The crew of the Freedom Flotilla boat, Handala, warned Israel to obey international law but are now in captivity, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

IN THE February 20 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia’s largest daily newspaper, an editorial cartoon depicted a giant Superman proclaiming: “I’m for truth, justice and the American way!” From a nearby window an elephant, the symbol of the Republican Party, retorts: “OK, you’re out of the Republican Party!”
The attempted purges have indeed begun. Any statement, or worse still, a vote, against former US president Donald Trump is now grounds for censure. But whereas before, such an action prompted threats hurled by members of far-right militia-style hate groups, now the menace is coming from the Republican Party itself. This is an ominous change.
Thus US Representative Liz Cheney, daughter of the scheming former George W Bush administration vice-president Dick Cheney and hardly a progressive Republican, was censured by the Wyoming Republican Party, the state she represents, for voting in the US House to move forward with the Trump Senate impeachment trial.

The crew of the Freedom Flotilla boat, Handala, warned Israel to obey international law but are now in captivity, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Waves of protesters are refusing to comply with the latest crackdowns on dissent, but the penalties are higher in Starmer’s Labour Britain than in Trump’s autocratic United States, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Funds are being raised to bring the bombed al-Shifa hospital back from the ashes, reports Linda Pentz Gunter

From Labour’s panic over the Corbyn-Sultana formation to Democratic Party grandees distancing themselves from Zohran Mamdani, centrist cliques on both sides of the Atlantic are quick to throw the same old insult, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER