Born in rural Ohio, Howard Keylor attended a one-room country schoolhouse. He became a mem-ber of the National Honor Society when he graduated from Marietta High School.
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, Howard fought in the Pacific Theater in World War Two, during which he participated in the Battle of Okinawa as a Corporal. The 96th U.S. Army Division, which Howard trained with, had casualty rates above 50%. The incompetence and racism of the military command, the destruction of the capital city of Naha and the deliberate killings of tens of thousands of Okinawan civil-ians – a third of the population - made Howard a committed anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and anti-racist for the rest of his life.
Upon returning to the United States, Howard enrolled in the College of the Pacific, but dropped out to support Filipino agricultural workers in the 1948 asparagus strike, working with legendary labor leader Larry Itliong. He became a longshore worker in Stockton in 1953. As a member of the Communist Party, Howard and his wife, Evangeline, were attacked in the HUAC (McCarthy) hearings in San Francisco. Later, Howard transferred to ILWU Local 10. In 1971 he, along with Brothers Herb Mills, Leo Robinson and a ma-jority of Local 10’s members, opposed the proposed 1971 contract which codified the 9.43 steadyman sys-tem. This led to the longshore strike of 1971-1972, which shut down 56 West Coast ports and lasted 130 days. It was the longest strike in the ILWU’s history.
In Local 10 Brother Keylor was a member of the Militant Caucus, a class struggle rank-and-file group which published a regular newsletter, the “Longshore Militant”. He later left the Militant Caucus and pub-lished a separate newsletter on his own, the “Militant Longshoreman.” Howard advocated deliberate defi-ance of the “slave-labor” Taft-Hartley law through illegal secondary boycotts and pickets. Running on an open class-struggle program which called for breaking with the Democratic and Republican Parties, form-ing a worker’s government, expropriating the capitalists without compensation and creating a planned economy, Howard won election to the Executive Board of Local 10 for twelve years.
The Militant Caucus was involved in organizing protests and boycotts of military cargo bound for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1975 and 1978 and again in 1980 to the military dictatorship in El Sal-vador. The Caucus also participated in ILWU Local 6’s strike at KNC Glass in Union City, during which a mass picket line physically defeated police and scabs, winning a contract for a workforce composed pri-marily of Mexican-American immigrants.
In 1984, Brother Keylor made the motion, amended by Brother Leo Robinson, which led to the elev-en-day longshore boycott of South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley. In 1986, Howard again partici-pated in the Campaign Against Apartheid’s community picket line against the Nedlloyd Kemba. When Nel-son Mandela spoke at the Oakland Coliseum in 1990 after his release from prison, he credited Local 10 with re-igniting the anti-Apartheid movement in the Bay Area.
Other actions Brother Howard initiated, organized or participated in included the 1995-98 struggle of the Liverpool dockworkers; the 1999 coastwide shutdown and march of 25,000 in San Francisco to de-mand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal; the 2000 Charleston longshore union campaign; the 2008 May Day anti-imperialist war shutdown of all West Coast ports; the shutdown of Northern California ports in pro-test of the murder of Oscar Grant; the blockades of Israeli ships to protest the war on Gaza in 2010 and 2014; the 2011 ILWU struggle against the grain monopolies in Longview; Occupy Oakland’s march of 40,000 to the Port of Oakland, and countless other militant job actions and protests. Throughout his life, Brother Keylor always extended solidarity where it was needed. He fought racist police murders and fas-cist terror, defended abortion clinics, and fought for survivors of psychiatric abuse. Having grown up in Appalachia, he has always been an environmentalist, and helped shut down a Monsanto facility in Davis in 2012, as well as fighting pesticide use and deforestation in the East Bay.
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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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Petition to Force Amazon to Cut ICE Contracts!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
Amazon Labor Union
Over 600,000 messages have already been sent directly to Amazon board members demanding one thing: Amazon must stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE and DHS rely on the data infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services. Their campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon.
But workers and communities have real power when we act collectively. That’s why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine. Help us reach 1 million messages and force Amazon to act by signing our petition with The Labor Force today:
Tell Amazon: End contracts with ICE!
On Cyber Monday 2025, Amazon workers rallied outside of Amazon’s NYC headquarters to demand that Amazon stop fueling mass deportations through Amazon Web Services’ contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE cannot operate without corporate backing; its campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon. Mega-corporations may appear untouchable, but they are not. Anti-authoritarian movements have long understood that repression is sustained by a network of institutional enablers and when those enablers are disrupted, state violence weakens. Workers and communities have real power when they act collectively. That is why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its most commonly used cloud platform. DHS and ICE cannot wage their attack on immigrants without the critical data infrastructure that Amazon Web Services provide, allowing the agencies to collect, analyze, and store the massive amounts of data they need to do their dirty work. Without the power of AWS, ICE would not be able to track and target people at its current scale.
ICE and DHS use Amazon Web Services to collect and store massive amounts of purchased data on immigrants and their friends and family–everything from biometric data, DMV data, cellphone records, and more. And through its contracts with Palantir, DHS is able to scour regional, local, state, and federal databases and analyze and store this data on AWS. All of this information is ultimately used to target immigrants and other members of our communities.
No corporation should profit from oppression and abuse. Yet Amazon is raking in tens of millions of dollars to fuel DHS and ICE, while grossly exploiting its own workers. Can you sign our petition today, demanding that Amazon stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with DHS and ICE, now?
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
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End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
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Self-portrait by Kevin Cooper
Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Dr. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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 Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the auth *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
He still needs more complicated treatment from a retinal specialist for his right eye if his eyesight is to be saved:
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical
Defense Fund
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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Articles
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1) ICE Agents Barred From Wearing Masks in New York Under State Budget Deal
State and local officials will also be prohibited from formally cooperating with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement under the agreement.
By Grace Ashford, May 7, 2026
Masked federal agents have been a frequent presence outside immigration courtrooms in New York City. Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Four months after masked federal agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis, New York leaders announced a plan to implement some of the strictest rules for immigration officials of any state in the country.
The package, which is included in the state budget deal announced on Thursday, prohibits state and local officials from entering into formal or informal cooperation agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and forbids law enforcement agents from wearing masks.
The rules also prohibit ICE from using local jails to house detainees and from searching New Yorkers’ homes, hospitals, churches and schools without a warrant signed by a judge. But they will not affect the ability of law enforcement officials to coordinate with the agency on public safety issues.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Thursday that the changes were necessary given the extent of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“They didn’t just target hardened criminals and gang members, which I would have supported — we did support,” Ms. Hochul said. “They also targeted mothers still nursing their infants, separating them, an 85-year-old widow in her nightgown.”
She said that ICE had used intimidation tactics to evade responsibility, adding: “New York will no longer stand for it.”
Democrats expect many of the measures — including a new provision that would allow the families of those who have had their rights to life, liberty or property violated by government agents to seek retribution — to be challenged in court.
Those cases will not only set up a novel legal battle, but will also provide an opportunity for the country to see in real time what happens when states and their citizens resist the federal government’s’ immigration enforcement efforts.
Days before the measures were finalized, Tom Homan, President Trump’s border czar, threatened to respond with force if they were approved.
“We’re going to flood the zone,” Mr. Homan said this week during a speech in Phoenix. “You’re going to see more ICE agents than you’ve ever seen before.”
Ms. Hochul quickly pushed back on his comments. “Donald Trump himself said he would not send a surge of ICE agents to the state of New York unless I ask,” she said. “I’m not asking.”
The package’s inclusion in the budget deal speaks to increased momentum among Democrats to counter the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.
It also reflects the evolution of Ms. Hochul, a moderate Democrat who first rose to national attention as a county clerk opposing a state mandate to provide driver’s licenses to immigrants without legal status.
In an interview earlier this year, Ms. Hochul said that the Trump administration’s deployment of ICE — and in particular its separation of families — threatened the value system on which the country was founded.
“I feel like it’s unraveling, and I have a moral responsibility as a human being, but also as a leader, to use my platform, my voice, to call it out and try to rectify it with every fiber in my being,” she said.
The issue was elevated by the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a blind Rohingya refugee who was found dead after immigration agents left him alone outside on a cold Buffalo night. The city’s medical examiner determined his death was a homicide.
Ms. Hochul referred to the case, which took place in her hometown, in announcing the budget agreement on Thursday. “Come on, that’s not who we are,” she said. “Not as New Yorkers, not as Americans.”
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2) Federal and State Officials Discuss Closing Florida’s ‘Alligator Alcatraz’
The immigrant detention center in the Everglades, which Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, opened last July, may be too expensive to keep operating.
By Patricia Mazzei and Hamed Aleaziz, Patricia Mazzei reported from Miami, May 7, 2026
Florida is in talks with the Trump administration to shut down a high-profile immigration detention center that opened last summer in the Everglades and has cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars to operate, according to a federal official, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, and a person close to the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The shutdown talks are preliminary, the people said. But officials at the Department of Homeland Security have concluded that it is too expensive to keep operating the center, known as Alligator Alcatraz. Homeland security officials have also come to consider the center ineffective, the federal official said. All three people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal talks.
The DeSantis administration has been spending more than $1 million a day to run the center, which is in a swampy, isolated area between Miami and Naples. Some private vendors hired by the state to operate it have been struggling to front costs, according to the person close to the DeSantis administration.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment before this article was published on Thursday morning. Neither did the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which operates the center, nor Mr. DeSantis’s office.
In a statement provided after publication, a homeland security spokesperson said the department “continuously evaluates detention needs and requirements to ensure they meet the latest operational requirements.”
Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, confirmed the talks in a news conference on Thursday afternoon.
“It’s been discussed,” he told reporters in Lakeland, Fla., adding that federal officials “haven’t said they want to wind it down.”
Mr. DeSantis said it would be “great” if Florida had to return the facility to its normal use as a training airport. Nearly 22,000 detainees have gone through the Everglades center, he said.
“It has made a major impact,” he said. “If we shut down the lights on it tomorrow, we will be able to say it served its purpose.”
Mr. DeSantis has repeatedly called the center a success, saying it has helped the Trump administration by providing more beds to house detainees. He has also said that the facility was intended to be temporary.
But the center’s shutdown would be hailed by immigration lawyers, activists and many detainees and their families as a huge win. Critics have denounced what they describe as unsanitary and inhumane conditions at the center since it opened 10 months ago; state officials have consistently dismissed such descriptions as false.
As of last month, the center held nearly 1,400 detainees, all of them men, according to ICE data. The agency classified about two-thirds of the detainees in the center, which it calls the Florida Soft-Sided Facility South, as noncriminal.
Mr. DeSantis has said from the start that the federal government would pay back the state for operating the center. But Florida has yet to receive the $608 million federal reimbursement it requested to run the center for about a year. The money was held up in part by the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security that ended last Thursday. It is unclear why the reimbursement continues to be delayed.
The center became the nation’s first state-run facility to hold federal immigration detainees last July, as Florida pushed the boundaries of aggressive enforcement under President Trump’s immigration crackdown. Its remote location and brazen name gained it international notoriety before any detainees arrived.
At the time, Mr. Trump and Kristi Noem, then the homeland security secretary, toured the center with Mr. DeSantis and Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier. Other states later opened immigrant detention centers of their own, though the one in the Everglades stood out as particularly unforgiving given that the site essentially consisted of tents.
Mr. Uthmeier, a Republican and Mr. DeSantis’s former chief of staff, had pushed to build the center at an old training airport, despite the lack of existing infrastructure. Both men argued that it was crucial for the center to be in a remote location, saying that the inhospitable conditions would prompt unauthorized immigrants to think twice about staying in the United States and risking arrest.
But the location made it much more expensive to build and run. Vendors had to truck in things like tents, power generators and trailers for staff members to live in. They also had to constantly truck out sewage and other waste.
A lawyer for two detainees said in a federal court filing last month that guards beat and pepper-sprayed the men after detainees protested that their access to a phone inside the center had been cut off. As part of the sworn declaration, the lawyer submitted a photo of one of the detainees with a black eye.
Also last month, a federal appeals court upheld a decision to block a lower court’s order that the center dismantle operations because it had not conducted an environmental review required under federal law. A panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit found that the center was not under federal control, and thus was not subject to the environmental review.
A landing strip allows flights to arrive at and take off from the Everglades center, though it is unclear how frequently detainees have been moved in or out. At least some of the center’s detainees have been flown to larger federal detention centers in Louisiana and Texas, often as a final stop before they are deported.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.
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3) ‘A Historic Shift’: Farage Celebrates Strong Performance in U.K. Local Elections
In early results, Nigel Farage’s Reform U.K. party has won more than 400 council races across England.
By Michael D. Shear, Reporting from London, May 8, 2026
Nigel Farage, Britain’s Reform U.K. leader, spoke to the media in the London Borough of Havering, Britain, on Friday. Credit...Jack Taylor/Reuters
For more than a year, opinion polls have indicated that Reform U.K., the right-wing populist party, was Britain’s most popular party as its leader, Nigel Farage, imitated President Trump’s anti-immigration agenda and railed against the Labour government.
Now, it’s looking increasingly official.
In early results from a set of local elections on Thursday, Mr. Farage and his party have emerged victorious in more than 400 council seats across England. The wins have come at the expense of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and the Conservatives, the parties who have led the country for decades.
“Labour are being wiped out by Reform in many of their most traditional areas, and what you’re going to see later on today is the Conservative Party being wiped out in their heartlands,” a beaming Mr. Farage told reporters Friday morning.
“It can’t continue to be a fluke or a protest vote,” Mr. Farage said. “I would honestly say you’re witnessing a historic shift in British politics. This is now the most national of all parties.”
Results are still being counted in thousands of council races across England and in contests that will determine control of the parliaments in Scotland and Wales. Mr. Farage confidently predicted that Reform would be shown to have fared just as well in those elections when the votes were all tallied.
“The best is yet to come,” he said.
Despite that optimism, there are still questions about the depth and durability of Reform’s popularity in a country where the traditional two-party system has fractured among at least five parties, including the Greens and the Liberal Democrats.
Mr. Farage’s party could end up with less than 30 percent of the overall vote in Thursday’s elections — more than any other but far short of a majority. If that result were mirrored in a general election for Parliament in the coming years, Mr. Farage would not be able to form a government alone and would need to form a coalition with another party.
Reform’s hard-line platform on immigration — including promises to deport hundreds of thousands of people — and its opposition to environmental regulation — including pushing for more fossil fuel use — are deeply unpopular in parts of the country. And some political observers believe Thursday’s voting may have been a reflection of anger against Mr. Starmer’s government rather than an affirmative show of support for putting Mr. Farage into power.
Still, this is the second set of local elections in a row in which Reform has demonstrated its ability to win a lot of votes.
A decade ago, the party was mostly a small, ragtag collection of politicians who campaigned for the United Kingdom to break from Europe. Now it will have more than a thousand sitting elected officials to spread its message. That will be a huge advantage for Mr. Farage in the run-up to the next general election for Parliament, which must be held by 2029. It could also be a test of the party’s governing abilities.
“We have professionalized the party,” Mr. Farage said Friday. “We’ve done it at a very, very rapid rate.”
That growth has come with controversies. This year, Reform received a donation of nine million pounds (about $12.2 million) from a backer of cryptocurrency based in Thailand. The donation was the largest single political contribution in British history.
And some of Reform’s candidates have been forced to apologize or step down after making contentious comments.
One Reform candidate in Wales stepped down in March after a picture surfaced that appeared to show him doing a Nazi salute. That same month, Reform suspended a mayoral candidate for describing members of a Jewish neighborhood watch group as “Islamists on horseback.”
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4) What’s at Stake in the U.K. Local Elections
The voting in England, Scotland and Wales is the biggest electoral test for Keir Starmer since he became prime minister in 2024.
By Stephen Castle, May 8, 2026
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain spoke on Friday after local election results began rolling in. Credit...Leon Neal/Getty Images
Early results from a set of elections across Britain showed big losses for the Labour Party, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in his biggest — and most perilous — electoral test since his general election victory in 2024.
In Scotland and Wales, people voted on Thursday for seats in their national parliaments, which oversee issues including health and education. In many parts of England, voters elected representatives for local and municipal governments. Northern Ireland, the fourth part of the United Kingdom, did not hold elections.
Counting was underway in Scotland and Wales on Friday. The first English results were rolling in and showed significant gains for Reform U.K., the right-wing populist party led by the Brexit campaigner and ally of President Trump, Nigel Farage.
Here’s what’s at stake.
What did people vote for?
In England, about 5,000 seats on municipal councils across 136 areas were on the ballot — though many of those municipal councils had only a third of their members up for election. In addition, six mayoral contests took place.
Scotland and Wales have their own parliaments and have autonomy over some policies, including health and education. Elections are normally held every five years.
Mr. Starmer himself was not on the ballot, and there were no elections on Thursday for the British Parliament, which is the main legislative body for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
General elections to the British Parliament tend to be held every four or five years. Local elections are often viewed as useful indicators of political sentiment in the meantime, but experts warn against extrapolating from them too far, because voters can behave differently at a general election, when the stakes are higher.
What are the implications for Starmer?
Mr. Starmer’s popularity has sunk during his two years in power, and voters expressed their dissatisfaction at the ballot box, including in former Labour strongholds in the northwest of England.
He is under fire over the appointment of Peter Mandelson, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein, as ambassador to Washington, and speculation about a challenge to his leadership has been building for months. A disastrous set of results could plunge him into peril, but a better-than-expected outcome might give him some breathing space.
On Friday, the prime minister took responsibility for the Labour Party’s early losses but insisted he would not step down.
His center-left Labour faces a double squeeze. On its left, an invigorated Green Party is winning over some progressive voters, mainly in urban areas.
On its right, Reform U.K., led by Mr. Farage, is prospering in working-class regions of northern England, the Midlands and Wales. Reform is on course to be the biggest victor in this election.
What are the practical consequences?
The Scottish and Welsh Parliaments control policies including health, schools and many aspects of transport and have some tax-raising powers. Local councils in England oversee services from care of the elderly to garbage collection.
If the Scottish National Party remains the largest party, its leader, John Swinney, is likely to call for a second referendum on Scottish independence. (The party lost the previous one in 2014.) Although the government in London would probably block that prospect, it could stir the debate about Scotland’s future.
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5) U.S. Conducts Third Boat Strike in 5 Days, Killing 2 and Leaving a Survivor
Of the 57 attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific against boats accused of drug trafficking, there have rarely been survivors.
By Adam Sella and Eric Schmitt, Reporting from Washington, May 8, 2026
A recent image from a video provided by the U.S. military shows what it said was a strike on a boat in the Caribbean. U.S. Southern Command
The U.S. military on Friday conducted its third boat strike in five days against a vessel it accused of smuggling drugs, killing two and leaving one survivor at large in the eastern Pacific, U.S. Southern Command said in a social media post.
The result of the strike was unusual. Of the 57 attacks in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific against boats the United States has claimed were engaged in drug trafficking, there have rarely been survivors. And in all but two cases, survivors were lost at sea.
The strike on Friday, the latest after the military accelerated its pace of attacks in recent weeks, brought the death toll to at least 192. Military experts say that the strikes are illegal, extrajudicial killings.
The U.S. Southern Command said in its social media post that it had notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate a “Search and Rescue system.” A U.S. official said the Mexican Navy was in charge of the search for the survivor.
Citing unspecified intelligence, the U.S. military claimed that the boat was operated by “Designated Terrorist Organizations,” and was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” The Trump administration has not provided evidence that the boats that have been attacked were involved in drug smuggling.
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6) What to Know About the Hantavirus Outbreak on an Atlantic Cruise Ship
Health authorities said three passengers from the MV Hondius had died after showing symptoms of the rare disease.
By Claire Moses and Jin Yu Young, May 9, 2026
The cruise ship MV Hondius stationed off the port of Praia, Cape Verde, on Sunday. Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Officials are investigating an outbreak of hantavirus, a rare family of viruses carried by rodents, aboard a cruise ship sailing the Atlantic Ocean.
Three passengers who were aboard the ship, the MV Hondius, have died, and five other people have shown symptoms of the rare disease, according to the World Health Organization.
One of the people who died was confirmed to have the virus, as were four of the other people.
Health officials in several countries are testing people who have been on the ship or in close contact with those who were. The World Health Organization has said that the risk to the general population is low.
The vessel left the coast of West Africa with about 150 passengers and crew and was headed north toward the Canary Islands in Spain, where it was expected to anchor offshore and evacuate passengers on May 10.
Among the confirmed cases are a Dutch woman who died in South Africa; two British citizens; and a man hospitalized in Switzerland.
Here’s what to know:
There is not a major risk to the wider public.
The W.H.O. has said that it assesses the risk to the global population from the outbreak as low.
“This is not the start of an epidemic — this is not the start of a pandemic,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the W.H.O.’s head of epidemic and pandemic preparedness.
A 69-year-old Dutch man died on board the Hondius, a Dutch-registered ship, on April 11. Nearly two weeks later, on April 24, his body was taken off the ship at St. Helena, a British island territory in the South Atlantic, to be repatriated to the Netherlands.
The man had experienced a fever, a headache, abdominal pain and diarrhea.
The man’s 69-year-old wife became ill after leaving the ship with his body. She collapsed at an airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she had briefly boarded a flight to the Netherlands. She was taken to a health facility, where she died.
Then, on May 2, a German passenger died aboard the ship, according to Oceanwide Expeditions, the vessel’s owner, which said the cause of death was still unclear.
A British citizen fell ill during the ship’s voyage between St. Helena and Ascension Island, another British territory in the South Atlantic, and was in intensive care in Johannesburg.
He tested positive for hantavirus but his condition “was improving,” the W.H.O. said.
Among the people who showed symptoms were two crew members, including the ship’s doctor, and a German passenger who had been in close contact with one of those who died.
They were evacuated to the Netherlands, where they were receiving medical attention, according to Oceanwide.
Health authorities in Britain said on Friday that a British citizen on Tristan da Cunha, another remote British territory in the South Atlantic, was a suspected case.
In Spain, health officials said on Friday that a woman was being monitored in a hospital in Alicante with coughing and other symptoms. The woman had been on the flight that was briefly boarded by the Dutch passenger who later died.
In France, eight people were being monitored after being identified as coming into contact with a cruise passenger who was positive for the virus during a flight from St. Helena to Johannesburg on April 25, the French health ministry said on Thursday.
American passengers who returned to the U.S. are being monitored.
Seven of the 17 Americans who were on the ship have already returned home, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The C.D.C. told state health officials that it had deployed a team of epidemiologists to the Canary Islands, and that the remaining Americans would be moved to an isolation facility in Nebraska on Sunday.
The C.D.C. was classifying those passengers who spent one hour or more, in the same room or vehicle, within six feet of anyone who was infected as being at high risk of exposure. It also listed kissing or hugging and other close contact with an infected person as risky.
Health officials in New Jersey said they were monitoring two residents who might have been exposed to a person infected with the hantavirus after that person left the cruise ship. The potential exposure occurred during air travel and neither resident is reporting symptoms related to the virus, officials said.
Georgia health officials said two residents of the state were being monitored and “are currently in good health and show no signs of infection.”
Some California residents had been on board and were being monitored, though there was no information that they were ill, said Robert Barsanti, a spokesman for the California Department of Public Health.
The Arizona Department of Health Services received notification that one resident was a passenger on the ship, according to a spokeswoman, who said that the person was not sick and was being monitored.
In Texas, two residents are being monitored, according to the State Department of Health and Human Services.
One passenger on the ship was being monitored after returning home to Virginia, according to the State Department of Health.
The virus may have been transmitted between people.
Hantavirus is typically contracted when people breathe in particles of dried droppings or urine from infected rodents.
It is uncommon for the disease to spread among people, according to the C.D.C. But the W.H.O. said that some of those who had fallen ill may have been infected through human-to-human transmission, cautioning that the vessel still needed to undergo a full investigation and that such transmissions were rare.
“We do know that some of the cases had very close contact with each other, and certainly human-to-human transmission can’t be ruled out,” Dr. Kerkhove of the W.H.O. said.
Investigators in South Africa and Switzerland have confirmed that the cases involve the Andes strain of the virus, which is primarily found in South America and is the only hantavirus known to spread among people.
The W.H.O. said it believed that the Dutch couple who died had been infected with the hantavirus before boarding the ship. They had joined the cruise in Argentina.
The hantavirus is uncommon but dangerous.
The disease is rare, but it can result in severe illness and death for those who are infected. The C.D.C. cited a case fatality rate of up to 15 percent in Asia and Europe and up to 50 percent in the Americas.
Early symptoms include fever, chills, body aches and headaches. As the illness progresses, it can cause shortness of breath and, in severe instances, lung or heart failure.
There is no specific treatment for the virus, but symptoms can be treated with intubation, oxygen therapy, fluid replacement and medication, according to the C.D.C.
Several studies have linked the risk of hantavirus disease to environmental factors, such as increased rainfall, which boosts rodent populations. Droughts can also raise infection risk by driving rodents to seek food in human habitats.
From 1993 to 2023, the most recent year with available data, there were 890 recorded cases of the disease in the United States, according to the C.D.C. Last year, Betsy Arakawa, the wife of the actor Gene Hackman, died from the effects of the virus.
The ship is headed for the Canary Islands.
Medical flights helped three patients evacuate from the Hondius while it was near Cape Verde on Wednesday. The ship then began traveling toward the Canary Islands, a Spanish territory in the Atlantic Ocean.
The ship is expected to arrive in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands, between 4 and 6 a.m. on Sunday, Spain’s health minister, Mónica García, said during a joint news conference with the country’s interior minister on Saturday.
The vessel’s Spanish passengers will be the first to disembark, Ms. García said.
“Spain can assure the entire world that this will be handled properly and that there will be no additional contact beyond what has already occurred on the ship,” she said.
The United States, Britain, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium and Ireland will send planes to evacuate their passengers, the interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said.
The European Union will send two planes for passengers from other European countries and the Netherlands will evacuate non-European citizens whose countries cannot send planes, he said.
Once all the passengers have left the ship, the Hondius will sail to the Netherlands to be disinfected, Mr. Grande-Marlaska said.
There are currently no symptomatic people on the ship, according to the W.H.O.
Reporting was contributed by: Carlos Barragán, Aurelien Breeden, Emma Bubola, Lynsey Chutel, Rylee Kirk, John S.W. MacDonald, Apoorva Mandavilli, Aimee Ortiz, Alexandra E. Petri, Neil Vigdor and Ceylan Yeğinsu.
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7) Hantavirus Vaccines and Treatments Are in the Pipeline
But it has been hard to attract interest in medical interventions for viruses that have not been considered a top public health priority, scientists say.
By Emily Anthes, May 9, 2026
An ambulance boat approaching the cruise ship MV Hondius, which has sustained a deadly hantavirus outbreak, off Cape Verde on Tuesday. Credit...-/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius has put the spotlight on a rare pathogen that typically attracts relatively little attention, even from scientists.
There are no targeted treatments for hantaviruses, which are typically carried by rodents, and no widely available vaccines. So when passengers began falling ill in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, doctors and public health experts were limited in what they could offer.
“It’s kind of a wake-up call,” said Dr. Vaithi Arumugaswami, an infectious disease researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Our tool kit is almost empty.”
That’s not for lack of trying. A handful of scientific teams around the world have been working — for decades, in some cases — to develop hantavirus treatments and vaccines. But it has not been easy to find funding or nurture commercial interest in medical interventions for a type of pathogen that does not infect humans often and does not spread easily between people.
“It’s not an airborne, highly contagious viral threat, so it hasn’t been as high a priority for groups trying to prevent pandemics,” said Jay Hooper, a virologist at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
But there are promising vaccines and treatments in development. And some of them, experts said, could be moved through the pipeline rapidly if hantavirus interventions became a priority.
“I do think there are things that are sitting there on the bench that could be quickly developed,” said Dr. Ronald Nahass, the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “But nothing is ready.”
Vaccine development
There are two main types of hantaviruses: Old World viruses, which circulate primarily in Asia and Europe, and New World viruses, which are found in the Americas. The cruise ship outbreak has been linked to a New World virus known as the Andes virus, which is endemic to South America and is the only hantavirus known to spread between people.
There are vaccines that target some of the Old World viruses in Asia, but their efficacy is modest, experts said. And there are no licensed vaccines for the New World viruses, which include the Sin Nombre virus endemic to rodents in the western United States.
But there are some in development. Dr. Hooper and his colleagues have developed a DNA vaccine for the Andes virus, which proved promising in a small phase 1 trial. Under certain dosing regimens, the researchers found, more than 80 percent of participants produced neutralizing antibodies. “It’s pretty amazing,” said Dr. Hooper, who is an inventor on multiple hantavirus vaccine patents owned by the U.S. government. “Getting these kinds of neutralizing antibodies in humans is impressive.”
There were drawbacks, including that the vaccine seemed to require at least three doses. But the vaccine is ready for further development “if there’s a need,” Dr. Hooper said. “We’ve done the science. It’s just other forces that are required to move vaccines forward — markets, government demand.”
Other teams have potential vaccines in earlier stages of development. For instance, Bryce Warner, a hantavirus researcher at the University of Saskatchewan, and his colleagues are exploring a variety of approaches, including a nasal vaccine that they hope might spark a more robust immune response in the airway.
But the research, which is being conducted in hamsters, is still in early stages, and hantavirus vaccine candidates can be challenging to move forward. Scientists lack good large-animal models for hantaviruses, Dr. Warner said, and human cases are rare enough to make trials tricky. “It’s very difficult to conduct a clinical trial when you only have a limited number of cases annually,” he said. “You don’t have the numbers of people to really show a robust effect.”
Drug hunting
Currently, the primary treatment for hantavirus infection is supportive care, which may include supplemental oxygen or heart-lung bypass machines. Doctors also sometimes prescribe an existing antiviral drug, called ribavirin, but there is not strong evidence that it is effective for New World viruses, scientists said.
The hunt for new drugs is underway, though. At U.C.L.A., Dr. Arumugaswami and his colleagues found that favipiravir, an antiviral approved to treat influenza in Japan, inhibited the Andes virus in human cells. They also identified several compounds that had broad antiviral activity, blocking hantaviruses as well as other types of viruses, in human organoids, miniature clusters of tissue that mimic the function of organs.
Other teams have been working to develop therapeutic antibody treatments, often working from blood samples collected from hantavirus survivors. “We were able to isolate the natural antibodies that people are making and basically winnow them down and find one that was really good,” said Kartik Chandran, a virologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “We actually found several.”
When Dr. Chandran and his colleagues tested these antibodies in hamsters, one produced especially encouraging results: It seemed to work against both Old and New World hantaviruses and was effective even when given relatively late in the course of infection, Dr. Chandran said.
(Dr. Chandran is listed as an inventor on patents for hantavirus antibodies.)
Several other teams have also produced antibodies that were broadly effective in small animals, but that is where a number of potential products have stalled, experts said.
“We have a lead drug, and now what we need is someone to pay the money, which would be something like $40 million, to go the next step,” said Dr. James Crowe, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Antibody Therapeutics. “We have neither government nor foundation nor company support to do that. So we’re just waiting to find a partner.”
(Vanderbilt University has applied for patents related to these antibodies; Dr. Crowe is listed as the inventor.)
Experts said that they hoped the current outbreak might help bring attention to a family of often-overlooked viruses.
“Certainly judging by just my inbox and text messages, there’s a renewed interest in these agents, and renewed interest in maybe at least revisiting where they are in the priority list,” Dr. Chandran said.
Whether that interest can be sustained after the virus fades from the headlines remains to be seen, experts acknowledged.
“Raising awareness never hurts,” Dr. Warner said. “We’ll see whether or not it leads to anything tangible, at least in terms of funding and resources for advancing some of these things that are lacking for hantavirus.”
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8) Mass Layoffs in Iran as Businesses Buckle Under Wartime Pressures
Iran was already struggling economically before 2026 brought widespread instability. A government-imposed internet shutdown has crippled an entire sector.
By Leily Nikounazar, Photographs by Arash Khamooshi, May 10, 2026
Crowds inside the sprawling Grand Bazaar in Tehran on Saturday. Imports of goods have been affected by the war.
In mid-March, Babak, a 49-year-old Iranian product designer at a tech company in Tehran, was called into his boss’s office and told that his position was being eliminated.
Iran’s government had shut down the internet two weeks earlier, at the outset of U.S.-Israeli war on the country, throwing the country’s tech industry into chaos and making Babak’s job impossible.
“Throughout my career, I have worked hard, continuously learned, and tried to grow,” said Babak, who sent voice messages to The New York Times, and asked to be identified only by his first name to avoid government reprisal. “Yet at this stage of my life, I find myself in an uncertain and ambiguous position,” he said.
Babak’s experience has become increasingly common throughout Iran as companies have instituted round after round of layoffs in recent weeks, according to interviews with businesses and employees and Iranian news reports.
For the Trump administration, Iran’s severe economic struggles are part of a strategy to pressure the country into submission. “I hope it fails,” President Trump told reporters this month, of Iran’s economy. “You know why? Because I want to win.”
Iranian officials insist that pressure will not work and that the country will not surrender.
Many of those companies are buckling under wartime pressures. During the war, the U.S. and Israel hit Iranian industrial sites that produce key raw materials, as well as key infrastructure. And a U.S.-imposed blockade on Iran’s ports, in place since a cease-fire last month, has cut off much of its oil exports and disrupted imports of other goods.
An Iranian government official, Gholamhossein Mohammadi, estimated that the war has caused the loss of one million jobs, “and the direct and indirect unemployment of two million people,” in comments reported by the news outlet Tasnim.
On April 25, an Iranian job search platform reported a record 318,000 resumes submitted in a single day, a figure that was 50 percent higher than the previous record, according to the news site Asr Iran.
Even before the war, Iran’s economy had been struggling from years of sanctions, entrenched corruption and mismanagement, while a spiraling currency has eroded Iranians’ purchasing power.
“A strange and overwhelming vortex of economic problems has emerged, and it continues to grow more complex,” Amir Hossein Khaleghi, an economist in Isfahan, said in an interview. Before the war, Iran was “already in a very poor economic situation, facing a set of mega-crises,” he said.
The private sector’s latest struggles portend a deepening crisis for Iran’s government. Its proposed budget for the year, put forward before the war, already represented a sharp reduction in public spending when factored for inflation, and depended more on taxation than in the past. Now, tax revenues from the private sector are likely to drop significantly.
Economic discontent has ignited repeated protests in Iran over the past decade, including nationwide demonstrations that began in December as the currency collapsed. Although those protests were suppressed through a deadly crackdown that killed thousands, the anger fueling them has remained unresolved.
In a statement to mark a national day in Iran that honors workers and teachers, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, urged companies to avoid layoffs “to the extent possible.” Many of those companies are facing deep crises that are a direct result of actions by Mr. Khamenei’s government.
For instance, Iran’s digital sector, once a symbol of the country’s potential, has been brought to its knees by a severe, government-imposed internet shutdown.
The head of an Iranian tech industry lobbying group estimated the internet shutdown is costing Iran up to $80 million a day in direct and indirect losses.
Digikala, known as the Amazon of Iran and the country’s leading tech company, has cut 200 employees, about three percent of its work force, with recent instability among the causes, said the company’s chief executive, Masoud Tabatabaei.
And last month, the founder of Kamva, an Iranian e-commerce company, announced the firm would be closing entirely.
“After two wars and months of internet shutdown, we could no longer bypass the crisis,” the founder, Hadi Farnoud, said in a statement on his X account. “This time, it was impossible to continue.”
In the industrial sector, the immediate cause of many of the layoffs is a shortage of raw materials. Major petrochemical and steel plants were targeted during the U.S.-Israeli strikes on the country, cutting off supplies to related industries. And imports have also been disrupted by the U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports.
A textile factory in western Iran has laid off 700 of its 800 workers, according to the Iranian Labor News Agency, a semiofficial outlet, which also reported another factory in the country’s north shedding 500.
Even manufacturers that have not announced formal layoffs are effectively frozen, staying open in name only but producing little output, labor leaders say.
“In practice, some of these units do not have real production and only work semi-actively or intermittently to maintain their existence,” said Bahram Zonoubi Tabar, head of a local labor council in Iran’s Fars province, in an interview with the news agency.
Mehdi Bostanchi, head of the country’s Coordination Council of Industries, a body that liaises between companies and the government, said Iran’s industrial sector was going through a contraction that would affect as many as 3.5 million workers.
“In this situation, unlike classic periods of recession, the decline in employment is less visible in official statistics and instead manifests through nonrenewal of contracts, reduced working hours, and forced leave,” Mr. Bostanchi said in a written response to questions from The New York Times.
At times, the government’s efforts to address the economic crisis have added to the pressure on businesses. In March, the government announced a 60 percent increase in Iran’s minimum wage, which was meant to keep wages in line with the country’s galloping inflation rate. Instead, it “created a shock to the economy,” said Nima Namdari, chief executive of Karnameh, an online car sales company.
“As a result, the wave of layoffs intensified,” Mr. Namdari said.
Babak, the product designer, has been laid off twice in the span of a year. His first layoff occurred just 10 days before Israel struck Iran in June 2025, and it took him months to find a new role, which was for less pay. It was hard to make ends meet, he said, but he and his wife managed. Then came the U.S.-Israeli war, the internet shutdown and his recent layoff.
He and his wife have sold their cars and jewelry to stay afloat in recent weeks. With nothing left to sell, he said, they are now relying on help from their families.
Babak said he still hasn’t been able to find another job. “It pains me to see how this situation has affected my wife’s spirit,” he added. “There are moments when we both struggle, but we are doing our best to hold on to hope.”
Yeganeh Torbati contributed reporting.
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9) A Quietly Radical Experiment in Criminal Justice
By Rachel Louise Snyder, Ms. Snyder is a contributing Opinion writer, May 10, 2026
“Women’s court also saves the state significant money. The cost to incarcerate someone in Hawaii is $253 per day. Conservatively, that’s more than $2.7 million a year for just 30 women. Women’s court, to be clear, doesn’t function just on the basis of its annual $705,000 budget; it has multiple community partners, each of which has its own costs, particularly for drug treatment and housing. But there are savings downstream in keeping families together, and in offering stability to children so they don’t wind up in foster care or as defendants in court themselves someday. As a potential model, Mohala Wahine is almost certainly more effective than a hyper-retributive system in which we take broken people, break them further and then send them right back to where they were broken in the first place.”
In downtown Honolulu, Judge Trish Morikawa sits behind her dais in a black robe as a defendant recounts her recent gender-reveal party. The woman has been on probation for more than a decade after a two-year stint in jail. She is one of roughly 30 women to appear before Judge Morikawa at an all-women’s court called Mohala Wahine or “blossoming woman.” Begun as a pilot program through a law enacted in 2022, the court was made permanent by the legislature last summer and is the first of its kind in the country.
Legislators and researchers saw how rising rates of incarceration for women correlated with lower levels of education and unstable work histories. Native Hawaiian women were disproportionately incarcerated; indeed, they are the majority of the defendants in Women’s Court. From its inception, the court had two goals: to decrease Hawaii’s swelling female prison population and to address the systemic failings that landed these women before a judge in the first place.
Judge Morikawa asks the woman about her upcoming baby shower and seems genuinely invested in the answer. “We’re getting a boy,” the woman says. She tells the judge she wants to honor her partner’s father through the baby’s name. I realize two things in this moment: first, that I’ve been waiting for some kind of judicial lecture in which the judge reminds the woman of the seriousness of her crimes or the stakes of returning to prison or some such. And second, that this lecture will never come.
Whereas most courtrooms are places of high anxiety and ritualistic decorum, Judge Morikawa runs hers with a rare amiability and familiarity. She will often engage spectators from the gallery — family members or friends of defendants — in chatty conversations. Some discussions are so friendly they could practically be happening over brunch, except that defendants (“clients” in this court) are flanked by a courtroom guard and a public defender. The camaraderie, the almost familial connection, is all by design.
Mohala Wahine is not simply flipping the script on the criminal justice system by emphasizing rehabilitation over retribution. Many court programs do that; such programs are often called problem-solving courts. They may specialize in drug treatment, mental health or domestic violence; yet without addressing holistically the causes of addiction, broken families or trauma, they tend to have marginal success rates.
Mohala Wahine is more ambitious. It’s redefining our fundamental ideas of punishment and justice. Our judicial system was created intentionally to be authoritarian, with the judge an arbiter of justice meting out necessary sanctions. But by looking at the context in which crime happens, Women’s Court is acknowledging not only what external factors might have led to the crime in the first place, but what can be addressed through a model in which support, rather than punishment, is the foundation. In my view, a system that rebuilds rather than deprives a life is uniquely feminist.
Courts are event-based, meaning they generally consider one single moment in the life of a defendant. Mohala Wahine is interested in context, in the whole narrative: what led to the event, the cascade of mitigating factors, and what will lead — in every possible understanding of the word — out of it. Women’s Court does not dispense with accountability, but it seeks out the ways that systems may have failed these women. Then one by one, it tries to address those failings.
Each woman goes through a program targeted to her needs, but it generally includes addiction treatment, education (high school equivalency and vocational training programs, and also topics like sociology and gender studies), emotional regulation, parenting, healing and self-care, life skills, hula (a deep and important cultural touchstone in Hawaii) and how to navigate any number of support systems she’ll need for the future. Perhaps most meaningful, the court may also help a woman regain custody of a child once she graduates. The primary idea is to keep women out of prison, but also to keep families and communities together, and help defendants create a vision and goals for their future.
Teal Takayama, the public defender assigned to the court, tells Judge Morikawa that her client, the pregnant woman, is moving to Phase 3 of the women’s court program today: maintenance. Her court-appointed therapist helped her apply for Section 8 housing, so she’ll be in a stable residence soon. Phase 3 means her client has done the hardest work. If all goes as planned, she’ll graduate in six months. She’ll still be attending classes and therapy, and checking in with her probation officer, but Phase 3 is about onboarding her into the rest of her life.
The American criminal justice system is notoriously plagued with racial and gender bias, crippling caseloads and asymmetrical justice. Tough-on-crime policies have often led to a revolving door of incarceration, a system in which success or failure is charted largely by recidivism rates.
Mohala Wahine stands out for its holistic approach. There are the big needs of drug treatment, domestic abuse education, schooling, job training, and counseling, but the court also helps with navigating tasks like obtaining driver’s licenses, Social Security cards, free mobile phones and housing. As a result, probation officers for Women’s Court have far fewer clients in their caseloads than do their counterparts elsewhere — around 30 each, rather than 200.
In a sense, the assistance built around each woman’s case provides basic tools that many of us get from our parents or our teachers for navigating the world. How would you begin to look for your birth certificate if you grew up in foster care? Would you think to schedule an annual physical? What if you hadn’t finished high school? Or learned to write a résumé? Or ever calculated a budget? Many women haven’t been able to regularly see a dentist or gynecologist.
And then on top of that, let’s say some low-level misdemeanor keeps you from going to work, so you lose your job, and then you have no money for bus fare so you don’t make it to court and a warrant goes out for your arrest, and once you’re arrested, child protective services take your kids. It’s a scene that plays out across the country every day, and it does little more than calcify offenders inside the criminal justice system.
It also builds the intergenerational trauma and abandonment that plug up all of our systems today — drug treatment, child welfare, incarceration, courts and probation — and mostly it just means that people will require even more programming and support and money for the next generation of people who will inevitably be caught in this cycle.
There is only one category of criminal offense that is ineligible for Women’s Court: Class A felonies, crimes such as homicide, first degree robbery and kidnapping. Which means, unlike most problem-solving courts, it does not shy away from felonies or violence or higher-level offenses. And success is counted in a variety of ways beyond just recidivism — in reunited families and educational achievements, in steady employment and stable housing, in emotional regulation and sobriety.
One morning, I talk with Judge Morikawa in her office: There are piles of colorful leis, a box of Narcan, a pillow bearing a photo of her family. When she’s not at Women’s Court on Wednesdays, she has the regular caseload and types of hearings that any judge has. She tells me that to help the women who appear before her in women’s court, she had to learn all sorts of things: like how to apply for Section 8 housing and where to get free bus passes. How to navigate financial aid at the community college, who were the available therapists in town.
She wants her court to be flexible in meeting the needs of the clients. I watched her confront, in her amiable way, a new defendant who confessed to relapsing and feared being sent to jail. “The biggest thing is, don’t be scared,” the judge told her. “Show up. We get nervous when people don’t show up. That’s my whole lecture for you, is just show up.”
Later, I meet with Tana Kekina-Cabaniero, the prosecutor, and Ms. Takayama together. It occurs to me only partway through the interview how strange it is, to have these two sitting next to each other, devoid of the adversarial nature of their respective positions. “We’re not a litigious court,” Ms. Takayama says. When a referral comes in, the two of them meet with the judge and probation officer and decide on whether the candidate is a good fit for the program. Defendants who successfully complete the program may be eligible to get their convictions expunged or finish their probation terms early.
Women’s court also saves the state significant money. The cost to incarcerate someone in Hawaii is $253 per day. Conservatively, that’s more than $2.7 million a year for just 30 women. Women’s court, to be clear, doesn’t function just on the basis of its annual $705,000 budget; it has multiple community partners, each of which has its own costs, particularly for drug treatment and housing. But there are savings downstream in keeping families together, and in offering stability to children so they don’t wind up in foster care or as defendants in court themselves someday. As a potential model, Mohala Wahine is almost certainly more effective than a hyper-retributive system in which we take broken people, break them further and then send them right back to where they were broken in the first place.
A judge named Mark Browning first came up with the idea for Women’s Court. When he began his judicial career in family court, he witnessed how poverty, drugs and trauma all seemed to lead to a judge’s bench. But he also knew how systems created to help — like shelters or subsidized housing — broke down and were resistant to change. “If you stay in that narrow lane just being a judge and making decisions, well, you’re not going to be making a difference systemically,” he told me.
Browning had watched an all-girls court, begun in 2004 in Hawaii, grapple with a disproportionate uptick in the number of girls who were landing in the system because of truancy, drugs or trauma related to sexual assaults and trafficking — the same factors he’d see repeated for women. Browning believed that the success of Girls Court — Hawaii would eventually announce that there were zero girls in detention — pointed to a model that would also work for women. He went to Linda Ichiyama, a state representative, who immediately agreed to co-sponsor a bill creating funds for Mohala Wahine in the legislature.
One sunny Sunday afternoon, I go to Makapu’u Beach on the eastern side of Honolulu to meet Veronica, who was one of the first clients accepted to women’s court. She’s spent the summer camping here with her two adult sons and a host of others whom she calls her family. Veronica, like everyone I meet in Hawaii, greets me with a bear hug. She has piercings in her tongue and above her chin, and dark hair pulled back into a loose bun.
There are large shade tents set up across a sprawling area of beach, with chairs and hammocks underneath, and nearly every accouterment you’d need in an actual kitchen. A set of shelves holds pots and pans, spatulas, dozens of eggs, cooking oil, snacks. Veronica simmers an enormous pot of corn chowder on a burner for her family and anyone else who wanders in. Several people snorkel in a shallow pool of water between the rocks. “Jail saved my life,” she tells me, “but women’s court saved my soul.”
We go for a drive along the shoreline past a playground where she used to take her kids when they were little, and past the correctional facility that once imprisoned her, to a cafe where she introduces me to the glory of poke nachos. She tells me how women’s court helped because it didn’t judge her for all the mistakes she’d made, and was invested in her life. She works now in a residential treatment center. When the season for beach camping is over, she plans to move in with her brother. “It’s a lot better camping on the beach than living on it,” she says with a laugh.
Both of Veronica’s parents had been addicts, she tells me. She was assaulted several times. Then her father drove into a telephone pole when he was high, and a transformer fell into the car, and it burst into flames. She marks his death as the moment her life really derailed, when beer and pot turned into meth, when cycles of homelessness, addiction and abuse became her everyday. She was 18 years old.
On Christmas morning in 2019, Veronica assaulted a neighbor after she said she heard the woman threaten her 13-year-old daughter. Veronica remembers a gash in the woman’s head, and a lot of blood. At a bench trial, Veronica’s charges were reduced from attempted murder to felony assault, which came with a five-to-10-year prison sentence. Because she had no record, the judge was lenient, giving her just four years of probation. She also had to apologize to her neighbor, pay all the woman’s medical bills, do random drug testing and take anger management classes.
Veronica, her three kids and the neighbor were all living in a homeless shelter at the time. Over the next four years, Veronica’s situation deteriorated. Child protective services took her daughter. Both her sons, who were older, moved in with Veronica’s siblings. Twice she blew off probation appointments and was rearrested, doing two yearlong stints in jail. Her life was spiraling. “How do you go to somebody and say, ‘I need help because I’m an addict,’ and not be judged about it?” she asked me.
So she walked to the top of a mountain and jumped, intending to end her life. She blacked out. And when she woke up, she was surprised to find herself still alive. Her whole body ached. “By the grace of God, I wasn’t dead.” It was the spring of 2022. Six months later, her attorney recommended her for women’s court.
After that, Veronica moved from prison to a drug treatment facility. She spent eight months there, getting sober. At women’s court, she learned about generational trauma and began connecting the dots of her own experience, seeing how being a victim of abuse dictated many of her bad decisions. She learned about emotional abuse, codependency and domestic violence. She understood for the first time that she was not a bad person; she was a person who’d had bad things done to her.
The court helped her get documents she would need in her new life — a Social Security card, proof of insurance, a record of a TB test. She learned time management, budgeting and emotional regulation. Every month, she appeared in court and charted her progress. She had to pay restitution, and court fees and fines. She learned hula. (Each graduating class has its own performance choreographed by Saifoloi Aganon, the probation administrator, who also happens to be a hula practitioner.) Weekly classes helped her discover Hawaiian traditions and a more spiritual side of herself, and as she put it, how “every part of you is connected to something in the world.”
For the first time she began sharing stories from her life, meeting others who’d endured some of the same things she had. She learned how to talk about herself, how to trust other people, how to forgive herself, how to set healthy boundaries. She learned to trust God. She cultivated faith.
Mohala Wahine is not a perfect system. It’s too new, with too few graduates to really gauge success rates critically at this early juncture. But such an approach — to tackle every problem all at once — is so wildly audacious, it’s hard not to hope for it, a program that brings out our better angels. The investments in people like Veronica are real and palpable not just in the systems of court and probation, but to the women themselves, who have mostly never had anyone believe they could achieve much at all.
This is the possibility I see with women’s court. Abandoning all the incremental, punitive programs we’ve tried for decades and offering one clean sweep. Because sobriety and education and a full belly and a bed create hope, and hope begets opportunity, and opportunity is the key to a future. People who can imagine their futures have stakes in maintaining safety and stability not only in their own lives but also in the lives of everyone around them.
Ms. Takayama’s client is one such example. She is the last speaker the day she graduates. Commencement takes place in the Supreme Court room, the most beautiful of all the courts, with a wall made of native Hawaiian koa wood and a large dais behind the graduates. They wear flower headbands, leis of orchids.
She recounts days when she didn’t know when she’d shower again, or wear clean clothes, nights she didn’t know where she’d sleep. How she never felt safe in her body. She pledges to her newborn son to show up for him in ways no one ever had for her.
It is incredibly moving. I’ve seen so many women cycle repeatedly through the criminal justice system, until it becomes just another kind of entrapment, holding women to unrealistic expectations. Forcing them to a probation check-in when they don’t have bus money or child care and maybe live on the other side of a whole island.
Mohala Wahine might not have the only, or even the best, answer. But for Veronica, who has her daughter back and living with her, it ended — for now and she believes forever — that awful cycle that she could not escape on her own. And it brought her family back to her. Maybe this is the best possible measure of success: the lives we manage to reconstruct in any given family rather than all those we shatter.
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10) Trump Celebrated Victory in Venezuela. Will That Bring Its People Back?
By Emma Bubola and Patricia Sulbarán, Photographs by Anita Pouchard Serra, May 10, 2026
Emma Bubola and Patricia Sulbarán interviewed Venezuelan migrants in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia.
“Amid crippling U.S. sanctions and the government’s mismanagement of the economy, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans like Ms. Durán fled acute food shortages and hyperinflation.”
“I am not going back,” said Greces Vicuña, who lives in Chile, with her son, Derek.
On Jan. 3, in the middle of a Buenos Aires summer night, a Venezuelan immigrant shook his girlfriend awake to tell her that Nicolás Maduro, their country’s authoritarian leader, was gone.
Another migrant jolted upright in Santiago, Chile, as her phone buzzed with the news that the United States had captured him. Many more woke up to a photograph of Mr. Maduro handcuffed aboard a U.S. warship.
The reactions were immediate.
“I am going back,” Yanitze Gutiérrez, a Venezuelan migrant in Uruguay, told her son as she called him in Spain, where he lives.
When Andreína Di Giovanni opened her Venezuelan grocery store in Buenos Aires, she said frenzied clients started rushing in.
“People were crying with happiness,” she said. “And I started hearing it: ‘I am going back. I am going back. I am going back.’”
But, so far, the enormous Venezuelan diaspora spread across many countries is largely staying put, the United Nations says.
After the initial shock many felt when learning of Mr. Maduro being dragged away to a New York jail, a sobering reality has set in. The factors that compelled many of them to leave — a broken economy and repressive leaders — are still in place.
“The problems are not resolved,” said Greces Vicuña, 32, who migrated to Chile in 2018, after, she said, she was jailed for three months for attending antigovernment protests. “I am not going back.”
The exodus of Venezuelans created one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises. Roughly eight million Venezuelans, about a quarter of the country’s population, have fled the country over the past 11 years, according to the United Nations, becoming perhaps the most visible consequence of Mr. Maduro’s oppressive rule.
Though some went to the United States and others to Spain, a vast majority, nearly seven million, stayed in Latin America, pouring into Colombia, Peru and Brazil.
Venezuelan migrants have surged into the region’s labor markets and filled millions of jobs. Their sheer numbers have, in some places, including the United States, spurred a backlash and become an issue in national elections.
This mass migration has also upended Venezuelan lives and careers, emptied neighborhoods across Venezuela and broken households apart.
Many Venezuelans hoped the U.S. intervention would yield more than just the removal of Mr. Maduro. They saw it as the beginning of a great homecoming, a new era of family reunification and relief from the fear that parents and grandparents would die without a goodbye.
Instead, the U.S. left the ruling party in power, opening for many a new chapter of uncertainty. In the aftermath, organizations that track migration reported no significant movement of people back to Venezuela.
The direction the country takes in the coming months may provide clearer hints on whether those abroad will return in meaningful numbers.
In a U.N. survey in February, 9 percent of Venezuelans interviewed in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Guatemala and Chile said they planned to return home in the next year.
If the gargantuan migration out of Venezuela was a sign of the country’s collapse, the decisions on returning could be a key measure of the reality the U.S. intervention left behind.
Hesitation may indicate that despite the operation’s military success, and some gradual improvements, there is not yet the change many Venezuelans wanted.
‘We Couldn’t Feed Them’
In 2022, as Venezuela’s economy cratered under Mr. Maduro, Maritza Durán, now 59, and her two grandchildren, 7 and 4, left their home. They walked across a stretch of the Bolivian Andes and into Chile.
“It wasn’t because I wanted to,” said Ms. Durán, a government secretary for 35 years who lived in the western Venezuelan state of Mérida. “We couldn’t feed them,” she said of her grandchildren.
Amid crippling U.S. sanctions and the government’s mismanagement of the economy, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans like Ms. Durán fled acute food shortages and hyperinflation.
Many walked to Colombia, then hitchhiked to Ecuador. Others walked into Brazil, then Bolivia, and then crossed Chile’s mountainous border. The sight of Venezuelan families ferrying backpacks became a fixture of mountain highways.
Colombia granted nearly two million Venezuelans temporary residency.
Venezuelans added new words to local dialects and arepas to restaurant menus. Venezuelan stand-up comedians filled Buenos Aires theaters.
Migrants from Venezuela disproportionately work in the informal sector, often for delivery apps, struggling to make ends meet.
Venezuelans in Chile also face a surge in anti-immigrant sentiment, and José Antonio Kast, the country’s newly elected right-wing president, said recently that Mr. Maduro’s removal would make it easier to repatriate them.
Many of those who fled to the United States were granted Temporary Protected Status, given to nationals of designated countries experiencing upheaval or other adverse conditions. But last year, the Trump administration eliminated this protection for over half a million Venezuelans, making them also potentially eligible for deportation.
A Hopeful Reaction
Others thought that Mr. Maduro’s capture would create a natural flow of people back to Venezuela.
“You are all going to return,” Patricia Bullrich, a powerful Argentine senator, said at a rally of Venezuelans in Buenos Aires the day after the U.S. operation in Caracas. “We are going to miss you.”
In podcasts and in YouTube and TikTok videos, Venezuelan migrants reacting to the news of Mr. Maduro’s toppling discussed returning. Jokes spread about Venezuelan returnees with Peruvian accents.
“All the Venezuelans outside of Venezuela, we are all asking the same question: ‘Are you going back?’” Daniel Enrique, a Venezuelan comedian who lives in Mexico City, said on his podcast.
Génesis Hidalgo, a Venezuelan teacher who last year chronicled her return from Argentina to Venezuela on social media, said she had received a flurry of new messages from followers showing interest in returning after Mr. Maduro’s fall.
Mr. Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, now the country’s president, has urged migrants to return, and in a television ad Venezuela’s government promised “its children” that it was “waiting for them with open arms.”
Ayrton Monsalve Barrios, 31, a Venezuelan journalist who advocates for democracy, stopped the transfer of his cats from Caracas to Buenos Aires, where he lives.
He has sold his furniture and terminated his lease, and is making plans to return home. He visited a former military compound in Buenos Aires where Argentina’s military dictatorship tortured political prisoners to learn how to repurpose brutal detention centers in Venezuela into sites of memory.
“We have a unique opportunity,” he said.
“I don’t want to go to Venezuela when everything is ready,” he added. “I want to go back to build democracy.”
A Long Wait
Samuel Díaz Pulgar, a Venezuelan opposition activist, is already back home.
After Venezuela’s government passed an amnesty law for political prisoners, Mr. Pulgar flew to Caracas from Colombia on March 15, his mother’s birthday. He fled Venezuela last year, changing vehicles four times and crossing into Colombia by boat.
He dived back into politics. His party organized a meeting attended by over 100 people, Mr. Pulgar said.
“The fact that from one day to another four people show up at a cafe to meet and talk about politics is something that a couple of months ago would be completely unheard-of,” he said.
While Venezuela’s government has freed hundreds of political prisoners, many more remain imprisoned, and dissidents are still being jailed. Alexi Paparoni, one of Mr. Pulgar’s party colleagues, had been recently detained though he was released hours later, he said.
And daily living is hard in other ways. Venezuela is still plagued by blackouts and water shortages, Mr. Pulgar said. Food prices are high, and salaries extremely low.
“Things are different, but they haven’t fully changed for people to fully come back,” he said.
Mélanie Gallant, the Latin America spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency, as well as organizations in Colombia, Peru and Chile, said there had not been any quantifiable spike in people returning to Venezuela.
Migrants cited a lack of jobs, inflation, security and difficulties getting access to food and health care as their primary concerns, Ms. Gallant and others said. The lack of political change also played a role.
Despite the removal of Mr. Maduro, the government’s authoritarian apparatus remains in place.
“They took one criminal, but there are still 10 left,” said Iván Alcalá, a Venezuelan taxi driver in Buenos Aires who said he was not going back.
The Trump administration says it is running Venezuela and it has decided to work with the current authorities to make deals to obtain Venezuela’s oil and other natural resources over promoting democracy.
U.S. officials say elections will eventually take place. But what Venezuelans hoped would be a rapid transition has felt increasingly permanent since the White House recognized Ms. Rodríguez as the country’s leader. Mr. Trump called her “a wonderful president.”
It has been a painful blow to many Venezuelans outside the country.
“When Trump comes out saying anything positive about her, it’s a terrible humiliation,” said Ms. Di Giovanni, the Venezuelan grocery store owner in Buenos Aires.
Ms. Di Giovanni, who has lived in Argentina for 13 years and has built a life and business there, says she has no intention of returning. Many Venezuelans who walked into her shop on a recent afternoon to buy plantains or spicy pork cracklings said the same.
“I want to give a better education to my daughter,” said Lisbeth Fran, 42. “So I stay.”
What it would take to return varies depending on age, family circumstances, legal status and personal financial outlook.
For established migrants like Ms. Di Giovanni, Venezuela would have to undergo a complete transformation. For more vulnerable migrants, the criteria is modest: basic services, food and security. But the country thus far cannot provide even that.
“All of us who have families in Venezuela know that things haven’t changed,” said Ms. Gutiérrez, who lives in Uruguay.
She worries that Mr. Trump had shifted his attention elsewhere.
“Trump hasn’t finished with Venezuela, and he started with Cuba and Iran,” she said. “Time is going by, and the pain keeps growing.”
Mitra Taj, Genevieve Glatsky and Lucía Cholakian Herrera contributed reporting.
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11) What We Saw in Cuba Shocked Us
By Pramila Jayapal and Jonathan L. Jackson, May 11, 2026
Ms. Jayapal, of Washington’s Seventh Congressional District, and Mr. Jackson, of Illinois’s First Congressional District, are Democrats in the House of Representatives.
Constanze Han
Alejandro, a premature baby born in Havana’s Eusebio Hernández Pérez maternity hospital, weighed only two pounds when we met him in April. We watched him as he lay in an incubator, one of the few in the building whose delicate electronic components hadn’t been damaged by the high-voltage electricity surges that follow nationwide blackouts. Far-reaching U.S. sanctions make importing replacement parts for the other, broken incubators nearly impossible.
Touring the hospital, we saw women in the final days of their pregnancies trudging up flights of stairs, the elevators inoperable without power. The hospital staff members struggle to get to work without fuel for their cars. During blackouts, doctors sometimes have to manually pump ventilators to keep babies alive. They say the hospital has managed to avoid an increase in infant mortality over the past several months, but other facilities around the country have not been so lucky. From 2018 to 2025, as U.S. sanctions grew more punitive, Cuba’s once-impressive infant mortality rate skyrocketed by 148 percent.
As members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we spent five days in Cuba in April to better understand the humanitarian impacts of America’s monthslong energy blockade of the island. We came away shocked by the inhumane effects of the policy, whose goal appears to be strangling the economy until the Cuban people are brought to ruin and the country is available, as President Trump put it, for the “taking.”
With the exception of one Russian oil tanker carrying 10 to 14 days’ worth of oil, fuel deliveries to Cuba have been blocked for more than four months, as other countries have feared having their tankers seized in open waters by U.S. military vessels. The resulting daily indignities have rippled across Cuban society. We returned from our trip certain that if the American people knew the full extent of what is happening on the ground in Cuba, they would demand an end to the blockade immediately.
The U.S. blockade of fuel to Cuba, on top of the longest embargo in modern U.S. history, defies the norms of international law that provide for state sovereignty, nonintervention in domestic affairs and the right of nations to trade freely. It amounts to an economic assault on the basic infrastructure of Cuba, designed to inflict collective punishment on the civilian population by manufacturing a humanitarian crisis in which health care, running water, agriculture and transportation are no longer available.
During our visit, we spoke with a wide range of Cuban citizens — political dissidents, religious leaders, entrepreneurs and members of civil society organizations and humanitarian aid groups. We also met with the families of Cuba’s political prisoners. Everywhere, there was agreement: America’s blockade must end, and a U.S. invasion must not take place.
We saw for ourselves how Americans could benefit from normalized relations with Cuba in a few key ways. Under different circumstances, Cuba would be a natural U.S. trade partner. Several agricultural secretaries of both red and blue states have visited the island to explore opportunities to export U.S. agricultural products to Cuba, hampered only by the United States’ own financial restrictions under the embargo.
The Cuban health care system, for decades a global model of public health, has produced important advances that could extend to Americans, including promising treatments for Alzheimer’s and lung cancer. And both Cuba and the United States could benefit from a boost in tourism. When President Barack Obama moved to normalize relations with Cuba, hotels, restaurants and shops flourished around the island and fueled the liberalization of the Cuban economy and an emerging independent civil society.
The Cuban government can and must do more internally to improve political and civic rights, including ending arbitrary detention and mistreatment of political prisoners, which we conveyed in our meeting with President Miguel Díaz-Canel. But it has taken some important steps, including announcing the release of 2,010 prisoners in what the country’s state-run newspaper called a “humanitarian and sovereign” gesture. Cuba’s move to authorize an F.B.I. investigation of a recent deadly maritime shootout involving Cuban Americans was another important show of transparency and good will.
Many of the economic changes the Trump administration has claimed it wanted throughout the blockade are already underway. The government recently allowed Cuban American entrepreneurs to invest in private businesses. Small and medium-size businesses now account for large parts of the economy and work force.
But liberalizing reforms cannot counteract a deliberate U.S. campaign to destroy the Cuban economy. Over the past few weeks Mr. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sweeping new sanctions targeting Cuba’s economy under the pretext that the island poses a threat to U.S. national security.
These measures reiterated that the biggest obstacle to improving the daily lives of Cubans continues to be the United States’ outdated, Cold War-era policy of economic coercion and military pressure, whose only upshot has been isolation and suffering for the Cuban people. Further destruction in Cuba, including military action, would lead only to greater economic collapse and more Cubans fleeing the island.
The United States and Cuba can turn the page and enter real negotiations if they are based on mutual respect and aim to benefit the people of both countries. This is what we believe to be in reach — a real chance for children like Alejandro and the next generation of Cubans who deserve to know the generosity of the American people and to live with hope for the future.
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12) The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians
Male and female Palestinians describe brutal sexual abuse at the hands of Israel’s prison guards, soldiers, settlers and interrogators.
By Nicholas Kristof, Opinion Columnist, reporting from the West Bank, May 11, 2026
Suhaib Abualkebash. Samar Hazboun for The New York Times
It’s a simple proposition: Whatever our views of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to unite in condemning rape.
Supporters of Israel made that point after the brutal sexual assaults against Israeli women during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu and many U.S. senators, including Marco Rubio, condemned that sexual violence, and Netanyahu rightly called on “all civilized leaders” to “speak up.”
And yet in wrenching interviews, Palestinians have recounted to me a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children — by soldiers, settlers, interrogators in the Shin Bet internal security agency and, above all, prison guards.
There is no evidence that Israeli leaders order rapes. But in recent years they have built a security apparatus where sexual violence has become, as a United Nations report put it last year, one of Israel’s “standard operating procedures” and “a major element in the ill treatment of Palestinians.” A report out last month, from the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based advocacy group often critical of Israel, concludes that Israel employs “systematic sexual violence” that is “widely practiced as part of an organized state policy.”
What does this standard operating procedure look like? Sami al-Sai, 46, a freelance journalist, says that as he was being taken to a prison cell after his detention in 2024, a group of guards threw him to the ground.
“They were all hitting me, and one stepped on my head and neck,” he said. “Someone pulled my pants down. They pulled down my boxers.” And then one of the guards pulled out a rubber baton used to beat prisoners.
“They were trying to force it into my rectum, and I was bracing myself to prevent it, but I couldn’t,” he said, speaking with increasing anxiety. “It was so painful.” The guards were laughing at him, he said. “Then I heard someone say, ‘Give me the carrots,’” he recalled, adding that they then used a carrot. “It was extremely painful,” he said. “I was praying for death.”
Al-Sai was blindfolded, he said, and heard someone say in Hebrew, which he understands, “don’t take photos.” That suggested to him that someone had pulled out a camera. One of the guards was a woman who, he said, grabbed him by the penis and testicles, and joked, “these are mine,” and then squeezed until he screamed from pain.
The guards left him handcuffed on the ground, and he smelled cigarette smoke. “I realized it was their smoking break,” he said.
After he was dumped into his cell, he concluded that the spot where he had been raped had been used before, for he found other people’s vomit, blood and broken teeth crushed into his skin.
Al-Sai said that he had been asked to become an informant for Israeli intelligence, and he believes that the purpose of his arrest and imprisonment under the administrative detention system was to pressure him to agree. Because he prided himself on his journalistic professionalism, he said, he refused.
I’ve had a career covering war, genocide and atrocities including rape, sometimes in places where the scale of sexual violence is far greater than anything committed by either Hamas militants or Israeli guards or settlers. In the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia a few years ago, 100,000 women may have been raped. Mass rape is now unfolding in Sudan.
Yet our American tax dollars subsidize the Israeli security establishment, so this is sexual violence in which the United States is complicit.
I became interested in reporting on sexual assaults against Palestinian prisoners after Issa Amro, a nonviolent activist sometimes called “the Palestinian Gandhi,” told me when I previously visited that he had been sexually assaulted by Israeli soldiers and that he believed this was common but underreported because of shame.
By one count, Israel has detained 20,000 people in the West Bank alone since the Oct. 7 attacks, and more than 9,000 Palestinians were still being held as of this month. Many have not been charged but were detained under ill-defined security grounds, and since 2023, most have been denied visits from the Red Cross and lawyers.
“Israeli forces systematically employ rape and sexual torture to humiliate Palestinian female detainees,” the Euro-Med report said. It cited a 42-year-old woman who said she had been shackled naked to a metal table as Israeli soldiers forcibly had sex with her over two days while other soldiers filmed the attacks. Afterward, she said, she was shown photos of her being raped and told they would be published if she did not cooperate with Israeli intelligence.
It’s impossible to know how common sexual assaults against Palestinians are. My reporting for this article is based on conversations with 14 men and women who said they had been sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers or members of the security forces. I also spoke to family members, investigators, officials and others.
I found these victims by asking around among lawyers, human rights groups, aid workers and ordinary Palestinians themselves. In many cases it was possible to corroborate the victims’ stories in part by talking to witnesses or, more commonly, to those whom the victims had confided in, such as family members, lawyers and social workers; in other cases it was not possible, perhaps because shame left people reluctant to acknowledge abuse even to loved ones.
Save the Children commissioned a survey last year of children ages 12 to 17 who had been in Israeli detention; more than half reported witnessing or experiencing sexual violence. Save the Children said that the true figure was probably higher because stigma left some unwilling to acknowledge what had happened to them.
The Committee to Protect Journalists, a respected American organization, surveyed 59 Palestinian journalists who had been released by Israeli authorities after the Oct. 7 attacks. Three percent said they had been raped, and 29 percent said they had endured other forms of sexual violence.
The Israeli government rejects suggestions that it sexually abuses Palestinians, just as Hamas denied raping Israeli women. Israel welcomed a United Nations report documenting sexual assaults against Israeli women by Palestinians but rejected the report’s call to investigate Israeli assaults against Palestinians. Netanyahu has denounced “baseless accusations of sexual violence” made against Israel.
Israel’s Ministry of National Security declined to comment for this article. The prison service “categorically rejects the allegations” of sexual abuse, said a spokesman who declined to be named, adding that complaints are “examined by the competent authorities.” The spokesman declined to say whether any prison staff member had ever been fired or prosecuted for sexual assaults.
The Palestinians I interviewed recounted various kinds of abuse beyond rape. Many reported that they often had their genitals yanked or were beaten on the testicles. Hand-held metal detectors were used to probe between men’s naked legs and then smashed into their private parts; some men had to have their testicles amputated by doctors after beatings, according to the Euro-Med monitor.
One reason these abuses don’t receive more attention is threats by Israeli authorities, who periodically warn prisoners on release to keep quiet, according to Palestinians who have been freed. Another reason, Palestinian survivors told me, is that Arab society discourages discussing the topic for fear of hurting the morale of prisoners’ families and undermining the Palestinian narrative of defiant and heroic detainees.
Conservative social norms also inhibit discussion: Two victims told me that a prisoner who acknowledges being raped would harm the ability of his sisters and daughters to find husbands.
One farmer initially agreed to let me use his name in this article. Released early this year after months in administrative detention — with no charges filed — he related what he said happened one day last year: A half-dozen guards immobilized him by holding his arms and legs while pulling down his pants and underwear and inserting a metal baton into his anus. The rapists were laughing and cheering, he said.
Several hours later, he said, he fainted and was taken to the prison clinic. After he woke up, he said, he was raped once more, again with the metal baton.
“I was bleeding,” he recalled. “I broke down completely. I was crying.”
After being returned to his cell, he said, he asked a guard for pen and paper to write a complaint about the assaults. The request was denied. And that evening, a group of guards came to the cell.
“Who is the one who wants to file a complaint?” one guard jeered, he said, and another guard pointed him out. “The beating started immediately,” he recalled. And then they raped him with the baton for a third time that day, he said.
He recalled one saying, “Now you have even more to put in your complaint.”
A few days after I interviewed him, the farmer called to say that he didn’t want his name used after all. He had just been visited by Shin Bet and warned not to cause trouble, and he also feared that his family would react badly to the attention.
“Rampant sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners is a thing; it’s been normalized,” said Sari Bashi, an Israeli American human rights lawyer who is the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. “I don’t see evidence that it has been ordered. But there’s persistent evidence that the authorities know it’s happening and are not stopping it.”
Another Israeli lawyer, Ben Marmarelli, told me that based on the experiences of the Palestinian detainees he has represented, rape of Palestinian prisoners with objects “is going on across the board.”
Bashi said her organization has filed hundreds of complaints detailing horrific abuse against Palestinian detainees — and not in a single case did these lead to charges filed. Impunity, she said, creates a “green light” for abusers.
One Palestinian prisoner from Gaza reportedly was hospitalized in July 2024 with a tear in his rectum, cracked ribs and a punctured lung. Investigators obtained a prison video purportedly showing the abuse. The authorities detained nine reservist soldiers — but Israel’s right-wingers erupted in outrage, with a mob of furious protesters, including politicians, breaking into the prison to show support for the guards. The last charges against the soldiers were dropped in March, and last month the military approved the soldiers’ return to duty.
Netanyahu hailed the dropping of charges as the end of a “blood libel.” “The State of Israel must hunt down its enemies — not its heroic fighters,” he said.
Bashi described the outcome this way: “I would say that dropping the charges — that’s giving permission to rape.”
That prisoner, who afterward reportedly required a stoma bag to collect his waste, was returned to Gaza, and an acquaintance of his said that he spent months in a hospital recovering from his internal injuries. The acquaintance said that the former prisoner declined to be interviewed.
Prosecutions and public attention can curb such violence. In 1997, police officers in New York City raped a Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima, with a stick so brutally that he required hospitalization and surgeries. New Yorkers were outraged, Mayor Rudy Giuliani visited Louima in the hospital and police officers were prosecuted in a landmark case. That sent a powerful message throughout the police force: Those who assault detainees may be punished. And that’s the message that must be sent throughout the Israeli security forces.
If the Trump administration insisted on a resumption of Red Cross visits to prisoners, if the U.S. ambassador visited rape survivors with cameras in tow, if we conditioned arms transfers on an end to sexual assault, we could send a moral and practical message that sexual violence is unacceptable no matter the identity of the victim. For starters, the ambassador could ensure that those Palestinians who dared to speak for this article are not brutalized again for their courage.
How does this kind of violence happen? Decades of covering conflict has taught me that a combination of dehumanization and impunity can propel people into a Hobbesian state of nature. I’ve encountered this drift toward savagery in killing fields from Congo to Sudan to Myanmar, and I think it also roughly explains how American soldiers came to sexually abuse prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
The blunt reality is that when there are no consequences, we humans are capable of immense depravity toward those we are taught to scorn as subhuman.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, called detainees “scum” and “Nazis” and boasted of making prison conditions harsher for Palestinians. When such attitudes prevail, sexual abuse can become one more tool to inflict pain and humiliation on Palestinians.
Ben-Gvir declined, through a spokeswoman, to comment on sexual assaults by security services.
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, documented “a grave pattern of sexual violence” toward Palestinians. It cited the account of a Gaza prisoner, Tamer Qarmut, who said he had been raped with a stick. Torture, B’Tselem said, “has become an accepted norm.”
A former Israeli officer in a prison infirmary described in testimony to the Israeli group Breaking the Silence what that kind of acceptance means in practice: “You see normal, pretty ordinary people reaching a point where they abuse people for their own amusement, not even for an interrogation or anything. For fun, to have something to tell the guys, or revenge.”
Most of the rape and other sexual violence has been directed at men, if only because Palestinian prisoners are more than 90 percent male. But I spoke to one Palestinian woman who was arrested at the age of 23 after the Hamas attack in October 2023. She said that the soldiers who arrested her threatened to rape her, her mother and her young niece. Her prison ordeal began with a strip-search conducted by female guards, “but then a male soldier came in, when I was completely naked,” she added.
For the next few days, she said, she was repeatedly stripped naked, beaten and searched by teams of male and female guards alike. The pattern was always the same: Several guards, men and women together, would come to her cell, forcibly strip her naked, handcuff her hands behind her back and bend her forward at the waist, sometimes forcing her head into the toilet. In this position, she would be beaten and groped all over, she said.
“They had their hands all over my body,” she said. “To be honest, I don’t know if they raped me,” she said, because she sometimes lost consciousness from the beatings.
The aim of the abuse was twofold, she thinks: to crush her spirit and also to let Israeli men molest a naked Palestinian woman with impunity.
“I’d be stripped and beaten several times a day,” she said. “It was as if they were introducing me to everyone who worked there. At the beginning of each shift, they would bring the guys to strip me.”
When she was about to be released from prison, she said, she was called into a room with six officials and given a stern warning never to give interviews.
“They threatened that if I spoke up, they would rape me, kill me and kill my father,” she said. Not surprisingly, she declined to be named in this article.
Some of the worst sexual abuse appears to have been directed at prisoners from Gaza. A Gaza journalist shared with me his account of the abuse he suffered after he was detained in 2024.
“No one escaped sexual assaults,” he said. “Not all were raped, I would say, but everyone went through humiliating, filthy sexual assaults.” On one occasion, he said, the guards zip-tied his testicles and penis for hours while beating his genitals. For days afterward, he said, he urinated blood.
On one occasion, he said, he was held down, stripped naked, and as he was blindfolded and handcuffed, a dog was summoned. With encouragement from a handler in Hebrew, he said, the dog mounted him.
“They were using cameras to take photos, and I heard their laughs and giggles,” he said. He tried to dislodge the dog, he said, but it penetrated him.
Other Palestinian prisoners and human rights monitors have also cited reports of police dogs being coached to rape prisoners. The journalist said that when he was released, an Israeli official warned him: “If you want to stay alive when you return, do not speak to the media.”
So why was he willing to speak?
“There are moments when remembering feels unbearable,” he said. “My heart felt it might stop while talking to you about it just now. But I remember there are people still in there. So I speak up.”
Multiple accounts indicate that sexual violence has been directed even at Palestinian children, who are typically imprisoned for throwing stones. I located and interviewed three boys who had been detained, and all described being sexually abused.
One, a shy boy in a Hilfiger shirt who was 15 years old at the time of his arrest, declined to say whether he had also witnessed actual rapes. But he said threats were routine: “They’d say, ‘Do this or we’ll put this stick up your butt.’”
The other boys told very similar stories of sexual violence as part of beatings and noted that the threats of rape were directed not only at them but also at their mothers and siblings.
Israeli settlers are not an official arm of the state in the same way that the prison system is, but the Israel Defense Forces increasingly protect settlers as they attack Palestinian villagers and use sexual violence to drive Palestinians to flee. “Sexualized violence is used to pressure communities” to leave their land, according to a new report by the West Bank Protection Consortium, a coalition of international aid groups led by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The consortium surveyed Palestinian farmers and found that more than 70 percent of households that had been displaced reported that threats to women and children, particularly of sexual violence, were the decisive reason for leaving. “Sexual violence,” said Allegra Pacheco of the coalition, “is one of the mechanisms driving people from their land.”
In a remote Jordan Valley hamlet of Bedouin farmers, I met a 29-year-old farmer, Suhaib Abualkebash, who recounted how a gang of about 20 settlers rampaged through the homes of his family, beating adults and children alike, stealing jewelry and 400 sheep — and also cut off his clothes with a hunting knife and then tightly zip-tied his penis and yanked.
“I was afraid they would cut off my penis,” Abualkebash told me. “I thought this was the end for me.”
Some may wonder whether Palestinians fabricated accusations of sexual assaults to defame Israel. To me that seems far-fetched, because none of those I interviewed sought me out or knew who else I was speaking to, and they were reluctant to speak. Yet there is some evidence that Israel’s sexual abuse has become so frequent that norms are changing and Palestinian victims are becoming a bit more willing to speak out.
“For six months I couldn’t speak about it, even to my family,” said Mohammad Matar, a Palestinian official who told me that settlers stripped him, beat him and poked him with a stick in the buttocks while talking about raping him. During the attack, the assailants posted a photograph on social media of him blindfolded and stripped to his underpants.
With time, Matar decided to speak out to try to break the stigma. He now keeps a blown-up print of the settlers’ photo of him on the wall of his office.
To try to make sense of what I found, I called up Ehud Olmert, who was prime minister from 2006 to 2009. Olmert told me he didn’t know much about sexual violence against Palestinians but was not surprised by the accounts I had heard.
“Do I believe it happens?” he asked. “Definitely.”
“There are war crimes committed every day in the territories,” he added.
So we return to the point I noted at the beginning of this column: Supporters of Israel were right in 2023 that whatever our views about the Middle East, we should be able to repudiate rape.
“Where the hell are you?” Netanyahu asked the international community then, demanding that it condemn sexual violence committed by what the Israeli government has called the “Hamas rapist regime.”
Hamas has indeed brutally violated human rights. Israeli officials should look to their own violations as well — in particular at what a 49-page United Nations report last year called Israel’s “systematically” subjecting Palestinians to “sexualized torture” committed with at least “an implicit encouragement by the top civilian and military leadership.”
Think of it this way: The horrific abuse inflicted on Israeli women on Oct. 7 now happens to Palestinians day after day. It persists because of silence, indifference and the failure of American and Israeli officials alike to answer Netanyahu’s query: Where the hell are you?
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13) A Water Doom Loop Is Coming
By Gary Ferguson, May 11, 2026
Mr. Ferguson is the author of “The Twilight Forest: An Elegy for Ponderosa in a Changing West.” He wrote from Tucson, Ariz.
Nick Larsen for The New York Times
In much of the Southwest, the ponderosa pine is the one and only truly big tree, thriving in dry heat and poor soils. The painter Georgia O’Keeffe captured the beauty of a stately ponderosa north of Taos, N.M., in one of her most stunning works, “The Lawrence Tree.” The creators of the television show “Yellowstone” were so taken with ponderosa forests that they did much of their filming within one far from Yellowstone in western Montana.
But after about 26 years of exceptionally high heat and drought, hundreds of million of these trees in lands stretching from New Mexico and Colorado to the southern Sierra Nevada of California have died. And in many places, something even more startling is happening: The trees aren’t coming back.
Ecologists warn that in just 25 years, more than 70 percent of the Southwestern needle leaf evergreen forests, which include ponderosa pines, may be replaced by grass in what might qualify as the first significant post-climate change landscape in America.
One of the biggest consequences is the loss of shade. Without the forest canopy overhead, snow can evaporate quickly instead of trickling into rivers, streams and aquifers. In the mountainous parts of the West, where roughly 70 percent of freshwater runoff originates as snowpack, that’s a huge deal, a sign of a catastrophic feedback loop beginning to form.
Lands that are no longer covered by snow also absorb more heat from the sun, drying them out and leaving them more vulnerable to large wildfires. Those fires in turn put more carbon into the atmosphere, warming the climate even more. In 50 or so years, by some estimates, snow could virtually disappear from the West, making life there exceedingly difficult.
There are two culprits behind the loss of the Southwestern forests. The first has to do with the drought conditions humans have helped create by putting greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. With insufficient moisture, bubbles can form in columns under tree bark, leading to a collapse of the tree’s entire system. Drought also weakens trees, leaving them easy prey for tree-boring insects, as well as blight and parasitic dwarf mistletoe.
The other culprit is our disastrous efforts for much of the 20th century to suppress all wildfires. Without regular, low-intensity fires, fallen trees and branches and other natural debris accumulate, becoming fuel for much hotter, more devastating conflagrations.
The 70-year war on wildfire also meant that young trees, which sometimes grow in tight bunches, were no longer being thinned out by small low-intensity fires. As a result, an acre of ponderosa forest that in the late 19th century might have contained 150 large, mature trees may today be packed with 1,500 far smaller and more vulnerable trees. Take this tight bunch of trees, stress them with heat and a shrinking supply of water, then wait for the pine beetles to attack. When the beetles have moved on, wildfire can come with ferocity that sometimes even seasoned firefighters can barely comprehend and decimate whatever is left.
There are certainly efforts underway to help the forests. Land management agencies have been using intentional, or “prescribed,” burns to clean debris and thin overcrowded trees. Some are even partnering with Native Americans who embrace this ancient practice on their lands in an effort to learn the finer points of prescribed burning.
But in any given year, forest managers are able to burn only a tiny fraction of the forests that need the fire. Meanwhile, tree nurseries have been doing their best to grow more ponderosa seedlings to replant at least some of the forests that can no longer regenerate on their own. Just the task of growing hundreds of millions of seedlings is overwhelming. At full production, the nation’s nurseries typically manage to grow only a small proportion of the seedlings needed.
The government should treat this situation as deeply threatening to the habitability of the West. But as heat and drought battered the region this spring, the federal government, utterly dismissive of climate change, was shredding an astonishing number of forest-related conservation efforts. At the end of March, the Trump administration introduced a reckless plan to restructure the Forest Service, gutting much of the scientific research into how we might mitigate the effects of climate change on public forests. The threatened (or in some cases, abandoned) studies looked at climate-related insect and tree disease and wildfire behavior essential to public safety.
Efforts to make prescribed burns more effective in the face of climate change have also been slashed. Designated roadless areas are poised to be opened for giant commercial logging operations, further degrading the natural healing capacity of the land.
Given the ponderosa’s striking reputation for resilience, it’s possible that in a century or two some of these lost forests might make a comeback. But that depends on whether we humans can muster some resilience of our own. It will mean keeping alive our commitment to find more sustainable ways of living: increasing solar and wind power, retrofitting commercial buildings to make them more energy efficient and transitioning to electric vehicles.
But we also need the kind of resilience to reject politicians who endanger science. We need to build a resilience tough enough to push back against those who would abuse the ecological systems that give life to us all.
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14) A Single Infusion Could Suppress H.I.V. for Years, Study Suggests
A study of a few patients, to be presented this week, showed promise for a type of therapy that has already cured some blood cancers.
By Apoorva Mandavilli, May 11, 2026
A study led by an H.I.V. expert at the University of California, San Francisco, could offer a path toward a lasting H.I.V. treatment. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
For about a decade, scientists have had remarkable success curing some blood cancers by modifying a patient’s own immune cells to recognize and kill the malignant cells.
That same approach may help control H.I.V., among the wiliest of viruses, scientists will report on Tuesday. After a single infusion of immune cells engineered to recognize the virus, two people in a new study have suppressed their H.I.V. to undetectable levels, one of them for nearly two years.
The data is scheduled to be presented at a gene therapy conference in Boston, but the researchers shared an early copy with The New York Times.
The treatment is years, if not decades, from being widely available, but the study offers what scientists call “proof of concept,” and the tantalizing hope that a single shot could one day offer lifelong relief from H.I.V.
“It is inspiration and a potential road map to get to where we need to go,” said Dr. Steve Deeks, an H.I.V. expert at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the trial.
Other scientists were enthusiastic about the milestone.
“It’s truly amazing that they were able to accomplish this,” said Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem, an oncologist and gene therapy expert at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, who was not involved in the study.
H.I.V. requires lifelong control because the virus hides out in deep recesses of the body, and comes roaring back when it sees an opportunity. It also mutates easily to evade its attackers.
More than 40 million people are living with H.I.V. worldwide. About three-fourths of them take daily oral pills to keep the virus in check, and a much smaller proportion now receive injections every month or two. Several companies are developing longer-acting options, including weekly and monthly pills, and shots that could be given just once a year.
But scientists still aspire to develop “functional cures” that would effectively control H.I.V. over a lifetime, even if they do not eliminate it.
“People are really working hard on trying to cure it, and we’re making progress,” said James Riley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who is also modifying immune cells to control H.I.V.
Since the 1990s, many scientists have tried to modify immune cells called T cells to attack H.I.V., but those efforts were mostly unsuccessful. Some research teams lost interest after the arrival of powerful antiretroviral drugs soon after.
Cancer researchers soldiered on and succeeded in using the approach against blood cancers like leukemia.
“Cancer will always probably be the pioneer in this stuff, because of the incredible unmet medical need,” Dr. Riley said.
In the new study, scientists at Caring Cross, a nonprofit focused on developing affordable immunotherapies, engineered immune cells from each study participant to carry two molecules on the cell surface. Both molecules bind to H.I.V. and kill infected cells, but one also prevents the immune cells from becoming infected.
“It’s this dual nature of targeting — killing and protecting — that we think is the missing piece in terms of how this therapy works,” said Boro Dropulić, the executive director of Caring Cross, who developed the method.
The researchers extracted immune cells from each participant, modified the cells, then injected them back in. The participants stopped taking antiretroviral drugs the day of the infusion.
If a person does not take antiretroviral drugs, their H.I.V. levels typically soar within two weeks. But one person in the trial partially suppressed the virus for 12 weeks before rebounding. Two others were still in remission, 92 and 48 weeks after their infusion.
All three had begun receiving antiretroviral therapy within months of being infected. Three others who had lived with H.I.V. for longer before they were treated did not respond and needed to resume antiretroviral therapy. (A seventh participant showed signs of control seven weeks after infusion.)
Those details may be important. Those who were treated early in infection may have less H.I.V. sequestered in their body. Their immune system may also be less ravaged by the virus, and therefore more likely to rally when infused with the modified cells.
“Three out of three people with early disease doing some degree of control, to me, is the most provocative finding here,” Dr. Deeks said.
The two people with long-term response did show some blips of viral replication that quickly died down. That is to be expected as H.I.V. emerges from its reservoirs and is quashed by the immune cells.
Still, the results were exciting, several experts said.
The numbers in the study are very small but “these n-of-ones are so powerful because they encourage further research,” said Dr. Mike McCune, the head of a division at the Gates Foundation that supports innovation in H.I.V.
“For us, what what’s important is to make sure that we can go from an n-of-one to an n-of-a-million or more,” he said. “And the only way to do that is to engage companies that know how to make products.”
The foundation has not invested in work that involves removing immune cells and reinfusing them back into the individual. That approach is too invasive and expensive to reach the millions who will need it, Dr. McCune said. But it is actively pursuing scalable options.
Cancer researchers are already showing success altering the immune cells while they are still in the body, which should eventually be cheaper by orders of magnitude.
The direct injections could be produced “for less than $10,000 and then be off-the-shelf, meaning you can have them ready when a patient or person living with H.I.V. comes in,” Dr. Kiem said.
Other groups are working on broadly neutralizing antibodies, rare molecules that can disable a wide range of H.I.V. versions by targeting parts of the virus that do not mutate.
“If we can combine these two approaches, that really may be synergistic and provide a pathway to deliver something close to a functional cure long term,” Dr. Riley said.
Anticipating long-term needs, Caring Cross is working with organizations in Brazil, India and elsewhere to manufacture the products for cancer at much lower costs. The team is also refining the tools and approach for H.I.V. and plans to begin a bigger study later this year.
“This is a first-in-human approach,” Dr. Deeks said. “We often come up with new theories as we do this, and that’s what’s happening as we speak.”
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15) As Coal Rebounds, More Toxic Mercury Is in the Air
Coal-burning power plants released more mercury last year, according to an analysis by The Times. It reverses a downward trend of emissions of a metal that interferes with brain development.
By Irena Hwang and Hiroko Tabuchi, May 11, 2026
“The Trump administration estimated that loosening limits on pollution would save the industry about $120 million a year in compliance costs. … Public health experts say savings for the industry ignore the economic impact of additional pollution, including health care costs associated with cardiovascular disease and developmental problems in children; researchers at Harvard had calculated that keeping stricter limits on mercury pollution from lignite plants alone would have resulted in $200 million a year in public health benefits in just the first year. ‘The economic arguments are very flawed, because they don’t capture the public health costs,’ said Elsie Sunderland, a professor of environmental chemistry at Harvard, who conducted the research. She said the Trump administration’s policy rollbacks threatened to reverse decades of progress, for example, in lowering concentrations of mercury in the blood of American women of childbearing age, which would in turn affect fetus’s brains.”
Plant Bowen, a coal-fired power plant near Cartersville, Ga., is one of dozens of coal operations to receive presidential exemptions from meeting stricter emissions rules. Mike Stewart/Associated Press
Coal-fired power plants across the country released more mercury last year as power demand surged, reversing a yearslong downward trend in the emissions of a toxic metal that impairs brain development.
Mercury emissions from coal-burning plants increased by roughly 9 percent in 2025, compared with a year earlier, totaling more than 4,800 pounds, according to a New York Times analysis of data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency.
At the same time, the Trump administration launched a series of moves that experts say may make those emissions climb even higher this year and beyond.
The administration has encouraged the burning of more coal, which emits more carbon dioxide and other pollutants than other fossil fuels, while also blocking tighter pollution controls on coal-burning plants that were supposed to take effect by 2027. It has directed the Pentagon to buy more coal-powered electricity and reopened millions of acres of federal land to mining while working to stymie nonpolluting energy, like wind and solar power.
It also ordered some coal-burning power plants to scrap their plans to close, compelling them to remain open instead.
Most were set to close at the end of 2025. But the J.H. Campbell plant in Michigan, which should have retired on May 31, 2025, was ordered by the Energy Department to keep operating. From June through December last year, it emitted 36 pounds of mercury.
After years of progress, mercury emissions rose last year
Mercury emissions increased by more than 400 pounds, as the United States relied more heavily on energy from coal.
Under President Trump, the E.P.A. also canceled the more stringent limits the Biden administration had sought to place on emissions of mercury and other heavy metals from coal-fired power plants by 2027, maintaining a set of looser restrictions that took effect in 2012 under President Barack Obama.
At a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill two weeks ago, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, defended the weakening of pollution limits on power plants that burn coal.
Representative Josh Harder, Democrat of California, said Mr. Trump’s rollback would pump up to 1,500 additional pounds of mercury into the air. He cited E.P.A. data that compared emissions under Mr. Trump to the levels that would have been if Biden-era standards had stuck.
Mr. Zeldin said that number wasn’t accurate. “Rip it up,” he told Mr. Harder. “Have your dog pee on it.”
Before last year, mercury emissions from coal plants in the United States had been on a decline since 2018, the earliest year for which complete data was available. The only exception was 2021, when economic activity surged following the worst of the Covid pandemic lockdowns.
The rise of mercury emissions in 2025 was driven by an increase in the amount of coal burned. Experts said that demand from power-hungry data centers, as well as volatile natural gas prices, had spurred utility companies to burn more coal.
Coal’s resurgence has contributed to a rebound in emissions of planet-warming carbon dioxide, as well as hazardous pollutants like particulate matter and sulfur dioxide, which can harm the lungs.
But an increase in mercury is particularly alarming.
A potent neurotoxin that settles into waterways and accumulates in the food chain, particularly in fish, mercury can cause premature cardiovascular mortality in adults. In children and fetuses, it can cause developmental delays and permanent I.Q. deficits.
The toxic metal was once used in household items like batteries, paint and thermometers, but was phased out in the 1990s and 2000s, leaving coal plants as the largest industrial source of airborne mercury pollution in the United States.
As the head of the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now Mr. Trump’s health secretary, campaigned against mercury pollution from coal plants. He has talked about being diagnosed with mercury poisoning, most likely from eating tuna contaminated with the dangerous metal. In testimony before Congress, Mr. Kennedy called mercury “the most powerful neurotoxin we know of in the universe.”
President Trump, on the other hand, frequently praises what he calls “beautiful, clean coal.” And Mr. Zeldin has argued that tougher limits on mercury pollution would have regulated the coal sector “out of existence,” destroying “reliable American energy.”
In a statement, Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said President Trump remained “committed to restoring and strengthening the coal industry which has been viciously attacked by climate activists for years.”
Where coal plants emit mercury
Coal plants emitted over 4,800 pounds of mercury last year. Mercury that accumulates in the food chain can pose serious health risks.
Lynn R. Goldman, a pediatrician and professor of environmental and occupational health, called the rise of mercury emissions “shocking.”
“A tiny amount of mercury goes a long way,” Dr. Goldman said. “Mercury is magnified in the food chain, and so it ends up getting more and more concentrated as it moves up into, say, fish that people eat.”
The result, she said, are changes to intellectual development and behavior in children that might not be noticeable in the doctor’s office.
The E.P.A. first regulated mercury from coal plants in 2012, and mercury emissions from the power sector dropped by 86 percent within five years, according to the agency.
At that time, a subset of coal plants that burn lignite, the dirtiest coal, were allowed to meet looser limits after the coal industry argued that effective pollution controls didn’t exist.
In 2024, the Biden administration rejected that argument and moved to require lignite coal-burning plants to meet the same standards as other coal plants. That would have lowered lignite plants’ legal emissions limit by 70 percent. The Trump administration has repealed those restrictions for lignite plants.
In 2025, mercury emissions from lignite plants appeared to decline moderately. Carlos E. Romero, director of the Energy Research Center at Lehigh University, said the amount of mercury released by a coal plant could be affected by a range of reasons, including the mercury content of the coal itself. Lignite plants continued to make up for a disproportionate amount of mercury emissions, contributing more than 20 percent of total mercury emitted last year, though they accounted for less than 5 percent of electric power generated at coal plants. They are expected to remain a significant source of mercury emissions.
The Trump administration estimated that loosening limits on pollution would save the industry about $120 million a year in compliance costs.
Dr. Romero, an expert on pollution controls, said that some plants had invested in controls ahead of the tougher Biden-era standards, and were expected to keep those controls running. But units without the most stringent mercury controls could see their emission rates drift upward.
Antelope Valley Station in North Dakota is one of dozens of coal-burning plants that no longer has to meet stringent pollution standards by 2027. Mercury emissions recorded for that power plant increased by 14 percent in 2025 as it generated more power.
The Basin Electric Power Cooperative, the operator of the Antelope Valley plant, had argued that complying with the stricter rules would require expensive new equipment and could force it to scale back operations, hurting grid reliability and threatening national security.
Andy Buntrock, a spokesman for Basin Electric, said its plants complied with state and federal regulations.
A coalition of environmental groups has taken the Trump administration to court over its regulatory rollbacks.
The rise in mercury “adds to the growing evidence that, as the administration has made a significant effort to bring back coal, it is making us sicker,” said Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who has also analyzed the data.
The biggest increase in mercury emissions came from a decades-old Rockport Generating Station in Spencer County, Ind., on the banks of the Ohio River. There, mercury emissions surged to 73 pounds in 2025 from 28 pounds in 2024, an increase of more than 160 percent as the plant generated 90 percent more electric power.
Indiana has seen an expansion of large artificial intelligence data centers that require constant power, which has driven up demand for coal. The Rockport plant is scheduled for retirement in 2028, which environmental groups said diminished incentives to invest in pollution controls.
Scott Blake, a spokesman for American Electric Power, Rockport’s operator, said the plant’s pollution control equipment met legal obligations. He also noted that one of the plant’s units was off line for maintenance in 2024 and then returned to service the next year, increasing the amount of coal that was burned.
Public health experts say savings for the industry ignore the economic impact of additional pollution, including health care costs associated with cardiovascular disease and developmental problems in children; researchers at Harvard had calculated that keeping stricter limits on mercury pollution from lignite plants alone would have resulted in $200 million a year in public health benefits in just the first year.
“The economic arguments are very flawed, because they don’t capture the public health costs,” said Elsie Sunderland, a professor of environmental chemistry at Harvard, who conducted the research.
She said the Trump administration’s policy rollbacks threatened to reverse decades of progress, for example, in lowering concentrations of mercury in the blood of American women of childbearing age, which would in turn affect fetus’s brains.
Mira Rojanasakul contributed reporting.
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16) They Were Promised New Septic Tanks. Trump Called It ‘Illegal DEI.’
The Justice Department ended a deal that had helped fund a solution to the sewage crisis in rural Alabama. “Almost like we are starting all over again,” one activist said.
By Bernard Mokam, May 11, 2026
“Behind Dana Anderson’s home in central Alabama, a plastic pipe carries waste from her toilet through her backyard, discarding it outdoors. Three or four times a year, a spell of heavy rain forces the excrement back up into the house. … The soil is dense and holds onto water. Today there are more than 50,000 people in the region who pipe raw sewage into open trenches and pits. Now, a seeming solution to the public health problem has been stymied by an unlikely force: the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. … Three years ago, the Biden administration concluded in its first-ever environmental justice investigation that Alabama officials had failed to adequately address the sanitation crisis disproportionately affecting the Black residents of Lowndes County. The state agreed to an interim agreement that unlocked millions of dollars in federal funding to provide homeowners with septic tanks that could handle the difficult soil. But soon after President Trump returned to office last year, the Justice Department ended the settlement, calling it ‘illegal DEI.’”
Bernard Mokam spoke to more than a dozen residents in Alabama’s Black Belt region.
Behind Dana Anderson’s home in central Alabama, a plastic pipe carries waste from her toilet into open ground. Nicole Craine for The New York Times
Behind Dana Anderson’s home in central Alabama, a plastic pipe carries waste from her toilet through her backyard, discarding it outdoors. Three or four times a year, a spell of heavy rain forces the excrement back up into the house.
It is a plight that has long plagued residents across Alabama’s Black Belt, a stretch of largely rural counties so named for its dark soil and history of slavery. Cotton flourished in the region for the same reasons that conventional septic tanks fail there: The soil is dense and holds onto water. Today there are more than 50,000 people in the region who pipe raw sewage into open trenches and pits.
Now, a seeming solution to the public health problem has been stymied by an unlikely force: the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Three years ago, the Biden administration concluded in its first-ever environmental justice investigation that Alabama officials had failed to adequately address the sanitation crisis disproportionately affecting the Black residents of Lowndes County. The state agreed to an interim agreement that unlocked millions of dollars in federal funding to provide homeowners with septic tanks that could handle the difficult soil.
But soon after President Trump returned to office last year, the Justice Department ended the settlement, calling it “illegal DEI.”
The administration also scuttled a separate $14 million E.P.A. grant that had been earmarked to install new systems and provide work force training across Lowndes, Hale and Wilcox Counties.
Community activists fear the region may be doomed to enduring wastewater challenges forever.
“We thought we had a solution,” said Catherine Coleman Flowers, the founder of the Alabama-based Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, who has helped put a spotlight on the crisis. “It is almost like we are starting all over again.”
The funds have been filtering through the Alabama Department of Public Health to local nonprofit groups, which have taken on the responsibility of installing the systems.
Now, though, the money that flowed from the settlement will expire in October. So the groups are turning to whatever other funds they have and telling some homeowners that they may have to keep waiting for relief.
In interviews, many Black Belt residents said they had never heard of D.E.I. One woman even wondered whether the term originated with the president.
Some questioned what role race had actually played in their wastewater challenges. “I don’t think it’s a race issue,” said Ms. Anderson, noting that the leadership of Wilcox County was predominantly Black. She was one of the homeowners who would have gotten a new septic tank and is now out of luck.
But others tied the sanitation struggles to the legacies of slavery and segregation, linking the persistent poverty in the Black Belt to systemic racism.
The agreement that Alabama had reached with the Biden administration stopped the state from leveling fines and other penalties against Lowndes County residents who violated sanitation laws. It also ensured that the state would be an active participant in the solution — requiring it to track the number of residents without reliable sanitation, disseminate information about the health risks from raw sewage exposure, and seek funding sources to comply with the agreement.
In a statement, the Alabama Department of Health denied that it had discriminated against Black residents and said that it would continue “to expend grant funds associated with the installation of wastewater systems until funds expire.”
Some leaders fear the Supreme Court’s recent blow to the Voting Rights Act may further diminish political support for the majority-Black region.
“We cannot return to a time when the basic needs of these communities were ignored,” said Representative Terri Sewell, who represents the region in Congress and had championed the 2023 federal agreement.
Across the Black Belt, circumstances vary. Some homeowners have straight pipes snaking behind their homes, where the untreated waste creeps over their property line onto their neighbor’s land. Others purchased conventional septic tanks decades ago, which have since failed and deteriorated into cesspools and lagoons.
The flies and odor can prevent homeowners from spending time in their backyards. One day in March, a property owner had a swarm of gnats perched on the walls of his bathtub that appeared to be waiting for waste to rise through the drain.
State researchers estimate that up to four million gallons of raw sewage enter the region’s water system per year.
The burden of installing septic systems falls on property owners if they live outside the limits of a municipal sewer system, as many in the Black Belt do. But many residents cannot afford the costly, engineered systems that are needed to withstand the impermeable clay soil. And local counties do not generate enough tax revenue to help.
In Lowndes County, for example, the poverty rate hovers around 30 percent, almost three times the national average.
Several nonprofit groups have taken on the work of installing septic tanks in the county. But two of them do not regularly share information, and one has implied that the other has committed fraud.
Still, the groups admit that the system would benefit from more collaboration. Some activists have faulted state officials for making local nonprofits play such a vital role.
“There needs to be an overseeing body,” said Carmelita Arnold, president of the Lowndes County Unincorporated Wastewater Program.
And the groups agree that without federal aid, the issue will persist.
“If the current administration doesn’t change their mind about funding, it won’t be solved,” said Sherry Bradley, the executive director of the Black Belt Unicorporated Wastewater Program. We have a solution, she added, “but it takes funding.”
Ms. Bradley worked at the state health department for four decades and oversaw the wastewater issue as the agency’s bureau of environmental services director.
She said she knew back then that there had been raw sewage on the ground, and had even issued violations in Lowndes County. But she said that she was not aware of the full extent of the crisis until 2017, when a United Nations report compared the conditions in the county to those in the developing world.
For many Black Belt residents, land has been passed down through generations.
Andrew Rives, 83, still raises horses and goats on the 40 acres that his grandfather purchased many years ago near Tyler, Ala., in Lowndes County.
He was proud of owning the land. After the Civil War, the government reneged on its promise to give emancipated people 40 acres and a mule, but Mr. Rives said his grandfather was determined to buy the 40 acres.
Waste flows from his mobile home through a 50-foot pipe into a trench near a creek. When it rains, he said, the waste ends up in the watershed.
Mr. Rives signed up for a new septic tank two years ago, but it is unclear if he will get one before the funding expires. The Lowndes County Unincorporated Wastewater Program has installed around 35 septic tanks since 2024. The group still has around 140 homeowners on its list and Ms. Arnold, the president, hopes to install 30 more systems by October. But slow permit approval could get in the way, as could bad weather.
The organization has also been hampered by a lack of cash reserves to be able to pay for the work upfront. Last May, it took out a $1 million loan from a local bank in order to make progress.
Murline Wilson, 67, has been promised a new septic tank at her home in Wilcox County. She’s eager for her grandchildren to be able to play in the backyard, but she feels terrible for the dozens of homeowners who won’t get one now.
Community outreach officials in the county have whittled a list of 100 homeowners hoping for septic tanks down to 20 by drawing 13 names from a hat, and then giving seven others priority because they signed up first.
“It is really sad. This is one of the poorest counties in Alabama, and we need them,” said Ms. Wilson, referring to the septic tanks. “I was just blessed to get funding.”
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17) Cursive Club, Where Students Learn With a Flourish
Students are practicing cursive in clubs after school and in libraries after it was cut from the Common Core curriculum. Some states are reintroducing it into schools.
By Rylee Kirk, May 11, 2026
Chris Kobara practices writing his name in a cursive writing club at the Urban Assembly Early College High School of Emergency Medicine in Manhattan. Credit...Emon Hassan for The New York Times
Chris Kobara stood in front of an electronic white board in his New York City high school, practicing with a swoop of his pen the connection between the “a” and “r” in his name.
He stepped back and looked at the board with Suzanne Finman, his English teacher, who had been coaching him.
“If it’s readable, it’s something,” he said, displeased with his effort.
Mr. Kobara, 18, was one of six students who gathered after school in Ms. Finman’s classroom at the Urban Assembly Early College High School of Emergency Medicine on a recent afternoon to practice signing their names in cursive.
The students, all of them high school seniors, filled sheets with their names, at times comparing the flourishes they added to their letters.
The club is one of several that have been established in recent years at schools and libraries across the country where children are learning cursive in extracurricular clubs.
Cursive was eliminated from the Common Core standards in 2010, and now many children can’t sign their names, write checks or read historical documents written in cursive, such as the Declaration of Independence.
In a 2016 interview with Education Week, Sue Pimentel, who helped shape the Common Core state standards for English and language arts, said a higher priority had been placed on students learning how to use technology than learning cursive.
While some states have restored cursive writing to their curriculums, some students in states where it remains excluded have sought ways to learn the skill outside school.
“Knowing how to write your name in script is really important,” Mr. Kobara said. “Everybody should know how to write in script.”
He’s been practicing his signature for several weeks after school, perfecting a loop in the “C” of his first name, and plans to write thank you notes to teachers in cursive.
It started with the students’ curiosity.
“When students see me take my own notes in cursive, they immediately ask me to write their name in cursive and then they ask me to teach it to them,” Ms. Finman said. “This has happened a lot over the years, so I asked, ‘Could I teach you this in a cursive club?’”
While some students are learning in extracurricular clubs at school, others are finding their penmanship lessons at libraries.
Mandi Whipple, a librarian who specializes in young adult books at the public library in Blackstone, Mass., was inspired to start a cursive club last year after one of her colleagues observed that her grandchildren couldn’t read cursive writing.
Now, a group of students meets at the library for an hour every Thursday to practice the looping script of their letters.
“The ones that have stuck with it are now writing full sentences,’ Miss Whipple said. “They’re really into it.”
A cursive program at Abington Community Library in Clarks Summit, Pa., has a defined curriculum that children follow for eight weeks, focusing on a few letters each week.
“We show them how to do it and they can copy us on paper,” Leigh-Ann Puchalski, the children’s librarian said. “Then we do practice where they practice on worksheets. Then, to make it fun, we add different types of sensory elements.”
The children can trace letters in salt with their fingers, use magnetized drawing boards called Magna Doodles, and write in gel pens to make it fun, Mrs. Puchalski said.
The program has been so popular that it has had a wait-list, she said.
With the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence this year, Mrs. Puchalski is emphasizing the historical side of cursive and having children trace the Constitution.
“For one of the sessions we’ll use parchment paper,” Mrs. Puchalski said. “I did actually order the refillable fountain pens.”
In Pennsylvania, cursive won’t be a relic of the past much longer. Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a bill in February to reintroduce it in schools, joining at least 23 other states that have started to require that it be taught in schools. New Jersey is reintroducing cursive for the 2026-27 school year. Idaho brought it back last year.
Cursive is not just for signing checks. It also has a scientific advantage.
“When you form those intricate letters, those motor patterns on paper, it actually requires much more of the brain, and the brain is much more active and it’s more stimulating for the brain than to type letters on the keyboard,” said Audrey van der Meer, a brain researcher and professor of psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Dr. van der Meer conducted a study of 140 students who were quizzed after a lecture by their professor. Those who took notes by hand scored better on the quiz than those who typed their notes, she said.
For Jasmyn Rios, 17, learning cursive is a point of pride.
“My I.D. signature looks crazy, it’s a mess,” she said, while writing her name repeatedly on a piece of paper. “I wanted to come so when I do have to sign those professional documents, I’m not embarrassed.”
Ms. Rios said that she’s had to sign her name several times as she prepares to go to college, and that she was concerned about how her handwriting would look once she is in the professional world, she said.
Cursive “should be taught fundamentally in elementary schools,” she said. “I think it covers a lot more than just having professional writing — just being confident in what you’re writing when you’re writing it.”
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