In Gaza, more than 100 international humanitarian, human rights and civil society organizations signed a joint statement arguing that continued military attacks, territorial restrictions and obstacles to humanitarian assistance have rendered the ceasefire largely ineffective in protecting Palestinians.

In Lebanon, a New York Times investigation documented widespread destruction after a so-called ceasefire that went into effect in April, including the demolition of predominantly Shiite Muslim villages, the burning of agricultural land and the construction of Israeli military infrastructure inside occupied Lebanese territory.

The Gaza so-called ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 10, 2025, but the ceasefire did not stop Israeli forces from continuing to kill Palestinians and deprive Gaza of much-needed resources, such as aid, equipment and rebuilding materials. In the statement, the 100-plus organizations warned that the killing and deprivation in Gaza “must not be normalized under the cover of a ceasefire agreement.”

“A year on, the pattern is unmistakable. Families are still being killed. Children are still dying of preventable illness. Gaza is still littered with unexploded ordnance. Homes lie in rubble that cannot be cleared, and aid cannot reach the people who so desperately need it,” the statement says.

“This is not what a ceasefire was meant to deliver. It reflects the same conditions that twice led the UN Commission of Inquiry, in September 2025 and again in June 2026, to conclude that Israel has committed genocide. The international community’s responsibility does not end with an agreement on paper.”

The statement shared alarming figures illustrating the impact of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, including conditions during the ceasefire period:

•        Over the past year, Israel has killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including at least 327 children.

•        More than 80% of structures across Gaza have been damaged, with around two-thirds of all structures completely destroyed. Neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, homes have been flattened and agricultural land has been razed.

•        Hundreds of thousands of families are still living in tents, makeshift shelters or damaged homes, leaving them vulnerable for the fourth consecutive winter since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.

•        None of Gaza’s hospitals are fully functioning, and medicines, equipment and fuel remain critically scarce. More than 18,500 patients, including at least 4,000 children, still need medical evacuation, and more than 1,000 people have died while waiting.

•        Approximately 1.4 million people are facing crisis-level hunger or worse through the end of 2026.

Israel has also continued its destructive military operations in southern Lebanon despite an April ceasefire agreement. A New York Times investigation found that after the ceasefire, “Israeli forces deliberately demolished homes, schools, mosques and roads, predominantly in Shiite Muslim villages” in Lebanon.

The Times analyzed satellite imagery and found that 48 out of 60 villages and towns in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon were mostly destroyed. Its investigation documented additional demolitions and destruction after the April ceasefire went into effect.

It also found that roughly 270,000 Lebanese have been displaced from the occupied region, about 16,500 acres have burned since the ceasefire and more than 200 wildfires have been recorded between early April and September.

“Much of the area is now uninhabitable,” the Times reported. “At the same time, Israeli forces built new infrastructure, suggesting plans for a prolonged military presence.”

“The level of violence, the scale and tools of destruction, is unlike anything we’ve seen in the past,” Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said in the Times article. “Every bit of infrastructure is being destroyed, as if to prevent the population from returning anytime soon even if Israel withdraws.”

The Times also referenced words from Israel Katz, Israel’s defense minister, who “said his country’s approach to southern Lebanon is modeled on tactics used in Gaza, where the Israeli military reduced entire neighborhoods to rubble.”

Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reported that more than 4,300 people have been killed in the country since March 2, bringing the reported death toll since October 2023 to nearly 9,000. In Gaza, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has reported more than 74,000 deaths since October 2023.

Inger Ashing, chief executive officer of Save the Children, described the Gaza ceasefire as “meaningless if children are still being killed and families are still unable to rebuild their lives.”

“Since the ceasefire was announced, nearly one child has been killed every day. Families remain trapped in a devastating cycle of loss and deprivation, unable to recover,” she said in the joint statement.

“Governments that backed this agreement must use their influence to stop the killing and ensure children can access food, healthcare, shelter and education. Gaza’s children have a right to safety and a future. Governments have the power to help secure both, and they must use it.”

Jan Egeland, secretary general for the Norwegian Refugee Council, called it “utterly shameful” that little has improved for Palestinians in Gaza one full year after the ceasefire was signed.

Dr. Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, stated: “Accountability cannot be swept under the rubble.”

“The recovery and future of Gaza cannot be separated from a framework grounded in international law, justice, and the rights of victims,” she added. “The persistent failure to hold Israel accountable and press Israel to comply with the International Court of Justice’s binding orders continues to fuel the atrocity crimes on a mass scale against Palestinians.”

Kenneth Roth is an American attorney, human rights activist and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Israel seems to have largely ignored the supposed ceasefires in Gaza and southern Lebanon by continuing offensive operations.

Netanyahu seems to calculate that so long as the level of fighting is not too intense, Trump won’t notice, so Israel won’t be any price. So far, Netanyahu has been right. That said, the gratuitous destruction of civilian property is a war crime.

As the new film NAZA demonstrates, Israel flattened much of Gaza not to attack legitimate military targets but to render large portions of the territory uninhabitable as part of its plan to force large numbers of Palestinians to flee.

That same war-crime strategy is now also being pursued in southern Lebanon,” said Mr. Roth via an email response to a series of questions from The Final Call. 

The continued Israeli military operations and destruction in Gaza and Lebanon come more than two years after the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, warned of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vision of a “Greater Israel.”

In his 2024 Saviours’ Day message, “What Does Allah, The Great Mahdi and The Great Messiah Have To Say About The War In The Middle East,” Minister Farrakhan warned that Prime Minister Netanyahu would not succeed in realizing that vision.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu has a vision of ‘Greater Israel.’ Several states over there, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, they intend to annex that to what is called ‘Greater Israel,’” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan said.

He warned Prime Minister Netanyahu: “You’re not going to stay in the Middle East. … Mr. Netanyahu, I warn you, in The Name of Allah. We warn you …: ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin’ (your kingdom has been weighed in the balance; it has been numbered).  And it’s getting to the end of ‘Israel.’”

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan further warned: “Mr. Netanyahu: There is a revolt against him now in Israel, and he may not be elected as prime minister in the future. I am saying this to him now.

Because you are not going to live to see the vision that you have for Israel, to ‘conquer the whole Middle East,’ and you will be ‘the great [leader].’ No, no, no. You can pack that desire away, because you will never see what you envision.”

—Anisah Muhammad, Staff Writer

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These calamities bear witness to the warnings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad. In Chapter 35 of His book, “The Fall of America,” the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad writes, “The four great judgments that Almighty Allah (God) is bringing upon America are rain, hail, snow and earthquakes.

We see them now covering all sides of America, as the Holy Qur’an prophesies, curtailing her on all her sides. And these judgments would push the people into the center of the country, and there they would realize that it is Allah (God) Who is bringing them and their country to a naught.”

His National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, has carried that warning across the country and the world for decades in three words: “Watch the weather.”

On Oct. 9, Hurricane Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, as a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 105 mph, The Weather Channel reported. Isaias became a tropical storm in the Gulf on Oct. 7, according to the National Hurricane Center. Nearly 900,000 customers lost power in the first hours, mostly in Florida and Alabama, the AP reported.

That same weekend, Tropical Storm Rachel sent waves crashing into homes on California’s Long Beach Peninsula, city officials said. Its remnants flooded Ensenada, Mexico and Baja, California authorities said.

Rain from Rachel also hit Nevada. In Las Vegas, 1.08 inches of rain tied the city’s record for a single October day, set in 1947, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

At Final Call press time, at least 16 people were dead across Florida, Alabama and Mexico, according to figures from those state officials and Mexican authorities. Over the same weekend as Rachel, Hurricane Simon’s rains killed a 71-year-old in Chilpancingo, Guerrero, when a wall collapsed, Guerrero Gov.

Evelyn Salgado said, the AP reported. In Hawaii, Hurricane Nolo veered away from the Big Island in late September, but rain gauges still recorded 17.65 inches at Laupahoehoe, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported.

In Long Beach, Calif., the city red-tagged eight structures covering 13 addresses, yellow-tagged one more and ordered residents of the 6400 and 6500 blocks of Seaside Walk to evacuate, Mayor Rex Richardson said at an Oct. 10 city community update.

The Peninsula’s bulkhead and boardwalk, city infrastructure that has served the community for more than 100 years, sustained significant damage, said Todd Leland, the city’s marine bureau manager.

Crews braced the wall with lumber and thousands of sandbags, using a crane to place heavy-duty sandbags with a 3,000-pound capacity and tripled pumping capacity, he said. “Our infrastructure was not built for this,” said Mayor Richardson.

In Newport Beach, City Manager Seimone Jurjis, acting as director of emergency services, declared a local emergency Oct. 9 after higher-than-normal surf and elevated tides flooded streets on the Balboa Peninsula. The declaration “will help the city secure additional resources as crews continue working to protect homes, property and public safety,” the city said.

The NWS issued a coastal flood warning for San Diego and Orange County coastal areas, cautioning that “low-lying property including homes, businesses, and some critical infrastructure may flood.”

Both the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan warned that these weather calamities would continue to strike America and they are also being seen in other parts of the world.

In a message delivered on Aug. 16 from Mosque Maryam in Chicago, Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad, National Assistant to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, reminded the audience of what Black people must do to prepare for when these calamities strike.

“We have to get our survival gear in place. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us what foods to store, and he taught us to prepare for this that we are witnessing,” stated Student Minister Ishmael.

In a June 4, 2025, interview on the Underground Dialogue Podcast, Nation of Islam Student Southwest Regional Minister Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad, an urban planner and environmental analyst, said families can’t wait on outside help. “Brother and sister, nobody’s coming to save us. We’re going to have to organize ourselves,” he said. “You can’t thrive until you survive.”

He urged people to make small sacrifices now and put money toward emergency supplies. He also cited recommendations from Sister Landra Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam and a disaster preparedness researcher. Some of the tips recommended:

• Spend for survival. Skip the new outfit and buy extra water and nonperishable food such as rice and (navy) beans, plus an alternative way to cook.
• Light the dark. Keep a flashlight and batteries.
• Get organized. Write down family contacts, doctors, pharmacies, medications and insurance information.
• Learn the basics. Know how to turn off household gas and water, learn basic first aid and keep a fire extinguisher.
• Pack two bags. Keep a shelter-in-place bag at home and a go bag holding medications, snacks, water and important papers such as deeds, insurance documents and passports.
• Plan an exit. Map out your home’s layout and know where you will go.

Sister Landra urged families not to wait to prepare. “The best time to have started preparing was yesterday. The next best time is to start today. Start wherever you are,” she told The Final Call.

“If you have $5 per week, dedicate $5 to something, whether it be food or some type of supply that is dedicated for preparedness. You may not use that until an emergency, and you have to have some type of discipline with this,” she recommended.

“Minister Farrakhan taught us we have to depend on Allah (God) … and each other to do something for ourselves,” Student Min. Haleem said.

The post Severe weather strikes West Coast and Florida’s Panhandle appeared first on Final Call News.

Opened his doors to Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad, National Assistant to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and a son of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam.

What followed was a sweeping, in-depth exchange on the “Conversate with Killer Mike” podcast—a dialogue that moved from the 1995 Million Man March and Holy Day of Atonement called by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan—to the unseen global forces now shaping America’s destiny. Student Min. Ishmael was in Atlanta as the Nation of Islam convened the 31st Anniversary of the historic Million Man March.

“You’re one of the most powerful men in our community,” Killer Mike said as the cameras rolled, “but you’ve never carried yourself like you’re above anyone.” It was a moment of genuine respect, the kind that comes from years of watching the Nation of Islam transform Black men and women with discipline, structure, and purpose.

Student Min. Ishmael received the praise with humility. “We don’t see ourselves as greater than our brother or sister because we’ve gained knowledge,” he said. “At the end of the day, we are all children of God,” he said.

Several themes guided the exchange during the program: educating our children, redemption behind prison walls, how to eat to live, doing for self, unity, Malcolm X, and more.

When asked to introduce himself, Student Min. Ishmael offered no titles beyond service, saying he is “a human being among 7.5 billion on the planet,” and “blessed to be a son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and Mother Tynnetta Muhammad, and blessed to serve as National Assistant Minister to Minister Farrakhan.”

The conversation quickly turned to the Nation’s core teaching: knowledge of self. “The first thing is: who are you?” Student Min. Ishmael said. “That knowledge of self and knowledge of God is the key to our return to God and to ourselves.”

He argued that mainstream education and media strip Black people of identity, leaving children unable to respect themselves—and therefore unable to respect one another. “If you don’t respect yourself,” he said, “you won’t respect your brother or your sister any more than you know how to love yourself.”

Killer Mike connected this to a broader pattern: the same systems that undereducated Black children also keep poor White communities uninformed, weaponizing ignorance to maintain a social hierarchy. “We should see solidarity across those lines,” Killer Mike said.

Student Min. Ishmael shared a chilling example: several years ago, in speaking to students in Gary, Indiana, he found that none had been taught about the transatlantic slave trade. Some school districts now teach that Black Americans “migrated.”

“When you deprive a people of their history, it’s like cutting a tree at its roots,” Student Min. Ishmael said. “How can it grow?”

A central theme during the podcast was the distinction between a nation and an organization.

“An organization is one part; a nation is the whole,” Student Min. Ishmael explained. “That’s why it’s not called an Islamic organization. It’s the Nation of Islam. We build nations, not organizations.” He pointed to the Million Man March as proof—millions setting aside religious and organizational differences to stand as one.

Student Min. Ishmael credited his mother, Tynnetta Muhammad—writer, lecturer, and world traveler—for shaping his worldview. She taught that worship means nothing without service and that a divine thread unites humanity.

Her travels took the family to Mexico, where young Ishmael learned Spanish and encountered cultures that broadened his understanding of Black, Latino, and Indigenous unity. “Once you go to Mexico, to Europe, to Africa, it expands your horizon,” he said. “You’re not narrow in your thinking anymore.”

He described a global power structure: a small elite, a middle class that serves as a buffer, and a mass of people kept uninformed.

“No man can rule over you except he has a greater knowledge than you,” he said. “That’s why real knowledge is feared—it opens the mind.” He noted that Nation of Islam students often complete their education years ahead of peers,

Evidence that mainstream schooling prolongs learning rather than accelerating it. “Real education never makes you docile, helpless, or dependent,” he said. “It unlocks the creative power the Creator gave you.”

The conversation then turned to the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s Teachings on the Mother Plane—a massive human-built craft described in the Bible book of Ezekiel. Student Min. Ishmael noted that even Pentagon files reference a “mother craft” or “ship” that releases “smaller probes.”

“These crafts hover near military installations for a reason,” he said. “There are forces on this planet that, left unchecked, would destroy all of humanity.” He argued this is why Minister Farrakhan speaks with such boldness: “You cannot speak with that kind of conviction unless you know God and the power behind you.”

Student Min. Ishmael also addressed long-standing misconceptions about the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s domestic life. He explained the Quranic context for multiple wives and emphasized that every child born of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his wives ultimately stood and stands with Minister Farrakhan.

He also spoke personally about growing up without knowing his father until age seven, facing rejection and colorism—even within the Nation of Islam. “I grew up with a color complex,” he said.

“Not from the outside world, but from my own community.” Only recently, he said, did he feel ready to publicly call the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad “my father,” a moment that nearly moved him to tears during the podcast conversation.

Student Min. Ishmael also clarified that Malcolm X did not leave the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad because of domestic issues. Malcolm X already knew his teacher had multiple wives.

The real tension came from Malcolm’s public comments on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, made against the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s direct instructions for his ministers not to speak on the president’s death. Still, the Nation of Islam honors Malcolm’s contributions. “No good deed is wasted,” he said. “Malcolm continues to lead people toward truth.”

Killer Mike echoed civil rights leader Dick Gregory’s assertion that the U.S. government—not the Nation of Islam—was responsible for Malcolm’s assassination. Student Min. Ishmael connected the assassinations of Malcolm X and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., arguing that each was tied to the U.S. government’s fear of unified Black political power.

The conversation closed with reflections on how the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s Teachings—from life on Mars to eating one meal a day and fasting—were mocked for decades, only to be validated by modern science. “We’ve been taught to wait for outside validation,” Student Min. Ishmael said. “That mindset has to end. We already carry the answers.”

He argued that the path forward is collaboration—setting aside divisions and building as though no one is coming to save us. “When opportunity arrives,” he said, “we need to be ready to meet it, not scrambling to catch up.”

Killer Mike concluded the program emphasizing, “God’s love doesn’t skip anyone. Noah drank. Job suffered, lost everything, and started again. If God walked with broken men before, why not us? Wouldn’t our nation deserve a savior?

Why wouldn’t God speak directly to a people stripped of their true history, their true names, their true power? That’s the message I bring to my audience: stand in your worth.”—Michael Z. Muhammad, Contributing Writer

The post A deep, unfiltered dialogue on the Teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, atonement, education, and Black unity appeared first on Final Call News.

On October 9, inside Tabla Restaurant, a cross-section of Georgia’s Black political leadership, educators, clergy, organizers, and Nation of Islam members met for a dinner discussion that also served as a spiritual checkpoint.

The event, hosted by Georgia Legislative Black Caucus members State Representatives Robert Dawson and Eric Bell, along with Attorney Brandon Price Crum, aligned with the Holy Day of Atonement—a time rooted in accountability, reconciliation, and community restoration. The Holy Day of Atonement was established with the 1995 Million Man March convened by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Attorney Crum opened the evening, followed by Representative Dawson, whose introduction of Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad, National Assistant to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, set a deeply personal tone. Mr. Dawson did not recite a résumé; he offered testimony.

Mr. Dawson spoke with the candor of a man shaped by struggle. “People see me now in office with perceived power,” he said. “But I didn’t fall from heaven. I rose from hell.”

He recalled meeting Student Min. Ishmael as a young man on 125th Street in Harlem—“dreads in my hair,” and searching for direction. That encounter “put a battery in my back,” sparking a transformation that redirected his life and anchored his purpose.

Mr. Dawson described Student Min. Ishmael as a grounded, disciplined, studious servant-leader—a family man, a consistent worker, a quiet force.

Student Min. Ishmael began by thanking Allah (God) for the prophets and reaffirming his position as a student of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad under the divine guidance of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

His message to the audience was anchored in scripture and the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and moved into a reflection on the Million Man March.

He reminded the room that October 16, 1995, was not a political demonstration but a spiritual summons. “No man had ever called a million Black men together—not for arms, but for atonement,” he said. “We went to make a demand on ourselves.”

Unity was demonstrated that day—AME, Baptist, Catholic, Muslim, Hebrew Israelite, agnostic, Crips, Gangster Disciples—standing shoulder to shoulder as brothers, offered a glimpse of how God intended us to see one another, Student Min. Ishmael explained.

“Look at the word ‘unity.’ The ‘I’ sits in the middle—and that ‘I’ must always be God. If we could live that unity for one day, we can live it every day. But we are still too divided,” he said.

When ego replaces God at the center, unity collapses; and when unity collapses, political, social, and economic power evaporates, he concluded.

From unity, the message shifted to timing: “There is a season for everything. If our actions aren’t in harmony with the time, no amount of planning will bring success,” Student Min. Ishmael said.

He warned that America is living through the decline of a civilization. He said political leaders know firsthand that the system they operate within “is corrupt to the core,” built for the wealthy and never for the poor.

He cautioned that compromise is a seduction. “How many of us claim Christ on Sunday, then make deals all week, only to ask forgiveness again next Sunday?” he asked.

He revisited Minister Farrakhan’s warning from the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March, also known as “The Millions More Movement.” There, Minister Farrakhan noted that the most educated among Black people are often placed in positions that separate them from the masses.

“This design makes us feel we’ve arrived, while our people remain in poverty in the midst of plenty,” Min. Farrakhan said at that time, noted Student Min. Ishmael.

He explained that the Millions More Movement was created to bring skilled Black professionals back into alignment with the needs of the many. Leaders must think like a nation, not an organization, he said, adding, “(the Honorable) Elijah Muhammad said our unity is more powerful than atomic power.”

Explaining the function of unity, Min. Ishmael explained, “Everybody can’t play quarterback. Somebody has to block. Somebody has to run. When everyone plays their position, the team wins,” he said. A direct warning followed:

“You have power in your hands, and power can be manipulated.” When powerful interests dislike a Black leader doing real work, they often elevate another candidate willing to serve their [powerful interests] agenda, he said. “That replacement may be well-meaning, but serves them, not us,” he said.

He reminded the room that Jesus was not popular—truth to power rarely is. Divisions within the room were addressed head-on: “Some of us in this room have offended each other. … If we carry division, how can we call young people to unity?”

Global conflict, rising inflation, and extreme weather were cited as signs of divine judgment. “(The Honorable) Elijah Muhammad warned that God would visit America with rain, hail, snow, and earthquakes,” Student Min. Ishmael said.

Recent earthquakes, shifting hurricane seasons, and geopolitical tensions were referenced as evidence. “These are not the fault of our children. They are the fruit of a world we’ve allowed others to control,” he said.

His closing call centered on unity, courage, and responsibility—especially in education. “Without self-love and self-respect, we see Black boys disrespecting Black girls, Black boys killing Black boys,” he said, adding that the work of the Million Man March—atonement, reconciliation, responsibility—remains unfinished.

Guests left with the message still resonating. Brother Musa Shabazz, a Los Angeles native now living in Atlanta, told The Final Call the words were overdue for those in office. “His message was very necessary, especially for those in political office, understanding that their position is to serve the people, not to prioritize their own interests,” Mr. Shabazz said. “It really spoke to the importance of integrity.”

Coach Barry Ross of Atlanta heard the lesson as a coach would. “Very inspirational, very motivational,” Mr. Ross said. “Bringing us together for one common goal: to better ourselves and better each other,” he continued.

“Being a coach myself, I connected with the one about the field: the linemen, everybody has a position,” he said. “He also talked about the body’s organs working in unison. Those metaphors really resonated with me.”

Bishop Greg Fann called the address unflinching. “The words that he gave is phenomenal because it’s the truth. Ain’t nothing but the truth,” Bishop Fann said. “We do need people who are in political office to have courage and to be standing up on truth and not being bought out with money.”

It was Bishop Fann’s first time meeting Student Min. Ishmael. He credited another leader for bringing him into the work. “Minister Sharrieff Muhammad is the reason that I began to work with the Nation because he’s a straight-up brother too, all the way,” he said, referring to Nation of Islam Student Southern Regional Minister Abdul Sharrieff Muhammad of Mosque No. 15 in Atlanta.

Professor Tia Gibbs of Atlanta told The Final Call the message landed squarely on her daily work. “It was so informative and right on time,” Ms. Gibbs said. “I work with young people all the time, and one thing I noticed is they don’t know our history.

So, they’re not as motivated.” For her, the talk of unity hit hardest. “He was talking about how people have the beef and envy each other,” Ms. Gibbs said. “People get caught up in such trivial situations that they lose the point, especially with the last few elections. We lost all the way around because people couldn’t get along for the common good.”

Representative Eric Bell told The Final Call that hosting the event was essential once he learned the Holy Day of Atonement would be in Atlanta. “Georgia’s open for our community. Georgia’s open for change.” Political backlash did not concern him. “Blowback from who? I welcome it.”

In a time of political division, global conflict, economic strain, and moral confusion, the night’s message was unmistakable: unity is power, integrity is protection, and leadership is service. The responsibility to make communities decent and safe rests on every shoulder in the room.

The dinner ended. The charge did not. Thirty-one years after nearly two million men gathered to atone, the call in Atlanta remained the same: Look inward. Lay down old grudges. Play your position. Serve the whole.

As Student Min. Ishmael Muhammad put it, the responsibility belongs to everyone in the room—and everyone outside it.

The post A sobering call to courage, unity, and moral leadership appeared first on Final Call News.

ATLANTA—Thousands gathered at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta on Oct. 11 for the 31st Anniversary of the Million Man March and Holy Day of Atonement, ready to hear a message from the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, delivered by his National Assistant, Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad. The message was also available and viewed live via internet webcast.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, called one million Black men to gather on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., under the theme.

“Atonement, Reconciliation and Responsibility,” and on Oct. 16, 1995, nearly two million men answered the call. The Million Man March demonstrated a unity never previously seen among Black men.

Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad shared with the listening audience that the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan wanted the Million Man March to be held on October 7th, the birth anniversary of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, but the National Mall was unavailable that day.

“The next available date was the 16th, and the Minister said, ‘Well 1 and 6 is 7,’” Student Minister Ishmael said. “The Million Man March was in honor of this great Black man born from Georgia.”

Two Georgia sons

Student Minister Ishmael listed notable figures born in Atlanta and in Georgia, two of the most esteemed, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, and the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, born just 127 miles away in 1897 in Sandersville, Georgia.

“Dr. King and Elijah Muhammad—two Georgia-born brothers—met, and there you see in the picture Dr. King and Elijah Muhammad sitting together in a peaceful, loving, pleasant and engaged dialogue,”

Student Minister Ishmael, a son of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said. The two men met on February 24, 1966, at the home of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, and just two years later, Dr. King was assassinated.

“Elijah Muhammad on one side and Dr. King on the other shook Black America in the ’60s,” Student Minister Ishmael explained. “And what you and I don’t know is that the enemy never wants us to come together as brothers.

And the denial objective of the United States of America is that Black folks should never be allowed to unite. And that’s why whenever we come together, something happens that breaks us apart.”

He referenced Dr. King’s fear of integrating Black people into a burning house.

Work of a Saviour

Allah (God) in the Person of Master Fard Muhammad, The Great Mahdi and Founder of the Nation of Islam, taught the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and made him into a Saviour who opened the eyes of the blind, made the deaf to hear and made the dumb to speak.

With wisdom, knowledge and understanding from Master Fard Muhammad, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught Black people what foods to eat, what foods to store in their houses, the dietary law of one meal a day, the origin of the Caucasian people.

The origin of Black people and that there is life on Mars. Now, NASA has confirmed the presence of water on Mars and is getting closer to confirming the presence of life. “But who taught it first?” Student Minister Ishmael questioned.

Master Fard Muhammad pointed out to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad a “dreadful-looking plane in the sky,” called “The Wheel” or “Mother Plane” that carries 1,500 smaller wheels, or “baby planes.”

The U.S. government has now admitted the existence of the wheels, and the Pentagon has referred to The Wheel as a “mothership” with “smaller probes,” getting closer to the language the Honorable Elijah Muhammad used in the early 1930s.

Student Minister Ishmael described the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as a man who stands on truth and who will give his life if he is found false. “That’s a genuine, authentic man of God,” he said.

“And he has his chief helper and Minister standing on that same truth,” he continued, referring to the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. “The Minister hasn’t compromised one word from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad,” he added.

“You don’t have any leader that comes before you and asks for our support, and tells you, back me, follow me, and I will get you what you want. And if I don’t, you can take my life. Only two stood like that: Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan.”

The defamation campaign against a good man

The work of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan have made them targets of an enemy wishing to extinguish every avenue of light for Black people. Light is knowledge, Student Minister Ishmael explained, adding that the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan are the “light of the world.”

So, the labels came, along with negative media portrayals. “No Black or White leader’s image has been more marred than Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan,” Student Minister Ishmael said. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has been called a racist, an “anti-Semite,” and a hater of Jewish people.

He not only suffered a defamation campaign designed to destroy his image and popularity among Black people, but he was poisoned with more than 200 radiated seeds that burned his insides from treatment for prostate cancer.

Student Minister Ishmael said to those who have attempted to kill the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan: “You have failed, and you are enraged because every time you see Farrakhan, it looks like he’s reversing in age and looking more younger and more beautiful, because God wants to prove ‘He is my man!’”

“Still here at 93 years, and he will escape your death plot, like Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, escaped the death plot; like Jesus escaped the death plot; like Elijah Muhammad escaped your wicked scheme and death plot. You’re dealing with God, here!”

Student Minister Ishmael added. He warned: “You can’t play with this God. And what you plan for Farrakhan, plan for the Nation of Islam, plan for Black people and your genocidal plan to extinguish us chemically, biologically, now what you have planned for others, God is bringing it now on yourself.”

The condition of Black people

During his message, Student Minister Ishmael went in-depth on the condition of Black people in America, from the fighting and killing to the weed and vape pens laced with high traces of THC and other chemicals destroying the minds of Black youth.

THC is short for tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary psychoactive chemical compound found in the cannabis plant that causes a “high” or feeling of intoxication.

Student Minister Ishmael spoke to the psychological conditions of aggressiveness, violence, and unlawful behavior caused by the drugs on today’s market, the lack of self-esteem and self-worth, and the lack of real education for Black children.

He also explained how the present-day conditions arose from White people codifying their belief of White superiority and Black inferiority into laws and systems. Now, Student Minister Ishmael explained, Black people have adopted the same mindset and attitude, seeing one another as the White man sees them.

“If we saw each other as God would have us to see each other, then why in the hell are we disrespecting our women? Why in the hell are we abusing our women, raping our women, violating our women? Isn’t that what the slavemaster did to us?” he questioned.

“Look at how we quarrel and argue with one another. Look at the bloodshed. Look at the domestic violence. Look at what’s going on in the streets. There’s another mind operating in us. It’s a Satanic mind. A virus has come into our system,” he continued.

“Elijah Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan come to de-virus us and close all these windows and running apps that have slowed down your operating system and reboot us to our original default system the way we were operating before we were infected and contaminated.”

He added, “There can be no change in the condition of Black America or in America as a whole until the destruction of inferiority in one and superiority in the other.”

Atonement, Reconciliation and Responsibility The Million Man March represented such change.

“Thirty-one years ago, our brother, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, was chosen and anointed by God to call for a million men to present themselves in the nation’s capital.

The first time we went there to make a demand of ourselves. He presented this principle of atonement,” Student Minister Ishmael said. “Look at the words. At-one. We have to be ‘at one’ with each other and with God.”

Student Minister Ishmael expressed that when Master Fard Muhammad came, He did not just come with a list of instructions. He gave us a rule to live by. “He just said six words: ‘Accept your own and be yourself.’ Well, what is my own self? My own self is a righteous human being in submission to the Creator,” Student Minister Ishmael Muhammad said.

Student Minister Ishmael represented the eight steps of atonement established by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at the Million Man March: 1. Point out the wrong. 2. Acknowledge the wrong. 3. Confess the fault. 4. Repentance. 5. Atonement. 6. Forgiveness. 7. Reconciliation and restoration. 8. Perfect union with God.

“Atonement is to make amends, repair the damage, but we have to correct the wrong. That’s what atonement is,” Student Minister Ishmael said. “Atonement and reconciliation [are] actually the 5th and 7th step[s] of an 8-step process that brings us into perfect unity with God. Be at one. And every step that the Minister introduced 31 years ago cannot be skipped.”

Allah’s (God’s) Judgment

Before the Million Man March, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan had a More-Than-A-Vision-Like Experience on The Wheel on Sept. 17, 1985, when the Honorable Elijah Muhammad told him the U.S. president had met with his joint chiefs of staff to plan a war.

Minister Farrakhan later came to the realization that the war the Honorable Elijah Muhammad warned him of was a war on two fronts: one, a war on Islamic nations in the East; and two, a war on Black people in America, particularly Black youth, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.

Student Minister Ishmael echoed the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s warning to the U.S. government and to Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, concerning their actions in the Middle East.

Minister Farrakhan warned in his Saviours’ Day 2024 message, “What Does Allah, the Great Mahdi and the Great Messiah Have to Say About the War in the Middle East?”: “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” (your kingdom has been weighed in the balance; it has been numbered).

“That’s the handwriting on the wall. See, Jesus said you can discern what the weather is going to be like in the morning by looking in the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times,” Student Minister Ishmael said.

“Armageddon is on the horizon. The nations are angry, and God’s Wrath is come. And it is time for the day to be judged and time for those who have practiced wickedness and destruction on the planet to be destroyed.”

Student Minister Ishmael ended the message on the Judgment of Allah (God). God has come to punish the inhabitants of the Earth for their iniquities. “We’re out of balance.

We’re not in harmony with nature, and the balance of the universe has been disturbed, so nature is correcting itself,” Student Minister Ishmael said. “When you and I are in harmony with nature, God’s Law, His Will, then the forces of nature, everything in God’s creation works for you.”

He concluded the message by encouraging the listening audience to live a righteous life.

“Let’s come together. Let’s make our community a decent and safe place to live. Let us unite. Let us atone to God. Let us do right by each other. Let us love one another,” Student Minister Ishmael concluded. “We can do it. We have to do it.”

To view this message in its entirety, visit watch.noi.org. To order this message, see the back page of The Final Call.

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Nolan Wells’ parents, Christine and Elmore Wonsley, and their legal team held a press conference on Oct. 5 in Inglewood, California, on the renewed push for the investigation. The push follows a Mississippi grand jury decision not to indict anyone in connection with the death of the Black teen.

Nolan, 18, traveled from his hometown of Ocean Springs, Miss., to Horn Island with a group of people on July 4. In a widely circulated photograph, he was pictured aboard a boat with three young White men, who returned to the mainland without him. His body was discovered two days later off the shore of the island.

The state autopsy reported that no fluid or debris was found in Nolan’s airways, and his stomach was empty. The Mississippi State Medical Examiner and the family’s independent medical examiner, Dr. Roger Mitchell, documented contusions to the back of Nolan’s head. The cause and manner of Nolan’s death are undetermined.

“There is so much that screams out that we should not close this investigation, that we should keep asking questions. We should keep dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t’ because Nolan was Christine and Elmore’s son. But in many ways, he was all of our son,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, part of the family’s legal team, said at the press conference.

Congresswomen Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) are supporting the family’s call.

At the press conference, Atty. Crump read a letter from Rep. Wilson addressed to Jessica Bowron, the acting director of the National Park Service, requesting a “prompt and exhaustive investigation” into Nolan’s death.

Horn Island is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore and is administered by the National Park Service. Rep. Wilson urged Ms. Bowron to direct the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch to “examine every circumstance surrounding Nolan’s death and pursue every available lead.”

“Nolan Xavier Wells was a son whose life was precious and whose life mattered and whose future was full of promise. The loss of his life has left his family with a question they should not have to fight to have answered: ‘What happened to our son?’” her letter read. “Nolan cannot speak for himself.

Therefore, we have a duty, all of us, to ensure his death is met with the seriousness it deserves. Not only are we asking that you hear the pleas of Nolan’s mother and father and his family, but we’re asking that you hear the pleas of the Congressional Black Caucus as well as all of us all across America saying, ‘What really happened to Nolan Xavier Wells?’”

Cynthia Choi, executive director of Stop AAPI Hate, further demanded that the Justice Department conduct a full and thorough federal investigation.

“We stand with the Wells-Wonsley family for as long as it takes,” she said.

Nolan Wells’ parents have been fighting for answers about their son’s death for more than three months. Ms. Wonsley was recognized at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum’s 30th Anniversary Gala, where she received the organization’s “Voice of Courage Award.” Nolan was Black and, through his mother, was also of Filipino heritage.

“It has been 93 days. I want that to sink in. 93 days,” Ms. Wonsley said at the press conference.

“Our child went out with young men who he thought were his friends. Everyone made it home but Nolan. Two days later— two days later—he’s found dead. He’s found dead. No longer here to give us a hug, tell us he loves us, tell us corny jokes, put his cellphone in our face first thing in the morning.

We do not have that anymore. What we were left with were many, many inconsistent stories, as well as our local authorities early on telling us this is likely an accidental drowning,” she added. “Body has not even been processed and ME (medical examiner) has not done her job.

It’s just already the narrative is likely a possible drowning. That’s it. That’s all. Nothing to see here. Then the grand jury comes back and they say, ‘You know what? Consistent. It’s consistent with drowning, accidental drowning.’”

But she posed several questions: Why were there no photos taken of the back of Nolan’s head, why wasn’t a thorough investigation done and where is the physical evidence from the autopsies?

“Elmore and I, our family, our friends, the community, all of you, we cannot accept that. We cannot. So, it is our plea that his case is reopened, re-examined but also that the authorities do their job,” she said.

Nolan’s father, Elmore Wonsley, echoed the call.

“Our son was found on federal land, and we are asking the F.B.I. to step in and do a full investigation. We’re not asking for special treatment. We’re asking for what any father would do for his child, and that’s to find the truth of what happened to his child,” he said.

“My message to the F.B.I., please open this investigation and give our son the seriousness he deserves. To every parent listening, call your children today. Tell them you love them. Don’t wait.”

The post Nolan Wells’ family, CBC and Stop AAPI Hate renew calls for federal investigation appeared first on Final Call News.

In the times of Moses, Pharaoh saw the Children of Israel multiplying. So he said, “Come, let us deal wisely with them lest they multiply, join on to an enemy of ours and come against us.” What did Pharaoh mean, “let us deal wisely with them?”

Let us plan and carry out a masterful maneuver, scheme. What is the basis of the scheme? Kill the boy babies, spare the female. Is that the Bible? How many of you have read it? Then ask yourself, what is it there for?

Pharaoh killed the male children of the Children of Israel. Is there an assault on Black youth? Is there an assault on Black babies? Why is our infant mortality rate so high? In the city of Washington, our babies die in their first year more often than in Cuba, than in some countries in Africa that are considered backward.

They are giving our sisters pills. You don’t know the chemical nature of the pill. They are telling you, that when you get pregnant you have to have a Cesarean, frightening you because they are going to have to cut you up.

They will tell you your uterus is too small, so we have to operate. Then they cut you and charge you $10,000 to have a baby, giving you enough pain to frighten you away from ever having any more. Then they suggest to you that you should have your tubes tied.

Sometimes you go for an operation and when you are finished you find out they have taken out all of your reproductive organs. This is done so that you will not bring any more Black babies on the Earth, Brother and Sister.

But if you happen to escape the death plan at birth, then they have another plan for you almost the moment you come on the Earth. The leaders are not going to say this.

They know it, but they are too cowardly to stand against the wickedness of the government for the Salvation of our People? You may not like Farrakhan, but you will never be able to say that I hid the Truth and allowed you to go to your death not knowing.

Now when what I am about to tell you actually comes down, God will bring back to your remembrance what I have told you this day if you fail to act upon it before you are killed.

Herod had the same plan. Kill all the boy children. This is not just talking about little babies. It is talking about these young men ages 7 through 16. The plan is against you! Who is filling up the jails? Every jail in America is filled with who? Black men. Black young men. Hispanic young men. You already opted out of education.

Very few of you are going on to college. You don’t think education has much value. There is a reason for that. The young girls are going to college, getting an education, while your young male counterpart is standing on the corner, selling drugs, getting involved in criminal activity and being swept off the street into jail or into the Army.

They are telling you that you can “be all” that you can never be in the society, if you just join the Army, not because you are patriotic, but because you need a job, you need some money to take care of the babies that you are making. So they put you in the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Army, the Coast Guard. You are filling up the National Guard.

I want you to see that time has brought us, Beloved, to the point where the enemy has decided to destroy our youth. And what we saw in China [referring to the 1989 Tianamen Square Massacre, 1989 during a student led protest by the government] is mercy, because what you saw in China is to prepare you for what you soon are going to see in the streets of America.

Did you notice that [then] President Bush did not speak out forcibly against what went on in China?

Ask yourself, why didn’t the President speak out against it? The members of Congress had to nudge him to speak against what went on in China. Even though they were killing young leaders, 27 of them murdered already, shot in the back of their heads, President Bush had not spoken yet.

Do you know why? It is not because he was former Ambassador to China. It is because he knows what they have planned against you. And if he comes down hard on Deng Xiaping, he cannot justify what they are planning to do against you.

What you may not know, Beloved Brothers and Sisters, is that there is a remedy. Allah does not show us what the enemy is planning without giving us a way to overcome his plans. The fact that what is about to happen has not happened yet and someone among you sounds the alarm is God’s Mercy to you.

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After her third eviction notice, she went to court, where the landlord obtained a judgment against her. Ms. Hampton said she eventually paid the rent. But she was tired of the back-and-forth with the eviction court, she said, and decided to leave. She moved in with her brother in the suburbs.

Her children changed schools. Her commute to work grew longer.

For Black families, housing instability can continue long after overdue rent is paid. Court cases can disrupt schooling and employment, and records of those cases can make another landlord reluctant to rent to them.

Black renters face a disproportionate share of eviction cases. Capital B, a non-profit news organization serving Black communities, reported in September that Black residents make up about 52% of renters in the five-county metro Atlanta region but nearly 70% of eviction cases.

The outlet attributed those figures to Peter Hepburn, a Rutgers University sociologist and collaborator with Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, who spoke at a Sept. 10 meeting at the Atlanta History Center.

Black renters with household incomes above $80,000 are still at greater risk of eviction than White households earning $20,000, he said, according to Capital B. He cited discrimination, limited savings and fewer people to turn to for help. Income explains some of the disparity but not all of it, he said.

Not every eviction case ends with a family put out. It starts with a notice, a court filing, a judgment, and a removal; each is a separate step, and a case can stop at any of them. Ms. Hampton’s ended with a judgment and her decision to leave. Even a filing that goes no further can leave a court record that surfaces when a family applies for its next home.

Housing researchers call that lasting barrier the “Scarlet E.” Tenant screening companies collect court information and sell reports that landlords use to evaluate applicants. Mismatched names, outdated entries, or missing case outcomes can get an applicant rejected over a case that belonged to someone else or that the tenant won.

In a recent article, Emily Benfer, a George Washington University law professor and Eviction Lab research collaborator, described Randy Dillard Jr.’s saga. His New York City apartment applications were repeatedly rejected after screening systems confused him with his father, who shared the same name.

Years earlier, his father had faced an eviction filing after a dispute over serious housing defects. The younger Mr. Dillard was forced to move in with relatives.

Federal law offers some protection. Negative information such as an eviction generally cannot appear on a screening report after seven years, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bureau advises applicants to confirm the report identifies them correctly and shows how the case ended.

Court records and screening reports are separate, however. Access to court records depends on state and local rules, and sealing a case may require a tenant to take additional steps.

Research documents what housing instability can mean for children. A 2025 working paper by economist Robert Collinson and five co-authors, released through the Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies, examined eviction’s effects in Chicago and New York.

Using Chicago’s Cook County court records linked to the 2010 census, the researchers found that 53 to 56% of households facing eviction had children. About 45% of children facing eviction in that county lived in households headed by single mothers.

The researchers found that eviction increased residential moves and homelessness and disrupted school engagement, with more absences and school changes. They also found lower high school graduation rates, although little effect on elementary and middle school test scores.

A separate Eviction Lab analysis of Houston Independent School District records from 2002 to 2016 found that 12.3 percent of students whose parents faced eviction filings finished the academic year at a different school, almost three times the rate among students whose parents did not.

Compared with students who moved for other reasons, those who moved after an eviction landed in schools with more low-income students, higher turnover, and lower test scores.

Even the fear of losing a home is linked to how children fare. A 2025 study in JAMA Network Open by University of Pittsburgh researcher Jamie Hanson associated caregivers’ stress about eviction or housing loss with higher odds of depression in children.

Some jurisdictions are limiting the lasting damage of eviction records. In the District of Columbia, a law that took effect in 2022 requires the Superior Court to seal eviction case records 30 days after a case is resolved if the landlord does not win a judgment for possession, and three years after it is resolved if the landlord does.

Kansas enacted Substitute for House Bill 2357 in April, creating a way for tenants to ask a court, at no cost, to expunge an eviction judgment. A tenant must wait three years after the judgment and show that they have paid any money owed to the landlord under it. A new eviction judgment during those three years delays expungement of the earlier one until the newer one also qualifies.

The Kansas law also directs courts to consider mediation in eviction cases unless it would not help the parties or is impracticable.

Ms. Benfer’s analysis with The Eviction Lab calls for earlier record sealing and stronger accountability for screening companies. Those steps address the barriers families meet when applying for another home. Help with overdue rent and access to a lawyer can help tenants resolve a case before displacement.

Paying late did not keep Ms. Hampton’s household in Washington. Worn down by the court, she gave up the apartment, and the move cost her children their schools and lengthened her commute. “Eviction was the last thing I thought I would have to contend with,” she said.

The post Blacks face a disproportionate share of eviction cases appeared first on Final Call News.

This article was originally published by the Defender—Childrens Health Defense News & Views Website, October 2, 2026.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Oct. 1 sued Pfizer and its CEO, Albert Bourla, alleging that the drugmaker misled the public by marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as safe and effective while not disclosing the vaccine’s potential risks to pregnant women, children and teenagers.

The 49-page lawsuit alleges Pfizer violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act by deceptively marketing its vaccine to the public in turn for making billions of dollars in profit.

According to the complaint, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine marketing campaign focused on two principal themes: that the shot “posed no material safety risks” and that “mass vaccination was necessary to stop the transmission of COVID-19”— even though Pfizer never tested the vaccine’s ability to stop the virus from spreading.

Pfizer possessed extensive evidence that its vaccine caused serious adverse events— including 1,223 reported deaths following vaccination as of February 2021 and 52 miscarriages among vaccinated pregnant women. However, the company assured the public the vaccine was safe.

“Today we sued Pfizer for deceptively marketing the products as safe—making billions—while pregnant women were miscarrying their babies and teenagers were having heart attacks,” Uthmeier said in a statement.

Florida AG says state has track record of success with similar lawsuits

In a statement, Pfizer said the allegations are baseless, and that the “representations made by Pfizer about its COVID-19 vaccine have been accurate and science-based” and that it “stands behind the safety and efficacy” of the product.

But Forrest B. Saunders, communications director for Uthmeier’s office, told The Defender “the complaint and comments by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier speak for themselves.”

Saunders said Florida has a track record of success with such lawsuits, having “recovered millions for Floridians through consumer protection efforts.”

Naomi Wolf, CEO of Daily Clout and  author of “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity,” helped release documents in 2023 and 2024 revealing serious adverse events among pregnant women and irreversible harms to reproductive health. She called the lawsuit “a glimmer of potential justice long overdue.”

Florida resident Haley Schwartz, who was seriously injured following her COVID-19 vaccination in 2021, also welcomed the suit. She said injuries caused by the vaccine “have received inadequate attention” for years.

“Finally seeing these issues examined through a formal legal process feels significant and creates an important opportunity for greater scrutiny, transparency, and accountability regarding what was communicated to the public,” Schwartz said.

The lawsuit seeks civil penalties of $10,000 for each violation of the state’s consumer protection law—and $15,000 for each violation involving an elderly or disabled person.

Florida seeks to force Pfizer to return some of its profits and is asking for a permanent injunction against further deceptive practices.

Pfizer’s deceptive marketing sought to ‘ensure windfall profits’

According to the complaint, Pfizer engaged in a deceptive and “wide-ranging marketing campaign” to “drive consumer demand” for its COVID-19 vaccine, overcome widespread public skepticism and “ensure windfall profits.”

“This emphasis on the purported safety of the vaccine directly responded to widespread public concerns about a pharmaceutical product that had been developed on an unusually accelerated timeline, with uniquely limited testing and oversight, and employing novel mRNA technology,” the complaint states.

Pfizer’s campaign included public statements by Bourla claiming the COVID-19 vaccine was safe. The complaint cites a January 2023 interview in which Bourla claimed that Pfizer had not detected “a single [safety] signal” linked to the vaccine.

The complaint suggests public skepticism was warranted: “Pfizer knew that data showed its COVID-19 vaccine was connected to myocarditis and pericarditis among minors; had reason to believe its COVID-19 vaccine would cause adverse events for pregnant women and their unborn babies in the first trimester, including miscarriage [and] thousands of reports of other adverse events including stroke and even death, especially among the elderly.”

By Feb. 28, 2021, Pfizer’s internal adverse event database already contained 158,893 adverse event reports and reports of 1,223 deaths linked to its COVID-19 shot, according to the complaint.

Pfizer by then also “possessed reports for 458 pregnant women exposed to its COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy”—over half of whom sustained at least one adverse event. Of 52 miscarriages, most occurred during the first trimester, “many within days of vaccination.”

Pfizer ended its COVID-19 vaccine trial involving pregnant women early, due to low participation, particularly among women in the early stages of pregnancy. But the drugmaker didn’t disclose “material facts already in its possession showing the risks associated with its COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy.”

Pfizer official admitted vaccine not tested for stopping transmission

Pfizer promoted its COVID-19 vaccine as a means of “protecting … loved ones” through a “wide-ranging marketing campaign” which suggested that the vaccine would stop the spread of COVID-19, the suit alleges.

But Janine Small, Pfizer’s president of international developed markets, said the vaccine was not tested on stopping the virus, according to a 2021 statement cited in the lawsuit.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph. D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said the “assurances of safety the company gave required knowledge Pfizer simply did not have.”

He cited a February 2021 Pfizer “nonclinical overview” document listing an extensive range of safety studies Pfizer did not conduct.

“Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may actually have been the least-studied approved product it has made this century,” Jablonowski said. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/florida-ag-james-uthmeier-lawsuit-pfizer-albert-bourla-deceptive-marketing-covid-vaccines/ The lawsuit alleges that Pfizer’s misleading marketing claims translated into a financial windfall for Pfizer and Bourla. Between 2020 and 2023, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine revenue exceeded $80 billion, and Bourla received nearly $102 million in compensation.

Legal liability shield may not protect Pfizer in Florida lawsuit

COVID-19 countermeasures, including vaccines, are protected by a legal liability shield under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) of 2005.

Attorney Ray Flores, CHD’s senior outside counsel, said these protections may not extend to state-level consumer protection cases.

“All states have consumer protection statutes that normally would allow individual consumers to bring suit for fraudulent practices. Under the PREP Act, however, only states have the potential for successful suits,” Flores said.

Kansas and Texas have active lawsuits against Pfizer in the 10th and 5th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, respectively. The suits make similar claims to Florida’s— namely, that Pfizer violated state consumer protection laws by marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as safe and effective.

“All three cases are remarkably similar, as they are brought under parens patriae,” a legal principle that allows states to file lawsuits to protect state residents, Flores said.

However, he said Florida’s lawsuit may face obstacles, as Pfizer may seek to move the case from state to federal court “to invoke PREP Act protection”—similar to what the company did in the Kansas and Texas lawsuits.

Flores said other states may be waiting on the sidelines for the outcomes of the Texas and Kansas cases. “I wish more attorneys general would take such legal action,” Flores said. “There was a rumor back in 2024 that Utah, Mississippi and Louisiana were also suing Pfizer. It sounded good, and got lots of press, but it was never true.”

Flores also said he would like to see state attorneys general pressure U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “flex his muscles” by ending the PREP Act’s liability shield for COVID-19 vaccines. Bourla defended the liability shield for vaccine makers in an interview last year.

This article was originally published by the Defender—Childrens Health Defense News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BYNCND 4.0.

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When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ordered 6,000 pairs of shock gloves this summer, the agency knew that they could cause such “intense pain” that victims stopped fighting immediately and became fearful of more shocks.

That’s according to The Associated Press, which on Oct. 6 revealed the existence of a U.S. Army study on the gloves. ICE put in a $17 million order for the product, known as the Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter (GLOVE), in August.

In October 2024, the GLOVE was tested on Army employees at the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to see if it could be incorporated into their practices to move noncompliant prisoners between cells.

According to the AP: “The shocks had a profound impact on Army employees who played the role of combative prisoners during the exercise… The participants, several of whom were large-statured men, stopped resisting seconds after officers applied shocks by touching gloves to their skin, and were left with “fatigue, soreness and excessive apprehensiveness to being shocked again,” the study found.

After experiencing the effects of the GLOVE,… [“]participants stated just seeing the GLOVE was enough to make them want to comply,” the authors wrote.

The report later noted that unlike a taser, which is designed to cause the body of a noncompliant person to freeze, the GLOVE is meant to elicit pain. It “works by overloading the peripheral nerve endings,” the study said. It also noted that participants with water or oil on their skin experienced more severe shocks and that one was left in pain for 30 minutes afterward.

The full report has not yet been released to the public; however, a four-page memo from the Department of the Army’s Office of the Project Manager for Close Combat Systems summarizing its findings can be found on the website of the GLOVE’s manufacturer, Compliant Technologies.

ICE has described the shock gloves as a tool to “de-escalate” conflicts in the street with targets of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign, as well as protesters against the policy—it has said the gloves would be used to subdue those “actively or passively resisting” agents’ commands.

In the wake of several fatal shootings by agents that lacked clear justification, the agency has described the gloves as a “low-impact tool” that will allow agents to avoid escalating to more extreme uses of force.

When politicians have called to restrict access to the gloves, ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), accused them of trying to deprive federal officers of “safety equipment.”

The user manual of the GLOVE notes that the “pain stimulus” it delivers can produce psychological changes associated with sudden death, including increased blood pressure, heart rate, and adrenaline, as well as changes in blood chemistry and heart rhythm. It also notes that those shocked with the gloves could face serious injuries from falling after suddenly losing control of their extremities.

The manual recommends that the gloves not be used against older people, small children, people who are pregnant, and people with certain disabilities.

As Reagan Williams, a researcher at Human Rights Watch’s Crisis, Conflict and Arms Division, noted in August, agency operations have regularly targeted these groups.

“Electric shock devices have long been abusively deployed around the globe, including as a method of torture and other ill-treatment. Given these risks, the European Union has implemented trade restrictions on these devices,” Williams said.

“The scale of this technology’s potential harm in the hands of ICE, an abusive agency whose recruits are deployed with minimal training, could be considerable.”

Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, which provided the report to the AP, noted that while the Army report concluded the gloves were effective, it said little about their safety.

“The military assessment in ICE’s own files shows that these gloves can cause ‘intense pain’ and force compliance. It does not establish that they are safe,” Chukwu said. “Everyone should be alarmed that ICE is preparing to deploy a tool designed to inflict, at best, intense pain, without showing that it is safe for the people who will be subjected to it.”

While tasers can leave severe burns and welts on subjects, the shock gloves being adopted by ICE can deliver a painful shock without leaving a mark, making it much harder to prove their use. For law enforcement agencies, this is one of their most alluring features.

“I highly recommend these gloves to anybody that’s looking for a utility they can use that is conducive to not leading to lawsuits,” said Bob Couey, chief deputy of the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia, in a promotional video posted by Compliant Technologies in 2024 and resurfaced in August by Mother Jones.

Even a former ICE acting director, John Sandweg, has warned that because the gloves are so easy to use, agents might feel compelled to deploy them haphazardly.

“It’s too easy for this to get misused, against a population that doesn’t pose a threat,” Sandweg, who led the agency for about six months during the Obama administration, told MS NOW in August.

The gloves have drawn substantial criticism from Democratic members of Congress. In late August, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) led a group of 49 members of the U.S. House of Representatives to demand the contract be canceled.

“Introducing low-visibility electric shock weapons into our immigration enforcement system is an unacceptable escalation that prioritizes physical intimidation and unaccountable force over human safety and administrative accountability,” they said in a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

ICE, meanwhile, has been less than forthcoming about what guardrails will govern the use of the shock gloves. In late August, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and 15 other Democratic senators asked the agency to answer questions about how the gloves will be used, who they’ll be used against, and whether it has conducted safety evaluations.

Cortez Masto told the AP that over a month later, the agency has not answered her and her colleagues’ questions.

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