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A Palestinian toddler was returned from a 10-hour detention by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip with apparent cigarette burns on his thighs, according to medical reports.

Jawad Abu Nassar, aged 21 months, was detained alongside his father, Osama Abu Nassar, 25, in central Gaza on 19 March.

According to the family, Osama had taken his son out at around 10am to buy sweets ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

Osama - who had been grappling with severe trauma after losing his home, his unborn child, and his livelihood during the war - never returned.

“When he left, he seemed to head east instead of west,” Osama’s father, Muhammed Husni Abu Nassar, told Middle East Eye.

“Neighbours called me and said, ‘Hurry, your son is carrying his child on his shoulders and going east.’”

Around 200 metres from the family home in Maghazi refugee camp, Israeli forces are stationed along the so-called “Yellow Line”, a military demarcation established under the Gaza ceasefire that marks the boundary of Israeli control and a no-go zone where civilians risk being shot.

When Muhammed rushed to follow his son, neighbours told him that Osama had already reached the area.

Osama, whose home had been destroyed in an Israeli bombardment, had been living with his wife and their only child in his family’s house. In recent months, his wife had become pregnant but lost the baby amid the hardships of the war.

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The Pentagon has ordered elements of the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division to deploy to the Middle East, significantly expanding US forces in the region as President Donald Trump weighs both diplomatic and military options toward Iran.

According to US officials, The New York Times (NYT) and Financial Times (FT), around 2,000-3,000 troops from the division’s Immediate Response Force – capable of deploying globally within 18 hours – have been directed to move.

As per the FT, the dispatch of elite paratroopers along with two Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs), will add roughly 10,000 troops to the 50,000 already stationed in the region.

The USS Tripoli, carrying about 2,200 members of the 31st MEU, is expected to arrive in the Middle East by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, with an additional 4,500 troops – including 2,200 Marines from the 11th MEU – is expected to arrive in three to four weeks, FT’s report adds.

The move marks a significant escalation and brings US forces closer to readiness for a potential ground operation. Analysts cited by the FT noted that the presence of both airborne troops and Marine Expeditionary Units suggests preparations for scenarios beyond airstrikes.

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The New Civil Liberties Alliance, on behalf of its clients Jill Hines and Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, has reached a settlement agreement and Consent Decree concluding the landmark Missouri v. Biden lawsuit against government-induced social media censorship.

This is the same case that previously went to the U.S. Supreme Court as Murthy v. Missouri when the Biden Administration appealed a Preliminary Injunction that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit awarded NCLA’s clients. The Consent Decree awaits final court approval by Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, along with the attorneys’ fees.

The unprecedented settlement prohibits the U.S. Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) from threatening social media companies into removing or suppressing constitutionally protected speech on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn and YouTube.

It also bars these government authorities from directing or vetoing the companies’ social media content moderation choices. Representing individual plaintiffs in this lawsuit who were censored on social media as part of the Biden Administration’s “whole of government” effort to oppose speech it disliked, NCLA celebrates this milestone victory for First Amendment free speech rights.https://nclalegal.org/press_release/ncla-reaches-historic-settlement-strikes-major-blow-against-governments-social-media-censorship/

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A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to return a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) to the US, ruling that her deportation to Mexico last month was a “flagrant violation” of the legal protections afforded to immigrants who arrived in the country as children.

Judge Dena Coggins said in her Monday ruling the administration must return Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Daca recipient, to the US within seven days. She was arrested on 18 February in Sacramento during her green-card appointment, and was deported to Mexico the next day.

“Less than 24 hours after the petitioner’s good-faith appearance to pursue lawful permanent resident status in this country”, Coggins wrote, “she was removed to a nation where she had not lived in over 27 years, pursuant to an order purportedly entered against her when she was 15 years old.”

Estrada Juarez said in a statement that she was “overwhelmed with relief and hope after learning about the court’s decision”.

She said: “Being separated from my daughter and my home has been incredibly painful. I followed the rules and trusted the process, and I just want to return to my family and rebuild my life. This decision gives me hope that I will be able to come home soon.”

Her daughter, Damaris Bello, said the “past weeks without my mom have been devastating. Nothing has felt the same without her. We are so grateful that the court recognized what was done to her was wrong.”

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The US has launched another strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, killing four people, the US Southern Command said.

The command, which oversees combatant operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced on X that it had conducted a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations”.

Wednesday’s strikes brings the total number of deaths to at least 163 people since the defense department began attacking alleged “narco-terrorists” last September in more than 45 strikes.

Without including evidence, the US Southern Command said that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

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The Justice Department has settled for roughly $1.2 million a lawsuit from Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Donald Trump who pleaded guilty during the Republican’s first term to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a top Russian diplomat and was later pardoned.

Court papers filed Wednesday do not reveal the settlement amount, but a person familiar with the matter, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose nonpublic information, confirmed the total as about $1.2 million.

The settlement resolves a 2023 lawsuit in which Flynn sought at least $50 million and asserted that the criminal case against him amounted to a malicious prosecution. It also represents a stark turnabout in position for a Justice Department that during the Biden administration had pressed a judge to dismiss Flynn’s complaint.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, a former personal lawyer for the president, has been a vocal critic of the Russia investigation in which Flynn was charged, and the Justice Department in the last year has launched investigations into former officials who participated in that inquiry.

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Jeff Webb, a cheerleading pioneer and mentor to the late Charlie Kirk, died at 76 after a “tragic accident,” according to his family.

Webb was the founder of Varsity Spirit and helped turn cheerleading into a sport recognized by the International Olympic Committee, according to The Associated Press.

A family spokesperson said Webb died after a “tragic accident,” and the family declined to share more details.

People reports that Webb suffered a fall while playing pickleball two weeks before his death. He reportedly sustained a severe head injury and the family later decided to remove him from life support.

Webb started the Universal Cheerleaders Association in 1974 and developed camps, new uniforms and the first national competition.

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A California jury on Wednesday found that Meta and Google were to blame for the depression and anxiety of a woman who compulsively used social media as a small child, awarding her $6 million in a rare verdict holding Silicon Valley accountable for its role in fueling a youth mental health crisis.

The jurors concluded that Meta and Google should pay the woman $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $3 million in punitive damages, with Meta on the hook for 70% of that amount.

While the financial punishment is miniscule for companies each worth trillions of dollars, the decision is still consequential. It represents the first time a jury has found that social media apps should be treated as defective products for being engineered to exploit the developing brains of kids and teenagers.

The verdict validated the plaintiff's lawyers' approach of shifting the legal target; instead of focusing on the content people see on social media, the case put the spotlight on how social media services were designed. Meta's apps, including Instagram, and Google's YouTube, the jury concluded, were deliberately built to be addictive and the companies' executives knew this and failed to protect their youngest users.

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