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Born in rural Ohio, Howard Keylor attended a one-room country schoolhouse. He became a mem-ber of the National Honor Society when he graduated from Marietta High School.
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, Howard fought in the Pacific Theater in World War Two, during which he participated in the Battle of Okinawa as a Corporal. The 96th U.S. Army Division, which Howard trained with, had casualty rates above 50%. The incompetence and racism of the military command, the destruction of the capital city of Naha and the deliberate killings of tens of thousands of Okinawan civil-ians – a third of the population - made Howard a committed anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and anti-racist for the rest of his life.
Upon returning to the United States, Howard enrolled in the College of the Pacific, but dropped out to support Filipino agricultural workers in the 1948 asparagus strike, working with legendary labor leader Larry Itliong. He became a longshore worker in Stockton in 1953. As a member of the Communist Party, Howard and his wife, Evangeline, were attacked in the HUAC (McCarthy) hearings in San Francisco. Later, Howard transferred to ILWU Local 10. In 1971 he, along with Brothers Herb Mills, Leo Robinson and a ma-jority of Local 10’s members, opposed the proposed 1971 contract which codified the 9.43 steadyman sys-tem. This led to the longshore strike of 1971-1972, which shut down 56 West Coast ports and lasted 130 days. It was the longest strike in the ILWU’s history.
In Local 10 Brother Keylor was a member of the Militant Caucus, a class struggle rank-and-file group which published a regular newsletter, the “Longshore Militant”. He later left the Militant Caucus and pub-lished a separate newsletter on his own, the “Militant Longshoreman.” Howard advocated deliberate defi-ance of the “slave-labor” Taft-Hartley law through illegal secondary boycotts and pickets. Running on an open class-struggle program which called for breaking with the Democratic and Republican Parties, form-ing a worker’s government, expropriating the capitalists without compensation and creating a planned economy, Howard won election to the Executive Board of Local 10 for twelve years.
The Militant Caucus was involved in organizing protests and boycotts of military cargo bound for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1975 and 1978 and again in 1980 to the military dictatorship in El Sal-vador. The Caucus also participated in ILWU Local 6’s strike at KNC Glass in Union City, during which a mass picket line physically defeated police and scabs, winning a contract for a workforce composed pri-marily of Mexican-American immigrants.
In 1984, Brother Keylor made the motion, amended by Brother Leo Robinson, which led to the elev-en-day longshore boycott of South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley. In 1986, Howard again partici-pated in the Campaign Against Apartheid’s community picket line against the Nedlloyd Kemba. When Nel-son Mandela spoke at the Oakland Coliseum in 1990 after his release from prison, he credited Local 10 with re-igniting the anti-Apartheid movement in the Bay Area.
Other actions Brother Howard initiated, organized or participated in included the 1995-98 struggle of the Liverpool dockworkers; the 1999 coastwide shutdown and march of 25,000 in San Francisco to de-mand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal; the 2000 Charleston longshore union campaign; the 2008 May Day anti-imperialist war shutdown of all West Coast ports; the shutdown of Northern California ports in pro-test of the murder of Oscar Grant; the blockades of Israeli ships to protest the war on Gaza in 2010 and 2014; the 2011 ILWU struggle against the grain monopolies in Longview; Occupy Oakland’s march of 40,000 to the Port of Oakland, and countless other militant job actions and protests. Throughout his life, Brother Keylor always extended solidarity where it was needed. He fought racist police murders and fas-cist terror, defended abortion clinics, and fought for survivors of psychiatric abuse. Having grown up in Appalachia, he has always been an environmentalist, and helped shut down a Monsanto facility in Davis in 2012, as well as fighting pesticide use and deforestation in the East Bay.
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The Trump administration is escalating its attack on Cuba, cutting off the island’s access to oil in a deliberate attempt to induce famine and mass suffering. This is collective punishment, plain and simple.
In response, we’re releasing a public Call to Conscience, already signed by influential public figures, elected officials, artists, and organizations—including 22 members of the New York City Council, Kal Penn, Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Alice Walker, 50501, Movement for Black Lives, The People’s Forum, IFCO Pastors for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, and many others—demanding an end to this brutal policy.
The letter is open for everyone to sign. Add your name today. Cutting off energy to an island nation is not policy—it is a tactic of starvation.
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Petition to Force Amazon to Cut ICE Contracts!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
Amazon Labor Union
Over 600,000 messages have already been sent directly to Amazon board members demanding one thing: Amazon must stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE and DHS rely on the data infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services. Their campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon.
But workers and communities have real power when we act collectively. That’s why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine. Help us reach 1 million messages and force Amazon to act by signing our petition with The Labor Force today:
Tell Amazon: End contracts with ICE!
On Cyber Monday 2025, Amazon workers rallied outside of Amazon’s NYC headquarters to demand that Amazon stop fueling mass deportations through Amazon Web Services’ contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE cannot operate without corporate backing; its campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon. Mega-corporations may appear untouchable, but they are not. Anti-authoritarian movements have long understood that repression is sustained by a network of institutional enablers and when those enablers are disrupted, state violence weakens. Workers and communities have real power when they act collectively. That is why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its most commonly used cloud platform. DHS and ICE cannot wage their attack on immigrants without the critical data infrastructure that Amazon Web Services provide, allowing the agencies to collect, analyze, and store the massive amounts of data they need to do their dirty work. Without the power of AWS, ICE would not be able to track and target people at its current scale.
ICE and DHS use Amazon Web Services to collect and store massive amounts of purchased data on immigrants and their friends and family–everything from biometric data, DMV data, cellphone records, and more. And through its contracts with Palantir, DHS is able to scour regional, local, state, and federal databases and analyze and store this data on AWS. All of this information is ultimately used to target immigrants and other members of our communities.
No corporation should profit from oppression and abuse. Yet Amazon is raking in tens of millions of dollars to fuel DHS and ICE, while grossly exploiting its own workers. Can you sign our petition today, demanding that Amazon stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with DHS and ICE, now?
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
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End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
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Self-portrait by Kevin Cooper
Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Dr. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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 Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity CampaignAn appeal for financial supportMay 12, 2026 Dear Friends of the Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Campaign, It has been more than two years since Boris Kagarlitsky began serving the five-year sentence meted out to him by a Russian military court as a way of silencing and punishing him for his opposition to Putin’s war on Ukraine. With a multitude of longstanding friends and colleagues throughout the world, Boris is one of the best-known victims of the steadily escalating political repression in Russia. He has borne the gross injustice of his incarceration with characteristic courage, determination and defiance. But there is no denying that Putin’s gulag takes a toll on even the most valiant spirits. The Boris Kagarlitsky Solidarity Campaign has worked continuously these last two years to draw attention to Boris’s plight, and by extension to that of other prisoners unjustly condemned for protesting the ongoing war that has already cost upwards of half a million lives and vastly more maimed, according to estimates. We have sought, through a variety of activities, to bring pressure to bear on the Russian authorities to free Boris. The many people involved in the Campaign are happy to volunteer their time. However, we rely on the generosity of the Campaign’s supporters to cover the periodic expenses we incur. We recently reached out for help to defray costs associated with the participation of Boris’ daughter and tireless advocate for Russian political prisoners, Kseniia Kagarlitskya, in the international antifascist conference in Porto Alegre at the end of March. That trip was a great success. It allowed Kseniia and Mikhail Lobanov, Russian mathematician, political activist, and former associate professor at Moscow State University, to introduce the thousands of conference-goers from Brazil and across the world to the grim realities confronting Russian political dissidents. The Boris Kagarlitsky International Solidarity Committee has many plans in store for the coming months and especially the fall, including a virtual conference devoted to the global manifestations of political repression. We are appealing to you for a little financial help to carry out our projects and support the day-to-day ongoing work of the committee. We would be deeply appreciative of any assistance you can provide. Because the members of the Campaign coordinating committee are scattered across Europe, North America and beyond, it has been a little complicated to set up a campaign bank account, although we are making progress on that front. For the time being we are asking that you send any contributions you can manage directly to our de facto treasurer Suzi Weissman who is located in Los Angeles, California. The details of her account are: Bank: Wells Fargo Swift/Bic: PNBPUS6L Account holder: Susan Claudia Weissman Account number: 0657205076 International wire transfers: WFBIUS6S wise.com personal account: @susanclaudiaw We thank you in anticipation of any contribution you can make to help keep the Campaign running. Yours in solidarity, Dick Nichols Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the auth *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
He still needs more complicated treatment from a retinal specialist for his right eye if his eyesight is to be saved:
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical
Defense Fund
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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Articles
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1) W.H.O. Declares Ebola Outbreak a Global Health Emergency
Just a day after the announcement, cases were confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. There is no approved vaccine for this species of Ebola.
By Yan Zhuang, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Apoorva Mandavilli, Matthew Mpoke Bigg reported from Juba, South Sudan, May 17, 2026
A man is carried from an ambulance on Saturday as he arrives at a hospital after confirmation of an Ebola outbreak in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Victoire Mukenge/Reuters
The World Health Organization declared on Saturday that the spread of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda was a global health emergency.
The announcement was made a day after Africa’s leading public health authority reported that an outbreak in a province in the northeast of the country was linked to dozens of suspected deaths.
By Saturday, cases had also been confirmed in Kinshasa, Congo, and in Kampala, Uganda, the capital cities of each country, the W.H.O. said.
In Congo’s Ituri province, where the outbreak was first identified, 246 suspected cases and 80 deaths attributed to the virus had been reported, although only eight cases had been definitively linked to the virus through laboratory testing. There is no approved vaccine or therapeutics for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola behind the outbreak, according to the W.H.O.
The scale of the outbreak could be far larger than has been detected and reported, the W.H.O. said in declaring a “public health emergency of international concern.” It added that there were “significant uncertainties” about the precise number of people infected and the “geographic spread.”
The W.H.O.’s declaration signals a public health risk requiring a coordinated international response, and is intended to prompt member countries to prepare for the virus to spread and to share vaccines, treatments and other resources needed to contain the outbreak.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has played a major role in containing previous outbreaks, but last year it was shuttered by the Trump administration. It is unclear how that might have affected the response to this outbreak. The administration also cut funding for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading public health agency in the country. It also withdrew in January from the W.H.O.
The outbreak does not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency, the highest level of alert, that was applied to the Covid pandemic, the W.H.O. said.
Some global health experts were alarmed that the first reports of the outbreak emerged so late in its development. A surge in cases is typically picked up much earlier by the W.H.O., other health organizations or by news reports, said Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health.
In Kampala, two confirmed cases, including one death, were not apparently linked, but they were identified within 24 hours of one another in people who had traveled from Congo, the agency said. The Ugandan authorities had earlier said they had identified a single case of a 59-year-old Congolese man who was admitted to a hospital in Kampala on May 11 and died three days later. A confirmed case in Kinshasa involved a person returning from Ituri, the agency said.
In Ituri, the 246 suspected cases have been reported across at least three health zones, including Rwampara, Mongbwalu and Bunia, the province’s main city, the W.H.O. said. The agency added that unusual clusters of community deaths had been reported across several health zones, and that suspected cases had also been reported in neighboring North-Kivu province.
The risk of the outbreak spreading is exacerbated by a humanitarian crisis, high population mobility and a large network of informal health care facilities in the area, the agency said.
Containing an Ebola outbreak depends on the speed and scale of the public health response. The virus is transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, putting family members and caregivers at particular risk. Tracing people who may have come into contact with sufferers, isolating and treating victims promptly and safely, and burying the dead properly are all viewed as critical steps.
The political context in Ituri makes all of those things harder, according to experts. President Félix Tshisekedi of Congo declared a state of siege in the province in 2021 following attacks by insurgent groups, including the Allied Democratic Forces, an organization that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and the Cooperative for the Development of Congo, a militia group.
The state of siege amounts effectively to martial law, which limits fundamental freedoms. In addition, the armed groups have committed massacres in recent months that have not been stopped by the government or by U.N. peacekeepers, according to Clémentine de Montjoye, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
The effect has been reduced public trust in the authorities in terms of health and basic rights, she said.
“Civilians have already been exposed to extreme violence and the failure of the state to protect them and to provide them with access to basic services,” she said. “This has been compounded by U.S.A.I.D. cuts and a reduction of international aid that has affected health care providers and forced certain clinics to close.” Ituri borders Uganda and South Sudan, making frequent cross-border movement another challenge. In one example, Uganda is set to hold an annual Catholic festival on June 3 which typically attracts worshipers from across the border.
Uganda’s health minister, Jane Ocero, said on NTV Uganda, a commercial broadcaster, on Saturday that the country had a well-developed system of community health workers who go door to door, acting as surveillance officers, who then report through an electronic health system to emergency operation centers in every region.
“We have built up a very strong system of identification, detection and response to these outbreaks and the systems start from the grass roots,” she said.
Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were hit by an Ebola epidemic in 2014 and 2015 that killed more than 11,000 people and sickened more than 28,000 across 10 countries, according to estimates by the W.H.O. Responders initially failed to recognize the extent of the outbreak and did not take sufficient steps to prevent its spread.
Since then, there has been a string of outbreaks, mainly in Congo and Uganda. But they have been contained, largely because public health officials have reacted quickly, drawing on knowledge and experience gained during previous outbreaks.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the W.H.O., said in a briefing on Friday that the organization was notified about suspected Ebola cases on May 5 and had sent a team to Ituri to investigate. Initial samples tested negative for the virus because field equipment could detect only the Zaire species of Ebola, the only species for which a licensed vaccine exists, he said.
Samples were later sent to the National Institute of Biomedical Research in Kinshasa, which confirmed on Thursday that some had tested positive for Ebola, Dr. Tedros said.
The Doctors Without Borders charity said on Sunday that it was preparing to rapidly scale up its medical response in Ituri.
“The number of cases and deaths we are seeing in such a short time frame, combined with the spread across several health zones and now across the border, is extremely concerning,” said Trish Newport, an emergency program manager for the charity.
The spread of the outbreak to the capitals of Congo and Uganda could pose an added challenge for public health workers because infectious diseases can spread more rapidly in dense urban settings.
Musinguzi Blanshe contributed reporting from Kampala, Uganda.
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2) In Closed-Door Talks, U.S. Demands a Major Role in Greenland
Greenlandic officials worry about the direction of the negotiations aimed at defusing President Trump’s threats to seize their island. But they have little leverage.
By Jeffrey Gettleman, Maya Tekeli, Anton Troianovski and Eric Schmitt, May 18, 2026
Ilulisaat, Greenland, a town where a Chinese state company nearly won a contract to build an airport in 2018. After U.S. officials pressured Denmark to step in, Greenland opted for a Danish company. Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
With the conflict in Iran still smoldering, President Trump’s obsession with Greenland seems like a forgotten sideshow.
But for the past four months, negotiators from the United States, Greenland and Denmark, which controls Greenland’s foreign affairs, have been holding confidential talks in Washington about Greenland’s future.
The talks were meant to give Mr. Trump an offramp to his threats of a military takeover of Greenland and to scale back a crisis that risked breaking apart the NATO alliance. But Greenlandic leaders are worried about what is being proposed, which is a much larger U.S. role on the Arctic island. And they fear that if the conflict with Iran winds down, the president will swing his aggression back on them.
Some Greenlandic politicians say they have even circled a date on their calendars to be wary: June 14, Mr. Trump’s birthday.
An investigation by The New York Times, based on interviews with officials in Washington, Copenhagen and Greenland, has discovered:
· The United States is trying to modify a longstanding military arrangement to ensure American troops can stay in Greenland indefinitely, even if Greenland becomes independent. The notion is basically a forever clause, and Greenlanders do not like it.
· The United States has pushed the talks beyond military matters and wants effective veto power over any major investment deals in Greenland to box out competitors like Russia and China. Greenlanders and Danes strongly object to this.
· The United States is discussing cooperation with Greenland on natural resources. The island is loaded with oil, uranium, rare earths and other critical minerals, though much of it is buried deep beneath Greenland’s ice.
· The Pentagon is rapidly moving ahead on plans for a military expansion and recently sent a Marine Corps officer to Narsarsuaq, a town in southern Greenland, to inspect the World War II-era airport, the harbor and places where American troops could be housed.
The American demands are so steep, Greenlandic officials fear, that they amount to a major imposition on their sovereignty. Despite all of the talk from Danish and American officials that Greenland’s future is up to the island’s 57,000 people, Greenlandic officials said the American demands would tie their hands for generations.
If the Americans get everything they want, said Justus Hansen, a member of Greenland’s Parliament, there will never be any “real independence.”
“We might as well raise our own flag halfway,” he said.
State Department and Danish officials have said little about the negotiations, which are being spearheaded by one of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s top advisers, Michael Needham.
Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, the head of the Pentagon’s Northern Command, described in a recent interview with The Times the broader American vision to defend the Arctic, an arena of increased geopolitical competition as climate change melts polar ice and opens up what had been one of world’s most inaccessible regions.
General Guillot said Greenland would be part of a chain of interlinking radar stations and military bases, which also includes sites in Alaska and Canada. He said the American military needs a deepwater port and a base for Special Operations soldiers who would rotate through Greenland for training and exercises.
General Guillot said this could be done through the defense pact that the United States signed with Denmark in 1951, when Greenland was still a Danish colony. That pact has been the jumping off point for the current negotiations, and Greenlandic and Danish officials originally tried to argue that the agreement gave the United States such a free hand for forces on Greenland that there was no need to take over the island.
Negotiators have met about five times in Washington since January, when Mr. Trump threatened to seize Greenland, saying it was essential to American national security. Though he eventually backed down and has since been absorbed by the conflict in Iran, the White House has indicated he is still deeply interested in Greenland.
So the Greenlandic, Danish and American negotiators involved in the talks hope they can reach a deal that the mercurial president will accept, officials familiar with the discussions say. The accounts made clear that there was still some distance to go. The officials who spoke to The Times asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the continuing negotiations.
Dylan Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for global public affairs, said in a statement that the national security and economic concerns laid out by the president “are undisputed by all parties and we continue to negotiate to address those concerns on a permanent basis.”
“This is not a president who allows problems to go unsolved for future presidents to deal with,” Mr. Johnson said.
Greenlanders have been emphatic they do not want to be part of the United States, but Greenlandic politicians say they are OK with having more American soldiers on their soil. Thousands of American troops were stationed there during World War II and the Cold War, though the United States eventually shut down every base save one.
Still, Greenland’s leaders feel they are being pressured to make other concessions and that they have little leverage in these talks.
“None of this is fair,” said Pipaluk Lynge, the chairwoman of the Greenlandic Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. “It feels very all or nothing. The best outcome is simply not to be invaded or controlled.”
Vivian Motzfeldt, Greenland’s former foreign minister and another member of Parliament, said that if the wars in Iran and in Ukraine end, it could spell trouble for Greenland. She fears Mr. Trump would return to his obsession and Russia would also shift to the Arctic, long a strategic priority for Moscow.
“They are coming from both sides,” she said.
She and other Greenlandic politicians were bracing for June 14, the president’s birthday, and the Fourth of July.
“If he’s going to realize his policy of making the U.S. greater again,” she said, “he could use days like those.”
Some Greenlanders fear that the U.S. interest in exploring their natural resources might mean pressure to loosen their mining rules.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, said during a recent interview in his office in Nuuk, the island’s capital, “We can absolutely do business.”
But, he added, “we have very strict environmental regulations and that is how it will remain.”
Mr. Nielsen cuts an unusual figure in the middle of a geopolitical maelstrom. Before becoming prime minister last year at age 33, he was best known as one of Greenland’s top badminton players. Since taking office, he has lined up behind Denmark, seeing Greenland’s former colonizer as the best protection against the United States.
“I’m almost tired of saying it,” Mr. Nielsen said. “But the question of Greenlandic independence and the relationship between Greenland and Denmark is something we must decide internally. It’s not something the Americans or anyone else should interfere in. ”
Officials with knowledge of the talks said the Americans are pushing to establish a strict screening mechanism and veto power to make sure Russia or China do not land any major infrastructure or resource deals.
Even though China lies hundreds of miles from the Arctic Circle, it has been increasingly active in the region and tried to come into Greenland before.
In 2018, a Chinese state company was a leading contender to build several new airports on the island, including one in Ilulissat, where thousands of visitors come each year to gaze at the icebergs. After American officials pressured Denmark to step in, Greenland opted for a Danish company.
Officials with knowledge of the current talks said Denmark and Greenland did not want the United States making decisions on investment deals, arguing it would violate Greenland’s sovereignty.
Over recent decades, Greenland has steadily gained more autonomy from Denmark, and most people on the island want to be independent some day. But Greenland lacks the intelligence capability to screen potential investors for links to Moscow and Beijing. So negotiators are discussing a process by which Copenhagen would do the screening, with American input.
The result could be that the negotiations, far from increasing Greenland’s sovereignty, end up giving Denmark more sway over the gigantic island.
Mr. Nielsen said he couldn’t “get into the specifics” of the talks but that Greenland should have the last word when it comes to who it does business with.
As he sat in his office, dressed in a black suit, black turtleneck and spotless black sneakers, he looked frustrated.
“We would like to see an end to this,” he said. “Because it’s a very strange situation.”
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3) Over 100,000 Family Separations in Deportation Push, Report Estimates
The Brookings Institution suggests that federal statistics are an undercount because immigrant parents are not being asked about or not disclosing their American children.
By Miriam Jordan and Jeff Adelson, May 18, 2026
Miriam Jordan is a national immigration correspondent, and Jeff Adelson is a data reporter.
Ledy Ordonez was on the job at a San Antonio seafood wholesaler last July when immigration agents entered the facility, taking her and about a dozen others into custody. The single mother remains in detention, separated from her only child, Alonzo, a U.S.-born 2-year-old now in the care of a friend.
“He can walk and talk now,” Ms. Ordonez said from a detention center in Texas. “I’ve missed so much.”
A new analysis suggests that more than 100,000 children have been separated from their parents during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. And roughly three-quarters of those children, like Alonzo, are likely U.S. citizens, according to estimates from the Brookings Institution that were shared with The New York Times.
The Brookings estimate of the number of children who are U.S. citizens is more than double the amount that would be expected over the same time period based on official Department of Homeland Security data. The researchers, whose report is based on a statistical analysis of the detainee population, argue the official statistics are an undercount because of how the government collects that information.
The findings point to a scale of family separations that far eclipses that of the first Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy in 2018, when about 5,500 children were removed from their parents immediately after crossing the southern border.
D.H.S. did not directly respond to questions about the number of parents who had been detained or the analysis suggesting that the official statistics did not reflect the full number of U.S.-born children whose parents had been arrested.
D.H.S. said in a statement that parents are given a choice of being removed with their children or placing their U.S.-born children with a designee.
“Any way you cut it, there are tens of thousands of children who have experienced parental detention since this president entered office,” said Tara Watson, a senior fellow at Brookings. “The majority are U.S. citizens,” she said.
The researchers estimated that about 205,000 children have had a parent detained — typically a precursor to deportation — including about 145,000 who are citizens. They used data from the Census Bureau and on Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests to determine the likely number of children detainees had based on their immigration status, sex, age, nationality and whether they were married.
The United States is home to more than 13 million immigrants who are vulnerable to deportation, because they either are undocumented or have temporary statuses. Some five million children under the age of 18 live with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent, according to estimates by several think tanks, and more than four million of them are U.S. citizens.
The Trump administration has arrested about 400,000 immigrants during enforcement operations in the interior of the country. There is no reliable information about how many children the detainees have, or what happened to those children once their parents were taken into custody.
Ms. Watson, an economist, and her co-author, Maria Cancian, a public policy professor at Georgetown University, sought to answer those questions, they said.
The estimates assume immigration enforcement is essentially random — that immigrant parents are just as likely to be detained as immigrants without children. But the researchers also created an interactive tool that estimates the likely number of children affected by parental detention under different enforcement scenarios and assumptions. Their most conservative estimate for the number of U.S.-born children with a parent detained is about 117,400. Their highest estimate is approximately 175,000.
The researchers said they considered 145,000 to be their most accurate estimate, and they predicted that it will grow, given that Congress allocated $45 billion in the One Big Beautiful Bill to expand detention capacity.
Their estimate contrasts with figures released by D.H.S., which say the parents of about 60,000 U.S.-born children were arrested over the same time period. In their report, the researchers theorized the discrepancy was because D.H.S. was not consistently asking about children, or detainees were fearful of revealing they had children, worried about putting them or their caregivers at risk.
Based on interviews with child welfare agencies, the researchers estimated only a small fraction of the children end up in the foster care or similar arrangements.
“We found that remarkably few end up in foster care — most children stay with friends and family who don’t have a legal obligation to care for these children,” said Dr. Cancian, who studies child welfare and immigration.
Many schools and legal aid organizations have helped immigrants appoint a caregiver for their children in the event they are separated.
However, the children are often left in the care of older siblings or working-class families already grappling with financial hardship and precarious immigration statuses, making these arrangements ultimately unsustainable, experts say.
If the government is separating children from good parents who happen to be undocumented, it has “the obligation to safeguard their well-being,” Dr. Cancian said.
Public Counsel, a nonprofit legal aid organization in Los Angeles, has educated more than 4,000 immigrants on custody plans since last year, ensuring that someone is empowered to make medical and school-related decisions.
Still, the nonprofit regularly receives calls from schools, churches and others seeking assistance for children whose parents were just detained.
“We are seeing kids in tenuous situations, left with neighbors who don’t have the proper paperwork they need; older siblings who have children of their own; and cases where a father cannot handle young children,” said Sharon Cartagena, a family law lawyer at the nonprofit.
Casey Revkin, executive director of Each Step Home, which began by assisting immigrant families during the 2018 border separations, now focuses almost exclusively on helping parents in detention who have lived in the United States for many years and were separated from their children.
“Almost every day we are contacted by a mom in detention who was arrested and taken from her kids,” said Ms. Revkin, whose group raises funds to help parents in detention pay for phone calls to their children. “This time the cruelty is often being inflicted on U.S.-citizen children.”
The mother of Samantha Lopez, a 3-year-old U.S. citizen, was turned over to ICE last month by a sheriff’s deputy after a traffic stop while she was driving to her restaurant job, according to her husband.
Mr. Lopez, who asked that his full name not be disclosed out of concern that he could be targeted by ICE, said that his wife had told agents she had a young child, to no avail.
“I am feeling such a void and such anguish,” he said. “When our daughter talks to her mom, she listens attentively and then starts to cry.”
“This is my American child being harmed,” he said.
Mr. Lopez, a construction worker, said that he needed to work as much overtime as possible to afford a lawyer to secure his wife’s release, but he must also watch his daughter after day care.
Ironically, having a U.S.-born child can keep families apart.
Ms. Ordonez, who has been separated from her U.S.-born son for more than 10 months, said that she pleaded with agents long ago to allow the pair to stay in a family detention center while she fought her case. But American citizens cannot be held in immigration detention.
“I never wanted to be separated from my only child,” she said.
Agents have warned Ms. Ordonez that her deportation is imminent, she said. To accompany his mother, Alonzo needs a passport. Ms. Ordonez has been struggling to arrange it, she added. Agents warned her recently that they would deport her without the boy if she did not obtain the document, leaving him with his current caretakers.
“These aren’t family or anything, they are just caring for him as a favor,” she said, weeping. “If they deport me, I want to take my child.”
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4) Long Island Rail Road Strike Affects More Than A Quarter-Million Commuters
Workers on the nation’s busiest passenger rail service, who have not received a raise since 2022, have been striking since Saturday. People trying to commute to and from New York City on Monday faced a rough journey.
By Stefanos Chen, New York City transit reporter, May 18, 2026
A strike on the Long Island Rail Road, America’s busiest passenger rail service, upended the commutes of more than a quarter-million riders on Monday who rely on the service to get to work.
Five unions representing more than 3,500 workers — including engineers, signal workers and machinists — walked off the job shortly after midnight on Saturday, after yearslong negotiations over wages and other issues with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fell apart. Monday was the first day that the strike affected weekday commuters.
The strike has shut down the entire service, which carries an average of more than 270,000 passengers a day between Long Island and New York City.
The M.T.A., the state agency that runs the railroad, is providing free bus service beginning Monday morning from six locations on Long Island to two subway stations in Queens, and in the opposite direction during the evening rush. Police officers and members of the L.I.R.R. work force who are not on strike are expected to help direct passengers to buses at the stops.
But the M.T.A. said the shuttles would not be able to accommodate all the riders who rely on the railroad, and encouraged people to work from home if they can.
On Sunday, Gov. Kathy Hochul said that she had made major investments in the M.T.A. to stabilize its finances, and that she would not agree to a deal that could force the agency to raise fares.
“I worked hard to do that and don’t want that undone — I will not let that be undone,” she said.
A spokesman for the unions said in a statement on Sunday that their wage proposal was reasonable and that two federal review panels had sided with them.
“We remain ready to negotiate a fair agreement at any time and get back to work on behalf of Long Island commuters,” the statement said.
At Hicksville station Monday morning, Sandra Parker, 50, a customer service worker who was striking for the first time in her 22 years at the L.I.R.R, donned a red union shirt and held a sign that read “CONTRACT NOW.”
“We want to be able to live, put our kids through college, own our homes. What kind of legacy are we going to leave our children?” she said.
Carlos Velez, 52, a crew dispatcher on strike, said he felt for commuters and was eager to get back to work.
“If the strike could end five minutes ago, I’d be on the first train to Jamaica to continue my job,” he said.
Negotiations continued past 1 a.m. on Monday with no resolution, and have since picked up again.
Reactions from commuters were mixed, with some supporting the unions’ right to strike, and others frustrated by long detours.
Manoj Sharma, a software engineer, was boarding a Coach USA bus from Hicksville Monday morning with a sign saying it was bound for an A train stop in Queens.
“I don’t even know where Howard Beach is, this is going to be a long commute,” said Mr. Sharma, 33.
He hopes the strike will be over by midweek at the latest.
“I can deal with it for a few days,” he said. “But if it goes to Thursday or longer, it’s really going to cut down on my productivity.”
Here’s what to know:
· Why workers are striking: The striking workers are seeking a higher percentage-based salary increase in 2026 than the M.T.A. was willing to offer. The workers represented by the unions, who make up about half of the rail road’s work force, have not had a raise since 2022. Negotiations collapsed when the two sides could not agree on terms, like a proposal to change health care plans that could raise costs for new hires.
· Previous stoppage: This strike is already longer than the last one on the Long Island Rail Road in 1994. That two-day strike ended after Gov. Mario Cuomo largely conceded to the unions’ terms.
· Economic toll: The strike could cost the region $61 million a day in lost economic activity, according to the state comptroller’s office.
· Driving costs: Congestion pricing, the toll on drivers entering the busiest parts of Manhattan, will not be suspended during the strike, Ms. Hochul said, noting that she has no legal mechanism to suspend the program.
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5) Catastrophe Is Emerging in the World’s Most Vulnerable Places
The humanitarian relief system, decimated by cuts, faces a grave challenge as the Middle East war causes soaring costs for food, fuel and fertilizer.
By Peter S. Goodman, Photographs by Finbarr O’Reilly, May 18, 2026
Peter Goodman traveled to Somalia, visiting camps for displaced people, schools, health centers and a hospital for the treatment of malnourished children.
“As the conflict in the Middle East grinds into its third month, catastrophe is unfolding across the world’s poorest, least stable countries. If hostilities continue beyond June, those confronting acute hunger will swell beyond 363 million people worldwide, an increase of 45 million compared with before the war, the World Food Program warned.”
Muslima Ibrahim Mohamed, 38, holds her 2-day-old son, Noor Mohamed.
For nine days, they trudged across the parched soil of southern Somalia, taking turns carrying their 3-year-old daughter on their shoulders. Abdullahi Abdi Abdirahman, his wife and their seven children sought escape from a landscape drained of life.
Another drought had killed their goats and sheep, turning their life savings to dust. So they pressed on for 140 miles toward Dollow, a dusty outpost on the Ethiopian border. They were drawn by the same things that had already attracted more than 100,000 other people: International relief organizations were clustered there, offering food, water and health care.
Yet when they arrived in late January at a camp on the fringes of town, they were horrified to learn that aid groups had abandoned the area. President Trump had dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., eliminating Somalia’s primary source of assistance. From London to Berlin, governments had reduced funding for humanitarian aid. Relief organizations had been forced to choose where to focus their remaining money.
Dollow had not made the cut. Inside the camps, thousands of tents remained, but aid was disappearing. Families were losing cash grants for food. Health clinics were bereft of medicines and staff.
The following month, another shock unfolded, as the United States and Israel unleashed war on Iran. The closing of the Strait of Hormuz halted the shipment of oil, fertilizer and other critical commodities from the Persian Gulf. The cost of moving cargo soared. In Somalia, which depends on imports for 70 percent of its food, staple goods like rice and wheat flour doubled in price.
“Milk and meat are just a dream for us,” said Mr. Abdirahman, 47. His family was subsisting on a daily meal of sorghum porridge and wild grasses plucked from nearby riverbanks.
“The children are hungry,” he said. “It hurts.”
As the conflict in the Middle East grinds into its third month, catastrophe is unfolding across the world’s poorest, least stable countries. If hostilities continue beyond June, those confronting acute hunger will swell beyond 363 million people worldwide, an increase of 45 million compared with before the war, the World Food Program warned.
The danger is mounting absent the usual degree of international mobilization.
Four years ago, when Russia began its war on Ukraine, the global supply of fertilizers and grains was disrupted, prompting fears of hunger from sub-Saharan Africa to South Asia. But the pain was limited by $43 billion in humanitarian assistance marshaled by governments and multilateral institutions, according to data compiled by the United Nations. That campaign, which included emergency food aid, water and medical care, was led by $17 billion from the United States.
Last year, overall humanitarian funding dropped to $28 billion, and the United States contributed only $4 billion. Cuts are continuing.
“The system has been eviscerated,” said Kate Phillips-Barrasso, who heads global advocacy at Mercy Corps, an American aid group that runs relief and development programs around the world. The organization led journalists from The New York Times on a reporting trip in Somalia.
“This is the era of indifference,” she said.
Somalia is rife with calamity. In recent decades, the country has suffered civil war, famine, and the unpredictable attacks of Al-Shabaab, a militant Islamist group affiliated with Al Qaeda.
Drought ravaged the most recent harvest. Some 6.5 million people — roughly one third of the population — were suffering hunger at levels deemed an emergency, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned in February. That included more than 1.8 million children under 5 facing acute malnutrition.
Those numbers have almost certainly increased given the war. Yet the World Food Program, the largest source of aid in Somalia, has only enough funding to support 300,000 people a month through July, a fraction of the nearly 2 million people a month it was reaching in early 2025.
Humanitarian relief organizations now contemplate a surreal hierarchy of suffering.
“There are different categories of starvation,” said Hameed Nuru, the World Food Program’s Somalia director. “We are only able to reach those who are really on the verge of, if you don’t give them something now, they will not be there tomorrow.”
In some areas, children are still getting food, but not pregnant mothers. “Literally, it’s who dies first,” he said, “and who dies next.”
A Feedback Loop of Trouble
In scores of countries, overlapping crises are now reinforcing one another. Higher prices for food and fuel are limiting the benefit of what aid remains.
Marine traffic diverted from the strait has overwhelmed the port of Salalah in Oman, a hub for cargo that is transferred onto smaller vessels bound for destinations in West Africa.
Because of traffic jams in Oman, a World Food Program shipment that included split peas from Kenya and cereals from Belgium recently arrived 40 days late at the port of Berbera in the north of Somalia. That held up enough supplies to feed 500,000 women and children for a month.
In Sudan, scene of the world’s most dire humanitarian disaster, some areas are suffering famine, and 41 percent of the population is acutely short of food, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Yet in late April, the U.N. Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, had to scrap plans to ship five trucks loaded with emergency supplies to two cities in the south of the country.
In addition to the hurdles of moving goods in a country besieged by civil war, trucking companies were refusing to make the journey from Port Sudan. They were afraid of getting stuck in the hinterland, unable to refuel given shortages of oil.
“Kids are dying,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF’s representative to Sudan.
Four years ago, as Somalia confronted its most severe drought in years, it received $2.4 billion in humanitarian aid, more than half from the United States.
But when President Trump returned to office last year, he brought animus toward Somalia, deriding immigrants from the country as “garbage.”
Last year, the United States slashed humanitarian assistance to Somalia to $70 million from $467 million in 2024. Over the first four months of this year, less than $3 million came from American government donors — only 2 percent of all relief for Somalia. Britain, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Canada and Qatar each contribute considerably more.
Still, many European governments have also retreated, spurred by Mr. Trump’s insistence that they spend more on defense rather than relying on American protection.
Relief organizations now reckon with a process they describe as “hyper-prioritization.” What aid remains has been concentrated on the neediest 21 of Somalia’s 90 districts.
This was the situation before the United States and Israel started a war on Iran.
Food, Fertilizer and Fuel
Somalia is dependent on imports for oil, most of it from the United Arab Emirates. As Iran launched retaliatory strikes on production facilities in the Persian Gulf, and as transport through the strait effectively ceased, the price of gasoline and diesel more than doubled.
Some people in the camps sell fruits and vegetables that they buy in markets in town. The fares for transporting their wares by motorized rickshaw have more than doubled. They were passing on the extra costs to their customers.
Trucking companies doubled and tripled prices for bringing sacks of corn over the border from Ethiopia. The cost of hauling rice shipped into Somalia’s ports rose by similar margins.
At a fish market in Mogadishu, the city of more than 3 million that is Somalia’s capital, Fatumo Abdi Noor, 45, tended to her stall as men used machetes to hack tuna and king fish into steaks. She had nearly doubled her prices. Owners of fishing boats could no longer afford to venture out to the deeper waters of the Indian Ocean. They were settling for smaller fish closer to shore, reducing the catch.
Faced with higher prices for fish at the market, customers were buying smaller quantities. Ms. Noor’s sales were down by half.
At a trade school in Dollow, a half-dozen women trained to be seamstresses, operating manual sewing machines. Materials used to maintain the machines had nearly tripled in price. Thread and fabric from Mogadishu had become difficult to secure.
At some public wells, the price of water had tripled, given that many pumps are fueled by diesel. Faced with the loss of funding from U.S.A.I.D., Mercy Corps, the American development organization, had halted programs installing solar cells to power public wells. Aid organizations like UNICEF were paying more to truck water to drought-afflicted areas.
Somalia also depends on the Persian Gulf for about one-third of its fertilizers. With stocks marooned on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz, farmers were contending with higher costs.
At a 10-acre cooperative farm in Dollow, a tractor tilled the ground in preparation for the planting of onions. The diesel that powered the machine had more than doubled in price. A 30-kilogram bag of nitrogen fertilizer had jumped to $35 from $20.
The cooperative planned to recoup its costs by demanding more for its harvest.
As he sat beneath the shade of a mango tree, its branches sloping toward the river dividing Somalia from Ethiopia, Adan Bare Ali, deputy mayor of Dollow, said his community was suffering from troubles that had been concocted far away. The drought was worsened by climate change — primarily the result of industrial polluters in larger, more powerful nations. The war was the handiwork of foreign actors.
“The situation has become unbearable,” he said. “The American regime is led by a person who really doesn’t care about anything happening outside his gates. The Americans are not honoring their commitment to the world.”
Throughout Somalia, unaffordable food combined with fewer medical clinics meant that children were more likely to suffer malnutrition and at greater risk of developing dangerous complications.
On a sweltering morning, more than 100 women sat on wooden benches with infants and toddlers in their arms at a nutrition center in Mogadishu. They were waiting their turn to lay their children on an examination table. Attendants applied cuffs to tiny arms, measuring their circumference to assess the extent of malnutrition. Babies shrieked as their mothers deposited them into a plastic bucket attached to a scale.
Those deemed moderately malnourished were given special foods. Those recorded as severe cases were administered therapeutic milk formula and antibiotics to ward off infection.
And those in greatest peril were sent to a so-called stabilization unit run by UNICEF inside a local hospital. There, babies and toddlers lay on cots, many with feeding tubes curling into their nostrils, and some attached to oxygen.
Eighteen-month-old Mohamed Abdi Abdullahi leaned against his mother, Fartum Abokor Omar, his ribs protruding from his chest. Folds of skin slumped from his arms.
The family had arrived a week earlier from their village north of Mogadishu. The river had dried up, decimating crops. When her son began vomiting, unable to hold down their single daily meal, Ms. Omar traveled to the nearest town to seek help.
There, a nurse at a clinic urged her to continue on to Mogadishu to seek care at Banadir Hospital. The bus fare was normally $12, a relative fortune. Now, it was double that. She wandered the town, begging for the needed money.
Inside the hospital, doctors had stabilized her baby. He was likely to be discharged within a few days. Which made this a positive ending in Somalia: a child spared from hunger.
Yet his story ran counter to the trend.
Throughout the country, UNICEF had closed 205 of its 800 local health clinics. These were the facilities best positioned to arrest the severity of malnutrition. When people were assessed and treated earlier, they had better odds of recovery.
Since January, the hospital had admitted 768 infants and toddlers with medical issues caused by severe malnutrition — double the pace of the previous year. Doctors estimated that one-third of those children could have avoided hospitalization had they been seen earlier.
Greater Need, Less Relief
Mr. Abdirahman and his family knew little of this context as they proceeded toward Dollow.
What they knew was hunger, fear and exhaustion. They walked dirt roads, traversing a largely treeless plain. They slept wherever they happened to be when the sun went down, resuming their journey as the first light seeped from the horizon.
On a sweltering morning in January, they reached the camp where international aid workers had previously provided help.
“There was nothing here,” said Mr. Abdirahman, still nursing a palpable sense of disbelief. “There are no services.”
They set up a tent alongside a fence of thorn bushes, taking shelter under leftover plastic sheeting held aloft by sticks.
Since their arrival, Mr. Abdirahman has been working as a farm hand, earning $1 a day. His wife, Sadia Abdirahman, walks across a bridge into Ethiopia where she washes clothes for better-off families. But as the cost of food rises, fewer households can afford to employ her.
“Sometimes, we go out begging,” she said.
In the center of the camp, a health clinic formerly financed by UNICEF sat empty, save for a volunteer midwife. The organization used to fund prenatal services, dispensing iron pills and medicines. It paid for ambulances to take women to local hospitals when they suffered complications during labor. Not anymore.
In late April, a woman in a neighboring tent, Muslima Ibrahim Mohamed, 38, went into labor. Her sisters helped her to the clinic. It was the middle of the day, but the building was locked. They borrowed money for a motorized rickshaw ride to a hospital in town. She lay on the bench for the half-hour journey, suffering the bumps of the rutted dirt road.
“I was in real pain,” she said. “I was terrified.”
At 38, she had lost four children to disease and hunger. Now, she cradled her newborn son, Noor Mohamed, against her chest. He had entered the world in a moment of extraordinary vulnerability.
A school inside the camp had also lost funding from UNICEF. The head teacher, Abdulnasir Mohamed Farah, 30, was still there, working without pay, because his fingerprint unlocked a digital payment card stocked with cash from the World Food Program. He used the money to buy rice and beans, typically the only meal of the day for his students.
“I can’t abandon the children,” he said.
The World Food Program has traditionally relied on American government support for nearly half of its budget. Given the cuts, it had reduced its allocation to the school by 60 percent. And that money was buying less at local markets. The school enrollment had swelled beyond 800 from less than 600 as the drought sent more families toward the camp.
At the World Food Program’s local headquarters, high walls were encircled in barbed wire. The head of the operation, Josephine Muli, surveyed her warehouse space — 13 A-frame tents used to store medicines and nutritional supplements.
Twelve of the tents were empty.
A single tent held cardboard cartons loaded with a peanut-based paste for malnourished children and pregnant and breastfeeding women.
The cartons were emblazoned with the American flag, the U.S.A.I.D. logo and a message: “From the American people.”
“This will last for two months,” Ms Muli said. “The pipeline is dry. Beyond July, the pipeline will be zero.”
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6) Trump Threatens Iran as Tensions Surge Again in Middle East
The president has sought to force Iran to accept his terms on its nuclear program or else face renewed war. An emboldened Iran has rebuffed Trump’s demands.
By Aaron Boxerman, May 18, 2026
President Trump said in a social media post that Iran had to move fast “or there won’t be anything left,” adding “the Clock is Ticking.” Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times
President Trump threatened renewed war with Iran on Sunday night in his latest ultimatum to the country, which has so far resisted U.S. demands to largely shut down its nuclear program.
Mr. Trump said in a social media post that Iran had to move fast “or there won’t be anything left,” adding “the Clock is Ticking.” He did not set a deadline and over the past two months, Mr. Trump has made similar threats to Iran without following through.
Negotiations between the United States and Iran have been stalled for weeks. Mr. Trump has repeatedly warned that he could soon order a renewed assault on Iran unless its leaders made concessions in the talks.
Iran has repeatedly rebuffed U.S. terms for a deal to curb uranium enrichment and end attempts to blockaded the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for shipping oil and gas. The turmoil over the strait has roiled markets and sent the price of oil soaring.
On Monday, Iran said it had handed yet another counterproposal to the United States in the negotiations. The Iranian foreign ministry said that the talks were still continuing through Pakistan, which has been mediating between the two sides.
Asked about Mr. Trump’s threats, Esmaeil Baghaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman told reporters: “Don’t worry, we know very well how to respond.” He did not elaborate further, although Iranian officials have repeatedly threatened fierce retaliation if attacked again by the United States and Israel.
The Pentagon is planning for the possibility that Operation Epic Fury — which was paused when the president declared a cease-fire last month — will pick up again in the coming days.
Two Middle East officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said that the United States and Israel are engaged in intense preparations — the largest since the cease-fire took effect — for the possible resumption of attacks against Iran as early as this week.
The war began in late February with a joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran that drew much of the Middle East into the conflict.
But analysts say the United States has faced a tough dilemma since a cease-fire was declared last month. U.S. and Israeli war planes could again start attacking Iran from the air, but many military analysts say bombing alone is unlikely to force Iran to agree to American demands.
The two countries could launch a special forces operation to try to seize Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which the U.S. and Israel fear could be used to build a nuclear weapon. But such a raid could risk the lives of American soldiers, further straining domestic U.S. support for an unpopular war.
For the past month, Mr. Trump has instead opted for a pressure campaign — so far unsuccessful — to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The United States briefly launched what Mr. Trump called “Project Freedom” to help escort ships trapped in the waterway to safety. Just a day later, the initiative was suspended to allow for further negotiations with Iran.
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7) Medical Care Delays for Approval Persist, Despite Insurers’ Promises
Doctors and patients complain that the controversial practice of prior authorization for treatment and procedures is still widespread.
By Reed Abelson, May 18, 2026
Candace Rond, center, with her daughters Gabby, left, and Sophia, who both have juvenile arthritis. Lindsay D'Addato for The New York Times
Nearly a year after the nation’s health insurers pledged to overhaul their much-criticized practice of prior approval for medical care, patients and doctors say there is little evidence that delays and denials for necessary treatment have eased.
Just ask Candace Rond. She tried for weeks to get medication for her 15-year-old daughter, Gabby, who has two autoimmune diseases.
“The whole prior authorization experience is a nightmare,” Ms. Rond said.
In January, Ms. Rond was told she could not refill her daughter’s prescription until the insurer reviewed the request. Gabby was in pain, and Ms. Rond worried that her daughter’s sophomore year of high school would suffer. “I just get so frustrated,” Ms. Rond said.
About two months later, after repeatedly checking, Ms. Rond, who is a volunteer in Utah for the Arthritis Foundation, was finally able to refill the prescription. She is dreading this summer, when her insurance coverage begins a new year and a new approval cycle for her daughter’s medication.
Insurers’ use of prior authorization has generated significant public outrage, as has the budgetary stress caused by the rising costs of health care. In a recent poll conducted by KFF, a health research organization, one of three adults with insurance surveyed said prior authorization was a “major burden,” with nearly 70 percent describing it as at least somewhat burdensome.
Last June, dozens of insurance companies voluntarily promised to reduce the number of tests and procedures requiring prior approval and to make sure patients could stay on the same treatment for 90 days even if they switched plans, according to a joint announcement by the industry’s two major trade groups. They also vowed to speed up the reviews.
The trade organizations said in a recent statement that insurers were making headway by requiring authorization of fewer services and by responding sooner to doctors and patients.
But evidence of improvements remains spotty. Recent surveys of doctors found that prior authorization continued to be a major concern, that patients waiting for treatment could be harmed and that it contributed to significant administrative overload.
“It’s a huge issue, and we’re far from mission accomplished,” said Anthony Wright, the executive director for Families USA, a health care advocacy group in Washington, D.C. “We shouldn’t have insurers competing on how aggressively they deny needed care.”
Chris Klomp, who oversees Medicare for the Trump administration and helped persuade insurers to commit to changes, acknowledged that far too many treatments still required authorization.
The companies have made progress, he said, but need to do more. “I think that’s an excellent first step,” he said, “but hardly sufficient.”
Mr. Klomp defended the voluntary pledge as essential to influencing industrywide response. “We needed to be able to do something across all lines of business,” he said.
Broader legislation in Congress that would curtail the practice, at least for the private plans offered under Medicare, has stalled despite bipartisan support.
The Biden administration imposed some regulations, including shortening approval times for Medicare Advantage plans. In April, the Trump administration proposed new rules that would apply many of those regulations for medication reviews, a first attempt at oversight.
But states have limited authority to regulate plans offered by large employers and by private Medicare Advantage. Employers’ plans are largely governed under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, known as ERISA, partly to avoid a patchwork of state regulations.
Some states have passed legislation setting strict timetables for insurers’ approval reviews, with Iowa being the most recent. A Nebraska law forces companies to authorize care if 72 hours had elapsed in cases involving urgent medical conditions. By 2028, Nebraska would shorten the decision window to 48 hours.
Five years ago, the Illinois State Medical Society pushed state lawmakers to pass legislation that included requiring companies to keep approvals for patients with chronic conditions in place for a year.
“I don’t really know if I feel it,” Dr. Richard C. Anderson, a surgeon and a former president of the medical society, said of any impact from insurers’ promises.
Recent surveys reflect his observation. The Medical Group Management Association, which is made up of large physician groups, found that 90 percent of executives in the doctors’ practices reported an increase in the last year of administrative work related to seeking approval for patient treatment.
This month, the American Medical Association released a survey in which more than a quarter of doctors said delays and denials had resulted in adverse patient conditions like hospitalization or a life-threatening incident.
“Physician trust in voluntary insurer pledges is deeply eroded after years of unfulfilled promises,” Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, the president of the association, said in a statement.
Data to measure the effect of regulatory and insurer changes has not been widely available to consumers.
In March, for the first time, insurers were required by Medicare officials to publicly release information on the handling of medical requests, including the number of denials, for some of their plans.
Dr. Archelle Georgiou, who was a senior executive at UnitedHealthcare until 2007, said it had been difficult to find reliable information, which is posted on the companies’ individual websites.
A critic of prior authorization, Dr. Georgiou favors a centralized public database for people to navigate easily; Mr. Klomp said the government was considering one.
In a recent analysis of some insurers’ available data, Dr. Georgiou found that many denials for care were ultimately overturned. But with about one in 10 claims denied, according to her data, only 7 percent were appealed and two-thirds of the rejections were reversed.
The statistics may be worse for medications, according to her analysis of limited state data.
Dr. Anderson, for one, said he was frequently second-guessed by insurance companies. For example, he said, insurers insisted that some cancer patients get a CT scan before a PET scan, despite the PET scan’s ultimately being necessary to detail disease progression.
“They’re really not saving the system money, and they delay,” he said.
Prior approval is often required for imaging tests, and insurers do request reviews of surgeries outside of emergencies. Expensive medications, like GLP-1s for treating diabetes, are also subject to review. Insurers also differ in their requirements for the same treatment. The Trump administration has drawn criticism for a Medicare pilot program testing prior approval for a select group of conditions.
Insurance executives said it would take time for their efforts to affect the daily interactions among doctors, patients and insurers.
“This is not a matter of simply flipping a switch,” said Mike Tuffin, the president and chief executive of AHIP, a major insurance trade group that, along with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, collaborated on the industry pledge.
“The more transformative systematic reforms are going into effect next year,” Mr. Tuffin said. Those include the development of a standard package of information doctors can submit to every insurer.
By 2028, the insurance companies hope to be able to assess 80 percent of electronic requests while patients are still in their doctor’s offices.
Medicare officials recently announced a new push that included an initiative by insurers and others, like suppliers of electronic health records, to improve the pace of approvals and reduce the administrative burden. Hospitals and doctors are also being encouraged to modernize their systems.
Last month, the trade associations said insurers had cut the overall number of treatments that needed a review by more than six million, an 11 percent decline.
No insurer has been under more pressure to alter its practices than UnitedHealth Group, which owns the nation’s largest insurer, UnitedHealthcare. Reaction to the assassination in Manhattan of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive, Brian Thompson, in late 2024 erupted into a backlash against insurers.
UnitedHealth has since publicized various changes in an effort to restore public confidence and repair its image.
The company announced that it would reduce the number of treatments requiring prior approval by 30 percent this year. UnitedHealth also plans to exempt rural hospitals from most approval restrictions. And OptumRx, its pharmacy benefit manager, said it was cutting the number of medications needing review.
Aetna, the big insurer owned by CVS Health, said it was approving more than 80 percent of requests in real time and requiring fewer reviews than many of its peers. The company, which also owns CVS Caremark, the pharmacy benefit manager, said it was trying to simplify the process by issuing a combined approval of medications and procedures for select groups of patients, like some with cancer, or bundling imaging reviews for those patients so they did not need separate authorizations for every scan.
Insurers have recognized that treatment delays drive up costs and evoke dissatisfaction among customers. “We’re in an all-out effort to increase trust,” said Steve Nelson, Aetna’s president.
Some industry executives say they are trying to address the complaints.
“We need to move away from a world where insurance companies are wedging themselves between the doctor and the patient,” said Dr. Sachin H. Jain, the chief executive of SCAN Health Plan, which offers Medicare Advantage plans.
“The hard part is we’ve created documentation wars,” Dr. Jain said. And while the insurers and doctors spend time arguing about what documents are needed to justify the care, “the person who is getting in the middle of that is the patient,” he said.
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8) Firing Squads Expose the Brutality of the Death Penalty
By Maurice Chammah, May 18, 2026
Mr. Chammah is a staff writer at The Marshall Project and the author of “Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty.”
Steffen Kern
There is no tidy way to kill someone. But for the last century, Americans have searched for a way to carry out the death penalty that minimizes suffering while lessening trauma for executioners and witnesses. Those efforts have gone so poorly that we’re returning to a visceral execution method from the past.
Last month, the Justice Department encouraged federal prison officials to consider execution by firing squad amid a nationwide struggle to secure lethal injection drugs. South Carolina has already used firing squads three times recently, placing a hood over the prisoner’s head and firing rifles at a red bull’s-eye placed over the heart. Four other states have authorized the method, and Idaho is renovating its execution chamber to accommodate firing squads.
There is no question that killing a person in this manner is brutal. Witnesses have described the crack of rifles and the eerie silence as blood spills from the condemned person’s chest. It is a testament to the brutality of our execution system that firing squads may also be more effective and reliable than lethal injection, which is the most widely used execution method. Dr. James Williams, an emergency room physician and a firearms expert who has testified about firing squad executions in courtrooms across the country, told me last year that “there is a lot of evidence that the near-instant loss of blood pressure means no blood gets to the brainstem, and there is a rapid loss of consciousness.”
Dr. Williams is largely opposed to capital punishment, and he believes in minimizing suffering for executions that do occur. He told me an even faster method would be to fire a bullet into the brainstem, leading to death in milliseconds. As horrifying as that sounds, it shows how much we’ve shrouded the inevitable violence of the death penalty with syringes and barbiturates. Autopsies have indicated that many prisoners who looked peaceful as they were dying were actually paralyzed and may have felt as if they were drowning.
Firing squad executions strip away the veneer of medical theater.
Some Americans point to the horrific nature of the crimes being punished in death penalty cases and say: The more violent the execution, the better. But support for capital punishment, which is legal in 27 states, has been declining for decades. Polling shows that just over half of Americans support it, down from 80 percent in 1994. There are many reasons for this drop, among them high-profile botched executions. A wave of bloody spectacles, in multiple states and at the federal level, would be a clearer test of how deep support for the death penalty actually runs.
Before the early 20th century, the United States did not have much trouble accepting the gruesome sights, sounds and smells of executions. At the country’s founding, the violence of firing squads was part of the point; deserters were executed this way during the Revolutionary War and Civil War to deter other soldiers from absconding. In 1936, around 20,000 people attended the country’s last public hanging, an event that newspapers later decried as a “carnival of sadism.”
Firing squads and hangings mostly disappeared in the early 20th century, as public officials moved executions behind closed doors. There was a concern that public executions looked too much like the lynchings they were supposed to supplant.
While reporting for a book on the death penalty a few years ago, I learned that we turned away from more brutal methods like firing squads and hangings because of the country’s growing uneasiness about the death penalty itself.
Over time, lawmakers gave voice to the public’s collective queasiness as they tried to move away from lurid spectacles. “We’ve gone from stoning to crucifixion, to quartering, to burning people at the stake, to hanging,” a Texas state legislator, Ben Z. Grant, told his colleagues in a 1977 hearing. He worried that the latest method, the electric chair, had “become a circus sideshow.” Prison officials had to place masks on prisoners to spare witnesses from having to see their eyes pop out.
Mr. Grant proposed that Texas move to lethal injection — which had proven effective in veterinary medicine — as a more modern and humane method, and many states followed suit. But the effort to improve executions eventually had the opposite effect: In recent years, a significant number of people have convulsed on the death chamber gurney. (Firing squad executions are less likely to be botched, although last year South Carolina executioners missed a condemned man’s heart, according to a study of his autopsy.)
These botched lethal injections are an indirect consequence of wariness from the medical industry, as some doctors and nurses, citing ethical concerns, refuse to play a role in setting intravenous lines or administering drugs, leaving those with less training to do their best. Most drug companies have refused to let their products play a role in killing people, which has forced prison officials to turn to less reputable manufacturers and use more experimental drug cocktails.
During this period, some states abolished the death penalty and a few governors paused executions, often citing issues with lethal injection protocols. Many leaders also looked to more transparently harsh methods. Alabama started pumping nitrogen gas through face masks. Arizona refurbished a chamber to fill with cyanide gas, a method so similar to the gas chambers in Auschwitz that a Jewish community group sued the state, saying they were being asked “to subsidize and relive unnecessarily the same form of cruelty used in World War II atrocities.”
The firing squad was available all this time. The most logical explanations for avoiding it have to do with the upsetting visuals, the feeling that it’s old-fashioned and the possible effect on executioners. But people who participate in lethal injections routinely suffer psychologically in the long term. In 2022, Chiara Eisner at NPR interviewed over two dozen people who were involved in executions. Many were so affected by the experience that they suffered insomnia, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
President Trump oversaw 13 executions in his first term, all carried out by lethal injection. President Biden commuted the death sentences of most of the people on federal death row, so it’s not clear whether Mr. Trump will have anyone to execute this term.
But someday federal prison officials may train rifles on someone like Dylann Roof or Robert Bowers, both of whom committed high-profile mass shootings at places of worship. Americans will then finally have to decide what we can tolerate, after decades in which we have been able to pretend that we can kill people without a cost — to our executioners and to our own sense of ourselves.
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9) E.P.A. to End Some Limits on ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Drinking Water
The rules were established by the Biden administration after research linked the compounds to a range of serious health problems.
By Lisa Friedman, Reporting from Washington, Published May 18, 2026, Updated May 19, 2026
The Trump administration announced Monday that it will drop some limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water that officials had determined can cause cancer and other serious health problems — angering some key activists who had supported President Trump’s campaign.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it would unravel the nation’s first federal drinking water limits for the compounds, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The Biden administration established the limits on six of the substances in 2024, after the agency determined that long-term exposure to PFAS was linked to kidney cancer, immune system suppression, developmental delays in infants and children and other issues.
Instead, the Trump administration will issue narrower regulations that rescind protections for four of the substances and continue to protect against two of the them, though companies will be able to request two extra years to comply with those.
But the move, which had been planned for more than a year, has sparked fury within the Make America Healthy Again movement, a diverse group of anti-vaccine activists, wellness influencers and others who make up a key part of Mr. Trump’s coalition.
Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, sought to counter that anger by appearing Monday with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary who spearheaded the MAHA movement, and announcing nearly $1 billion to help states address the contaminants in drinking water.
“They persist in the environment, they build up in the human body, and addressing them is not optional. It is essential to making America healthy again,” Mr. Zeldin said at an event in the wood-paneled Map Room on the first floor of the E.P.A. headquarters.
Mr. Zeldin argued that the Biden administration made procedural errors with its drinking water standards and said his E.P.A. will regulate “the right way, following the law and following the science.” He has also raised concerns that water systems could pass costs on to consumers if the compliance deadline wasn’t pushed back. The Biden administration had estimated the rule would cost about $1.5 billion to implement each year, but Congress in 2020 provided about $9 billion to improve drinking water and address chemicals like PFAS.
The Trump administration will continue to protect communities from the chemicals present in the tap water of millions of Americans, Mr. Zeldin said. He highlighted the work of companies that create technologies to capture and destroy the substances.
Mr. Kennedy insisted that the Biden administration’s drinking water standard would not have survived a court challenge, and that the Trump administration had no choice but to start the regulatory process over. Chemical manufacturers had already sued over the Biden-era standards. Both Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Zeldin suggested future protections might ultimately be stronger than the earlier rules.
“The president is completely committed to removing PFAS,” the health secretary said.
Many activists in the MAHA base have already expressed disillusionment with the Trump administration over its backing of a controversial weed killer and previous plans to delay deadlines for water utilities to limit two types of PFAS in drinking water. Some on Monday described the E.P.A.’s effort to describe their plan as positive for public health as misleading, despite more than a dozen mentions of “Make American Healthy Again” at the PFAS event.
“We have more than enough evidence to show that forever chemicals are harmful to human health,” said Kelly Ryerson, who is known as the Glyphosate Girl on social media, “I would strongly advise the E.P.A. not to move forward on deregulating PFAS if they want to win the November midterms.”
PFAS compounds are man-made and found in a wide range of consumer products including dental floss, baby bibs and fast-food wrappers. The substances help clothing and carpets resist stains and are an important ingredient in firefighting foam. But they are called forever chemicals because they also resist breaking down, lingering in the environment and accumulating in the body.
The chemicals are so ubiquitous that they can be found in the blood of almost every person in the United States. A 2023 government study of private wells and public water systems detected PFAS chemicals in nearly half the tap water in the country.
Under Mr. Zeldin’s new plan, the E.P.A. will issue two new rules. The first one will repeal limits on four types of PFAS — including what are known as GenX substances, which have contaminated a major source of drinking water in North Carolina. The E.P.A. will then restart a lengthy process to decide whether those substances should be regulated and, if so, how.
Separately, the E.P.A. will issue a new rule to retain limits on perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly referred to as PFOA and PFOS. The Biden administration’s E.P.A. concluded there are no safe levels of those substances in drinking water and limited them to 4 parts per trillion, which is the lowest level at which the substances can reliably be detected. However, water utilities will be able to request two additional years to comply, until 2031 rather than the current deadline of 2029.
Chemical makers and municipal utilities had sued the E.P.A. to block all of the drinking water standards, arguing that the agency did not follow the Safe Drinking Act process or use the best data when finalizing its rule. Once the Trump administration took office, the E.P.A. asked the court to partially vacate the Biden-era regulation, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia declined to do so.
A spokesman with the American Chemistry Council, a trade group that represents chemical manufacturers, declined to immediately comment and said the group is reviewing the new E.P.A. proposal.
Alexandra Muñoz, another MAHA activist and a molecular toxicologist, said she is skeptical of Mr. Zeldin’s claim that he will eventually impose protections for GenX and other compounds, given the administrator’s laser focus on eliminating regulations. The E.P.A.’s move to restart the process of considering drinking water standards for GenX and other forever chemicals effectively means the agency is agreeing with its industry critics, she said.
“What is the delay going to be now for the regulation of GenX, which is incredibly dangerous and widely used?” Dr. Muñoz asked, adding, “Why not defend this rule in court and see what the judge thinks?”
Others with MAHA were more optimistic. Lauren Winn, who co-founded a group called the Womens’ Health Assembly, said she is confident Mr. Zeldin and Mr. Kennedy will keep their promises to regulate the four PFAS chemicals again.
“They are going to do it,” Ms. Winn said, adding, “They care so much. They’re not your stereotypical Republicans who want only deregulation. What they want to do is build it back the right way.”
Water utility associations said the costs so far were more than double the Biden administration’s estimates, and, combined with mandates to replace lead pipes, will raise residents’ water bills even when counting the $9 billion from Congress.
Utilities also have won multimillion-dollar settlements against PFAS polluters. The $1 billion that Mr. Zeldin announced for states on Monday comes from a bipartisan infrastructure law passed under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2021.
Advocates for the environment denounced the new rule and some accused Mr. Zeldin of breaking the law. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, passed in 1974, the E.P.A. can limit water contaminants and has what many refer to as a backsliding provision meant to prevent weakening established standards.
Melanie Benesh, vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the E.P.A. was poised to make drinking water less safe.
“We know that people are being harmed from drinking water that has these chemicals in them,” Ms. Benesh said. “There is no reason why the E.P.A. shouldn’t continue to fight to preserve what was a really important and consequential public health action,” she added.
At a Senate hearing last week, Mr. Zeldin acknowledged a “health cost” of exposure to the forever chemicals. But under questioning from Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, he declined to say what analyses the agency has conducted about what the consequences to adults and children might be of repealing limits on the four chemicals.
In repealing some PFAS limits, Mr. Zeldin also is reversing positions he took as a member of Congress from Long Island, an area where the drinking water is heavily polluted with PFAS.
As a Republican House member from 2019 to 2023, Mr. Zeldin was part of the PFAS congressional task force and supported legislation to regulate forever chemicals.
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10) Long Island Rail Road Strike Ends, but Disruptions Linger
By Stefanos Chen and Claire Fahy, May 19, 2026
Commuting between Long Island and New York City remained difficult on Tuesday morning after transit officials and unions representing Long Island Rail Road workers agreed to a new contract late Monday night, ending a three-day strike.
Hourly train service on the main branches of the L.I.R.R., the nation’s busiest passenger railroad, was not set to begin until noon on Tuesday, according to its president, Rob Free. Full service was set to return to all lines by 4 p.m., Mr. Free said, in time for the evening rush.
Workers for the five striking unions, which represent about half the railroad’s work force, had not received a raise since 2022. They had been seeking an increase of up to 5 percent in 2026, in addition to three years of retroactive raises.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state transit agency that runs the railroad, had argued that the wage increases could jeopardize its negotiations with dozens of other unions and force it to raise fares or cut service.
While some details of the agreement were still unclear, the deal included what effectively amounted to a 4.5 percent wage increase in 2026, over a period slightly longer than a year, according to three people familiar with the negotiations. The unions had previously sought a 5 percent increase, while the M.T.A.’s offer was closer to 3 percent.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said the agreement would not lead to increases in fares or state taxes.
The strike shut down the entire service, which carries an average of more than 270,000 passengers a day between Long Island and New York City. It was the first strike on the railroad since 1994, when a similar shutdown lasted for two days.
On Monday, some would-be commuters heeded calls to work from home if possible, while others added hours to their typical routines. Reactions from commuters were mixed, with some supporting the unions’ right to strike, and others frustrated by long detours.
Lou Ayala, 47, a carpenter who said he could not work from home, began a long and winding commute to New Jersey from his home in Merrick, Long Island at 4:40 a.m on Tuesday.
“It was horrible,” Ayala said, as he hustled through Penn Station early Tuesday morning, adding that he was thrilled that he would be able to take the Babylon line back home this evening.
Tuesday morning commuters had mixed views on the strike.
Paul Racz, 31, an operating engineer from Levittown who works in Manhattan’s financial district, said that as a member of a union himself, was fine tacking the extra hours onto his commutes for the sake of helping railroad union workers win a better deal.
“Good for them,” he said. “Fight for what you want.”
But Bibi Shakur, an elder care provider who commutes from Queens to Plainview Hospital on Long Island, said that while she appreciated the professionalism and courtesy of railroad workers, she didn’t think the strike had been worth it.
“We still have to go to work,” she said. “It shouldn’t have come to this.”
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11) Middle East on Edge After Trump Says He Delayed Attack on Iran
President Trump said he had postponed a “very major attack” against Iran, as Pakistan continued its mediation efforts to end the war.
By Euan Ward and Elian Peltier, Euan Ward reported from Beirut, Lebanon, May 19, 2026
A U.S. military official said that Iran had been able to study the flight patterns of American fighter jets and bombers. Jack Taylor/Reuters
The Middle East remained in tense limbo on Tuesday after President Trump said he had postponed a major U.S. attack on Iran to give more time for diplomacy.
Iran did not immediately respond directly to Mr. Trump’s remarks, which were made on Monday. An Iranian Army spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Akraminia, warned on Tuesday that any renewed attack would prompt Iran to open “new fronts" using “new tools and methods,” according to IRNA, Iran’s state news agency.
As the monthlong cease-fire has come under increasing strain, Pakistan, a mediator in the conflict, has sought to keep indirect talks alive between Tehran and Washington. Iranian state media reported that Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, had met Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in Tehran on Monday evening, and discussed efforts to end the war.
The Pakistani government has not commented on the two-day trip, which reportedly started on Sunday. Mr. Naqvi is close to Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, who has been leading the country’s mediation efforts and speaking directly with Mr. Trump and Iranian officials, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency, described Mr. Naqvi’s visit to Tehran as part of Pakistan’s efforts to “facilitate dialogue and promote regional peace.”
Mr. Trump said on Monday that he had authorized a “very major attack” against Iran for Tuesday, but had postponed it after the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates asked for more time to pursue an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program. He said there was a “very good chance” that a deal could be reached but that the U.S. military was prepared for a “full, large scale assault” if Iran did not agree to terms acceptable to Washington.
The episode was the latest example of Mr. Trump’s brinkmanship over Iran, in which threats of overwhelming force have repeatedly given way to last-minute pauses for diplomacy.
The spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, Majed al-Ansari, said at a news conference on Tuesday that his nation supported Pakistan’s mediation efforts but cautioned that nobody could predict whether they would succeed. He said that Mr. Trump’s decision to postpone any attack was a response to calls from Gulf leaders to give diplomacy “another chance.” Mr. al-Ansari added that communications were ongoing to “ensure there is no return to escalation.”
Negotiations have stalled over Iran’s nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz, a critical transit point for oil and gas, which Iran has effectively closed since the early days of the war, rattling global energy markets.
State media in Iran reported on Tuesday that the country’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, had briefed members of Parliament on Tehran’s latest proposal to Washington. Mr. Gharibabadi said that the proposal included ensuring Iran’s right to enrich uranium, according to the report, suggesting that Tehran was holding firm on core demands that have proved to be nonstarters for the Trump administration.
Mr. Trump has demanded that any agreement prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
The war, now in its third month, has hit Iran hard, but U.S. military officials say that the government in Tehran has demonstrated resilience and the ability to impose heavy costs on the wider region and on the global economy.
Iran has used the cease-fire to dig out bombed ballistic missile sites, move mobile launchers and adjust its tactics for any resumption of strikes, according to a U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters.
Ismaeel Naar and Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
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12) Oil Slick Reaches a Pristine Persian Gulf Island in Iran
Videos show birds, turtles and crabs trapped inside mounds of tar around Shidvar island, a protected wildlife sanctuary with turquoise waters and white sand beaches.
By Sanam Mahoozi, Erika Solomon and Devon Lum, May 19, 2026
A video verified by The Times shows oil coating the shoreline of Shidvar Island as smoke rises from the Lavan refinery, seen in the distance. @ehsanjalali2000, via Instagram
An oil spill has reached the shores of a pristine Persian Gulf island in Iran surrounded by clear turquoise waters that provide refuge for endangered sea turtles and dolphins, according to videos circulating on social media.
The tiny, uninhabited island of Shidvar is one of Iran’s most important protected nature reserves. It is home to large coral reefs and a breeding ground for more than 80,000 birds.
The videos, verified by The New York Times, show large dark ribbons of oil snaking along the island’s pristine white sand beaches. Birds, turtles and crabs can be seen trapped inside mounds of tar.
“It is known as the Maldives of Iran — a beautiful place,” said Kaveh Madani, director of the U.N. University Institute for Water, Environment, and Health.
The videos have provided some of the first evidence of the environmental toll the war has taken on the area. Iran has been under an internet blackout since the United States and Israel started a war in late February, severely limiting visibility into the impacts of the conflict.
In one of the videos, a small boat plies through waters darkened from an oil slick, as the men on board point to smoke billowing up from the oil refinery at the nearby island of Lavan.
The videos appear to have been taken not long after April 8, when Iranian state media said the Lavan refinery was struck, hours after a cease-fire had taken hold. It is unclear why the videos have emerged more than a month later, but it is likely because of the recent easing of restrictions on Iran’s nationwide internet blackout.
The cause of devastation, Mr. Madani said, was likely the strikes on the Lavan refinery.
“That video, I can say with a lot of certainty, is from the oil spill of Lavan, and we know the cause of that,” he added.
Another oil slick has been spotted near Kharg Island, one of Iran’s most crucial oil export and storage sites. But the causes of it are less clear.
Some U.S. officials accuse Iran of having dumped or mishandled oil in Persian Gulf waters. Iran has denied this, and Mr. Madani said there was no available evidence to support the dumping theory.
The damage from oil spills to the Persian Gulf’s fragile ecosystem is still not known. But it could extend beyond animals, said Manoochehr Shirzaei, an Iranian environmental expert who teaches geophysics and remote sensing at Virginia Tech University.
“Among the most immediate and widespread consequences could be impacts on desalination infrastructure, as many Gulf countries rely heavily on desalinated seawater for municipal and industrial water supply,” he said.
“These facilities draw seawater directly from the Persian Gulf, making them highly vulnerable to oil contamination.”
Mr. Shirzaei said he was able to detect several slicks off the waters of Shidvar and Lavan with satellite imagery. He also used satellite imagery from early May to detect the large oil slick reported close to Kharg Island, which could also have serious environmental consequences for the region.
The oil spills come at a particularly critical time of year for the region’s delicate ecosystem, experts say. It is currently breeding season for many birds, who could struggle to find food for their young off Shidvar island, and may not have time to learn to adapt to the sudden change to their habitat.
On Shidvar’s shores, thousands of turtle hatchlings should be emerging at this time from sands now covered in oil, which may make their first steps fatal.
The impact of this damage could be compounded because the Persian Gulf is not an open ocean, but rather semi-enclosed, the experts said, and slower water circulation means oil slicks may linger. That intensifies the impact on humans and animals and allows the slicks to spread.
“Once oil enters the Gulf, it does not remain inside the logic of war,” said Iman Ebrahimi, an Iranian conservationist who monitored the bird populations of Shidvar for four years.
“It moves into beaches, nests, feathers, turtle hatchlings, fish nurseries and the bodies of animals that belong to the whole region.”
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13) Trump’s Deportations Are Costing Americans Jobs, Study Finds
According to a new study, construction was impacted more than any other industry studied, with American-born workers losing more jobs than immigrants as a result of the deportations.
By Ronda Kaysen, May 19, 2026
The home building industry, already strained, faces a new challenge amid a surge in deportations. Philip Cheung for The New York Times
The Trump administration has long claimed that mass deportations would deliver more jobs and higher wages to American-born workers. But a new study casts doubt on that assertion, undermining a central tenet of the president’s immigration policy.
Recent surges in deportations have led to job losses for both immigrant and American-born workers, while wages have stayed flat, according to the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a nonpartisan research organization. Construction, which depends heavily on immigrant labor, was impacted more than any other industry studied, with American-born workers losing more jobs as a result of the deportations than the undocumented workers who remained.
The study offers the first national analysis of the effects of the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation operations on the labor market, comparing communities that experienced surges in deportations between January 2025 and October 2025 with those that did not.
Analyzing federal labor data, researchers focused on four industries that rely heavily on undocumented immigrant workers: agriculture, construction, manufacturing and wholesale. Deportations had a chilling effect on each of those industries, disproportionately affecting men, who accounted for more than 90 percent of the immigration arrests. Taken together, the affected industries saw a 5 percent drop in employment for male undocumented workers and a 1.3 percent drop for male American-born workers without a college degree.
The researchers found no evidence that employers increased wages to attract American workers. Instead, work slowed.
In construction — where the researchers estimated 15 percent of the work force is undocumented — American-born workers have paid a price for the deportations, the study found: Employment dropped by 3 percent for male American-born workers without a college degree, and 7.5 percent for undocumented workers. For each arrest, six American-born workers lost a job, and four undocumented workers lost one.
“Construction companies view it as easier to reduce production, reduce the construction of new homes and new buildings in general, rather than try to increase wages for U.S.-born workers,” said Chloe East, an author of the study and an economics professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Previous research has also shown that increased immigration enforcement slows housing construction, drives up home prices and leads to job losses for American-born workers.
At the State of the Union address in February, President Trump claimed that thousands of new construction jobs had been created, saying, “More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country.” In a news release earlier this year, the White House argued that the construction industry had benefited from the deportations.
But the residential construction industry has been slowing. Permits for new housing units were down 7.4 percent year-over-year in March 2026, to 1.372 million units, according to the census. In April 2026, residential construction jobs were down 1.5 percent year-over-year, according to federal jobs data.
“Given high interest rates, given rising material prices and fewer people available to provide roofing, tiling, carpeting and other flooring services, it renders fewer projects financially viable,” said Anirban Basu, the chief economist to Associated Builders and Contractors, a national trade organization.
Even before the deportation surge, the construction industry was facing labor shortages amid an aging, depleted work force that lacked a robust pipeline of newly trained workers. The exodus of foreign workers during the 2008 foreclosure crisis, when almost 2 million construction workers lost their jobs, has had a lasting impact. The country has failed to build enough homes since then, in part because of a persistently anemic labor force, leading to a drastic housing shortage that is driving the current crisis.
“I assume we’re going to see a similar long-term shock to the construction sector,” said Ms. East.
In recent months, Adrian Avila, the president of Avica Construction and Development, a homebuilder in Los Angeles, has watched older, immigrant workers self-deport amid fears of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. “It became a mind shift for some individuals,” he said. “Maybe it’s time to hang up the hat, literally hang up the hard hat.”
Mr. Avila, whose company is rebuilding homes destroyed in the Eaton fire last year, has had to delay projects to accommodate the labor shortage, but hasn’t raised wages because he said he pays competitively. A labor crunch he thought was a few years away feels like it has arrived.
“We thought we were going to have some time to fill in those gaps” in the labor force, said Mr. Avila, who is also the president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Hispanic Construction Alliance. “But now with this, that gap is becoming bigger.”
Projects that once took Samantha Jones, a general contractor in South Florida, two or three months to complete now take five or six. Last year, Ms. Jones lost 14 of her 34 workers through arrest or self-deportation, including 11 in a span of three weeks last August, nearly driving the company she’s owned for 17 years out of business.
“People think we hire migrant workers because they’re cheap labor,” Ms. Jones said. “It’s not because they’re cheap labor; it’s just that their skill set fits our industry better.”
The workers, many of whom have worked for her for decades, arrived with specialized skills in masonry and carpentry. “We don’t really have any trade schools here in the South,” she said.
Ms. Jones anticipates raising the prices she charges clients by 15 percent — money that would not go toward higher wages, but to cover the loss of business from delays. Last week, ICE was active in the area again, keeping some workers home out of fear. “It’s horrible logistically,” she said.
But in Miami, Omri Farache, the owner of Mia Remodeling Contractors, is hopeful that the deportations will ultimately benefit him. He sees a future when he is no longer outbid by an unlicensed contractor willing to work for less money. “Honestly, it’s good eventually,” he said. “I feel like more regulated, less handyman pricing around is good for me.”
Some contractors are struggling to find qualified workers to fill the new vacancies. In Minneapolis, Josue Alvarez, the owner of Milestone Construction, a drywall subcontractor, has been interviewing candidates to replace one of his painters, who was deported back to his native Guatemala in December. Mr. Alvarez had come to rely on the worker, who had eight years’ experience and was willing to put in long hours.
“He was a dependable guy, someone I could lean on,” said Mr. Alvarez, who shut down his business for six weeks during the winter’s ICE surge out of a concern his other workers would be arrested.
Amid a tight labor market, Mr. Alvarez said other subcontractors are also racing to replace the workers they’ve lost as projects pile up. Some of the subcontractors he once competed against have gone out of business. “Pretty much everybody is on the hunt,” he said. “A lot of companies lost a lot of good employees.”
However, he said, in the four years that he has owned his company, no American-born worker has ever applied for a job. And none have applied to fill his current opening, either.
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14) W.H.O. Chief Is ‘Deeply Concerned’ by Speed and Scale of Ebola Outbreak
Health officials reported more than 130 suspected deaths and 513 cases, a sharp rise since the outbreak was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
By Yan Zhuang and Lynsey Chutel, May 19, 2026
Outside a hospital in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, on Sunday. Jospin Mwisha/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday that he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed” of an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, as the suspected death toll climbed to more than 130 people.
Laboratory testing has linked 30 cases to the viral outbreak in Congo’s northeastern Ituri province, where the first cases were identified, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the W.H.O., said at a meeting of the organization in Geneva.
Where Ebola outbreak was first identified
Experts have expressed alarm that the virus appears to have been spreading unchecked for several weeks in an area where contact tracing is likely to be very difficult.
Many migrant laborers are drawn to gold mines in Ituri, which is also home to a large population of people displaced by conflict. Over 100,000 people have been uprooted in recent months alone, Dr. Tedros said, warning that “significant population movement” risked spreading the virus.
Dr. Tedros said the deaths of health care workers and the absence of vaccines or therapeutics to treat the Bundibugyo species of Ebola behind the outbreak raised fears that the outbreak would spread further and cause more deaths. Cases have already been reported in urban areas, including in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and Goma in eastern Congo.
The W.H.O. chief made his comments shortly after Congo’s health minister, Dr. Samuel-Roger Kamba, said at a news conference that 131 suspected deaths and 513 suspected cases had been linked to the outbreak.
The figures were a sharp increase from Monday, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there had been reports of 88 suspected deaths and 336 cases, and 11 confirmed cases in Congo. Two cases had also been confirmed in neighboring Uganda, the C.D.C. said.
A C.D.C. order issued on Monday allows the United States to bar foreigners from entering the country if they have been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the previous 21 days. The order will remain in place for 30 days.
Several countries in the region, including neighboring Rwanda, have also started screening travelers or tightening border controls.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Tuesday that it had acted “rapidly, transparency and responsibly” to call the world’s attention to the outbreak, and criticized the “use of broad travel restrictions as a primary public health tool.”
“Global health security cannot succeed if countries are penalized for transparency during outbreaks,” Dr. Jean Kaseya, the head of the organization, said on social media.
President Félix Tshisekedi of Congo urged citizens to remain calm and to follow containment measures to curb the spread of the disease.
Brian Otieno contributed reporting from Nairobi, Kenya.
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15) Military Bases Are Rife With ‘Forever Chemicals.’ New Mexico Wants Them Cleaned Up.
The state is leading the country’s reckoning with PFAS. The outcome of its suit against the federal government will affect how courts treat more than 15,000 other claims nationwide.
By Alexander Nazaryan, Photographs by Nina Riggio, May 19, 2026
Art Schaap, right, a dairy farmer in Clovis, N.M., and James Kenney, of the New Mexico Environment Department, stand in the area where Mr. Schaap had to kill his cattle.
Two men walked through livestock pens with .22-caliber rifles, killing Art Schaap’s cows. One man would raise his rifle, its barrel inches from a cow’s forehead. A shot would ring out, the cow would fall and the men would move on to the next cow.
There were 3,665 cows at the Highland Dairy in Clovis, N.M., a city in the flatlands near the Texas border. After six hours of gunfire, there were none.
Mr. Schaap felt he had no choice but to have his herd killed. Testing showed that the water he had pulled from wells on his property contained exceptionally high levels of PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, which have been linked to birth defects, liver and heart disease and some cancers. State and federal regulators pulled his permit to sell milk and quarantined his herd. Selling his cows for beef was out of the question.
“I don’t want this farm no more,” Mr. Schaap said.
The source of the contamination, state environmental officials say, was his next-door neighbor, the Cannon Air Force Base, home to the 27th Special Operations Wing. For years, firefighters there had conducted exercises using a foam that contained PFAS. Runoff had seeped into the aquifer where Mr. Schaap and other farmers and ranchers drew their water.
Similar scenarios have played out at hundreds of military facilities across the United States. But New Mexico has become the center of the nation’s reckoning with PFAS. The state is suing the federal government for turning bases like Cannon into epicenters of forever chemical contamination.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has led this campaign. Weeks after she became governor in 2019, her administration filed suit against the U.S. Air Force over the PFAS pollution at Cannon. Because the accusations in New Mexico are so clear-cut, a federal judge in South Carolina picked New Mexico’s suit to be a bellwether for similar litigation nationwide.
The designation means the outcome of the New Mexico case will become an important benchmark in how the more than 15,000 similar PFAS suits nationwide are treated in court, lawsuits filed on behalf of people like Mr. Schaap, who claim harm from forever chemicals in firefighting foam.
“It was a very clean-cut case,” said Zachary Ogaz, the general counsel for the New Mexico Environment Department. “It’s pretty darn obvious where the PFAS is coming from.” That, he said, will allow the court to explore the issue at the heart of the case: Who should be held accountable for the human, economic and environmental costs of PFAS contamination?
New Mexico’s legacy of military pollution dates to World War II, when the effort to build an atomic weapon, the Manhattan Project, was based there. Radioactive elements last a long time; so do bitter memories. Ms. Lujan Grisham was born in Los Alamos, the nerve center of the Manhattan Project. Her sister, Kimberly, was diagnosed with brain cancer when she was 2. Her parents believed the illness was linked to nuclear research.
“I can remember being in grade school and hearing the community talk about how many brain tumors there were,” Ms. Lujan Grisham said in an interview.
Kimberly, who died at the age of 21, continues to motivate the governor. “If you’re going to do something that hurts the citizens of my state, you’ve got to come through me,” Ms. Lujan Grisham said.
Earlier this month, the state scored a victory, when the Air Force made concessions regarding a Clovis cleanup. It agreed to provide funding and technical resources for groundwater testing outside the military base, including at dairies, according to a joint statement released on May 12 by the Air Force and the state environment department.
Yet the legal fight continues — the agreement will not affect New Mexico’s lawsuit or the thousands of others nationwide. “The federal government has to be accountable, right? It’s got to happen at some point,” Mr. Ogaz said. “That’s what we’re fighting for, at least.”
A Plume That Spreads Southeast
PFAS — the acronym stands for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are not only forever; they’re everywhere. Until recently, these synthetic compounds enjoyed widespread commercial and industrial use — in takeout food containers, dental floss, drinking water and water-resistant clothing.
Studies have linked the substances to a wide variety of ailments in humans and animals, including heart disease, low birth weight, infertility and cancers of the kidney, testicle and breast. Though the risk and extent of health impacts from forever chemicals remain uncertain, the federal government and many states have set strict regulatory standards for PFAS in drinking water and food packaging.
None of this is abstract for Mr. Schaap. After the killing of his cows, he and his workers spent two days hauling the carcasses into a pit on his property. Four years have passed, but the mass grave at Highland Dairy is still a barren plot. Animal remains protrude from the mud: hide, a hoof. Only weeds grow.
Preliminary testing revealed that Mr. Schaap’s well water had a concentration of 14,320 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, two of the most ubiquitous forever chemicals — 205 times greater than the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended limit of 70 parts per trillion in drinking water.
The base offered bottled water and filtration, but did nothing for the well water that was crucial to Highland Dairy and other farmers and ranchers near Clovis. By 2021, the PFAS concentration in one of Mr. Schaap’s wells registered 37,733 parts per trillion. The following year, the E.P.A. also issued much stricter recommendations for PFOA and PFOS. On May 14, however, the agency indicated it intended “to rescind the regulations and reconsider the regulatory determination” for some other forever chemicals, including what are known as GenX substances, angering activists.
The corner of the base closest to Mr. Schaap is where the firefighters trained. As at most American military sites, Cannon firefighters put out fires with aqueous film forming foam, or A.F.F.F. A-triple-F, as it’s known, is exceptionally good at fighting fuel fires, which it does by creating a barrier against oxygen. It does so thanks to PFOS.
One former Cannon firefighter “described incidents where firefighters would spray each other with the foam as a form of horseplay, and that they would spray the foam and allow visiting children to play in it,” according to New Mexico’s lawsuit. Firefighting foam now uses other forever chemicals, thought to be somewhat less harmful than the ones that found their way into Mr. Schaap’s water.
The foam that percolated into the base’s soil formed an underground plume that slowly spread southeast and now extends four to six miles from Cannon. “It’s not contained,” said James Kenney, the secretary of the state environment department, at a public meeting in Clovis last year. “The horse got out of the barn.”
Mr. Schaap draws water from the Ogallala Aquifer, which is in the path of the PFAS plume. Last summer, a state health department study found that people who lived or worked within the plume’s area had blood concentrations of PFHxS — a common forever chemical, more durable than PFOA and PFOS — three times higher than the national average.
Mr. Schaap has his own lawsuit against the Pentagon. “We’re not letting them off the hook,” he said.
Military bases are PFAS hot spots. According to a report by the Government Accountability Office published last year, the Pentagon has identified 718 military installations where PFAS chemicals may have been released. Another G.A.O. report found that about 1,500 military facilities worldwide were still using A.F.F.F. to suppress fires.
A spokeswoman for the Air Force said the Department of Defense was “committed to replacing A.F.F.F. with fluorine-free alternatives,” referring to other formulations that do not contain PFAS. The spokeswoman also said that the Defense Department can meet its deadline for doing so, Oct. 1.
Then in early May, New Mexico officials quietly traveled to Washington for a meeting at the Pentagon. They came away with what Mr. Ogaz, the environment department’s general counsel, described as a “verbal agreement” from the Air Force that it would pay for groundwater monitoring around Cannon, an important step in the cleanup process.
The agreement resolves a practical matter for landowners like Mr. Schaap, but does nothing to address the deeper questions of responsibility. Nor does it address contamination at other bases across New Mexico, like the one next to a lake animals drink from.
A Lake That Is Not a Lake
If cows tell the story of Cannon, ducks tell the story of Holloman Air Force Base, a four-hour drive southwest.
Lake Holloman, just outside the base, is a popular stop for migratory birds, including ducks. Designated an Important Bird Area by the Audubon Society in 2002, it is a rare body of water next to the undulating expanse of White Sands National Park.
But it is not a lake, exactly. Created in 1965, the Holloman Evaporation Pond collects runoff from the base, including firefighting foam. Initially, swimming was forbidden, but not other recreation. “Just as recently as a few months ago, people were camped next to it,” Joseph Cook, a biologist at the University of New Mexico, said last year.
Last summer, Dr. Cook and Jean-Luc Cartron, a biologist at the University of New Mexico, and their colleagues published a study that found “massive” PFAS contamination around Lake Holloman. A dead killdeer chick collected on its shore had the highest PFAS concentration ever measured in a bird. According to Dr. Cartron’s calculations, a kangaroo rat found at the lake carried a PFOS burden 360 times that of Mr. Schaap’s most contaminated cow.
“Dime-size amounts of breast meat” from waterfowl, Mr. Kenney said at the public meeting in Clovis, “can have a lifetime exposure of PFAS.”
Public access to Lake Holloman was terminated around the time the study was published. Today, the lake is a flat blue expanse ringed by chain-link fencing. The only sign of human life is the roar of F-16 Fighting Falcons taking off and banking over the Sacramento Mountains. Birds land on the lake. Bigger animals drink its water. Then they disperse across the state.
The town of Santa Rosa, in Eastern New Mexico, is 200 miles from Lake Holloman, but migratory birds and animals easily traverse those distances. To understand how PFAS is spreading through water fowl, Matthew Monjaras, who founded Impact Outdoors, a nonprofit that conducts environmental programs, including hunting trips for veterans, and Christopher Witt, a bird biologist at the University of New Mexico, set out into a series of wetlands outside Santa Rosa called Tres Lagunas.
In the predawn darkness, the men parked, loaded shotguns and moved in silence through the snake-infested grass of Tres Lagunas. They waded into cold water, which quickly reached their waists. Then they stood, waiting, as pink bands of light appeared in the sky.
Mr. Monjaras used duck calls to produce a series of convincing quacks. Ducks answered the call. Shots rang out. Birds fell into the water.
After the hunt, Dr. Witt dissected each bird, shaving off liver samples to be tested as part of a statewide survey.
PFAS tend to concentrate in liver tissue. Mr. Monjaras estimates he has eaten dozens of duck livers. He has grown so concerned that he drove three hours to the meeting in Clovis. Carter Monjaras, his 5-year-old son, wearing hunting camouflage, tagged along.
As the presentation was concluding, Mr. Monjaras asked about the game he and his family consume: “How do I guarantee that I’m not inviting PFAS to my dinner table?”
“I would personally choose not to eat wild game that was hunted around Holloman,” Mr. Kenney answered delicately. But he also acknowledged the impossible position Mr. Monjaras and others were in, having to guess the toxic exposure of every bird they hunted.
“That should never have happened,” Mr. Kenney said.
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16) Calls for ‘No Seed Oil’ Push Companies to Order Up Butter and Beef Tallow
Businesses are finding different (and more costly) ways to fry foods as shoppers demand alternatives to seed oils as part of the Make America Healthy Again movement.
By Julie Creswell, May 19, 2026
The Masa beef tallow chips will be available regionally in Target by June and in Whole Foods nationwide by August. Credit...Vincent Alban/The New York Times
For more than three decades, loaves of crusty French bread were transformed into crunchy croutons at Olivia’s Croutons.
The croutons, sold at supermarkets nationwide, were already produced to be free of preservatives and with low levels of sugar and sodium.
But a few months ago, the grocery store chain Sprouts Farmers Markets had another request: Could the croutons be made without canola oil or other seed oils?
Seed oils have become a hot topic over the last couple of years after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly vilified them. The future U.S. health secretary claimed they were a primary cause of the obesity epidemic in the United States. Last year, Louisiana passed a law requiring restaurants to disclose their use of seed oils to customers by 2028.
Along with ultraprocessed foods and artificial dyes, the “hateful eight” — canola, corn, sunflower and other oils derived from the seeds of some plants — are blamed by some in the Make America Healthy Again movement for playing a key role in chronic disease in America.
“Industrial refining reduces micronutrients” in seed oils, making them ultraprocessed, according to the 2025 White House MAHA report, which added that seed oil was “a topic of ongoing research for its potential role in inflammation.”
But many scientists argue seed oils are not harmful to health. They point to decades of research that not only shows they are safe, but in some cases the unsaturated fats they contain have been linked with reduced risks for cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes and cancer.
A variety of chips, salad dressings and snacks made with avocado or olive oil or even beef tallow (rendered beef fat) are showing up on shelves at Whole Foods, Target and other national retailers, driven by growing consumer demand.
“Shoppers have become more ingredient aware, for sure,” said Brian Hillins, senior vice president of merchandising at Sprouts, which since 2023 has expanded its mix of seed-oil-free products by 30 percent, albeit from a modest start.
“Condiments were one of the first to move away from seed oils, but now we’re seeing chips and snacks, like beef tallow chips,” he said. “Those have been doing really well with us.”
Even large players like PepsiCo are wading into the no-seed-oil market in response to consumer demand. Last year, PepsiCo acquired Siete Foods, including its popular line of chips made with avocado oil, for $1.2 billion. This year, PepsiCo released some versions of its Lay’s, Ruffles and Miss Vickie’s potato chips made with avocado and olive oil. (Lay’s and Ruffles chips are typically made with vegetable oils, like canola, sunflower or corn oil.)
“As consumer interests evolve, PepsiCo remains focused on offering more options, including different oils,” a company spokesperson said in an email.
The food industry is experiencing softening demand for many products as consumers tighten their wallets. The rising use of weight-loss medications has also caused a slowdown in sales. Switching to olive or avocado oil can be two to three times as expensive as seed oils for many businesses, and those additional costs may be tough to pass along to consumers already under financial strain.
Beef tallow is not only more expensive than seeds oils, but difficult to come by in bulk quantities.
“Most beef fat is not rendered into edible tallow because there has been low demand for it over recent decades,” said Seth Goldstein, a co-founder of Ancient Crunch, which fries its Masa corn tortilla chips in beef tallow.
Still, consumers appear to be seeking out products made with avocado and olive oils and even beef tallow because they believe they are better for them, according to some analysts.
“There have been some brands touting their use of avocado oil for years, but now it is a major selling point,” said Scott Dicker, a senior director of market insights at SPINS, a research firm for the natural products industry. “A couple of years ago, you would have been hard pressed to find a potato chip that was cooked in beef tallow in stores.”
For Ancient Crunch, which was founded in 2022, interest in its Masa beef tallow chips has skyrocketed. After selling directly to consumers on its website for a couple of years, Masa Chips landed on shelves at Sprouts last October and then in Wegmans Food Markets in January. Its beef tallow chips will be available regionally in Target by June and in Whole Foods nationwide by August.
At first, the company worked directly with ranchers to source its 100 percent grass-fed tallow, but as demand for its chips grew, it teamed up with a rendering plant to obtain more. But the price of beef tallow has risen over the past four years.
Today, Ancient Crunch spends $300,000 to $500,000 for 100,000 pounds of beef tallow, enough to make about 300,000 bags of chips each month. It is adding higher-capacity equipment at its manufacturing facility in New Jersey to ramp up to several million bags per month.
For small manufacturers, the question is whether the interest in non-seed-oil products is a passing fad or will stick around for a while.
“In 1991, when we started Olivia’s Croutons, canola oil was all the rage. It was the next best thing,” said Francie Caccavo, who started the company in her kitchen in Charlotte, Vt., about 12 miles south of Burlington, and named it after her daughter. “Now, it’s like you’re putting poison in your product.”
She said she warily watched interest in seed-oil-free products grow over the last couple of years. But she held off on reformulating, largely because she believed her product — croutons — wouldn’t move the needle for anyone in terms of health consequences, good or bad.
“You’re putting four or five of these on your salad. I was using a non-GMO, clean seed oil, so I thought, ‘We’ll get away with this. People will leave us alone,’” Ms. Caccavo said. “But there’s some people out there who don’t want even a minute amount of seed oil in their products.”
Reformulating the product to be free of seed oil was relatively easy. The butter and garlic flavor croutons were made with a combination of canola oil and butter. She simply eliminated the canola oil and added more butter. For the Parmesan pepper croutons, the seed oil was swapped with more olive oil.
But butter and olive oil cost significantly more than canola oil, which is derived from the seeds of the rapeseed plant. So Ms. Caccavo raised prices by 8 cents a box to cover her costs.
She said the cholesterol levels in the croutons went up slightly with the new ingredients as well.
“I would not call them necessarily healthier,” said Ms. Caccavo. “Croutons are a topping or a garnish. As my mother always said, ‘Everything in moderation.’”
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