RSS
Why Are Media Outlets Using Hamas as Their Sources?
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressing a pro-Hamas rally in Istanbul. Photo: Reuters/Dilara Senkaya
It’s not often that a mainstream media outlet publishes a piece so full of disinformation that it ridicules itself as a credible news source.
We wrote this back in February regarding UPI’s inability to produce reliable news. Five months later, nothing has changed at the press outlet. Serial offender Adam Schrader is still unabashedly using terror groups and state-run Palestinian agencies as his main sources in articles.
Being a journalist comes with immense responsibility. Reporting complex world issues to the public is not something to be flippant about. While many have an agenda, it’s simply unacceptable and irresponsible for a reporter to consistently copy apparent press releases of recognized terror groups and pass them as your own pieces.
In the last few days alone, two articles dropped that seemed like sponsored content from both Hamas and the state-run WAFA Palestinian news agency.
In the first article, titled “Haniyeh touts Hamas’ diplomacy efforts in Eid message,” Schrader’s only source is Hamas, and the sole person quoted is Hamas political head Ismail Haniyeh. The whole article strokes Haniyeh’s ego, painting him as the diplomat of the century.
Schrader points to Hamas’ alleged ceasefire proposal in early May, which it claimed had been approved by Qatar and Egypt.
The Hamas leader pointed to its May 6 approval of a ceasefire proposal mediated by Egypt and Qatar, which outlined a three-phase plan to de-escalate the ongoing conflict. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met the proposal with conditions.
If he had integrity, Schrader would write that a deal could not be “approved” if Israel was not involved in the negotiation process. He failed to acknowledge this important fact because again, he was only using Hamas as his source.
Likewise, his second article, titled “Israel uses UNRWA building as sniper post, report says,” is just as absurd — citing WAFA, as well as Amnesty International, a Palestinian NGO, and politicized Israeli organization B’Tselem — none of which have opposing views of the report at hand.
The official state-run Palestinian News Agency, known as WAFA, reported that Israeli forces detained a Palestinian person and injured a minor with shrapnel in the Far’a refugee camp, northeast of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, during the operation.
The arrest comes as nearly 9,300 Palestinian prisoners have been arrested and are currently held in Israeli prisons and detention centers, according to the Palestine Prisoner’s Society. Around 250 prisoners are children… Palestinians and their supporters often equate this practice to kidnapping.
It’s unclear if intentions are deliberately malicious, agenda-fueled, or if they result from sheer laziness. Regardless, there is zero context given to the IDF raid of a UN aid facility or the arrest of a “Palestinian person” during the raid and others during previous raids.
While he attributes the facts to their sources, there is no ignoring his one-sided report.
We suspected that Schrader was parroting a Hamas PR document back in February when we wrote that UPI was effectively using Hamas’ own talking points.
In this case, it’s not just Hamas’, but other terror supporters’ talking points as well.
As we said back then, “replete with errors, blatant anti-Israel bias, and some appalling Hamas-inspired justifications … it’s hard to believe a supposedly respectable news agency would publish such pieces…”
… or even continue to employ this writer. He’s not even close to doing his job. On the other hand, UPI seems like a lost cause.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Why Are Media Outlets Using Hamas as Their Sources? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Trump Administration to Release Over $5 Billion School Funding That It Withheld
US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and President Donald Trump, in the East Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
President Donald Trump’s administration will release more than $5 billion in previously approved funding for K-12 school programs that it froze over three weeks ago under a review, which had led to bipartisan condemnation.
“(The White House Office of Management and Budget) has completed its review … and has directed the Department to release all formula funds,” Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the U.S. Education Department, said in a statement, adding funds will be dispersed to states next week.
Further details on the review and what it found were not shared.
A senior administration official said “guardrails” would be in place for the amount being released, without giving details.
Early in July, the Trump administration said it would not release funding previously appropriated by Congress for schools and that an initial review found signs the money was misused to subsidize what it alleged was “a radical leftwing agenda.”
States say $6.8 billion in total was affected by the freeze. Last week, $1.3 billion was released.
After the freeze, a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states sued to challenge the move, and 10 Republican US senators wrote to the Republican Trump administration to reverse its decision.
The frozen money covered funding for education of migrant farm workers and their children; recruitment and training of teachers; English proficiency learning; academic enrichment and after-school and summer programs.
The Trump administration has threatened schools and colleges with withholding federal funds over issues like climate initiatives, transgender policies, pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s war in Gaza and diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Republican US lawmakers welcomed the move on Friday, while Democratic lawmakers said there was no need to disrupt funding in the first place.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon separately said she was satisfied with what was found in the review and released the money, adding she did not think there would be future freezes.
The post Trump Administration to Release Over $5 Billion School Funding That It Withheld first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Israel will resume airdrop aid to Gaza on Saturday night, the Israeli military said, a few days after more than 100 aid agencies warned that mass starvation was spreading across the enclave.
“The airdrops will include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food to be provided by international organizations,” the military added in a statement.
The post Israel to Resume Airdrop Aid to Gaza on Saturday, Military Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – US President Donald Trump on Friday said the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas did not want to make a deal on a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza.
“Now we’re down to the final hostages, and they know what happens after you get the final hostages. And basically because of that, they really didn’t want to make a deal,” Trump said.
The comments followed statements by Middle East peace envoy Steve Witkoff and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the effect that Israel was now considering “alternative” options to achieve its goals of bringing its hostages home from Gaza and ending the terror rule of Hamas in the coastal enclave.
Trump added he believed Hamas leaders would now be “hunted down.”
On Thursday, Witkoff said the Trump administration had decided to bring its negotiating team home for consultations following Hamas’s latest proposal. Witkoff said overnight that Hamas was to blame for the impasse, with Netanyahu concurring.
Trump also dismissed the significance of French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that Paris would become the first major Western power to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Macron’s comments, “didn’t carry any weight,” the US leader said.
The post Trump Says Hamas ‘Didn’t Want to Make a Deal,’ Now Likely to Get ‘Hunted Down’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.