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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.
Born in rural Ohio, Howard Keylor attended a one-room country schoolhouse. He became a member of the National Honor Society when he graduated from Marietta High School.
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, Howard fought in the Pacific Theater in World War Two, during which he participated in the Battle of Okinawa as a Corporal. The 96th U.S. Army Division, which Howard trained with, had casualty rates above 50%. The incompetence and racism of the military command, the destruction of the capital city of Naha and the deliberate killings of tens of thousands of Okinawan civil-ians – a third of the population - made Howard a committed anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and anti-racist for the rest of his life.
Upon returning to the United States, Howard enrolled in the College of the Pacific, but dropped out to support Filipino agricultural workers in the 1948 asparagus strike, working with legendary labor leader Larry Itliong. He became a longshore worker in Stockton in 1953. As a member of the Communist Party, Howard and his wife, Evangeline, were attacked in the HUAC (McCarthy) hearings in San Francisco. Later, Howard transferred to ILWU Local 10. In 1971 he, along with Brothers Herb Mills, Leo Robinson and a ma-jority of Local 10’s members, opposed the proposed 1971 contract which codified the 9.43 steadyman sys-tem. This led to the longshore strike of 1971-1972, which shut down 56 West Coast ports and lasted 130 days. It was the longest strike in the ILWU’s history.
In Local 10 Brother Keylor was a member of the Militant Caucus, a class struggle rank-and-file group which published a regular newsletter, the “Longshore Militant”. He later left the Militant Caucus and pub-lished a separate newsletter on his own, the “Militant Longshoreman.” Howard advocated deliberate defi-ance of the “slave-labor” Taft-Hartley law through illegal secondary boycotts and pickets. Running on an open class-struggle program which called for breaking with the Democratic and Republican Parties, form-ing a worker’s government, expropriating the capitalists without compensation and creating a planned economy, Howard won election to the Executive Board of Local 10 for twelve years.
The Militant Caucus was involved in organizing protests and boycotts of military cargo bound for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1975 and 1978 and again in 1980 to the military dictatorship in El Sal-vador. The Caucus also participated in ILWU Local 6’s strike at KNC Glass in Union City, during which a mass picket line physically defeated police and scabs, winning a contract for a workforce composed pri-marily of Mexican-American immigrants.
In 1984, Brother Keylor made the motion, amended by Brother Leo Robinson, which led to the elev-en-day longshore boycott of South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley. In 1986, Howard again partici-pated in the Campaign Against Apartheid’s community picket line against the Nedlloyd Kemba. When Nel-son Mandela spoke at the Oakland Coliseum in 1990 after his release from prison, he credited Local 10 with re-igniting the anti-Apartheid movement in the Bay Area.
Other actions Brother Howard initiated, organized or participated in included the 1995-98 struggle of the Liverpool dockworkers; the 1999 coastwide shutdown and march of 25,000 in San Francisco to de-mand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal; the 2000 Charleston longshore union campaign; the 2008 May Day anti-imperialist war shutdown of all West Coast ports; the shutdown of Northern California ports in pro-test of the murder of Oscar Grant; the blockades of Israeli ships to protest the war on Gaza in 2010 and 2014; the 2011 ILWU struggle against the grain monopolies in Longview; Occupy Oakland’s march of 40,000 to the Port of Oakland, and countless other militant job actions and protests. Throughout his life, Brother Keylor always extended solidarity where it was needed. He fought racist police murders and fas-cist terror, defended abortion clinics, and fought for survivors of psychiatric abuse. Having grown up in Appalachia, he has always been an environmentalist, and helped shut down a Monsanto facility in Davis in 2012, as well as fighting pesticide use and deforestation in the East Bay.
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Petition to Force Amazon to Cut ICE Contracts!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
Amazon Labor Union
Over 600,000 messages have already been sent directly to Amazon board members demanding one thing: Amazon must stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE and DHS rely on the data infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services. Their campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon.
But workers and communities have real power when we act collectively. That’s why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine. Help us reach 1 million messages and force Amazon to act by signing our petition with The Labor Force today:
Tell Amazon: End contracts with ICE!
On Cyber Monday 2025, Amazon workers rallied outside of Amazon’s NYC headquarters to demand that Amazon stop fueling mass deportations through Amazon Web Services’ contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE cannot operate without corporate backing; its campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon. Mega-corporations may appear untouchable, but they are not. Anti-authoritarian movements have long understood that repression is sustained by a network of institutional enablers and when those enablers are disrupted, state violence weakens. Workers and communities have real power when they act collectively. That is why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its most commonly used cloud platform. DHS and ICE cannot wage their attack on immigrants without the critical data infrastructure that Amazon Web Services provide, allowing the agencies to collect, analyze, and store the massive amounts of data they need to do their dirty work. Without the power of AWS, ICE would not be able to track and target people at its current scale.
ICE and DHS use Amazon Web Services to collect and store massive amounts of purchased data on immigrants and their friends and family–everything from biometric data, DMV data, cellphone records, and more. And through its contracts with Palantir, DHS is able to scour regional, local, state, and federal databases and analyze and store this data on AWS. All of this information is ultimately used to target immigrants and other members of our communities.
No corporation should profit from oppression and abuse. Yet Amazon is raking in tens of millions of dollars to fuel DHS and ICE, while grossly exploiting its own workers. Can you sign our petition today, demanding that Amazon stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with DHS and ICE, now?
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
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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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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. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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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 *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
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) Texas Public School Students May Soon Be Required to Read the Bible
Texas is set to pass what may be the first state-mandated book list for public school students. It focuses on classic literature and includes Bible excerpts.
By Sarah Mervosh, June 25, 2026
Most book lists are set by individual teachers or schools. Credit...Sandy Huffaker for The New York Times
Texas is on the verge of passing a sweeping, new state book list, which will establish for the first time a common set of books that millions of students across the state must read, including excerpts from the Bible.
It is highly unusual — perhaps unprecedented — for a state, rather than a school or a teacher, to mandate a reading list for every grade level for all public school students.
If approved, the list will shape what a generation of Texas students grows up reading. The state is home to more than five million public school students, 11 percent of the total U.S. public school population.
The list was being debated by the Texas State Board of Education this week. It is expected to be approved on Friday. While the specific texts were still being edited and finalized, the list is expected to reflect the priorities of the state board, which has a 10-to-5 Republican majority.
The proposal being considered put a focus on classic literature, with books like “Charlotte’s Web” by E.B. White (third grade), “Night” by Elie Wiesel (eighth grade) and “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare (12th grade).
At least one Bible excerpt is included in most grade levels, starting in late elementary school, which has spurred fierce debate.
Texas education officials say the Bible is an essential piece of literature and important for understanding America’s founding and culture. Critics argue that including it in English class violates separation of church and state, and is part of a broader effort to infuse Christianity in Texas public schools.
“The government of Texas, let alone any American government body, should never be in the business of imposing one religion on everyone,” said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which has challenged a law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms.
The new Texas list is also an effort to raise the level of rigor and get more students reading. Fewer students are reading full books in English class or at home, and U.S. reading scores are in a decade-long slump. Some education leaders and policymakers believe emphasizing whole books is increasingly essential for combating the rise of tech, specifically A.I.
The Texas list comes in response to a 2023 state law that required state education officials to select at least one literary work in each grade level.
The state board went further, outlining a number of texts in each grade. Texas teachers will still be able to teach books off the list, but they will need to find the time, on top of the ones required.
The selections have drawn criticism for putting an emphasis on older texts, often written by white and male authors, in a state where more than half of students are Hispanic or Black.
“With a list that’s so extensive, would teachers have the time or space to choose texts that are a great fit for their students, their classrooms, their region?” said Markesha Tisby, president of the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts, which has argued for narrowing the list to allow teachers more choice.
“Texas is extremely large,” she said, “and very diverse.”
The list focuses on classic literature
The proposed list for K-12 students before the board included about 200 texts.
For elementary school students, the list included classics like “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. It also had a number of books about U.S. founding fathers and historical figures, as well as excerpts from “The Children’s Book of Virtues,” an anthology of stories edited by William J. Bennett, the secretary of education under President Ronald Reagan.
In middle and high school, two main books would be required each year, along with other related poems, speeches, historical texts and biblical excerpts.
For example, 10th graders would read “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare, and “The Inferno” by Dante Alighieri. Among other texts, they would also read the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” speech; Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem “The Raven”; Margaret Thatcher’s eulogy for Mr. Reagan; and an excerpt from the Book of Job.
The list aligns with a classical approach to education, popular with conservatives, that posits students should read texts that have stood the test of time.
“You don’t get to know what a classic is until 50, 60 years after the author is dead,” said Jeremy Tate, the founder of the Classic Learning Test, an alternative to the SAT and ACT.
While deciding upon a shared set of texts is bound to stir debate, he said, “it’s better to have a common canon that can provide some cultural common ground — a basis to argue around — rather than no canon at all.”
Democratic members of the state board and some Texas educators have criticized the list’s lack of diversity across race, geography and time period, arguing that it will make it more difficult to engage students.
“There is a real attempt for students to not see themselves in these lists,” said Jonna Perrillo, an English professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, who noted that there are few Texas authors and few contemporary books on the list, particularly at the high school level.
Biblical passages would be required in most grades
Under the proposed list, students would read at least one Bible excerpt each year, starting in fourth grade.
Excerpts include “The Necessity of Humility” by the Gospel of Luke and “To Everything There is a Season” from the Book of Ecclesiastes. In middle and high school, Bible selections are included in thematic units along with a book. For example, the “Definition of Love,” from First Corinthians, would be taught alongside “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen in 12th grade.
“There is a difference between proselytizing and utilizing great pieces of literature,” said Mandy Drogin, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that has supported the changes.
But the list has drawn objections from teachers, parents, students and religious leaders who testified before the board this week.
David Segal, a rabbi who works for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, testified that the list shows a preference for evangelical Christian versions of the Bible, often the King James version, that risks “an unconstitutional endorsement” of religion.
What’s not on the list
The proposed Texas list does not include some of the most commonly taught books around the country, including “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Great Gatsby,” the No. 1 and No. 2. most assigned books in U.S. high schools, according to the National Council of Teachers of English.
It also avoids some popular classics that have been contested in recent years, like “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Those books are among the top books currently taught in Texas high schools, according to research by Dr. Perrillo, the UTEP professor, and Andrew Newman of Stony Brook University, who surveyed 1,250 high school English teachers, including almost 200 from Texas, in 2024.
On the survey, Texas teachers reported teaching a variety of other books, including some contemporary novels like “All the Light We Cannot See,” a 2014 novel by Anthony Doerr that won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
The question of what to include as essential literature is not new. The College Board, for example, has long encouraged teachers to teach certain texts, like “Frankenstein,” in Advanced Placement literature classes because they are likely to show up on the end-of-year A.P. exam.
And some charter school networks like Great Hearts, which runs schools in Texas and Arizona, and Success Academy, in New York City, have rigorous lists of books that students are expected to read.
But the Texas list would be a rare attempt at creating a shared canon for an entire state. The list was still being edited this week. Texas officials voted to remove a picture book on Noah’s Ark for first graders, for example, but keep a book on Johnny Appleseed in second grade.
If approved, the list would be required to be in place by the 2030 school year.
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2) Displaced Venezuelans are sleeping in the streets and in their cars.
By Luis Ferré-Sadurní and María Victoria Fermín, María Victoria Fermín reported from Caracas, Venezuela, June 26, 2026
With nowhere to go, Venezuelans pitched tents in public plazas and by the side of busy highways. Families sprawled out on mattresses and over thin blankets, on patches of grass and concrete benches. Others went to parking lots to sleep in their cars.
Many Venezuelans stayed outside for a second night in a row after back-to-back earthquakes on Wednesday toppled at least 250 buildings and left nearly 3,000 families homeless, according to Venezuelan officials.
“We’ll stay here, best to be safe because there have been many aftershocks,” said Aliria Álvarez, 61, sitting on the sidewalk outside her apartment building in Caracas, the capital, on Thursday evening.
She was accompanied by five relatives and a neighbor, all too afraid to sleep in their apartments, which emergency management workers had told them were not safe to stay in until they had been inspected for damage.
They sat on plastic chairs, next to a tent they had set up, and hunkered down for another night, though sleep was hard to come by.
As rescue workers struggle to dig out people still trapped in the rubble after the 7.2- and 7.5-magnitude quakes, Venezuelan officials were grappling with the need to house those who had suddenly lost their residences and assure others that their homes were safe to return to.
Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president, said on Thursday that the government would provide temporary shelters and make hotels available for those whose homes were destroyed or severely damaged, though it was unclear how many people that would cover.
The mayor of Caracas, Carmen Meléndez, also announced that the city had opened at least four emergency shelters in basketball courts and stadiums.
A baseball field in La Guaira, the northern coastal city hit hardest by the earthquakes, was taking in dozens of displaced families, but there was little sign of a government presence there when a New York Times photographer visited on Thursday afternoon. Most of the supplies donated for homeless families were being dropped off by citizens on bikes and in trucks.
Arsenia Beatriz Mayora, 70, sought shelter at the field along with 10 family members who had all narrowly escaped before their home came crumbling down.
“It was completely destroyed,” Ms. Mayora said. “All that was left was the facade.”
Yudith Granado, 51, opted to sleep on a mattress outside her apartment building with her husband and daughter on Thursday. They were scared of going inside their first-floor apartment, where cracks had formed in the front door and along a wall, except to take a quick shower.
“We were able to bathe, with fear and quickly,” she said.
Ms. Granado said that she had shown videos of the damage to two emergency management workers, who told her that they couldn’t help and that the family had to wait for firefighters to inspect the home.
“We’re here waiting for a response,” she said.
Carlos David Carrasco, a university professor, toured four plazas in Caracas on Thursday evening where more than 100 families had gathered to spend the night, including pregnant mothers, children, older people and pets.
Mr. Carrasco, 33, posted videos of the overnight encampments on social media, he said, to draw awareness to the situation.
“We’re going into the third day of this and the need is only going to go up,” Mr. Carrasco told The Times in a voice message.
“It’s clear that the government doesn’t have the capacity right now,” he added.
Fabiola Ferrero contributed reporting from La Guaira, Venezuela.
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3) Immigration Hard-Liners Repeatedly Lost in Court Before Justices Ruled in Their Favor
“This is a victory 10 years in the making,” a White House official said after the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could end deportation protections for some migrants.
By Hamed Aleaziz, Reporting from Washington, June 26, 2026
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, is an architect of some of President Trump’s most aggressive immigration policies, Doug Mills/The New York Times
The Supreme Court decision that will allow deportation of Haitians and Syrians protected under a federal humanitarian program was the culmination of a long campaign by conservatives whose efforts to dismantle it had been blocked by lower courts.
“This is a victory 10 years in the making,” Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told Fox News on Thursday. “We can finally remove these Haitian illegal migrants from the United States.”
Immigration hard-liners in the Trump administration have long railed against the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, and have accused previous administrations of abusing it. They say the program allowed some migrants to stay in the United States for years even though the protections, as the name implies, were meant to be temporary.
Now the administration can unwind the status, not only for the nearly 350,000 Haitians and hundreds of Syrians directly affected by the ruling, but also nationals from several other countries in the coming months, including El Salvador and Ukraine.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants with valid status could soon be vulnerable to expulsion, handing the administration a large new pool to target in its mass deportation plan.
“Thousands of people protected from immigration detention and deportation are now vulnerable to it,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, one of the attorneys involved in the T.P.S. litigation. “At their next check-in, or if they encounter an ICE officer on the street, they could be detained and deported.”
Thursday’s ruling by the Supreme Court gives the White House wide latitude to end a program that officials have blamed for holding back their efforts to tighten up immigration laws and expel undesirable groups.
“It’s an affirmation that the rule of law actually applies here,” Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of homeland security during the first Trump administration, said of the Supreme Court decision. Mr. Wolf said the ruling also affirmed that “this program is supposed to be temporary in nature.”
T.P.S. extended protections to certain nationalities whose countries were deemed by the U.S. government to have unsafe conditions, like wars and natural disasters. For instance, Haiti received T.P.S. status after the 2010 earthquake devastated the country; the status was extended several times, and the number of people allowed to apply for it ballooned during the Biden administration after the country fell into conflict in 2021. Efforts by the Trump administration to end the protections for Haitians nearly a decade ago were blocked by the courts.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, did not respond to questions about how it planned to respond to the ruling.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement had previously considered an enforcement operation earlier this year in anticipation of Haitians losing the protections, according to two people with knowledge of the plans. After lower-court decisions blocked the administration from undoing T.P.S. for certain countries, immigration officers received guidance instructing them to hold back on enforcement against citizens of those countries, according to internal documents obtained by The New York Times.
The guidance said that Haitians with T.P.S. “may not be removed despite having an administratively final removal order” and that they “may not be detained on the basis of their immigration status alone.”
Practical realities remain because the administration would have to find ways to ramp up deportations to countries where doing so may be difficult, including Haiti, where there is ongoing conflict. Since early last year, just over 2,000 Haitians have been deported, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the data.
The Supreme Court ruling comes after months of criticism by Trump administration officials directed at courts, which they contended had overstepped in blocking their efforts to strip groups of their protected status. Mr. Miller, an architect of some of Mr. Trump’s most aggressive immigration policies, was particularly incensed.
“When courts stepped in, they were violating explicit language that Congress had enacted,” he asserted just weeks after a judge had stymied their effort to strip the deportation protections from Venezuelans.
“We are living under judicial tyranny,” Mr. Miller said a few months later on social media, after a judge again blocked the termination of the program, this time for immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and other countries.
On Thursday, after the Supreme Court ruling, Mr. Miller was in a better mood.
When asked by reporters outside the White House whether immigrants who lose T.P.S. would be vulnerable to deportation, he was blunt: “Well, of course, if you no longer have status in this country, then you’re supposed to be deported.”
Mr. Miller was unmoved when asked whether the administration considered Haiti a safe place.
“Haitians live in Haiti,” he said. “I mean, it would be crazy for us to say that Haitians couldn’t live in Haiti. It’s their country.”
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4) ICE Is Killing Jobs for Americans, Not Creating Them
By Marcela Escobari, June 26, 2026
Ms. Escobari is a senior fellow and a research vice president in the global economy and development program at the Brookings Institution.
Lucas Burtin
The Trump administration has argued that mass immigration enforcement will free millions of jobs for Americans by reducing competition from foreigners.
The opposite is true. Despite the administration’s claims, a recent study, which I helped write, shows that the crackdown on immigrants has not unlocked jobs for Americans. During the first nine months of 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations led directly to at least 668,000 lost jobs across 86 U.S. metropolitan areas.
The damage is easy to miss in national statistics. Since 2025, the national unemployment rate has hovered between 4.0 and 4.5 percent. But the national rate, with its large margin of error, isn’t a good measure of local employment shocks. It’s more likely that the notable effects show up in local jobs data. And they do.
ICE was active in both small and large cities. Laredo and El Paso in Texas and Richmond, Va., saw substantial increases in enforcement. And while the conventional narrative is that ICE targeted blue sanctuary cities, 56 of the 86 metro areas where ICE was most active were in red states, primarily Texas, Florida and Georgia. Which means that they bore the brunt of the job losses.
Looking at the 51 cities where we were able to track data for at least six months in 2025 after the surges began, we saw that the situation worsened over time. In places where ICE enforcement surged between January and March — including Dallas, Detroit, Miami, Oklahoma City and Philadelphia — employment losses were twice as high after six months.
The key finding: Immigrant and native workers are not simply substitutes for each other. They are complements. When you remove one, you often undermine the other.
In much of the economy, immigrants aren’t competing for jobs held by American-born workers; they make other jobs possible. Immigrants tend to take on more physically demanding tasks, which allows American-born workers to shift into communication-intensive, supervisory and coordination roles. Immigrants also help drive American innovation and patents, and they are about 80 percent more likely than American-born workers to start a business, which could then hire Americans.
To understand why so many jobs have been lost, it is crucial to understand what this administration has called its “shock and awe” enforcement strategy. The goal is to spread fear far beyond those who are arrested and to induce immigrants to self-deport.
To accomplish this, ICE has gone all in: It has arrested people at their workplaces. It has flooded immigrant neighborhoods with agents. It has held children as leverage to detain their parents. It has housed detainees in unpleasant and sometimes inhumane conditions. It has transferred some arrestees to a notorious prison in El Salvador and sent others thousands of miles from their country of origin to places such as South Sudan.
It’s unclear how many self-deportations this strategy yielded. With little or no evidence, the administration says the number is north of two million, while other researchers say the figure is probably closer to 200,000. But what is undeniable is that the surges have caused widespread alarm among immigrants and those close to them.
This fear led to most of the job losses. Many immigrants in surge cities stopped going to work, even if they had legal status. Businesses had a hard time replacing these workers, as well as the ones arrested by ICE. As a result, many small businesses scaled back or shut down, creating a domino effect that cost even more jobs. Fear has caused people — both immigrants and nonimmigrants — to stay home and to spend significantly less money in their communities.
Los Angeles shows us what this looks like. After a major ICE operation was announced in May of last year, spending in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods fell by 20 to 25 percent over the next two months, costing the region an estimated $625 million in lost sales. This strategy suppressed demand for everything from restaurants to dentists, which led to further job losses. Holing up and hiding out, not surprisingly, aren’t good for the economy. The damage spread farther than you might expect. Even sectors that have few immigrant workers, such as arts and entertainment, saw significant job losses.
Some industries, such as construction, have been especially hit hard. Construction workers experienced job losses more than three times as great as the surge cities’ average. This fits with how the industry operates. Work is often specialized and sequential. If you don’t have enough workers to build the walls, you can’t build the roof; if you can’t finish the roof, you can’t sell the building.
A developer we spoke with in the Rio Grande Valley who survived the 2008 housing market collapse and the 2020 Covid supply chain shock told us he stopped building and started selling building lots instead. Retaining his crew proved too difficult. If an employee disappeared, he said, finding a replacement took weeks. Another builder who once had about 100 employees recently finished his last home and is liquidating the company’s remaining properties.
The Trump administration has framed its immigration policy as a win for American workers. It isn’t. There are far better approaches that won’t cost American jobs. These approaches have broad public support and have been championed by both Republican and Democratic administrations from Ronald Reagan’s to Barack Obama’s. We need enforcement that targets genuine public safety threats, paired with durable legal status for those already here. Creating orderly channels for immigration instead of the current chaos would help the American economy and American workers.
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5) As Europe Sweats, Some Politicians Talk of Air-Conditioning, Not Climate Action
Heat-related deaths and disruptions to daily life are forcing politicians to reckon, in different ways, with a rapidly warming planet.
By Michael D. Shear and Jeanna Smialek, June 26, 2026
Michael D. Shear reported from London. Jeanna Smialek from Brussels. Both places were very hot.
Carrying a floor fan during the heat in Paris on Thursday. Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times
It was a crisp 54 degrees in Aberdeen, on the northeast coast of Scotland, last week when Kemi Badenoch, the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, once again championed the country’s fossil fuel industry.
“The war on oil and gas must end,” she insisted, prompting applause from supporters in the port city, a major hub for petroleum extraction in the North Sea. “We need to get Britain drilling again.”
Eight days later, thermostats across southern England and Wales recorded soaring heat, with temperatures in London nearing 100 degrees. Schools closed, trains were canceled or delayed and some hospitals halted elective procedures. The opening session of London Climate Action Week, focused on improving extreme heat governance, was called off after Britain’s national weather service, the Met Office, issued a “red warning.”
For politicians like Ms. Badenoch, who has called herself a “net zero skeptic” and whose party won a special election in Aberdeen, the increasingly intense heat presents a challenge. How do they reconcile their support for faster extraction and use of polluting energy sources that contribute to the warming of the planet, with the reality of a planet that already feels like it’s burning up?
Andrew Bowie, the lawmaker who oversees energy policy for the Conservatives, said in response to a request for comment that Ms. Badenoch and the Conservatives supported the transition to cleaner energy, but added: “It’s a transition, and it makes no sense at all to pursue net zero targets while inflicting higher energy bills on households, deindustrializing, and losing the potential tax revenue from exploiting our North Sea oil and gas resources.”
An anticipated spike in heat-related mortality in Europe is already apparent. Five people have died from the heat in Italy, according to the country’s main news agency, including several who were working outside and a homeless man. In France, at least 40 people have drowned, many of them teenagers swimming in unsupervised areas. London’s ambulance service said that it had responded to its highest ever number of life-threatening emergencies on Wednesday.
Everyone agrees something must be done. But not everyone agrees on what that should be.
Increasingly, the answer from right-wing politicians is to focus on a short-term fix that almost everyone agrees is necessary — the installation of air-conditioning units in European homes, schools, public buildings and hospitals.
During intense heat waves, calling for improvement of the sometimes crumbling infrastructure of aging European cities can be an effective way of drawing attention to that problem without saying much about the longer-term, underlying cause: rising greenhouse gas emissions.
In France, far-right politicians who have advocated cutting net zero initiatives hope to gain from the heat wave, using it to accuse the government of failing to make the country more resilient, but also as a cultural issue against the hard left, which has often opposed the use of air-conditioning on environmental grounds.
“If I am elected president, I will put into place a massive air-conditioning plan,” Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally party, pledged on Friday, “starting in places with the most vulnerable populations.”
Ms. Le Pen argues that air-conditioning units do not exacerbate global warming, saying that “when environmentalists don’t want something, they twist the studies, they pull things out of context.”
New air-conditioning units have become greener in recent years, but they still contribute to climate change by guzzling electricity, which, if it doesn’t come from renewable sources, contributes to the emissions that warm the planet. These units also pump hot air outside buildings as they push cold air inside, adding to the already hot weather. And they put enormous strain on Europe’s aging electrical grid, especially when they are running full blast to ward off extreme heat.
In the context of northern Europe’s traditionally mild, temperate climate, some left-wing and green parties opposed air-conditioning and have instead favored renovating buildings with architectural fixes to keep them cool when it gets hot. But the dangers to health posed by this week’s heat wave are piling pressure on that view — and changing minds.
In the Belgian city of Ghent, which is run mostly by left-of-center politicians, the municipal website this week discouraged citizens from using air-conditioners, saying that “the best air-conditioner is a tree” and advising they use fans and request a free tree to plant outside their houses.
Maurits Vande Reyde, a right-wing member of the Flemish Parliament, responded to Ghent’s recommendations on social media.
“It is absurd that all governments in our country, under pressure from left-green mumbo-jumbo, advise against the use of air-conditioning,” he wrote on Tuesday. “The most efficient and best solution. How many deaths would the government already have on its conscience with this kind of absurd advice?”
After The New York Times sent a request for comment, Ghent removed wording that read “avoid air-conditioners,” replacing it with the phrase “cool smartly.”
Thomas Dierckens, a spokesman for the mayor of Ghent, said in a written comment that the city was not against air-conditioning — noting that it had installed 30 portable air-conditioners into day care centers this week.
“Health always comes first” in a heat wave, he said.
Marine Tondelier, the head of the Green Party in France, acknowledged that she was “breaking a taboo” when she said on Tuesday that “there are places where we can no longer do without air-conditioning.”
In London, Sadiq Khan, the center-left Labour Party mayor, said on Thursday that air-conditioning would need to be installed in the capital’s schools, offices and hospitals, as he warned that London needed to “act now” to strengthen its resilience ahead of worse heat waves to come. And at the European level, Terry Reintke, co-president of the European Parliament’s Green group, said in an interview that some air-conditioning was necessary, alongside longer-term solutions like planting more green spaces.
Unlike in the United States, where climate change politics have become more divided during Mr. Trump’s terms, there is still broad support in Britain and Europe for taking action to tackle global warming.
In a survey last year by Eurobarometer, the European Union’s public opinion service, about 85 percent of respondents said that they consider climate change a serious problem for the world, and action against climate change a public-health priority. A survey in the United States last year showed a much smaller proportion of people who even believed that climate change was happening.
A wide body of research on European voters has found that extreme weather events linked to climate change can influence politics, but that such events do not guarantee a backlash to climate-skeptic parties.
A 2025 study by Jessica Haak, a political scientist at the University of Hamburg, found that abnormally high temperatures in Germany had delivered a small but meaningful increase in support for the Green Party, suggesting a link between extreme heat and support for climate action.
A similar study in 2022 by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research found voters in areas affected by heat waves, droughts and other environmental events were more likely to support European politicians who backed climate action — but with an important catch. The authors found that support only increased when the economy was strong.
“In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007—2008, for example,” the authors write in the study, “a substantial reduction in environmental concerns was observable across all European regions.”
Europe’s far-right parties have tried to tap into economic concerns and focus attention on burdensome regulations. Governments are scrambling to respond to extreme weather, from floods to heat, meaning this can be fertile ground for voter frustration.
Last month, Nicola Procaccini, the co-chairman of the right-leaning European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament, said that “instead of focusing on adaptation to climate change, investing resources in the protection of territories and people, the choice was made to sacrifice the growth of the European economy and support for people, especially the most vulnerable, on the altar of ‘climate mitigation.’”
In fact, scientists say that both adaptation and mitigation are urgently required. “Heat waves are becoming more frequent, longer and hotter with climate change, as a direct result of the fossil fuels we are releasing as a society,” Prof. Hayley Fowler of Newcastle University said in an emailed comment. “Our current climate is the least extreme we will live in our lifetimes, and certainly until we reach net zero, and we need to adapt urgently.”
In London this week, environmentalists were hoping that the intense weather would underscore their arguments.
“There is irony in the fact that a London Climate Action Week event had to be canceled due to extreme heat in a temperate, wealthy country,” said Chris Anderson, head of climate risk and resilience at Practical Action, an environmental group.
“We’re fully in favor of the decision for the well-being of attendees and panelists,” he said, “but it shows that extreme weather is becoming unpredictable and moving faster than people can adapt, even in the richest countries.”
Reporting was contributed by Mark Landler and Ségolène Le Stradic from Paris, Jim Tankersley from Berlin. Megan Specia from London and Koba Ryckewaert from Brussels.
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6) Deal With Israel Divides Lebanese, Fueling Protests in Beirut
Supporters welcomed the agreement as a step toward curtailing Iran’s influence within Lebanon, but others took to the streets, calling it a capitulation.
By Abdi Latif Dahir, Reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, June 27, 2026
People in Beirut protesting against the agreement that was signed late Friday between Israel, Lebanon and the United States. Ibrahim Amro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
After Israel and Lebanon signed a preliminary agreement in Washington on Friday aimed at establishing a lasting peace between them, the reaction in Lebanon was immediate and sharply divided.
Supporters of the U.S.-brokered deal said it was a move to curtail Iranian influence in Lebanon, setting out a pathway for the disarmament of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, which Israel is at war with. They also said it asserts Lebanese sovereignty over the country’s internal security.
Others, not least Hezbollah, rejected the framework calling it a capitulation to Israeli and American demands that could deepen divisions inside Lebanon.
At the core of the deal is a phased security arrangement in which the Lebanese Armed Forces would gradually assume control over all Lebanese territory as nonstate armed groups, like Hezbollah, are disarmed and their military infrastructure dismantled.
In parallel with that, Israeli forces would carry out a staged withdrawal from the territory, more than six miles into Lebanon, which they have occupied since early March.
On Friday night, hours after the deal was announced, protesters, mostly aligned with Hezbollah, took to the streets of the capital, Beirut, waving the militant group’s yellow flags and denouncing the government.
Footage broadcast on social media and carried by Lebanon’s National News Agency showed dozens of youngsters riding motorcycles and mopeds, blocking roads, burning tires and gathering near the seat of the Lebanese government.
“We certainly condemn and denounce this shameful agreement,” said Abbas Kassem, 30, who is from Blida, a town in southern Lebanon that Israel has occupied for months.
One criticism of the preliminary deal is that the timeline for Israel’s withdrawal is not fixed, instead being based on how quickly Hezbollah can be disarmed. “The enemy is being granted freedom of movement and the ability to make whatever decisions it wants in the south,” Mr. Kassem said.
The scenes in Beirut reflected the intensity of Lebanon’s internal divides, at a moment when the country remains entangled in more than three months of cross-border conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
The fighting — which has deepened Lebanon’s economic and political crises, and displaced more than a million people — has raised fears among regional observers that the Lebanese military’s efforts to disarm Hezbollah could further destabilize the country or even lead to civil war.
The situation remains precarious, highlighting the challenge of translating diplomacy into calm on the ground. Less than 24 hours after the agreement was announced, Lebanon’s state agency reported that an Israeli drone struck an intersection in south Lebanon.
Friday’s “Trilateral Framework” was reached after multiple rounds of negotiations between the two countries that began in April, mediated by the United States.
The war in Lebanon has threatened to derail broader negotiations between Iran and the United States, as Iranian officials insisted that any agreement with Washington should also include an end to the fighting in Lebanon.
Two initial “pilot zones” have been designated for Israeli withdrawal, according to Friday’s deal, with further areas to be selected later through joint agreement. Israel and Lebanon have also agreed to establish a military coordination group, overseen by the United States.
Hezbollah lawmakers have strongly criticized the deal.
Ihab Hamadeh, a member of Parliament for the group, called it “humiliating,” accusing the authorities of paving the way for internal confrontation by linking Israeli withdrawal to the disarmament of Hezbollah. The group has long resisted disarmament, saying its weapons are essential to its deterrence against Israel.
Mr. Hamadeh said the group would continue confronting Israel until it fully withdraws. He warned the deal would ultimately fail to hold.
“The agreement will remain ink on paper,” he said in a statement carried by state media.
The United States said that, as part of the agreement, it would rally international support to help rebuild Lebanon and restore its economy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Friday that the United States would provide an immediate $100 million in humanitarian assistance to Lebanon in coordination with the United Nations.
After the signing, Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, offered a firm endorsement of the agreement, describing it as a first step toward restoring full sovereignty and enabling the return of displaced communities to the south.
“This is what every free, responsible and honorable Lebanese agrees upon,” he said in a statement on social media. “This is our promise to them and our duty toward them.”
Sarah Chaayto contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.
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7) Renewed Strikes Threaten Setback to Shipping Recovery in Persian Gulf
The attacks came after traffic through the Strait of Hormuz had reached the highest levels since the start of the U.S. war in Iran.
By Peter Eavis and Jenny Gross, June 27, 2026
Peter Eavis reported from New York and Jenny Gross from London.
Iran has tried to establish formal control over shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, something it did not have before. Reuters
The latest tallies include Iranian ships and those vessels that have obtained permission from Iran to go through the strait; the vessels transiting with U.S. assistance; and the ships that the were part of the evacuation organized by International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency.
Arsenio Dominguez, Secretary General of the I.M.O., said on Friday that 115 vessels, with about 2,500 crew members, had been evacuated since Tuesday. Of the total, 51 exited on Thursday and 16 on Friday.
The I.M.O. has said that the ship attacked on Thursday had not been part of his organization’s evacuation, and Mr. Dominguez said he needed “additional information” to determine whether the ship was part of the Centcom effort. A Centcom spokesman declined to say whether the Ever Lovely had been part of its initiative.
The United Nations evacuation effort appealed to ship operators who did not want to deal with Iran and who did not want to take the risk of going through with U.S. assistance and potentially become the target of an Iranian strike, shipping experts said.
After the Iranian and U.S. strikes, such ship operators will now most likely avoid the strait until conditions appear safer, which could delay a return to prewar traffic.
“Risks will remain high for shipping,” said Noam Raydan, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Iran is unwilling to halt its attacks on ships and threats — and this will continue requiring a response from the U.S.”
Ms. Wiese Bockmann of Windward said that soon after the U.S. attacks, ships began turning off the systems that broadcast their locations.
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8) Rescuers Work as Window Narrows to Find Quake Survivors
International teams were joining search efforts on Saturday after twin earthquakes killed more than 900 people in northern Venezuela and left many others trapped.
By Jonathan WolfeIsayen Herrera and María Victoria Fermín, June 27, 2026
Rescuers worked under floodlights early Saturday in the desperate effort to find survivors of the devastating earthquakes in northern Venezuela, as the death toll rose to 920 and thousands of injured people overwhelmed hospitals.
Anguished survivors streamed to medical facilities in Caracas and the nearby state of La Guaira in search of loved ones, and makeshift wards were set up in streets and hospital parking lots. At one hospital in Caracas, itself damaged by the quakes, the smell of decomposing bodies permeated the air.
The chaotic scenes laid bare the extent to which Venezuela’s government was unprepared for the disaster. Rescue efforts were entering a pivotal period on Saturday, the latter part of a 72-hour period humanitarian organizations consider critical for finding survivors.
“Today is the crucial, crucial day,” Tom Fletcher, the U.N.’s humanitarian chief, told BBC radio on Saturday morning. “We are driven on, minute by minute, hour by hour, by the sound of the survivors underneath the rubble.”
Officials say the two quakes on Wednesday evening, measuring 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude, caused hundreds of building to collapse, with the heaviest devastation in coastal areas north of Caracas.
President Delcy Rodríguez said early Saturday morning on state television that more than 14,000 police and military officers were patrolling the state of La Guaira, where much of the destruction took place, to guarantee the security of relief efforts. Venezuelan authorities announced Friday evening that they were restricting access to the state, saying that traffic was obstructing rescue efforts, and said anyone who wanted to enter would have to register with the authorities.
Ms. Rodríguez said in her television address that a rescue delegation from Italy had just arrived, and that around 10 more countries would join the rescue efforts by the end of the day. She added that workers had restored 60 percent of electricity service in La Guaira.
Still, the highway to La Guaira was clogged on Friday with cars and motorcycles bringing shovels and other items to aid in the search. People in the hardest-hit areas said they had received little help from the government. Some survivors clawed through the brick and concrete of collapsed buildings with their bare hands, hushing each other to listen for whispers of life under the ruins.
The sluggish response by a state struggling to emerge from a decade-long economic depression has increased pressure on President Delcy Rodríguez and on President Trump, who embraced her as Venezuela’s leader after U.S. forces seized the country’s longtime dictator, Nicolás Maduro.
On Friday evening, Ms. Rodríguez said on social media that she had spoken by phone with Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio and that they had “reaffirmed” the backing of the United States. She also met with U.S. military and diplomatic officials that day.
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9) We Surveyed 1,000 People About Their Budgets. The Picture Is Ugly.
By Lael Brainard and Rohit Chopra, June 27, 2026
Ms. Brainard leads the Kitchen Table Project. Mr. Chopra is the incoming secretary of California’s Business and Consumer Services Agency.
Kelsey McClellan and Michelle Maguire
From a distance, the American economy might appear to be performing well. Growth is solid, unemployment remains near historic lows and stock markets have posted large gains over the last year.
But these numbers mask the reality that most Americans see. We dug into the data, conducted surveys and talked to people around the country. Our research shows that even relatively well-off families are struggling with high prices, despite the tax cuts and wage gains that the Trump administration touts.
President Trump and Congress are neither investing in long-term solutions nor offering short-term relief. If they paid attention to different indicators of Americans’ financial health, beyond top-line growth and other traditional measures of economic success, they might feel more urgency.
So we developed one: a model budget for a family of two parents and two children under 8. We set their annual income at $130,000 — well above the roughly $83,500 national median for all U.S. households, and right in the middle of the income distribution for a family of four.
According to our calculations, the math has stopped adding up for this family over the past 18 months. They had a small cushion in 2024. Now they are in the red after covering just the basics, such as housing, an Affordable Care Act marketplace health care plan and day care. The family has over $1,000 less than it did a year and a half ago. Rising costs have more than wiped out any gains from higher wages and recent tax cuts.
This family would have trouble paying for anything beyond the basics — say, a car breaking down or a kid breaking an arm. It could not budget for any of the things that a typical family might hope for: buying a new car, taking a summer vacation or welcoming a third child.
To mount an effective response, it helps to know what stresses Americans feel most sharply and what action they expect from their elected officials. So we asked people.
By almost four to one, Americans told us that rising prices, rather than paychecks that haven’t kept up, are driving a cost-of-living squeeze. Two-thirds say they are struggling today and need relief they can feel right away. And the most cited concern is grocery costs. Some 35 percent of Americans in our survey, which we conducted last month, identified food as the single biggest source of financial pressure — approximately 15 percentage points higher than the share who named housing, the second-most-chosen option.
Respondents split almost evenly among three worries: prices that are too high; prices that change unexpectedly; and the feeling of getting less value for their money from products and services because of shrinkflation, hidden fees or declining quality. Older Americans were most likely to focus on sticker shock. Working parents were far more likely to point to volatility — the inability to predict what a week’s groceries will cost from one month to the next. And political independents were especially likely to say they felt ripped off.
Our economic indicators — the model family budget and Americans’ reported experiences — suggest that the cost of essentials has become a political and economic emergency for the nation’s elected officials. Americans want them to address the root causes driving up prices and, even more, to deliver timely relief on everyday items. Ideally, they would do both.
Our research also shows where they can start: with the goods that Americans say they have the most trouble affording. More than half of the people we surveyed named meat as their top source of grocery stress — six times the share who named the next-most-chosen source, coffee, tea or other beverages. The price of beef alone has risen by roughly a third in two years. That means a family buying just two pounds of ground beef a week is paying about $10 more every month for the same hamburgers or tacos they’ve always made.
The reasons are complex. Drought has led to the smallest U.S. cattle herd in decades. The meatpacking industry is so concentrated that it has squeezed ranchers and undermined incentives to rebuild the herd. Last year’s tariffs made beef even more expensive, and a parasite is threatening the herd across the Americas. Lowering beef prices and keeping them low requires rebuilding the herd, increasing competition in meatpacking and strengthening biosecurity. Government is not doing enough on any of these long-term goals.
Even if it were, it could take years for prices to go down, and our research suggests that the public will not want to wait. Federal and state elected leaders have a few responsible ways to deliver immediate help.
On groceries, for example, Mr. Trump should repeal tariffs that serve no strategic purpose. The eight states that put sales taxes on groceries could remove them. The ones that tax toothpaste, toilet paper and diapers could stop.
In some cases, companies — particularly those in highly concentrated industries — have used subtle methods to keep prices higher than the economic fundamentals demand. So elected officials at the federal or the state level should curb shrinkflation, pricing schemes and digital tricks that confuse and fleece consumers. They also need to require labeling that allows families to make apples-to-apples pricing comparisons and puts companies on the spot for bait-and-switch marketing.
Most of all, the country needs its elected leaders to demand rigorous, reliable data on some basic questions: After paying the bills, are families getting ahead or falling behind? Which costs are creating the most stress when families try to balance their budgets at their kitchen tables? Leaders would then make better decisions about what would make Americans’ lives easier.
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10) Trump Is Turning Journalists Into Criminals
By Jeffrey Toobin, June 27, 2026
Mr. Toobin is a contributing Opinion writer and the author of “The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy.”
Matt Chase
When the Justice Department charged Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, and the reporter Georgia Fort and photographer Junn Bollmann with a pair of crimes that carry, in total, the possibility of 10 years or more in prison, something shifted in President Trump’s legal campaign against journalists.
While Mr. Trump has tried for decades to keep the press in line using civil lawsuits, federal criminal law is a sharper weapon. This time the law may also be on the president’s side.
The prosecution of Mr. Lemon and the others arose amid the turmoil in Minnesota following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti this year. On Jan. 18, a group of demonstrators entered and disrupted a service at Cities Church in St. Paul, where a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement official served as a pastor. In addition to the three journalists, dozens of protesters are charged with conspiring to violate the rights of the parishioners to religious freedom.
Mr. Lemon has a show on YouTube, and Ms. Fort and Mr. Bollmann are independent journalists. Their defense is clear. “I was there as a journalist, not a protester,” Mr. Lemon told me. “I was interviewing people from all sides. We were livestreaming. It’s all right there on tape.”
The product of journalism, for decades, has enjoyed substantial protection under the First Amendment. The courts almost never uphold prior restraints on publication or distribution of news. Thanks to Supreme Court decisions like New York Times v. Sullivan, it’s difficult for public figures who feel wronged by journalists to recover damages for libel. The courts protect journalistic outlets from potentially ruinous judgments because, in the words of that famous case from 1964, of the “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”
But federal law, including the crimes for which Mr. Lemon and the other two are charged, offers no similar protections for the process of journalism. In 1972, the Supreme Court rejected a claim that the First Amendment entitled a journalist to refuse to comply with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury and be asked to identify confidential sources. In that case, Branzburg v. Hayes, the justices upheld the “obligation of reporters to respond to grand jury subpoenas as other citizens do and to answer questions relevant to an investigation into the commission of crime.”
Justice Byron White’s opinion asserted that “the First Amendment does not guarantee the press a constitutional right of special access to information not available to the public generally.” The Branzburg decision addressed only grand jury subpoenas, but Justice White’s opinion went further in defining the obligations of journalists in a way that’s potentially relevant to the Lemon case decades later. According to the court, “Newsmen have no constitutional right of access to the scenes of crime or disaster when the general public is excluded.” In short, the court in Branzburg said the First Amendment granted journalists no greater rights than anyone else.
In the aftermath of Branzburg, many states passed shield laws, which safeguarded journalists from being compelled to testify and reveal their sources. Prosecutors have also been generally protective of journalists when issues arise like those raised by Mr. Lemon’s case. “Reporters have often been arrested in the states while they are covering protests of various kinds,” Gabe Rottman, a lawyer at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told me, “but the charges almost always end up being dropped. There is an understanding that the laws were not meant to police the work of journalists.”
But while it has made periodic efforts, Congress has never passed a national shield law or provided other protection for news gathering, and that’s left journalists like Mr. Lemon, Ms. Fort and Mr. Bollmann more or less at the mercy of the people who happen to be running the Justice Department at any given time.
This isn’t the first time that the federal government has shown less respect than states have for the work journalists do. During the Obama administration, the Justice Department, in an effort to identify the source of leaks, subpoenaed call logs from The Associated Press and obtained a search warrant to examine the emails of a Fox News reporter. In response to criticism at the time, Attorney General Eric Holder narrowed the circumstances in which the Justice Department would seek information from reporters. Under President Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland tightened the restrictions on prosecutors even further.
But early in the second Trump administration, the Justice Department overturned the Garland guidance; a new regulation introduced by Attorney General Pam Bondi in April 2025 eased the rules on subpoenas and search warrants for reporters.
President Trump’s hostility to journalists — whom he often calls “treasonous” and “enemies of the people” — is a long-established matter. In 2006, Mr. Trump sued his biographer Timothy O’Brien for allegedly understating his wealth; the case was dismissed. In later years, he filed more defamation cases, including more than one against The Times, but he’s never won one in court. Instead, since being re-elected, he’s used his powers as president to extort multimillion-dollar settlements from ABC and CBS’s parent company for cases that would never have stood up in court.
Deploying the criminal justice system against journalists is a graver step in the same direction.
The assault began in January, after the Justice Department charged Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a systems administrator with a top-secret clearance who was working for a government contractor, with unlawfully obtaining and sharing classified materials. In seeking evidence against Mr. Perez-Lugones, the government wanted to see his communications, if any, with Hannah Natanson, a reporter for The Washington Post.
Under the Branzburg precedent, the Justice Department could have subpoenaed Ms. Natanson to testify and produce her phone and other devices — but that would have allowed her and The Post to challenge the subpoena in court before they complied.
Instead of choosing that option, prosecutors took a more aggressive, and outrageous, tack. They obtained a search warrant for Ms. Natanson’s home and seized her phone and other devices, an extremely rare move for the Justice Department in its dealings with journalists. In seeking the warrant, prosecutors did not inform the judge of the existence of the Privacy Protection Act, a 1980 law which banned searches of journalists unless they were considered a suspect in a crime or if the material sought was suspected to involve certain kinds of national security material. The Privacy Protection Act was not meant to prohibit the Justice Department from obtaining any information from journalists, but it was intended to eliminate exactly this kind of harassment of reporters like Ms. Natanson.
The Post has challenged the legality of the Natanson search, and a pair of federal judges in Virginia have ruled that the court will review the seized materials before allowing the F.B.I. to examine them. The Justice Department had appealed the first decision, arguing that the search warrant was valid and that the F.B.I. should be able to immediately examine the contents of Ms. Natanson’s devices. (The Post just reported that the Justice Department has withdrawn demands that one of its reporters, as well as three reporters for The Wall Street Journal, testify before a grand jury, but the government is standing behind its seizure of Ms. Natanson’s devices.) “As a reporter, Ms. Natanson is subject like any other citizen to a legitimate use of criminal legal process in a criminal investigation, such as this search warrant,” the government argued.
That’s also the theme of the Justice Department’s contentions in the Lemon case in Minnesota. In both cases, the Justice Department does not acknowledge that the First Amendment — which specifically protects the freedom of “the press” — offers any relevant protections. As the government put it in a pretrial brief in the Lemon case, “Journalists are not above the law.” By invoking a kind of faux populism, the Justice Department is acting as if journalists were seeking special privileges rather than playing the role the Constitution assigns to them.
Elaborating on this point, Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s civil rights division, said on social media of the Lemon case, “Claiming ‘I’m a journalist’ doesn’t give you a pass to break the law.” Because the case involves what the government describes as the protection of religious freedom, Ms. Dhillon’s office is supervising the prosecution.
Ms. Dhillon has a point, at least under current law. Some lower courts have put a pro-journalist gloss on the Branzburg decision and found a limited, or qualified, privilege for reporters to challenge certain subpoenas from prosecutors. But the Supreme Court has been moving away from protecting the rights of journalists, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch having called for the Sullivan precedent to be revisited. And the general rule set down by the justices in 1972 holds: The First Amendment does not give journalists, even those operating in good faith, the right to violate laws that govern the conduct of all other citizens.
Under Presidents Barack Obama and Biden, the Justice Department was at least willing to listen to arguments from journalists and offer modest concessions in return, like the revisions to subpoena policy established by Mr. Holder and Mr. Garland; today, in contrast, the pressure from President Trump will be entirely in the opposite direction. Notwithstanding the Justice Department’s agreement to hold off on calling other reporters to the grand jury, the Natanson and Lemon matters will probably be closer to the beginning of an assault on the press than the end.
When it comes to the specific charges against Mr. Lemon and the other journalists, it would be one thing to prove that the three of them trespassed on church property, where they had no legal right to be. (That would be a state crime, and Minnesota apparently, and wisely, had no interest in bringing such a case.) So, Ms. Dhillon’s prosecutors presumably scoured the statute books and conjured an accusation that the journalists violated the FACE Act, which was written to protect patients at abortion clinics from harassment. That act also contains a provision that safeguards churchgoers from interference, and that’s what the Minnesota defendants are accused of.
The only good news for Mr. Lemon and his colleagues is that the two crimes alleged in the indictment are what’s known as “specific intent” offenses: In order to win convictions, the government will have to prove that the journalists intended to violate churchgoers’ lawful rights by disrupting religious worship. That will be difficult because Mr. Lemon and the others will likely be able to demonstrate for jurors that their real intent was to cover the protest, not to violate anyone’s rights.
The best hope for the journalists in the Minnesota case may be to place their trust in the wisdom of a jury. The excesses of the Trump Justice Department have drawn feisty defiance from jurors around the country, but even so, it’s always going to be perilous for criminal defendants to subject their freedom to the vagaries of a trial. Still, in light of the precarious state of the law and the thoroughgoing contempt of the Trump administration for the work of journalists, it may be the best that Mr. Lemon and his colleagues can do.
As for other working journalists in America, the message of these cases is stark. The government came after Mr. Lemon and Ms. Natanson for the same reason: because they were doing their jobs. Under the First Amendment, that should be a defense — but under President Trump, it’s an offense.
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11) Mexican Officials Have Become Informants for the Trump Administration
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has pushed back against U.S. investigations into Mexican politicians. Now some politicians want to cooperate.
By Steve Fisher, Jack Nicas and Alan Feuer, June 27, 2026
Steve Fisher and Jack Nicas reported from Mexico City, and Alan Feuer from New York.
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, seen here at the Supreme Court of Justice in Mexico last year, has objected to U.S. investigations into officials from her political party. Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times
As the Trump administration ramps up its investigations into Mexico’s government, elected officials in the country’s governing party have been quietly offering themselves to U.S. authorities as informants against fellow party members, according to eight people involved in the conversations.
The discussions have come in the weeks since the United States indicted 10 current and former Mexican officials, charging them with colluding with one of the nation’s most powerful drug cartels. In turn, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has made challenging those investigations a rallying cry for her leftist political party, Morena, denouncing the indictments as foreign interference.
But behind the scenes, the conversations between some of her party members and U.S. authorities could hand the United States critical momentum at a delicate time in U.S.-Mexico relations, escalating the standoff between the two countries.
At least a dozen elected officials in Mexico — including governors and members of Congress, many from the governing party — have reached out to discuss sharing information about fellow politicians, multiple people said, and several have already begun talks with the United States.
Many of the officials are seeking to get ahead of investigations that they fear could soon focus on them, the people said.
The sudden wave of cooperation was in part set off by a Drug Enforcement Administration initiative to privately contact Mexican officials in hopes of persuading them to talk, according to three people familiar with the efforts.
More than a dozen people spoke to The New York Times for this article on the condition of anonymity to discuss the D.E.A.’s efforts and the confidential talks between the U.S. government and Mexican officials.
The D.E.A. and Mexican government declined to comment.
Mexican politicians aiding U.S. investigations into their colleagues is a deeply worrying sign for Mexico’s dominant political party and its leader, Ms. Sheinbaum. It signals that U.S. corruption investigations are gaining speed, just as Ms. Sheinbaum has made opposing them a central bet of her presidency.
If U.S. investigators are able to persuade enough Morena politicians to act as informants, it could start a cascade of cooperating witnesses and indictments that would threaten to weaken the party. After a series of election losses by leftist parties across Latin America, Morena is the most important one still in power outside of Brazil.
Some Mexican analysts have predicted that the Trump administration’s investigations could give the governing party an issue to unify around. But the fact that some politicians are looking to cooperate with the U.S. investigations, despite Ms. Sheinbaum’s resistance to them, indicates fissures within the party.
“The closing of ranks that the president is calling for from above is not being matched from below,” said Carlos Bravo Regidor, a prominent Mexican political analyst. “Because some people within the system, instead of standing with the president, are rushing to the United States to save their own skin.”
Ms. Sheinbaum has often been regarded as a model for how to handle President Trump, but she is now stuck in a tightening predicament that illustrates the challenges for Latin America’s leftist leaders. Mr. Trump, who holds enormous sway over her country’s fortunes, wants her to turn over her political allies, while the left wing of her party, which provides her base of support, wants her to stand up to Mr. Trump.
She has opted to side with her party in recent weeks, refusing U.S. demands to arrest Rubén Rocha Moya, the Morena governor of Sinaloa state, after U.S. prosecutors charged him with protecting his state’s powerful cartel in exchange for help winning an election.
Ms. Sheinbaum has said that U.S. investigators have presented no evidence to warrant his arrest and that the demand represents meddling in Mexico’s affairs. She has also said that Mexican prosecutors would open their own investigations into the accused officials. But Ms. Sheinbaum has repeatedly accused the Trump administration of playing politics.
“Is there really a legitimate interest in fighting organized crime?” she said in a fiery speech last month. “Or are we maybe seeing how parts of the American far right are using our country to position themselves ahead of their 2026 elections?”
“We are no longer talking about cooperation,” she added, “we are talking about interference.”
Ms. Sheinbaum’s defiant stance has divided her cabinet between more pragmatist officials who push for more cooperation with Washington, and colleagues farther to the left who say the Trump administration is setting a dangerous precedent by prosecuting a sitting Mexican governor, according to two people familiar with the internal debate.
The United States is by far Mexico’s biggest trading partner, and the two countries are immersed in negotiations over an expiring trade deal. Mr. Trump has also threatened military action in Mexico to combat the cartels, which Ms. Sheinbaum has repeatedly rejected.
The Morena officials now cooperating in the investigations add to a growing roster of high-level Mexican informants who have given U.S. authorities a remarkably rich picture of the inner workings of the cartels and their nexus with Mexican politicians, according to four people with direct knowledge of the talks with informants, including lawyers and former U.S. law enforcement officials.
Two of the 10 Mexican officials indicted in April are now in U.S. custody, with one of them turning himself in at the U.S. border. U.S. prosecutors have been getting information from two imprisoned cartel leaders — sons of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo — who pleaded guilty last year to drug charges. And over the past 18 months, Ms. Sheinbaum’s government has sent to the United States 92 Mexican cartel operatives, several of whom have begun talking to U.S. authorities, according to the four people with direct knowledge of the discussions.
They said those who have provided information include top lieutenants to El Chapo’s sons, one of their senior pilots and one of their top advisers.
One of the main areas of questioning in those interrogations has been how the cartels corrupted Mexican officials, the people said. U.S. officials have said rooting out corruption is key to solving Mexico’s cartel problem, and last month, a top Justice Department official urged federal prosecutors to prioritize corruption investigations in Mexico, even instructing them to use terrorism statutes in their cases.
Derek Maltz, the former acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said that the cooperating Morena officials and the bank of drug traffickers now in U.S. custody increase the likelihood that U.S. authorities are building major cases.
“I’m very confident there will be some high-level indictments coming,” he said.
Overall, Ms. Sheinbaum has built a positive relationship with the Trump administration, in large part by increasing Mexican military presence along the U.S.-Mexico border and significantly expanding security cooperation between the two countries. Mexican authorities, working in part off U.S. intelligence, recently killed Mexico’s top drug kingpin, Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as El Mencho.
Ms. Sheinbaum’s government has also reported a decrease in violent crime nationwide. According to government data, homicides from January to May dropped by 63 percent, from the same period two years prior.
But going after politicians is far more politically complicated for Ms. Sheinbaum. Some targets of U.S. investigations are not only members of her party, but also close allies of her predecessor and political benefactor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who remains a larger-than-life figure in Mexican politics.
Critics have long accused Mr. López Obrador and some of his children, who have been Morena officials, of corruption. U.S. officials even examined those claims though never opened a formal investigation.
But this week, those accusations were revived by leaked excerpts from an upcoming book by the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar. In the book, Mr. Salazar wrote that he understood from a mutual contact that Mr. López Obrador was worried about the U.S. capture of a cartel leader in 2024 because of what information the criminal might hand over. Mr. Salazar later said he had no direct evidence that Mr. López Obrador had connections to cartels.
Mr. López Obrador and his sons have denied any ties to cartels. And Ms. Sheinbaum defended her predecessor this week, saying that if he had any concerns about that 2024 operation, it was about “interference and a violation of Mexico’s sovereignty.”
Two targets of the U.S. corruption investigations are the Morena governors of Sonora and Tamaulipas states, Alfonso Durazo and Américo Villarreal Anaya, according to five people familiar with the investigations who were not authorized to speak publicly. The governors have denied corruption accusations.
Mr. Durazo “has carried out public service with strict adherence to the law” and has not been notified that he is under investigation, his spokeswoman, Paloma Terán, said in a statement.
Mr. López Obrador is allied with both, picking Mr. Durazo as his security minister and publicly backing Mr. Villarreal when he faced claims of corruption in 2022, which he denied.
The investigations into the governors were previously reported by The Los Angeles Times.
This week, the Mexican news outlet El Universal published a leaked audio of another governor, Marina del Pilar, of Baja California state, that revealed her scheduling a meeting with U.S. authorities.
“I’m very willing because I want to resolve this and clarify anything, but I’d really like it to be through my lawyer,” she said in the three-minute clip.
Ms. del Pilar confirmed the authenticity of the recording, adding that the meeting was related to her revoked U.S. visa but that it never occurred. She also said she has a clear conscience: “The supposed shady agreements with the United States authorities are a total lie.”
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega contributed reporting from Mexico City.
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