*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
VIDEO:
What Cubans Really Think About Trump
By Jeff Seal, May 28, 2026
Mr. Seal is a comedian and a visual journalist.
Born in rural Ohio, Howard Keylor attended a one-room country schoolhouse. He became a member of the National Honor Society when he graduated from Marietta High School.
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, Howard fought in the Pacific Theater in World War Two, during which he participated in the Battle of Okinawa as a Corporal. The 96th U.S. Army Division, which Howard trained with, had casualty rates above 50%. The incompetence and racism of the military command, the destruction of the capital city of Naha and the deliberate killings of tens of thousands of Okinawan civil-ians – a third of the population - made Howard a committed anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and anti-racist for the rest of his life.
Upon returning to the United States, Howard enrolled in the College of the Pacific, but dropped out to support Filipino agricultural workers in the 1948 asparagus strike, working with legendary labor leader Larry Itliong. He became a longshore worker in Stockton in 1953. As a member of the Communist Party, Howard and his wife, Evangeline, were attacked in the HUAC (McCarthy) hearings in San Francisco. Later, Howard transferred to ILWU Local 10. In 1971 he, along with Brothers Herb Mills, Leo Robinson and a ma-jority of Local 10’s members, opposed the proposed 1971 contract which codified the 9.43 steadyman sys-tem. This led to the longshore strike of 1971-1972, which shut down 56 West Coast ports and lasted 130 days. It was the longest strike in the ILWU’s history.
In Local 10 Brother Keylor was a member of the Militant Caucus, a class struggle rank-and-file group which published a regular newsletter, the “Longshore Militant”. He later left the Militant Caucus and pub-lished a separate newsletter on his own, the “Militant Longshoreman.” Howard advocated deliberate defi-ance of the “slave-labor” Taft-Hartley law through illegal secondary boycotts and pickets. Running on an open class-struggle program which called for breaking with the Democratic and Republican Parties, form-ing a worker’s government, expropriating the capitalists without compensation and creating a planned economy, Howard won election to the Executive Board of Local 10 for twelve years.
The Militant Caucus was involved in organizing protests and boycotts of military cargo bound for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1975 and 1978 and again in 1980 to the military dictatorship in El Sal-vador. The Caucus also participated in ILWU Local 6’s strike at KNC Glass in Union City, during which a mass picket line physically defeated police and scabs, winning a contract for a workforce composed pri-marily of Mexican-American immigrants.
In 1984, Brother Keylor made the motion, amended by Brother Leo Robinson, which led to the elev-en-day longshore boycott of South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley. In 1986, Howard again partici-pated in the Campaign Against Apartheid’s community picket line against the Nedlloyd Kemba. When Nel-son Mandela spoke at the Oakland Coliseum in 1990 after his release from prison, he credited Local 10 with re-igniting the anti-Apartheid movement in the Bay Area.
Other actions Brother Howard initiated, organized or participated in included the 1995-98 struggle of the Liverpool dockworkers; the 1999 coastwide shutdown and march of 25,000 in San Francisco to de-mand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal; the 2000 Charleston longshore union campaign; the 2008 May Day anti-imperialist war shutdown of all West Coast ports; the shutdown of Northern California ports in pro-test of the murder of Oscar Grant; the blockades of Israeli ships to protest the war on Gaza in 2010 and 2014; the 2011 ILWU struggle against the grain monopolies in Longview; Occupy Oakland’s march of 40,000 to the Port of Oakland, and countless other militant job actions and protests. Throughout his life, Brother Keylor always extended solidarity where it was needed. He fought racist police murders and fas-cist terror, defended abortion clinics, and fought for survivors of psychiatric abuse. Having grown up in Appalachia, he has always been an environmentalist, and helped shut down a Monsanto facility in Davis in 2012, as well as fighting pesticide use and deforestation in the East Bay.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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-
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
 Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity CampaignAn appeal for financial supportMay 12, 2026 Dear Friends of the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign, It has been more than two years since Boris Kagarlitsky began serving the five-year sentence meted out to him by a Russian military court as a way of silencing and punishing him for his opposition to Putin’s war on Ukraine. With a multitude of longstanding friends and colleagues throughout the world, Boris is one of the best-known victims of the steadily escalating political repression in Russia. He has borne the gross injustice of his incarceration with characteristic courage, determination and defiance. But there is no denying that Putin’s gulag takes a toll on even the most valiant spirits. The Boris Kagarlitsky Solidarity Campaign has worked continuously these last two years to draw attention to Boris’s plight, and by extension to that of other prisoners unjustly condemned for protesting the ongoing war that has already cost upwards of half a million lives and vastly more maimed, according to estimates. We have sought, through a variety of activities, to bring pressure to bear on the Russian authorities to free Boris. The many people involved in the Campaign are happy to volunteer their time. However, we rely on the generosity of the Campaign’s supporters to cover the periodic expenses we incur. We recently reached out for help to defray costs associated with the participation of Boris’ daughter and tireless advocate for Russian political prisoners, Kseniia Kagarlitskya, in the international antifascist conference in Porto Alegre at the end of March. That trip was a great success. It allowed Kseniia and Mikhail Lobanov, Russian mathematician, political activist, and former associate professor at Moscow State University, to introduce the thousands of conference-goers from Brazil and across the world to the grim realities confronting Russian political dissidents. The Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Committee has many plans in store for the coming months and especially the fall, including a virtual conference devoted to the global manifestations of political repression. We are appealing to you for a little financial help to carry out our projects and support the day-to-day ongoing work of the committee. We would be deeply appreciative of any assistance you can provide. Because the members of the Campaign coordinating committee are scattered across Europe, North America and beyond, it has been a little complicated to set up a campaign bank account, although we are making progress on that front. For the time being we are asking that you send any contributions you can manage directly to our de facto treasurer Suzi Weissman who is located in Los Angeles, California. The details of her account are: Bank: Wells Fargo Swift/Bic: PNBPUS6L Account holder: Susan Claudia Weissman Account number: 0657205076 International wire transfers: WFBIUS6S wise.com personal account: @susanclaudiaw We thank you in anticipation of any contribution you can make to help keep the Campaign running. Yours in solidarity, Dick Nichols Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the auth *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
He still needs more complicated treatment from a retinal specialist for his right eye if his eyesight is to be saved:
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical
Defense Fund
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Articles
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
11) The Democratic Socialists Winning Elections Far From New York City
They won Democratic state legislative primaries in Buffalo and Syracuse, showing how the party’s messaging and ground game can work outside New York City.
By Benjamin Oreskes and Mark Sommer, July 12, 2026
Mark Sommer reported from Buffalo N.Y.
Adam Bojak, a democratic socialist candidate, won a three-way Democratic primary for the New York State Assembly in the Buffalo area. Credit...Lauren Petracca for The New York Times
As the national co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, Megan Romer has worked for plenty of campaigns and knocked on all sorts of doors across the country.
But for Ms. Romer, there is something special about Buffalo that made it “the best canvassing city in the country,” and it’s not just because she hails from nearby Cayuga County.
“Everybody has got a front porch,” she said. “It is such a nice place to spend a Saturday talking to voters.”
Ms. Romer speaks from recent experience. She was part of a volunteer team that knocked on around 25,000 doors in the western Buffalo area, helping Adam Bojak to a decisive win in last month’s three-way Democratic primary for a State Assembly seat. If Mr. Bojak wins in November, he will become the State Legislature’s first democratic socialist to represent western New York.
Roughly 150 miles to the east in nearby Syracuse, a similar army of fired-up volunteers knocked on thousands of doors in support of Maurice Brown, a democratic socialist. The effort paid off: Mr. Brown narrowly defeated Assemblyman William B. Magnarelli, a 28-year incumbent, by 82 votes in a primary that saw about 6,700 people cast their ballots.
The primaries in New York last month underscored the continued emergence of the left as a political force. Nowhere was that more evident than New York City, where two democratic socialists defeated more established rivals in Democratic House contests, and another leftist candidate took down a House incumbent.
But for national Democrats wrestling with how to channel the enthusiasm for populist outsiders without alienating general-election voters in November, the victories in Buffalo and Syracuse — hundreds of miles from New York City and its democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani — might also prove instructive.
Candidates and organizers said in interviews that voters seemed to care most about affordability and had a sense that government was in need of generational change.
That thirst for change was evident in Buffalo. Bonnie Bullard, a nanny who lives on Buffalo’s densely populated West Side, where Mr. Bojak received just under 66 percent of the vote, said that she felt compelled to vote for Mr. Bojak after he was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont.
“I am tired of politics as usual, not just with the Republican Party but also the Democratic Party, and I feel democratic socialists are listening to the everyday person,” Ms. Bullard said.
Christine McMullen, a 35-year-old tattoo artist, agreed. “I think sometimes traditional Democrats are more worried about making their donors happy, where socialists are more concerned about what they can do for people,” said Ms. McMullen, who works at Crucible Art Collective on the West Side of Buffalo.
Mr. Bojak and Mr. Brown said they were somewhat surprised that their ties to the D.S.A. did not elicit more skepticism or curiosity. Just five years ago, India Walton, a democratic socialist who had an upset victory in the Democratic primary for mayor in Buffalo, lost in the general election. Her opponent — Byron Brown, the incumbent mayor at the time — ran an aggressive write-in campaign that portrayed her as an extremist.
But the candidates said that the attention given to Mr. Mamdani’s win last year has made voters in western and central New York more comfortable with the democratic socialist brand.
“Bernie Sanders chipped away at that, but then Zohran Mamdani was a huge help,” Mr. Bojak said.
He continued: “Zohran wasn’t successful because he talked about being a socialist. He just said what he was going to do. Our messaging is broadly popular. People want to tax the rich and expand child care. I don’t care what letter is next to their name.”
Maxwell Bollman, who helps lead the D.S.A.’s Buffalo chapter, said that after Mr. Mamdani’s victory last year, the chapter saw its membership grow from around 200 members to about 500. And over time, more voters seemed receptive to the group’s economic platform.
“People are feeling that squeeze even if you’re wealthy and tucked away in the suburbs,” said Mr. Bollman, who also served as Mr. Bojak’s field director.
And while their opponents mostly relied on paid canvassers, Mr. Bollman said that his team of volunteers actually knew Mr. Bojak and believed in his policies — a personal touch and conviction that is sometimes lacking in traditional get-out-the-vote efforts.
“The old Buffalo establishment is getting pushed out,” Mr. Bollman said. “We’re filling that void because we’re the only political project around here that can actually motivate voters.”
Mr. Brown, known to most as Mo, also benefited from D.S.A. volunteers, who fanned out to suburban pockets of their districts, where the group’s policies may not have been received as warmly.
Mr. Bollman said that the parts of the district in Buffalo were easier to canvass because of the city’s density and its more progressive slant. But in the last month before the primary, the campaign began to venture into suburbs like Hamburg to try to lure more mainstream voters — a prelude to what Mr. Bojak and Mr. Brown will need to do for November’s general election.
Mr. Bojak succeeded against his two opponents by garnering about 61 percent of the vote in the more vote-heavy Buffalo, overcoming roughly 33 percent he pulled in Hamburg.
If the two men prevail, they will be part of a cohort of 16 D.S.A.-backed legislators in Albany next year. This would represent the largest number of democratic socialists in the State Capitol ever, and that doesn’t even account for the lawmakers who agree with the group’s platform but are not officially part of the organization.
“The wins point to a good amount of sclerosis in the old line, consultant machine blob, and that the era of simply bombarding people with mailers and television ads is maybe over,” said Ms. Romer, the national D.S.A. co-chair.
In Syracuse, Rachel May, a Democratic state senator, said that there was not much ideological separation between Mr. Brown and Mr. Magnarelli, but Mr. Brown was able to capitalize on voter frustration.
“People here feel that the Democratic Party’s business as usual is not meeting this moment,” said Ms. May, who also represents Syracuse and was one of the few elected officials to back Mr. Brown.
“I think people who are not necessarily of the same ideological spectrum as Mo still want someone who is going to fight in new ways because the old ways have not been working,” she added. “He tapped into some of that.”
Another modern-day concern became an issue in Syracuse and Buffalo: mammoth data centers used to power generative artificial intelligence. A state bill sponsored by a D.S.A. lawmaker that was passed in Albany last month would create a one-year moratorium on new data centers.
Mr. Brown recounted attending a community meeting in the small town of Lysander, where a data center had been proposed. “The room was not big enough to hold everyone who wanted to be there for that meeting,” he said.
“They wanted elected officials to pay attention,” he added. “I had a leg up on my opponent, because I was.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) Younger Voters Are Propelling the Democratic Socialist Surge in New York
Age seemed to be the predominant factor in the Democratic Socialists of America’s primary wins in House races in New York City.
By Emma Goldberg and Luke Vrotsos, July 12, 2026
Mayor Zohran Mamdani helped elevate the candidacies of three leftist candidates who won House primaries last month. From left to right, Claire Valdez, Brad Lander, Mr. Mamdani and Darializa Avila Chevalier. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
In a low-slung house in Queens, Cooper Smith and his roommates live at the epicenter of a political shift.
Mr. Smith is a 26-year-old copywriter who recently voted for Claire Valdez, a democratic socialist who won a House primary last month. He said he cannot think of a single one of his friends who identifies as a political moderate.
In his voting precinct, not far from the Brooklyn border, Ms. Valdez received 84 percent of the vote. Three-quarters of the people who cast ballots in this year’s primary there are under 40.
There are a multitude of reasons for the Democratic Socialists of America’s expanding reach in blue states like New York: dissatisfaction with the status quo, anger over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, concern about the growing affordability crisis. But what became clear during the June primaries is that those sources of friction have weighed heaviest among the younger voters driving the D.S.A.’s success at the polls.
A New York Times analysis of election data about Ms. Valdez and another democratic socialist who won a House primary, Darializa Avila Chevalier, found a strong correlation between the average age of people who voted in June in a precinct and its support for candidates backed by the D.S.A.
In New York’s Seventh Congressional District, where Ms. Valdez won, younger registered Democrats turned out at a higher rate than older registered Democrats, a rare occurrence in a primary election.
In two neighboring parts of Ridgewood where at least 80 percent of voters are under 40, Ms. Valdez won at least 80 percent of the vote. Overall, she got 76 percent of the vote in precincts with an average age under 40, and just 39 percent in precincts with an average age of 50 or more, according to The Times’s analysis of election data, which excluded precincts with significant Hasidic Jewish populations who historically vote as a bloc, regardless of age.
In Manhattan and the Bronx, the precinct where Ms. Avila Chevalier received the highest percentage of votes overlaps with Columbia University’s main campus and was the only precinct in the 13th District where most voters were under the age of 35. Ms. Avila Chevalier also received at least 70 percent of the vote in a precinct that includes Columbia’s medical school and another that includes the City University of New York’s medical school.
The precinct where her opponent, Representative Adriano Espaillat, performed best consisted almost entirely of a senior center, with a median age of 78. He won just over 90 percent of the vote in that precinct. (The only precinct with an average age under 50 that Mr. Espaillat won included part of the campus of Yeshiva University and its on-campus housing.)
While the two D.S.A.-backed candidates did better on average in precincts with more college graduates and higher median incomes, those correlations were not as pronounced as voters’ age.
In interviews with roughly a dozen voters under 40 across the congressional districts where Ms. Valdez and Ms. Avila Chevalier won, many described being squeezed by New York rent, feeling underpaid and overqualified for their jobs, and spoke of their desire to support candidates who promised to do away with same-old, same-old politics. Their elation was particularly visible at a victory party for Ms. Valdez, where hundreds of 20-somethings raved under a disco ball in East Williamsburg in Brooklyn chanting “D.S.A.”
“That trickle-down fear from our grandparents in the Cold War — I don’t think that really is affecting anyone’s opinion,” said Mr. Smith, the copywriter, in Ridgewood. “They’re looking at it from the perspective of, ‘Is the system working right now?’”
It’s the moments when Mr. Smith spends $17 for a slop bowl, $6 for a box of berries or $250 for monthly health insurance that it feels unsurprising to him that so many of his peers are casting ballots for sweeping economic change.
Grace Jackson, 24, lives in Ridgewood and decided to support Ms. Valdez after learning she was in the D.S.A. and had been endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a fellow D.S.A. member.
“That was enough for me,” Ms. Jackson said. “I thought it would be cool if I had my own A.O.C.,” referring to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is closely associated with the D.S.A.
Age was also a defining characteristic in last year’s mayoral race, in which young people were far more likely to express support for Mr. Mamdani.
The heavily youth-driven nature of the democratic socialist wave in New York has led some Democratic strategists to question where the movement goes as participants get older.
“If you go back 100 years‚ you could go back to Vietnam, you could go back to South Africa — the folks who are the most progressive, shake up the establishment, fight back, are the youngest,” said Chris Coffey, a strategist who worked in Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration. “That is not a new phenomenon. The question becomes, around the D.S.A., as they get older do they lose interest? Do they move to the center?”
Mr. Coffey noted that as recently as the 2021 mayoral primary, three of the four top finishers were moderates.
Ms. Valdez viewed young people as a crucial part of her base and pushed policies like socialized health care and curbing U.S. support for Israel, knowing these polled well among voters under 35.
The campaign was “very confident in being bold and muscular about our ideology,” said Andrew Epstein, a political consultant who worked for Ms. Valdez. “There was never a political reason to be timid about how we talked about Palestine or Medicare for all.”
While Ms. Valdez and Ms. Avila Chevalier’s primaries were sharply divided by generation, they were not deeply divided along racial lines, according to The Times’s analysis of election data.
The two D.S.A.-backed candidates performed slightly better in precincts with more white voters. Ms. Avila Chevalier, a child of Dominican immigrants, lost majority-Hispanic precincts in her district by 17 percentage points. She won majority-Black precincts by two percentage points. Overall, given the racial diversity of their districts, Ms. Valdez and Ms. Avila Chevalier could not have won their primaries without significant support from nonwhite voters.
“The margins by which I won this district wouldn’t have been possible if it was only white gentrifiers,” Ms. Valdez said in an interview.
Ms. Jackson, the 24-year-old in Ridgewood, is a Black woman who voted for Ms. Valdez. She said she gets frustrated by the oft-repeated notion that the democratic socialist wave is being driven primarily by white gentrifiers. She hears in it echoes of the relatives who told her, when she was in high school, that Senator Sanders was a candidate for white people.
“The word gentrifier doesn’t mean anything to these people — it means outsider,” she said. “You can always blame something on an outsider when it upsets you.”
But Ms. Avila Chevalier’s performance was weaker in precincts with public housing, according to The Times’s analysis of election data.
“Even in those areas, in the parts of the district where the incumbent has represented for almost 30 years, we were in striking distance,” Ms. Avila Chevalier said in an interview. “The fact that we were able to build a base and coalition in the way that we did — now we can grow it and make sure folks are feeling included.”
For some young voters, support for D.S.A.-backed candidates has only increased as Mr. Mamdani’s administration has gotten underway, and they have tangible policy effects to point to, like the recently enacted rent freeze.
Julia Winck, 24, lives in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn in a building whose tenants have been in touch with members of the Mamdani administration regarding complaints about their landlord. Feeling the effects of his government has emboldened her to push back when her parents voice skepticism about democratic socialist candidates.
“For a lot of people my age, we look at old-fashioned politicians as more — I don’t want to say corrupt, but I feel like we haven’t seen them put their money where their mouth is,” she said.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) Prosecutors Went to Prison to Ask the Prisoners How to Fight Crime
What might stop kids from committing crimes? A group of district attorneys went to San Quentin, once one of California’s most infamous prisons, to ask the inmates for advice.
By Shaila Dewan, Photographs by Rachel Bujalski, July 12, 2026
Nathan Hochman, the Los Angeles district attorney, spoke with inmates at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center in California. Rachel Bujalski for The New York Times
Except for the portraits of Jesus, the chapel in California’s oldest prison is reminiscent of a high school gymnasium, with cinder block walls and a high, narrow strip of windows. On a recent day, it was the venue for an unusual six-hour event in which the people in prison had a chance to talk to the people who put them there.
About 60 men in dusky blue work shirts — referred to as “inside people” — congregated with about 20 people in darker business attire — “outside people,” a contingent of district attorneys and their staff members.
It was the first time that Erik Nasarenko, the district attorney for Ventura County, had visited a prison in his 18 years as a prosecutor. Gripping and grinning, he worked the crowd. “What high school did you go to?” he asked one inmate, who was from Long Beach.
“Wilson,” the man said, affably. “For one day. Then I went to juvenile hall.”
Prosecutors rarely visit prisons, and even more rarely converse at length with people doing hard time. This was the second annual such meeting convened by Brooke Jenkins, the top prosecutor in San Francisco, who said that both sides stood to gain from the experience.
Prosecutors could ask prisoners for ideas about what interventions might have prevented their younger selves from committing crimes. And prisoners could tell their stories of redemption to the very officials who might review their requests for parole or a shortened sentence.
The location itself, on a stretch of Bay Area waterfront, was a draw for the outside people. Once the infamous home of California’s death chamber, the prison has undergone a rebrand. Three years ago, its name was changed from the San Quentin State Prison to the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, where prisoners have access to therapeutic and job training programs and can work on the hit podcast Ear Hustle, The San Quentin News, which is distributed at prisons around the state, or in a soon-to-open cafe.
Prosecutor visits to San Quentin began in 2012 with George Gascón, Ms. Jenkins’s predecessor. Understanding the rehabilitation process helped prosecutors make better decisions, Mr. Gascón said then. For her part, Ms. Jenkins has supported proposals by San Quentin prisoners to ensure that the money they pay to the courts goes to crime victims first — before fines and fees — and for single-occupancy cells, to make prisoners safer and more productive. The first idea became state law, the latter passed in the State Assembly last year.
After bagels and coffee, a microphone was passed around the chapel for introductions. The chief prosecutor for Merced County turned out to be seated between a man convicted of carjacking and another convicted of murder; the acting district attorney for Yolo County was rubbing elbows with a former police officer who had kidnapped and raped women, and a man who had killed his own son.
Many of the residents had worked their way from rougher institutions to San Quentin, where they are encouraged to come to terms with the harm they had caused. Several mentioned their victims by name and made a point of saying they had been “rightfully convicted.”
The day’s chosen moderator, an inside person, invited everyone in the room to take two deep breaths, in unison. “We just heard a lot of accountability,” he said, “and I really believe in self care.”
State prison officials permitted The New York Times to observe the event on the condition that prisoners not be identified, except for a handful who were selected to give interviews.
After a panel discussion, the outside people were given a tour of a new learning complex with floor-to-ceiling windows and benches fashioned from gargantuan wooden beams.
Stephen Wagstaffe, the district attorney of San Mateo County, who has been a prosecutor for 49 years, was attending for the second time.
“In California at large, I’m one that would be described as one of the public safety, law-and-order, harsh types. I fully acknowledge that’s what I am,” he said. But, he added, “This is spectacular. This is what we ought to be doing.”
Mr. Wagstaffe said he did not approve of recent changes to California law that allowed prisoners to seek relief from sentences that can exceed 100 years, even in crimes where no lives were lost.
But he had made one adjustment since his last visit, he said. “I went back to my office and I put in a rule that nobody in my office can request a three-digit sentence without my review and approval.”
He gestured toward a San Quentin resident. “I see people like this gentleman and I think, ‘You know, he doesn’t have to die here.’”
For the next two hours, the inmates and the prosecutors gathered in smaller sessions that one D.A. described as “inmate-led focus groups.” Among the topics: the difficulty of determining when a prisoner is truly rehabilitated, whether prosecutors could hire people with the “lived experience” of having done time, ways to expand prisoner mentoring of at-risk youth, and how to get hip-hop songs, recorded by prisoners and aimed at deglamorizing violence, into the hands of DJs. Prosecutors asked what might have kept the inmates from committing crimes in the first place.
“To be honest, I don’t know if I could have told anything to my younger self to stop the journey that I was on,” said Ryan Pagan, who was serving 77 years for a murder he committed as a teenager. Now, he makes podcasts and documentary films. People had tried to scare him straight, he said, but he did not listen. “I feel like I needed prison.”
Ms. Jenkins protested. “That makes me feel hopeless,” she said.
Jason Jenkins said it might have helped if someone had been around to cultivate his talent for basketball. But his mother had gone to prison for dealing drugs when he was 5, and his father had been shot and killed by the police. “No one ever showed up to my basketball games,” he said.
Taiosisi Matangi, who regularly speaks to high school students as part of a San Quentin mentorship program, said it was more important to listen to kids than to scare them.
If he could talk to his younger self, he would say that the abuse he experienced as a child was not his fault.
“But,” he would add, “we can do something to get you out of there and stop thinking that violence is OK.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) Melbourne Symphony Wins Discrimination Case Over Gaza Comments
The pianist Jayson Gillham had sued the orchestra after it canceled his performance in the wake of comments he made against Israel’s war with Hamas.
By Derrick Bryson Taylor, July 12, 2026
The classical pianist Jayson Gillham outside federal court in Melbourne, Australia, in May. Jay Kogler/AAP Image, via Reuters
A concert pianist who sued the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for abruptly canceling one of his performances in 2024 after he had spoken out against Israeli forces’ killing journalists in Gaza was not discriminated against, a judge in Australia ruled.
The pianist, Jayson Gillham, claimed in a lawsuit that the orchestra had violated the country’s Fair Work Act and his right not to be treated unfavorably in the workplace because of his political beliefs.
But the judge, Graeme Hill of the Federal Court of Australia, ruled on Friday that because Mr. Gillham was an independent contractor he was not protected under the workplace rights law. The orchestra, Justice Hill determined, had acted to protect its business and reputation when it canceled the performance by Mr. Gillham and issued statements to its patrons about the matter.
“The court finds that the M.S.O. would have taken the same actions if Mr. Gillham had expressed a political belief in support of Israel, or if Mr. Gillham had made statements on any other topic that had the same impact or anticipated impact on the M.S.O.’s business and reputation that Mr. Gillham’s actual remarks had,” a summary of the judgment said.
In a statement on Instagram on Friday, Mr. Gillham, who is British and Australian, said he was “very disappointed” by the court’s decision. “I believe artists should be free to speak with integrity,” he said. “This case was never just about me. My principles remain unchanged.”
A spokeswoman for the orchestra said in a statement that it welcomed the judgment and that Mr. Gillham “should have sought the authorization of the M.S.O. before making the statements he made” from the stage.
The decision concludes an episode that began in August 2024, when Mr. Gillham announced during a solo recital in Melbourne that he would perform an unscheduled piece called “Witness.”
The piece, he said, was dedicated to journalists killed in Gaza, and had been composed by his friend Connor D’Netto.
Mr. Gillham told the audience that Israel was responsible for the deaths of more than 100 Palestinian journalists in the previous 10 months. “The killing of journalists is a war crime in international law, and it is done in an effort to prevent the documentation and broadcasting of war crimes to the world,” he said.
The war in Gaza began after Hamas-led terror attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel. According to the Committee to Project Journalists, at least 207 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. Tens of thousands of other Palestinian civilians have also been killed.
The day after Mr. Gillham made his comments, the orchestra informed him that it was removing him from the lineup of a concert that was scheduled for a few days later.
In a letter to people who had attended Mr. Gillham’s recital, the organization said the pianist had made “unauthorized statements” that represented an “intrusion of personal political views.”
At the time, Mr. Gillham told The New York Times that the orchestra’s response had caught him by surprise, adding, “It felt like an overreaction.”
In the aftermath, artists, journalists and music fans in Australia denounced the orchestra for canceling Mr. Gillham’s performance and defended his right to free speech.
The orchestra later said it had erred in judgment.
“The M.S.O. acknowledges that an error was made in asking Jayson to step back from his performance,” it said in a statement, adding that it was working to reschedule his appearance. “While the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra maintains that a concert platform is not an appropriate stage for political comment, we acknowledge Jayson’s concerns for those in the Middle East and elsewhere.”
It is unclear if another performance was ever rescheduled.
After the cancellation, the orchestra’s musicians passed a vote of no confidence in the administration, and the organization announced that its managing director was departing.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) California Blocked an Oil Pipeline in Santa Barbara. Trump Forced It Open.
The reopening of the pipeline has made residents anxious in a region prized for its gorgeous beaches and ocean views.
By Soumya Karlamangla, Reporting from Santa Barbara, July 13, 2026
On a hillside trail near Santa Barbara, Calif., songbirds chirped in the arching branches of oak trees. The bright blue Pacific Ocean lapped at the secluded cliffs below. Given the breathtaking views, it was easy to miss a knee-high sign on an orange pillar.
Warning: Crude Oil Pipeline.
For decades, state and federal officials had halted new offshore drilling here on California’s coast to protect its shoreline. But in March, amid an oil shortage during the war in Iran, the Trump administration ordered the reopening of a Santa Barbara pipeline that had been dormant since 2015 after a major spill.
The reboot has spawned enormous backlash locally, as well as several lawsuits against Sable, the pipeline’s Texas-based owner, from environmental groups and California officials. The pipeline initially burst in 2015 because of corrosion, and it remains vulnerable to another rupture, opponents say.
It is a twist of nature that this region, nicknamed the American Riviera for its postcard-perfect beaches and red-tiled roofs, overlooks one of the world’s richest offshore oil reserves. And it is perhaps a twist of politics that the bounty of petroleum sits next to California, a liberal state where environmental protections are held sacred.
President Trump has made increased domestic oil production a central part of his platform, and the “drill, baby, drill” mind-set tends to be popular with his base for its near-term economic and national security benefits. But the opposition to the pipeline is an example of how his agenda plays out on a local level, challenging the identity and ideology of Santa Barbara.
For the people who live here, coastal beauty takes precedence over almost anything else. On a breezy Santa Barbara beach, Amber Armistead walked her pug, Nacho, under palm trees and swooping sea gulls. Beachgoers nearby snacked on guacamole and fish tacos while others dragged their surfboards into the waves.
President Trump “doesn’t care if there’s another spill,” Ms. Armistead, 65, said. “We have such a beautiful place here on the coast. I don’t know why you would jeopardize it.”
Ms. Armistead, who manages a clothing store, said her daily strolls on the beach were helping her become “unwaterlogged” after years of living in Seattle. The beach is the reason she came to Santa Barbara, and why she has stayed, she said, echoing many residents.
Santa Barbara County, roughly 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles and with about 442,000 residents, is beloved for its Mediterranean climate and south-facing beaches that make for some of the calmest waters in California. Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry live here in multimillion-dollar estates perched in the scrubby mountains peering above the shore.
Pipeline or not, Santa Barbara’s beaches have never been completely pristine. Black goo has washed ashore here for thousands of years as natural seepage from the abundant oil reserves below the ocean floor. The Chumash tribe waterproofed their canoes and baskets with the sticky tar. Locals know to keep baby oil in their cars to scrape it off their feet.
The tar has a darker connection, too. The nation’s first offshore rigs were built here in the late 1800s, and in 1969 came the nation’s first large oil spill, which brought about the modern environmental movement and radicalized many Santa Barbara residents against fossil fuels.
“Seeing dying birds, seeing the oil, it really affects you deeply,” said Joan Hartmann, a Santa Barbara County supervisor who became an environmental studies professor after witnessing the destruction firsthand in 1969. “It was just a wave of a sense of shame, of what have we wrought?”
So there was plenty of opposition from Ms. Hartmann and others when Sable wanted to restart the pipeline.
The company purchased it from Exxon Mobil in 2024, but several state agencies denied permits to Sable to perform repairs and to restart operations.
After hitting a dead-end with California regulators, Sable appealed to the Trump administration. The president has said he wants to boost domestic energy supplies by expanding oil drilling on and offshore in California. And after going to war with Iran, Mr. Trump invoked the Defense Production Act, a 1950s-era law that has typically been used in national emergencies, saying that the oil was needed.
That order allowed Sable to resume pipeline operations.
A number of lawsuits have not stopped Sable from pumping oil. The pipeline is now producing about 43,000 barrels daily, according to Sable, roughly increasing California’s in-state oil production by about 20 percent.
While visiting the Sable oil facility in Santa Barbara last month, Chris Wright, the U.S. energy secretary, said that turning on the pipeline was necessary to protect the nation’s military operations. California has 30 military facilities, more than any other state in the country, but they are at risk because California currently imports the bulk of its oil, he said.
“California was once one of America’s top oil producers, but with Gavin Newsom doubling down on Democrats’ failed anti-energy agenda, more than 60 percent of the state’s oil is now imported from foreign countries,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement. By allowing Sable to drill, President Trump was “unleashing American energy dominance,” she said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, who opposes the restarting of the pipeline, has countered that the amount being produced is a tiny fraction of the global oil supply. The state of California is suing the Trump administration for invoking the Defense Production Act in a case that is pending.
“Sable turned to the Trump administration to illegally invoke emergency powers, trample over the law, and put communities at risk by forcing a restart without all required approvals,” said Anthony Martinez, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom.
A federal investigation into the 2015 spill found that the pipeline ruptured because of severe corrosion and poor monitoring by the owner, pouring tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Pacific Ocean and significantly damaging wildlife.
That corrosion is a symptom of a design flaw in that kind of pipe, said Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit in Bellingham, Wash. The Santa Barbara pipeline is “more susceptible to failure than most pipelines,” he said.
Sable and the Trump administration denied that risk, both saying that the company had upgraded its leak detection system, added new shut-off valves and performed thorough tests before restarting.
“Sable Offshore is being held to safety and environmental requirements that exceed the normal federal standards,” a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation said in a statement.
Bob Nelson, the only member of the board of supervisors to support Sable’s efforts, said that he would have preferred a new pipeline rather than using the one that previously ruptured. But he felt confident that the safety valves Sable had added would prevent a leak from ever becoming as big as it did in 2015.
And he said the project would bring tax benefits to the region. Mr. Nelson, who represents the northern, more working-class part of the county, said he was regularly stopped by Sable employees at the gas station and Costco food court who thanked him for helping to restart the project.
Was he surprised the Trump administration became involved? “A little bit, pleasantly,” he said.
Donald Lewis, wearing a wet suit and goggles as he assembled his kite surfing board on a Santa Barbara beach, said he had noticed more tar on the sand in recent months.
There’s no reason to believe that increased pumping is releasing more oil into the ocean, experts say, yet locals are on high alert for spills. Neighbors had been anxiously discussing whether the recent accumulation was from the Sable pipeline, Mr. Lewis said.
Mr. Lewis, who has lived in Santa Barbara for three decades, isn’t totally against fossil fuels — he drives a gas-powered car — but doesn’t want Sable to drill near the shoreline where he hangs out everyday.
“This is why I live here, for the beach,” he said.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) Maine Authorities Investigate a Fatal Shooting Involving Federal Agents
The killing occurred in Biddeford, about 20 miles south of Portland. The Trump administration has been conducting a surge of immigration enforcement.
By Jacey Fortin, July 13, 2026
Police at the scene of a shooting on Monday in Biddeford, Maine. Credit...WMTW, via AP
Law enforcement agencies in Maine are investigating a fatal shooting that involved federal agents in Biddeford on Monday morning, according to the governor’s office and other elected officials.
Details are unclear, and federal officials have yet to comment. But eyewitness reports and an elected official indicated that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot someone in a vehicle, killing the person.
Social media video showed agents surrounding a still body at an intersection in Biddeford, next to a car with bullet holes in the windshield, and local police officers arriving at the scene.
Gov. Janet Mills said in a statement that the Maine State Police and other agencies were consulting with federal officials “to determine the facts of what occurred this morning.”
Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, said in a phone interview on Monday that “we have gotten reports that ICE officers shot through a car window, and the individual in the car was killed.”
The Biddeford Police Department said in a statement that officers had answered a call for an incident that involved ICE agents. The department said its only involvement was providing security at the scene, and that further information would have to come from ICE.
Ms. Pingree said that she was on her way to Biddeford, a coastal town about 20 miles south of Portland, in search of more information. “We don’t know if this was a routine stop,” she added, “or if it was someone they were pursuing.”
In Maine, a statewide surge in federal immigration enforcement began in January, part of a series of similar federal campaigns in Democrat-led cities across the country.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Allison McCann contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) Big Banks Smash Earnings Records, but ‘Tectonic’ Risks Loom
The largest banks in the United States collectively raked in tens of billions of profits in the second quarter, despite the war in Iran and persistent inflation.
By Rob Copeland and Stacy Cowley, July 14, 2026
The headquarters of JPMorgan Chase in Manhattan. The bank and three of its largest rivals reported a collective $43 billion in second-quarter profits, Karsten Moran for The New York Times
In a world of uncertainty, one reliable rule is that Wall Street will find a way to make money.
That was underscored with emphasis on Tuesday when four of the largest banks in the United States reported a collective $43 billion in profits in the second quarter, smashing records and exceeding analysts’ projections, despite the war with Iran, stubborn inflation and mounting concerns about the staying power of the artificial intelligence boom.
JPMorgan Chase earned $21 billion in the quarter, up more than 40 percent from the same period a year earlier — a jump that could be partly credited to a $4.6 billion gain on its stake in the credit card company Visa.
JPMorgan, along with rival Goldman Sachs, which logged $6.6 billion in profits during the quarter, was also bolstered by higher fees in investment banking during a boom in mergers and acquisitions and a hot string of financing deals for A.I. companies.
Bank of America made $9 billion, fueled by trading gains and investment banking fees. And Wells Fargo turned a profit of more than $6 billion, as consumers and businesses borrowed more.
Even as more households struggled to keep up with rising costs for essentials like gas and groceries, banks profited from fairly low delinquencies on debts and from interest rates that analysts now expect to stay higher for longer.
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, said in a statement that the U.S. economy “demonstrated notable resiliency this year, with stronger business investment and hiring.” He also warned of “risks shifting below the surface like tectonic plates, including geopolitical tensions and wars, sticky inflation, large global fiscal deficits and elevated asset prices.”
Bank of America had one of its best quarters ever, which Brian Moynihan, the bank’s chief executive, attributed to a “healthy economic backdrop” and “resilient” consumer and business clients. The bank’s earnings per share rose more than 30 percent from a year ago.
Charlie Scharf, Wells Fargo’s chief executive, noted “concerns” around affordability and inflation, but said those were being offset by strong employment numbers and wage growth. For banks, times are good: “We know that such favorable conditions do not go on forever, so we are being selective about how much and where to grow,” he said.
The bank results are the unofficial start of quarterly earnings season, in which the largest publicly traded companies offer updates on their finances to the public. That tradition is now under pressure as the Trump administration’s securities regulators have proposed ending the mandate for quarterly reports and instead requiring semiannual reports.
The major banks, whose results are particularly closely watched because they offer hints on consumer and business spending across the economy, have said they will continue reporting quarterly regardless.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
8) White House Cheers Inflation Data While Iran War Sparks New Price Surge
The news of an improvement in consumer prices in June came as the U.S. and Iran escalated attacks, risking a return to high energy prices.
By Tony Romm, Reporting from Washington, July 14, 2026
Gas prices have reached above $3.85 per gallon nationally, according to AAA. Credit...Brandon Bell/Getty Images
When rising gas prices began to cut into Americans’ paychecks, President Trump’s top economic adviser sought to offer a note of reassurance — both for struggling families and for his increasingly nervous political party.
It was late April, about two months into the war with Iran, but Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, argued that Americans were actually in strong financial shape. And as a result, he added, the gains in the economy seemed poised to boost Republicans’ political prospects in time for the November midterms.
“People look at their wallets, and they vote,” Mr. Hassett told reporters that day, citing “massive economic literature that says that that’s how you predict elections.”
The first summer report card, which arrived on Tuesday, offered an early bit of positive news for the White House: Consumer prices fell 0.4 percent in June. It was a notable improvement from the three-year high registered in May, even though prices overall were up 3.5 percent compared to the same time last year, a rate still well above policymakers’ 2 percent target.
But the report arrived precisely as the United States and Iran returned to open conflict, threatening to reignite the very sort of economic chaos that had caused inflation to soar to a three-year high in the first place. By Tuesday morning, oil and gas prices seemed poised to climb, raising the odds that a recent reprieve at the pump could prove short lived, squeezing families and businesses once again in the coming months.
The split-screen developments seemed to perfectly frame the political stakes for Mr. Trump, as he races against the clock to assuage voters who increasingly blame the White House for their financial strain. A significant and prolonged escalation in the war could erase recent progress on inflation, angering the public and forcing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, a move that could further saddle families with new expenses.
Despite those mounting risks, the administration on Tuesday appeared to shrug off any reason for concern. Instead, the White House heralded the inflation data as a sign that the president’s agenda was working.
“President Trump consistently said that, as traffic in the Strait of Hormuz normalizes, oil prices — and thus overall inflation — would plummet like a rock,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, in a statement on social media.
The comment referred to the critical shipping thoroughfare in the Persian Gulf, the closure of which has helped to drive up energy prices in ways that have rippled across the economy. Left unmentioned was the fact that the pivotal waterway appeared to be the exact source of the renewed fighting between the United States and Iran on Tuesday.
Still, Mr. Desai described the June Consumer Price Index report as “expectation-smashing.” He added: “The President’s broader economic agenda, moreover, continues to pay off with lower prescription drug, health care, car, and insurance costs along with higher real wages for everyday Americans.”
For Mr. Trump, the durability of those improvements may well hinge on the fate of a war he once promised would be over in a matter of weeks.
At one point on Tuesday, the renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran caused Brent crude prices, the global oil benchmark, to jump back above $86 per barrel for the first time in a month. Gas prices also reached above $3.85 per gallon nationally, according to AAA, which recently predicted another round of increases in energy costs if hostilities linger.
Until recently, economists had been forecasting a steady cooling in inflation through the end of the year, as officials in Washington and Tehran struck a critical if tentative cease-fire. But that outlook has been complicated by the recent breakdown in talks, which has once again imperiled global commerce.
“It does put in doubt our view we were going to see a steady, not dramatic, but a steady decline in inflation in the second half of the year,” said Kathy Bostjancic, the chief economist at the financial services company Nationwide, referring to the escalation with Iran.
Ms. Bostjancic pointed to a number of additional pressures that could contribute to higher prices beyond the war. That included the effects of the president’s tariffs, which Mr. Trump is expected to ratchet up soon, and the boom in artificial intelligence, which had contributed to a shortage in computer chips and caused prices to spike in consumer electronics.
Those persistent risks prompted Democrats on Tuesday to issue their own attack, arguing that a recent slowdown in inflation did not change the realities that prices were still too high for many American families.
“Inflation continues to be too high as families pay the price for Donald Trump’s failed economic agenda,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the chamber’s banking committee, said in a statement. “Instead of lowering costs, Donald Trump is doubling down on his illegal war in Iran.”
Despite economists’ warnings, Mr. Trump had insisted for months that prices would recede quickly once the war ended, while maintaining that concerns about affordability are a “hoax.” But as the conflict has pressed on, adding to voters’ economic anxieties, the president has started to shift to another familiar tactic: browbeating companies in a bid to force down prices in time for the midterm elections.
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has primarily attacked energy giants, demanding that they reduce the prices they charge at the pump. Even though economists have long warned that it would take months for gas to return to its prewar levels, Mr. Trump has largely shrugged off the realities of the market and demanded that sellers “must get their Prices down, IMMEDIATELY!”
Already, that spike in energy has pushed up the cost of groceries and other shipped goods, prompting Mr. Trump to expand his jawboning to include retailers. Earlier this month, the president took public aim at Walmart, which he claimed would be “lowering prices, by a lot, at my Administration’s request.”
While the retailer did announce discounts, it did not actually mention Mr. Trump in its news release about them, which was posted online before the president shared his views on social media. Still, Mr. Trump insisted that “other Retailers should follow” the lead of Walmart and cut costs.
Mr. Trump’s threats represented a contradiction of sorts for a president who has long argued that the government should take a hands-off approach to private enterprise. But his actions also spoke to a growing sense of political urgency ahead of November’s elections.
The threats resembled those he issued at the start of his second term, when another conflict — a nascent global trade war — had started to saddle families and businesses with higher costs. Then, too, economists warned about the costs incurred from the president’s policies, yet Mr. Trump doubled down by hammering companies like Walmart for their business practices.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
9) U.S. Workers Are More Productive Than Ever. A.I. Isn’t the Key.
Companies have been getting more out of employees for several years. Tight labor markets, digitization and remote work are among the reasons.
By Talmon Joseph Smith, July 14, 2026
Talmon Joseph Smith has been tracking the pickup in labor productivity since early 2024.
Economists and chief executives are divided over whether artificial intelligence is making American workers more productive yet.
Zoom out, though, and a quieter trend is hiding in the data. For years now, “labor productivity” — an economic measure of how much each worker produces — has been climbing at its fastest pace in at least two decades. Artificial intelligence is merely a fresh ingredient in the gumbo of forces propelling the trend, not the central one, at least for now. Tight labor markets, digitization and remote work are among other parts of the mix.
“I never thought I’d see this many years of really high productivity and, by the way, expect it to continue,” Jerome H. Powell told reporters in March, before he stepped down as Federal Reserve chair. “And we haven’t really started to see the effects of generative A.I.”
A potential win-win
In the best of times, productivity gains are a sign that workers are using new tools or updated methods to work more efficiently; smarter, not just harder. This can offer a win-win to workers, customers and business owners: If firms can produce more in the same or fewer work hours, then presumably they can increase revenue, reinvest in operations and pay workers more, all without sacrificing profitability — or relying on price increases to push profits higher.
Henry McVey, an investment chief at KKR, a private equity firm, said he was seeing exactly that across its portfolio — in health care, tech and retail. Restaurant chains are using cloud computing to manage inventory better. Remote work has helped companies hire from a bigger talent pool. Medical records have gone digital.
“I believe the productivity gains began coming out of Covid with the digitization of work, remote work and the implementation of machine learning — and we’re just scratching the surface on A.I.,” Mr. McVey said.
Another driver of sunnier productivity numbers has been low unemployment, which has stayed at or below 4.5 percent since October 2021 — the longest streak since the 1960s. When nearly everyone who wants a job has one, employers have to pay more to attract workers, which pushes them to find efficiencies elsewhere.
That can become self-reinforcing, said Chirag Lala of the Center for Public Enterprise, a nonprofit focused on economic development, especially if artificial intelligence starts paying off. “Once we get started on a trend with consumption, incomes or productivity, it’s like inertia,” he said. Breaking it takes a serious shock.
Staffing adjustments
Mr. McVey pointed to another, more solemn reason productivity is up: job cuts. There have been significant layoffs in finance and tech, two industries that generate an outsize share of corporate profits. Tech employment has shrunk for 18 consecutive months. Finance has lost more than 100,000 jobs since a peak in May 2025.
A Federal Reserve survey of businesses this spring noted that many companies said A.I.-driven efficiencies had allowed them to delay or skip hiring altogether. A separate index of corporate earnings calls, compiled by Bloomberg, reported a reduced appetite for hiring in nearly every industry.
In the Permian Basin in West Texas, the heart of America’s world-leading oil industry, companies are running leaner than ever, said Steve Pruett, chief executive of Elevation Resources. He credits industry consolidation, along with better drilling technology.
“We used to just drill two miles down and one mile out,” Mr. Pruett said. “As tech improved and we got better at it, we still drill two miles deep, but now we drill two miles out, the well produces more, there are better rates of return on those ‘longer laterals’ and better productivity per rig.”
Around the time Elevation was founded in 2013, the oil and gas industry employed about 200,000 people. By this summer that had fallen to roughly 115,000, even as profits and output per worker climbed.
The job loss is clearly bad news for the workers affected when companies become leaner. But economists generally view “doing more with less” as a plus for the economy overall.
For the “professional and business services” sector, tracked by the Labor Department, productivity growth has been at or above 3 percent annually since 2021. Employment in the sector has fallen since 2023, leading to a slew of discouraged job seekers — even as the health care, social assistance and education sectors have helped pick up the slack in overall job growth.
The economy’s continued better-than-expected growth, despite subdued immigration and waves of baby boomer retirements, is also a sign of the increased productivity among “prime-age” workers ages 25 to 54.
Reasons for caution
Not everyone is convinced of a rosy read on recent productivity data. Productivity numbers are notoriously noisy in the short run, skeptics note. And to the extent tech evangelists have attributed existing gains to artificial intelligence, some experts remain unconvinced. The Yale Budget Lab’s A.I. Labor Market Tracker, for instance, has found no clear link between A.I. adoption and employment changes.
“There are several possibilities here, and the productivity data in particular is really hard to interpret,” said Martha Gimbel, the Yale Budget Lab’s executive director.
Productivity is, most simply, output divided by work hours. But it is also measured by economists in “real” terms, meaning the “output” side of the equation is inflation-adjusted. So volatile spikes in inflation can drag down the headline productivity numbers, even when workers are no less efficient than before.
Last year’s tariffs and this year’s oil-price shock from the war with Iran both pushed inflation up, which may make productivity look weaker in the short run than it actually is. Still, oil prices have now fallen from the peaks during the war. If that holds, productivity data could look better later this year.
Who shares in the fruits?
Whether corporate efficiency gains will be shared with households is an open question. For years, pay has lagged productivity growth, diminishing laborers’ share of national income.
“If real compensation lags productivity growth, labor’s share falls,” said Jared Bernstein, who served as chair of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Council of Economic Advisers. Over the past decade, productivity growth has been double real compensation growth, according to Mr. Bernstein’s analysis.
An axiom in economics is that, at first, productivity shows up “everywhere except the productivity statistics,” as the Nobel laureate Robert Solow put it. It wasn’t until the 2000s, after all, that the productive effects of the internet and personal computing boom of the 1990s showed up.
Mike Skordeles, the head of U.S. Economics at Truist, a bank based in Charlotte, N.C., said he was already producing more research than previously — a result of improved tools for data analysis and modeling.
Only a few years ago, he said, “I would have had or hired three lower-level junior economists doing some of the charting and stuff that I can now do with the click of a button.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
10) What to Know About Trump’s Plan to Charge a Toll in the Strait of Hormuz
President Trump announced a 20 percent fee on cargo through the waterway, despite his own administration’s position that such fees violate international law.
By Yan Zhuang, July 14, 2026
President Trump has said that the United States will charge a 20 percent fee on cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, despite his own administration’s position that such fees violate international law.
He made the announcement on Monday amid an intensifying battle between Iran and the United States to control the waterway, a crucial artery for global energy supplies. The two countries have traded attacks over the strait for the past week, in effect shattering their month-old cease-fire.
Since the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran in February that set off the war, Iran has periodically fired on commercial ships transiting the strait as it seeks to compel vessels to use a route close to its coast, a potential precursor to charging its own fees.
Here’s what to know:
What did Trump say?
In announcing his plan to levy a toll, the president described it as a way for the United States to recover the cost of providing military protection to vessels using the waterway.
“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media. He added that the United States would levy the 20 percent fee for “any and all costs necessary,” describing it as “a matter of FAIRNESS,” and also said the United States would resume a blockade of Iranian ports.
This is not the first time Mr. Trump has threatened such a toll. He raised the possibility last month after signing a temporary cease-fire agreement with Iran, even though that deal included language that Tehran has interpreted to mean it has authority over the strait. The memorandum also said that no country would collect tolls for 60 days, though it left open the possibility for such charges beyond that.
How would a U.S. toll work?
This isn’t exactly clear. Mr. Trump did not elaborate on how the 20 percent fee would be calculated or how it would be collected.
Mr. Trump and his aides also have not explained why his position contradicts the assertions of top officials in his administration.
Last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that tolls could not be imposed on the Strait of Hormuz. “No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law,” he said.
Mr. Trump’s announcement, along with ordering a resumption of the blockade of Iran, reflected how his options for resolving the war were narrowing.
How would a toll affect shipping and markets?
A 20 percent fee on the value of a vessel’s cargo could more than double the cost of shipping oil through the strait, experts said.
For a large tanker carrying two million barrels of oil, for example, the fee could add over $30 million in costs. Consumers would likely face higher prices as a result.
Because of the high cost, some analysts said they doubted whether the fee would come into force. For ship operators in the region, the prospect of fees is less of a concern right now than an escalation of the conflict between Iran and the United States, experts said.
Do such tolls exist anywhere else?
Another crucial waterway offers a potential precedent: the Strait of Malacca, in Southeast Asia, through which transit about 23 million barrels of oil a day.
Ships passing through that strait, which is jointly administered by Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, pay fees when they need specific services, such as towing assistance or help navigating the narrowest stretches. But ships do not pay for passage.
The political and security environment of the Strait of Malacca is also fundamentally different, with the three countries administering it largely without major conflict, and having avoided interstate war for about six decades.
How has Iran responded?
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi noted the irony of Mr. Trump announcing a toll in the strait after his administration rejected the idea of Iran collecting one.
Mr. Trump was “absolutely right” that whoever provided safe passage through the strait should be compensated, Mr. Araghchi said on social media — and then repeated Iran’s claim to that role.
He added with evident sarcasm: “20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”
Since Tehran effectively blockaded the waterway earlier in the war, Iranian officials have repeatedly declared their intent to monetize the strait. Iran and Oman, which is on the southern side of the strait, are said to be exploring ways to the two countries to charge ships transiting through it.
Oman’s proposal is modeled in part on arrangements in the Strait of Malacca. It is unclear whether any payment would be voluntary or mandatory.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
11) Agitation in Dementia Can Be Helped by Medical Cannabis, Study Suggests
A combination of THC and CBD eased symptoms in an especially frail population: patients with advanced dementia near the end of their lives.
By Pam Belluck, Pam Belluck covers brain health., July 14, 2026
Emilio Gonzalez, left, participated in a clinical trial of a cannabinoid treatment for agitation in people with advanced dementia. His son, Dennys Gonzalez, right, said it eased his father’s distress and frustration. Eva Marie Uzcategui for The New York Times
Dennys Gonzalez was skeptical when doctors told him his father could participate in a clinical trial exploring whether medical cannabis could treat agitation in people with advanced dementia.
But Mr. Gonzalez, who helps care for his 87-year-old father, Emilio, said not only were his fears unfounded, but the treatment — a combination of two common components of medical cannabis: THC and CBD — greatly eased his father’s distress and frustration.
Before the trial, Mr. Gonzalez said, “my dad would actually get aggressive if you would try to help him with something.”
But “while he was on this treatment, all that changed,” he said.
The preliminary results of the trial involving 120 patients with advanced dementia near the end of their lives, presented Tuesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London, found that most of the patients receiving the THC/CBD treatment experienced similar benefits. After 12 weeks, agitation eased for nearly 90 percent of those participants, while less than a quarter of those who received a placebo exhibited less agitation.
Medical experts said the results suggest that a carefully formulated and administered cannabinoid treatment might help address agitation, a common and unsettling symptom of dementia. The study has not yet been peer reviewed or published.
“I was thrilled to see that because there’s a lot of suffering that’s happening,” said Elizabeth Edgerly, a licensed clinical psychologist and the Alzheimer’s Association’s vice president of care and support. She said while the findings require confirmation from larger trials, the results “look really promising that it could be something that could help people with advanced dementia.”
Agitation affects nearly half of people with advanced dementia who are nearing the end of their lives, experts say. It is often difficult to manage and upsetting for patients, family members and caregivers, and can include vocal outbursts, hostility, moaning, groaning, repetitive movements or phrases, throwing things, and hitting, scratching or pushing other people.
Currently, many such patients are treated with antipsychotics, anti-anxiety drugs or opioids, medications that often do not help and can cause risky side effects. Dr. Edgerly said some of those medications can induce confusion and sedation, and they can cause people to die sooner. “Anything that represents something that’s both effective and safer is a huge improvement over what the standard of care has been,” she said.
Some previous studies have suggested that cannabinoids might help agitation, but others have not, said Dr. Kevin Hill, the director of addiction psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He was not involved in the new study and he noted that it used a formulation of the treatment that was developed for the clinical trial and hasn’t been submitted for Food and Drug Administration approval.
Dr. Hill was a co-author of one of several analyses that found little evidence that cannabinoids were effective for many of the other conditions for which they were being tried and that they carried risks of side effects, including cannabis use disorder.
Nonetheless, Dr. Hill said, he has prescribed dronabinol, an F.D.A.-approved THC cannabinoid, to patients with dementia and found it “very helpful in some of those cases.” He said the new study, which was primarily funded by the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, seemed carefully conducted and had produced “a very robust finding.”
The main thing, he and others said, is that such medications should be prescribed and overseen by experienced health care providers.
“It’s exciting that this presents another option to treat agitation, but it doesn’t mean that people should be giving their parents medical marijuana because cannabinoids have their own risks,” Dr. Hill said. “Treatment of agitation should be overseen by a medical professional.”
Mr. Gonzalez, a real estate agent in Miami, said he had wondered if the treatment might have unwanted side effects. “When they tell you they’re going to put your dad on something that is based on marijuana, does that mean that my dad is going to be high all the time and he’s going to fall?” he said.
The researchers reassured him that would not happen because the compound included too low a dose of THC to produce a high. Mr. Gonzalez said that almost immediately after his father began receiving the treatment, “his behavior improved, his level of tolerance dealing with other people improved and he would allow you to help him better in tasks like putting on his shoes.”
The F.D.A. recently gave approval for Auvelity, a drug previously designated for major depression, to be used for agitation in Alzheimer’s, a decision the Alzheimer’s Association welcomed because it was the first non-antipsychotic medication approved for that purpose. Dr. Edgerly said the cannabinoid study involved a different patient population: Participants had various types of dementia, not just Alzheimer’s, and were either in hospice or medically eligible for hospice care. Experts praised the study for demonstrating that it was possible to conduct a randomized trial with such a frail population.
Hospice designations are typically for patients expected to die within six months, but Dr. Edgerly said the definition can be more elastic for dementia patients, given the unpredictability of their life expectancy.
The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Jacobo Mintzer, a professor in the department of health sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina, said it was named the LIBBY trial after a woman who suffered from agitation that did not respond well to drugs like Valium or morphine. He said he realized that with “this most common human experience, we need to have ways for people to die with calmness, dignity and grace.”
Researchers took steps to be sensitive to patients’ circumstances while maintaining scientific rigor, he said. Instead of requiring clinic visits, the participants, whose average age was 81, were treated wherever they lived: at home, where three-quarters of them resided, or in nursing homes or other institutions.
The participants, who were often in hospice for conditions other than dementia, could keep taking their other medications. The treatment was formulated as a digestible oil, so patients did not have to chew it. For those unable to swallow, drops were placed on the tongue or in patients’ feeding tubes, Dr. Mintzer said.
The study — a Phase 2 trial, which is smaller than the Phase 3 trials considered to provide the most convincing evidence — was conducted at 10 locations around the country. Just over half the 120 participants were women; 54 were Hispanic and 18 were Black.
Researchers commissioned a Canadian pharmaceutical cannabinoid company to develop the oil, which contained 2 milligrams of THC and 100 milligrams of CBD per milliliter. Half the participants received a placebo oil. The others received 1 milliliter twice daily for a week, then double that dose for 11 weeks. THC is a psychoactive; CBD is nonintoxicating.
“The difference between us and Joe that sells marijuana across the street is that we actually have a purified, biologically active compound, and we did a scientifically valid experiment with this compound at a certain dose at a certain frequency and for a specific indication,” Dr. Mintzer said.
After two weeks, those receiving the treatment scored significantly lower on a standard agitation scale than those receiving the placebo. Independent clinicians found that 84 percent of those receiving the treatment showed improvement, compared with 31 percent of the placebo group.
After 12 weeks, the difference in scores was even greater, and clinicians found improvement for 87 percent of the treatment group, compared with 24 percent of the placebo group.
There were no serious safety problems linked to the treatment, Dr. Mintzer said. He reported that 23 percent of the treatment group and 12 percent of the placebo group experienced “serious adverse events,” but said those events “were consistent with those expected in this patient population and included infections, worsening dementia symptoms and death.” Eight people in the treatment group and three in the placebo group passed away during the study, he said.
Ryan Vandrey, a professor in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the results support those of a smaller and shorter trial he and colleagues published recently, in which Alzheimer’s patients with agitation were given either a placebo or dronabinol, the THC treatment. He called the new study “a significant advancement” that should prompt more research geared to getting a cannabinoid therapy approved for agitation.
Dr. Vandrey said THC tends to have a calming effect at the low doses used in his trial and the new study. He said CBD has a different pharmacological mechanism and that adding it, as the new trial did, “may be particularly valuable” by enhancing anxiety-reducing effects and possibly reducing some unwanted side effects.
He said medical cannabis is “never a first-line therapy” and should be tried “when the existing treatments are either ineffective or cause unacceptable side effects.” Patients shouldn’t obtain it unprescribed or from unregulated sources because it might contain harmful contaminants, he said.
Mr. Gonzalez said that since the clinical trial ended, his father, who also has Parkinson’s, “is somewhat back to his old behavior,” sometimes yelling in frustration and not sleeping as well as he did with the cannabinoid treatment. Mr. Gonzalez fears his father might fall when sleeplessness causes him to wander the house at night.
“It’s a shame they don’t still have that available,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “It actually worked.”
As a Cannabis Clinician for 10 years, I have seen noteworthy results. In NY assisted living facilities, nursing refuses to administer these products. They will only work with blister packaging, which is not available in NY State medical dispensaries. Families, or an aid become necessary for administration. When will our focus return to true medical needs?
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
12) What We Know About the ICE Shooting in Maine
A federal immigration agent shot and killed a man in a car on Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine. It was the second fatal encounter in a week involving an agent and a person in a vehicle.
By Madaleine Rubin, Published July 13, 2026, Updated July 14, 2026
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a man in a vehicle on Monday morning in Biddeford, Maine. It was the second fatal episode in a week, as the Trump administration continues its immigration crackdown, and the latest in a string of encounters between agents and people in cars.
The man was identified as Joan Sebastian Guerrero, according to Matthew Felling, a spokesman for Senator Angus King of Maine.
The Homeland Security Department said in a statement on Monday that ICE agents had been monitoring what they believed to be the residence of someone who was in the country illegally and for whom they had a removal order.
It was unclear from the department’s statement whether Mr. Guerrero was the person agents had been seeking.
Video recorded early on Monday and posted to social media showed agents surrounding a body next to a car with bullet holes in the windshield.
“I heard agony,” said Mary Hayes, a local resident, who said she saw a screaming woman on her knees, next to a young girl. “I heard a howl that came from your soul, that your whole life had just changed and it was never going to be the same.”
Here’s what we know:
Witnesses heard gunfire early Monday morning.
On Monday morning, agents tried to stop a vehicle that had departed from the residence they were monitoring, D.H.S. said in its statement, which came nearly 12 hours after the shooting.
“The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” the statement continued. The driver was struck and died from his injuries.
In a separate communication received by some members of Congress, the department used more pointed language, saying the driver had “weaponized his vehicle toward law enforcement.”
As of Monday evening, no video evidence confirming the government’s version of events had emerged.
People who live nearby reported hearing gunfire at an intersection at around 7:15 a.m. Several reported seeing a body on the ground next to a car.
Biddeford’s congresswoman, Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, said in a phone interview on Monday that “we have gotten reports that ICE officers shot through a car window, and the individual in the car was killed.”
Immigration officials have said little about the victim.
Though Mr. King’s office named Mr. Guerrero as the victim, the D.H.S. statement did not.
Three advocacy groups released information about the victim in the shooting but did not name Mr. Guerrero. In a joint statement, the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine, identified him as a 26-year-old Colombian man. A third group said he had a partner and a young child. The source of the advocates’ information was unclear, and could not be immediately confirmed with the authorities.
The embassy of Colombia said in a statement on Monday that it was assisting the family of a Colombian national who had died in Biddeford. The embassy said it was also requesting information from D.H.S. “regarding the circumstances surrounding this lamentable death.”
Mr. King, an independent, said on Monday that he had spoken with Markwayne Mullin, the homeland security secretary. Mr. King said that Mr. Mullin had told him that the man had been the target of an arrest warrant “based upon his immigration status.”
But Mr. Felling, the senator’s spokesman, said later that Mr. Mullin called the senator again and told him the driver had not been the target of any warrant. “He said they were looking for someone, essentially, and the person they shot was not the person they were looking for,” Mr. Felling said.
Officials are demanding a full investigation.
Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, said in a statement that the State Police and other agencies were consulting with federal officials to “determine the facts of what occurred this morning.”
Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, called for a “full and impartial investigation.”
“We will get answers, but we do not have them yet,” said Liam LaFountain, the mayor of Biddeford, who also pushed for an investigation.
This is the second death in a week involving an ICE agent firing into a vehicle.
Amid a national surge in immigration enforcement, a federal agent last week shot and killed another individual in a vehicle: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican man who died after a traffic stop in Houston.
Mr. Salgado Araujo, a construction worker and father of three who had lived in the country for more than 30 years without legal status, was not the initial target of the officers who pursued his vehicle, according to immigration officials.
The Houston and Maine killings add to a growing list of encounters between immigration agents and people in vehicles.
About 20 people have been shot at in their cars, some of them fatally. Federal officials have in several cases claimed that the agents’ actions were justified because their lives had been endangered by “weaponized” vehicles. Witnesses of the Houston shooting said that Mr. Salgado Araujo had not used his vehicle as a weapon.
As in the shooting of Mr. Salgado Araujo, it appeared that federal agents were not wearing body cameras on Monday, Mr. King said. So “we have no video evidence of what occurred in this case,” he added.
Immigration arrests are on the rise nationwide.
Daily arrests of immigrants in the United States doubled in the last week of June and have continued to increase, signaling a reinvigoration of the president’s crackdown after a spring slowdown.
Immigrants make up about 5 percent of Maine’s population and have helped prop up the state’s economy, hampered by its aging population. Over the years, Maine has welcomed waves of refugees fleeing conflict in the Middle East and several African countries.
In January, ICE detained hundreds of immigrants in the state during an enforcement surge the agency called “Operation Catch of the Day” — a reference to Maine’s commercial seafood industry.
Now, locals say agents have returned, making frequent appearances in Biddeford in recent months. Biddeford, a working-class city of roughly 22,000, contains a growing community of Latin American immigrants.
Talla Fall, who is originally from Senegal, lives near where the shooting took place on Monday. ICE agents have been in the neighborhood “every day, every week,” he said.
Reporting was contributed by Jacey Fortin, Heather Beasley Doyle, Miriam Jordan, Hamed Aleaziz, Christina Morales, Aric Toler, Allison McCann, Soumya Karlamangla and Murray Carpenter.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
