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.I. Could Possibly End Humanity. How Are Humans Supposed to Process That?
The technology is far from the only existential risk our species faces. But weighing such cosmic fears can become a mind-bending exercise.
By William J. Broad and Cade Metz, Published Sept. 10, 2026, Updated Sept. 11, 2026
Andrew Harnik/Associated Press
It could launch a bioweapon attack, or a global drone war. It could set off a nuclear bomb. Or it could destroy human society more gradually, by hoarding all the world’s economic resources and depriving us of food, housing or medicine.
These are the sorts of dark thoughts that now swirl around artificial intelligence, a technology that has already proved to be a great advance in human achievement — but that, some fear, also has the potential to snuff out humanity entirely.
Such anxieties made global headlines this week when an Anthropic researcher quit the industry, citing fears that his lab and others like it were building supersmart machines that humans would be unable to control.
The potential threats posed by A.I. are understandably scary. But the modern world teems with a multitude of existential risks. Humans also face the prospect of doom from killer asteroids, pandemics, thermonuclear war, climate change, giant blobs of incandescent material shot from the sun, ecological collapse and the onset of a sudden ice age.
The problem, scientists and public policy experts say, is not so much these threats, of which A.I. is merely the latest, but the innate human difficulty of putting them into perspective.
“We tolerate risks that we’re used to but fear the new ones,” said James K. Hammitt, the director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.
We drive in cars more often than we fly in planes, he said, so “airlines are perceived as dangerous compared to motor vehicles, when they’re really not.”
Artificial intelligence, he noted, “is obviously not understood and not under our perceived control, so it generates huge social concern.”
Among the tech executives and researchers building A.I. systems, there has always been a contingent that has warned of A.I.’s potential to destroy humanity.
In the short term, some say, artificial intelligence could help unskilled but malicious people create viruses or toxic substances capable of causing widespread disease and death. Just on Thursday, Anthropic said it had foiled several efforts by scientists who were conducting research that potentially could lead to the development of biological weapons.
In the longer term, those warning of A.I.’s potential dangers argue that tech companies could give A.I. systems greater autonomy, connect them to the internet and even tie them into vital infrastructure, including power grids, stock markets and military weapons. Once they are connected to this infrastructure, they argue, A.I. systems could cause problems in unexpected ways.
Today, when A.I. systems go rogue, companies like OpenAI can just shut them off. But some experts worry that future systems will resist efforts to shut them down.
For now, these are hypothetical concerns.
“We are very far away,” said Oren Etzioni, a professor at the University of Washington and the founding chief executive of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. “If I had to worry about either an A.I. escaping the lab and killing millions of people and a virus escaping and killing millions, it is no contest. The worry is the virus.”
As it turns out, even anthrax has a reasonable chance at doing in humanity.
Anthrax has been around since ancient times, but more recently it has been a favorite of rogue nations developing biological weapons programs.
Scientists have long known that a single gallon of anthrax, if suitably distributed, could end human life on earth. But that hasn’t happened, even though North Korea and other belligerent states (including Iran) have long been suspected of harboring the lethal germ.
What often gets lost in the frenzied panics of modern life is that, at least with intentional threats, plain old deterrence can save the day. State actors are reluctant to unleash anthrax on an enemy because they will face retaliation — turning a strike into a suicide — thus creating an incentive for restraint.
The Harvard Center, founded in 1989, seeks to put these numerous doom scenarios in perspective, especially the undeterrable ones, such as environmental risks and major threats to human health. It seeks to apply decision science, economics and risk assessment to assess and improve policymaking.
Similarly, NASA relies on supercomputers in its Asteroid Threat Assessment Project. Overall, the space agency puts the risk this century of an asteroid impact that would endanger human existence at essentially zero. And it calculates that earthlings can (in all likelihood) breathe a sigh of relief for at least 1,000 years to come.
And how do knowledgeable scientists assess the risk of a global pandemic that would wipe out most human life?
They peg the threat as low, if not zero. Toby Ord, a researcher at Oxford University, in his 2020 book “The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity,” put the 100-year risk of an existential catastrophe from a pandemic at one in 30, or roughly a 3 percent chance.
What makes the doomsayers of the tech industry different from, say, an airline scientist assessing crash risks, is that many A.I. executives and researchers held such dire beliefs even before the technology began to show its power. They believe that existential risk is a serious problem in part because they have always believed it.
“I was there when this subculture developed,” said Zack Korman, a founder of the A.I. security company Embroidery. He was referring to his time at the University of Oxford, when it was a hotbed of the “effective altruism” movement, in which many of these fears of A.I. existential risk first incubated. Too many thinkers on the subject today, Mr. Korman said, “interpret all events in light of this story that has been told for more than a decade.”
Many of the world’s top researchers, though, do not share such beliefs. They say the fears are wildly overblown. And scientists outside Silicon Valley tend to hold a very different view about the threat of A.I.
“The discussion has a frame, and it is a very particular frame. That is the frame that was there before deep learning took off, and it has stayed there,” Branton DeMoss, an A.I. researcher at Oxford, said, referring to the rise of neural networks. “And I don’t agree with it.”
In a recent blog post, Dr. Ord summarized the world’s different risks as moving up and down — a climate catastrophe down, a nuclear disaster up. His judgment on pandemics and A.I. is mixed: lots of changes, but no clear direction in the overall risks.
Experts note that catastrophic and existential risks can also be mitigated with sound plans and early warning systems. Faced with a clear and present danger (like an asteroid on a collision path with the planet), humanity might well unite behind a common enemy, pushing squabbles into the background.
Dr. Ord hopes a day will come to pass for what he calls existential security.
“It is a hypothetical future state of the world where existential risk is low and kept low,” he wrote in his post. Not only would humanity extinguish the current fires, Dr. Ord wrote, but “put in place the mechanisms to ensure fire no longer poses a substantive threat.”
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2) Despite Pledges From Musk, Child Sexual Abuse Material Persists on X
Reviews by the Canadian Center for Child Protection and The New York Times found that explicit images of children remain on the social media site owned by Elon Musk.
By Kate Conger and Michael H. Keller, Sept. 11, 2026
Kate Conger reported from San Francisco and Michael H. Keller from New York.
Elon Musk bought X, which was then known as Twitter, in 2022 and vowed to remove child sexual abuse material from the site, calling it “Priority #1.” Credit...Andres Kudacki for The New York Times
Elon Musk has long vowed to remove child sexual abuse material on his social media platform, X. But some of the content continues to appear.
A review by the Canadian Center for Child Protection found that the site’s own artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, responded to requests from users by creating dozens of sexualized and sometimes sexually explicit photos of children, including victims previously known to law enforcement, at the beginning of the year. The images included children in sexualized poses with partially exposed genitals, in states of undress and with fluid on their faces.
A separate analysis by The New York Times found that during the first half of the year, users on X posted child sexual abuse material previously flagged by authorities, including some of the most egregious content that the site attempts to block using automated filters.
The findings came to light through spot checks of X, rather than a review of comprehensive data, to which the platform restricts access. Combined, the two analyses offer a window into a social media site still dealing with illegal content that can create real-world harm.
“This is wildly unacceptable that known child sexual abuse material is appearing” that should be automatically taken down, said Lloyd Richardson, the technology director at the Canadian center. “You don’t see this behavior with any other big social media company.”
X continues to use automated filters to block content from being uploaded, in addition to proprietary technology it has to help detect such material, the company said in a statement.
“We take seriously our responsibility to protect minors,” the statement said. “X has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material, including A.I.-generated child sexual abuse material.”
The company blocks users who post or engage with exploitative material and reports them to authorities, X said in its statement, including 780,000 users in the past month alone. The company has reported 1.3 million images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children this year, leading to 543 arrests, the statement said.
In 2022, Mr. Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, and vowed to remove child sexual abuse material from the site, calling it “Priority #1.” In January, he said users who asked Grok to create images of child sexual abuse would face the same consequences as users who shared non-A.I.-generated abuse material, which could include a ban.
Other major social media platforms also struggle to eradicate child abuse imagery, particularly newly created images that law enforcement has not previously identified. Like X, other platforms, including Facebook and Google, also rely on lists of previously identified images compiled by child safety groups to automatically detect those images and prevent them from being publicly posted.
Mr. Musk merged X with xAI last year. His rocket company, SpaceX, then acquired xAI in February, creating a megacompany worth about $1.5 trillion.
In December and January, Grok’s X account produced millions of images of people with their clothing removed in response to prompts from users. After a public outcry, X said it would halt the account from producing those images.
Later, the Canadian center found 65 instances in which Grok created sexualized or exploitative images of children before X halted the bot. During that time frame, users also prompted the chatbot to edit clothed photos of known victims of childhood sexual abuse and depict them in lingerie or bikinis.
Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an organization that studies online abuse and hate speech, said the findings were “one of the biggest corporate failures of my lifetime.” His organization gave access to more than four million links to Grok-generated images compiled for researchers for the Canadian center’s review.
In a regulatory filing in May, SpaceX said Grok’s ability to generate sexual content posed a risk to investors. In recent months, xAI has sued several Grok users who created child sexual abuse material with the chatbot, saying they misused the technology. The company faces several lawsuits claiming that Grok generated explicit images of minors.
The Times conducted its own scan for child sexual abuse material on X by writing an automated computer program that searched for related terms without displaying the images, which are illegal to view. Links to the images were sent to a Microsoft service that checked whether they were included on lists of known abusive material compiled by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other child safety groups. Matches were verified by analysts at the Canadian Center for Child Protection.
The Times found more than 75 images between January and June. The program The Times wrote reported the images to the authorities. The images were removed, but some had been viewed hundreds of times.
When tech platforms find abusive imagery, they are required to remove it and report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which serves as a clearinghouse for law enforcement. X continues to send reports of abusive imagery to the U.S. center, but it is unclear whether those reports included the imagery found by The Times.
One explicit photo The Times’s automated program found on X, which has been known to authorities for at least seven years, showed a young girl with fluid on her face being raped orally. The post of the photo, which advertised the sale of similar illegal content, was publicly available for over an hour in March and received 16 likes and nine reposts from other users before The Times found and reported it.
The person depicted in the image, now an adult, said in an interview that she believed X profited from her abuse and further victimized her by not stopping the image from being shared.
“They’re getting benefits from my abuse, and it just feels like it’s never going to stop,” the woman said of X. She spoke on the condition of anonymity because she has been stalked by people who viewed images of her abuse online. “I get angry that I’m still having to go through this decades later, and that there doesn’t seem to be real-life consequences for people.”
The level of abuse depicted in the images found by The Times was severe. The U.S. national center’s database includes the most egregious examples of childhood abuse and sexual torture.
The U.S. national center shares digital fingerprints with major technology companies so they can scan and remove the imagery. The center’s list is used by Google and Meta, among others. About a third of the images found by The Times were from that list.
The expectation is that companies are using the national center’s list “in any and every way possible to identify, remove and report child sexual abuse material,” said John Shehan, an executive at the U.S. national center. “How are you not using this tool in a proper way?”
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3) How Trump Is Wielding Power to Stifle Speech
President Trump has harnessed agencies across the government to curtail press freedoms, a sweeping campaign that free speech advocates say will have lasting effects.
By Jim Rutenberg and Maggie Haberman, Sept. 12, 2026
Jim Rutenberg writes about the intersection of media and politics. Maggie Haberman covers the White House.
"There is a long record of U.S. presidents taking steps to curtail speech. President Woodrow Wilson imposed strict censorship and forced dissenting publishers out of business during World War I. Richard M. Nixon kept an enemies list, and his aides threatened F.C.C. action against broadcasters. More recently, the George W. Bush White House expanded government secrecy and the Obama administration went after the sources of journalists through leak investigations."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/12/us/politics/trump-free-speech.html
President Trump brought a libel suit against the author of “TrumpNation.” Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
The Justice Department has sent F.B.I. agents to reporters’ homes to serve subpoenas and, in at least one case, flashed a warrant to seize devices. The Pentagon has fired the editor and publisher of its traditionally independent newspaper, Stars and Stripes, and blocked access to other journalists who refused to sign pledges that would limit their reporting.
Regulatory agencies are using their powers to pressure media organizations over their content. The administration has stripped funding from public television and radio. Angry over stories he does not like, President Trump has sued major news organizations and the White House has taken control of the previously independent press pool that tracks the president, deciding which outlets can participate.
Almost 20 months into Mr. Trump’s second term, his long-running media clashes have grown into a sweeping campaign to control speech in America that stands out for applying so many levers, so fast, all at once.
Driven by personal pique, fury over leaks and a determination to shape the political narrative to his advantage, Mr. Trump is deploying the might of the federal government and filing personal lawsuits — targeting not just journalists and liberal critics, but also comedians and talk show hosts, and the corporate entities behind them.
To the president and his allies, he is simply demanding accountability for what he casts as biased, unfair and sometimes inaccurate coverage and criticism — an effort that has been welcomed by longtime conservative press critics like those at the Media Research Center.
Aides noted that the White House has this year expanded who gets invited to cover events, such as the off-the-record presidential lunch with network anchors that precedes the annual State of the Union address.
In a statement, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said that “biased reporting from the media is a disservice to the American people,” adding: “We utilize every tool available to ensure that accurate reporting is provided to the public and the stain of those who knowingly peddle false information is held accountable.”
Free speech advocates say the president’s intent is apparent: to punish, intimidate and silence dissenters.
“There’s not a week that goes by where they’re not taking a new step to curtail press freedom in the country,” said Clayton Weimers, the executive director of the North America division of Reporters Without Borders. “We have measured a substantial diminishment of press freedoms.”
When challenged in court, the president and the administration have frequently lost, confronted with strongly worded rulings from judges affirming First Amendment rights.
Still, even the path to legal victory can have severe financial and reputational costs for those he views as adversaries, which have included The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC. And each time the president assails what has long been considered protected speech, media analysts say, he is eroding norms and undercutting the role of an independent press.
Reporters Without Borders maintains an index that tracks press freedom in 180 countries, clocking governmental threats, subpoenas and the vindictive use of regulations against journalists. The United States now ranks at its lowest since the organization started the index in 2002 — 64th, just above Panama and just below Botswana. The trend is the same at similar indexes kept by the Freedom of the Press Foundation and the V-Dem Institute of Sweden.
There is a long record of U.S. presidents taking steps to curtail speech. President Woodrow Wilson imposed strict censorship and forced dissenting publishers out of business during World War I. Richard M. Nixon kept an enemies list, and his aides threatened F.C.C. action against broadcasters. More recently, the George W. Bush White House expanded government secrecy and the Obama administration went after the sources of journalists through leak investigations.
Mr. Trump had inveighed against the Biden administration for what he and his supporters portrayed as draconian pressure on social media companies to censor disfavored content often at their expense, promising at his second inauguration to “stop all government censorship.”
Now his administration is breaking new ground in stifling dissent with personal lawsuits and novel uses of executive power, longtime First Amendment lawyers say, with implications that extend far beyond Mr. Trump’s presidency.
“We live in a different world under this administration because the threats are so grave,” said Floyd Abrams, who has worked on free speech cases for 60 years. “It’s one thing to say there’s an extraordinarily powerful First Amendment, but unless and until courts rule on these matters, the threat is very real.”
Harnessing Government Power
Long before he took office, Mr. Trump was well known for his media feuds. As a developer and reality TV star, he was quick to threaten defamation suits against those who challenged his assertions about his business successes and his wealth.
Mr. Trump has been candid about his aim: to inflict pain, even if it was fleeting. After bringing a failed libel suit against the former Times reporter Timothy L. O’Brien, whose book “TrumpNation” estimated Mr. Trump to be worth far less than he claimed, the president gloated about forcing the publisher to spend money. “I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about,” he said.
In his first term, the president branded journalists as “fake news” and crudely attacked reporters, especially women.
In his second term, Mr. Trump is now imprinting his pugilistic approach across the machinery of the federal government. Those who once might have checked him have been replaced by loyalists who often use their power to fulfill Mr. Trump’s desire to punish perceived enemies.
Soon after his inauguration, the White House banned The Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One, ostensibly because the wire service would not call the Gulf of Mexico by Mr. Trump’s preferred name, the Gulf of America. Another reason for the ban: The A.P. would not give the Trump team rights to its photo of Mr. Trump, bloodied with a raised fist, after he was shot in Butler, Pa., in 2024. At a private lunch with Mr. Trump and network anchors last year, White House aides tied the A.P. ban to the denial of the rights to the photo, according to two people briefed on the event.
Mr. Trump’s team is unapologetic about its goal of achieving firmer control over the national information environment — what Mr. Cheung, the communications director, has dubbed in a social media post, “Full Spectrum Dominance.”
Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and one of the most aggressive supporters of Mr. Trump’s efforts, has said that the president is “reshaping the media landscape.”
Citing the big broadcast networks, Mr. Carr told an interviewer for CNBC last year that “for years government officials just allowed those entities, with executives sitting in Hollywood and New York, to dictate the political narrative.” Mr. Trump, he added, has “fundamentally changed the game.”
One of the Trump administration’s strategies appeared to take root in a dispute between Elon Musk and the liberal press watchdog group Media Matters for America.
In 2023, Mr. Musk was furious about a Media Matters article that showed pro-Nazi posts were running on his social media platform X alongside promotional posts from major consumer brands, contributing to an advertiser exodus from the site.
A longtime Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, took to X to pointedly note that Republican state attorneys general had the power to consider civil and criminal fraud charges against the group. In short order, Mr. Musk sued Media Matters for allegedly manipulating the X algorithm to produce its results, the Texas attorney general’s office opened an investigation into deceptive trade practices and the Missouri attorney general followed with its own inquiry.
Media Matters won court injunctions blocking the Texas and Missouri investigations. But soon after Mr. Trump took office again, the Federal Trade Commission, newly headed by the conservative lawyer Andrew Ferguson, began its own investigation, demanding internal documents related to Media Matters’ methodology for evaluating media sources and its finances.
The investigation was part of a broader F.T.C. inquiry into whether several groups that work to identify online disinformation were colluding with advertising firms to direct money away from disfavored outlets. Conservatives saw the issue as central to what some labeled a “censorship industrial complex.”
A federal judge in Washington ultimately determined that the F.T.C.’s investigation of Media Matters presented “a straightforward First Amendment violation.”
But the fight was costly for Media Matters. In addition to paying legal fees, the group said it had self-censored articles to avoid further scrutiny from the agency. (It is still defending itself against Mr. Musk’s suit.)
The F.T.C. also investigated NewsGuard, a site that rates the reliability of online information. It is avowedly nonpartisan in its approach; Fox News, for instance, rates above MS NOW.
In court papers, NewsGuard said it drew attention in part because it had given a low rating to the conservative site Newsmax, which is run by an ally of Mr. Trump’s, Chris Ruddy. Mr. Ruddy had complained that ad agencies were relying on NewsGuard ratings to withhold money from right-leaning outlets like his.
The F.T.C. took another tack that NewsGuard said affected it directly, related to the merger of two of the country’s largest advertising holding companies, Omnicom and Interpublic Group. The F.T.C. entered into a consent decree with the newly joined company barring it from broadly using ratings like those published by NewsGuard to withhold ad spending from certain sites, among other things. (It could still follow individual clients’ requests to do so.)
In a lawsuit filed in February, NewsGuard said the provision effectively placed it on a blacklist, immediately causing it to lose business.
The F.T.C. ultimately dropped its investigations into both NewsGuard and Media Matters, saying it had achieved its goal of defending free speech through agreements with ad firms. It said it was fulfilling its mission of protecting consumers from anticompetitive behavior that “distorted the marketplace of ideas,” as Mr. Ferguson put it.
Dan Schneider, vice president for free speech at the conservative watchdog group Media Research Center, described the actions by the F.T.C. and the F.C.C. as a correction against abuses under the past two Democratic presidents. “Please, let’s not forget history and rewrite everything that went on before,” Mr. Schneider said.
But Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democratic F.T.C. commissioner fired by Mr. Trump last year, said in an interview that the agency’s actions were “a perversion of the F.T.C.’s authorities in order to punish the speech of perceived enemies and reward perceived allies.”
‘Deeply Un-American’
Much of the administration’s action has been led by Mr. Carr. The longtime F.C.C. lawyer is known to frequent the president’s golf clubs when Mr. Trump is there on weekends and often speaks to the president directly about his grievances with news outlets, according to people briefed on their conversations.
He has bent the F.C.C. to the president’s will, investigating the major broadcast networks by reviving largely dormant rules, like those against so-called news distortion — meant to punish the deliberate staging or distortion of a news event. Mr. Carr has also pursued networks for their diversity, equity and inclusion practices, inquiring whether they violate federal law and agency regulations, a tactic the administration has used to significant effect against universities and law firms.
Early on, Mr. Carr extracted extraordinary concessions from Skydance, the company run by the studio executive David Ellison, the son of the billionaire Trump ally Larry Ellison, as it sought to purchase Paramount, the parent company of CBS. To secure F.C.C. approval for the merger, Skydance agreed to end CBS’s diversity policies and appoint a monitor for news bias. (Mr. Trump has since shown a rooting interest in the Ellisons’ attempt to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN.)
Critics, among them F.C.C. chairs from past Republican administrations, have said Mr. Carr is exceeding his authority. Mr. Carr says he is simply following the law by requiring broadcasters to serve the public interest in ways that he says his predecessors had failed to do.
Mr. Trump is clearly pleased with Mr. Carr’s effort to solve the so-called fake news problem, as he put it in a speech in April at a private White House event ahead of the celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary.
“He’s keeping these crooked networks honest,” Mr. Trump said as he spotted Mr. Carr in the crowd, describing his appointee as “the most powerful man in the world.”
After Mr. Trump recently called for punishment of the NBC host Kristen Welker for reporting he did not like, and suggested F.C.C. action against the airing of “fake polls,” Mr. Carr responded by saying the agency was considering “a lot of actions,” including on “fake polls.”
No network has borne the brunt of the president’s ire as much as the Disney-owned ABC network.
Mr. Trump’s animus against ABC grew in 2024, when he sued over the anchor George Stephanopoulos’s characterization of the verdict in the defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, who accused Mr. Trump of sexual abuse. ABC settled the suit for $15 million.
In the president’s second term, his anger has increased as the ABC late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel has made him the regular butt of jokes.
Last year, the F.C.C. opened an investigation into the network’s diversity and inclusion hiring policies and revived a conservative group’s complaint over ABC’s 2024 presidential debate.
Early this year, the agency sought to require its talk show “The View” to follow so-called equal-time rules for political candidates, even though the F.C.C. previously agreed that the show qualified for an exemption.
In April, after Mr. Trump and the first lady demanded ABC fire Mr. Kimmel over a joke he made about her being an “expectant widow,” the F.C.C. started an early review of the federal licenses that ABC stations need to operate, years before they are set to expire.
The agency had never brought such a mass challenge to a major network’s station licenses. It said it was doing so because ABC was deficient in its responses to the diversity and inclusion inquiry.
ABC is now fighting the agency’s actions, which it called “deeply un-American.”
The network has asked a federal court to intervene immediately, arguing that Mr. Carr was effectively using the agency’s enforcement process to wage a “retaliatory campaign” that is already negatively affecting its programming decisions.
Out of fear of retaliation, ABC decided to carry live online a prime-time speech that Mr. Trump gave on election security, which it would not have otherwise done, and avoided certain bookings and video clips on “The View,” the network said in court papers.
It also reported onerous F.C.C. demands for documents, including staff communications from inside “The View” and internal ABC News editorial policies.
“It’s unprecedented to seek these records because they are part of the editorial decision-making,” Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic F.C.C. commissioner, said in an interview. “It’s all a strategy, and tools, to intimidate broadcasters into submission.”
Mr. Carr has called ABC’s suit meritless. This month, the F.C.C. moved to get the case dismissed, arguing ABC was simply trying to short-circuit an agency investigation while exaggerating harms to its speech rights.
Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit group that tracks press freedom violations in the United States, said that the administration’s moves “have certainly risen to the level where they’re kind of off the charts.”
Government efforts to subpoena journalists and chill their reporting through threats are at the highest level since the foundation started tracking incidents in 2017.
And as a private citizen, Mr. Trump has filed lawsuits against a wide range of targets including the Guardian newspaper, the journalist Bob Woodward and the Pulitzer Prize board — legal battles often financed by his donor-funded political action committee.
Many of the moves have also drawn stern rebukes and concern from judges.
That was the case after the F.B.I. served a search warrant in January at the home of a Washington Post reporter and seized several of her devices, as part of an investigation into a contractor’s handling of classified material. In February, Judge William B. Porter chastised the government and forbade officials from immediately reviewing the reporter’s materials, saying to do otherwise would be “the equivalent of leaving the government’s fox in charge of The Washington Post’s henhouse.”
While weighing a suit Mr. Trump has personally brought against The Des Moines Register for a poll it published showing him behind in Iowa in 2024, a judge worried that allowing the suit to proceed could have “a massive, chilling effect.”
After a judge harshly questioned government lawyers in July over subpoenas for phone records and testimony from Times journalists who reported on the security capabilities of the new Qatari-donated Air Force One jet, the Justice Department withdrew the subpoenas.
At the time, David McCraw, the paper’s top newsroom lawyer, called the outcome, “an important affirmation of our country’s commitment to a free press,” but added in a statement that the subpoenas “should never have been issued in the first place.”
In siding with The Times in a challenge to restrictions for reporters at the Pentagon, Judge Paul Friedman of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in March, “Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech.”
After The Times initially prevailed in court, Pentagon officials sidestepped the ruling to again limit the access of journalists to the building. The Times sued again. This time, an appellate panel allowed a key new restriction to stand, at least temporarily — reporters must have escorts inside the Pentagon where they once roamed freely.
The rule remains in place while the legal fight presses on.
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4) Alabama Is Set to Execute a Murderer. The Jury Wanted Him to Live.
Jeffery Lee’s case has grappled with questions in Alabama about emerging execution methods and an abandoned sentencing practice that sent him and others to death row.
By Rick Rojas, Reporting from Atlanta, Sept. 12, 2026
A jury in Alabama heard harrowing testimony about a bungled pawnshop robbery in 1998 that quickly turned to bloodshed: Jeffery Lee, 21, charged in with a sawed-off shotgun and opened fire. The store’s owner, hit in the chest and arm, and his ex-wife, who was shot point-blank in the face, were killed. A clerk was wounded; she played dead until Mr. Lee fled.
Jurors voted unanimously to convict him. But when it came to deciding whether Mr. Lee should be put to death, most of the panel opted instead to sentence him to life in prison without parole.
And yet, nearly three decades later, Mr. Lee is on death row, his execution just days away.
Mr. Lee’s case is a relic of an era when judges had the power to override a jury’s sentencing decision, a practice forbidden in Alabama since 2017. He is one of more than two dozen inmates whose death sentences came from judges, not juries.
“We’re still here,” said Mr. Lee, now 49, speaking by phone from death row in Atmore, Ala. “The guys are still here fighting for their lives.”
I have reported on Mr. Lee’s case since the spring, when his legal team succeeded in raising doubts about the constitutionality of nitrogen gas as an execution method. Alabama was ready to put Mr. Lee to death using the gas in June, and had already moved him to the death chamber, when the U.S. Supreme Court intervened.
Mr. Lee agreed to an interview this month after the state rescheduled his execution for Sept. 17, this time using lethal injection.
His case has tangled with some of the most fraught questions hanging over capital punishment in Alabama. In the interview, he discussed how such a sprawling and philosophical debate in society — about the morality of the death penalty and the constitutional boundaries of cruel and unusual punishment — had such direct implications on his fate.
Now that he faces a grim countdown, Mr. Lee talked about what distracted him (blasting worship music) and brought some comfort (Bible verses like Psalm 91). He also focused his frustration on how his sentence was reached, saying that his crimes merited a severe punishment, but that it should be the punishment the jury agreed to.
“I’m not free — that’s punishment,” Mr. Lee said. “And that’s something I’ve been living with for the past 26 years. No way, not one day has been easy.”
Officials in Alabama — which has long had the highest number of death sentences per capita in the country — have resolved to push ahead with executions, even as they wrestle with the legacy of old flawed policies and as limited access to lethal injection drugs has prompted a search for new methods.
And in Mr. Lee’s case, those officials have defended the death sentence as just. “There is absolutely no question as to his guilt,” Steve Marshall, Alabama’s Republican attorney general, said in a statement. “Anything short of carrying out the sentence imposed by the court falls short of justice for the victims, and that is not what victims of this state deserve.”
Still, prominent legal and political figures in Alabama — including some Republicans who are generally supportive of the death penalty — have demanded clemency for Mr. Lee.
Alabama had been the last state to allow judges to override a jury’s sentencing decision before it changed the law with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2017. At some points, one-fifth of the inmates on death row had been sent there using judicial override. Legislative efforts to apply the change retroactively have failed, creating what critics regard as an alarming imbalance.
“When a state concludes that a sentencing practice was unjust — unjust enough to abolish by statute — it ought to reckon with the sentences that practice produced,” Drayton Nabers Jr., a former chief justice of the State Supreme Court and a Republican, wrote in an essay published in June in newspapers across the state.
During the sentencing phase of Mr. Lee’s trial in 2000, his family members testified about his struggles with substance abuse starting from a young age, which precipitated erratic and troubling behavior.
The victim’s relatives and others described the anguish unleashed in Dallas County, a rural and impoverished stretch west of Montgomery, part of a region known as Alabama’s Black Belt primarily for its rich soil.
Helen King, the clerk and surviving victim, shared the torment that had endured long after she called for help. “I still can’t sleep at night, I slap at my kids for no reason,” Ms. King said during the sentencing hearing. “It turned my life upside down.”
Efforts this week to reach Ms. King and relatives of Jimmy Ellis, the store owner, and Elaine Thompson, his ex-wife, were unsuccessful.
Mr. Lee was originally sentenced to die by electrocution, long the state’s primary method before lethal injection supplanted it in 2002. In 2018, as major pharmaceutical companies restricted the sale of the drugs used in lethal injections, Alabama legalized nitrogen hypoxia. The state paused executions for three months in 2022 after botched lethal injection attempts.
Mr. Lee agreed to be executed by nitrogen hypoxia, in which a person breathes pure nitrogen through a mask. Supporters of the method had presented it as efficient and potentially painless.
“We were led to believe that it would be something constitutional, something that wouldn’t involve suffering,” Mr. Lee said of why he chose nitrogen gas.
But after Alabama put the method in place in 2024, witnesses described seeing inmates writhing and gasping for air for 10 minutes or longer.
In a legal challenge to nitrogen hypoxia, Mr. Lee suggested being put to death by a firing squad would be quicker and less cruel. A federal judge agreed. Four .30-caliber bullets aimed at his heart, the judge wrote, “significantly reduces a substantial risk of severe pain.”
Alabama officials countered that the state did not have the legislative approval or the protocol prepared for a firing squad, much less “five expert marksmen willing and able to serve as executioners.”
Mr. Lee’s legal team contends that his agreement to be executed using nitrogen gas included language that prevented him from being put to death by lethal injection. The same federal judge rejected that argument in July.
Since June, Mr. Lee said, he has been caught between relief, as the day he believed could be his last turned out not to be, and dread, as he realizes a last-minute intervention is less likely this time around. He tries not to think about it.
Instead, Mr. Lee, who trained as a minister in prison, said he was leaning once again on the faith that had carried him throughout his time on death row.
“When I stop and choose to focus on what’s going on, I get stuck there,” he said. “I choose each and every day to wake up and not be fearful and afraid.”
Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
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5) Why Tech Oligarchs Are Willing to Risk Apocalypse
By Michelle Goldberg, Opinion Columnist, Sept. 12, 2026
“If the tech billionaires are so worried about ‘failing to advance the technology, and thus being confined to stultifying, finite ordinary existence’ they could change their objectives and use the enormous potential of the technology to achieve real progress to solving the global problems that cause so much human suffering right now. There would be nothing ordinary about the end of famine and starvation, reversing the trend for Earth becoming uninhabitable, curing disease, and ending war. But of course, their goal is to grow their wealth and save themselves from the consequences of their actions and policies that allows them to accumulate that wealth.”
Wyatt Angelo
In a series of private speeches last year, Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor and Silicon Valley thought leader, said that the young activist Greta Thunberg represented the spirit of the Antichrist. It was more than just a hyperbolic slur. Thiel was expressing a Promethean theology, one that sanctifies technology and expansion. In Thiel’s worldview, the forces of dynamism must struggle against the evils of stagnation, represented by Thunberg’s leftist environmentalism. “In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science,” said Thiel.
Thiel’s philosophical assumptions might sound bizarre to outsiders, but they appear to be widely shared among the tech elite. “A.I. and its capabilities represent something analogous to the Second Coming,” Jeremy Nixon, a founder of an A.I. hub called A.G.I. House, said in May. The technology, some tech titans believe, will allow humans — at least some humans — to escape the bounds of earth and even perhaps the inevitability of death. It represents liberation from hopelessness and decay.
It’s worth keeping this strange new quasi-religion in mind as we consider the warnings coming from A.I. insiders that their inventions could cause mass death. As you probably know by now, this week Jacob Coxon resigned his research job at Anthropic and went on X to warn, “The people building A.I. earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” His words were amplified by Evan Hubinger, Anthropic’s head of alignment science, whose job is to try and keep the technology aligned with human goals. “Jacob is correct here,” wrote Hubinger, who placed the probability of A.I. wiping humans out within the next 10 years at more than 10 percent.
These warnings lead to an obvious question: If this technology could destroy human life on earth, why continue to build it? Often the answer is that since its development is inevitable, responsible actors need to get there first. It’s not a preposterous argument — if you really believe in A.I.’s awe-inspiring capabilities, you don’t want to cede sole control of it to your foes. But as an explanation for the industry’s oddly blithe attitude toward apocalypse, it’s incomplete, because it doesn’t account for tech leaders’ messianic dreams.
Their fantasies of transcendence take different forms. Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, once said, “I assume my brain will be uploaded to the cloud.” Elon Musk plans to escape to Mars. “We want to be on a path toward making true the things that we read in science fiction books and see in the movies,” he says in footage featured in Alex Gibney’s searing new documentary, “Musk.” “A future where we’re forever confined to Earth until some eventual extinction event is less inspiring.” Jeff Bezos, who stepped down in 2021 as chief executive of Amazon to spend more time on his space company, wrote, “We don’t want to face a civilization of stasis, and that is the real issue if we just stay on this planet.”
Some imagine themselves as digitally enabled Übermenschen. In 2023, the billionaire tech investor Marc Andreessen published “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” with a section titled, “Becoming Technological Supermen.” In it, he borrowed language from the Italian futurist — and fascist — Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, writing, “Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.” He quoted Friedrich Nietzsche to argue that absent such an assault, life becomes meaningless and small. In a section titled “The Enemy,” Andreessen listed ideas that would restrain technology’s momentum, including “tech ethics” and the concept of “existential risk.”
Part of the reason the public has turned so quickly and decisively against A.I. is the bizarre mismatch between the costs they’re being asked to bear and the rewards they expect to receive. Data centers blight the landscape, A.I. slop degrades the culture, chatbots help kids cheat in school and sometimes drive people mad, and technology executives prophesy mass joblessness. For this, ordinary people get improved search engines and help writing emails. Great benefits could be on the horizon — we are constantly assured that A.I. will enable huge medical advances — but they’re not here yet to justify the hazards.
For those most invested in A.I., though, the intolerable risk lies in failing to advance the technology, and thus being confined to stultifying, finite ordinary existence. “For decades, large tech firms have insisted that the technologies they own and control are ‘inevitable’ and thus unstoppable,” write Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor in their trenchant new book, “End Times Fascism.” “Now they increasingly claim the authority of the supernatural: the right to usher in a new stage of human evolution, governed by deities of their creation.” As Klein and Taylor point out, these visions, so obviously derived from sci-fi and video games, can be hard to take seriously. But it doesn’t matter whether you believe in a future of cybernetic ascendence. The point is that the people driving the A.I. revolution do.
And if things go wrong, they have backup plans. Mark Zuckerberg is building a luxury survivalist compound on Kauai. Thiel tried to build one in New Zealand and has recently decamped to Argentina, “a potential escape hatch,” The New York Times reported, from catastrophes including nuclear war and runaway A.I. Ilya Sutskever, a founder of OpenAI, reportedly told employees that the company would construct a bunker before releasing A.G.I., or artificial general intelligence, a system that can either match or exceed human abilities in a wide range of domains.
In an interview last year, my former colleague Ross Douthat asked Thiel what seemed like a simple question: “I think you would prefer the human race to endure, right?” Thiel paused for an uncomfortably long time before finally, after some hemming and hawing, saying “Yes.” His next word, though, was, “but,” after which Thiel started rambling about transhumanism. “The ideal was this radical transformation where your human, natural body gets transformed into an immortal body,” he said.
Our tech oligarchs would probably like human civilization on this planet to flourish, but some don’t seem to see it as mission critical. More important is that they reach their posthuman or interplanetary apotheosis. If they must wager our lives to summon their digital god, it’s a chance worth taking.
Bezos, Musk, Theil and the others already occupy a plane of existence that most of us can't see, feel or share. I've always been happy with my mundane existence, the awareness that I am mortal, and that in the hugeness of time, I am as near to meaningless as is imaginable. From reading this, I get the feeling the tech people actually believe their delusions of godhood. That's pretty sad to know.
If the tech billionaires are so worried about “failing to advance the technology, and thus being confined to stultifying, finite ordinary existence” they could change their objectives and use the enormous potential of the technology to achieve real progress to solving the global problems that cause so much human suffering right now. There would be nothing ordinary about the end of famine and starvation, reversing the trend for Earth becoming uninhabitable, curing disease, and ending war. But of course their goal is to grow their wealth and save themselves from the consequences of their actions and policies that allows them to accumulate that wealth.
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6) Iran Will Meet With Gulf Arab States as Mideast Conflict Widens
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Tel Aviv, Sept. 13, 2026
A motorboat passing a cargo ship anchored in the Strait of Hormuz, off Bandar Abbas, Iran, last week. Vahid Salemi/Associated Press
Iranian officials will meet on Monday in Oman with representatives of some of the Gulf Arab states that Iran has repeatedly attacked during its war with the United States and Israel, as the regional conflict has widened in recent days.
Yemen has emerged as the latest front in the fighting, with the Iranian-backed Houthi militants there seizing the strategic port of Mokha and the island of Perim in the Bab al-Mandab Strait in the Red Sea last week. They have also attacked Saudi energy sites and sought to blockade Saudi shipping, exacerbating a global oil and gas crisis prompted by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
Saudi Arabia was forced to shut its East-West Pipeline on Friday after it was targeted by drones from Iraq. That pipeline has been a critical lifeline for the country’s oil exports after Iran effectively blockaded the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. No one took responsibility for the drone attack, but Iraq has long harbored well-armed militias backed by Iran.
The meeting in Oman will take place as talks between Iran and the United States to reopen the Strait of Hormuz have stalled. Iran has continued to fire on ships passing through the strait, squeezing the Gulf Arab states and roiling global oil markets. Last week, the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, briefly exceeded $110 a barrel, its highest level for months, before dropping to about $104 on Sunday.
On Sunday, a ship was struck by a projectile while traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, causing a fire on the vessel, according to United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a monitoring group run by the British navy. The governor of Qeshm, an island in southern Iran, said on Iranian state media that a commercial Iranian vessel had been attacked, killing one person and injuring four.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last week, U.S. forces struck Iranian vessels in response to an attempted Iranian strike on an American naval warship.
In Saudi Arabia, Houthi forces attacked a military site near the southern city of Sharurah on Sunday, Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, said on social media. Saudi officials said at least two people had been wounded and a mosque was damaged when a projectile fell in a neighboring province, state news media reported.
Esmaeil Baghaei, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said last week that the meeting would be held in Oman, which has often served as a mediator between the United States and Iran. Participating countries like Iraq and other Gulf Arab states would discuss efforts by Iran and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, he added.
Iran and its allies have repeatedly attacked those countries since the war began, saying they were targeting the U.S. soldiers and military assets they hosted. Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have struggled with how to manage their relationship with a newly emboldened Iran.
Iran and Oman, which border the strait, have been negotiating for weeks over how to reopen the waterway, discussing arrangements likely involving some kind of service fee. That would be a fundamental change from the prewar situation, when ships could travel freely through the Strait of Hormuz.
Even if a deal is reached, however, Iranian officials have demanded concessions from the United States before ending their blockade, including lifting sanctions on Iran and releasing frozen U.S. assets. The Trump administration is unlikely to take those steps without Iran agreeing to curb its nuclear program.
Bahrain, which has repeatedly been targeted by Iranian missiles and drones during the war, said in a statement on Saturday that it would not participate in any talks with Iran.
“The kingdom has been subjected to attacks targeting its infrastructure and civilian assets,” the Bahraini Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that any such dialogue would have to be based on “disregarding facts.”
Other countries that have been targeted, however, have signaled that they are open to dialogue. Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohamed Al Nahyan, the Emirati heir apparent, met with President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in India on Saturday — the first public meeting between senior leaders of the countries since the beginning of the war.
Iran has signaled that it could escalate militarily as President Trump has tried to squeeze the country with an economic pressure campaign. Senior Iranian officials have said they might be willing to return to the cease-fire agreement that briefly paused the war in June, but they have made new demands which the Trump administration has refused to accept.
The truce collapsed in early July, and the United States and Iran are in a period of uncertainty that some observers have described as “no war, no peace.” On at least two occasions since early July, Mr. Trump said he has come close to launching a massive attack on Iran but pulled back, in part following pleas from Gulf countries worried about the cost of return to full war.
Sanam Mahoozi contributed reporting.
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