Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America. Please take a moment to click the ❤️ and restack this post. The oligarchs’ platforms are trying to keep stories like the ones below from hitting your feeds, and this helps us break through.
The family of a 23-year-old man killed by a tiger is begging Trump to stop posting footage of his death on social media. The Trump administration is investigating Rep. Ilhan Omar in an effort to revoke her citizenship and deport her. A new lawsuit alleges that Jared Kushner is illegally serving as a top U.S. diplomat while running a $6 billion investment firm funded almost entirely by foreign governments. And Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy featured a registered sex offender in a campaign ad.
Before we get started, the billionaires are squeezing independent media and we need your help. Our stories are being suppressed on Facebook, where many of you first discovered us, after we called out Mark Zuckerberg for being a Trump lackey. Elon Musk, the GOP’s top donor, is also censoring AlterNet America’s stories on his social media platform. We’re clearly getting under their skin, but we can’t keep this work going without you.
By subscribing, you ensure these stories go directly to your inbox, where they can’t reach, and your voice becomes one more the billionaires can’t silence. You’re also keeping this publication free for the people who can’t afford a subscription. Become a paying member today.
Family of Man Killed by Tiger Begs Trump to Stop Posting Footage
The tiger showed more restraint than the president.
The family of a 23-year-old man killed by a tiger at a British wildlife park is begging Trump to stop posting about the attack after he shared footage on Truth Social. Trump has refused their request, instead posting AI-generated videos of himself in the victim’s place.
William Chapman entered the Siberian tiger enclosure at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster, England Saturday afternoon. Visitors said they saw him wearing headphones and pacing along a walkway above the enclosure before he climbed over a wall and fell about 12 feet into the pen. A nearby mother tried to pull him back, but he overpowered her.
Chapman filmed himself approaching the tiger as it sat on a wooden platform. Witnesses said he appeared to bow and pray to the animal before the tiger bit him in the back of the neck and dragged him away.
Trump reposted the video of the attack with the caption “Don’t ever mess with nature!” He then shared an AI-generated video depicting himself defeating the tiger while “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays in the background.
Chapman’s family described him as a “bright, warm and engaging young man” who had been dealing with “significant mental illness over a number of years.” They called the president’s posts “deeply offensive” and said they were causing “severe distress at an exceptionally vulnerable time.”
Trump Administration Investigating Ilhan Omar to Revoke Her Citizenship
He can’t put her in jail, so he’s settling for Somalia.
The Trump administration is investigating Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota in an effort to revoke her citizenship, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The inquiry is focused on whether Omar or her late father changed her age on immigration paperwork when she arrived as a refugee from Somalia in 1995.
Federal agents raided Omar’s home Monday, seizing her passport, phone, personal computers, and notebooks. The Department of Homeland Security said it was part of an ongoing federal investigation. Trump told reporters he had “nothing to do” with the search.
Investigators have issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including to some of Omar’s relatives, seeking grand jury testimony. Omar’s father, who would have been the one to fill out the paperwork, died in 2020.
The longstanding policy of the Justice Department is not to take any investigative action within 60 days of an election. The raid came three weeks before Omar, who is seeking a fifth term in Congress, faces reelection in the Nov. 3 midterms.
Jared Kushner Sued For Illegally Serving as a U.S. Diplomat
Every family has that son-in-law who won’t get a real job.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a 45-page lawsuit Wednesday claiming Jared Kushner is violating the Constitution by serving as a top diplomat without Senate confirmation. The lawsuit also alleges that he has evaded federal ethics laws requiring government officials to disclose their finances.
Kushner leads an investment firm called Affinity with more than $6 billion in assets under management. Roughly 99 percent of those assets are owned by foreign investors, including the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Kushner’s firm has a “global” investment strategy that considers “geopolitical risks,” meaning the conflicts he’s negotiating could also have direct consequences for his own investments. The scope of his diplomatic work remains unclear because he has not filed any of the financial disclosures that would normally be required of someone in his position.
Trump announced in February that Kushner would serve as an “envoy” of peace in three international armed conflicts. CREW is asking a court to prevent Kushner from serving in a diplomatic role until he is confirmed by the Senate, and to require him to file the financial disclosures that federal law demands.
Vivek Ramaswamy Featured a Registered Sex Offender in a Campaign Ad
The whole point of the sex offender registry is that anyone can check it.
Republican Ohio governor candidate Vivek Ramaswamy included a registered sex offender in a social media video and a television campaign advertisement. Vernon Edwards of Amherst appeared on camera with Ramaswamy in September and again in a TV spot that began airing in October, The Bulwark reported.
Edwards pleaded guilty in 2006 to gross sexual imposition, which under Ohio law involves sexual contact with a minor. He was convicted in a case involving a 13-year-old girl, although he was also accused of similar crimes involving his nieces, and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Edwards doesn’t speak in the television ad but is seen in the background while his wife, Patty, discusses how Ramaswamy helped lower her property taxes. Patty told the outlet that the charges against her husband were “false,” and that he had “done his time” and been “an exemplary citizen” since.
Ramaswamy’s campaign said it was unaware of Edwards’s criminal history and removed him from the ad after the story came out. Polls currently show the Republican trailing or tied with Democratic nominee Amy Acton in a state Trump won three times.
Support the Fight Against MAGA-Controlled Media
If this morning’s piece told you something the billionaire-owned outlets would rather keep quiet, that’s exactly the point. Billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are burying independent reporting like ours on their platforms while rubbing elbows with this president, and a paid subscription is the most direct way you can help fight back.
It costs about 22 cents a day, 19 days out from the election. So if you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription yet, today is the day. With billionaires deciding what you get to see, every paid subscriber is one more voice they can’t silence. Please subscribe or upgrade now.
Thank you again for reading and for supporting independent media. And if you haven’t yet, click the ❤️ and restack this post so we can reach more feeds.
POSITIVE STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
Trump Aides Privately Concede the House Is a Lost Cause. White House aides see little chance of Republicans maintaining control of the House in the midterm elections, and have shifted their focus to protecting the Senate majority, according to three sources who spoke with Wired. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Speaker Mike Johnson, has pulled ad buys in Democratic districts in Michigan and Ohio that it was hoping to flip, and begun canceling ad reservations in Republican-held seats in New Jersey and Iowa. Republicans have also written off North Carolina, where the Senate campaign arm has halted ad spending since early October. Trump himself has been traveling across the country for rallies in states that should have been reliably Republican, including Ohio, Alaska, and Arizona.
New White House Press Secretary Could Already Be Out After Disastrous First Briefing. White House officials are questioning how long Katie Zacharia will keep her press secretary job after a first briefing that advisers described as “brutal,” “stilted,” and “uncomfortable,” according to CNN. Zacharia’s appearance at the podium lasted only 15 minutes, most of it spent reading an opening statement, with her calling on only three reporters before ending the session. There have also been questions about whether Zacharia actually passed a bar exam, despite being introduced by Trump as “an attorney.” When a reporter asked which state she passed the bar in, Zacharia answered that she had taken it in China, which doesn’t allow foreigners to take its bar exam.
Trump Officials Spread “Entirely False Information” to Justify Firing FEMA Official. A federal judge in Virginia found that top Trump administration officials, including former presidential adviser Elon Musk and former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, deliberately spread false accusations to justify firing FEMA’s chief financial officer, Mary Comans. Comans was removed from office in February 2025 for allegedly approving millions in hotel rooms for undocumented immigrants, but Judge William Fitzpatrick ruled the spending was approved by others and that Comans had “neither the authority nor the ability” to stop the grants in question. The judge held a rare name-clearing hearing, writing that Comans had been “professionally targeted and personally attacked by government officials for no legitimate reason.”
27 Percent of the World’s Land Is Already in Conservation Areas. A study published Wednesday in Nature found that nearly 27 percent of the world’s land is already within conservation areas, far more than the officially reported 18.5 percent. The gap was found by researchers at the University of Kent’s Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, who combined global data with national records that had never been included. This suggests the world is much closer than thought to the international goal of conserving 30 percent of the planet’s land by 2030. However, the researchers warned that many habitats are still poorly protected, and the areas must be well managed to deliver real benefits for biodiversity.
