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We Support Dockworkers Blocking Weapons on October 30, 2026
Unions representing workers at 40 ports in Europe and the Mediterranean are calling for an international day of action on October 30. Read more here. |
| World Federation of Trade Unions |
We Support Dockworkers Blocking Weapons on October 30, 2026
Unions representing workers at 40 ports in Europe and the Mediterranean are calling for an international day of action on October 30. Read more here.
Statement from the World Federation of Trade Unions:
Ports For Peace – Jobs With Dignity
Following the Third International Meeting of Mediterranean and European Dockworkers’ and Port Workers’ Unions, held in Istanbul in May 2026, the participating unions have launched a common international day of action on 30 October 2026.
The meeting focused on the struggle against wars, genocide and military aggression, while also addressing the challenges facing dockworkers and port workers, including wages, working conditions, automation projects, and occupational health and safety.
The participating organizations, CGT Ports and Docks (France), ENEDEP (Greece), LAB (Basque Country), Liman-İş (Turkey), ODT (Morocco), and USB (Italy), representing workers in more than 40 Mediterranean and European ports, are calling on dockworkers and port workers to mobilize together on 30 October 2026.
This mobilization is based on the Istanbul Declaration, adopted unanimously by the participating organizations and now fully endorsed by ORSA Porti of Gioia Tauro (Italy), which has joined our international network.
The declaration sets out the following demands:
· An immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and recognition of an independent Palestinian state, recognized by the international community, within the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital.
· An end to the US-Israeli wars of aggression in the West Asia and against Iran, and full solidarity with the peoples of Cuba, Venezuela and Sudan, alongside support for the right of all peoples to resist occupation and to self-determination.
· Ports must not be used for the transport of arms, ammunition, military equipment or troops destined for war zones.
· They must not become military bases for NATO, the United States or the European Union, nor serve as tools for shipowners and monopoly groups.
· No to the war economy, government rearmament plans, and the project of militarization of ports and strategic infrastructure from EU. Public resources must be used to meet people’s social needs, not to finance war.
· Collective agreements must guarantee real wage increases, secure employment, reduced working hours, and fair pension provisions.
· Technological progress, mechanization, automation and artificial intelligence must not be used to eliminate jobs or undermine workers’ rights. Dockworkers and port workers say NO to automation.
On October 30, all actions will be united as part of a common international struggle to stop wars, genocide and the militarization of ports at a very critical moment in history, while defending workers’ rights and better working conditions. Each union will decide the most appropriate form of mobilization according to its national circumstances, starting from strike action and from a shared commitment to prevent the loading of death and destruction.
The signatory trade unions of the Istanbul Declaration call on ALL dockworkers’ and port workers’ unions to join this international mobilization. We are ready to meet with organized groups of dockworkers and port workers from any other ports interested in becoming part of this common struggle.
CGT FNPD France – ENEDEP Greece – LAB Basque Country – LIMAN-IS Turkey – ODT Maroc – ORSA Porti Italy – USB Italy
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NOVEMBER 1-7
WEEK of GLOBAL RESISTANCE
to STOP U.S. IMPERIALISM & GENOCIDE
This year SHUT DOWN DRONE WARFARE (SDDW) Fall Actions will be a "Kick Off for A New Campaign": We want to help build a stronger network of global communities working in coordination to STOP U.S Imperialism & Genocide. Several other national organizations are already co-sponsors. (see below) This global call to action in the fall is only the beginning. We invite national and international organizations to sign on as sponsors/endorsers of the week and to plan simultaneous actions at U.S. Bases, Weapons Industries and AI Data Centers around the world. Organize actions for one day, or numerous days during or near the Week of Global Resistance. We recommend planning actions during weekday commute hours, if possible, when personnel are going into and out of military bases, weapons industry workplaces, AI Data Centers, etc. Educate, educate, educate and encourage resistance from within. Please spread the word: Help us get more sponsors & endorsers! More details to come soon.
"Week of Global Resistance" Co-sponsors: ShutDownDroneWarfare.org, BanKillerDrones.org, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, and Witness Against Empire.
Will your organization sponsor or endorse? Please contact: toby4peace@sonic.net
The above global call to action is part of SDDW Fall Action Week:
SHUT DOWN DRONE WARFARE! (SDDW)
ShutDownDroneWarfare.org
SDDW Fall Action Week:
NEW: Simultaneous Actions at both Creech AFB & Holloman AFB!
November 1-7, 2026
Nov.1-7, Creech AFB Fall Action, Indian Springs, NV
Nov. 4-6, Holloman AFB Fall Action, Alamogordo, NM
17 years of persistent resistance! Come for all or part of Fall Actions!
Shut Down Drone Warfare (SDDW) Campaign is Co-Sponsored by Veterans For Peace, Ban Killer Drones & CODEPINK
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To Iran’s Political Prisoners, trapped “Between Two Blades of a Scissors”
Open letter
August marks the anniversary of the 1988 mass executions in Iran, a horror that echoes in the country’s current surge in death sentences. It also marks the August 19 anniversary of the UK- and U.S.-orchestrated coup against the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. Amid the current, indiscriminate waves of U.S.-Israeli military assaults against Iran, this letter of solidarity denounces the repression of the Iranian people and their political prisoners by forces both at home and abroad.
To our fellow activists, students, thinkers, workers, artists, and other prisoners of conscience held behind the walls of all detention centers across Iran:
We write to you from a place of deep solidarity, our hearts heavy with the knowledge of the struggle you face within Iran’s prisons: the torture, the systematic neglect, the enforced silence, and the brutal reality of sham trials and executions. As former and current political prisoners, activists, and scholars committed to the global project of abolition, anti-authoritarianism and anti-imperialism, we see you across the distances of geography and the silence of censorship and internet blackouts. And we stand in solidarity with you, as you are at the intersection of two sources of oppression.
On one side, you face the Islamic Republic that, from its inception, enforced absolute social and political control based on an exclusionary ideology. It is a system that claims to counter imperial power while using its very logic of domination and systems of carcerality, torture and execution. On the other side, you face the aggression and violence of the very imperialist and Zionist forces the Islamic Republic purports to stand against. The U.S. and Israel instigate brutal wars, destroy civilian infrastructure, kill innocent schoolgirls, and treat you as collateral damage in their pursuit of regional dominance. We remember the horror of June 23, 2025, when Israel struck the Evin prison complex, flattening its hospital ward, transgender section, and visitor center. You best exposed this dual oppression when you voiced that you “feel stuck between the two blades of a scissors, the evil regime that imprisons and tortures [you] and a foreign force dropping bombs on [your] heads in the name of freedom.”
In the past year, we witnessed both blades of the scissor sharpen. We see the arbitrary arrests and the horrific wave of state executions. We see the deepening criminalization of the working class and unemployed, the targeting of Kurds, Arabs, and Baloch, and the scapegoating of Afghan migrants: all desperate attempts to kill the spirit of people they cannot contain. This is the logic of carceral states everywhere: when they fail to address the crises people face, they simply attempt to criminalize or disappear the people themselves.
We see the same logic of domination when Israel uses “administrative detention” to hold Palestinian political prisoners for years without charge. We see it when Israeli authorities celebrate a new law that allows them to execute the Palestinian political prisoners they cannot dominate. We see it in the ICE detention centers where the U.S. government imprisons our people in the pursuit of a political agenda of racist exclusion or detains our political activists for daring to speak against the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide. We see it in the history of the U.S. targeting freedom fighters, particularly Black, Indigenous, Puerto Rican and other anticolonial organizers, locking them away for decades to crush movements for national liberation and sovereignty. And we see the connections between these carceral systems sharing intelligence and governance techniques, such as when the USP Marion prison in Illinois became a blueprint for prisons built in Iran and Israel in the 1960s. Whether it is a border wall or a prison gate, the goal is the same: to silence people through fear, domination, and isolation.
Your struggle is as global as our collective dreams of freedom and dignity. We stand with you, and we reject the false binary of imperialism and hollow anti-imperialism. We invite global civil society and anti-imperialist activists and organizations to extend their unconditional support and solidarity to all incarcerated kin fighting for our collective liberation, to build relationships with Iranian political prisoners and uplift their voices, to put pressure on the Islamic Republic by challenging its narrative, and to call upon that government to immediately stop all the executions and free all political prisoners.
The Iranian authorities must stop their inhumane practice of death and incarceration now. And the U.S. and Israel must end their barbaric wars and brutal sanctions that knowingly devastate our communities.
In solidarity and with love,
Alberto Toscano, emeritus professor of critical theory, Goldsmiths, *University of London
Angela Davis, former political prisoner, distinguished professor emerita, *University of California, Santa Cruz
Bernardine Dohrn, retired professor of law, *Northwestern University
Bill Ayers, professor, *College Unbound
Cherríe L Moraga, distinguished professor emerita, University of California, Santa Barbara, Chicana feminist writer, and activist
Dan Berger, professor of comparative ethnic studies, *University of Washington Bothell
Hossam el-Hamalawy, Egyptian socialist, scholar and former political prisoner
Jairus Banaji, historian, research professor, SOAS, *University of London
Jason Stanley, professor of philosophy, *University of Toronto
Judith Butler, distinguished professor in the Graduate School, *University of California, Berkeley
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, professor of African American studies, *Princeton University
Michael Löwy, emeritus research director of sociology at the* Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
Michael Mansfield, human rights and civil liberties Bbarrister
Mumia Abu-Jamal, current political prisoner, educator, journalist and activist
Ricardo Jiménez, social activist, former Puerto Rican political prisoner
Ruha Benjamin, professor of African American studies, *Princeton University
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Graduate Center, *CUNY
Walden F Bello, international adjunct professor of sociology, *State University of New York at Binghamton
Yasin al-Haj Saleh, Syrian writer, political dissident, and former political prisoner in Syria
* Organizations for identification purposes only
** Signatories are sorted alphabetically
—The Guardian, August 20, 2026
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2026/aug/20/iran-political-prisoners
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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.
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VIDEO:
What Cubans Really Think About Trump
By Jeff Seal, May 28, 2026
Mr. Seal is a comedian and a visual journalist.
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
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 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 *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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)
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Dr. Alter 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
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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
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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
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Articles
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1) A Hasidic Jew Protested Against an Israeli Flag. He May Be Deported.
Yehonatan Ovadia, who opposed the mounting of the flag in a small New York town, belongs to a Hasidic branch that is anti-Zionist. He is now in ICE custody.
By Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Sept. 30, 2026
“We demonstrated for Gaza, for the liberation of Gaza, for the rights of the Palestinians and to show to the world that the Jews, real Judaism, want to have peace,” Mr. Ovadia said in a brief phone interview from detention.”
Yehonatan Ovadia, center, at a demonstration against Israel in New York this year. He is in federal immigration detention because of a protest he attended in 2023. via Eric Lee
The Israeli flag hanging outside a New York town hall disappeared just weeks after it was raised in solidarity with the victims of the 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel. Shortly after, two men were accused of stealing the flag during an anti-Israel protest.
The suspects were anti-Zionist Hasidic Jews who oppose Israel. Under their interpretation of religious law, they believe that establishing a Jewish state before the Messiah’s arrival is forbidden. Both men were initially charged with hate crimes, but the case ended quietly after they paid a fine and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct in early 2024.
Now, one of those men is facing deportation.
Federal immigration officers in August detained Yehonatan Ovadia, a 35-year-old Israeli citizen, after revoking his legal status because of the flag incident. Mr. Ovadia — a religious teacher who says that he participated in the protest but did not tear down the flag — has been in the United States since 2022 on a visa for religious workers.
His lawyers, who filed a 27-page lawsuit in Manhattan Federal District Court on Aug. 29 requesting his release, argued that the Trump administration was retaliating against his protected religious and political speech. Federal immigration officials have targeted noncitizens who engage in behavior the government regards as antisemitic.
Though federal officials did not cite antisemitism in revoking Mr. Ovadia’s legal status, his lawyers have accused the Trump administration of conflating their client’s anti-Israel activism with antisemitism.
“He’s against the Israeli government and the existence of the state of Israel for religious reasons, but to claim that he’s an antisemite is the peak of absurdity,” Eric Lee, one of his lawyers, said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Mr. Ovadia after he had been summoned to immigration court in Manhattan on Aug. 28. He is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a federal prison where ICE also holds some detainees.
In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said that Mr. Ovadia had “overstayed his welcome and refused to depart” after his legal status was revoked.
“It is a privilege to be granted a visa or green card to live in the United States of America,” the statement said. “The Trump administration acted well within its statutory and constitutional authority, as it does with any alien who advocates for violence, glorifies and supports terrorists, harasses Jews and steals property.”
Mr. Ovadia, a husband and father of five, is part of a large enclave of ultra-Orthodox Jewish people in Rockland County, about an hour north of New York City. The area is heavily populated by Hasidic groups who commit to a traditional, insular lifestyle, and has many yeshivas.
While there is significant support for Israel among Orthodox Jews, Mr. Ovadia belongs to an ultra-Orthodox Hasidic branch known as Satmar. It is the largest Hasidic group in New York and is opposed to Zionism and the state of Israel on theological, not political, grounds.
Mr. Ovadia appeared to belong to a smaller grouping of politically active Satmars who not only oppose Israel, but have aligned themselves with the Palestinian cause. Mr. Ovadia frequently attended anti-Israel marches with other Satmar Jews wearing black coats and hats, and often flew the Palestinian flag.
“We demonstrated for Gaza, for the liberation of Gaza, for the rights of the Palestinians and to show to the world that the Jews, real Judaism, want to have peace,” Mr. Ovadia said in a brief phone interview from detention.
The flag controversy began on Oct. 12, 2023, when the supervisor of Ramapo, a town in Rockland County, mounted a large Israeli flag on its town hall, five days after Hamas fighters killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and took dozens of hostages.
“We have people in Ramapo who have friends and relatives in Israel, and we stand with them as well,” the supervisor, Michael Specht, a Democrat, told a crowd of about 60 people at the time. (Mr. Specht did not respond to a request for comment.)
About a month later, as Israel’s retaliatory strikes killed and displaced thousands in Gaza, residents who were opposed to the display of the Israeli flag on a government building held a demonstration.
Mr. Ovadia and other Satmar Jews saw the flag’s display as an endorsement by their town of a state “whose existence their religion holds to be forbidden,” his lawsuit said. A state law prohibits municipal buildings from displaying a foreign flag except under limited circumstances.
Mr. Ovadia said that he drove several people in his van to protest the flag on Nov. 13, 2023, helping gather about 20 Jewish people outside the town hall. Also present, Mr. Ovadia said, were people affiliated with the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta, a fringe, ultra-Orthodox organization whose political activism has been condemned by mainstream Satmars.
“We wanted to express our opinion legally, peacefully,” Mr. Ovadia said.
Surveillance cameras captured four or five men in traditional Hasidic clothing ripping the flag from the town hall before two men destroyed it with scissors, according to police records reviewed by The New York Times.
Mr. Ovadia said that a friend had torn down the flag, and that he had opposed the action and tried to leave the demonstration immediately, an account that he later shared in writing with the federal government.
Two days after observing Mr. Ovadia’s van on the surveillance footage, police officers pulled him over and questioned him. He told the officers that while he had driven people to the demonstration, he did not know where the flag was, according to police records.
Mr. Ovadia was arrested and charged with criminal mischief, petit larceny and conspiracy — all as hate crimes. He was released without bail.
The criminal complaint, which accused him of stealing the flag, said that Mr. Ovadia and others “were motivated to participate in this act because of their hatred of the existence of the Israeli state.” The police arrested a second Jewish man in connection with the episode.
The hate crime charges were dropped.
In February 2024, Mr. Ovadia pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a violation under New York law, but not a crime. He paid a $200 fine and an additional $125, according to his lawsuit.
“I said, ‘You know, I don’t have power, I’m out of money, I have no time, I am a teacher, I need to teach students every day,’” he recalled. “‘Let’s end this with disorderly conduct.’”
The following year, President Trump returned to power and issued an executive order that instructed the Department of Homeland Security to target noncitizens who had participated in actions the administration deemed antisemitic. Several international students, including Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate, were detained.
When Mr. Ovadia’s congregation applied for an extension of his religious worker visa in September 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services demanded police records and court documents related to the demonstration.
The agency issued a rare split decision in May that highlights the quirks of U.S. immigration law. It agreed that Mr. Ovadia was qualified to continue working in the country, but refused to let him remain in the United States to do so, a move that stripped his lawful status and left him vulnerable to arrest.
In its denial letter, the agency said that while it had found no “conviction or commission of a crime involving moral turpitude,” it had used its discretion to deny his stay after considering “adverse factors.” Those factors included the dropped charges; the disorderly conduct violation; and police records showing that Mr. Ovadia had declined to identify other participants in the demonstration.
The immigration agency’s letter does not mention Mr. Ovadia’s activism or Mr. Trump’s executive order on antisemitism.
Federal officials charged Mr. Ovadia with remaining in the country without legal status, summoned him to immigration court in Manhattan and arrested him there last month.
“He’s very, very devoted, and he is strong-minded,” said Rabbi Leibish Iliovits, who lives in the same neighborhood in Rockland County as Mr. Ovadia and helped him settle in the United States. “He would stand up for what he believe is right, and he wouldn’t back down, but he would not harm anyone.”
Mr. Ovadia’s lawyers plan to request his release during a bond hearing on Wednesday morning in Manhattan.
Eliza Shapiro contributed reporting. Georgia Gee contributed research.
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2) Cornell Police Report Omitted Student’s Claim She Was Raped
Documents obtained by The New York Times show that the campus police at Cornell University sent a condensed statement to a prosecutor, who then declined to bring charges.
By Hurubie Meko, Oct. 1, 2026
At a campus police department on Nov. 14, 2024, a Cornell University sophomore detailed how she found herself naked in a fraternity house nearly a month before, with a “ring of men” around her. She was drunk and had been given ketamine, she said. Her phone was across the room.
“There was really no escape,” she said.
The woman spoke for hours with an officer, telling him how what began as a consensual sexual encounter with a man she liked spiraled into a prolonged drug-fueled attack by several men inside the Chi Phi fraternity house.
“I don’t remember the very end of the event where I was raped,” she told them. “I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped.”
The officer then condensed the interview into a six-page “voluntary statement” written from her perspective, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The student, after leaving about 20 handwritten corrections on a draft, signed a final version the next day.
While the shorter statement explained that she felt some of that night’s events were a crime, it omitted some of the more forceful and definitive language she used. And it was missing her unequivocal statement that she had been raped. The omission, which for a time seemed to end the case, instead now appears to have only delayed a case that has roiled the campus and renewed the national debate how colleges handle claims of sexual assault.
That condensed statement was shared with the district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, who decided there was not enough evidence to bring criminal charges against the seven men. It looked like the case was over.
Mr. Van Houten’s decision in 2024 largely transpired quietly, through a process that is often shielded from public scrutiny. Cornell, though, conducted its own investigation. That investigation, which The Times has reviewed, concluded months after the woman dropped out of Cornell because of the incident.
Then last month the woman, as Jane Doe, filed a lawsuit against Cornell, the seven men, the fraternity and her sorority. The lawsuit ricocheted online, plunging the university into a crisis and landing Mr. Van Houten’s office in a maelstrom of criticism. Many in the public, including politicians and celebrities, began questioning what law enforcement officials knew about the woman’s allegations two years ago and why a criminal case was never pursued.
The men have not been charged criminally, and during the university investigation the men almost universally denied the accusations against them and said any sex that took place was consensual. Several of the men suggested that Jane Doe had not only initiated the sexual encounters, but in some cases, had done so without asking.
Mr. Van Houten has defended his office’s decision, and said he wants to meet with the woman this week as he considers bringing new evidence to a grand jury.
In a nine-page public statement on Monday, Mr. Van Houten said that the statement the woman provided at the time did not “allege she was drugged against her will or gang raped.”
“On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual,” he wrote.
But in the documents reviewed by The Times, the Cornell police did not inform Mr. Van Houten’s office that Jane Doe had said she had been raped. It’s unclear what other conversations the police and district attorney’s office had about the case.
In her interview with the police officer, Jane Doe described how Oct. 19, 2024, began with her filing an unrelated police report that her car keys and wallet had been stolen. After discovering one of her credit cards had been used, she said, she canceled all of them.
When members of her sorority heard about the theft, they decided she would no longer be the designated sober sister tasked with keeping an eye on sorority sisters at a bar that evening, she recalled.
She started drinking earlier in the night before heading to the bar, where the sorority was hosting an event, and she was served drinks even though she was underage, she said. She then briefly stopped at another bar before eventually trekking 20 minutes on foot to a fraternity house to meet a guy she was interested in. At around 10:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., she felt she was inebriated, she told the officer.
She spotted the man she was looking for, she said, and they talked, drank and danced. Soon after, she went to a room and had a consensual sexual encounter with the man, and another man she knew from the fraternity, both of whom she thought were her friends, she said.
But as the night progressed, there were more than the two men in the room and she began to feel used, she recalled. She could hear the men talking about taking turns with her, she said.
“I will never know who all touched me,” she told the officer. “I will not know.”
At one point a group of men walked into the room where she was naked, she said.
“I was horrified, and I squealed and ran” and hid under the covers of a bed, she said. She described how she had to swat one man’s hands away throughout the night as he tried to grope her. The men snorted ketamine off her body, she said. It was the most intoxicated she had ever been in her life, she told the officer.
At around 5:45 a.m., she said she wanted to go to bed and told two of the men, “I gotta turn in.” They stopped, she said.
She said she woke up at 10 a.m., then was driven home shortly after.
In the days after Jane Doe provided her statement to the police, officers tried to contact the men she accused, with varying degrees of success, according to the administrative documents.
On Nov. 25, the officer who took Jane Doe’s statement filed a document and said he contacted an investigator in the district attorney’s office to talk.
The officer reported that he was told, based on a review of Jane Doe’s statement, that the prosecutor’s office had decided that “criminal charges would not be pursued in this case.”
“Nothing further at this time,” he wrote.
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3) Cornell’s Jane Doe Said She Was Given Ketamine. Here’s How the Drug Works.
Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic that can have hallucinogenic effects. It is becoming more easily available, and some experts fear misuse is increasing.
By Andrew Jacobs, Published Sept. 30, 2026, Updated Oct. 1, 2026
Ketamine can have a hallucinogenic effect at certain doses. Credit...Julie Ezvan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Prosecutors in New York this week reopened an investigation into the allegations of a former Cornell University student who said she was drugged and raped by seven men at a campus fraternity house two years ago.
The woman said the assault began after two fraternity members pressured her to snort ketamine, a powerful anesthetic that has become increasingly accessible as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression and other mental health issues.
She has sued the university, a fraternity, a sorority and the seven men. Lawyers for at least three of the accused men have broadly denied criminal wrongdoing; others have not yet made public statements.
The woman acknowledged having consumed a significant amount of alcohol before arriving at the fraternity house. But she said it was the ketamine that left her incapacitated and unable to fend off the attack, which lasted several hours, according to news reports citing campus police transcripts. Local prosecutors declined to bring charges at the time.
News of the assault has brought renewed attention to the drug, which in certain doses can leave users immobilized yet oddly conscious and aware of events happening around them.
Many recreational users have long referred to the extreme disassociated state as a “K-hole.” Depending on the dose, a user may have no memory of the experience.
Ketamine’s use as a date-rape drug is relatively new — substances like GHB or Rohypnol are more frequently cited. But experts say ketamine’s use to abet sexual assault has been growing as the drug becomes more widely available.
In recent years, ketamine has drawn attention for its role in the death of actor Matthew Perry. Last year, ketamine was back in the public eye following news reports of Elon Musk’s chronic use, which was said to have caused bladder problems, a hallmark of sustained misuse.
What Is Ketamine?
Ketamine is a short-acting dissociative anesthetic that can have hallucinogenic effects at certain doses. It distorts perceptions of sight and sound, and makes users feel detached from pain and their surroundings.
Synthesized in the 1960s, ketamine has been legal since 1970 in the United States with a prescription. It is frequently used as an anesthetic for children, especially in the developing world, and in veterinarian practices.
In 2019, the Food and Drug Administration approved a derivative called esketamine in a nasal spray for treatment-resistant depression and depression-related suicidal ideation.
But the psychiatric use of ketamine is considered off-label and is largely unregulated, which has made the drug easily available for both legitimate mental health conditions as well as those seeking to use it as a party drug.
Experts consider ketamine a safe medication when used by doctors, but it can cause serious adverse events and physical dependence.
Dr. Patrick Giam, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, said mixing the drug with alcohol or prescription medications was especially dangerous. He and other experts in the field expressed concern about the spread of at-home ketamine therapy kits.
“In the right hands and with the right monitoring, it’s a very valuable drug, but it should not be taken unsupervised,” Dr. Giam said. “This is where you run the highest risk of having serious, even potentially life-threatening, complications.”
Is Taking Ketamine Legal?
Ketamine occupies an unusual spot in the pantheon of mind-altering drugs. It is a Schedule III, federally controlled substance with both therapeutic and recreational uses. It can be readily purchased online and taken at home with a prescription from a licensed health care provider.
Among recreational users, it has a reputation for relative safety compared to more fearsome drugs like opioids. But Daniel Sexton, program manager of outpatient services at Mountainside, a chain of drug treatment centers in the Northeast, said the downsides are often underappreciated.
He said there had been a recent spike in people seeking help for ketamine dependency at Mountainside, with most patients 25 and younger.
“People say it’s not like heroin or fentanyl, or even like alcohol, but I’ve seen plenty of people in treatment who wish that they never started using it,” Mr. Sexton said.
At ketamine clinics, the drug is most often administered intravenously, but those who use it recreationally often snort the drug in powder form.
Can Ketamine Be Lethal?
Ketamine is rarely lethal, but an overdose can lead to unconsciousness and dangerously slowed breathing, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Side effects like increased blood pressure and paranoia can occur at very high doses.
Dr. Gerard Sanacora, the director of the Yale Depression Research Program, said ketamine can dramatically alter cognition and cause users to lose control. “Your ability to calculate things, your ability to think clearly, is altered,” he said.
Is It a “Date Rape” Drug?
There is little data on the misuse of ketamine, but some who study sexual violence say its role in drug-facilitated sexual assaults has been on the rise.
The drug can be administered as a liquid and dropped surreptitiously into food and drink. Its effects, while not immediate, usually come on within a few minutes.
One notable feature of ketamine is that its effects are relatively short-lived, and most often fade within an hour. But repeated ingestion sends the user back into a state of incapacitation.
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4) What to Know About the Attempted Execution of Christa Pike
Ms. Pike, 50, survived two doses of a lethal injection in Tennessee. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of a classmate.
By Yan Zhuang, Oct. 1, 2026
Media witnesses recounted the moments before the execution of Christa Pike was halted on Wednesday. George Walker IV/Associated Press
Christa Pike, a Tennessee woman who was set to be executed on Wednesday, survived two doses of a lethal drug that had been administered, according to her lawyers.
Ms. Pike, who was convicted of the 1995 murder of a classmate, is the only woman on death row in Tennessee. Before the failed attempt to put her to death, she was set to become the first woman to be executed in the state in more than 200 years.
It was unclear Thursday morning what her condition was, or what had gone wrong with the injections.
Here’s what to know:
The Case
In 1996, a jury found Ms. Pike guilty of torturing and murdering a classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in an attack that she carried out with her boyfriend and a friend. They slashed Ms. Slemmer with a box cutter, carved a pentagram into her chest and removed a piece of her skull.
Ms. Pike, who was 18 at the time of the killing, received the death penalty. Her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was 17 at the time of the crime and was sentenced to life in prison, as he was too young to be eligible for capital punishment in Tennessee.
Ms. Pike, now 50, does not deny her guilt.
“I run through this execution every day in my heart,” she told The New York Times in September. “Whatever happens on Sept. 30, this will not be my hell anymore.”
Some experts have questioned whether Ms. Pike would receive the same sentence if she were to be tried today. Her lawyers argued that Ms. Pike’s initial legal defense did not adequately present her history of child sexual abuse and neglect.
She was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, which her lawyers said contributed to her mental state during the murder.
“Christa Pike would likely not be sentenced to death if she were tried today,” said Robin Maher, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. “A lot has changed.”
Ms. Slemmer’s family has remained firmly in support of Ms. Pike’s sentence, and May Martinez, Ms. Slemmer’s mother, is adamant that Ms. Pike could not atone for the murder and should be executed.
“Nobody could ever, ever convince me she’s changed,” Ms. Martinez told The Times.
The Legal Battle
Ms. Pike’s lawyers have tried to stop the execution in recent weeks, arguing that she could support other women in prison and that her crime could not be separated from her traumatic childhood.
They also questioned whether lethal drugs could be administered without causing her excessive pain. In an appeal to the Supreme Court to pause the execution, Ms. Pike’s lawyers argued that the execution was causing her “unnecessary agony” and that it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee, a Republican, said on Monday that he would not intervene to allow Ms. Pike to serve the remainder of her life in prison.
On Wednesday, a federal appeals court briefly paused the execution and said more time was needed to consider the case. After a delay of about nine hours, the Supreme Court allowed the execution to proceed, and the state raced to go ahead with it before the day ended and to avoid having to reschedule.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented from the order allowing the execution. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the majority “unnecessarily prevents” the appeals court from fully considering Ms. Pike’s argument.
The Botched Execution
It was not immediately clear what went wrong with the administration of the lethal drug on Wednesday night.
Ms. Pike’s lawyers said that while two syringes of pentobarbital had been administered, she did not lose consciousness. She still had a heartbeat, they said, and was audibly snoring.
Reporters who witnessed the execution attempt described Ms. Pike as somewhat alert. Although the curtains separating the execution chamber from the witnesses were closed for nearly an hour after the attempt, reporters said they could still hear breathing and steady snoring.
The Tennessee Department of Correction later said Ms. Pike had been taken to an off-site medical facility.
This was the second time this year that Tennessee had struggled to administer a lethal injection. In May, the state called off an execution because staff members could not find a vein to administer lethal drugs.
The Fallout
After the bungled attempt to execute Ms. Pike, Governor Lee paused capital punishment in Tennessee and called for a review of the state’s policies on how it puts people to death.
It was the second time in five years that Mr. Lee, a Republican, has paused executions because of questions over the effectiveness of the state’s lethal injections. In 2022, he ordered a review after prison officials failed to properly test the drugs before an execution.
Emily Cochrane and Ann E. Marimow contributed reporting.
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5) Taking On Trump Immigration Agenda, Justices Will Review Migrant Detention Policy
The administration’s policy of detaining immigrants who crossed the border illegally years ago and holding them without a bond hearing has divided lower courts.
By Ann E. Marimow, Oct. 1, 2026
Ann E. Marimow covers the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court will be considering the legality of some of the most controversial aspects of the Trump administration’s efforts to rapidly expel millions of migrants living in the United States. Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to review the Trump administration’s policy of indefinitely detaining immigrants who crossed the border illegally years ago, signaling the court plans to weigh in on major pieces of President Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda as it begins its new term on Monday.
The policy is a departure from past practice, when such migrants were generally allowed an opportunity to seek release after a hearing before a judge.
The justices previously announced that they would fast-track a separate case testing the administration's policy of deporting immigrants to countries where they have no ties, including nations that have faced allegations of human rights abuses.
Between the two cases, the justices will consider the legality of some of the most controversial aspects of the Trump administration’s efforts to rapidly expel millions of migrants living in the United States.
The justices also added two other cases to the docket of issues they will hear and decide by next June.
One is a Kentucky case about whether a federal religious discrimination law protects a group of Catholic priests who want to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary over neighbors’ objections. The other is a divorce dispute over military benefits originating in North Dakota.
The immigration case the court accepted on Thursday involved noncitizens who entered the United States illegally but had been living in the country for years. For decades, such people could be released on bond pending additional court proceedings, so long as they were not found to be a threat to public safety or a flight risk.
But last year, the Trump administration announced a new interpretation of a 1996 law, concluding it allowed noncitizens living in the United States to be held without bond. As a result, immigration judges have denied hearings to people, even if they have been living and working in the United States for years.
More than 500 district court judges and nine of 11 federal appeals courts to consider the issue have rejected the administration’s new detention rule and its interpretation of the immigration law at issue.
About 70,000 people are currently in immigration detention across the United States, up from 40,000 before Mr. Trump took office in January 2025.
More than two-thirds of undocumented immigrants have lived in the United States for at least a decade.
Most of the appeals courts to consider the issue have said the government should have provided hearings to determine whether they posed a danger to others or a flight risk pending the completion of removal proceedings.
In April, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sided with a Brazilian citizen, Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa Da Cunha, who has lived in the United States for about 20 years.
He was arrested by federal agents on his way to work in Massachusetts, where he owns a construction business and a home with his wife, also a Brazilian citizen, and their two children, who are U.S. citizens.
He crossed the U.S. border with Mexico in 2004, applied for asylum in 2016 and was granted a work permit. He had not previously been detained and has no known criminal history, according to court filings.
In its decision, the appeals court noted that Congress had never challenged what had been the settled practice of releasing certain migrants on bond despite making major changes to immigration law.
“Even if the government’s newfound interpretation” of the statute “were plausible — and it is not,” the appeals court said it was obligated to read such laws in a way that would “avoid the serious constitutional questions attendant to what would be the broadest mass-detention-without-bond mandate in our nation’s history for millions of noncitizens.”
D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, urged the justices to reverse the decision and said in court filings that detaining immigrants who are living in the country long after an illegal entry “prevents those aliens from evading hearings and helps ensure their removal from the United States.”
Immigrant advocates say federal law requires the government to provide noncitizens, regardless of how they entered the country, access to a bond hearing. The policy, they say, has stripped people of an opportunity to seek release by a judge.
Lawyers for the immigrants say the administration’s reading of the statute allows the government to lock up millions of people who have resided in the United States for years without a possibility of a hearing or release. They emphasize that five presidential administrations over three decades, including the first Trump administration, have provided custody hearings.
Michael K.T. Tan, the deputy director of the A.C.L.U.’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said on Thursday that the government “cannot twist the law to detain immigrants for months or even years on end without a bond hearing. Not only is it cruel and inhumane; it is unlawful.”
Albert Sun and Abbie VanSickle contributed reporting.
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6) Renee Good’s Family Sues ICE Agent and Top Officials Over Minnesota Killing
The fatal shooting of Ms. Good set off protests during the Trump administration’s immigration operation early this year in Minnesota.
By Ernesto Londoño, Reporting from Minneapolis, Oct. 1, 2026
A protest in Minneapolis after the killing of Renee Good. David Guttenfelder/The New York Times
Relatives of Renee Good, the Minneapolis woman fatally shot by an ICE agent early this year during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, filed two federal lawsuits on Thursday, including one against the officer who shot her and several top officials in the Trump administration.
The lawsuits, filed in Minnesota federal court, accused the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, of having placed himself at risk by standing in front of Ms. Good’s car during a tense confrontation on Jan. 7 and unjustifiably using deadly force.
In addition to Mr. Ross, one lawsuit also names as defendants Kristi Noem, the former secretary of homeland security; Stephen Miller, the top White House official overseeing immigration policy; Thomas D. Homan, the White House border czar; Todd Lyons, the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and Gregory Bovino, a former senior Border Patrol official.
That suit says Ms. Good’s death was the result of an immigration operation in Minnesota that was driven by unconstitutional racial animus against Somali and Hispanic people.
“She was killed on a public street, while doing what thousands of her neighbors were doing that winter: watching masked, armed men terrorizing her community and refusing to look away,” the lawsuit says.
The second lawsuit, which lists the U.S. government as a defendant, is filed under a 1964 law that allows plaintiffs to seek redress for deaths caused by negligence.
The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ms. Good, a U.S. citizen, was fatally shot inside her vehicle a few blocks from her home in south Minneapolis. The shooting followed a brief argument that she and her partner, Becca Good, had with immigration officers who were part of a surge of agents deployed to Minnesota to round up undocumented immigrants last winter.
Ms. Noem and other top administration officials quickly said the shooting was justified and accused Ms. Good of trying to run over the ICE agent with her vehicle.
Federal agents and agencies have broad immunity from civil lawsuits filed over the use of deadly force. To prevail, plaintiffs must clearly establish that a federal law enforcement officer violated a person’s constitutional rights.
Federal agents can use deadly force if they have a reasonable belief that the person poses a threat of grave bodily harm to the officer or others. Typically, the F.B.I. generally conducts a civil rights investigation to assess whether an agent who has used deadly force acted lawfully.
But shortly after Ms. Good’s killing, Attorney General Todd Blanche, then the deputy attorney general, said he saw no reason for a civil rights investigation into Ms. Good’s shooting. In the days that followed, the Justice Department opened an investigation focusing on Becca Good’s links to protest groups.
Federal officials have not provided updates about that investigation. Mr. Ross, the agent who shot Ms. Good, has not spoken publicly about the case.
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7) ‘NAZA’ Review: Intimate Interviews About War’s Human Costs
This haunting documentary, by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, interviews anonymous Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers as they recount their military actions in Gaza.
By Manohla Dargis, Published Sept. 30, 2026, Updated Oct. 1, 2026
The filmmaker Yuval Abraham, right, with an anonymous subject of his latest documentary, “NAZA.” Credit...The Guardian/IFC Center
The new documentary “NAZA” is tough to watch, and impossible to ignore.
A shattering inquiry into Israel’s military actions in the war in Gaza, it was directed by the Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, who also codirected the 2024 documentary “No Other Land,” about military and settler violence in the occupied West Bank. Since the premiere of “NAZA” on Sept. 10 at the Venice Film Festival, their new movie has ignited pushback. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces has rejected claims made in it, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has compared it to a ballistic missile attack against Israel. He has also threatened to revoke the directors’ citizenship.
The fulcrums of “NAZA” are 24 one-on-one interviews with Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers. The interviews were conducted at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv with Abraham as the onscreen interlocutor. Szor and an unidentified cinematographer shot the interviews, which often find Abraham and one of the subjects facing each other in silhouetted profile against the cityscape. The interviewees spoke on the condition of anonymity (one says he could be arrested), and their looks and voices have been digitally altered. Their faces at times verge on visibility, while in other instances their heads disappear into the inky dark. Their voices are often matter-of-fact, and rarely waver.
Throughout the 80-minute movie these interviewees describe the military actions in Gaza in the wake of the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023. Up to 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed; about 250 hostages were seized; and thousands of rockets from Gaza were fired at Israeli cities and towns. By the next day, Netanyahu had announced that Israel was at war, saying, “We will bring the fight to them with a might and scale that the enemy has not yet known.” By Oct. 9, 2023, Israel had ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip. By July 2026, Gaza health officials said that more than 70,000 people had been killed during the war.
The movie largely focuses on civilian deaths, and its title is shorthand for nezek agavi, which effectively means collateral damage. Early on, an interviewee explains: “We say 15 NAZA. We don’t say 15 people will be killed, and certainly not that 15 children and women will be killed.”
This assertion sets the template for what follows as other interviewees describe decisions and actions — buildings bombed, the number of permissible civilian casualties — that they made on the ground and often remotely. Throughout, Abraham and his subjects speak with relative calm; at times, though, his voice rises in pitch and volume. His affect is tense yet gently insistent, including when the topic turns to military operations that led to mass casualties. No one yells, even when an emergency siren starts blaring during an interview. As the night sky flashes, the filmmakers cut to a rocket from Gaza soaring over nearby buildings. “Is there a shelter here?” a subject asks before explosions sound and the camera shudders.
The intimacy of these interviews is powerful, and creates an unsettling paradox. Even at their most off-puttingly horrific you are drawn into these discussions. That speaks to the power of the filmmaking and of documentary itself and, indeed, while the movie can be shocking, its revelations are similar to what’s been published earlier. In 2024, The New York Times reported that, after the Israeli military changed its threshold for noncombatant casualties, civilian deaths in Gaza spiked. Strikes on military targets, The Times reported, were permitted to “cumulatively endanger up to 500 civilians each day,” a number echoed here. Abraham’s 2024 report on the military’s use of A.I. to locate targets was published in several outlets, including The Guardian. Another of his reports was cited in a 2025 Times report.
(The Guardian, which helped produce the movie, will make it free to watch on its website after the theatrical run.)
Although the filmmakers include some larger historical context as well as some archival visuals, “NAZA” is emphatically about the present and not the past, a focus that registers as an ethical choice. The interviewees repeatedly invoke Oct. 7, and snippets of news reports from that day can be seen on TVs in nearby apartments. Again and again, amid the interviews, Abraham and Szor cut to the unidentified inhabitants of these buildings going about their everyday lives: They watch television, exercise, read and look out of their windows. Their presence is at once a reminder of the threat that Israelis face and of the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
It is the movie’s relentless insistence on the human factor, not policy or politics, that makes it finally so haunting. Every so often, the filmmakers cut to Netanyahu and other public figures speaking on TVs in nearby apartments. Although their faces are visible and their voices sometimes sound inflamed, what they say is often familiar, which can make them seem more anonymous than the interviewees. It is, this movie underscores, one thing for people to speak about war in the abstract. It is another matter entirely when an interviewee discusses eavesdropping on a target while he pulled dead children from the rubble of his home.
Throughout “NAZA,” the interviewees describe the systems — the technologies of war — used in Gaza. In the process, they also speak to the systemic dehumanization of their targets. “After Oct. 7th,” one man tells Abraham, “everyone kept saying: There are no innocent people in Gaza.” As the movie continues, some interviewees express remorse; others do not. One speaks about the need to trust the system, while another talks about doing a job; this too is bureaucratic dehumanization. Abraham and Szor never solicit pity for their subjects who, in serving their country, have helped perpetuate what the United Nations and Israeli human rights organizations have described as genocide. Instead, the filmmakers ask and they listen.
At one point in “NAZA,” the filmmakers cut to the image of Claude Lanzmann playing on TV. One of the giants of cinema, Lanzmann directed “Shoah” (1985), a staggering nine-and-a-half hour history of the Holocaust that largely comprises interviews, including with victims and perpetrators. The “NAZA” filmmakers don’t explain his inclusion here, though it seems that his image is being shown in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s possible to see Lanzmann’s presence in this documentary as a gesture of solidarity and a homage to another journalist-filmmaker. It’s also a reminder of the singular power of eyewitness testimony and how the act of speaking about our lives is one way we collectively try to make sense of the past, present and future. We speak, and hope that others listen.
NAZA
Not rated. In Hebrew and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. In theaters.
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