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Witnesses Describe Fear and Deprivation at Besieged Hospital in Gaza

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Seven days after Israel’s military began a raid on the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, a picture of the sustained assault on the complex and its surrounding neighborhood emerges in fragments.

Residents nearby described a relentless daily soundtrack of gunshots, airstrikes and explosions. A surgeon spoke of doctors and patients corralled in the emergency ward while Israeli forces took control of the complex outside. A Palestinian teenager who spent four days sheltering in the hospital described the bodies she saw piled up outside the entrance.

“They had put the bodies on the side and thrown blankets over them,” said Alaa Abu Al-Kaaf, 18, who said she and her family were at Al-Shifa for days before leaving on Thursday. It was not immediately clear when or how the bodies were taken there.

Interviews with other witnesses in the hospital, residents in or near the facility and the Gazan authorities in recent days, as well as with others who have left the complex over the past week, described a situation of fear and deprivation, interrogations and detentions of Palestinian men by Israeli forces, and a persistent lack of food and water.

The assault on Al-Shifa, one of Israel’s longest hospital raids of the war in Gaza, began on Monday with tanks, bulldozers and airstrikes. The military said it was aimed at senior officials of Hamas, the armed group that led an attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israel began a war on Gaza in response to that assault, with intense aerial bombardments and a ground offensive.

In recent weeks, mediators have redoubled efforts to reach a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas, hosting indirect talks between the two parties in Doha. Qatar, a key mediator, has voiced cautious optimism but says the talks have yet to see a breakthrough.

Israeli leaders have said that regardless of whether a cease-fire deal is reached, they intend to start a ground operation in the southern city of Rafah to root out Hamas’s remaining forces there. The prospect has prompted international concern for the fate of the over 1 million Palestinians who have crowded into the area seeking shelter.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III recently “raised the need to consider alternatives to a major ground operation in Rafah” during a phone call with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant. Mr. Gallant is traveling to Washington on Sunday to meet with Mr. Austin and other top U.S. officials, his office said.

The raid on Al-Shifa has also focused international attention on the dire situation faced by hospitals and the patients sheltering there, according to local authorities. Many of the 30,000 Palestinians whom the Gaza Health Ministry said had been sheltering at Al-Shifa were displaced once again by the raid.

The Gazan authorities said that at least 13 patients had died as a result of the raid because they were deprived of medicine and treatment, or when their ventilators stopped working after the Israelis cut the electricity. Those claims could not be verified.

The Gaza Health Ministry said on Saturday that patients still in Al-Shifa were in critical condition, with maggots beginning to infect wounds.

The director general of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, posted a report on social media on Friday from a doctor in Al-Shifa, as relayed by a colleague from the United Nations.

Two patients on life support died because of a lack of electricity, and there were no medicines or basic medical supplies, he wrote. Many patients in critical condition were lying on the floor.

In one building, 50 medical workers and more than 140 patients have been kept since the second day of the raid, with extremely limited food, water and one nonfunctional toilet, Dr. Tedros wrote.

“Health workers are worried about their own and their patients’ safety,” Dr. Tedros wrote. “These conditions are utterly inhumane. We call for an immediate end to the siege and appeal for safe access to ensure patients get the care they need.”

Dr. Tayseer al-Tanna, 54, a vascular surgeon, said he finally fled Al-Shifa on Thursday after days of hearing gunfire outside the ward where he was positioned. Dr. Al-Tanna said Israeli forces had gathered doctors and patients in the complex’s emergency room while they swept the grounds outside.

“The Israeli military didn’t treat us violently,” Dr. Al-Tanna said. “But we had almost no food and water” during the incursion, he added.

He declined to comment on whether Palestinian fighters had fortified themselves in the medical complex.

The media office for the territory’s government, which is run by Hamas, said in a statement on Saturday that the Israeli military was threatening the medical staff and people sheltering inside to either leave the hospital — and risk being interrogated, tortured or executed — or the military would bomb and destroy the buildings over their heads. The media office said it was in touch with people inside the complex.

The Israeli military did not address specific questions about whether it had threatened people inside the medical complex. But on Saturday it said it was operating in the area of the hospital “while avoiding harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and medical equipment.”

The military said it had killed more than 170 fighters in the area of the hospital and detained and questioned more than 800 people.

The New York Times could not verify either the Hamas or Israeli military accounts.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using Al-Shifa and other hospitals in Gaza as command centers and of concealing weapons in underground tunnels beneath them, a claim that the armed Palestinian group and hospital administrators have previously denied.

In a statement on Sunday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said that Israeli forces were “besieging” two more hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis, Al-Amal and Nasser.

The Israeli military was targeting Al-Amal with smoke bombs, and military vehicles were barricading the entrances of the compound, the Red Crescent said.

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said an Israeli assault on Nasser Hospital had been “violent and bloody” and accused the military of trying to incapacitate all the hospitals in Gaza.

The Israeli military said in a statement on Sunday that it had started an operation in the Al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Younis overnight. When asked whether Israeli troops were currently encircling Al-Amal and Nasser Hospitals, the military said it was “operating in the entire Al Amal area” and “not currently operating in the hospitals.”

In statements regarding the Al-Shifa raid, Hamas confirmed that its fighters were engaged in clashes with Israeli forces near the hospital. In one statement on Saturday, Hamas said members of its Qassam Brigades had fired mortar shells at Israeli forces near Al-Shifa.

Ms. Al-Kaaf and other Palestinians who have left the complex over the past week also described scenes in which groups of men were detained, stripped and questioned by Israeli soldiers. Women and children were separated from the men, Ms. Al-Kaaf said, and others — including members of the hospital’s medical staff, doctors and nurses — were kept in a large pit, sitting on the ground. Some were blindfolded and handcuffed.

The Israeli military said “individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activity” were being detained and questioned in accordance with international law and released if “found not to be taking part in terrorist activities.” It added: “It is often necessary for terror suspects to hand over their clothes such that their clothes can be searched and to ensure that they are not concealing explosive vests or other weaponry.”

For those in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, which surrounds Al-Shifa, the siege on the hospital has trapped residents in their homes. Several said snipers had been shooting into the surrounding streets; residents were fearful they could be dragged from their homes by Israeli forces, stripped and interrogated, as they said dozens had been over the past week.

“The situation is really bad,” said Mohammed Haddad, 25, who lives about a half-mile from the hospital. “For more than five days, we haven’t been able to go out and move around. We haven’t been able to get water, get food. And it’s Ramadan,” he said, referring to the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Airstrikes and random cannon fire have hit multiple homes in the immediate neighborhood, demolishing them, Mr. Haddad said.

“There are snipers, shelling, surveillance drones and armed drones,” he added, the buzzing of a drone audible as he spoke on the phone.

Israeli forces appeared to be destroying the entire area, he said, “not just the hospital.”

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting.



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How a Battle Raged on Ukraine's Bloody Front Line

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A struggle for a position held by Ukrainian forces in the eastern city of Avdiivka underlines how the conflict is increasingly being fought in close-quarter combat.

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Moscow Concert Attack Live Updates: Russia Observes Day of Mourning for Victims

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Less than a week ago, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia claimed a fifth term with his highest-ever share of the vote, using a stage-managed election to show the nation and the world that he was firmly in control.

Just days later came a searing counterpoint: His vaunted security apparatus failed to prevent Russia’s deadliest terrorist attack in 20 years.

The assault on Friday, which killed at least 133 people at a concert hall in suburban Moscow, was a blow to Mr. Putin’s aura as a leader for whom national security is paramount. That is especially true after two years of a war in Ukraine that he describes as key to Russia’s survival — and which he cast as his top priority after the election last Sunday.

“The election demonstrated a seemingly confident victory,” Aleksandr Kynev, a Russian political scientist, said in a phone interview from Moscow. “And suddenly, against the backdrop of a confident victory, there’s this demonstrative humiliation.”

Mr. Putin seemed blindsided by the assault. It took him more than 19 hours to address the nation about the attack, the deadliest in Russia since the 2004 school siege in Beslan, in the country’s south, which claimed 334 lives. When he did, the Russian leader said nothing about the mounting evidence that a branch of the Islamic State committed the attack.

Instead, Mr. Putin hinted that Ukraine was behind the tragedy and said the assailants had acted “just like the Nazis,” who “once carried out massacres in the occupied territories” — evoking his frequent, false description of present-day Ukraine as being run by neo-Nazis.

“Our common duty now — our comrades at the front, all citizens of the country — is to be together in one formation,” Mr. Putin said at the end of a five-minute speech, trying to conflate the fight against terrorism with his invasion of Ukraine.

The question is how much of the Russian public will buy into his argument. They might ask whether Mr. Putin, with the invasion and his conflict with the West, truly has the country’s security interests at heart — or whether he is woefully forsaking them, as many of his opponents say he is.

Passengers riding the subway in Moscow on Saturday under a screen showing safety instructions after the attack.Credit…Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

The fact that Mr. Putin apparently ignored a warning from the United States about a potential terrorist attack is likely to deepen the skepticism. Instead of acting on the warnings and tightening security, he dismissed them as “provocative statements.”

“All this resembles outright blackmail and an intention to intimidate and destabilize our society,” Mr. Putin said on Tuesday in a speech to the F.S.B., Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, referring to the Western warnings. After the attack on Friday, some of his exiled critics have cited his response as evidence of the president’s detachment from Russia’s true security concerns.

Rather than keeping society safe from actual, violent terrorists, those critics say, Mr. Putin has directed his sprawling security services to pursue dissidents, journalists and anyone deemed a threat to the Kremlin’s definition of “traditional values.”

A case in point: Just hours before the attack, state media reported that the Russian authorities had added “the L.G.B.T. movement” to an official list of “terrorists and extremists”; Russia had already outlawed the gay rights movement last year. Terrorism was also among the many charges prosecutors leveled against Aleksei A. Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader who died last month.

“In a country in which counterterrorism special forces chase after online commenters,” Ruslan Leviev, an exiled Russian military analyst, wrote in a social media post on Saturday, “terrorists will always feel free.”

Even as the Islamic State repeatedly claimed responsibility for the attack and Ukraine denied any involvement, the Kremlin’s messengers pushed into overdrive to try to persuade the Russian public that this was merely a ruse.

Olga Skabeyeva, a state television host, wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian military intelligence had found assailants “who would look like ISIS. But this is no ISIS.” Margarita Simonyan, the editor of the state-run RT television network, wrote that reports of Islamic State responsibility amounted to a “basic sleight of hand” by the American news media.

On a prime-time television talk show on the state-run Channel 1, Russia’s best-known ultraconservative ideologue, Aleksandr Dugin, declared that Ukraine’s leadership and “their puppet masters in the Western intelligence services” had surely organized the attack.

It was an effort to “undermine trust in the president,” Mr. Dugin said, and it showed regular Russians that they had no choice but to unite behind Mr. Putin’s war against Ukraine.

Mr. Dugin’s daughter was killed in a car bombing near Moscow in 2022 that U.S. officials said was indeed authorized by parts of the Ukrainian government, but without American involvement.

U.S. officials have said there is no evidence of Ukrainian involvement in the concert hall attack, and Ukrainian officials ridiculed the Russian accusations. Andriy Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said Mr. Putin’s claim that the attackers had fled toward Ukraine and intended to cross into it, with the help of the Ukrainian authorities, made no sense.

In recent months, Mr. Putin has appeared more confident than at any other point since he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Russian forces have retaken the initiative on the front line, while Ukraine is struggling amid flagging Western support and a shortage of troops.

Inside Russia, the election — and its predetermined outcome — underscored Mr. Putin’s dominance over the nation’s politics.

Near Red Square in Moscow on Saturday. The area is closed as part of increased security measures after the terrorist attack on Friday.Credit…Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters

Mr. Kynev, the political scientist, said he believed many Russians were now in “shock,” because “restoring order has always been Vladimir Putin’s calling card.”

Mr. Putin’s early years in power were marked by terrorist attacks, culminating in the Beslan school siege in 2004; he used those violent episodes to justify his rollback of political freedoms. Before Friday, the most recent mass-casualty terrorist attack in the capital region was a suicide bombing at an airport in Moscow in 2011 that killed 37 people.

Still, given the Kremlin’s efficacy in cracking down on dissent and the news media, Mr. Kynev predicted that the political consequences of the concert hall attack would be limited, as long as the violence was not repeated.

“To be honest,” he said, “our society has gotten used to keeping quiet about inconvenient topics.”

Constant Méheut contributed reporting.



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The Princess and the Pea-brained

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A cancer is coming for the Royal Family-and I don’t mean Kate’s.

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6 Mindset Shifts That Have Changed My Life for the Better | Wit & Delight

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Looking into a sitting room and a dining room beyond it. The sitting room is painted a creamy white color and has a stained-glass ceiling.

Last month, I wrote about my flexible daily routine and wellness pillars that support my mental and emotional well-being. Today I wanted to share some of the mindset shifts that support those daily habits. These are the internal practices that sustain me from within.

Finding the Routines and Practices That Work for *You*

Before we get into it, I have realized through writing and sharing these posts that most of us need less advice, less information, and less pressure to have our lives look and feel like someone we view through a screen. I know this deep in my bones, so deeply that it felt counterintuitive to show up and share it in this medium.

The biggest realization I had last year was that I didn’t have to fix myself. I needed to see myself and accept what I saw. I used to trust books and experts more than myself, sometimes so much so that I couldn’t even trust my own reflection. And you cannot build self-trust by following someone else’s path. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to getting yourself out of a rut, a crisis of self, or a dip in your confidence. You have to look inside yourself for the clues that point you in the right direction.

The biggest realization I had last year was that I didn’t have to fix myself. I needed to see myself and accept what I saw.

Only you know what you need. It’s really easy when you’re confused to look for a label to slap onto what you’re feeling. We’re much more complicated than that. Perspective is so important here. Leave room for unanswered questions, mixed emotions, and the bittersweetness of living, of growing older, of pruning back what’s lost and loving yourself enough to tend to what’s ready to grow back in.  

6 Mindset Shifts I Return to Every Day

The practices and mindset shifts I’m sharing below are my North stars when I feel lost. Often, the tell-tale signs of this feeling are the familiar drum of an inner sense of low self-worth, or old maladaptive perfectionistic qualities trying to protect me from public humiliation (thank you, internet). I treat these as pillars of awareness that help me trust I will be okay no matter what happens.

1. Get my thoughts straight.

I try to notice whenever I get caught up in old patterns of thinking. When I’m ruminating or beginning to self-sabotage, I do a quick body scan and take a few deep breaths, then get back to what I was doing. The key for me is not to get swept away or attached to catastrophic thinking; to be kind to myself when I do (and I do it often) and believe I’ll be more comfortable letting it pass with practice. Trying to stop these thoughts altogether kept me stuck. Accepting them as part of becoming fully myself was a massive step in the right direction for me.  

2. Be realistic with what I can give.

I want to do all the things. Realizing I cannot do all the things without consequence (e.g., mentally, emotionally, financially) was a devastating realization I came to last year, but also an incredibly freeing one. What do I want to do? What do I even want out of life? I’ve been paralyzed by these questions, thinking the answers would come to me like a bolt of lightning if I would just will them hard enough.

I am not waiting for purpose to strike me all at once. I don’t know yet what to do about my desire to overfill my plate, just that it isn’t helping. So now when I take something off my list or delegate a task, I see it not as an act of waving the white flag, but as shifting inch by inch toward what really matters to me. 

3. Practice radical acceptance.

Sometimes, we get caught up in wishing our circumstances were different. Just as I thought I could juggle a full plate and commit to every idea that popped into my head, I have, at times, thought I could protect myself by worrying. There have been times I thought I could simply manifest the future I wanted by wishing my current situation was different. That’s not how it works.

4. Embrace discomfort. 

Discomfort tends to point me in the direction I need to focus my energy; it points me in a direction that helps me grow. I disconnected from this wisdom after my first few years in therapy, thinking discomfort was the key to where I needed to heal. My self-awareness increased while my confidence plummeted. I couldn’t figure it out.

It has taken a lot of time to relearn how to push myself for growth and not self-punishment. If you’ve had a big setback in your career or a relationship, it’s hard to get out there again. It’s scary to know how far we can fall, and what it can take to pick up the pieces. But I can tell you from experience that wallowing in self-pity takes its toll. 

5. Practice self-respect.

For me, this most often means doing what I say I’ll do. They say procrastination isn’t a time management issue, but a way of deflecting what we fear: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of the discomfort of facing them both, just to name a few. They also say it is a way of controlling those outcomes, and when we don’t do the thing we need to do, we can anticipate the result. I’m pretty sure that’s what it feels like to self-sabotage.

I started looking at procrastination as a form of disrespect to myself. This mindset shift has helped me push when I need to just get started. It has also helped me identify where I can be clear about what I cannot do. I fail at this every day, but I keep trying. Inch by inch, I’m learning to trust myself again. 

6. Live in gratitude.

I’m not sure we can access gratitude until we accept ourselves as we are—and that who we are is fundamentally worthy of safety, love, and connection. The most uncomfortable moments of the past eighteen months have been reckoning with my relationship with myself. No one else was going to give me what I needed. I had to sit with how I truly felt about myself, my life, and the choices I’ve made. It was uncomfortable and disorienting, and then came a gift: I realized just about everything I need is right here, inside me.



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8 Quick and Easy Spring Decor Ideas That Will Refresh Your Home | Wit & Delight

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A green living room features a fireplace, two blue chairs, a dark green velvet sofa, an oak square coffee table, and a blue kilim rug.
Originally published in April 2021

If you’re anything like me, winter tends to do a number on you. By the time spring rolls around, I’m aching to spend more time outside (without being bundled in layers up to my eyeballs), craving more social outings, and eager to open the windows and welcome some fresh air into my home.

Perhaps you, my friend, are feeling the same way. Perhaps you too are aching for a seasonal shift—within yourself, your relationships, your routines, and your home. With the first day of spring just around the corner on March 19, it’s no wonder you’re feeling its pull.

Today I’m sharing eight quick and easy spring decor ideas that will give your home a seasonal refresh.

Budget-friendly is the name of the game here, with some ideas calling for a minimal budget and others simply requiring a bit of creativity. Go ahead, try one or two of them out for yourself!

1. Swap out a couple of textiles.

Switching out a textile or two is one way to make a difference as we transition into spring, both in terms of a visual change and increased comfort in warmer weather.

Lighter fabrics like linen and cotton will be your friends in spring and summer, and there’s no shortage of ideas for how you can update your textiles accordingly. Here are a couple of suggestions:

2. Say it with me: Add plants!

Ah, plants. We love them here at W&D, both for the way they look and for the joy and stress relief that comes from watching them flourish. Spring marks the start of the growing season for these indoor beauties, so I’d say this is also an ideal time to add another plant friend (or a few) to your home.

If you’re at your max for plants as it is, consider giving your current brood a refresh by switching up their placement within your home (according to their lighting needs, of course) or repotting them in a fresh planter, if they’re in the market for new soil and a bit of additional room to grow.

3. Change up your rug(s).

A rug can change the entire look of your room in the way it frames and grounds a space. While I would by no means suggest you replace each rug in your home with the change of every season, there are a couple of ways you can use rugs to make an impact as we head into spring:

  • Swap out your rugs from room to room, trying the living room rug in the bedroom and vice versa. There’s no financial commitment required here—only a few droplets of sweat likely to accumulate from all that furniture moving.
  • If you have a patterned rug in a space and you’ve been craving something simpler, spring could be an opportune time to replace it with a versatile, neutral option like a sisal or jute rug. Kate has and loves this sisal rug!
  • Consider removing a rug altogether for the warmer months ahead. (You can always bring it back if you change your mind!) Or, if you have layered rugs in a particular room, consider removing the top rug and letting the bottom one shine on its own.

4. Add a piece of art.

While there’s certainly no need to swap out every piece of art you own with the changing of the seasons, there’s also no harm in bringing in one new piece that reminds you of spring. Whether it’s a piece you purchase from a local artist, buy secondhand from a thrift store or Marketplace, or craft yourself, there are many ways to bring a fresh piece of eye candy to your walls.

If and when you do bring in this new art, might I suggest hanging it in a place you pass often while going about your daily routines? That way you’ll get the most enjoyment possible out of it.

5. Give your entryway a refresh.

As the seasons change—especially for those of us living in places with four distinct seasons—so too do our needs for the entryway. Coat racks become less necessary for hanging bulky winter apparel, thick doormats are no longer needed to collect salty, snowy boots when we walk through the door, and bins for collecting hats and mittens become less crucial.

There’s no need to keep these remnants of winter in the entryway all spring and summer. Instead, store your winter coats and accessories away—out of sight, out of mind—and replace them with lighter jackets, baseball hats, and an umbrella or two for the inevitable rainy days to come. Store the thick doormat away too, and consider replacing it with a thinner decorative rug (if that’s up your alley and in your budget).

6. Bring in a colorful accent piece.

While winter may be known for its moody, jewel-toned colors, spring is known for pastels—and the summer months that follow for their bright, colorful accents. Even if you’re a lover of neutrals at heart, consider bringing in a small pop of color in an accent piece like a pillowcase, lamp, vase, or glassware set for everyday use.

A vase of beautifully arranged flowers sits on green living room mantel
Photo via @witanddelight_ on Instagram

7. Bring some flowers into the mix.

You knew I wasn’t going to mention spring decor and not talk about flowers, right? Right. Flowers are to spring as peanut butter is to jelly and I for one wouldn’t have it any other way.

There are a couple of tried and true ways to bring these beauties into your home, and I can assure you that it doesn’t need to be an expensive endeavor if you wouldn’t like it to be.

  • Try your hand at putting together your own arrangement. There’s no right or wrong way to go about it, but remember that variety is your friend here! Play around with different heights, floral varieties, and fillers until you craft something you love.
  • Want more longevity out of your florals? I hear you. If that’s the case, consider dried flowers your friend. Purchase them online from a shop like Afloral or dry them yourself with ease.
  • Support a local florist by treating yourself to a floral delivery. Apricot Floral is one of our local favorites!

8. Buy nothing new! Instead, move a few pieces of decor from one spot to another.

I live in the land of budget-conscious purchasing decisions, as I’m guessing many of you do too. And while I’m happy to bring in new pieces every once in a while, it’s safe to say that decor does not always fit into my budget in any given month. Enter: the world of rearranging.

Move a piece of existing art from one room to another. Take a lamp that usually claims residence in your living room and move it to your bedroom for a change. Try putting a stack of books in a new-to-you place, whether on a different piece of furniture or on the floor with a plant atop them.

Even if nothing else from this list feels like a fit for your home, I’d encourage you to give this last idea a try. And whatever you do, have fun with the rearranging process. Sometimes a slight shift in positioning provides the updated perspective we were looking for all along.

Editor’s Note: This article contains affiliate links. Wit & Delight uses affiliate links as a source of revenue to fund the operations of the business and to be less dependent on branded content. Wit & Delight stands behind all product recommendations. Still have questions about these links or our process? Feel free to email us.



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7 of My Favorite Winter-to-Spring Outfits I’ve Worn Lately | Wit & Delight

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A woman wears a rugby polo top, brown corduroy pants, and adidas sneakers

I’ve spent the last two weeks mostly in sweatpants, busy with work for the first time in a while (thankful for this!!!), but frankly, I miss getting dressed. I’ve learned this year to stop trying to do it all when my plate becomes this full because right now, not getting dressed feels like what I need. Busy seasons wax and wane, so while I ride this one out, here are some winter-to-spring outfits that made me feel good in my skin these past few months.

*If an item is no longer available online, I’ve linked a similar product instead (noted below).

7 of My Favorite Winter-to-Spring Outfits I’ve Worn Lately

1. Rugby Inspired

I love a rugby polo in a knit material. I felt sporty wearing this outfit.

Product Links

A woman wears a rugby polo top, brown corduroy pants, and adidas sneakers

2. Denim on Denim

I was playing around with styling an outfit around these huge flare jeans. A denim top with a modern cowboy boot felt right. 

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A woman wears a beige sweater tank, a blue denim jacket, white flare jeans, and tan heeled cowboy boots

3. Academic Aesthetic

I always want to do that casual blazer and jeans look. This one is a little big on me—I felt cute, though!

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A woman wears blue jeans, a beige sweater tank, a brown blazer, and brown loafers

4. Cozy Layers

I’ve been layering a lot with this red tissue turtleneck. I liked this combo.

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A woman wears a gray cardigan sweater, a red tissue turtleneck, dark blue jeans, and black flats

5. Pop of Pink

Two colors I rarely wear are green and pink. This look felt fresh. 

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A woman wears dark blue jeans, a pink crewneck sweater, an olive green jacket, tan heeled cowboy boots, and a black handbag

6. Winter Neutrals

I felt hot in this! The pantyhose lasted one night but now I want to invest in a higher quality pair of sheer brown tights. 

Product Links

A woman wears a beige sweater, cream mini skirt, brown sheer tights, heeled tall brown boots, and a black handbag

7. Metallic Accents

Black on black with silver accents has been my go-to when I don’t feel like getting dressed. And these jeans go with everything. 

Product Links

A woman wears a black polo sweater, black shearling coat, blue jeans, silver sneakers, a white hat, silver earrings, and a black handbag

Editor’s Note: This article contains affiliate links. Wit & Delight uses affiliate links as a source of revenue to fund business operations and to be less dependent on branded content. Wit & Delight stands behind all product recommendations. Still have questions about these links or our process? Feel free to email us.



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News Inside: Issue 16 Shares Incarcerated Women’s Experiences

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We are proud to dedicate Issue 16 of News Inside to topics impacting incarcerated women across the United States.

Although women constitute only around 10% of the total incarcerated population, their number behind bars — approximately 190,600 — represents a significantly higher proportion of the incarcerated population compared to previous decades. Many of my female friends who did time continuously remind me that although their former population is growing, the number of visits they get from loved ones pales in comparison to the men.

This issue of increased imprisonment of women could be further compounded by fetal personhood laws, which recognize an unborn fetus as a person with rights separate from the human being carrying it. In “These States Are Using Fetal Personhood to Put Women Behind Bars,” we investigate how hundreds of women who used drugs during their pregnancies have faced criminal charges for child endangerment in Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina — even when they delivered healthy babies.

“I ‘Stood My Ground’ — but It Was the Police Raiding My House,” is a powerful first-person account from a woman who endured jail time and a legal battle after lawfully defending her home during a botched police raid. Her harrowing story underscores the injustices women can face in the system.

In “Elizabeth Holmes Has Two Young Children. Should That Keep Her Out of Prison?” we delve into the devastating consequences of separating mothers from their children and explore state efforts to reduce this impact.

Of course, along with more powerful articles, our women’s issue is rounded out by regular pieces like the “Peeps” comic strip, “Reader to Reader” advice column, crossword puzzle, “In the Spotlight” feature and “Thinking Inside the Box” quiz.

News Inside now reaches over 1,360 correctional facilities across the nation through print copies and tablets, even making its way to U.S. citizens detained in Tijuana, Mexico, and Panama City, Panama. We are grateful for your continued support, as we could not produce this unique journalistic package without our dedicated readers.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.


The pages of News Inside Issue 16. You can download the PDF here.

Table of Contents

  • Page 4: Federal Prisons Are Over Capacity — Yet Efforts to Ease Overcrowding Are Ending
  • Page 5: These States Are Using Fetal Personhood to Put Women Behind Bars
  • Page 10: I ‘Stood My Ground’ — but It Was the Police Raiding My House
  • Page 12: “Stranger Fruit”: Black Mothers and the Fear of Police Brutality
  • Page 14: Being a Corrections Officer Is Hard Enough. Doing the Job While Pregnant Is a Nightmare.
  • Page 16: Good Intentions Don’t Blunt the Impact of Dehumanizing Words
  • Page 17: Elizabeth Holmes Has Two Young Children. Should That Keep Her Out of Prison?
  • Page 19: New Data Shows How Dire the Prison Staffing Shortage Really Is
  • Page 23: Cuyahoga County Jail Shows People the Door, Offers Little Else to Aid Reentry
  • Page 26: How Cuyahoga County Picks Attorneys to Represent Children
  • Page 28: Reader to Reader
  • Page 32: The Peeps
  • Page 34: Crossword
  • Page 35: In The Spotlight

Want your loved one(s) to receive free future copies of News Inside? Fill out our registration form for individuals. For corrections staff or community members seeking bulk shipments of News Inside, please email your request to newsinside@themarshallproject.org.

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How Police Alternatives to Mental Health Calls Are Growing in the U.S.

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This is The Marshall Project’s Closing Argument newsletter, a weekly deep dive into a key criminal justice issue. Want this delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to future newsletters here.

People experiencing mental or behavioral health crises and addiction have often been subject to police use of force, arrest and incarceration. In last week’s newsletter we touched briefly on some efforts around the country to change that, and this week we take a deeper look.

One of the most common new approaches — and one that has rapidly gained traction since 2020 — are civilian co-responder programs, in which behavioral health specialists, often social workers, show up to certain emergency calls alongside police. These can include situations like suicide threats, drug overdoses, and psychiatric episodes. Typically, the officers on the team have special training in crisis intervention. These programs are often popular with law enforcement, while some critics argue that they don’t do enough to remove police from the situation.

Generally, these teams aim to de-escalate any crisis or conflict, avoiding arrest and solving the reason for the emergency call, especially if it’s a simple one. This week, the New Jersey Monitor reported that one call “for a welfare check on a woman with anxiety ended with the [state] trooper picking up her new cell phone from the post office and fixing a broken toilet” and the emergency call screener setting up her new phone.

The Monitor also found that the program avoided arrests or police use of force in 95% of responses.

Alternative responder programs are closely related strategies in which social workers or behavioral health specialists show up to calls instead of police officers. These teams only respond to calls with a low probability of violence, and many engage in proactive work as well, trying to connect people with behavioral health challenges to services outside the context of a crisis. In 2020, my colleague Christie Thompson wrote about an alternative responder program in Olympia, Washington, modeled after a long-standing program in Eugene, Oregon, known as CAHOOTS.

Such programs can have an easier time building long-term relationships because they are less affiliated with law enforcement than co-responders. “One of the biggest things we had to overcome is the idea that we would be snitches,” a responder in Olympia told Thompson in 2020. “It’s about reassuring folks that we don’t run [their names] for warrants or anything like that.”

The programs vary wildly from place to place in approach and scale. In Eugene, a small city of less than 200,000 people, CAHOOTS — which has been around since 1989 — responds to some 20% of 911 calls. Meanwhile, the B-HEARD program in New York City, which is just three years old in a diverse city of 8.5 million, responded to roughly a quarter of mental health calls in precincts where it operated in the first half of 2023. Mental health calls make up 10% of all 911 calls in the city, officials have said. In Denver, a study of the city’s STAR program found the alternative response model reduced low-level crime.

One of the problems that CAHOOTS workers said they encounter is that some of the people they serve are afraid to call 911 due to traumatic past interactions with police. A related effort that’s also picking up steam nationwide is the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which the federal government launched in 2022. The program primarily focuses on providing support over the phone and by text, but can lead to in-person responses in certain situations too.

Mental health providers have shown broad approval of 988, and it has strong support from the general public in polling. However, it is also not very well known, and according to a RAND Corporation analysis published this week, there are major inefficiencies around how 988 and 911 calls are routed and exchanged. Some activists have raised alarms that the program can still lead to police response in some circumstances, as well as mental health treatment against a person’s will. California and New York City are just a few of the locales that have recently pursued efforts to expand the government’s authority to compel mental health treatment.

A number of jurisdictions are also investing in “Crisis Intervention Centers” on the premise that jails are not designed to resolve behavioral health crises, and emergency rooms aren’t always much better. These crisis centers aim to “offer short-term behavioral health care including psychiatric stabilization and substance withdrawal treatment in a place that is less restrictive and less disruptive to a person’s life than a hospital or jail,” reported the Nevada Current.

Other approaches look beyond crises and emergencies and seek to promote non-police responses to chronic, low-level criminal activity (like drug possession, prostitution and petty theft) that stems from unmet behavioral health needs or poverty.

“We want to have an alternative response to a much wider array of situations than just non-crime crisis,” said Lisa Daugaard, the primary architect of the “Let Everyone Advance with Dignity” program in Seattle, which launched in 2011.

The LEAD model — which previously stood for Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion — has since been exported to other cities and works to address public safety concerns without punishment or incarceration. Caseworkers with LEAD help people secure stable housing, drug treatment, and other behavioral health services.

All these various efforts are vulnerable to changes in political power, public opinion, and funding from government and private sponsors. In Iowa, members of co-responder programs are concerned that a plan to overhaul and centralize the state’s mental health and disability services could leave them out in the cold. In Minneapolis, a recent federal audit found that in 2020, the Trump administration used a “seriously flawed” process to deny the city $900,000 for its LEAD program. In the denial, a Trump official noted that some of the city’s councilmembers had expressed support for the “defund the police” movement.

And this week, House Republicans called for a financial probe into the 988 program after discovering that more than 80% of federal money to help states, territories and tribes implement the 988 hotline remains unspent.

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Women’s Six Nations 2024: Italy vs England’s Red Roses in Parma in opening round clash LIVE! | Rugby Union News

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Tune into our live blog below for all the updates from Sunday’s Women’s Six Nations Round 1 clash between Italy and England’s Red Roses in Parma; Red Roses seeking sixth title in a row; On Saturday, France Women beat Ireland Women 38-17, while Scotland Women beat Wales Women 20-18

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