Tuesday to a Times of Israel report claiming that the group appeared to have “dropped” its endorsement of Fine, after he went missing from the group’s database of pro-Israel candidates.

“This reporting is based on an unsourced speculative piece,” AIPAC wrote in a statement on X. “We will be endorsing candidates for the 2026 election throughout the cycle. Current endorsees for 2026 so far are listed on the AIPAC-PAC website.

“As Rep. Fine was elected only in April, consideration of his endorsement will take place later in the cycle, as is the case with many other freshmen members of Congress,” the statement continued.

It turns out that it was simply wishful thinking to believe that the pro-Israel action group would ever draw the line at cheerleading famine—or advocating for violence against protesters.

But AIPAC’s response doesn’t quite add up. It’s not clear why the group would choose only to list endorsees for 2026, and why Fine wouldn’t be grandfathered in after earning the group’s endorsement just four months ago. After all, the group did pour more than $126,000 into Fine’s campaign, according to FEC filings. Now they say they need more time to decide?

Fine’s absence on AIPAC’s list was first observed by Usamah Andrabi, the communications director for Justice Democrats, a political action group working to see progressive Democrats elected to office.