We need as many people there as possible to carry our message - no more of our tax dollars for endless wars. Can we count you in? Sign up here:
https://www.codepink.org/novdc26
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The Trump administration is escalating its attack on Cuba, cutting off the island’s access to oil in a deliberate attempt to induce famine and mass suffering. This is collective punishment, plain and simple.
In response, we’re releasing a public Call to Conscience, already signed by influential public figures, elected officials, artists, and organizations—including 22 members of the New York City Council, Kal Penn, Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Alice Walker, 50501, Movement for Black Lives, The People’s Forum, IFCO Pastors for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, and many others—demanding an end to this brutal policy.
The letter is open for everyone to sign. Add your name today. Cutting off energy to an island nation is not policy—it is a tactic of starvation.
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VIDEO:
What Cubans Really Think About Trump
By Jeff Seal, May 28, 2026
Mr. Seal is a comedian and a visual journalist.
End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
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 ‘Freedom Zone’ launches important human rights event October 30 Global Festival in Support of Russian Political Prisoners _________________________________________________________ THE LOCATIONS: Berlin, Munich, Warsaw, New York, Minnesota, Budva, Melbourne, Helsinki, Haifa, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Vilnius, São Paulo, Florianópolis, Batumi, Tbilisi, Belgrade, Riga, Paris, Yerevan, Milan, Vienna, London, Madrid THE AUDIENCE: Anyone concerned about political prisoners in Russia
Lectures, auctions, letter evenings, film screenings and other events will take place in more than 20 countries, including the US, Brazil and Australia, demonstrating worldwide solidarity with the prisoners of the Russian regime. Speakers in different cities will include such well-known opponents of the Putin regime as Daria Serenko, Mikhail Lobanov, Sasha and Nadezhda Skochilenko, Ivan Philippov, Alexey Ponomaryov and other prominent Russian exiles. Funds raised will go towards supporting political prisoners, covering the costs of legal representation, visits from loved ones and other needs. It is also possible to join the international campaign by making an online donation. This global festival will be a tangible expression of opposition to lawlessness in Russia and support for its victims. Let’s show that we stand shoulder to shoulder with those who have been unjustly convicted! ______________________________________________ ‘Freedom Zone’ was founded by Kseniia Kagarlitskaia, daughter of political prisoner Boris Kagarlitsky. Since 2024, the organisation has been holding charity events (festivals) abroad to raise funds for political prisoners in Russia, raising awareness of the unlawful persecution and inhumane prison conditions faced by people in the Russian Federation, as well as campaigning for the release of political prisoners. Website: https://freedom-zone.com/festival Contact: Kseniia Kagarlitskaiazona.svobody@gmail.com +38268347993 Telegram @pruesha ___________________________________________________________________ Donation link: https://buymeacoffee.com/zonasvobodk Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the auth *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
Self-portrait by Kevin Cooper
Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Dr. Alter Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
He still needs more complicated treatment from a retinal specialist for his right eye if his eyesight is to be saved:
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical
Defense Fund
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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Articles
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1) Who Is Gadi Eisenkot, the Israeli Tasked With Forming a Government?
Mr. Eisenkot, a career general and the leading rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, will now have up to six weeks to form a coalition.
By Aaron Boxerman, Johnatan Reiss and David M. Halbfinger, Reporting from Jerusalem, Nov. 8, 2026
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/08/world/middleeast/israel-eisenkot-netanyahu-what-to-know.html
Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the Yashar party, spoke after meeting with President Isaac Herzog of Israel at his office in Jerusalem on Sunday. Credit...Ilia Yefimovich/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The clock started ticking on Sunday for Gadi Eisenkot, the leading rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, to form a new government.
After days of consultations, Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog , presided over a ceremony that officially gave Mr. Eisenkot the mandate to forge a coalition after an inconclusive national election last month. “This is the time to reach out a hand, to do everything for the unity of our people,” Mr. Herzog said.
Mr. Eisenkot vowed to form a government “for all Israelis” and, in a nod to Israel’s fractured electoral landscape, said that it would take “creative and unconventional political steps.”
A soft-spoken former general, Mr. Eisenkot leads Yashar, a center-right party that campaigned on a promise of keeping Israel secure while pivoting away from policies that prompted international anger and led to Israel’s isolation on the world stage.
Mr. Eisenkot, 66, has up to six weeks to build a coalition before the president passes the opportunity to another candidate, most likely Mr. Netanyahu. Here’s what to know about the career general-turned-politician.
What is his background?
Mr. Eisenkot, a married father of five, was born in Tiberias, in the north, to Moroccan immigrants and was raised in Eilat, a working-class city in southern Israel.
He is relatively new to politics, having spent his career in the military, and has served only part of a single term as a lawmaker and eight months as a minister.
Mr. Eisenkot started out in the infantry and rose through the ranks to take command of Israel’s military operations in the West Bank in 2003, at the height of the Second Intifada. By 2015, he was serving as Israel’s top general — the military’s chief of staff — and held that role until early 2019, under Mr. Netanyahu.
He entered politics in 2022, and, after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, served in Mr. Netanyahu’s war cabinet for part of the Gaza war. He lasted eight months, resigning in June 2024 over Mr. Netanyahu’s push for a “total victory” instead of a deal with Hamas to release the hostages.
Last year, Mr. Eisenkot formed a new party — Yashar, meaning “straight” or “honest” in Hebrew — which aimed to attract centrists and center-right voters worried about where Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition was leading Israel.
Mr. Eisenkot’s personal story also spoke to voters. One of his sons and two of his nephews were killed in the war in Gaza. He has said he hoped to be “worthy of the enormous price paid” by his son, “so that there could be a better reality here for our children.”
What would his policies look like?
Mr. Eisenkot has vowed to steer Israel toward what he considers normalcy after four turbulent years under Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-right government.
His platform in the election zeroed in on Mr. Netanyahu’s vulnerabilities, including by endorsing calls to investigate the security and intelligence failures that preceded the Oct. 7 attack. It also focused on Mr. Netanyahu’s contentious effort to weaken the Israeli judiciary.
Mr. Eisenkot has expressed support for a more restrained expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and promised to curb settler violence there, which he has called “Jewish terrorism.”
An Eisenkot-led government would not be a complete break with its predecessor. Like Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Eisenkot has rejected the prospect of Palestinian statehood — at least in the near term.
And his stance toward the threats posed by Iran and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon places his foreign policy not too far off that of his former boss. It was Mr. Eisenkot who in 2008 articulated the “Dahiya doctrine,” which called for creating deterrence by responding to Hezbollah attacks with devastation.
What happens now?
Israel’s pivotal election on Oct. 27 left all sides short of an outright 61-seat majority in Parliament. Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition won 53 seats; Mr. Eisenkot and his Zionist allies secured 48; and two Arab parties took a record 19.
Now, Mr. Eisenkot and his allies have no easy path to power.
They could join forces with the two Arab-led parties, but some right-wing Jewish parties in his bloc have said they would not enter a government that relied on their support. Mr. Eisenkot has also stipulated conditions that the Arab parties have yet to meet, such as publicly labeling Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Or, he could look to partner with members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition to form a unity government. One possibility would be to woo ultra-Orthodox parties, though some of his allies campaigned against the interests of the ultra-Orthodox factions.
Last week, Mr. Eisenkot said he would work to establish a “national emergency government” to eject Mr. Netanyahu as soon as possible. That could mean a minority government reliant on the Arab parties’ support to prevent a no-confidence vote against it.
On Sunday, at the ceremony with Mr. Herzog, he noted that Israel’s political situation demands “compromises” — even if it meant breaking prior campaign promises.
“No one will be able to keep all of their commitments,” Mr. Eisenkot said, adding that he believed his political partners understood “the gravity of the hour.”
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2) Immigrants Are Being Systematically Returned Home Despite Court Orders
Working with the Trump administration, foreign partners accept deportees, then ship them to nations where the U.S. itself would be prohibited from sending them.
By Megha Rajagopalan, Edward Wong, Ruth Maclean and Hamed Aleaziz, Nov. 9, 2026
Megha Rajagopalan reported from London and Nouakchott, Mauritania; Edward Wong and Hamed Aleaziz from Washington; and Ruth Maclean from Dakar, Senegal.
Federal agents making an arrest in Minneapolis in January. David Guttenfelder/The New York Times
Mustapha Camara and immigrants like him had court protections that they thought made them safe from the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. They found themselves swept up nonetheless.
To deport these immigrants, the administration has partnered with foreign governments, many with spotty human rights records. In exchange for money and foreign policy favors, they have agreed to accept deportees who cannot be returned to their countries of origin.
But a New York Times investigation found that this program results in many of them being pushed back to the very countries where the Trump administration itself cannot legally send them. Some of the United States’ foreign partners have made clear that will happen. And when it does, the Trump administration continues sending planes full of deportees.
The Times identified more than 110 people who had court-ordered protections and were handed over to foreign governments, only to then be passed on to home countries where they risked torture, sexual abuse or persecution — risks that have been validated by American courts.
In these cases, America’s partners served only as intermediaries. Officers roughed up immigrants or forced them onto airplanes. Some were threatened with imprisonment or confronted by armed police officers until they “volunteered” to return. Some now live in hiding. Others have simply vanished.
Human rights groups say that figure, which is certainly an undercount, shows that the Trump administration has created a bank-shot way of evading court orders and international law.
“It’s undermining the idea of asylum on a global scale,” said Alma David, a consultant with the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, referring to such forced repatriations.
“It’s immigration colonialism — making these governments do the dirty work,” she added.
Returning people to their countries of origin in the face of court orders would normally qualify as refoulement, a violation of international law. The State Department would not answer questions about whether its program amounts to refoulement by proxy. The administration has maintained that it has no say in, or responsibility for, what happens to deportees once they leave the United States.
But immigration and human rights lawyers say the United States does not even reliably tell foreign partners about court orders when deporting people. When American officials do pass on court instructions, those orders mean nothing to foreign governments, some of which have no functioning asylum system themselves.
An untold number of other people remain stuck in these intermediary countries, in limbo, terrified that they are next to be put on a plane.
One woman drank bleach while in custody in Ghana, hoping to avoid being returned to Senegal. Officials sent her back anyway.
Another deportee, a former political prisoner, said in a phone interview from Equatorial Guinea, where the authorities constantly threaten to again deport people, that “Nothing scares me more than hearing the words, ‘Go back. Go back.’”
“It’s my biggest fear,” he added. “It would be like going back into darkness, into emptiness.”
Documents viewed by The Times show that at least some American partners see their role as helping the Trump administration to send people to their country of origin, not to resettle them.
The U.S. government has said that it does not track what happens to deportees. The Times reached its figure of 110 repatriated people by reviewing court documents and conducting country-by-country surveys of lawyers, deportees and human rights advocates. The figure roughly aligns with data independently collected by Human Rights First, a nonprofit group that tracks deportations.
The number does not include the many more asylum seekers who were deported without receiving court hearings and also ended up back in their countries of origin.
The figure is sure to grow. The Supreme Court, after a brief pause in the program, recently allowed the administration to resume deporting immigrants to third countries without giving them a chance to object that they will be tortured or persecuted.
In response to questions about this article, the State Department wrote in a statement that all immigrants sent to third countries had been ordered deported and that the administration was simply enforcing the law.
“For aliens ordered removed who will not leave, the Trump administration will implement their removal orders by finding somewhere to send them,” the statement said.
The growth of the administration’s third-country deportation program is the story of how the Trump administration sought to remake the asylum system to fit with its views on who deserves protection. It is also the story of how one Trump appointee, working under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, helped transform a State Department office from one that aids refugees into one that oversees deportations.
This article is based on a review of U.S. and foreign government documents, interviews with current and former U.S. and international officials, as well as interviews with deportees and their lawyers. Some spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity, either because they were in perilous situations and feared for their safety, or because they feared retribution for speaking to reporters.
Administration officials say that immigrants who are sent to third countries and then return home often do so voluntarily. But a video from Equatorial Guinea shows immigrants being threatened with imprisonment if they do not agree to leave. Some people who agreed to do so said they felt they had little choice after arriving in a strange country with no documents and no hope of resettling there. Others said they agreed only when armed police officers showed up.
Records show that immigration agents specifically targeted for deportation people who had court-ordered protections. There is no evidence that this was done with the intent of evading court orders. Rather, American officials said the goal was deporting them from the United States. Whatever happened next, they said, was not a priority.
Separately, senior administration officials have said they believe that stories about deportees in perilous situations overseas will encourage immigrants to voluntarily leave the United States.
Regardless of the intent, career State Department officials said in interviews that it was always clear that at least some at-risk deportees would ultimately be returned to their countries of origin — especially when the Trump administration began partnering with autocrats who have shown little respect for human rights. State Department and Homeland Security officials have debated and discussed refoulement and whether people were being coerced, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the discussions.
Internal emails have circulated about the issue, including some sent by State Department lawyers. Separately, some agency lawyers have been frustrated over what they saw as a haphazard and secretive process from drawing up the agreements to carrying out the deportations.
The third-country deportation program is rooted in a belief, expressed by many senior Trump administration officials, that immigrants abuse the asylum system and that judges hand out protections too easily to refugees.
Stephen Miller, who on Friday was named White House chief of staff, is the architect and public face of the administration’s immigration policy. But day to day, officials said, the key figure behind the third-country deportation program is Andrew Veprek, a senior State Department official who shares Mr. Miller’s views and has worked closely with him for many years.
Mr. Veprek, a former consular officer, has said that “mischief by talented lawyers” allowed undeserving people to get asylum. In private, he has argued that refugees commit crimes at a relatively high rate, despite research showing the opposite, according to current and former officials.
In Mr. Trump’s second term, Mr. Veprek began running refugee and immigration policy from a post in the office of counselor, which reports directly to the secretary of state. He then took over the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. He helped shrink the staff to dozens, from hundreds, and converted it from a refugee aid bureau into a deportation office.
Officials say he is now one of the State Department’s most powerful officials, a rare career diplomat embraced by Mr. Rubio and other senior Trump aides.
At a hearing on his nomination before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Veprek said his office should be at the forefront of “negotiating arrangements to accept the transfer of illegal aliens removed from American communities.”
He began looking for foreign partners almost immediately. And records show that immigration agents specifically targeted for deportation people who had court-ordered protections. People like Mr. Camara.
Mr. Camara came to the United States as a student in 2010 and overstayed his visa. He filed for asylum a few years later, an application that allowed him to stay and work. He was hired during the pandemic at Nebraska Medical Center.
Homeland Security denied his asylum application in 2022 and sent him before a judge for deportation. But the judge ruled that, as a bisexual man, he was likely to face persecution in his native Gambia, a West African country with a history of arresting gay and bisexual people.
The judge granted Mr. Camara a status known as “withholding of removal.” That prohibited the government from returning him to Gambia. Last year, Mr. Camara legally married his longtime partner, who is American, and applied to remain in the United States permanently. (He said that he and his wife married years earlier in a religious-only ceremony.)
In the past, the judge’s ruling most likely would have kept Mr. Camara in the country indefinitely. Governments from both parties have routinely let immigrants in this situation stay in the United States by default.
Mr. Veprek, from his reinvented office at the State Department, has worked to change that.
Panama, the Trial Balloon
In February 2025, Mr. Veprek and Mr. Miller pursued a test case. They arranged to send a planeload of deportees to Panama.
Inside the State Department, diplomats assumed the move was a routine deportation of Panamanians. But they eventually realized that this group was unusual. It included Afghans, Chinese, Iranians, Somalis and Uzbeks — asylum seekers who faced the threat of arrest, torture or imprisonment.
The Panamanian security minister, Frank Ábrego, made clear that his country had no plans to resettle people permanently.
“We are providing them with all the necessary medical, food and comfort services,” he said at the time. “And we will continue to do so until the last one has left our country, which is what was agreed with the United States government.”
Within about a month, 179 of 299 deportees had been returned to their home countries, the International Organization for Migration told Human Rights Watch.
Officially, they did so willingly, but deportees and their lawyers described decisions that were hardly voluntary.
The Panamanian government dispatched the immigrants to an isolated jungle camp and made clear that there was no path to immigrating to Panama. A woman who was deported to Panama with her 12-year-old child agreed to return to Turkey in the face of years of indefinite jungle detention. She is now in hiding, her lawyer said.
“This administration doesn’t care if the people they’re deporting are going to have a difficult time,” said Larry Bartlett, a former senior State Department refugee management official who worked under Mr. Veprek. “They don’t care about the welfare of the people they’re deporting. They just want them out of the United States.”
The Trump administration viewed the Panama deportations and a similar pilot program in Costa Rica as proof that partner countries could help the deportation push.
None of the people deported at this early stage had court-ordered protections like Mr. Camara did. But almost immediately, records show, officials began considering whether foreign partners could be used in those cases, too.
In February, the same month as the first flight to Panama, ICE told agents to start reviewing cases of immigrants who had withholding-of-removal protections. Marcus Charles, a senior immigration official, instructed agents in an email to “determine the viability of removal to a third country and accordingly whether the alien should be re-detained.”
Deportation deals expanded quickly. The United States sent thousands of immigrants from multiple countries to Mexico. And Mr. Veprek’s office began eyeing agreements with African leaders, including in countries with poor human rights records.
On July 19, Mr. Camara pulled his car into his driveway just outside Omaha after an all-night hospital shift. ICE agents were waiting to arrest him. Records show that agents had identified him as someone with withholding-of-removal status who could be sent to a third country — just as the February 2025 email had instructed them to do.
He was stunned, both because he thought he had legal protection and because of the sudden turnabout in public opinion.
Nebraska has a nursing shortage, and the nation had considered health care workers heroes during the pandemic. Now, he was in handcuffs.
“You put your life on the line for the community,” he said, “and the next minute, it treats you like a criminal.”
Six weeks after his arrest, agents shackled Mr. Camara and pushed him onto a plane with eight other West Africans. American officials, he said, told them that they were going to Ghana, where they would be safe and allowed to live.
That was not the case.
Not a Home, Just a ‘Transit Point’
Ghana had no intention of resettling people.
In a sealed affidavit seen by The Times, Makeba Akosua Ayakor Tuapany, representing Ghana’s immigration service, wrote that people were being “deported from the United States to their home countries.” Ghana, she said, was “only used as a transit point.”
Diplomatic notes show that Ghana promised not to send immigrants onward to any country where they might be tortured or persecuted. That would seemingly prohibit repatriating anyone with withholding-of-removal orders from an American court. (To obtain those orders, immigrants actually have to clear a higher legal bar than for asylum.)
Ghana, like other countries, has not abided by that obligation.
“There is a wink, wink arrangement between the two countries,” said Oliver Barker-Vormawor, a Ghanaian lawyer who worked with some of the deportees to file a lawsuit in a regional court.
Just as the Ghanaian government affidavit said, more than 40 deportees who arrived have been repatriated, including a woman fleeing domestic violence, a gay man who feared persecution in his home country and a woman who escaped a civil war, lawyers for the deportees said.
Those who would not return to their home countries have been driven to the Togolese border and dropped off, usually with only the clothes on their backs and with no identification.
Despite this pattern, the United States has sent six flights to Ghana since last year.
When Mr. Camara arrived, he was met by a Ghanaian immigration officer who identified himself as Mr. Ibrahim.
“You have three days, and then we’ll prepare your travel documents,” Mr. Camara remembers the officer saying. “And then you’ll leave to your respective countries.”
Mr. Camara and others protested. They had court orders, they said, protecting them.
“This is not America,” he said Mr. Ibrahim responded. “This is Ghana.”
‘That Is Textbook Refoulement’
Lawyers in Ghana have filed legal challenges on behalf of the deportees. In other countries, that is all but impossible.
The United States has partnered with governments that are notorious for rights violations and have unreliable court and asylum systems.
Among them is Equatorial Guinea, a small central African nation that the State Department itself says has engaged in torture, arbitrary detention and human trafficking.
Equatorial Guinea has sent nearly two dozen people back to their home countries despite U.S. court protections, according to interviews with deportees and lawyers.
While some agreed to leave, like a pair of Georgian nationals, others describe threats of violence. Immigrants said that police officers in Equatorial Guinea had threatened them at gunpoint and told them they would be sent to prison if they did not agree to return to their home countries. Deportees said local officials badgered them daily to get on planes.
Among them are four Ethiopians who had fled ethnic violence, received protection from American immigration courts and yet were returned there.
“They were so scared they complied with authorities and went home,” said Bella Mosselmans, a lawyer representing them. “That is textbook refoulement.”
The situation has become so bad that in July, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued an urgent appeal to the government of Equatorial Guinea to stop forcibly repatriating people, according to a confidential document seen by The Times. The country’s government did not heed the request.
One of the first people deported to Equatorial Guinea was a man named Diadié Camara, who had fled slavery in Mauritania and tried to find a new life in the United States. (Diadié Camara is not related to Mustapha Camara.) He was arrested in 2024 while crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, but an American judge reviewed the evidence and ruled that he could not be returned to Mauritania.
Mr. Camara, his wrists and ankles bound, was put on a deportation flight late last year. The deportees did not know where they were headed until about an hour before landing, he said.
Initially, the authorities in Equatorial Guinea told them that they might be able to apply for asylum there. But the country has no functioning asylum system, the United States has said.
After about a week, Mr. Camara said, police officers told him that he had no choice but to return to Mauritania. They did not care about his U.S. court protections. He refused. Conditions in the hotel were bad, he said, but Mauritania — where the government is still working to root out slavery — is worse.
One night, the police banged on his door and forced him out of the hotel and into a car, according to Mr. Camara and witnesses. They put him on a flight to Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott.
Mr. Camara met a Times reporter there. He said he was living in hiding, evading retaliation from the people who had enslaved his family.
“I would rather die than stay here,” he said. “It’s a dire situation.”
One West African man said that, after witnessing what had happened to Mr. Camara, he agreed to be repatriated when officers banged on his door and took him to the airport in a police car.
“When military and police men come for you, you have to comply,” he said.
The Office of Remigration
Trump administration officials have denied that any of this amounts to refoulement. But they have also left ambiguous what is supposed to happen to immigrants once they arrive in third countries.
Mr. Rubio has described U.S. partners as being willing to “share the burden” of illegal immigration. Mr. Miller said last year that America’s partners “have very graciously agreed to help resettle nationals from other countries.”
Officials seldom address questions about people who are repatriated despite court orders, other than to say that what happens once immigrants are deported is not their responsibility. The United States has sought more partners and to expand the deportation program.
In April, the same month that the United States signed a new deportation agreement with Panama, Mr. Veprek spoke at an event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based research group that favors curtailing immigration.
In his speech, Mr. Veprek recounted how the migration office used to be a “humanitarian assistance bureau” that was “in part focused on bringing people to the United States.”
“Now,” he added, “we are focused on implementing the president’s immigration agenda, including returning people from the United States to their home countries.”
Mr. Veprek and the official above him in the department, Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, exercised final approval over all the agreements, with the guidance of Mr. Miller. On daily group calls early in the administration, Mr. Miller would press them to get more expansive agreements.
To aid the efforts, Mr. Veprek oversaw the newly named Office of Remigration. “Remigration” is a controversial term that has long been used by far-right groups to refer to pushing immigrants out of the United States and European nations. The State Department official said the office works to end “mass and illegal migration” and to impose border security.
Civil servants said they were jarred by the notion that they were expected to help with “remigration.” The Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration received money from Congress to help safely resettle refugees, but it was now deporting people. (Through the State Department, Mr. Veprek declined repeated requests to be interviewed.)
When Mustapha Camara landed in Ghana, officials took him and others to a hotel that was guarded by men holding assault rifles. Mr. Camara paid an official to use his phone so he could tell his family where he was.
Six days later, Ghanaian officials put him on a plane to Gambia, where he lives in hiding, staying indoors most of the time. His wife and children remain in the United States. Mr. Camara is working to get closer to them.
He is applying to become a nurse in Canada, which faces its own critical nursing shortage. That would open a path for him to emigrate there.
“I’ve missed nursing so, so much,” he said. “Nursing is my true calling, and the best part — that I’ve missed — is seeing patients discharged and feeling better.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting from Washington.
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3) How Tension Over Trump Fractured American Diabetes Research
It began with an incident at an American Diabetes Association conference. Now a resulting boycott has caused a scientific slowdown, with no end in sight.
By Eric Boodman, Nov. 9, 2026
Eric Boodman is The Times’s national science correspondent.
Dr. Steven Kahn, director of the University of Washington’s diabetes research center, was stopped, along with other eminent scientists, from distributing copies of an editorial at a major diabetes conference in New Orleans this year. Anna Liminowicz for The New York Times
The plan was for a polite, academic act of dissent.
For its biggest conference, the American Diabetes Association had invited Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, as keynote speaker, and scientists were mad. Here was one of the officials behind slashed research grants, an existential threat to American science, some thought, and he was being billed as the star of their scientific meeting?
There was talk of a walkout. Dr. Steven Kahn, director of the University of Washington’s diabetes research center, had another idea. Before the speech, he and other scientists would distribute copies of an editorial he had coauthored decrying federal funding cuts — a quiet counterpoint, given that audience questions would not be allowed.
“Don’t want this to be a big deal,” one of the action’s participants, Dr. Desmond Schatz, told the A.D.A.’s then chief scientific and medical officer, Dr. Rita Kalyani, by text. “You may want to CALL Steve and tell him where he can and can’t give out his copies. Should not in any way be disruptive.”
“Thanks Des,” Dr. Kalyani responded. “I’m on plane and will find out details of where it can be given out when I land.”
But Dr. Kahn says the association never reached out.
On the morning of June 5, he divided 1,000 printouts of the editorial among a dozen colleagues, and they fanned out around the lecture hall.
The A.D.A.’s Scientific Sessions is the Super Bowl of diabetes research. Data on household-name drugs like Ozempic are often unveiled there. The Banting Medal, among the field’s highest honors, is presented there. Diabetes Care, the A.D.A.’s most prestigious journal, has its annual meeting there. This year, over 12,000 attendees were expected.
It didn’t take long for police and security to notice “disruptions,” as the A.D.A.’s chief executive, Charles Henderson, would later describe them. Guards — some with guns and handcuffs on their belts — yanked away editorials, grabbed researchers and escorted them outside. Five scientists were expelled. When a few returned, they were kicked out again and threatened with arrest.
The event laid bare long-simmering tension between a formidable nonprofit and the scientists it works with to fight a disease that affects more than 40 million Americans.
To the New Orleans Five — as the ejected researchers call themselves — the struggle is about righting an institution gone rogue. “The A.D.A. is a microcosm of the Trump administration,” Dr. Kahn said. To Aaron Kelly, a University of Minnesota physiologist who was among those expelled, the organization’s response embodies nothing less than “a quelling of dissent in the United States of America.”
Researchers have accused the nonprofit of censorship. A.D.A. officials have resigned. Donors have excised the association from their wills. And since September, Dr. Kahn has been coleading a boycott of the organization, with nearly 1,200 experts refusing to work with the A.D.A.’s medical journals or present at its conferences. At Diabetes Care, editors have stopped editing and submissions have slowed.
By now, the conflict is less about the expulsion and more about what it represents. Dr. Kalyani said she had no hand in the researchers’ ejection and agreed with their editorial. The A.D.A. declined to answer questions beyond a report released last month that said the association had received threats of disruption before the conference, creating security concerns, and that no constitutional rights had been violated because free speech is not protected in privately leased spaces. Still, it conceded that three of the New Orleans Five “likely shouldn’t have been removed.”
But that partial apology wasn’t enough to end the standoff and bring American diabetes research back to normal. International scientists who usually clamored to speak at the A.D.A.’s meeting wondered whether it would be worth traveling to the United States in 2027 at all.
A costly tug of war
Look at the résumés of top diabetes researchers and you’ll see “A.D.A.” appear and reappear as a three-letter leitmotif. Many of the field’s stars have both given and received support. By its own count, last year, the association invested $27.5 million in research and introduced 70 pieces of legislation. According to its latest public tax filings, in 2024, the C.E.O.’s total compensation package neared $1.3 million. It’s not the Gates Foundation, but it isn’t a neighborhood nonprofit, either.
Dr. Kahn first joined in the 1980s, soon after arriving in the United States from South Africa. His emigration was a pilgrimage of sorts. The National Institutes of Health was the biggest funder of biomedical research on earth, the United States a scientific mecca. Dr. Kahn wanted in and the A.D.A. was instrumental, giving him an early grant to study the genetics of diabetes. In the 2000s, he served on the organization’s board. In 2023, he became editor in chief of Diabetes Care. Last year, he received the Banting Medal.
But suddenly, he was on the sidewalk outside the association’s biggest conference and told not to come back.
“‘What do I do now? I’m supposed to chair a session,’” he remembered writing to an A.D.A. leader. “I never heard back from her. Not a word. They whitewashed my name from the program.”
The story might have ended there. Dr. Bhattacharya, the N.I.H. director, hadn’t even shown up; he sent a deputy instead. If A.D.A. leaders had apologized, met with the ejected researchers and returned their badges, the episode might have been a blip. That was what Dr. Mark Atkinson, volunteer chair of the Scientific Sessions planning committee, had proposed on June 5.
Instead, the next day, the A.D.A. sent an email blast saying that Dr. Kahn and his peers had “violated conference policies regarding unauthorized distribution of materials.” It was signed with Mr. Henderson’s name — but also Dr. Atkinson’s.
“I did not agree to sign that letter,” Dr. Atkinson said. He resigned as chair that evening and booked the next flight out, he said, too ashamed to show his face at the event he had helped organize.
Though Mr. Henderson eventually released a video apology, the situation had become a tug of war over the truth. Dr. Kahn and his fellow editors at Diabetes Care compiled a post-mortem on the incident, but the A.D.A. blocked its publication. Dr. Kahn cried censorship. The A.D.A. said it was waiting for “authenticated facts” established by an “arms-length review.” Dr. Kahn and his colleagues were dismayed that the review was run by current and former A.D.A. board members, including a lawyer representing the association in court.
In early September, when Mr. Henderson announced that the investigation was complete and deemed the removals appropriate, Dr. Kahn’s camp was incensed. The researchers wanted to see both the full report and the A.D.A. bylaws governing such internal investigations. The organization refused.
There was a sense on both sides that this conflict had become a distraction. “This is not a moment our community can afford to spend fighting itself,” Mr. Henderson wrote in an editorial for STAT.
“I, personally, was really tired of hearing about the New Orleans Five, really tired of hearing about how horrible the A.D.A. is and really just wanted to get a resolution so that we could move on and fight the good fight,” said Dr. Jane Reusch, professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz, who had distributed editorials but was not expelled.
More important, to her, was a broader pattern of A.D.A. decisions that undermined its scientific integrity. She wanted that fixed so everyone could focus on Trump’s dismantling of American science. “The current administration wins when we’re fighting ourselves like this,” she said.
It was that very animosity from the Trump administration toward academia that kept researchers from backing down. “We expect our leaders to have a spine and stand up and not take part in this anticipatory obedience,” said Dr. Kelly, the University of Minnesota physiologist.
Last year, he had watched Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents grab people in Minneapolis with impunity; the lack of legal recourse felt overwhelming. Here was a squashing of dissent he could make a difference against. Here was an executive branch he could hold to account.
‘The biggest opportunity’
“I really wrestled with this,” said Michael Donnelly-Boylen, a patient advocate with Type 2 diabetes and obesity. He had been invited to join an A.D.A. advisory committee and was scheduled to moderate a webinar for the organization soon after the boycott began. His participation felt important. Too often, people with obesity were left out of decisions that affected their own bodies.
He couldn’t stand the idea of researchers being thrown out by police for distributing an editorial. But he worried that the chance to shape diabetes care could be lost if he spoke up. As he understood it, he was among the first patients to be invited to join the A.D.A.’s obesity and weight management advisory group. “Would patients in the future be given the same opportunity I was?”
Though he ultimately honored the boycott, his nervousness was a testament to the A.D.A.’s outsize influence. The whole operation was based in mutualism. The prestige of its journals depended on peer review, its clinical guidelines on knowledgeable experts writing them. In turn, the organization gave weight and credibility to those in its orbit. The controversy threatened that circular economy.
Last month, the A.D.A. sent invitations to speak at next year’s Scientific Sessions. Many worried that the boycott would put recent graduates in a bind. “For the junior scientists, this may be the biggest opportunity that has ever happened to them,” said Dr. Reusch. “They might be going up for promotion this year and require national recognition.”
On Oct. 22, the A.D.A. published its review of the June incident, which differed from the organization’s previous accounts of what had happened. The report recognized that the association had gotten its own code of conduct wrong when accusing the New Orleans Five of breaking rules. It apologized to three of them, including Dr. Kahn.
But there were still points of contention. The independence of the investigation. The disregard for evidence. The A.D.A.’s suggestion that Dr. Kelly had posed a security threat, which he called “a baldfaced lie.”
When asked about these and other issues, the A.D.A. said, “Our focus is now on the work ahead: rebuilding trust within the diabetes community through meaningful action.”
The report, though, hadn’t accomplished that. “It was close to the truth, but it was not all the truth,” Dr. Kahn said. He wanted the association’s bylaws released publicly. He wanted a meeting with its board.
By Nov. 6, Dr. Kalyani had resigned. The A.D.A.’s vice president for publications announced his resignation, too, citing worries about editorial independence and scientific integrity after the organization insisted on appointing interim editors for Diabetes Care while the official editors were not working.
Amid all this, pre-boycott submissions to Diabetes Care had come out. One probed links between disruptions in the microbiome and Type 1 diabetes. Another examined the risks and survival rates of patients whose blood sugar had so damaged the vessels in their feet that they needed amputation.
Like so much of science, the findings were incremental, data that yielded new questions and more data, which at some point might become an intervention that could change people’s lives. Depending on how negotiations go, Diabetes Care’s editors might resume work any day now. Or these might be among its last contributions for a while.
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4) Mississippi Officer Who Fatally Shot Toddler Had a History of Aggressive Policing
A new examination of video footage shows that the officer who shot at a fleeing car in a Walmart parking lot, killing a boy, had previously ramped up encounters by punching, cursing and drawing his weapon.
By Mukta Joshi and Joseph Cranney, Nov. 9, 2026
Mukta Joshi is a reporter at Mississippi Today who is spending a year as a New York Times Local Investigations fellow. Joseph Cranney is a reporter at Verite News.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/09/us/mississippi-officer-walmart-shooting-toddler-aggressive-policing.html
Kohen Wiley, 1, was shot and killed in a Walmart parking lot in Senatobia, Miss. Veronica Roberson, via Associated Press
A fatal police shooting in a tiny Mississippi city made international headlines this summer for its harrowing details: A confrontation over shoplifting ended with a 1-year-old boy struck dead in a Walmart parking lot.
The city, Senatobia, has been in turmoil since. The police chief was fired after it was revealed he had sent racist text messages. A man was charged with trying to set fire to police headquarters. And weeks of outcry have followed the announcement by Attorney General Lynn Fitch in October that she would not bring criminal charges against the officer who killed the toddler, Kohen Wiley.
The officer, Hunter Foster, resigned from the city’s police department after Ms. Fitch’s decision. He hasn’t spoken publicly, and in a state where police personnel and disciplinary records are considered secret, not much about his seven-year career in law enforcement has come to light.
But a new examination of incidents captured on video shows that Mr. Foster had a history of aggressive behavior, ramping up encounters that began over apparently minor infractions.
Reporters for The New York Times, Mississippi Today and Verite News reviewed video from 12 incidents from Mr. Foster’s earlier time at the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office, the only agency among his former employers that provided detailed records in response to a public records request. We also reviewed footage included in two federal lawsuits he was named in, and from a May incident in Senatobia.
The encounters represent a small sample of Mr. Foster’s interactions with the public. But three policing experts who separately examined the videos at our request said they raised questions about his temperament, professionalism and the proportionality of his responses.
In the Walmart case, two women had been accused of shoplifting baby clothes and a box of Pampers Easy Ups. Mr. Foster and other officers surrounded their car as they tried to flee. Mr. Foster stood in front of the car and then opened fire as it drove toward him, video shows. One of the bullets struck Kohen, who was sitting in his mother’s lap in the passenger seat. Mr. Foster was the only one to fire.
Several of Mr. Foster’s past encounters similarly began over minor incidents and then escalated into violence, with the officer tackling, punching or drawing his Taser or firearm in response to minor provocations.
He displayed “an orientation toward going to force almost without warning,” said Michael Gennaco, a former federal civil rights prosecutor who now operates a police oversight consultancy in California.
In one case, Mr. Foster tackled a man after he didn’t immediately put his hands behind his back, then punched him at least 14 times while he was pinned to the ground.
In another, he continued to yank on the arm of a man who was screaming in pain. Mr. Foster was attempting to detain him after a discrepancy with his vehicle tags.
In a third, while detaining an Uber passenger suspected of possessing marijuana, he shoved the man’s face down toward the hood of a squad car. In an ensuing struggle, Mr. Foster punched the man at least six times, including before giving him any clear commands.
After reporters shared a detailed summary of this article’s findings, Mr. Foster’s lawyer, Martin Zummach, replied that some of the characterizations of his client’s behavior was slanderous, though he didn’t respond to specific questions. He has described the Walmart shooting as “unfortunate,” but maintained that Mr. Foster did not know there was a child in the car and that he had acted in defense of himself and other officers.
In most of the cases, Mr. Foster filed reports to explain his use of physical force. Those descriptions did not always line up with the footage. He was one of several officers named in a 2021 lawsuit accusing them of falsifying incident reports to say that a driver, whom officers later beat, had almost run one of them over. But video shows the car did not drive toward or nearly hit anyone.
In court papers, Mr. Foster, who did not participate in the beating, denied having knowledge that any part of his report was inaccurate. The lawsuit was settled in 2022.
‘Traumatic, traumatic experience’
From 2021 to 2024, Mr. Foster worked at the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office, where he built a reputation as a prolific patrol officer. Two years in a row, he won an award for issuing the most D.U.I. citations of any officer in the state.
Laterrius Inge encountered Mr. Foster one afternoon in March 2022, while having car trouble. He said the used Camaro he had recently purchased had started jerking. Mr. Foster arrived just before Mr. Inge popped open the hood.
Body-worn camera footage shows them chatting calmly at first, but things change after a dispatcher informs Mr. Foster that the license plate on the car doesn’t match the Camaro, and that Mr. Inge can’t be identified by the name he had given.
Without warning, Mr. Foster reaches out to cuff his left hand.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Inge asks, raising his right hand in surrender. Mr. Foster, still holding Mr. Inge by his handcuff, points his Taser, threatening to shock Mr. Inge if he doesn’t turn around.
Mr. Foster then grabs Mr. Inge by his arm and shoves him against the car. Mr. Inge crumples to the ground, screaming, “My wrist!” At one point, Mr. Foster drags Mr. Inge by his handcuffs across the pavement.
Mr. Foster wrote in his report that he had dragged Mr. Inge to get him on his stomach, but that he kept rolling on his back, refusing to give up his arm.
Matt Steffey, a law professor at Mississippi Christian University who helped draft the state’s rules on criminal procedure, said the video could be “a training video on how not to conduct a traffic stop.”
Mr. Inge faced a number of charges, including for a switched tag. He told reporters that Mr. Foster had caused a shoulder injury.
“It was a traumatic, traumatic experience,” he said.
‘Why are you beating me up?’
Experts who reviewed the footage said that Mr. Foster appeared to have escalated some situations without warning.
One night in 2023, he stopped a man, Jonathan Fields, over an improper vehicle tag. Dashboard camera footage shows the incident escalated after the man informed Mr. Foster, when asked, that he had a gun in the car. (Mississippi is an open carry state.)
Mr. Foster, who later wrote in his report that Mr. Fields had grabbed the weapon, ordered him out of the car at gunpoint. The action isn’t clear from the footage, but Mr. Fields can be heard saying, “I was just trying to show you where it’s at.”
Mr. Foster tells Mr. Fields not to move while he questions him about having marijuana in the car. When Mr. Fields takes a few steps toward his car, a second deputy tells him to stop. When he does, the officer tries to handcuff him, Mr. Fields waves his hands away, and Mr. Foster tackles him.
Mr. Foster punches Mr. Fields at least 14 times while the other officer holds him down. “Why are you beating me up?” Mr. Fields yells.
In his use-of-force report, Mr. Foster called his punches “distractive,” delivered when he felt Mr. Fields tense his body, which he interpreted as part of an effort to fight back.
‘Can you please stop cussing?’
By the time Mr. Foster started working in Senatobia in March 2025, the city of roughly 8,400 people — 40 percent of whom are Black — was reeling from a string of policing controversies.
In 2023, the city’s chief of police, who is white, was caught on camera barging into a Black man’s home and choking him, believing a fugitive was hiding inside. The following year, two Black teenage girls accused the chief of shouting, “Get your Black ass out of the road” when he arrested them. After a Black woman was thrown to the ground by an officer in the same Walmart parking lot where Kohen was later killed, city leaders voted to remove the chief.
So in June, many residents saw the fatal shooting of Kohen as part of a pattern of racist policing.
Things intensified in August when we reported on internal complaints alleging that Mr. Foster, who is white, had used racist language toward his colleagues. In September, we revealed the police chief at the time had routinely used racist slurs in texts to a colleague. That chief was pushed out too.
Experts agreed that an incident in May, captured on Mr. Foster’s body-worn camera, was the most problematic one they reviewed.
Within a minute of arriving at a home in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Senatobia, where a woman had accused her child’s father of hitting her, Mr. Foster launches into an expletive-filled tirade.
Upon learning the man accused had left, Mr. Foster raises his voice at her and two other women standing outside, calling them a “bunch of motherfuckers.”
“Can you please stop cussing?” said one of the women, Kenesha Herron. “No, ‘cause I’m sick of this shit,” he says. He accuses them of trying to hide the man. “I’m tired of y’all doing this,” Mr. Foster says.
“Tired of who doing what?” Ms. Herron asks, having interpreted his comment as being racially motivated. She later said in an interview that she had “never felt so openly hated” because of her skin color.
“He’s the kind of officer that is to blame for the fact that communities of color have no confidence in public safety,” said Mr. Gennaco, the former civil rights prosecutor.
After the altercation, Mr. Foster apologizes to Ms. Herron, footage shows. “I’m sorry for being loud with you,” he says. “Sometimes things get heated.”
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5) Costly Groceries Make Dinner More Complicated. That Goes for Pets Too.
New York City is providing $500,000 to some pantries to provide pet food during an affordability crisis that is affecting humans, but could also be a problem for their pets.
By Caitlyn Freeman, Nov. 9, 2026
Christian Rivers, 27, is a new cat dad; he’s been fostering two kittens for the last few weeks. The animals provide emotional support and give him something to come home to in West Harlem.
But at a time when life is getting more expensive for people, with higher costs for food, gas, rent and just having fun, the pain can affect pets, too.
“I just feel like it shouldn’t be like, ‘Oh, it’s either I eat or the cats eat,’ ” Mr. Rivers said. “You know? It shouldn’t really have to be like that.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani recently announced that $500,000 would be distributed across 22 of the 700 city-funded pantries to pay for pet food through the city’s Community Food Connection program.
“No New Yorker should have to choose between feeding themselves and feeding their pets,” Mr. Mamdani said in a statement. “Keeping families together means keeping pets at home, too.”
So on Wednesday, Mr. Rivers was at New York Common Pantry in East Harlem waiting in the distribution area for his order. He had selected kibble for the kittens when he was placing his grocery order.
“I can’t just sit there and eat while my cats is hungry,” he said.
Volunteers in an assembly line were filling clear grocery bags with human food at Common Pantry that morning. But every few minutes, someone would veer off to the outskirts of the room to pluck up a small bag of kibble, which recipients can get twice a month.
Ellen Miller, Common Pantry’s communications director, said the organization had received about $30,000 from the city program for pet food. The East Harlem location got about 1,300 bags of kibble on Tuesday, equal to about 4,000 pounds, she said. While the pantry had received small pet food donations here and there in the past, this delivery, on that the day before, was the first city-funded lot.
Walter Brackett, the pantry’s food programs manager, stood next to the pallets of pet cuisine and scaled the mountain to hand a volunteer a dark blue bag of Eukanuba dog kibble. The pantry also stocked 9Lives cat food and Gravy Train dry dog food.
“People go without to feed their pets,” Mr. Brackett said.
Councilman Harvey Epstein, chair of the Council’s animal welfare caucus, praised the initiative. He said that human and pet welfare are interconnected.
“Is $500,000 going to feed all of the pets that need food?” he said. “No, but it gives people hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel. There’s help out there.”
The Best Friends Animal Society, a nonprofit animal welfare group, surveyed nearly 4,000 shelters throughout the United States in 2025 and found about 7.6 percent of animal surrenders were for financial reasons. Housing issues, including restrictions on certain breeds, accounted for 16 percent of surrenders that year.
Surrendered pets made up about 30 percent of pets in shelters nationwide in 2025, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
While Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Epstein say the free pet food will help reduce surrenders, Matt Bershadker, the president and chief executive of the A.S.P.C.A., said it’s only one piece of the puzzle.
“What I would say is I think it’s hard to draw a direct correlation that providing people with food is going to prevent a surrender,” he said, while adding that he believes the city is moving in the right direction with a program that helps provide low-cost spaying and neutering.
Angelina Portes, 20, of Brooklyn, works at Second Chance Rescue. She said her biggest expenses as a pet owner are food and disposable waste bags. Ms. Portes believes she spends anywhere from $100 to $120 a month to care for her 8-year-old dog, Lola.
While she’s never had to turn to a pantry for pet food, she said the city-funded pet food is “cool,” especially since she’s seen how successful some of the pop-up pantries Second Chance hosted with other local organizations had been.
Sandra DeFeo, executive director of the Humane Society of New York, said the affordability crisis is hitting pet owners in a number of ways.
“Years ago, people would have four dogs and now they’ll say: ‘You know what? I can only have one,’” Ms. DeFeo said. “‘I can’t afford to feed everybody and to take care of everybody the way that they need to be taken care of.’”
She said the society makes an effort to walk potential adopters through the costs of pet ownership before they sign the papers.
“When we’re adopting to people, we talk about your time budget,” Ms. DeFeo said. “Do you have time for this animal? Do you have the financial budget for this animal? What would that be? We start to figure things out ahead of time. And you want to make sure people are cognizant of that, or thinking of that, when they’re taking on the responsibility.”
As for Mr. Rivera, who was able to get food for his kittens, it wasn’t his first time getting help. Before his dog died, he used to request free kibble whenever it was available. All pantries should be giving out pet food, he said.
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6) Martha Stewart’s ‘Hobo’ Shows How Trump Emboldened Rich People
By Molly Jong-Fast, Nov. 10, 2026
Ms. Jong-Fast is a contributing Opinion writer.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/10/opinion/rich-people-martha-stewart-midterms.html
Ryan Evans
The weekend before Election Day, I opened up Instagram and saw an image so jarring that I first thought it was A.I.-generated. Martha Stewart had dressed up as a poor person for Halloween. She wore ripped jeans and a weather-beaten flannel, and had what looked like dirt smeared across her face. She held a sign that said “I AM HUNGRY HELP ME!!” and turned her lips down into a mocking frown. The caption directed her audience toward her branded candle collection.
Ms. Stewart’s Halloween costume is the sort of thing we’ve been seeing from rich people since President Trump’s second election. Many regular voters went for Mr. Trump in 2024 because of the high cost of groceries. But rich people felt empowered by his second victory, as if the public elected them, too.
And so it’s been two years of rich people going full Roman emperor — unleashed, unapologetic and, often, punching down.
For much of my life, I’ve spent a lot of time with wealthy people in places like New York City and Los Angeles. My family, literary types, were not Wall Street banker rich or industrialist rich, like some of my friends and neighbors. I miss that brand of rich person. They had some vague WASP-y reticence about showing off. Some of them drove old Volvos. Few of them flew first class, let alone private. Besides, the New York of the 1980s was a place where showoffs tended to get mugged. If someone was mind-bendingly wealthy, that person didn’t necessarily want you to know it.
Today’s rich people are richer than ever, and that seems to have made them worse than ever. More shameless. More out of touch. Less empathetic. Thinner-skinned. And, for some mysterious reason, angrier. They’re people who consider equality for others oppression for themselves.
Sometimes they’re nouveau riche ridiculous — Jeff Bezos throwing a foam party on his half-billion-dollar yacht and then occupying Venice for his star-studded wedding. Or they’re destabilizing — Elon Musk dancing with a chain saw and hacking away at the federal government, a move that threw hundreds of thousands of people out of the federal work force and has cost taxpayers an estimated $135 billion last year. Too often, they’ve been flashing their wealth before our eyes. Mr. Trump’s billionaire buddies kissed up and paid up — pass the hat for the inauguration, boys! — and ended up with tax benefits. (See: “bonus depreciation,” which allows executives to write off depreciating assets and has led to a buying spree in both private planes and racehorses.)
It’s well documented that extreme wealth melts one’s brain. As Helen Riess and Liz Neporent write in “The Empathy Effect”: “Scientific studies have shown there is an inverse relationship between power and empathy. This distance often insulates the rich and powerful from the suffering of the everyday person.” The richer you are, the more insular your life becomes, and the more out of touch you become. Money becomes a way of measuring yourself against other rich people. It’s not about worrying about your rent, filling up your gas tank or affording ground beef at the grocery store. Get rich enough, and your doctor probably doesn’t even take health insurance — and you don’t need him to.
The wealthiest Americans’ X feeds must be puzzlingly filled with self-pity or the belief that somehow they are the ones being discriminated against in the world. Sergey Brin personally spent $100 million to help defeat the California wealth tax. And never mind all the squawking among the 17,000 New Yorkers who were asked by the Mamdani administration to prove that their $5-million-plus homes were not pieds-à-terre, and therefore subject to an extra tax.
Once upon a time, the wealthiest Americans knew they had it good and that they owed something to the rest of us. They followed in the spirit of Andrew Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth,” in which he argued that the rich have a moral duty to help better the world, for everyone. They funded libraries, museums, medical research, disease eradication projects and even entire universities. Maybe this was out of moral or even religious conviction. Maybe it was out of a desire to see their names on buildings. Or maybe it was out of fear, after decades of strikes and social movements and, in other countries, revolutions.
Those lessons have been mostly forgotten. The wealthiest Americans don’t seem to care that much about giving back. When billionaires do give, it’s often to causes that appear to come with perks, like Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund or his ridiculous ballroom.
It looks as if, finally, regular Americans have had enough. On the whole, voters rebuked Mr. Trump’s by-billionaires-for-billionaires government in stunning fashion in last week’s midterms. They won’t be bought or bribed away from reality, and they’ll turn out in droves before they’ll let Elon Musk buy their elections. When the president tried to dangle a $5,000 check in front of voters, they just said no.
Affordability became a midterm buzzword because it’s a real crisis. During Mr. Trump’s second term, prices for staples like gas, diesel, beef and coffee have skyrocketed. Medicare and Obamacare cuts are throwing millions off health insurance. The One Big Beautiful Bill stripped millions of people of the SNAP benefits they need to feed their families. While Mr. Trump obsesses about a plethora of construction projects including a ballroom, normal people are poorer and angrier than they were when they elected him.
Cue Martha Stewart: “I AM HUNGRY HELP ME!!”
What was she expecting people to do, write “yaaaas Hobo Queen!” in the comments?
Ms. Stewart quickly took down her Instagram post and, after public outcry, apologized, multiple times. Then, she started blaming someone else for her Halloween misstep. She said the “Today” show anchor Craig Melvin spilled chocolate on her sweater and that she dressed up that way because she had only 10 minutes to get ready. Shockingly, nobody’s really buying that excuse.
Much like Mr. Trump and his billionaire buddies, she may have squandered her gilded age.
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7) Elevated Inflation Keeps Pressure on Fed to Raise Rates
October’s Consumer Price Index report showed a broadening of price pressures that has stoked concerns about the Federal Reserve’s grip on inflation.
By Colby Smith and Ben Casselman, Nov. 10, 2026
"October was the seventh straight month in which price increases outpaced wage growth on a 12-month basis. Average hourly earnings were up 3.1 percent in October from a year earlier, well below the roughly 4 percent annual inflation pace."
Colby Smith covers the Federal Reserve. Ben Casselman is the chief economics correspondent.
Kevin M. Warsh, the Fed chairman, said during his news conference on Wednesday that policymakers had voted to keep interest rates steady. Credit...Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Associated Press
Consumer prices rose at a swift pace in October as inflationary pressures broadened across the economy, keeping pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again this year.
Overall prices rose 0.4 percent in October after a 0.6 percent jump the month prior, according to the latest Consumer Price Index report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday. “Core” prices, which strip out volatile food and energy items, edged up 0.3 percent.
The agency on Wednesday did not release year-over-year figures for October after it was unable to collect data during last year’s government shutdown. According to calculations by The New York Times, overall prices were around 4 percent higher compared with the same time last year, up from 3.7 percent in September. Over the same period, core prices rose about 2.8 percent.
Perhaps most worrisome in October’s inflation report was the sheer breadth of the price gains, which were stronger than economists had expected.
One of the biggest drivers of inflation in October was food. Prices rose 0.5 percent last month and are up about 3 percent since this time last year. From meat to dairy, prices were up across the board. Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Santander, said that was unlikely to just be a one-month phenomenon.
“We run the risk that the floodgates open,” he said. “Businesses have been holding back, holding back, holding back, and then if they do pull the trigger, we’re going to get another wave of price increases.”
The sharp rise in the price of food and other commodities stems directly from the war in Iran, which has pushed up energy prices this year.
In October, the pace of that pickup slowed, but the impact on the economy is likely to linger for awhile. Energy prices overall were up 0.7 percent for the month after a 5.2 percent jump in September. Gasoline prices rose just 1 percent, significantly slower than the 9.1 percent increase seen in the previous period. Electricity prices rose nearly 1 percent. A foremost concern for both economists and policymakers has been the sharp rise in diesel prices this year.
Pooja Sriram, an economist at Barclays, noted that roughly 18 percent of all goods and services rely on diesel in some capacity. As diesel costs have shot higher, so too have freight costs. Ms. Sriram said that in October, prices for bulky items such as furniture, appliances, toys and televisions, had all gone up. “That’s one channel where I think we’re actually seeing the broadening out of price pressures,” she said.
A second channel, said Ms. Sriram, stems from the artificial intelligence investment boom, which has pushed up prices for computer chips and other electronics. Prices for computers and related items are up nearly 12 percent since this time last year, and software prices have climbed more than 25 percent.
Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, acknowledged on Tuesday in an interview with Fox Business that October’s inflation report was “disappointing.” “The trickle down from higher energy prices is definitely very palpable in the data,” he said.
October’s inflation report was the last before the Fed meets for its final gathering of the year on Dec. 8-9. November’s report comes out the day after the meeting.
Policymakers have broadly signaled that they will raise rates next month as they seek to stamp out price pressures that have pushed inflation further away from their goal. The Fed closely tracks the C.P.I. report, but it officially targets 2 percent inflation, as measured by the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index. That level has overshot the Fed’s target for nearly six years.
Fed officials also keep tabs on the price of services as an indicator of the underlying pace of inflation. Specifically, they have been looking at core services excluding housing, a measure sometimes referred to as “supercore.” Those prices rose 0.4 percent in October, and have risen at an annual rate of nearly 5.5 percent over the past three months.
On Tuesday before the inflation report was released, Christopher J. Waller, a Fed governor, raised the prospects of a larger-than-usual half-point interest rate increase at the central bank’s next meeting in December if inflation did not show signs of moderating. A typical quarter-point increase would suffice if price pressures improved as expected in October, Mr. Waller said in remarks delivered at a Bank of England event in London.
But if “core” inflation rose 0.3 percent or more, as October’s data showed, Mr. Waller warned that the central bank risked its credibility by not moving more aggressively. “Hiking only 25 basis points would put our credibility at risk, a risk I am not eager to take,” he said.
Later on Tuesday, Lorie K. Logan, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, argued in a speech that the Fed’s policy settings, with rates currently at a range of 3.75 percent to 4 percent, were actually making the inflation problem worse. Despite volatility in financial markets in recent weeks, which has resulted in a whipsawing stock market and fluctuating U.S. government bond yields, Ms. Logan said the ease at which companies and households can access funding was providing a “tailwind to the economy.”
Against this backdrop, she said the Fed likely needed to deliver at least two more quarter-point increases and consider moving more rapidly this winter depending on the data.
Two-year Treasury yields, which are sensitive to changes in interest rate expectations, shot higher on Tuesday and were up over 0.1 percentage points to 4.75 percent as investors raised wagers that the Fed will have to raise rates more over time to quell inflation.
Ahead of October’s release, most Fed officials appeared comfortable with a gradual approach to raising rates, suggesting that Mr. Waller’s call for a half-point increase might be dismissed. Officials lifted borrowing costs by a quarter of a percentage point in September and then voted late last month to hold rates steady. That meeting came just days before the midterm elections, although Kevin M. Warsh, the chairman, denied that politics played any role in the internal deliberations.
One silver lining for the Fed is that the labor market remains in solid shape, as October’s report released on Friday showed, affirming that officials can focus solely on fixing their inflation problem.
October was the seventh straight month in which price increases outpaced wage growth on a 12-month basis. Average hourly earnings were up 3.1 percent in October from a year earlier, well below the roughly 4 percent annual inflation pace.
“We’re just not in an environment where the Fed can take any further adverse developments,” said Mr. Stanley.
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8) Failure of Billionaire Tax Strikes Blow to Progressive Agenda
A wealth tax on billionaires seemed like a political layup. The outcome of a California ballot initiative shows otherwise.
By Andrew Duehren, Nov. 10, 2026
Andrew Duehren covers federal tax policy from Washington.
Attendees at a wealth tax rally last month in San Francisco. Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle, via Associated Press
Of all the progressive arguments in favor of a wealth tax, the most clear-cut was supposed to be the popularity of such a policy. Even people who may not vote for Democrats would support such a tax, the thinking went, out of frustration with the opulence and power of the ultrarich.
And then voters in California rejected what would have been the nation’s first tax on wealth. Proposition 40 called for a one-time, 5 percent tax on the assets of California’s roughly 250 billionaires. It failed with roughly 53 percent of voters opposed as of the tally on Monday evening, when The Associated Press called the race.
The outcome is a stark setback for a progressive political project aimed at fundamentally changing taxation in the United States. Even in an election cycle when Democrats surged to huge victories across the country, a policy idea at the heart of the progressive agenda could not muster a bare majority in one of the country’s most liberal states.
“The conditions were probably the best they could have been to get this to pass, and even then it failed,” said Antoine Levy, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. “That suggests there is a reluctance to pass wealth taxes.”
As the Democratic Party figures out how to wield its newfound power, that result may now weigh on decisions about how to raise taxes, even on the fabulously rich. In the party’s upcoming presidential primary, some candidates may now think twice about adding a wealth tax to their policy agenda. But the exact political consequences will depend on whether Democrats ultimately view the California loss as an idiosyncratic fluke or a reflection of a deeper opposition to taxing wealth.
There were, after all, several bespoke factors at play in California. The billionaire tax was mired in internecine conflict among the state’s elected officials, labor leaders and activist groups, diluting its support. Billionaires spent heavily against it, airing ads that claimed the tax could expand beyond the superrich. Several tech moguls even moved out of California to avoid the tax, fueling fears about its impact on the state’s tech sector. And even then, the proposition was not blown out: with 83 percent of the estimated vote counted, it trails 53 to 47.
Last week’s election also showed other signs that voters support raising taxes on the rich. A separate California ballot initiative, focused on sustaining higher taxes on high-income residents, passed easily. Elsewhere in the country, many Democratic candidates, like James Talarico in Texas, routinely attacked billionaires as they campaigned to commanding victories in historically-red states.
So some progressives still believe that taxing wealth could be a popular idea, despite the California outcome.
“I think we need to be careful about over indexing on this one result,” said David Mitchell, senior fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a liberal think tank. “Voters rejected one specific wealth tax, but they support taxes on the wealthy generally.”
At the same time, the dynamics that helped bring down the California proposal may not be so distinctive. Any other proposed wealth tax, in another state or at the federal level, will be unlikely to unanimously unite Democrats behind it. One might expect that, like they did in California, the ultrarich would vigorously campaign against another proposed wealth tax. (Candidates like Mr. Talarico were able to prevail last week despite a gusher of spending against them, suggesting that the California tax was more vulnerable to the billionaire-financed advertising.)
Ultimately, any effort to pass a wealth tax will have to contend with the potent anti-tax sentiment in American politics. A wealth tax would constitute a drastic increase, even if it only applied to a tiny number of people. In their advertisements, the billionaire-funded opposition tried to stoke fears that such a tax would eventually apply to middle-class Californians. “Prop. 40 is not just a billionaire tax, it’s a tax on all of us,” one advertisement stated.
With its focus on billionaires, the California initiative was intended to neutralize this line of attack. Previous wealth tax proposals would have applied to multimillionaires, but the full 5 percent tax under the California proposition would have applied only to people worth at least $1.1 billion. The expectation was that billionaires were so wealthy and so unpopular, even compared to someone worth $500 million, that the public would not sympathize with their arguments against paying a novel new tax.
The fact that focusing the tax on billionaires did not make Proposition 40 politically unassailable could be a troubling sign for Democratic plans to raise taxes more broadly. Even before the party won control of Congress in last week's election, many Democratic policy experts had been grappling with the dire fiscal situation they are set to inherit. Just paring back President Trump’s tariffs and reversing health care cuts, two top priorities for the newly elected Democrats, could cost trillions of dollars.
Democrats will most likely need to raise substantial tax revenue to at least partly pay for those changes, as well as any other new programs they hope to enact in the future. That is one of the main reasons progressives have favored a wealth tax for so long: It could help raise the money needed to finance an ambitious liberal agenda.
Wealth taxes would be a new way to raise revenue, though, and they raise complicated questions for tax collectors and the public. While income taxes apply only to earnings on stocks, bonds and other assets once they are sold, a wealth tax would seek to tax those assets before they are sold. How to value some of those assets, and how to collect taxes on holdings that are not easy to sell, are among the issues with wealth taxes that experts have long struggled with.
The design of the California proposal was also somewhat unusual. Almost all of its revenue would have been dedicated to funding health care in California, rather than general budget needs. The tax was also a one-time charge and not a continuing revenue source. Proposals for a federal wealth tax typically commit the potential revenue to general government spending needs and collect it on an annual basis.
The hope for Democrats is that the California result is, at most, a setback for wealth taxes specifically — and not a sign that taxing the rich in general is politically unpalatable. Beyond wealth taxes, there are plenty of other ways to raise revenue. Those include seemingly technical tweaks, like changing the tax treatment of assets at death, that could still raise substantial revenue. Other options include simply raising the income tax rates that high-income individuals and corporations pay.
“It’s plausible to me that the voters are more comfortable with a more traditional income tax approach, and that could serve as lesson for policymakers going forward,” Mr. Mitchell of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth said.
It is also always possible that wealth taxes become more popular in the future. Proponents said they always expected a years- or even decades-long fight to put a wealth tax into place in the United States. They compare their campaign to the long, winding process for imposing an income tax, which required adopting a constitutional amendment in the early 20th century.
“It’s always complicated, it always take a little time,” said Gabriel Zucman, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley and a proponent of a wealth tax. “It’s just slowing down what I think is a pretty much inevitable evolution.”
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9) Arrested, Shackled and Hidden in ICE’s System
A nursing professor in California is among thousands of immigrants excluded from a public detainee database under a new policy to expedite their deportation by keeping their location hidden.
By Miriam Jordan, Nov. 10, 2026
Miriam Jordan, a national correspondent, is documenting the effects of Trump’s deportation policies on immigrants and communities nationwide.
Ann Lawani worked as a nurse at the Sharp Coronado Hospital near San Diego, Calif., during the coronavirus pandemic. Etienne Laurent/EPA, via Shutterstock
Ann Lawani, a highly regarded nurse and professor, was still in her pajamas when federal agents detained her at her home in Lodi, Calif., on Sept. 16.
She placed a call that day to family from a nearby holding facility. After that, however, her siblings and lawyer could not find her in a public database that shows where detainees are being held. They got no answers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ms. Lawani had simply vanished.
“It was the worst time of my life, knowing she had been siphoned into an abyss and there was nothing I could do about it,” said her older brother, Sam Lawani, 45, a U.S. citizen. When he heard from her three days later, Ms. Lawani was at a detention center in Louisiana.
Her disappearance was no accident. Ms. Lawani, a 39-year-old from Nigeria, was arrested the day after the Department of Homeland Security conveyed that most detainees with final deportation orders — tens of thousands of immigrants — would no longer appear on the public database. A document announcing the change, which was obtained by The Times, provided a script for contractors to use with callers looking for immigrants, explaining that the information was not public.
Lawyers across the country said the new policy has exacerbated the chaos of the sprawling network of more than 300 ICE detention sites, causing them to lose track of clients. Detainees are often shuffled between facilities, and not knowing their whereabouts hampers the ability of lawyers to provide timely, effective representation, the lawyers said. The decision to hide detainees’ locations was first reported by The Associated Press.
“The government is trying to deport immigrants as quickly as possible, and disappearing people from the system helps accomplish that by making it very difficult for family members and attorneys to find people,” said Cassandra Charles, senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. The consequences, she said, can be “life-altering and devastating.”
About 30 percent of all detainees, more than 20,000 people, have disappeared from the database, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Boston last month by the National Immigration Law Center and several other groups, which assert that the change is unlawful.
The groups argue that many immigrants with deportation orders still have legal avenues to seek release and win the right to remain in the United States. If lawyers know where their clients are, they can file motions to rescind the order, reopen their immigration proceedings and halt removal to third countries.
The motions must be filed before ICE deports them. Removing immigrants from the system deprives them of due process, the groups assert in the lawsuit.
Detainees can call lawyers or loved ones if someone has deposited money into their individual account at a specific detention center to use for phone calls, food, toiletries and other items. If lawyers or relatives cannot find their client or loved one, the detainee might not be able to place calls.
In response to questions, D.H.S. said in a statement that detainees have “several ways” to communicate with family and lawyers and noted that “the appropriate process” for someone with final deportation orders is “removal, plain and simple.”
The changes to the detainee database come as the Trump administration has intensified its effort to deport more than 1 million immigrants annually. As of March 2026, there were about 1.5 million immigrants in the United States with final orders of removal who were not detained, according to the government. Many had been allowed to remain in the country and have worked, paid taxes and built lives.
Ms. Lawani entered the country in 2007 on a visitor visa and applied for asylum. In 2013, an immigration judge denied her asylum but granted her “withholding of removal” to Nigeria, based on the finding that she would “more likely than not” face persecution if returned. D.H.S. did not appeal the decision and issued her a work permit in 2014, which she had regularly renewed and is valid until 2029.
D.H.S. said in a statement that Ms. Lawani had been detained because she had been ordered removed in 2013. The agency did not comment on her “withholding of removal.”
Ms. Lawani was the youngest of five siblings to arrive in the United States. The four others are American citizens, but they could not sponsor her because withholding of removal cannot lead to a green card or citizenship.
At the University of San Diego, where she earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in nursing, Ms. Lawani was a standout pupil and president of the student nurses’ association. She worked through the Covid pandemic and developed expertise in palliative, hospice and elder care.
One of her instructors, Eileen Fry-Bowers, became dean of the School of Nursing at the University of San Francisco and recruited her to fill a position there in 2023.
“I have given her increasing responsibilities because she continually demonstrates tremendous skill, knowledge and commitment to our students and the nursing profession,” said Ms. Fry-Bowers.
Ms. Lawani ascended to program director, overseeing some 250 master’s degree candidates on three campuses. She taught several courses, advised students preparing for licensing exams and job placements and supervised faculty. On weekends, she worked in the cardiovascular stroke unit at John Muir Hospital in Concord.
On the morning of Sept. 16, Ms. Lawani heard noises outside the house she owns and shares with her 83-year-old father, who is fighting cancer. Through her security camera, she saw officers wearing vests emblazoned with “police.”
“I thought there had been a break-in or issue in the area,” she said in a phone interview from the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, La.
In pajamas, hair bonnet and flip flops, she raised the garage door to ask if everything was OK, she recalled.
Ms. Lawani was handcuffed. When she asked why she was under arrest, the agents did not respond, she said. When she requested a warrant, none was presented. They ignored her pleas to speak with her father, who remained alone asleep inside. They shoved her into an unmarked vehicle, and 20 minutes later she was at an ICE facility.
Ms. Lawani texted Ms. Fry-Bowers to inform her that she might be late for a meeting. Soon after, her phone was taken away. The dean would later learn that Ms. Lawani had been shackled at the ankles, waist and hands and moved through four facilities.
“This is a Ph.D. nurse doing amazing work with students and with patients,” she said. “It’s hard to reconcile.”
The university helped Ms. Lawani’s family find a lawyer.
Her family wanted to file a habeas petition to secure Ms. Lawani’s release and try to block her deportation. The judge had stipulated in 2013 that she must not be sent to Nigeria. However, ICE could try to deport her to a third country.
But where was Ms. Lawani? She was not in the database, and ICE did not share her whereabouts. Normally, a habeas petition must be filed in the district where the person is being held.
“That’s usually simple,” said her lawyer, Natalia Vieira Santanna. “In Ann’s case, it wasn’t, because nobody would tell us where she was.”
Ms. Vieira filed the petition in the Eastern District of California, her last known location, on Sept. 18. A few days later, D.H.S. asked the court to transfer her habeas petition to Louisiana, which would require Ms. Lawani to find new representation and restart her case. Ms. Vieira opposed the motion, arguing that the usual rules should not apply because her client’s location had been concealed.
In support of Ms. Lawani, she included letters from Ms. Fry-Bowers and the president of the University of San Francisco, who described her as an outstanding professional whose absence was disrupting the nursing program.
On Sept. 29, the judge rejected the government’s request to change venue, finding that “no diligent attorney could have known” Ms. Lawani was in Louisiana. He also barred the government from deporting Ms. Lawani while her habeas case was pending and ordered it to explain why he shouldn’t release her.
If the judge grants the habeas petition, Ms. Lawani may still face a legal battle to remain in the United States.
“It’s painful to hear her wear down a little more with each conversation,” said Ms. Vieira.
On the 51st day of her confinement, Ms. Lawani described her emotional state as “holding on.”
She was worried for her father, whose health had deteriorated, she said. He had been hospitalized.
“I have given most of my adult life to serving my patients and students,” she said. “I have been treated like a criminal, but I don’t even have a parking ticket.”
As of Monday, Ms. Lawani was still missing from the detainee locator.
Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting
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10) U.S. Handled $12 Billion in Venezuelan Oil Revenues, Secret Report Shows
The workings of a U.S.-controlled bank account shed light on how Washington manages Venezuelan revenue after capturing the country’s president.
By Tyler Pager and Anatoly Kurmanaev, Nov. 10, 2026
"...most Venezuelans continue living in poverty despite the influx of hard currency into the economy from the U.S.-controlled account. Prices in the country are expected to rise nearly 300 percent this year, and annual inflation is not expected to fall into double digits until at least 2028, according to Sintesis Financiera."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/10/world/americas/us-venezuela-oil-trump.html
An oil pump in Cabimas, Venezuela, in August. U.S. forces toppled the country’s president in January. Credit...Ariana Cubillos/Associated Press
The U.S. government received more than $12 billion in revenue from Venezuela’s natural resource exports in the first nine months of this year, according to a confidential report by the global financial services firm KPMG.
The vast majority of the funds were distributed back to Venezuela soon after they were received, the report shows. It is unclear if the money stayed in the country or who the ultimate recipients were.
The report, provides the most detailed portrait so far of the financial control exerted by the United States government on Venezuela since U.S. forces toppled the country’s president in January. The report was reviewed by The New York Times and its contents have not been previously reported.
The Trump administration installed a pliant interim government and charged it with opening up Venezuela’s oil industry to American investment.
The report was written just days before the midterm elections and Democratic lawmakers had repeatedly vowed to bring more transparency and accountability to Washington’s policy toward Venezuela.
Now that Democrats have won control of Congress in the midterm elections, several aides to Democratic lawmakers said they would continue pressing the Trump administration to describe what it was doing to prevent corruption in Venezuela after taking control of the country’s finances.
The report, which KPMG compiled on behalf of the U.S. government, describes the activity of the “Venezuela Custody Account,” which was set up by the U.S. Treasury to manage the flow of Venezuelan export revenues following the ouster of former President Nicolás Maduro. The account was initially based in Qatar but was moved to Citibank in New York in late January.
The report falls short of a formal audit of the Venezuelan oil finances that State Department officials promised to conduct regularly earlier this year. KPMG describes its role in the report as assisting the State Department in administering the account, helping to trace transactions and conducting other financial integrity measures. The company does not describe itself in the report as an auditor.
The report provides little information about how U.S. officials and KMPG employees sought to prevent the money from falling into wrong hands or how they ensured that Venezuela’s oil and other natural resources were sold at fair prices.
The account received $12.26 billion in deposits between Jan. 3, the date of the U.S. military intervention, and the end of September, according to the report. The vast majority of the funds were distributed back to Venezuela soon after they were received, the report shows.
The account had a balance of about $170 million on Sept. 30, the report’s cutoff date. The account also earned about $12 million in interest during the period.
The speed of the disbursements described in the report lends some credence to previous claims by U.S. officials that they serve as mere custodians of the wealth that Venezuela derives from its natural resources, primarily oil.
At its simplest, the report describes a process through which Venezuela’s central bank requested funds from the U.S.-controlled account. U.S. officials then disbursed money after ensuring the requests met financial integrity criteria.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said repeatedly that before the United States removed Mr. Maduro most of Venezuela’s oil revenues were lost to corruption and foreign middlemen. Reporting by The Times backs some of those claims.
The KPMG report, however, also provides evidence of the final say U.S. officials have held over when money is released and who gets funds from the sale of natural resources that under Venezuela’s Constitution belong to Venezuelans.
“The U.S. government established custodial control over Venezuelan natural resources revenue deposits” this year, the report says. It adds that each transaction has to be signed off by officials from State Department and Treasury.
The U.S. Treasury, State Department, KPMG and Venezuela’s government did not respond to requests for comment.
The sale of crude oil accounted for the vast majority of the money sent to the account, the report shows. The account also received much smaller deposits from the sale of minerals and fertilizer, including about $100 million deposited by the global commodities firm Trafigura for the purchase of Venezuelan gold.
The report does not present the full picture of Venezuelan export revenues. Two of Venezuela’s largest crude exporters, the U.S. oil giant Chevron and a local producer, NABEP, use different financial arrangements to sell at least some of the oil they pump in Venezuela. And much of Venezuela’s gold continues to be exported to the Middle East through informal financial channels.
Last month, NABEP began sending oil to the United States under a deal through which the company will give the U.S. government 35 percent of its shares and 20 percent of its production at below-market rates.
The majority of the money that was sent back to Venezuela from the custody account, $11.7 billion, was used to prop up the country’s national currency, the bolívar, through foreign currency auctions held by Venezuela’s commercial banks.
That amount is in line with independent estimates of Venezuela’s inflows of hard currency.
Sintesis Financiera, a financial consultancy based in Venezuela, estimates that the Venezuelan government spent $12.3 billion on foreign currency auctions in the first nine months of 2026.
U.S. officials also sent about $130 million from the account to pay the Venezuelan government’s foreign bills, mostly debts to other governments and internationals organizations, the report shows.
The report does not identify the ultimate beneficiaries of the currency auctions in Venezuela. Previous reporting by The Times indicates that a large share of the dollars ends up with a small group of Venezuelan agribusinesses and consumer corporations, while many smaller companies struggle to access hard currency needed for investment.
And most Venezuelans continue living in poverty despite the influx of hard currency into the economy from the U.S.-controlled account. Prices in the country are expected to rise nearly 300 percent this year, and annual inflation is not expected to fall into double digits until at least 2028, according to Sintesis Financiera.
Most of the deposits in the account came from Trafigura and Vitol, two global commodity giants that acquired exclusive rights to sell Venezuelan oil after the American attack. The number of oil buyers has increased, but those two companies continued to dominate Venezuela’s crude trade, the report shows.
Trafigura and Vitol together accounted for 61 percent of the money deposited in the account by the end of September, the report shows.
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