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Freed Palestinians met by cheering crowds in Gaza

admin - Latest News - October 13, 2025
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A group of buses carrying freed Palestinians who were imprisoned by Israel arrived in southern Gaza today to crowds of people awaiting them. Hamas pledged to release the Israeli hostages by today in exchange for 250 prisoners serving life sentences and more than 1,700 Palestinians detained after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.



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Savewith a NBCUniversal ProfileCreate your free profile or log in to save this articleOct. 13, 2025, 2:00 PM EDTBy Sahil Kapur and Gabrielle KhoriatyWASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., slammed the expiring Obamacare subsidies at the center of the government funding standoff as a “boondoggle” as the shutdown approaches the two-week mark with no end in sight.“The Covid-era Obamacare subsidy that they’re all talking about that’s supposedly the issue of the day doesn’t expire until the end of December. And by the way, it is the Democrats who created that subsidy, who put the expiration date on it,” he told reporters at a press conference Monday, the 13th day of the shutdown.“They put an end date on it because they knew it was supposed to be related to Covid, and it’s become a boondoggle,” Johnson added. “When you subsidize the health care system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices increase.”Johnson’s comments escalate the battle one day before the Senate is slated to return to Washington, albeit with no clear path to end the shutdown. It will test the patience and resolve of both parties as federal employees — including members of law enforcement, air traffic controllers and TSA staff — are slated to miss paychecks Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has maintained that Democrats won’t relent and support a short-term GOP funding bill through Nov. 21 unless it includes their priorities, most notably an extension of the health care funds. The money in question, first passed in 2021, limits premiums of a benchmark insurance plan to 8.5% of the buyer’s income.“Speaker Johnson chose vacation over fixing this healthcare crisis,” Schumer recently wrote on X. “In his own state, 85,000 Louisianans will lose their health insurance and thousands will see their premiums skyrocket. But he’s keeping the government shut down instead of fixing this.”Johnson has kept the Republican-led House out of session since Sept. 19, and he is continuing the recess through this week, drawing heavy criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans who say they want to return to work.The speaker said Monday that at a minimum, “If indeed the subsidy is going to be continued, it needs real reform. But there’s a lot of ideas on the table to do that.”He didn’t get specific, but Republicans have discussed a range of ideas such as an income cap for eligibility, a requirement that every Obamacare enrollee pays something into the system, a phaseout after two or three years and stricter abortion limits.Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., the author of a bill to extend the Obamacare, or Affordable Care Act, funds permanently, said she’s open to a negotiation on the details.“There are a number of changes that can be made to the program to address some of the concerns,” she said. “One of the things, though, I think we need to be very thoughtful about is where you start to make changes that show a dramatic drop-off in numbers of people who are helped. And that needs to be a longer discussion that people need to really look at some data and get the information before making decisions about that.”But Shaheen flatly ruled out stricter abortion restrictions, saying existing law already blocks Obamacare funding for abortion — despite some conservatives wanting to make it more stringent.“That’s a nonstarter,” she said. “It’s not an issue. We already dealt with that issue.”Shaheen, a longtime critic of shutdowns who is standing with Schumer in opposition to the GOP bill, said it’s not viable to wait until the end of the year to act on the Obamacare funding, as insurers are setting rates for 2026 now.“People are getting their premium increases right now, and it’s one more thing on top of the cost of food and electricity and rent and child care and all the other expenses that people are incurring,” she told NBC News.Republicans control the Senate by a margin of 53-47, but they need 60 votes to break a filibuster and pass a funding bill. They are currently five Democratic votes short, and have seen no movement since the shutdown began Oct. 1.In response to Republicans branding it the “Schumer shutdown,” the Democratic leader replied, “Republicans control the Senate, the House, and the White House.”Implied in Schumer’s comments is that Republicans can abolish the 60-vote threshold in order to reopen the government if they refuse to negotiate to get Democratic votes. But GOP party leaders are deeply reluctant to use the “nuclear option” on the legislative filibuster, as that would permanently change the Senate and set a precedent conservatives fear they’ll regret when Democrats return to power.“The super-majority requirement is something that makes the Senate the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Friday. “And honestly, if we had done that, there’s a whole lot of bad things that could have been done by the other side.”“If the Democrats had won the majority, they probably would have tried to nuke the filibuster, and then you’d have four new United States senators from Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. You’d have a packed Supreme Court,” Thune said. “You’d have abortion on demand.”Johnson also weighed in on growing calls on the right to repeal Obamacare, a long-standing goal of conservatives, and said in a lengthy answer to NBC News that “Obamacare failed the American people” and that the system needs “dramatic reform.”“Can we completely repeal and replace Obamacare? Many of us are skeptical about that now, because the roots are so deep. It was really sinister, the way, in my view, the way it was created,” he said Monday. “I believe Obamacare was created to implode upon itself, to collapse upon itself.”His response came one day after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., posted on X: “House Republicans are now scheming to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And take away healthcare from tens of millions of Americans. How did that work out for the extremists the last time they tried it?”Sahil KapurSahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.Gabrielle KhoriatyGabrielle Khoriaty is a desk assistant in the NBC News Washington bureau.Frank Thorp V contributed.
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Oct. 2, 2025, 6:10 PM EDTBy Chloe MelasWhen Harvey Weinstein, Luigi Mangione and NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere faced hard time, among the first people they called was Craig Rothfeld.Rothfeld is the founder and owner of Inside Outside Ltd., a company that helps clients, including the aforementioned three, navigate the unnerving world of life behind bars.With only about a half-dozen prison consulting firms in the United States, Rothfeld is part of a little-known niche industry spawned around the criminal justice system that caters to big-name and no-name clients, all with the same goal.“I’m advocating for their human rights,” Rothfeld said.Rothfeld said he knows firsthand the misery and anguish prisoners experience because he was once incarcerated himself. He served 18 months after he was indicted for various financial crimes and was released in 2017.He said he started his company later that year to help others get through the challenges he faced. “Somebody needs a CPAP machine. They can’t breathe or sleep without it. How do I arrange for that CPAP machine to be able to be brought into either a federal prison or a state prison with them?” Rothfeld said. Luigi Mangione at his arraignment at Manhattan criminal court on Dec. 23.Curtis Means / Pool via Getty ImagesWhen someone hires him, Rothfeld gives the person a list of do’s and don’ts based on the 40 questions clients most often ask him, he said. “Never sit on somebody else’s bed. … Do not go into their cell unless you’re invited. You do not join a conversation that you’re not a part of,” he said. Rothfeld, whom Weinstein granted permission to talk about his experience behind bars, said Weinstein’s first questions before he was locked up were the same as those of other, nonfamous clients. “How am I going to talk to my family? Where am I going? And where do you think I’m going, and how are we going to deal with all of my medical conditions and medical needs?” Rothfeld said.Weinstein, who has chronic myeloid leukemia, or bone marrow cancer, is serving time at Rikers Island in New York City as he awaits sentencing stemming from a sexual assault conviction in June.One of his attorneys, Jennifer Bonjean, said prison consultants are important advocates for people entering the system. “As lawyers, we depend heavily on them to help our clients adjust to prison in all manner of ways, whether it’s to help resolve a medical concern, assist with a disciplinary issue or to advocate for a placement in a facility,” Bonjean said this week.Craig Rothfeld.NBC NewsArthur Aidala, Weinstein’s longtime criminal defense attorney, said he refers clients to Rothfeld because the “fear of the unknown” is overwhelming.”Preparing to enter prison, and then crossing that threshold, is an experience whose horror is truly indescribable,” Aidala said this week. “For most people, it feels insurmountable.”In the case of Raniere, who was sentenced to 120 years in federal prison in 2019 on sex trafficking and child pornography charges, Rothfeld’s first task was to get him out of solitary confinement, he said. Raniere was confined to solitary in 2022 after he was allegedly assaulted by another inmate.“If you spent 280 days in the SHU [Special Housing Unit] with no explanation whatsoever and you have feces on the floor and the walls, yeah, your human rights are being violated,” he said.One of Raniere’s attorneys, Ronald Sullivan, said navigating the federal Bureau of Prisons requires knowledge of a “byzantine set of regulations, the understanding of which can make a tangible difference in time served.”He said that regulations change frequently and that relationships with prison officials often determine how quickly or slowly requests are granted.Rothfeld said conditions at Rikers Island and the Metropolitan Detention Center in New York City are “deplorable.” “Some days you have cold water, and that’s it. Sometimes you don’t get to shower for the week,” he said. “The food is inedible. Quite often, there’s leaks coming from the ceiling. There’s broken lights in cells, there’s mice, there’s cockroaches. It is completely inhumane.”Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in court for his retrial as the jury deliberates at Manhattan Criminal Court on June 10 in New York.Michael Nagle / Getty Images fileOfficials at Rikers Island, a jail that is operated by the city of New York, did not respond to a request for comment.The federal Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, said that it makes every effort to ensure inmates’ physical safety and health and that their treatment is humane. It also said the detention center provides nutritionally adequate meals.Rothfeld said he charges a flat fee for his services but would not provide specifics. He said celebrity clients account for only about 2% of his business. “I don’t cost what an attorney costs. I don’t cost six figures. I don’t cost what a brand-new, fancy sport car costs,” he said. “I work with families to meet them where they’re at.”It is not publicly known whether Sean “Diddy” Combs, the former music mogul who is scheduled to be sentenced Friday, has hired a prison consultant. Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 11 years and three months in federal prison after he was found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Combs has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center for over a year. Rothfeld said Combs can expect better conditions in a federal prison than at the detention center.“He’ll be able to go outside,” he said. “There’ll be a yard of access to fresh air. He’ll be able to work out if he wants to work out. The second thing is the nature of his living quarters. In all probability, he will be in a dorm-like setting. Anything is nicer or better, relatively speaking, than the MDC.”Rothfeld speaks alongside Diana Fabi Samson and John Esposito, attorneys for Harvey Weinstein, outside Queens criminal court in New York last year. Julia Nikhinson / APRothfeld said he encourages his clients to become voracious readers. “I always recommend that people read fantasy,” he said. “Speaking from personal experience, I read ‘Game of Thrones’ when I was in prison, and it got me outside of where I was.”For the victims of the crimes his clients have committed, Rothfeld said he is not an arbiter of morality. “It’s not my job to judge; it’s not my job to argue. It’s my job to advocate. And as I tell people, the punishment is prison,” he said. “I believe, no matter who you are, famous or not — most of my clients no one’s ever heard of — you should have humane living conditions. Your civil rights should be honored when you’re incarcerated.”Chloe MelasChloe Melas is an entertainment correspondent for NBC News. Emily Lorsch contributed.
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