*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
The Trump administration is escalating its attack on Cuba, cutting off the island’s access to oil in a deliberate attempt to induce famine and mass suffering. This is collective punishment, plain and simple.
In response, we’re releasing a public Call to Conscience, already signed by influential public figures, elected officials, artists, and organizations—including 22 members of the New York City Council, Kal Penn, Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Alice Walker, 50501, Movement for Black Lives, The People’s Forum, IFCO Pastors for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, and many others—demanding an end to this brutal policy.
The letter is open for everyone to sign. Add your name today. Cutting off energy to an island nation is not policy—it is a tactic of starvation.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
VIDEO:
What Cubans Really Think About Trump
By Jeff Seal, May 28, 2026
Mr. Seal is a comedian and a visual journalist.
Born in rural Ohio, Howard Keylor attended a one-room country schoolhouse. He became a member of the National Honor Society when he graduated from Marietta High School.
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, Howard fought in the Pacific Theater in World War Two, during which he participated in the Battle of Okinawa as a Corporal. The 96th U.S. Army Division, which Howard trained with, had casualty rates above 50%. The incompetence and racism of the military command, the destruction of the capital city of Naha and the deliberate killings of tens of thousands of Okinawan civil-ians – a third of the population - made Howard a committed anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and anti-racist for the rest of his life.
Upon returning to the United States, Howard enrolled in the College of the Pacific, but dropped out to support Filipino agricultural workers in the 1948 asparagus strike, working with legendary labor leader Larry Itliong. He became a longshore worker in Stockton in 1953. As a member of the Communist Party, Howard and his wife, Evangeline, were attacked in the HUAC (McCarthy) hearings in San Francisco. Later, Howard transferred to ILWU Local 10. In 1971 he, along with Brothers Herb Mills, Leo Robinson and a ma-jority of Local 10’s members, opposed the proposed 1971 contract which codified the 9.43 steadyman sys-tem. This led to the longshore strike of 1971-1972, which shut down 56 West Coast ports and lasted 130 days. It was the longest strike in the ILWU’s history.
In Local 10 Brother Keylor was a member of the Militant Caucus, a class struggle rank-and-file group which published a regular newsletter, the “Longshore Militant”. He later left the Militant Caucus and pub-lished a separate newsletter on his own, the “Militant Longshoreman.” Howard advocated deliberate defi-ance of the “slave-labor” Taft-Hartley law through illegal secondary boycotts and pickets. Running on an open class-struggle program which called for breaking with the Democratic and Republican Parties, form-ing a worker’s government, expropriating the capitalists without compensation and creating a planned economy, Howard won election to the Executive Board of Local 10 for twelve years.
The Militant Caucus was involved in organizing protests and boycotts of military cargo bound for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1975 and 1978 and again in 1980 to the military dictatorship in El Sal-vador. The Caucus also participated in ILWU Local 6’s strike at KNC Glass in Union City, during which a mass picket line physically defeated police and scabs, winning a contract for a workforce composed pri-marily of Mexican-American immigrants.
In 1984, Brother Keylor made the motion, amended by Brother Leo Robinson, which led to the elev-en-day longshore boycott of South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley. In 1986, Howard again partici-pated in the Campaign Against Apartheid’s community picket line against the Nedlloyd Kemba. When Nel-son Mandela spoke at the Oakland Coliseum in 1990 after his release from prison, he credited Local 10 with re-igniting the anti-Apartheid movement in the Bay Area.
Other actions Brother Howard initiated, organized or participated in included the 1995-98 struggle of the Liverpool dockworkers; the 1999 coastwide shutdown and march of 25,000 in San Francisco to de-mand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal; the 2000 Charleston longshore union campaign; the 2008 May Day anti-imperialist war shutdown of all West Coast ports; the shutdown of Northern California ports in pro-test of the murder of Oscar Grant; the blockades of Israeli ships to protest the war on Gaza in 2010 and 2014; the 2011 ILWU struggle against the grain monopolies in Longview; Occupy Oakland’s march of 40,000 to the Port of Oakland, and countless other militant job actions and protests. Throughout his life, Brother Keylor always extended solidarity where it was needed. He fought racist police murders and fas-cist terror, defended abortion clinics, and fought for survivors of psychiatric abuse. Having grown up in Appalachia, he has always been an environmentalist, and helped shut down a Monsanto facility in Davis in 2012, as well as fighting pesticide use and deforestation in the East Bay.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Petition to Force Amazon to Cut ICE Contracts!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
Amazon Labor Union
Over 600,000 messages have already been sent directly to Amazon board members demanding one thing: Amazon must stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE and DHS rely on the data infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services. Their campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon.
But workers and communities have real power when we act collectively. That’s why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine. Help us reach 1 million messages and force Amazon to act by signing our petition with The Labor Force today:
Tell Amazon: End contracts with ICE!
On Cyber Monday 2025, Amazon workers rallied outside of Amazon’s NYC headquarters to demand that Amazon stop fueling mass deportations through Amazon Web Services’ contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE cannot operate without corporate backing; its campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon. Mega-corporations may appear untouchable, but they are not. Anti-authoritarian movements have long understood that repression is sustained by a network of institutional enablers and when those enablers are disrupted, state violence weakens. Workers and communities have real power when they act collectively. That is why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its most commonly used cloud platform. DHS and ICE cannot wage their attack on immigrants without the critical data infrastructure that Amazon Web Services provide, allowing the agencies to collect, analyze, and store the massive amounts of data they need to do their dirty work. Without the power of AWS, ICE would not be able to track and target people at its current scale.
ICE and DHS use Amazon Web Services to collect and store massive amounts of purchased data on immigrants and their friends and family–everything from biometric data, DMV data, cellphone records, and more. And through its contracts with Palantir, DHS is able to scour regional, local, state, and federal databases and analyze and store this data on AWS. All of this information is ultimately used to target immigrants and other members of our communities.
No corporation should profit from oppression and abuse. Yet Amazon is raking in tens of millions of dollars to fuel DHS and ICE, while grossly exploiting its own workers. Can you sign our petition today, demanding that Amazon stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with DHS and ICE, now?
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Self-portrait by Kevin Cooper
Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Dr. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
 Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity CampaignAn appeal for financial supportMay 12, 2026 Dear Friends of the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign, It has been more than two years since Boris Kagarlitsky began serving the five-year sentence meted out to him by a Russian military court as a way of silencing and punishing him for his opposition to Putin’s war on Ukraine. With a multitude of longstanding friends and colleagues throughout the world, Boris is one of the best-known victims of the steadily escalating political repression in Russia. He has borne the gross injustice of his incarceration with characteristic courage, determination and defiance. But there is no denying that Putin’s gulag takes a toll on even the most valiant spirits. The Boris Kagarlitsky Solidarity Campaign has worked continuously these last two years to draw attention to Boris’s plight, and by extension to that of other prisoners unjustly condemned for protesting the ongoing war that has already cost upwards of half a million lives and vastly more maimed, according to estimates. We have sought, through a variety of activities, to bring pressure to bear on the Russian authorities to free Boris. The many people involved in the Campaign are happy to volunteer their time. However, we rely on the generosity of the Campaign’s supporters to cover the periodic expenses we incur. We recently reached out for help to defray costs associated with the participation of Boris’ daughter and tireless advocate for Russian political prisoners, Kseniia Kagarlitskya, in the international antifascist conference in Porto Alegre at the end of March. That trip was a great success. It allowed Kseniia and Mikhail Lobanov, Russian mathematician, political activist, and former associate professor at Moscow State University, to introduce the thousands of conference-goers from Brazil and across the world to the grim realities confronting Russian political dissidents. The Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Committee has many plans in store for the coming months and especially the fall, including a virtual conference devoted to the global manifestations of political repression. We are appealing to you for a little financial help to carry out our projects and support the day-to-day ongoing work of the committee. We would be deeply appreciative of any assistance you can provide. Because the members of the Campaign coordinating committee are scattered across Europe, North America and beyond, it has been a little complicated to set up a campaign bank account, although we are making progress on that front. For the time being we are asking that you send any contributions you can manage directly to our de facto treasurer Suzi Weissman who is located in Los Angeles, California. The details of her account are: Bank: Wells Fargo Swift/Bic: PNBPUS6L Account holder: Susan Claudia Weissman Account number: 0657205076 International wire transfers: WFBIUS6S wise.com personal account: @susanclaudiaw We thank you in anticipation of any contribution you can make to help keep the Campaign running. Yours in solidarity, Dick Nichols Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the auth *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
He still needs more complicated treatment from a retinal specialist for his right eye if his eyesight is to be saved:
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical
Defense Fund
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Articles
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
1) Pro-Palestinian Activists at U. of Michigan Face Conspiracy Charges
The new charges appeared to signify an escalation in the federal government’s approach to campus activism.
By Mitch Smith, June 10, 2026
The University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor. Sylvia Jarrus for The New York Times
Eight people who federal prosecutors said had ties to the University of Michigan were accused Wednesday of conspiring to threaten campus leaders and others into severing ties with Israel.
An indictment unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, accused the pro-Palestinian activists of crossing the line from campus protest to crimes that included threats and vandalism. The defendants face varying charges, but the indictment included federal counts of conspiracy to transmit threats, witness intimidation and destruction of property to prevent seizure.
The charges in Michigan, all felonies that carry the possibility of years in prison, appeared to signify an escalation in the federal government’s efforts to crack down on pro-Palestinian activism that roiled American campuses in recent years.
“Their criminal activity included spray-painting threats, breaking windows and throwing glass jars filled with noxious chemicals into family homes,” the indictment said. “They marked their victims with threatening symbols used by Hamas, including red inverted triangles and red handprints. They used the internet and social media to broadcast their message to ensure their threats and commitment to continuing criminal activity were heard by their victims and others who support Israel.”
The Trump administration has taken a hard line against pro-Palestinian protesters, whose activism after the Hamas-led October 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza led to tumult on campuses. Until now, the administration had mostly targeted universities themselves over their response to protests, although it did move to strip visas and deport some individual students last year.
Activists said that the administration was trying to limit free speech and target its political opponents. Critics accused the administration of conflating criticism of Israeli and U.S. policies with antisemitism.
But Amy V. Doukoure, a lawyer for the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the indictment should be read in the context of a federal administration that “has a certain political viewpoint that they would like to stamp out in America.”
“The intent of this is to chill speech on campuses,” Ms. Doukoure said.
Thousands of people were arrested at the peak of the campus protest movement in 2024, but those cases generally resulted in relatively minor charges in state courts or no charges at all.
Among the most serious charges filed in state court were felonies against Stanford protesters after demonstrators broke into the office of the university president and barricaded themselves inside. A California jury deadlocked on those charges this year.
A University of Michigan spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Court records did not make clear whether most of the defendants had hired lawyers, and none of them could be immediately reached for comment.
Six of the people charged in the indictment were described by prosecutors as Michigan residents: Paige E. Feyock, 26; Amatullah A. Hakim, 21; Zainab A. Hakim, 23; Mariam M. Odeh, 24; Colin H. Weger, 24; and Jonathan H. Zou, 22. Ahmet K. Korkaya, 28, of Wisconsin, and Alexander M. Sepulveda, 23, of Illinois, were also charged.
At least four defendants made initial appearances in federal court on Wednesday and were ordered detained temporarily. A fifth defendant appeared in court and was released on bond.
Many of the defendants had been publicly associated with campus protests at Michigan in recent years, and some had been identified as members of pro-Palestinian campus groups. At least six of the eight defendants had identified themselves online as University of Michigan students, and a seventh had worked as a researcher there. At least two appeared to have written opinion pieces in The Michigan Daily, a campus publication, expressing support for the Palestinian cause or anger over university policies.
“The university maintains deep ties with Israeli institutions that fund research and develop technologies for the genocide in Gaza,” said an opinion piece published in December and co-written by Amatullah Hakim.
One defendans, Mr. Zou, appears to be the same person who sued the University of Michigan last year over a campus ban for his actions during a protest. That lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and another group, accused the university of responding with a heavy hand response to campus protests.
“These trespass bans have upended plaintiffs’ daily lives, disrupted their education and work, and are blocking their ability to speak and protest freely on the university’s vast campus,” the lawsuit said.
Wednesday’s indictment described how pro-Palestinian activists at Michigan planned their actions in private messages and posted publicly on social media afterward. Prosecutors described social media posts, including at least some that remained online, as evidence of unlawful conduct.
“Those who engage in coordinated campaigns of threats and intimidation should expect to be held fully accountable under federal law,” said Jennifer Runyan, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Detroit field office, in a statement.
The indictment mentioned a pro-Palestinian protest encampment in 2024 on Michigan’s campus, but it focused on actions that took place after university officials broke it up.
Prosecutors accused the group of traveling at night to the homes of university leaders, as well as businesses and organizations deemed supportive of Israel, and leaving spray-painted messages and threatening notes. In some cases, prosecutors said, protesters “caulked doors shut, bike-locked entryways, broke windows, and threw glass jars” filled with acid and dye into homes.
Among those targeted, prosecutors said, were the university president and provost, a university police officer, a Jewish organization and businesses including Rolls-Royce and Maersk.
The indictment accused some of the defendants of traveling to the home of an elected university regent before 6 a.m. in May 2024. Once there, prosecutors said, those defendants “littered the yard and porch with small tents, sheets wrapped to look like dead bodies, dismembered and bloody baby dolls, and a broken crib.” The group also left a note at the door demanding that the university divest from Israel, prosecutors said.
Though the indictment did not include the regent’s name, it quoted from a social media post that remained online on Wednesday and that included video of several people in masks on the driveway of a home. That post identified the regent as Sarah Hubbard, a Republican.
“I’m very appreciative of the tireless work done by various levels of law enforcement on the University of Michigan campus, in Michigan and across the United States to bring this matter forward,” Ms. Hubbard said in a social media post after the indictment.
Ms. Doukoure, the lawyer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, took issue with how the indictment relied on what would otherwise be protected speech to make the case that vandalism was part of a broader, threatening conspiracy.
“If they did vandalize buildings, we’re not saying that that’s pure speech, and that that’s not a criminal act,” Ms. Doukoure said. “But what I am saying is that when you write an indictment in a way where the bulk of the indictment is about the speech itself and not about the criminal act, that sends a message that we don’t want to hear the speech.”
Aaron Terr, the director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that to prevail on the conspiracy charges, the government has to prove that the messages in the indictment were actual threats and not mere posturing.
“A true threat is a serious expression of intent to commit unlawful violence against a person or group,” Mr. Terr said. “It doesn’t include jokes, hyperbole, or inflammatory rhetoric that does not seriously communicate an intent to use violence.”
Michigan, one of the country’s most highly regarded public universities, was far from alone in seeing heated protests in 2023 and 2024 over the fighting in Gaza. There were high-profile clashes at Columbia University, Indiana University, Northwestern University and the University of California, Los Angeles — and the tumult spread across the country.
Pro-Palestinian protesters on some campuses persuaded administrators to agree to certain concessions. The demonstrations also led to accusations of antisemitism in American higher education.
After returning to power in 2025, President Trump and his administration described what they saw as a pattern of policies hostile to Jewish and Israeli students and pressed for changes. The Justice Department has sued some of those universities, though critics have argued that the campaign is motivated in large part by a desire to punish elite institutions seen as hostile to the president’s agenda.
Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) U.S.-Iran Strikes Risk Dangerous New Phase
The exchanges of fire this week have raised fears of a return to all-out war. The U.S. military struck another tanker it said was carrying Iranian oil and three Indians were reported killed in an earlier American attack at sea.
By Lara Jakes, Eric Schmitt, Leo Sands, Anupreeta Das and Jonathan Swan, June 11, 2026
Enghelab Square in central Tehran on Monday. Credit...Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times
The United States and Iran traded a new round of attacks early Thursday, bringing the countries back to the precipice of all-out war after President Trump vowed to keep up military pressure on Tehran to make a peace deal.
Mr. Trump threatened in a post on social media on Thursday that the United States would hit Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT,” and soon take Kharg Island, the heart of Iran’s oil economy. The president has repeatedly made such threats, hoping to compel Iran to agree to his demands to shutter its nuclear program and end the conflict.
But the tit-for-tat strikes this week have risked pushing the conflict into a perilous new phase, with no clear signs of whether the fighting could be contained. Iran’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that the latest round of strikes on Iran by the United States had effectively rendered the cease-fire they reached in April “meaningless.”
The U.S. military also sought to raise pressure on Iran at sea, striking an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday for “attempting to transport Iranian oil,” U.S. Central Command said. The Indian government announced that three Indian crew members had died in a U.S. strike on another tanker a day earlier, the first seafarers known to have been killed in the U.S. military effort to enforce a blockade to starve Iran of oil revenue.
The latest American attack in Iran began shortly after midnight in Tehran and lasted about four hours, according to Central Command. Explosions were heard in Qeshm near the Strait of Hormuz, as well as the southern cities of Bandar Abbas, Minab and Sirik, Iranian news outlets reported. Mr. Trump told Fox News that strikes would resume the following night if Tehran did not capitulate in negotiations.
Iran said it had responded with two waves of attacks on targets at U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. Kuwait’s military said on Thursday morning that it was intercepting hostile targets, and the authorities briefly closed the country’s airspace to civilian aircraft. Sirens were activated in Bahrain, the country’s interior ministry said, without saying what had triggered them.
Iran also said that the Strait of Hormuz was now closed to any type of vessel, including oil tankers and commercial ships. The U.S. military said the strait was not closed.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the new strikes were meant not as retaliation for a particular military action but to pressure Tehran to agree to peace on Mr. Trump’s terms.
“If we need to negotiate with bombs, we’ll negotiate with bombs,” Mr. Hegseth told reporters.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) Women Who Fled Iran Are to Be Deported to Central African Republic, Lawyers Say
The women are among nearly two dozen people slated to be sent to a country where the U.S. government has advised “Do not travel for any reason.”
By Megha Rajagopalan and Hamed Aleaziz, June 11, 2026
The Trump administration is working to find ways to deport some migrants to third countries as a way around court orders barring their return home. Valerie Plesch for The New York Times
The Trump administration is preparing to deport nearly two dozen people to the Central African Republic on Thursday, including at least two Iranian women who had sought refuge in the United States, according to lawyers and a government official.
The flight, which is also expected to include migrants from Afghanistan and Syria, would mark the first such deportation to the Central African Republic, a deeply impoverished country that has been plagued by conflict. The country is so dangerous that the U.S. State Department states on its website, “do not travel for any reason.”
At least some of the migrants have received court orders in the United States prohibiting their deportation to their home countries because of the threat of persecution or torture, their lawyers said. Migrants face a higher burden of proof to win this “withholding of removal” status than they do to qualify for asylum.
The Trump administration is working to find ways to deport people despite these court orders. The government is cutting deals with other countries willing to take them. The U.S. has sought or signed agreements with dozens of countries, including Ghana, Equatorial Guinea and Eswatini.
The Iranian women scheduled to be on Thursday’s flight have no criminal record and have been granted court protection against deportation to Iran, said Sahar Jalili Pawelski, one of their immigration lawyers. The precise circumstances of their cases were not immediately clear, but many Iranians who hold this protection fear persecution over their political beliefs or religious identity.
The women were in “serious disbelief” when they realized they were scheduled to be sent to the Central African Republic, said Ali Rahmana of the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund, who recently met with them.
The Department of Homeland Security said it would not confirm future deportations for security reasons. The planned deportations were confirmed by a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans were not public. A senior immigration official in the Central African Republic said he had no knowledge of any final agreement.
The migrants have no ties to the country, and it is unclear where they will live or whether they could ultimately be sent back to Iran. The U.S. government has documented significant human rights abuses in the Central African Republic, including unlawful killings, torture and arbitrary arrest and detention.
“It’s one of the hardest places in the world to live, and the idea that it would be considered a safe third country is absurd,” said Anjli Parrin, director of the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School.
The existence of a deportation deal with the Central African Republic was earlier reported by Reuters.
Ms. Parrin, who has worked extensively in the country, said it has no functioning health care system and that fears of violence are constant despite a tentative peace agreement between armed groups and the state.
Mr. Trump campaigned on a promise to curtail immigration, and the White House is looking to step up deportations to third countries as a way to make good on that pledge. The deportation of Iranians would be another example of that policy extending to groups that had previously been seen as U.S. allies or aligned with its values.
The administration had been in talks with the Democratic Republic of Congo to deport more than 1,000 Afghans who had aided the U.S. war effort in their country, rather than allowing them to immigrate to the U.S. as planned. Negotiations stalled after a wave of public criticism, leaving the administration to seek new alternatives.
Margaret Stock, an Alaska-based immigration attorney and a member of the legal team for an elderly Syrian man who was told he would be on the flight to the Central African Republic, said he has scars all over his body from being tortured in his home country. He feared returning to Syria because he is a Sufi Muslim, she said, and a U.S. immigration judge agreed that those fears were credible.
The man, she added, suffers from diabetes — a grave risk in the Central African Republic, where medical care, even for routine ailments, is extremely limited.
“He’s not going to be able to access his medication, and he’s going to die,” Stock said. “And they know he’s going to die if they send him there.”
Ms. Stock said the man, who she said has no criminal record, had been released from immigration detention, but was later taken into custody again at a traffic stop.
Megha Rajagopalan is an international investigative reporter based in London.
Hamed Aleaziz covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy for The Times.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) Analysis of Satellite Image and Videos Suggest Precision U.S. Strikes on Iranian Water Facility
It is unclear if the U.S. intentionally struck the facility or knew what it was. Deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime.
By Christoph Koettl and Christiaan Triebert, Published June 10, 2026, Updated June 11, 2026
Reporters with The New York Times Visual Investigations team
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/world/middleeast/precision-strike-iran-water.html
Strikes early Wednesday destroyed what appears to be a drinking-water facility on Iran’s southern coast, near the Strait of Hormuz, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Around the time of the strikes, the U.S. Central Command said in a post on X that it had conducted attacks near the strait “with precision munitions from U.S. Air Force and Navy fighter jets.”
Iranian state media reported that the U.S. had hit water storage buildings and a local official said that water was cut off to more than 20,000 people living in a town and villages nearby. Temperatures in the area have reached above 100 degrees Fahrenheit this week.
A commercial satellite image from the morning of June 9 shows two small water structures in the village of Bemani. Both have light blue pipes, typical for water distribution infrastructure, as is their location — on a hill outside of a populated area. The buildings are consistent with the description of the two storage tanks that Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, the head of the provincial water authority, said were destroyed.
It is unclear if the U.S. intentionally struck the water facilities, or knew what was in the buildings. Deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime under international law.
Videos released on Wednesday by Iranian media outlets, including state media, and the provincial water authority show that the roof of the smaller building collapsed.
The larger facility next to it still stands, but images show that it has a small impact hole in the center of its roof. The Times confirmed the images of the structure by matching the visible surroundings to reference imagery of the site.
A photo of fragments that Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency, said were recovered from the site showed remnants identified as a GBU-39 bomb by researchers with the Open Source Munitions Portal, a database of weapon fragments documented in conflict zones.
The GBU-39, a small precision-guided glide bomb in the 250-pound class, is consistent with the damage shown in the footage of the damaged building: a clean hole punched through the building’s roof and limited blast damage around it.
Both buildings stand outside the village, and there is no other infrastructure in the immediate vicinity. Hitting remote buildings and striking the center of a roof are considered likely indicators of a precision strike. Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesman for Central Command, said the military is aware of the reports and is looking into them.
Mr. Hamzehpour, the provincial water authority leader, said that mobile water tankers had brought in water to supply residents while crews built a new service line that bypassed the damaged tanks, a task he said had been accomplished within 12 hours.
John Ismay, James McManagan and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting. Alexander Cardia contributed graphics editing. Translation was contributed by Artemis Moshtaghian.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) We Can’t Let My Former V.C. Colleagues Buy Off Our Democracy
By John O’Farrell, June 11, 2026
Mr. O’Farrell is a former general partner at Andreessen Horowitz.
Flo Meissner
I first came to America from Ireland in 1984, as a young engineer about to attend business school. I chose Stanford University — partly for the weather and natural beauty, but more for the electrifying entrepreneurial spirit coursing through Silicon Valley. I was riveted by Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl ad — an athlete hurls a sledgehammer into Big Brother’s screen, shattering IBM’s grip on computing. More than an advertisement, it was a manifesto that technology could dismantle power.
Over the past 40 years, I’ve been privileged to play a leading role in three start-ups and be the first general partner hired by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. I saw how the internet democratized information, how the iPhone put a computer in everyone’s pocket, and how the cloud unleashed a tsunami of new software. Each wave showed that technology could be a powerful force for good, that the upstarts could win on the merits and that open competition and debate were values the tech industry welcomed and promoted.
Just as artificial intelligence is on the rise, that ethos is now under threat — and the threat is coming from inside Silicon Valley.
Some of the most powerful players in A.I. — led by some of my friends and former partners, to my great sadness — have raised hundreds of millions of dollars to forestall a more serious and meaningful debate about how A.I. should be governed. They have helped create political action committees to help defeat candidates who want strict regulations on A.I. and to promote those who can be counted on to stay out of their way. I believe this is a huge mistake.
A.I. is not just another technology. It could drive productivity to new heights while automating away work for millions. It could find a cure for cancer, while accelerating biological risks we’re not prepared for. It could transform how our children learn, while leaving them unable to tell real from fake. It could concentrate economic power in ways that would make the Gilded Age look quaint.
The rise of the A.I. industry demands a national conversation about how to share its potential benefits widely while addressing people’s legitimate fears. That conversation is beginning to happen, between unions, child safety advocates, civil rights organizations, economists and A.I. companies themselves. What’s missing is political leadership — legislators who are informed enough, and independent enough, to translate that debate into durable policy. Tech industry leaders should be doing everything they can to encourage more politicians to get up to speed and to engage.
The playbook we’re seeing comes from the crypto industry, which successfully neutered efforts to regulate it by spending tens of millions of dollars to help defeat pro-regulation candidates and elect industry-friendly politicians in 2024. Andreessen Horowitz, in fact, contributed heavily to a crypto PAC, Fairshake, which pioneered that model. Last year, the firm helped found an A.I. PAC, Leading the Future. Other Leading the Future contributors include the OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman, the Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and the A.I. company Perplexity. The PAC has raised over $125 million — not to make the case for their vision of A.I. policy, but, in my view, to intimidate politicians who appear to engage too aggressively with the question of how to govern A.I.
Leading the Future’s first target was Alex Bores, a New York State assemblyman who co-sponsored state-level A.I. regulation and is now running for Congress. The $6 million of ads the PAC has run against Mr. Bores make little mention of A.I. An attack ad in January on Mr. Bores by an affiliate of Leading the Future focused on claims that he made his money developing technology for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, allegations that Mr. Bores has said are false. The message to every other legislator seems clear: Touch A.I. regulation, and we will come for you, too.
Public First Action, a pro-regulation PAC backed by executives from Anthropic and others, which was formed with the explicit aim of countering Leading the Future, has waded in with more than $3 million to support Mr. Bores, part of $6 million from four PACs. I understand that impulse, but I don’t support this move either. Huge political spending is toxic to our democracy. It distorts the electoral process, and it won’t give the American people the thoughtful A.I. policy we deserve.
I believe this attempted political infiltration by the A.I. industry will fail. It misreads the public mood entirely. Americans believe the system is rigged by the wealthy and powerful. They’re also deeply concerned about A.I. — a backlash is building, and it will become fiercer when voters learn that a handful of billionaires are altogether spending nine figures, apparently in an effort to try to stop debates about regulation from further developing.
As the A.I. industry’s political spending is exposed, candidates who accept it run the risk of being seen by voters as being in the industry’s pocket. (I should disclose that I’ve been approached by people interested in more aggressively exposing the A.I. lobby’s attempts to buy political influence, and I may contribute my own money to these public awareness efforts.)
I understand the fear driving this spending. Bad regulation could hobble a transformative technology. Our politicians have not always distinguished themselves, with some unsophisticated, ill-informed attempts at technology regulation. But you don’t achieve balanced, intelligent regulation by silencing debate — you get it by engaging seriously and earning trust.
There is a far better use of those hundreds of millions spent on campaign consultants and negative ads. The A.I. industry could sponsor nationwide university boot camps to educate politicians, civil society organizations, regulators and the general public on A.I. — not promotional roadshows, but genuine, rigorous learning. It could fund experiments in using A.I. to radically improve public services, such as better health care access in underserved communities, more responsive local government and better schools.
That money could fund a moonshot to try to prove A.I. can, in fact, discover a cure for cancer. It could endow policy institutes focused on solutions for the hardest questions: how to share the economic gains broadly, how to address job displacement, how to preserve the dignity of work and how to build safety frameworks that keep pace with the technology itself. It could champion international cooperation on A.I. risk.
I’m still convinced that technology can be a powerful force for good. A.I. epitomizes that power. While I disagree with my former partners, none of my criticism is personal. This is a question of what’s best for America and the world. We have an extraordinary opportunity to model good citizenship and principled leadership by actively promoting A.I. policies that work for everyone. Let’s not waste it.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) Democrats Once Vowed to Stop Oil and Gas. Now They’re Not So Sure.
As the midterm elections approach, many leading Democrats are rethinking their approach to climate change
By Lisa Friedman and Brad Plumer, Reporting from Washington, June 11, 2026
A talk on rising energy costs on Capitol Hill hosted by Democrats, from left, Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, in March. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Democrats and environmentalists are shifting their approach to climate change, as the economic fallout from war in the Middle East has reshuffled the politics of energy.
With voters worried about spiking gas prices and inflation, some of the party’s leaders argue that they should stop trying to throttle oil and gas, which heat the planet when burned. It’s a rejection of the approach taken during the Biden administration, which treated climate change as an existential threat and tried to stop new drilling and pipelines.
The most recent example came in California, where Tom Steyer, a champion of fighting global warming, was edged out of this month’s gubernatorial primary by Xavier Becerra. Mr. Becerra, a moderate Democrat, questioned the state’s most stringent climate goals, like ending sales of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, and received donations from oil and gas companies.
Across the Northeast, Democratic governors have started to consider gas pipeline expansions, once unthinkable in the most climate-conscious states in the country. Even climate hawks in Congress have shifted their tactics, lawmakers said in recent interviews. And though the co-sponsors of the Green New Deal in 2019, Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, still rail against the fossil fuel industry, they rarely emphasize their once-influential plan to mobilize the U.S. economy to fight climate change.
The result could be a less ambitious climate agenda if the party returns to power in Washington.
During the 2024 election, Republicans accused Democrats of wanting to ban gasoline-powered cars and gas stoves and cast themselves as the party of lower prices and consumer choice. Pledging to “drill, baby, drill,” President Trump derided climate change as a hoax, promised to cut Americans’ energy bills and claimed that renewable energy would drive up costs.
Now many Democrats argue that the path back to power means abandoning some of their most aggressive stances on climate change. When they do promote renewable energy, they frame it as a way to lower electric bills and avoid the gas pump, not because of the effects on the planet.
Some environmental activists are muting their demands to keep fossil fuels “in the ground,” a rallying cry that had defined the climate movement for more than a decade.
“It’s something we are struggling with,” acknowledged Cassidy DiPaola, a spokeswoman for Fossil Free Media, a nonprofit group that wants to rapidly end the use of coal, oil and gas. “We are still committed as a movement to the ideas of keeping it in the ground, but as a campaign message, it’s more effective to talk about building clean energy.”
That’s a far cry from 2020, when activists pressured Democratic presidential candidates to forswear oil and gas donations, blackball anyone with a fossil fuel past from cabinet positions, and commit to eliminating the nation’s planet-warming emissions in just a few decades.
Democrats are trying to figure out how to talk about a problem that many voters still say they want to see the government tackle, but without opening candidates to attacks from Republicans calling them out of touch.
Mr. Markey said he isn’t abandoning the Green New Deal and legislation he has sponsored to prohibit new federal oil and gas leasing. But these days, he said, “I talk about the positive vision for what clean energy represents as a solution to the affordability crisis.”
A recent Economist/YouGov Poll showed that just 5 percent of Americans say climate change is their top voting issue. By contrast, 29 percent say their top priority is inflation and prices, and 13 percent cite jobs and the economy. A number of strategists have urged Democrats to stop talking about the issues that excite already-committed voters and broaden their appeal.
Still, voters want solutions. In February, a YouGov poll found that 57 percent of Americans thought the United States should do more to address climate change. A quarter of Republicans agreed, as did 58 percent of independents. Among Democrats, 90 percent of voters wanted to see more action to curb global warming.
Rather than pushing green solutions only, many Democrats say they have a better way to bridge the gap: Be the party of yes to all forms of energy. After all, they argue, wind and solar power are often the cheapest forms of electricity and the fastest to deploy. On an even playing field, they say, renewables would beat fossil fuels.
“We shouldn’t be against the domestic oil and gas industry, but we have to be for the energy transition,” said Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist. “Democrats should be running toward that instead of away from it.”
A Biden-era battle over fossil fuels
The Biden administration’s signature climate achievement was the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. The law offered hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives for wind, solar, nuclear, electric vehicles and other nonpolluting technologies.
Yet Mr. Biden also faced enormous pressure, particularly from young climate activists, to aggressively end the use of fossil fuels.
“Some of the extremist voices on the climate side were saying, ‘You can simply say ‘no more drilling’ or ‘no more fossil fuels,’” said Amos Hochstein, who served as a senior energy and foreign policy adviser to Mr. Biden. “This was a battle that existed inside the administration.”
In response, Mr. Biden promised “no new drilling, period,” on federal lands and waters. He canceled the Keystone Pipeline to bring oil from Canada; sealed off millions of acres in Alaska from oil and gas exploration; supported a California plan to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035; and stopped construction of new liquefied natural gas export terminals for nearly a year.
Biden administration officials hoped their positions would not only help the planet, but also pay off with young and climate-minded voters. It didn’t work out that way. Young people, especially men, turned away from the Democrats in 2024.
After Mr. Trump won the White House and Republicans claimed both chambers of Congress, they systematically dismantled most of Mr. Biden’s climate policies.
Mr. Trump also promoted fossil fuels and waged war on wind and solar power, leaving little to show for Mr. Biden’s ambitious climate agenda less than two years after he left office.
Almost immediately after the 2024 election, some strategists argued that Democrats should stop talking about the threat of global warming altogether. A growing number of Democratic politicians agree.
Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona said recently he and many others aren’t discussing climate change during the midterm election season because “we want to win.”
Rahm Emanuel, the former congressman, chief of staff to President Barack Obama and mayor of Chicago who is exploring a 2028 White House run, said Democrats need to focus on household budgets, specifically electric and gas bills.
“I’m not against talking about climate policy, but you’ve got to talk about it as energy and energy prices,” Mr. Emanuel said, “and you talk about it as it relates to protecting ratepayers.”
He argued that Democrats “were talking to the faculty lounge and to another Aspen conference on climate change,” and added, “That’s not how you win political arguments.”
That sentiment isn’t universal; many Democrats said they are still firmly committed to raising alarm about a planet that has already warmed by about 1.3 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, has criticized “climate hushing” — downplaying the changing climate to avoid perceived political backlash, a tactic he says leads to a self-reinforcing cycle. “When leaders don’t talk about something, enthusiasm falls among voters,” Mr. Whitehouse warned on social media recently.
Saad Amer, a climate activist and founder of the consultancy Justice Environment, said he believes voters still want to know how politicians will tackle the crisis.
“The folks who are saying we shouldn’t talk about climate change are unimaginative hypocrites who don’t have any vision of what a future should look like,” Mr. Amer said.
But even lawmakers who have been committed for decades to the climate fight said the party should move away from calls to ban fossil fuels.
“It may be emotionally satisfying to shut down something bad,” said Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii. “But if we’re going to effectuate the transition, it’s all going to take over a decade. We have to get serious about what that looks like.”
A shift on oil and gas
Democrats said they are coalescing around a future agenda that begins with immediate relief for families. That includes bolstering programs Mr. Trump has tried to eradicate that provide federal aid for heating, cooling and utility emergencies. They also are exploring ideas like paying states to freeze or lower electricity rates, or banning utility shut offs for low-income families.
Most of those ideas aren’t directly related to climate change. But after those short-term steps, they’d also restore investments in wind, solar, electric vehicles, battery storage and other clean energy products that Republicans wiped out, and champion upgrades to the nation’s transmission lines to handle more renewables.
At the state level, some Democrats in the Northeast have recently supported expanding natural gas pipelines, acknowledging that renewable energy alone can’t meet domestic demand cheaply.
“We have growing energy needs in this country, and that’s why we need to embrace an all of the above approach,” said Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts. “Gas is still an important part of our portfolio.”
Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat from the energy-rich swing state of Pennsylvania, said the party should embrace all forms of energy, a notion supported by research on voter attitudes.
“We’re going to need more energy,” he said. “Democrats — we were, in my opinion, pretending that we are not going to need fossil fuels like natural gas, and the Republicans, they canceled wind, and that’s crazy.”
The idea of an “all of the above” energy policy used to be more closely associated with the Republican Party. But Mr. Trump has largely abandoned that approach, attacking solar and stifling offshore wind farms partly because he doesn’t like the way turbines look. His war on wind has cost states thousands of jobs and imperiled energy security, analysts said.
Peter Maysmith, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said that while his group continues to oppose new oil and gas projects, environmentalists should pay more attention to efforts to expand clean energy right now.
“Something that is quintessentially American is choice and freedom, and the whole notion of bans often runs counter to that,” he said.
Activists and lawmakers acknowledged that an increase in wind and solar energy without a concurrent drop in fossil fuel use might not cut U.S. emissions as quickly.
But, they said, it could lead to policies that endure longer than the Biden administration’s efforts.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) Private Medicare Plans Often Deny Access to Special Care, Analysis Shows
Two reports by U.S. investigators reveal how Medicare Advantage is quick to reject requests for short-term nursing home or inpatient rehab services.
By Reed Abelson, June 11, 2026
Two reports found that the three major insurers that sell Medicare Advantage plans denied about 13 percent of patients’ requests to go to a skilled nursing facility to recover from surgery or a serious illness. David Goldman/Associated Press
People enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans have been inappropriately denied admission to a skilled nursing home when leaving the hospital, according to a new analysis by federal investigators.
These private plans, which cover about 35 million older Americans under the federal Medicare program, have drawn sharp criticism for delaying and denying medically necessary care. Federal investigators have previously raised similar concerns about the plans’ tactics.
Insurance companies offering Medicare Advantage plans often require prior authorization before agreeing to cover treatment.
Plans are paid a fixed amount to care for patients, so they have a financial incentive to spend less on care. To achieve savings, these plans often deny people expensive specialized inpatient care, like tailored rehabilitation or therapy services, and may instead send them to outpatient facilities or back to their homes, according to the analysis.
Two new reports from the inspector general’s office at the Department of Health and Human Services focused on major insurers — UnitedHealth Group, Humana and CVS Health, the large for-profit companies whose plans cover the bulk of people enrolled in Medicare Advantage. The companies denied about 13 percent of patients’ requests to go to a skilled nursing facility to continue their recovery from surgery or a serious illness, according to the first report. The investigators also raised concerns about whether outside contractors being used by the insurers to decide whether a patient should get more specialized care were being adequately supervised.
“The dominance of a few large insurance companies in Medicare Advantage and the use of contractors to process prior authorization requests means that the policies and performance of just a few companies can impact care for millions of people,” Rosemary Bartholomew, who led the government team, said in an interview.
Overall, about one in five patients appealed the insurers’ denials, and nearly all were reversed, according to the investigators’ review of denials by 19 companies in June 2024. UnitedHealth, which received the highest number of requests for appeal, reversed 99.7 percent of its rejections, according to the inspector general’s inquiry.
The high percentage of denials that were overturned suggests some people’s care was inappropriately delayed because of the insurers’ decision, and others may not have gotten the care they deserved because they never appealed.
Investigators also detailed the physical and mental toll of the delays and denials for many patients who waited a week or more to get into a facility. Some were stuck in the hospital, adding unnecessary costs for the hospital and angst for patients.
A lack of information or some other hiccup might have triggered initial denials, but the high reversal rate suggested a more systemic problem. “Obviously, that’s not the ideal outcome,” Ms. Bartholomew said. “You want those requests to be approved at the first request as often as possible.”
The report also highlighted the role of a company owned by UnitedHealth, the former naviHealth, to review patients’ requests.
The company is often hired by other plans, and investigators found it had higher denial rates than plans that made the decisions themselves or used other contractors. It also had high rates of denials for patients seeking inpatient rehabilitation services, according to a second report from the investigators.
NaviHealth has been accused of using algorithms to deny claims, and UnitedHealth is the subject of a class-action lawsuit. It has previously denied these allegations.
Nursing home patients, whose daily care is often paid for by federal-state Medicaid programs, sometimes qualify for short-term services under Medicare. These patients were denied skilled nursing care 40 percent of the time, according to federal investigators. “The extremely high denial rate for skilled nursing facility admission for patients who were living in nursing homes prior to their hospitalization raises concerns that they may not be receiving the intensity and frequency of care after their hospital discharge that they need,” Ms. Bartholomew said.
The investigators urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the private Advantage plans, to collect more detailed information about denial rates for specific services and the use of outside companies to do the reviews. They also urged the agency to focus on how the initial reviews were conducted to see why so many of the denials were overturned.
In its written response to the investigators, Medicare said it audited the plans and was conducting a pilot program to collect more information from the plans about their use of prior authorization. The agency “uses several oversight tools to ensure that the M.A. program provides adequate health care access to enrollees,” it said.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
8) SpaceX Set to Start Trading in Blockbuster Market Debut
Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite maker already finalized the world’s largest initial public offering, selling 555 million shares at an initial price of $135.
By Ryan Mac and Lauren Hirsch, June 12, 2026
SpaceX executives and employees ring the opening bell at Nasdaq. Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket and artificial intelligence company, will begin trading on the stock market later Friday, a bellwether debut that will likely define the future for a wave of hopeful A.I. start-ups.
The company already finalized its initial public offering as the world’s largest stock market debut, a testament to Mr. Musk’s influence and investors’ belief in his business prowess. SpaceX confirmed on Thursday that its I.P.O. price was set at $135 a share and that it would sell more than 555 million shares.
That means SpaceX raised around $75 billion from its offering, putting its valuation at $1.77 trillion — and toppling all previous I.P.O. records. The company’s shares will begin publicly trading later Friday on the stock exchange under the ticker symbol SPCX.
If investor demand pushes the price of the stock higher in the first days of trading, it could make Mr. Musk the world’s first trillionaire.
Mr. Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, and has since revolutionized the space industry with partly-reusable rockets and with Starlink, a satellite internet offering that provides service to rural areas, airlines and the Ukrainian army. Earlier this year, SpaceX acquired xAI, Mr. Musk’s A.I. start-up, which has built massive data centers, created a chatbot called Grok and also owns X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter.
Mr. Musk separately runs the electric car manufacturer Tesla and a handful of other start-ups.
SpaceX could pave the way for other enormous debuts, including by the A.I. companies Anthropic and OpenAI, which both filed confidentially for I.P.O.s this month. Both of those start-ups have valuations approaching $1 trillion. The three offerings could unleash an avalanche of wealth across Silicon Valley and Wall Street, creating new corporate titans in the process.
Earlier this year, Cerebras, an A.I. chip maker, kicked off the expected wave of offerings and rose 68 percent on its first day of trading, becoming the largest public offering so far this year and the biggest of any technology firm since 2019.
Here’s what to know:
First trillionaire? Among the biggest winners is Mr. Musk, 54, who is already the world’s richest man. At $135 a share, the roughly 50 percent stake in SpaceX that he controls would be worth just over $860 billion. (Mr. Musk cannot sell some of the SpaceX shares he controls until the company hits various operational milestones, according to the firm’s filings.)
SpaceX’s business: While investors have so far leaped at the opportunity to purchase a piece of SpaceX, the company is still a money-losing venture. The company lost more than $4.9 billion last year, compared with a $791 million profit in 2024, because of increased expenditures on A.I., according to its I.P.O. prospectus. Revenue was $18.7 billion last year, up 33 percent from the previous year.
First trades: On Friday, a small fraction of SpaceX shares will begin trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol SPCX. Newly listed stocks trade after the market opens, and it may take several hours until those transactions materialize. That’s because bankers will spend Friday morning trying to assess from traders how much demand there is to sell — and buy — SpaceX shares at various prices. They are looking for an “equilibrium” price, for which there is generally the same number of sellers as there are buyers. That price may come in above or below the $135 a share price that investors agreed to pay in the company’s I.P.O. on Thursday night.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
9) Elon Musk Is Colonizing Earth
By Amy Gamerman, June 12, 2026
Photo Illustrations by Tam Stockton
Ms. Gamerman spent seven months documenting the rise of Starbase. She interviewed residents, teachers, lawyers, real estate workers, bartenders, community advocates and Cameron County officials.
Mr. Stockton assembled collages using photos he took in Brownsville and Starbase, Texas.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/12/opinion/elon-musk-spacex-starbase-texas.html
The gleaming new city checks every box: school, medical center, recreational center, sushi bar. There’s even a dog park with hoops and climbing toys. But you and your dog are not welcome; “Private” warns the sign at its entrance. And don’t even think of stopping by for a tuna roll: The streets of black-and-white houses are blocked off by electronic access gates that encircle the city like a medieval moat. I watched a man who made the mistake of wandering inside the minimart get escorted out by armed guards in tactical gear.
In this town, almost every communal space is private property. A company controlled by the world’s richest man owns nearly all of it. He shapes its future.
This is Starbase, Texas, the city that Elon Musk built on America’s ragged hem at the southern border as the home for SpaceX, his aerospace and artificial intelligence company. Locals describe a highly secretive environment overseen by a company-affiliated city commission that rubber-stamps Mr. Musk’s vision, a place where even kindergartners are guided by his philosophies. Starbase is the newest manifestation of Mr. Musk’s political power. It is a beta test for a rising oligarchy that seems intent on transforming America from the inside out.
Soon, there may be more spaceport cities just like it, thanks to the huge infusion of cash that will flood SpaceX’s coffers when it makes its debut as a publicly traded company on Friday. SpaceX, which aims to raise a record-shattering $75 billion, says it’s worth $1.75 trillion.
That valuation makes sense only through rapid growth. On May 12, Mr. Musk announced on social media that “SpaceX is considering several locations domestically and internationally to build the world’s most advanced spaceports!” His announcement came on the heels of reports that a large parcel of land in coastal Louisiana may have been acquired by an anonymous aerospace company, widely rumored to be SpaceX.
These spaceports will allow Mr. Musk to create his own reality for other people to live in. He doesn’t need Mars. Mr. Musk has already built a colony of his own.
Mr. Musk often cites “Star Trek” as inspiration for founding SpaceX. “We want to make ‘Star Trek’ real, OK?” he said in January. But Starbase bears less similarity to the enlightened wonderland depicted in that 1960s television show than it does to the autocratic company towns of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Like Mr. Musk, the industrial titans of that era built their own private fiefs, not only to cement control over workers, but to realize their vision of an ideal society.
Perhaps the most grandiose company town of them all was Fordlandia, the sprawling city that Henry Ford built in the Brazilian rainforest to grow rubber trees. Fordlandia was Ford’s personal Utopia, an expression of his social views, his personal predilections and even his vegetarianism. Workers were forced to subsist on a diet heavy on brown rice, oatmeal and canned peaches, as detailed in Greg Grandin’s “Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City.” For amusement, there was square dancing — Ford loved square dancing — and poetry readings.
Fordlandia’s ghost haunts Mr. Musk’s colony. Corporate control is so all-encompassing at Starbase that a warning on the menu at its Astropub restaurant alerts diners to the “confidentiality and proprietary nature” of the fare. Students at its private Ad Astra school are guided on “hands-on experiential missions.” The interplanetary mission is even written into the job description for a facilities supervisor overseeing waste management and janitorial needs.
Fordlandia was a hierarchical microcosm in which Brazilians did hard manual labor in punishing conditions, overseen by American managers who lived in their own community with Cape Cod-style bungalows. Starbase rolls out amenities to attract the highly skilled engineers, technicians and welders SpaceX needs. It’s another story for the longtime residents who don’t work for SpaceX or the third-party contractors who are building out Starbase at breakneck speed. The residents I spoke with do not feel welcome there.
There is one important difference between Fordlandia and Starbase, and that’s the sheer scale of the money involved and the speed with which it’s been transmuted into political power. Henry Ford’s net worth in today’s dollars would be equivalent to about $200 billion. Mr. Musk is on track to become the world’s first trillionaire, if the I.P.O. delivers. Over more than a decade, he has used his riches to lobby Texas’ governor and lawmakers and to elect judges, who have granted him near-total control over his spaceport city — and any new spaceports to come.
On the surface, Starbase resembles other small Texas towns. It is run by a city commission headed by a mayor who was voted into office to serve a one-year term in May 2025. At their monthly meetings, the mayor and two elected commissioners conduct garden-variety municipal business, like voting to approve ordinances and starting the process to hire a police chief.
But this American town functions very differently than most. From what I can tell, every conclusion the commission reaches seems to be a foregone conclusion, and every measure it enacts seems to benefit SpaceX. To date, all votes the commission has taken since the city was incorporated have been unanimous.
Mr. Musk, who serves as SpaceX’s chairman, chief executive, chief engineer and chief technology officer, does not hold elected office in Starbase. I can’t see why he’d bother. The mayor and one commissioner are SpaceX executives; the other commissioner, a SpaceX spouse. The city election scheduled for last month was canceled because no one stepped up to challenge the current town officials.
In 2011, Mr. Musk went shopping for an oceanside site for a new launch facility. Brownsville, on the Gulf of Mexico, fit the bill. Over the years that followed, he bought out longtime residents and hundreds of acres of undeveloped land in and around Boca Chica, an unincorporated community surrounded by a wildlife refuge, through SpaceX and its limited liability company.
The village of Boca Chica got a multimillion-dollar glow-up. Its rundown streets were landscaped, the dilapidated ranch houses were remodeled in glossy SpaceX black and white and E.V. chargers were installed for the Tesla Cybertrucks that now fill Starbase’s roads. At the same time, Mr. Musk contributed millions of dollars to PACs that support conservative candidates for Texas’ legislature and courts. He dispatched a dozen lobbyists to the State Capitol and cultivated a close relationship with the Texas governor, Greg Abbott.
Starbase became a Texas city in May 2025, after an electorate made up overwhelmingly of SpaceX employees and their significant others voted 212 to 6 to incorporate. In June, electronic gates went up on every road leading into the village, barring the public from (technically public) streets.
One new Texas law makes interfering with Starbase’s operations potentially punishable with jail time. Another allows the company to shut down the beach and the highway into town at the mayor’s discretion. Another shields SpaceX, and by extension Starbase, from lawsuits by neighbors over nuisance caused by its rockets. The laws are so protective of Starbase that critics fear they could be wielded to criminalize any protests near it. (Louisiana lawmakers just enacted a package of similar aerospace incentives and tax breaks in a charm offensive aimed at Mr. Musk.)
From a certain angle, life within Starbase’s gates looks pretty awesome. A YouTube video — since removed — shows Starbasers rocking out at a dance party as D.J.s spin tunes in the shadow of its Rocket Garden. There are farmers’ markets and concerts in the beer garden, and Starbase bartenders are rumored to make a mean old-fashioned, to take the edge off those long days spent working out the kinks of humanity’s multiplanetary future. Many employees have received stock and stock options as part of their compensation over the years; some will become millionaires when the company goes public.
Starbase’s darker realities are confided in whispers. Injury rates there far exceed the space industry average, according to a 2024 Reuters report. On May 15, Jose Luis Bautista Jr., a 25-year-old construction worker employed by an outside contractor, was killed in a dawn accident at the site where its Gigabay Starship assembly building is being erected. Brownsville’s fire chief told The San Antonio Express-News that an ambulance was dispatched to Starbase but turned around after SpaceX officials said their own emergency medical services were handling the accident. The incident is under investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which looks into workplace fatalities.
At Starbase, 12-hour workdays are common. A real estate agent told me a prime motivation for SpaceX employees to move to Starbase was to spend what little free time they have with their families instead of commuting. One of his clients had to be hospitalized for chugging too many energy drinks to stay alert after working 38 days straight.
SpaceX, which owns nearly all the real property within city limits, is building hundreds of townhouses and apartments for its booming population, which is projected to grow to over a thousand residents this year, from 582 in the fall of 2025. These homes are not for sale. They are almost all rentals, available only to SpaceX employees. A former SpaceX worker told Rolling Stone that when employees were fired, they were evicted in short order.
Those who live outside the gates of Starbase Village — the town’s center, where most of its amenities are — often feel shut out. Amber Pompa said her father, Homer Pompa, a disabled veteran who lives near Starbase Village, has no access to the restaurants or any other buildings there. And as Starbase expands, new gates have gone up in other parts of town. “There’s a huge building that’s supposed to have a market and a restaurant and Rio Grande River views right by my dad’s — they built it and then they put up a gate,” Ms. Pompa said.
There are a handful of non-SpaceX employees, including Mr. Pompa, who cling to their homes inside Starbase but outside the village. One longtime resident described how SpaceX bulldozers and heavy machinery have torn up the road to his home and made it hard to get to his property. But he hasn’t complained to the city. SpaceX’s people are in control, he said. If he speaks out against SpaceX, he fears the city could pass an ordinance that would create havoc for him. It’s like living in a dictatorship, he said. (SpaceX and Starbase’s city commission did not respond to requests for comment.)
I thought of him as I wandered through Starbase before a recent public meeting — the only time when the electronic gates retract to let in hoi polloi.
City commission sessions, held in a SpaceX facility, seem choreographed, a Kabuki performance by actors who wear Starbase baseball caps instead of kumadori face paint. At the meetings I attended, the mayor and two commissioners sat on a stage with a black-and-white honeycomb backdrop modeled on the hexagonal heat-shield tiles for SpaceX’s Starship rocket. They didn’t answer questions from members of the public, nor spend much time discussing the measures before them.
The city also serves as a useful stage for Mr. Musk, whose wealth was founded in no small part by the cultivation of a large fan base via social media. The YouTube celebrity MrBeast, who has 499 million subscribers, swung by in December to declare the Starship factory “arguably the coolest thing humanity has ever built.” A month later, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth paid a visit. SpaceX holds billions of dollars in government contracts with NASA and the Department of Defense. During a joint event, Mr. Musk described his goal to send “epic futuristic spaceships” to distant galaxies “where we may meet aliens,” and Mr. Hegseth responded with a “Star Trek” Vulcan “V” salute.
If the SpaceX I.P.O. delivers Mr. Musk’s trillion-dollar payday, it will validate the alternative reality that he has created at the tip of Texas and empower him to replicate it at scale. But here’s the thing about titans of industry who try to bend the world to their will — sooner or later, the world snaps back. Witness the blowback of Mr. Musk’s adventures in Washington on the reputation of his company Tesla. What works in deep-red Texas may not fly elsewhere.
Fed up with yet another meal of brown rice and other frustrations, Fordlandia’s workers staged a lunchtime revolt in 1930 that blossomed into a full-blown uprising. They smashed time clocks, destroyed trucks and equipment, set fire to the machine shop. Ford’s managers and their families fled by boat, or sought refuge in the jungle. Eventually order was restored. Then the rubber trees died. Planted too closely together, they were killed by pests and blight. Fordlandia was abandoned.
Mr. Musk’s bid for planetary reach is about to be turbocharged with billions of dollars of rocket fuel. Who will suffer the fallout if it all blows up?
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
10) A Dangerous Limbo Leaves Iran, and the World, Between Peace and War
Since announcing a nominal cease-fire two months ago, Iran, Israel and the U.S. have remained locked in low-intensity violence that has become a new normal.
By Mark Landler and Anton Troianovski, June 12, 2026
Mark Landler reported from Paris, and Anton Troianovski from Washington.
In Tehran on Monday, a billboard featuring the Iran theocracy’s first two supreme leaders loomed over passers-by. Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times
In just the past five days, the United States and Iran traded missile strikes after the downing of an American helicopter; Israel bombarded Lebanon, drawing retaliation from Iran; and the Iran-backed Houthis joined the reprisal from Yemen.
Then in a matter of hours on Thursday, President Trump called off another major attack on Iran and again held out the prospect of a peace accord, which Iran downplayed.
In the two months since the U.S. and Iran nominally declared a cease-fire, the line between peace and war has been all but erased across the Middle East, with attacks and counterattacks alongside promises to end the hostilities that never quite materialize. It is less a cease-fire than a “lesser fire,” in the words of the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres.
Even if the combatants manage to get a framework for a deal this time, this gray zone of “neither war nor peace” may persist for weeks or months, analysts and diplomats say. Neither Mr. Trump nor Iran appears ready to make significant concessions in negotiations for a long-term truce, with many devilish details to be worked out — not least over the future of Iran’s nuclear program.
Such a stalemate would consign the Middle East to a purgatory of sporadic violence and constant anxiety. And it would force the rest of the world to confront a stark new economic reality. Long-term disruption of oil and gas shipments would ripple into global supply chains, causing food shortages and driving up prices at the fuel pump and in grocery stores.
“There’s a good chance that the current equilibrium or something like it persists,” said Caitlin Talmadge, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who specializes in Persian Gulf security issues. “Not every war has a clean ending.”
What makes this war particularly messy are its multiple combatants, all with their own, often conflicting, agendas. Mr. Trump, facing midterm elections and political headwinds at home, has signaled he is eager to turn the page. Iran, having suffered fearful casualties, including the death of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, views this as a war of survival and is unlikely to limit its nuclear program in exchange for short-term respite. And Israel regards Iran as an existential threat — its nuclear facilities buried under rubble but not wiped out, its proxies regrouping in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen.
As Mr. Trump faces off with Iran, he is conducting a parallel negotiation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, alternately imploring him to hold off on strikes in Lebanon or defending Israel’s right to retaliate. Mr. Netanyahu faces his own election, with Iran looming as a major piece of unfinished business.
“If you get a cease-fire but not a durable peace, you would have to keep a close eye on Iran,” said Charles A. Kupchan, who worked on the National Security Council during the Obama administration. “You could also see continued proxy wars related to Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis,” he said, referring to Iran’s allies across the Middle East.
Mr. Kupchan, now a professor of international relations at Georgetown University, likened the challenge for the United States and Israel to “mowing the lawn,” a phrase that refers to the military offensives Israel periodically carried out in Gaza to degrade Hamas before the group carried out its attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Such a situation is not without precedent in the Middle East. For several years before the American-led war in Iraq, the United States imposed sanctions and enforced no-fly zones on Iraq. Proxy wars flared, and American military installations came under attack, most dramatically in 2000, when the U.S.S. Cole was blown up in a suicide bombing by Al Qaeda terrorists in Aden, Yemen.
What sets this conflict apart from previous ones is the Strait of Hormuz. Iran, in shutting it down, has wielded a devastating new form of leverage, even if it has yet to force Mr. Trump into a peace settlement.
Commercial shipping remains largely suspended. The shooting down of the Apache helicopter, for which the United States blamed Iran, is a reminder of the risks of a plan by the U.S. Navy to help secure the passage of ships through the strait. “This is more a temporary measure than an enduring situation,” said Martin Kelly, the head of advisory at EOS Risk Group, a Britain-based consulting firm.
Oil prices spiked on Thursday amid fears of a return to all-out war, while in the United States, the inflation rate surged past 4 percent.
Worries about the war’s economic fallout are likely to dominate a meeting of the Group of 7 leaders next week in France. European leaders have proposed a mission to secure commercial shipping, but it hinges on Mr. Trump and Iran agreeing on a more durable peace settlement. Iran is under its own pressures, with its oil exports largely halted by the U.S. Navy’s retaliatory blockade of the strait.
“This ‘no war, no peace’ situation is not sustainable,” said Vali R. Nasr, an expert on Iran at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “The Iranian economy cannot sustain this maximally for more than four or five months. The global economy cannot sustain this for four or five more months.”
For those reasons, Mr. Nasr said he expected that each side would try to force the other to recalculate. “That’s what we’re actually witnessing,” he said, pointing to U.S. strikes on Iranian drone bases near the strait, which he said were calculated to break its chokehold over the waterway.
The stalemate is creating its own facts on the ground, many of which are parlous for United States, according to analysts. Large numbers of American troops are tied up in the region, cutting into its ability to wield influence elsewhere, notably against China. A major escalation would further deplete stocks of air defenses and other weapons, which are already running low.
“You’re drawing down stockpiles and you’re deploying assets, which means that you’re impacting readiness of the force,” said Seth G. Jones, the defense and security department president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It creates tremendous risk in the Pacific.”
The war is also sapping the capacity of the White House to deal with other crises. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who is fighting a war with Russia that Mr. Trump had pledged to stop within 24 hours, recently said, “We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran.” He urged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, in a taunting open letter, to negotiate with him directly. (Mr. Putin declined.)
Even in the Middle East, U.S. influence has been shown to have limits. Iran’s missile and drone strikes have made it more dangerous for American service members to operate from their bases, while the Navy has largely avoided sending large ships into the Persian Gulf, apparently for fear of their being targeted.
“There are new military realities,” said Ms. Talmadge, the M.I.T. professor. “We’ve had the assumption for a really long time that our surface forces and our bases would have sanctuary — and they don’t.”
A more optimistic situation than the current limbo, analysts said, would be a durable cease-fire agreement, in which the United States and Iran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while deferring the thorny issue of Iran’s nuclear program for a subsequent negotiation. That could quiet Iran’s missile strikes on gulf countries. But it’s unclear if it would deter Israel from attacking Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in Lebanon, since Hezbollah has rejected a cease-fire and Israel contends that it needs to defend itself.
“The longer this war persists, the more cracks are likely to develop between Israel and the United States,” Mr. Jones said.
To some extent, Mr. Trump is in a box of his own making. He appears loath to agree to a settlement with Iran that hawkish critics in the Republican Party could brand as a retread of President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran. (“No deal is better than a bad one,” is the refrain in that camp.)
Yet a resumption of high-intensity warfare would deepen the economic chaos, as well as put American troops at risk, five months before a midterm election in which the Republicans already face an uphill struggle.
“Having this war escalate into a bigger conflagration right before the election is not going to be politically helpful for Republicans,” Ms. Talmadge said. “But the status quo is also bad.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
11) ICE Wants Local Police to Enforce Immigration Law. These Officers Signed Up.
By Allison McCann, June 12, 2026
The reporter joined a traffic enforcement operation conducted by Wyoming sheriff’s deputies who have been certified as immigration officers.
Sheriff’s deputies in Laramie County, Wyo., briefly detained a man from Venezuela after a traffic stop last month. The sheriff’s department in the county has an agreement with the federal government to perform immigration arrests. Todd Heisler for The New York Times
Early on a Tuesday morning last month, the sky still black, a group of deputies from the Laramie County sheriff’s office set out to patrol two major interstates that cross their corner of southeast Wyoming. Over the course of five hours, they made 41 traffic stops, issued 12 citations, made two criminal arrests and — through a new partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — detained seven immigrants.
One person was asleep in the backseat of a silver pickup truck stopped for a too-dim rear license plate light. Two passengers in a minivan that had been going 12 miles per hour over the limit were also taken into custody. Four others were detained after their pickup, too, was stopped for speeding.
All were booked into the county jail to await transfer to an ICE detention facility. The deputies working the immigration operation earned a combined $1,325 in overtime courtesy of the federal government.
The Trump administration has enlisted hundreds of state and local law enforcement agencies in its mass deportation campaign by deputizing their officers as immigration agents, extending ICE’s reach far beyond where the agency typically operates.
Living in the United States without authorization is a civil violation, not a criminal offense, and local police officers have no responsibility to enforce federal immigration law. But after completing a 40-hour virtual training, certified officers can inquire about the immigration status of people they encounter in the course of routine police work; call ICE if they suspect a person is undocumented; and, if given the go-ahead, take immigrants into custody.
Before President Trump returned to office, the program — named 287(g) for a section of federal immigration law — had largely consisted of agreements with local agencies to identify and process immigrants already held in jails. The Trump administration expanded the cooperation, and for the first time offered cash incentives to agencies to sign up and make arrests.
Participation has exploded, and de facto ICE officers are now on the ground in hundreds of cities and counties across 31 states. Several thousand officers have been credentialed — state troopers, sheriff’s deputies, police officers, constables — on top of the 12,000 new officers and agents that ICE hired last year. The rush to sign up and cash in has included some unusual agencies, too, like Louisiana’s State Fire Marshal and Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Perhaps most significantly, the program has the potential to turn highways and roads into sites of immigration enforcement.
“ICE does not have that generalized patrol authority, so it’s really great for ICE that they can use state and local police in this way,” said Naureen Shah, the director of immigration policy at the American Civil Liberties Union, whose Wyoming office is suing Laramie County over its agreement with ICE.
Brian Kozak, the Laramie County sheriff, said the program allows his office to be more efficient and move detainees through his jail more quickly.
“If someone is undocumented, it’s faster for our deputies to book them on an ICE hold and not even do the local charges. Then they don’t have to sit in my jail waiting for those local charges to be adjudicated,” he said, though he added that more serious felony offenses would still be charged.
‘A tremendous asset’
Even though 1,200 local task force partners have signed on, the program is still ramping up. Fewer than 300 participating agencies had both credentialed at least one officer and received a payment for immigration enforcement work as of March, according to a payout ledger obtained by Ken Klippenstein, an independent journalist.
Researchers estimate that the share of people detained through any type of 287(g) program rose to about 10 percent in January, up from about 3 percent a year before. The Department of Homeland Security declined to answer detailed questions about the program or share more recent arrest or payment figures.
“The 287(g) program can be a tremendous asset to you and to the country,” Markwayne Mullin, the Homeland Security secretary, said this week at the National Sheriffs’ Association conference. “If we had the participation of all the county sheriffs that are in this building right now, think how much faster those arrests would move up.”
Over the course of a week in April, Laramie County was among the top arresting agencies in the country, alongside larger state authorities like the Florida Highway Patrol and the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, according to snapshots of internal ICE data obtained by The New York Times. Together, the top five local partners made 162 immigration arrests that week; over a week in May, the top agencies made around 300 arrests.
Those are modest figures, considering ICE recorded about 7,000 arrests each week nationwide in recent months. The larger goal may be the perception of an ever more widespread immigration enforcement apparatus.
“The arrest numbers sometimes don’t matter to them if the message and rhetoric is strong enough — that any kind of day-to-day activity for an immigrant could lead to deportation,” said Nayna Gupta, the policy director for the American Immigration Council, a legal advocacy group that supports immigrants.
Financial incentives
For the local partners, the program comes with an enticing offer: a one-time payment of $100,000 for new vehicles and $7,500 in equipment funds per certified task force officer. ICE says it will pay the salary and benefits for officers who do immigration work full time, and overtime for up to 25 percent of an officer’s salary.
Agreements are most common in states where Republican leaders back the president’s immigration agenda. Last year, Florida became the first state to require local agencies’ participation in the 287(g) program, followed by Texas this year. Elsewhere, participation is more scattered — and Democratic lawmakers seeking to reign in ICE have succeeded in banning the agreements altogether in 11 states, most recently in New York.
Laramie County now has 30 credentialed task force officers. Since October, they have made 412 immigration arrests and the sheriff’s office has received about $300,000 for its participation.
Larger statewide agencies stand to be paid millions. Then there are the hundreds of smaller agencies with only a few task force officers, like the police department in Colebrook, N.H., which has three.
“It’s a huge thing for a small department like us to get that stipend,” said Chief Paul Rella, who said his department has made two ICE arrests since January and has received around $100,000. “But even if there wasn’t a stipend, we would’ve done it anyway. To be able to have the authority to detain someone that may be here illegally, it all comes down to community safety.”
Immigrant rights groups and critics of the program say it has the opposite effect: As more police officers work for ICE, immigrants may be discouraged from reporting crimes or avoid contact with local law enforcement for fear of deportation.
“It’s a balancing act,” acknowledged Benjamin Cox, the police chief in Duncan, S.C., a town of about 5,000 with two task force officers. “I need the people in our town, no matter their immigration status, to feel comfortable calling me. That’s the most challenging part of 287(g).”
Opponents of the program also say that it can lead to racial profiling. In 2011 and 2012, the Justice Department found that participating agencies in Arizona and North Carolina had engaged in patterns of discriminatory policing, leading the Obama administration to discontinue the task force program.
Sheriff Kozak is familiar with those risks. He worked as a police officer for 20 years in Mesa, Ariz., when Sheriff Joe Arpaio set up random checkpoints and neighborhood sweeps that targeted Latinos, and he said he saw firsthand that the sheriff was “crossing the line.”
“Our policy requires lawful contact following a violation of state law,” he said. “We’re focused on traffic enforcement and traffic safety, and then a side thing is the immigration.”
A D.H.S. spokesperson said accusations that 287(g) agreements encourage racial profiling are false and that ICE’s local partners fairly enforce immigration law.
From commute to detention
By late morning, the Laramie County deputies were preparing to head back to the jail when they stopped the speeding minivan. Four workers with a drywall company headed to a job site were inside. The driver and front-seat passenger had valid identification but told the deputies that the other passengers did not.
“We don’t typically ask other passengers unless there’s a reason, but nothing says you can’t ask” for identification, Chance Walkama, a chief deputy, explained. “That’s how things happen all the time.” Passengers who have not broken a law may decline to speak with the police, but many immigrants are unaware of this right.
Mr. Walkama texted the passengers’ information to his contact at the local ICE field office in Cheyenne. The ICE agent wrote back that one of their names matched someone with a criminal history and the same date of birth. After a few more questions, Mr. Walkama handcuffed the man, Christian Rodriguez, and loaded him into the deputies’ car.
He is now being held at an ICE detention facility in Aurora, Colo. “I don’t understand. I wasn’t driving, I had my seatbelt on,” Mr. Rodriguez said by phone from detention. “It’s not fair.”
Mr. Rodriguez, 29, arrived with his parents from Mexico as a minor and was about two years into the years-long process of applying for a green card. He is married to a U.S. citizen and has six children and step-children who are all U.S. citizens. He has no criminal convictions, records show; charges stemming from a domestic dispute with his ex-wife in 2020 were dropped.
Asked whether Mr. Rodriguez’s arrest reflected the purpose of Laramie County’s partnership with ICE, another chief deputy, Aaron Veldheer, said, “It weighs on me” — that a person who was riding in a car on his way to work is now separated from his family.
“Not that I wish somebody got hurt or there was a crime committed, but, yeah, it’s collateral,” Mr. Veldheer said. “But it’s part of the job. We can’t look the other way, either.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
12) Sheriffs in Maryland Challenge State Limits on Cooperation With ICE
A lawsuit by a group of 17 county law enforcement officers is another front in the Trump-era fight over local police’s role in immigration enforcement.
By Campbell Robertson, June 12, 2026
Maryland’s Community Trust Act, among other measures, bars local officials from asking people about their immigration status. Credit...Michelle Gustafson for The New York Times
The Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign has led to a succession of showdowns between states and the federal government over local police’s role in immigration enforcement.
These tensions have been playing out within states as well. Democratic-run cities in Republican-led states have found themselves at odds with their governors and other state officials. And increasingly, Republican sheriffs in Democratic-led states have been publicly fighting with their own state governments.
A new front in this battle has opened in Maryland, a solidly Democratic state with an often frustrated Republican minority. A coalition of 17 elected sheriffs, representing most of Maryland’s counties but less than a third of the state’s population, has sued the state over a new law limiting cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities.
Maryland had already barred local and state law enforcement agencies from signing formal agreements with the federal government that allow officers to assist in immigration enforcement. But with sheriffs and federal immigration authorities still cooperating in less formal ways, Democratic lawmakers crafted more legislation.
The new law, the Community Trust Act, bars local officials from asking people about their immigration status, notifying federal immigration authorities about people being held in local jails or handing people over to federal agents without a judicial warrant.
In their lawsuit, filed last month in federal court in Greenbelt, Md., the sheriffs argue that the law violates the U.S. Constitution and leaves their officers in a legally precarious place, where state and federal law conflict.
“It put us in a completely undesirable and untenable situation,” said Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler of Harford County, northeast of Baltimore.
Legal experts said Maryland was likely on firm ground because the new law does not require local officials to do anything beyond standard enforcement of criminal law. But given the fraught politics of immigration, the confrontation looms larger than the legal arguments.
Since President Trump’s return to the White House, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have made thousands of arrests in Maryland, more than triple the number of arrests during a similar period under the Biden administration. Nearly three-quarters of these arrests were made in the community, at work sites and in residential neighborhoods.
But hundreds came about through cooperation with local law enforcement, according to testimony submitted to the Maryland legislature by the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit that conducts research on the criminal justice system and supports the new law. In most of those cases, according to the testimony, the person being handed over to ICE had not been convicted of a crime.
“For our clients, that is not an abstract legal problem. It means losing your job, your housing, your family before you have ever been found guilty of anything,” said Stephanie Wolf, director of immigration services for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender.
Sheriffs and immigration activists both agree that cooperation between local officials and federal immigration authorities continued after the state banned formal pacts with ICE. The arrangements are known as 287(g) agreements because of the section of immigration law authorizing them.
“Sheriffs turned around and said, ‘Well, you know, the 287(g) agreements are formal written agreements between us and ICE, so we’re just going to have informal communication,” said Dr. Clarence Lam, the state senator who sponsored the bill.
There are exceptions. Local law enforcement agencies can alert immigration authorities about a person in custody if the person has been convicted of a felony, has had to register as a sex offender or has served at least five years in prison in another state.
The new law’s limits on cooperation are aimed at local jails, not state prisons, which in most states work with ICE routinely. The new law codifies elements of that cooperation, requiring state officials to inform ICE if a person the agency is seeking is going to be released from a state prison.
Still, the sheriffs said that parts of the law, which passed on the last day of the legislative session, were going to create difficulties. Some said they raised concerns in a meeting with Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat.
In a statement, Mr. Moore said the law “advances an important goal,” but presents “implementation challenges that must be addressed through executive action and in next year’s legislative session.”
Some of the sheriffs reiterated a warning that federal officials have made repeatedly in demanding local cooperation — that if ICE can’t pick up people from jails, the agency will end up conducting more operations on the streets.
“We’re going down a road we don’t want to go down,” said Sheriff Joseph Gamble of Talbot County, a politically mixed county on the state’s Eastern Shore.
Senator Lam, a Democrat, dismissed these warnings, saying the Trump administration makes a lot of threats to get what it wants but often does not follow through, or is stopped by the courts.
“I don’t think we should govern as though there was a gun pointed to our head,” he said. “We have to govern based on our values and what we believe is the best thing to do.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
13) Anti-Immigrant Riots Leave Belfast on Edge: ‘Everyone Is Afraid’
In two nights of violence in Northern Ireland after a brutal stabbing, people were targeted because of their skin color, the authorities said.
By Stephen Castle, Reporting from Belfast, June 12, 2026
Attempting to clear protesters in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Wednesday evening. Peter Morrison/Associated Press
Paul Sharkey lived through decades of sectarian violence between Protestant and Roman Catholic communities known as “the Troubles,” but thought that bloody phase of Northern Ireland’s history was over.
Then, on Wednesday evening, he heard a loud noise near his house on the Antrim Road in Glengormley, on the northwest edge of Belfast. When he looked out of his window, a burning van was hurtling toward his home.
“It was heading toward me — I was panicking,” Mr. Sharkey, 71, said.
An empty home opposite was also ablaze, he said, while young men with balaclavas covering their faces were “running all over the place like rats.”
The violence erupted after a brutal stabbing attack in Belfast on Monday, after which the authorities charged Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old Sudanese refugee, with attempted murder. Graphic footage of the assault spread quickly online and was amplified by far-right activists, who called for protests and shared plans for roadblocks and locations for demonstrations.
On Tuesday night, violence broke out in parts of the city, with masked rioters setting fire to a bus, cars and garbage cans. Emergency responders had to escort immigrant families, including a parent with a 2-month old baby, from homes that had been set ablaze in one area of Belfast, the police said.
Violent demonstrations continued on Wednesday night, in spite of calls for calm, including from the family of Stephen Ogilvie, the victim, who remains in the hospital.
During the unrest, a group of masked men tried to reach a hotel that houses asylum seekers near Glengormley. They confronted a line of police officers in riot gear, hijacked a parked van, set it alight and pushed it in the direction of the police. The van veered off toward Mr. Sharkey’s house, where it crashed into a wall.
“I lost my teenage years to the Troubles. I thought moving out here I had got away from them — from the bombs and bullets, all the rest of it — and moved to the suburbs,” Mr. Sharkey said as the crumpled vehicle was removed. “Never did I think I was going to witness that.”
The disorder, with its ominous echoes of Northern Ireland’s violent past, has left Belfast on edge, with anxiety high among minority communities. On Thursday, a trade union, Unison, reported that a nurse had been chased by masked men on her way to work at a Belfast hospital, in what the organization called a “racist attack.”
Hilary Benn, the British cabinet minister for Northern Ireland, described the riots as “racist thuggery.” In an interview with Sky News on Thursday, he said people had been “intimidated, burned out of their houses by masked thugs on the basis of the color of their skin.”
Twasul Mohammed, an antiracism organizer at Participation and the Practice of Rights, a Belfast-based human rights group, said, “Everyone is afraid, everyone in the community, all Black and brown people are afraid.”
Since the riots began, she has not taken her children to school, she said. “It’s a really difficult time for all of us and it’s only bearable because of the support we are getting from the community,” she said.
Around 400 volunteers were helping, with some accommodating around 12 families who had to be evacuated from their homes on Tuesday night, Ms. Mohammed said. On Wednesday, there was more alarm when a list of addresses that might be targeted by protesters circulated online.
In total, about 200 individuals have had to be accommodated, added Ms. Mohammed, who is originally from Sudan but has been in Northern Ireland for more than a decade.
Businesses closed early on Wednesday and some workers stayed home. Health and social care leaders said that it was completely unacceptable that employees should be “intimidated or feel too frightened to come to work.”
Anti-immigration sentiment has been on the rise across Europe, fueled by populist right-wing political parties and social media. In Northern Ireland, which has a relatively low immigrant population, there are social and political factors too, including a housing shortage and areas of deep poverty.
And, despite a largely successful peace process, paramilitary groups still exist. Some argue that has made Northern Ireland susceptible to organized violence.
“The people who burned houses were marching in gangs; it was something organized. It was not random kids, it was a group of masked men wearing black,” Ms. Mohammed said.
Ryan Henderson, assistant chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said on Thursday that he had “no evidence to say that the violence is being coordinated by loyalist paramilitaries,” referring to groups that favored the use of force to remain part of the United Kingdom and resist a united Ireland.
He added, however, that there had been “significant coordination from online social media activity, some from people within Northern Ireland — and some from outside.”
On Lendrick Street, where violence broke out on Tuesday, three charred vehicles and several blackened and boarded-up houses were still visible on Thursday. An acrid smell of burning filled the air.
Martin Craigs, a former aviation executive who was born in England but has lived in Northern Ireland since 1969, said that the disorder was “a new chapter of violence and a new chapter that is deeply saddening when we thought we were moving away from street conflict, burned-out cars, car bombs and shootings.”
The troublemakers were “only a tiny proportion of people,” he said, but he added that he believes the incitement is unlikely to go away quickly unless people take a stand against the violence.
“It’s too easy to fan flames online and through all the modern communication tools that are a blessing in so many ways but a curse in this way,” Mr. Craigs said.
The Rev. Jacob Mercer, 37, a minister in the Church of Ireland in Glengormley, said that he had witnessed the disorder near the hotel housing asylum seekers and that he had noticed that many demonstrators were not from the local community.
He also said that the violence reflected some of the simmering resentment within the Protestant community that wants to safeguard its place in the United Kingdom.
“There are a number of highly deprived communities who feel they are not being listened to or cared for by the authorities and for them, that’s in contrast to people who get a free hotel to stay in and free food,” Mr. Mercer said.
Some locals think, rightly or wrongly, he said, that “it feels like the government cares more about looking after the immigrants than after us.”
Such sentiment has increased with the rise of right-wing populist parties, including Reform U.K., led by Nigel Farage, and a new far-right rival, called Restore Britain, Mr. Mercer added.
“I think the rise of Reform and Restore and other political parties and popular nationalist leaders has given a focal point to people who feel that there is someone now who represents them politically,” Mr. Mercer noted.
That makes things uncomfortable for some people of color who have lived in Northern Ireland for most of their lives.
Masood Alam was born in Pakistan and has lived in Northern Ireland since 1973, navigating the Troubles and once owning a clothing business.
In earlier decades, he said, “if you went to Belfast city center, it was a purely white city” and it was rare to meet anyone of color.
But he recalled being able to visit both Catholic and Protestant districts without any difficulties.
“In the Troubles we were safe, we had no problem,” Mr. Alam said. “None of the Asians took any part in the local politics, so we were more or less welcomed on both sides.”
Now, things feel less secure.
“I do feel concerned,” he said. “I have been here 53 years, but when the crowd is all charged up, if you are not white you are a target.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
