Rodriguez is accused of killing Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, on May 21, 2025, as the pair was leaving an event at a Jewish museum.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced that the Justice Department will seek the death penalty against Elias Rodriguez in connection with the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staff members outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.

Rodriguez is accused of killing Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, on May 21, 2025, as the pair were leaving an event at a Jewish museum.

Federal prosecutors said the death penalty notice applies to charges including the murder of a foreign official, causing death through the use of a firearm, and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence.

Rodriguez has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is scheduled to appear in court on June 30.

According to prosecutors, the attack was premeditated and motivated by political, ideological, national, and religious bias.

Authorities also charged Rodriguez with additional offenses including hate crimes and acts of terrorism.

Pirro said the Justice Department intended to pursue the maximum punishment available under federal law.

“Anyone who commits acts of political violence in the nation’s capital will face the full force of the law,” Pirro said in remarks reported by BBC News.

In an earlier statement, Pirro said prosecutors were committed to pursuing accountability for the attack and its impact on the Jewish community.

“My office will not rest in our efforts to hold Elias Rodriguez accountable for this horrific, and targeted act of terror against Yaron Lischinsky, Sarah Milgrim and our Jewish community,” Pirro said.

Prosecutors allege Rodriguez expressed support for violence against Israelis before the shooting, including in social media posts in which he allegedly wrote “Death to Israel.”

The case comes as President Donald Trump has embraced use of the federal death penalty after former President Joe Biden moved to limit its application.

The killings of Lischinsky and Milgrim drew national attention because the victims worked for the Israeli Embassy and the shooting took place outside a Jewish institution in the US capital.

Federal authorities said the charges against Rodriguez involve crimes tied to political violence and antisemitic targeting.

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Last month, the UN Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of Albanese, despite widespread calls from several countries and NGOs urging UN members to oppose her reappointment.

By Corey Walker, The Algemeiner

The US Department of Justice has called on the United Nations to remove Francesca Albanese from her role as special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, lambasting her repeated “defamatory” actions against Israel and alleged acceptance of thousands of dollars from pro-Hamas groups.

Leo Terrell — head of the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, a newly formed unit within the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division — sent a letter on Monday to Albanese, lambasting the UN official for spearheading “an alarming campaign of letters targeting institutions that support or invest in the state of Israel.”

The Justice Department repudiated Albanese for reportedly informing private organizations that they are “criminally liable” for assisting Israel in carrying out a so-called “genocide” in Gaza.

“Your suggestion that these organizations may be criminally liable for aiding and abetting genocide or war crimes is not only legally groundless. Your actions are defamatory, dangerous, and a flagrant abuse of your office,” Terrell wrote.

The letter then described Israel’s military operations in Gaza as a legitimate form of self-defense and rebuked Albanese for downplaying the “gang rapes, the burning of children, and other unspeakable acts of violence” perpetrated against Israelis by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terrorist group invaded southern Israel, murdered 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 hostages.

Terrell also cited the murders of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, who were murdered in captivity in Gaza.

Terrell chastised Albanese as being “a special rapporteur who consistently minimizes or excuses terrorism when it targets Jews forfeits all authority to speak on human rights.”

In addition, the letter also accused Albanese of “taking money from Hamas-linked groups while accusing Israel of genocide,” arguing such conduct “is not merely hypocritical” but also “a profound betrayal of the very principles you claim to defend.”

The United Nations launched a probe into Albanese last summer for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations that cost over $20,000.

UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that monitors the UN, released a new report this week claiming that the UN and Albanese “engaged in a deliberate cover-up” to conceal her funding by pro-Hamas lobby groups.

“Your conduct has discredited your position and disgraced the institution you represent,” Terrell wrote to Albanese. “We call on the United Nations to immediately remove you from your role and restore the integrity of the special rapporteur mandate.”

Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022.

The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” that Israel supposedly commits against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.

Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state.

In the months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities across southern Israel, Albanese accused the Jewish state of enacting a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.

She has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and give her “hope.”

Last month, the UN Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of Albanese, despite widespread calls from several countries and NGOs urging UN members to oppose her reappointment due to her controversial remarks and alleged pro-Hamas stance.

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According to investigative reports, a group of high-ranking Wikipedia editors has engaged in an elaborate and systematic effort to depict the Jewish state’s history in an overtly negative light.

By Corey Walker, The Algemeiner

The US Justice Department under President Donald Trump has launched an investigation into the nonprofit that operates the popular Wikipedia website, amid accusations that the online encyclopedia has spread “propaganda” and allowed “foreign actors to manipulate information” while maintaining a systemic bias against Israel.

Edward Martin, the interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia, sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation on Thursday, warning the organization that its nonprofit status could be jeopardized for possibly violating its “legal obligations and fiduciary responsibilities” under US law.

“[T]he public is entitled to rely on a reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability in [Wikimedia’s] operations and publications,” Martin wrote.

“It has come to my attention that the Wikimedia Foundation, through its wholly owned subsidiary Wikipedia, is allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public,” Trump’s top prosecutor in the US capital continued.

“Wikipedia is permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States. Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia’s ‘educational’ mission.”

Martin noted that top search engines such as Google prioritize Wikipedia results and that artificial intelligence (AI) platforms receive Wikipedia data to train large-language models, arguing that anti-American misinformation pushed by the website could have a widespread insidious effect on large populations.

Wikipedia has been embroiled in controversy over allegations that its editors have spearheaded campaigns to defame Israel, casting doubt over the site’s commitment to providing information on controversial subjects in a factual and neutral manner.

A group of high-ranking Wikipedia editors has engaged in an elaborate and systematic effort to depict the Jewish state’s history in an overtly negative light, according to investigative reports by Pirate Wires and Jewish Journal.

The cohort of Wikipedia editors has softened the image of Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas by removing any mention of their 1988 charter, which calls for the complete massacre of Jews and the elimination of Israel.

The editors also edited an article on Zionism, describing the movement for Jewish self-determination as “an ethnocultural nationalist movement” which was “pursued through the colonization of Palestine.”

“Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible,” the Wikipedia article on Zionism read.

Though the editors have steadily embedded an anti-Israel bias for years, efforts ramped up shortly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to researchers and investigative journalists.

The group, for example, added an article titled “Gaza Genocide” in November 2024, heavily implying that Israel has waged a campaign of ethnic extermination in the Gaza enclave.

“According to a United Nations special committee, Amnesty International, and other experts and human rights organizations, Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people during its ongoing invasion and bombing of the Gaza Strip as part of the Gaza war,” the article read.

The site has also published an article titled Israeli Apartheid, which claims that the Jewish state has built “a system of institutionalized segregation and discrimination in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and to a lesser extent in Israel proper.”

Several of the most controversial articles regarding Israel have been placed under “extended confirmed protection” which prohibits anyone, outside of high-ranking Wikipedia editors, from making edits.

Last month, the Anti-Defamation League published a report titled “Editing for Hate: How Anti-Israel and Anti-Jewish Bias Undermines Wikipedia’s Neutrality,” which argued that a group of “malicious” Wikipedia editors have inserted anti-Israel bias onto the site, oftentimes violating the organization’s neutrality policies in the process.

“Most readers assume Wikipedia is a reliable online encyclopedia, but in reality, it has become a biased platform manipulated by agenda-driven editors on many topics,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.

The Wikimedia Foundation disputed the findings of the report. “Though our preliminary review of this report finds troubling and flawed conclusions that are not supported by the Anti-Defamation League’s data, we are currently undertaking a more thorough and detailed analysis,” a Wikimedia spokesperson said of the findings.

In his letter, Martin requested documents and information to answer several questions about the foundation’s conduct.

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Iran and Syria are facing a slew of recent lawsuits filed on behalf of hostage victims and their families for providing financial backing for the Oct. 7th massacre.

By David Isaac, JNS

The U.S. Justice Department is interviewing Oct. 7 survivors and victims’ families to build a case against the terrorist organization and its financial supporters.

Former hostages and families of U.S. citizens who have been killed abroad have spoken with prosecutors and FBI agents in recent months, sources told Bloomberg News.

Beyond acts of terrorism, the broader focus of the U.S. investigation is targeting the financial networks that have funded Hamas, the report said.

That support includes backing from countries such as Iran and Qatar.

The U.S. has seized assets in cases where it’s hard to arrest the people facing criminal charges. “In terrorism cases, seized funds can be potentially redirected into a reserve for U.S. victims of state-sponsored terrorism,” Bloomberg reported.

On Feb. 2, the Justice Department announced that it had seized more than 500,000 barrels of Iranian fuel it said provided funding for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its Quds Force.

In addition, it seized $108 million destined for the Quds Force.

“Iran utilizes the proceeds of its black-market oil sales to fund its criminal activities, including its support of the IRGC, Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian-aligned terrorist groups,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a Justice Department statement.

Iran and Syria are facing a slew of recent lawsuits filed on behalf of hostage victims and their families for providing the financial backing that enabled the Oct. 7 attack.

On July 1, the Anti-Defamation League, together with Washington-based law firm Crowell & Moring LLP, filed a $4 billion suit in U.S. federal court against Iran, Syria and North Korea on behalf of American victims of the massacre.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, states that the three countries provided material support—including military, tactical and financial—to Hamas that enabled it to commit atrocities in Israel on Oct. 7.

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