*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Israel’s Genocide Day 440: New reports of mass killings in Gaza surface
A new report documents the mass killing of Palestinians in northern Gaza. Meanwhile, Hamas and Israel have discussed the details of a prisoner exchange that could serve as the centerpiece of a 60-day ceasefire.
By Qassam Muaddi, December 19, 2024
Casualties
· 45,129 + killed* and at least 107,338 wounded in the Gaza Strip, 59% of whom are women, children, and elderly.
· 822+ Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. This includes at least 146 children.**
· 3,962 Lebanese killed and more than 16,520 wounded by Israeli forces since October 8, 2023***
· Israel revised its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,189.
· Israel recognizes the death of 890 Israeli soldiers, policemen and intelligence officers and the injury of at least 5,065 others since October 7.****
* Gaza’s branch of the Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed this figure in its daily report, published through its WhatsApp channel on December 19, 2024. Rights groups and public health experts estimate the death toll to be much higher.
** The death toll in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not updated regularly. This is the latest figure according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health as of December 19, 2024.
*** This figure was released by the Lebanese Health Ministry, updated on December 9, 2024. The counting is based on the Lebanese official date for the beginning of “the Israeli aggression on Lebanon,” when Israel began airstrikes on Lebanese territory after the beginning of Hezbollah’s “support front” for Gaza.
**** These figures are released by the Israeli military, showing the soldiers whose names “were allowed to be published.” Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot reported on August 4, 2024, that some 10,000 Israeli soldiers and officers have been either killed or wounded since October 7. The head of the Israeli army’s wounded association told Israel’s Channel 12 that the number of wounded Israeli soldiers exceeds 20,000, including at least 8,000 who have been permanently handicapped as of June 1. Israel’s Channel 7 reported that according to the Israeli war ministry’s rehabilitation service numbers, 8,663 new wounded joined the army’s handicap rehabilitation system since October 7 and as of June 18.
Source: mondoweiss.net
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
It’s Movement Time
It’s movement time.
As the Trump presidency take shape, there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. Disbelief meshes with despair, and some are quite frankly desolate.
Dry your tears, blow your noses, and join movements of resistance to this madness. Blacks in America have never known a time when resistance wasn’t necessary, including life under a Black president.
For centuries for generations, people have had to struggle for freedom, for respect, for justice. Why should this time be any different?
The ancestors, like the revered Frederick Douglass, lambasted Abraham Lincoln as a fool or coward who wouldn’t fight the civil war with thousands of willing Black troops. Said Douglass, “if there is no struggle, there is no progress.” Said Douglass, “Power concedes nothing without demand.”
So let us struggle. Let us build movements that lift our hearts. Let us remake our history with the brick and mortar of struggle.
—Prison Radio, November 21, 2016
https://www.prisonradio.org/commentary/it-is-movement-time/
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
We need a united, independent, democratically organized mass movement for peace, justice and equality in solidarity with similar movements worldwide if we are to survive the death agony of capitalism and its inevitable descent into fascism and barbarism before it destroys the world altogether!
—Bonnie Weinstein
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
On this Wrongful Conviction Day, Leonard Peltier, the longest-serving Indigenous political prisoner, is incarcerated in lockdown-modified operations conditions at USP Coleman I, operated by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
Yet, in this moment of silence, Leonard speaks.
To honor his birthday and all those who are unjustly convicted and incarcerated, the Leonard Peltier Official Ad Hoc Committee has released a video of Leonard Peltier that is going viral. Narrated by renowned scholar Ward Churchill and set to a video created by award-winning filmmaker Suzie Baer, the film most importantly centers Leonard’s personal reflection on his 80th year.
Jenipher Jones, Mr. Peltier's lead counsel, commented, "This powerfully moving film captures the essence of who I know Leonard to be. I am grateful to Professor Churchill and Suzie Baer for their work and longstanding advocacy of Leonard. As the recent execution of Marcellus Williams-Imam Khaliifah Williams shows us, we as a society bear a responsibility to uplift the cases of all those who are wrongfully convicted and also hold the government accountable to do that for which it professes to exist. We must challenge our impulses of blind blood-thirst for guilt and the use of our legal systems to carry out this malignant pathology. There is absolutely no lawful justification for Leonard's incarceration."
“Leonard Peltier is Native elder whose wrongful incarceration is shameful. His continued imprisonment exemplifies the historical cruelty of the US Government toward Native people. The US BOP's treatment of Leonard Peltier is unlawful, and he deserves his freedom.” —Suzie Baer
Leonard's Statement: Peltier 80th Statement.pdf:
https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21ABHSRNdyB8SKn0I&id=DFF2DD874157D44A%21118178&cid=DFF2DD874157D44A&parId=root&parQt=sharedby&o=OneUp
To view the film, please visit:
https://tinyurl.com/Peltier80thPresentation
We hope to have additional updates on Leonard soon. In the meantime, please engage our calls to action or donate to his defense efforts.
Miigwech.
Donate/ActNow:
Write to:
Leonard Peltier 89637-132
USP Coleman 1
P.O. Box 1033
Coleman, FL 33521
Note: Letters, address and return address must be in writing—no stickers—and on plain white paper.
Sign our petition urging President Biden to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier:
https://www.freeleonardpeltier.com/petition
Email: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Address: 116 W. Osborne Ave. Tampa, Florida 33603
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Beneath The Mountain: An Anti-Prison Reader (City Lights, 2024) is a collection of revolutionary essays, written by those who have been detained inside prison walls. Composed by the most structurally dispossessed people on earth, the prisoner class, these words illuminate the steps towards freedom.
Beneath the Mountain documents the struggle — beginning with slavery, genocide, and colonization up to our present day — and imagines a collective, anti-carceral future. These essays were handwritten first on scraps of paper, magazine covers, envelopes, toilet paper, or pages of bibles, scratched down with contraband pencils or the stubby cartridge of a ball-point pen; kites, careworn, copied and shared across tiers and now preserved in this collection for this and future generations. If they were dropped in the prison-controlled mail they were cloaked in prayers, navigating censorship and dustbins. They were very often smuggled out. These words mark resistance, fierce clarity, and speak to the hope of building the world we all deserve to live in.
"Beneath the Mountain reminds us that ancestors and rebels have resisted conquest and enslavement, building marronage against colonialism and genocide."
—Joy James, author of New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency
Who stands beneath the mountain but prisoners of war? Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jennifer Black have assembled a book of fire, each voice a flame in captivity...Whether writing from a place of fugivity, the prison camp, the city jail, the modern gulag or death row, these are our revolutionary thinkers, our critics and dreamers, our people. The people who move mountains. —Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
Filled with insight and energy, this extraordinary book gifts us the opportunity to encounter people’s understanding of the fight for freedom from the inside out. —Ruth Wilson Gilmore, author of Golden Gulag and Abolition Geography
These are the words each writer dreamed as they sought freedom and they need to be studied by people inside and read in every control unit/hole in every prison in America. We can send this book for you to anyone who you know who is currently living, struggling, and fighting
Who better to tell these stories than those who have lived them? Don’t be surprised with what you find within these pages: hope, solidarity, full faith towards the future, and most importantly, love.
Excerpt from the book:
"Revolutionary love speaks to the ways we protect, respect, and empower each other while standing up to state terror. Its presence is affirmed through these texts as a necessary component to help chase away fear and to encourage the solidarity and unity essential for organizing in dangerous times and places. Its absence portends tragedy. Revolutionary love does not stop the state from wanting to kill us, nor is it effective without strategy and tactics, but it is the might that fuels us to stand shoulder to shoulder with others regardless. Perhaps it can move mountains." —Jennifer Black & Mumia Abu-Jamal from the introduction to Beneath The Mountain: An Anti Prison Reader
Get the book at:
https://www.prisonradiostore.com/shop-2/beneath-the-mountain-an-anti-prison-reader-edited-by-mumia-abu-jamal-jennifer-black-city-lights-2024
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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 Kagarlitsky
We, 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 authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
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)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
1) Amazon Warehouse Workers in New York City Join Protest
The workers’ union hopes that adding employees at the Staten Island warehouse to a protest started by delivery drivers will increase pressure on Amazon.
By Noam Scheiber and Santul Nerkar, Dec. 21, 2024
Workers at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Staten Island picketing after walking off the job after midnight on Saturday morning. Credit...Dakota Santiago for The New York Times
Signaling an escalation in a labor campaign that began at seven Amazon delivery hubs on Thursday, workers at the company’s largest Staten Island warehouse began a protest there at midnight Saturday morning. They were joined by New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, later in the morning.
The Staten Island warehouse, known as JFK8, has more than 5,000 workers, by far the largest group at Amazon who have sought to be represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. That makes it the union’s greatest potential source of leverage as the Teamsters tries to pressure Amazon to bargain with drivers and other workers who have organized.
“Amazon is jeopardizing the holidays for consumers so they can try to make an extra buck,” Connor Spence, president of the local chapter representing workers at JFK8, said in a statement. “Amazon workers are standing up to demand this corporation finally treat them with respect.”
Unlike the drivers the Teamsters have attempted to unionize at delivery hubs, the Staten Island workers are employed by Amazon directly rather than through contractors. That gives them a somewhat stronger legal foothold for challenging the company.
But union leaders at JFK8 have struggled to sustain the support of workers in the warehouse since they voted to unionize in 2022, and only several dozen workers were participating in the action late Saturday morning. Some said they had been scheduled to work that day and did not clock in, while others said they had not been scheduled to work.
That raises questions about how much of an impact they will have on Amazon’s operations during the critical holiday season. Similar questions have accompanied the Teamsters-led walkouts at delivery hubs in New York, Georgia, Illinois and California that began Thursday.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for Amazon, said the protest had not impacted the Staten Island warehouse.
The JFK8 workers joined a union called the Amazon Labor Union when they voted to unionize in 2022. The A.L.U. was initially independent, but it struggled to secure gains from Amazon, which challenged the election outcome and has refused to recognize or bargain with the union. (The National Labor Relations Board certified the election, but a federal court paused further action on the case while the company challenged the constitutionality of the board.)
In June, the A.L.U. affiliated with the Teamsters under an agreement that gave the new A.L.U. local the exclusive right within the Teamsters to organize Amazon warehouses in New York City. The agreement also promised that the international union would help the local with organizing, research, communications and legal matters.
At the time, A.L.U. leaders said that the Teamsters told them that the international union had allocated $8 million for organizing efforts at Amazon, and that the Teamsters were also prepared to tap a strike fund of more than $300 million to support the effort.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) The New Climate Gold Rush: Scrubbing Carbon From the Sky
By David Gelles and Christopher Flavelle, Dec. 22, 2024
This summer, Bill Gates huddled in London with representatives of some of the world’s wealthiest people, including the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, the SoftBank founder, Masayoshi Son, and Prince al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia.
They were evaluating their joint investments in companies that could help the world combat climate change. Among the businesses in their portfolio, four stood out as having a particularly audacious goal: They were working to strip carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, for a profit.
As countries around the world continue to pump planet-warming pollution into the skies, driving global temperatures to record levels, the financial world is racing to fund the emerging field of carbon dioxide removal, seeking both an environmental miracle and a financial windfall.
The technology, which did not exist until a few years ago, is still unproven at scale. Yet, it has a uniquely alluring appeal. Stripping away some of the carbon dioxide that is heating up the world makes intuitive sense. And with a small but growing number of companies willing to pay for it, investors are jockeying to be first movers in what they believe will inevitably be a big industry that is necessary to help fight global warming.
Companies working on ways to pull carbon dioxide from the air have raised more than $5 billion since 2018, according to the investment bank Jefferies. Before that, there were almost no such investments.
“It’s the single greatest opportunity I’ve seen in 20 years of doing venture capital,” said Damien Steel, the chief executive of Canada-based Deep Sky, which has raised more than $50 million to develop carbon dioxide removal projects. “The tailwinds behind the industry are greater than most industries I’ve ever looked at.”
The group assembled by Mr. Gates, known as Breakthrough Energy Ventures, is among the biggest backer of the more than 800 carbon removal companies that have been started in recent years. Others investors include Silicon Valley venture capitalists, private equity firms from Wall Street and major corporations like United Airlines.
Investors believe the market is poised for explosive growth.
More than 1,000 big companies have pledged to eliminate their carbon emissions over the next few decades. As part of those efforts, more corporations are starting to pay for carbon dioxide removal. This year, Microsoft, Google, and British Airways were among the companies that committed a total of $1.6 billion to purchase removal credits.
That figure was up from less than $1 million in 2019, according to CDR.fyi, a website that tracks the carbon dioxide removal industry. Next year, industry executives believe companies could spend up to $10 billion on such purchases. In a recent report, McKinsey estimated the market could be worth as much as $1.2 trillion by 2050.
While huge sums of money are being dedicated to the nascent field, these projects will not have a meaningful effect on global temperatures anytime soon.
There are a few dozen facilities operational today, including ones in Iceland and California. But the biggest of these capture only a sliver of the greenhouse gases humans produce in one day. Even if hundreds more such plants were built, they would not come close to counteracting even 1 percent of annual carbon dioxide emissions.
“Let’s not pretend that it’s going to become available within the time frame we need to reduce emissions,” said former Vice President Al Gore, a co-founder of Climate Trace, which maps global greenhouse gas emissions.
Last year a United Nations panel cast significant doubt on the industry’s ability to make a difference. “Engineering-based removal activities are technologically and economically unproven, especially at scale, and pose unknown environmental and social risks,” it said.
Instead, many scientists and activists say the most effective way to combat global warming is to rapidly phase out oil, gas and coal, the burning of which is heating the planet.
“We need to obey the first law of holes,” Mr. Gore said. “When you’re in one, stop digging.”
Carbon dioxide removal is the most developed form of what is known as geoengineering, a broad set of speculative technologies designed to manipulate natural systems in order to cool the planet. In the past several years, as climate change has worsened, such ideas have moved from the stuff of science fiction into the mainstream.
Other proposed plans include changing the chemistry of the world’s rivers and oceans to absorb more carbon dioxide, genetically altering bacteria to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, and reflecting sunlight away from Earth by brightening clouds or spraying sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.
But it is carbon dioxide removal that is attracting the big money.
Investors believe that, while the impact on temperatures may be negligible in the short term, the industry will start to make a difference as global emissions fall and the technology becomes more powerful.
And decades from now, even if the world is able to completely eliminate all new greenhouse gas emissions, many experts, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a scientific body convened by the United Nations, believe it will still be necessary to remove some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to reduce global temperatures.
Critics argue that carbon dioxide removal is a dangerous distraction that will perpetuate the behavior that is causing the climate crisis.
“Carbon capture will increase fossil fuel production, there’s no doubt about it,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. “It does not help climate one bit.”
But for now, neither investors nor customers are shying away.
A group of companies including Stripe, H&M, J.P. Morgan and Meta have banded together to make more than $1 billion in purchase commitments for carbon dioxide removal. Other companies including Airbus, Equinor and Boeing have pledged to pay for the service, too.
Some companies are trying to offset their emissions. Some see value in helping to develop a new industry they might one day profit from. And some say they are simply trying to do the right thing.
“This isn’t intrinsically tied to our day-to-day business,” said Nan Ransohoff, the head of climate at Stripe, an online payments company that is coordinating the group purchasing. “But we care a lot about progress and trying to help the world move in the right direction.”
The U.S. government is supporting the industry. The Inflation Reduction Act more than tripled the tax credit for capturing and storing carbon removed directly from the atmosphere, to $180 per ton. The bipartisan infrastructure law signed by President Biden in 2021 included $3.5 billion for the creation of four demonstration projects.
Executives don’t believe that the carbon dioxide removal industry will be knocked off course by President-elect Donald J. Trump, who has called climate policies a “scam” and has said he wants to roll back many of Biden’s climate initiatives.
Support for the new technology “has been very bipartisan,” said Noah Deich, who until recently was the deputy assistant secretary of carbon management at the Energy Department.
Last month, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, and Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, introduced legislation that would create additional tax incentives for the carbon dioxide removal industry.
And the demonstration projects being funded by the infrastructure law have been championed by some Republicans. “This will help ensure our economy is built for the future,” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana posted on X when his state was selected as one of the sites. “It is great for our state!”
Yet even as enthusiasm for the technology grows, there is not nearly enough supply to meet the demand. Only 4 percent of all purchases have been fulfilled, according to CDR.fyi.
Pulling greenhouse gases out of the air is also expensive. Today, it can cost as much as $1,000 per ton to capture and sequester carbon dioxide. Many analysts say the price would need to drop to around $100 a ton for the industry to take off.
“This isn’t a market,” Mr. Steel said. “A market means liquidity, repeatability, standards. We have none of that here.”
But at least for now, investors are still eagerly funding new companies in the field, hoping that some of their bets pay off.
Svante, one of many Canadian companies in the industry, has received more than $570 million from small venture firms as well as big energy companies like Chevron.
And Climeworks, a Swiss company that has already built the largest operational direct air capture facility in the world, in Iceland, has raised more than $800 million from investors including Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund and individuals like the venture capitalist John Doerr.
Mr. Doerr is also a partner in Breakthrough Energy Ventures and was with Mr. Gates in London this summer.
“We’re going to need carbon removal,” Mr. Doerr said, adding that the need to quickly scale the companies was a “code red” situation.
As with any industry, many start-ups are likely to fail for every one that hits it big. But to investors, that is a risk worth taking.
“There will be some big winners in this space,” said Clay Dumas, co-founder of Lowercarbon Capital, a venture firm that has backed several of the companies. “You could be wrong 95 percent of the time and still look like a genius when you send a bunch of money back to your investors.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) University of California Resolves Civil Rights Complaints Over Gaza Protests
Five schools agreed to changes after reports that they failed to protect students from antisemitism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim discrimination.
By Orlando Mayorquín, Dec. 21, 2024
The University of California has resolved federal civil rights complaints from students who cited antisemitism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim discrimination at U.C.L.A. and four other campuses following protests over the Israel-Hamas war, the Education Department announced Friday.
The announcement follows similar agreements that the Education Department’s office of civil rights has made in recent months with other schools and institutions including Brown University, Temple University, the University of Cincinnati and the School District of Philadelphia.
Since the University of California and other universities receive federal funds, they are required to comply with federal regulations that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race and other protected identities. The regulations were designed to prevent intolerant environments that hinder learning. Dozens of schools have faced inquiries from the Education Department since 2023 over complaints of such violations, with many still pending.
After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces, many students at U.C.L.A. said they heard antisemitic chants at pro-Palestinian events, including “no peace until they’re dead,” according to a report by the Education Department after an investigation. The department also said that pro-Palestinian students complained that they had been harassed by other students and members of the public.
In April, at a pro-Palestinian encampment on the U.C.L.A. campus, some Jewish students said they were denied access to occupied areas and campus buildings by pro-Palestinian protesters unless they renounced Zionism, and many Palestinian, Arab and pro-Palestinian students said they were attacked by counterprotesters, the department said.
Similar environments hostile to Jewish, Arab and Muslim students were reported at University of California campuses at Davis, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, the department said. At UC Santa Barbara, the department said the school had been notified of antisemitic vandalism at a dorm room and signs at a student center targeting some Jewish students.
To resolve the complaints, the University of California agreed to measures that include more thoroughly investigating the reports of discrimination and harassment to determine if additional action is needed; providing more training to university authorities about their responsibilities to comply with federal law prohibiting discrimination; and obtaining approval from the department for any revisions to university policies regarding discrimination involving race, color or nationality.
In a statement after the Education Department’s announcement, the University of California said it “unequivocally rejects antisemitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of harassment and discrimination.” It added that it had taken more steps to support students and others, including creating a systemwide office of civil rights.
The wave of protests at college campuses following Oct. 7 resulted in a litany of legal action against universities and the ouster of some of their leaders, who were accused of failing to protect students from discrimination.
Some institutions, such as New York University, agreed to make payments in addition to reviewing policies to settle legal claims.
U.C.L.A. was among the most active protest sites in the country. In April, U.C.L.A. administrators initially took a relatively tolerant approach to a pro-Palestinian encampment at the school. But after several days, the university’s chancellor, Gene Block, declared the encampment illegal and told demonstrators to leave. On April 30, agitators who were said to identify as Zionist attacked the encampment.
A university report found that the pro-Palestinian students inside the encampment were attacked with “bear mace and other chemical irritants, hammers, knives, stink bombs, high-grade fireworks, baseball bats, metal and wooden rods.”
One counterprotester reportedly had a gun, and protesters said they had pleaded with campus security to intervene. They said the attackers had been allowed to leave without being apprehended when law enforcement stepped in hours later, according to university reports.
On May 2, police officers raided and cleared the encampment, arresting more than 200 protesters.
Last month, an independent investigation report on the events was released and is under review by the university. Its recommendations are largely focused on developing concrete response plans to campus unrest.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) We’ve Misunderstood Human Nature for 100 Years
By Kurt Gray, Dec. 22, 2024
Dr. Gray is a social psychologist and the author of the forthcoming book “Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground,” from which this essay is adapted.
Christian Philip Scott
One day in the summer of 1924, an anthropologist named Raymond Dart made an incredible discovery — and drew a conclusion from it about human nature that would mislead us for a century.
Dart was examining a set of fossils that had been unearthed by miners near the town of Taung in South Africa when he found the skull of a “missing link” between ancient apes and humans. It belonged to a juvenile member of the species Australopithecus africanus who was later nicknamed the Taung Child.
The skull conclusively demonstrated that Africa was the birthplace of humankind. It also seemed to reveal something sinister about human nature: There was a series of grooves etched in the bone, which Dart believed could be produced only by human-made tools. These marks convinced him that this young hominid had been butchered and eaten by another member of its tribe (perhaps a hungry uncle).
Our ancestors, Dart concluded, were cannibalistic killers. He argued that Australopithecus africanus represented a “predatory transition” in which our ancestors evolved from eating plants and fruits to devouring meat — and one another.
Dart’s thesis quickly became scientific consensus, and other anthropologists found facts to support the theory that humans evolved as ruthless hunters. For instance, we can run long distances (presumably to exhaust prey), throw objects with accuracy (to kill prey with spears) and work well together (to coordinate killing prey).
The idea that humans are natural-born predators was not just a scientific claim; it also found expression in the broader culture. In the 1954 novel “Lord of the Flies,” a group of school-age boys stranded on an island descend into savage violence, revealing their true nature. The 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” begins with a tribe of prehistoric apes — our ancestors — discovering how to use a leg bone as a weapon to assault one another. Today, self-help gurus argue that we should reconnect with our “ancestral lifestyle” of eating raw meat and organs.
The assumption that our nature is predatory colors our everyday life. We might generally believe that other people mean well, but as soon as someone causes us harm — like cutting us off in traffic — we assume that they intended it (it’s why we get so angry). The predatory assumption also shapes our perceptions of politics: The “other side” often seems ruthless, callous and happy to inflict harm.
In a 2022 study led by the moral psychologist Daniela Goya-Tocchetto, researchers found that Democrats and Republicans perceived their opponents’ policies — on issues such as taxation, gun control and environmental regulation — as driven by malicious intent. While people acknowledged the unintended, regrettable trade-offs in their own side’s policies, they believed the other side’s policies were deliberately harmful. When it came to debates about curtailing industry to protect the environment, Democrats saw Republicans as intentionally damaging the environment, while Republicans believed Democrats were actively trying to destroy blue-collar jobs.
There is a glaring problem, however, with the widespread assumption that humans are predators by nature: It’s wrong.
Start with Dart’s finding. In the 1990s, the archaeologist Lee Berger and other researchers re-examined the fossils studied by Dart. The Taung Child bones had been found in a pile with butchered animal bones, suggesting the den of a human predator. But Berger also found eagle-like eggshells in this den. Why, he wondered, would humans go through the trouble to collect and eat eagle eggs, risking lethal falls for a tiny snack?
It seemed that Dart had discovered evidence not of human predation but rather of an ancient eagle nest, complete with discarded eggshells from hatchlings. A closer look at the “butchery” marks on the Taung Child corroborated this new theory: The pattern was consistent with the scraping of an eagle’s beak. Modern-day harpy eagles can carry off small goats, and prehistoric eagles were certainly big enough to pick up a hominid child. That child had been prey.
Similar discoveries, such as hominid skulls punctured by the fangs of saber-toothed cats, support the claim that our ancestors (and not just their children) were more prey than predators. Our weak bodies also betray our original status as prey. Unlike true predators, we have teeth that are more suited for chewing plants and fruits, and our claws are laughable. Sure, we can throw things, but the sharpened sticks of early humans would barely annoy a large predator. And our ability to run far? Science shows that exhaustion hunting is historically rare.
Finding that hominids were hunted also implies that humans evolved with a prey mind-set, living in fear and constantly seeking protection. Anthropologists now believe that early humans spent many days worrying about predators — and most nights, too. Big cats, like leopards, hunt primates at night. Their eyes can see in darkness, while our eyes, evolved for detecting ripe fruit in daylight, cannot.
This picture of fearfulness is consistent with our understanding of human psychology. We’re hard-wired to detect threats quickly and to stay fixated on places where threats once appeared, even after they have vanished. We fear that “child predators” will abduct our kids even when they are safer than ever.
Modern humans, ensconced in towns and cities, are now mostly safe from animal predators, but we are still easily frightened. Whether we’re scrolling social media or voting for a presidential candidate, we all still carry the legacy of our ancestors, who worried about big cats lurking in the darkness.
Bearing in mind that our species is by nature more prey than predator is a good rule of thumb when interacting with people — and it could help soothe today’s intense political animosity by increasing our sympathy for the other side. Just as you vote to protect yourself and your family, so do those who vote differently. The next time you feel angry at your political opponents, pause to think about how they might feel threatened. When people want to close the southern border, for example, it’s usually not because they want to harm migrants, but because they want to protect against the perceived threat of crime and job loss.
Unless they see you as naïve, your political opponents probably view you as a predator. To help them understand your true motivation, consider explaining how your beliefs relate to your fears and your desire to protect yourself, your family, your community. You might start a political conversation by asking, “What worries you most about the future?” or “What makes you feel threatened?”
The answer is probably not “an eagle snatching my child” — but it might as well be.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) Organized Looting Throws Gaza Deeper Into Chaos
Gangs are filling a power vacuum left by Israel in some parts of southern Gaza, hijacking desperately needed aid for Palestinian residents.
By Adam Rasgon and Aaron Boxerman, Dec. 23, 2024
Reporting from Jerusalem. This article is based on more than 20 interviews with officials, aid workers, businessmen and Gaza residents.
"International aid workers have accused Israel of ignoring the problem and allowing looters to act with impunity. The United Nations does not allow Israeli soldiers to protect aid convoys, fearing that would compromise its neutrality, and its officials have called on Israel to allow the Gaza police, which are under Hamas’s authority, to secure their convoys. ...As looters have run rampant in areas nominally controlled by the Israeli military, truck drivers and aid workers have suggested the Israeli military mostly turns a blind eye."
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid entering Gaza via the Rafah crossing have become easy prey for organized gangs. Credit...Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Hazem Isleem, a Palestinian truck driver, was passing through the ruins of southern Gaza last month with a truckload of aid when armed looters ambushed his convoy.
One of the gunmen broke into his truck, forcing him to drive to a nearby field and unload thousands of pounds of flour intended for hungry Palestinians, he said by phone from Gaza. By the next morning, the gang had stripped virtually all of the supplies from the convoy of about 100 trucks of United Nations aid, enough to feed tens of thousands of people, in what the United Nations described as one of the worst such episodes of the war.
“It was terrifying,” said Mr. Isleem, 47, whom the looters held for 13 hours while they pillaged the flour. “But the worst part was we weren’t able to deliver the food to the people.”
Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack last year has unleashed a humanitarian crisis in the enclave, with more than 45,000 people dead, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Hunger is widespread, and Israel has placed restrictions on the entry of aid into Gaza and blocked movement of aid trucks between the north and south.
Though Hamas has been routed in much of the territory, Israel has not put an alternative government in place. In parts of southern Gaza, armed gangs have filled the resulting power vacuum, leaving aid groups unwilling to risk delivering supplies.
The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said this month that it would no longer deliver aid through Kerem Shalom, the main border crossing between Israel and southern Gaza, because of the breakdown in law and order.
Hundreds of truckloads of relief are piling up at the crossing in part because aid groups fear they will be looted.
What began as smaller-scale attempts to seize aid early in the year — often by hungry Gazans — has now become “systematic, tactical, armed, crime-syndicate looting” by organized groups, said Georgios Petropoulos, a senior U.N. official based in the southern city of Rafah. “This is just larceny writ large,” he said.
This article is based on more than 20 interviews with Israeli and U.N. officials, aid workers, Gaza residents and Palestinian businessmen. The New York Times also reviewed internal U.N. memos in which officials discussed the looting and its consequences.
The situation in Gaza deteriorated after the Israeli military invaded Rafah in May, seeking to oust Hamas from one of its final strongholds. Hamas’s security forces fled, and organized gangs — with no one stopping them — began intercepting aid trucks as they headed from the main border crossing into southern Gaza. They are stealing flour, oil and other commodities and selling them at astronomical prices, aid groups and residents say.
In southern Gaza, the price of a 55-pound sack of flour has risen to as much as $220. In northern Gaza, where there are fewer aid disruptions, the same sack can cost as little as $10.
International aid workers have accused Israel of ignoring the problem and allowing looters to act with impunity. The United Nations does not allow Israeli soldiers to protect aid convoys, fearing that would compromise its neutrality, and its officials have called on Israel to allow the Gaza police, which are under Hamas’s authority, to secure their convoys.
Israel, which seeks to uproot Hamas, accuses the group of stealing international aid and says that the police are just another arm of the militant group. They have repeatedly targeted Hamas’s police force, severely weakening it, and police officers are rarely seen in much of Gaza, residents say.
Over the past two weeks, Israel has allowed some aid trucks to travel along Gaza’s border with Egypt, a new route fully controlled by the Israeli military. U.N. agencies have been able to avoid looters and deliver some relief.
But that has not done enough to address the shortfall in aid, aid groups and residents say. The high prices of goods sold by looters have contributed to desperate scenes among ordinary Gazans fighting for what little affordable food is available.
In late November, crowds had already gathered at Zadna bakery in the central city of Deir al Balah hours before it opened, hoping to buy a 20-piece bag of bread for the U.N.-subsidized price of $1. Suddenly, mayhem broke loose as ordinary people in the crowd — some brandishing knives — pushed to reach the front of the line, said Abdelhalim Awad, the bakery’s owner.
During the commotion, gunshots rang out. Two women were killed and others were injured, he said, and a third later died of her wounds.
With unrest rising, all of the U.N.-backed bakeries in southern and central Gaza have closed their doors for now.
“Today, the ordinary Gazan’s dream, his aspiration, is to obtain a piece of bread,” Mr. Awad said. “I can’t say anything sadder than that.”
Gazan transportation company owners, truck drivers and aid groups say multiple gangs have participated in looting recently. But many people involved in aid delivery named Yasser Abu Shabab, 35, as the man who runs the most sophisticated operation.
They say Mr. Abu Shabab’s gang dominates much of the Nasr neighborhood in eastern Rafah, which the war has transformed into a wasteland. Mr. Petropoulos, the U.N. official, called him “the self-styled power broker of east Rafah.”
Mr. Isleem, the truck driver who was ambushed in Rafah, said the looters who captured him told him that Mr. Abu Shabab was their boss. Awad Abid, a displaced Gazan who said he had tried to buy flour from Mr. Abu Shabab’s gang in Rafah, said he had seen gunmen guarding warehouses containing stolen cartons of U.N.-marked aid.
“I asked one of them for a sack of flour to feed my children,” Mr. Abid said, “and he raised a pistol at me.”
Mr. Abu Shabab denied looting aid trucks on a large scale, although he conceded that his men — armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles — had raided half a dozen or so since the start of the war.
“We are taking trucks so we can eat, not so we can sell,” he said in a phone interview, claiming he was feeding his family and neighbors. “Every hungry person is taking aid.” He accused Hamas of being primarily responsible for stealing the aid, a claim that Hamas has denied.
The looters’ chokehold on supplies and soaring prices are undermining Hamas in the areas that it still controls. On Nov. 25, Hamas’s security forces raided Mr. Abu Shabab’s neighborhood, killing more than 20 people, including his brother, Mr. Abu Shabab said.
Official Hamas media reported at the time that its forces had killed 20 members of “gangs of thieves who were stealing aid.”
As looters have run rampant in areas nominally controlled by the Israeli military, truck drivers and aid workers have suggested the Israeli military mostly turns a blind eye.
“There is continued tolerance by the Israel Defense Forces of unacceptable amounts of looting of areas that are ostensibly and de facto under their military control,” Mr. Petropoulos said.
At times, Israeli tanks have deployed along main roads where aid trucks travel. And Israeli ministers have said they debated authorizing private security contractors to protect international aid convoys inside Gaza.
Until recently, Israeli forces largely did not target the looters unless they were affiliated with Hamas or other militant groups, according to U.N. officials. But that appears to have changed in recent weeks.
In Israeli military drone footage viewed by The Times, looters can be seen confiscating white sacks of aid from cars in southern Gaza in November. Minutes later, an Israeli airstrike killed them, the footage appears to show.
Shani Sasson, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military agency that regulates aid to Gaza, said Israeli forces were targeting armed looters who attacked convoys, not just those affiliated with Hamas. She denied that Israel was providing any immunity to criminal gangs stealing aid.
In late November, Israeli forces opened fire on looters waiting to waylay trucks in Rafah, forcing them to retreat, according to an internal U.N. memo. With the path cleared, U.N. aid trucks rushed toward central Gaza.
But the gangs were far from deterred.
The looters soon regrouped and hijacked them on the road, the U.N. memo said. The trucks were stripped bare.
Abu Bakr Bashir and Bilal Shbair contributed reporting from Deir al Balah, Gaza.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) Israel Intercepts Houthi Missile and Threatens Militant Group’s Leaders
Israel said it had shot down a missile fired by Houthi militants in Yemen, hours after Israel’s defense minister threatened to “behead” the group’s leadership.
By Aaron Boxerman and Matthew Mpoke Bigg, Dec. 24, 2024, Aaron Boxerman reported from Jerusalem.
Protesters at an anti-U.S. and anti-Israel rally in Sana, Yemen, last week. Credit...Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
Israel said it had intercepted a ballistic missile fired at it by Houthi militants in Yemen on Tuesday, hours after Israel’s defense minister suggested the Israeli government would seek to kill the Houthi leadership.
Sirens wailed in Tel Aviv and other parts of central Israel early on Tuesday morning, and loud booms could be heard as far away as Jerusalem as the country’s aerial defenses sought to repel the attack. The Israeli military later said the missile had been successfully intercepted outside of its territory; there were no reports of casualties.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed group that acts as the de facto government in northern Yemen, have been firing on Israel in solidarity with their Palestinian allies since shortly after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that prompted the war in Gaza. They have also menaced cargo vessels traversing the Red Sea in an attempt to enforce an embargo on Israel, posing a threat to international trade.
The group’s attacks appear to be growing more frequent. Since the beginning of December, Houthi militants have fired rockets and drones at Israel at least eight times. A missile from Yemen landed in Tel Aviv early Saturday morning after air defenses failed to intercept it. And last week, a school in Ramat Gan, a Tel Aviv suburb, was damaged after a missile fired from Yemen was partially intercepted, the Israeli military said. The attacks have not caused any serious injuries.
In response, Israeli warplanes have struck deeper into Yemen, targeting power plants in Sana, the Houthi-run capital.
But it is far from clear what Israel, the United States and their allies could do to decisively stop the Houthis from occasionally shooting rockets and drones at their enemies in the region.
On Monday, Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, threatened to assassinate Houthi leaders in an attempt to force them to come to terms. Throughout the war, Israel has killed many of its adversaries’ top commanders, including the leader of Hamas and the leader of the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Like the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran.
“We will inflict a devastating blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen,” said Mr. Katz. “We will hit its strategic infrastructure and behead its leadership.”
For months, Israel and allies like the United States and Britain have bombarded Houthi-held territory in Yemen in an attempt to compel the militants to stop their attacks. But those strikes have not seemed to deter the Houthis, who have vowed to persist as long as Israel continues its war in Gaza.
The Houthis are relatively far removed from their foes — over 1,000 miles away from Israeli territory — and have resisted numerous efforts to quash them since they rose to power in Yemen’s decade-long civil war.
The United States and Britain consider the Houthis to be a terrorist group. As part of its proxy war with Iran, Saudi Arabia led a military campaign against them in Yemen in an attempt to restore the country’s government, deepening the humanitarian crisis there.
The Houthis were once poorly organized rebels, but in recent years, the group has bolstered its arsenal, adding cruise and ballistic missiles and long-range drones. Analysts say Iran has supplied the Houthis and other militias across the Middle East to expand its influence in the region.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) Pro-Palestinian Activists Removed From Michigan’s Student Government
The president and vice president of the University of Michigan’s student assembly were impeached after they demanded divestment and stopped funding campus activities.
By Halina Bennet, Dec. 24, 2024
A protest in support of Palestinians at the University of Michigan in February. Credit...Nic Antaya for The New York Times
Alifa Chowdhury’s successful campaign to lead the University of Michigan’s student government promised just one thing: to block financing for campus groups until the university agreed to divest from companies that Ms. Chowdhury said profited from the Israel-Hamas war.
Nine turbulent months later, Ms. Chowdhury is out, impeached and removed from office by the student assembly just before midnight on Monday.
Ms. Chowdhury’s ouster follows a lopsided impeachment vote in mid-November, which also led to the removal of Elias Atkinson, the body’s vice president and a fellow activist.
In a student judicial hearing that spanned seven days and lasted more than 20 hours, they were found guilty on a single charge of dereliction of duty — the consequence of effectively fulfilling the shutdown their campaign promised.
Like the protest encampments at universities across the country, the takeover of Michigan’s student government by pro-Palestinian activists last spring polarized the campus. The activists’ tactics drew objections from students who said their obstructionism went too far and did little to help the Palestinian cause.
The activists saw their movement as a way to shake university officials and students out of what they saw as complacency, and face the plight of Palestinians living in Gaza.
But like many student protests, the takeover made little headway — and maybe even stirred up opposition. The university, which had long said that it would not divest, adopted a policy of institutional neutrality in October, meaning that it would avoid taking stances on political or social issues that were not directly connected to the school.
The administration also agreed in August to lend money to campus groups, allowing them to pay for activities like ballroom dancing and Ultimate Frisbee. By October, the student assembly had voted to reinstate the funding.
Margaret Peterson, a sophomore member of the student assembly who started the impeachment motion, said that the president and vice president’s conduct in office and their unwillingness to aid the student body were “inexcusable.”
Many students, even some empathetic to the Palestinian cause, saw the activists’ efforts as a futile quest that blocked money meant to help needy students, while alienating allies.
“If anything, it’s only set the social image of the movement backwards, at least on campus,” said Tiya Berry, an Arab American member of the student assembly who grew up in Lebanon.
Though Ms. Berry said that she agreed with the activists’ political stance, she believed their methods unnecessarily hurt students and were a poor means to bring about change. “They look like extremists,” she said.
The impeached president and vice president, both of whom declined to comment, ran for their positions last spring as part of the Shut It Down Party, with the promise that they would withhold the roughly $1.3 million of annual funding until the university’s regents agreed to total divestment from companies that they said profited from Israel’s war in Gaza. They won their elections handily with a low voter turnout.
The impeachment motion itself set off a debate about the line between free speech and incitement. The motion, which passed overwhelmingly in an initial vote, accused the leaders of “incitement of violence” for encouraging demonstrators to attend an Oct. 8 student government meeting that was called to reinstate funding for campus groups.
During the meeting, Ms. Chowdhury joined the protesters across the room from the assembly, a move that Ms. Peterson said encouraged verbal attacks and threatening language. She said that one assembly member was spat on by a protester.
The impeachment was “abhorrent,” said Kaitlin Karmen, a member of the Shut It Down Party who resigned from the student assembly after the vote.
“Asking constituents to show up to a meeting to advocate for a cause they believe in is not inciting violence,” Ms. Karmen said. Speaking of student assembly members, she added: “Being uncomfortable doesn’t mean you’re experiencing violence.”
Danah Owaida, a Shut It Down assembly member who also stepped down after the vote, said that her tenure was marked by indifference from many of her colleagues and a decline in her mental health. “As a Palestinian, it’s a dismissal all the time,” she said.
But Ms. Peterson, the student who started the removal process, said that the impeachment, which was the first in the assembly’s history, set a precedent for the student government in helping to define what kind of speech was truly free.
“There is a line between free speech and hate speech, between engaging in your rights as a student and as an American to disagree as vehemently as you might want to, and crossing that line into threatening someone,” she said.
“That kind of speech has never been tolerated” in the student government before, she added, “and should not be tolerated in the future.”
With the assembly’s leadership ousted, the speaker of the student assembly, Mario Thaqi, will finish out the presidential term.
His job could be quite fraught.
“It doesn’t matter if you hate me or not — we’re still representatives of the entire student body,” he said. “That’s very important to me in dealing with the backlash after this impeachment vote and making sure that our campus doesn’t become more divided.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
8) Syria’s New Leaders Try to Unite Rebel Factions Under a Single Government
The fighters who ousted Bashar al-Assad are aiming to transform their revolutionary movement and assert control over the country.
By Adam Rasgon, Dec. 25, 2024
Children resting on a Syrian Air Force helicopter that was destroyed by Israeli strikes against military targets across Syria at a military airport on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday. Credit...Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times
Syria’s new leadership has taken steps to unite disparate rebel factions under a single government in the wake of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.
Under a new accord, a number of rebel factions agreed to dissolve themselves, according to a report on Tuesday by Sana, the Syrian state-run news service. The agreement suggested that the new administration was making progress in asserting its authority over the country.
The rebel groups agreed to be integrated under the defense ministry, the Sana report said. Pictures posted to social media on Tuesday showed Ahmed al-Shara, the leader of the offensive that overthrew the Assad dictatorship this month, meeting with dozens of rebel faction leaders, many of them clad in military uniforms.
Mr. al-Shara, formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, has participated in official meetings recently wearing a business suit rather than a military uniform. Since his faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, took power, he has presented himself as more the statesman and less the rebel leader, and has espoused relatively moderate political positions despite past links to Islamist extremists.
On Sunday, he told a news conference that the “logic of a state is different from the logic of a revolution.” He spoke standing alongside Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan.
“We absolutely will not allow for weapons outside the framework of the state,” Mr. al-Shara said, adding that he was referring both to rebel groups and a Kurdish-led militia, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is separate from the rebels.
The Syrian Democratic Forces control an autonomous region dominated by Kurds in northeastern Syria, while the rebel groups hold sway in other parts of the country. Those groups, in accord Hayat Tahrir al-Sham played a central role in toppling the Assad dictatorship.
The Sana report said all rebel factions signed onto Tuesday’s unity agreement. But The New York Times was not able independently verify that.
The Syrian Democratic Forces did not appear to be part of the agreement.
Farhad Shami, a media official for the Syrian Democratic Forces, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Kurdish-led force has been battling the Islamic State terrorist group inside Syria for years with U.S. military backing. Neighboring Turkey is hostile to the Kurdish force, viewing it as an extension of a Kurdish group in Turkey that has been fighting the Turkish state for decades. Analysts said disbanding rebel factions was a logical step for the Syrian leaders vying to establish a single national military.
“They are trying to build a state,” said Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group. “You can’t build a state while you have a million and one militias running around doing their own things.”
Ms. Khalifa, who met Mr. al-Shara earlier this week, said she was under the impression that dissolving the rebel factions was a top priority for Syria’s new leaders because “wayward factions” were acting outside their command in parts of rural Syria.
Beyond dissolving rebel factions, the new administration has taken other actions to build a new Syrian state, including appointing a caretaker prime minister to lead a transitional government until March 1, 2025. Mr. al-Shara has also said a legal committee would draft a new constitution for the country.
Muhammad Haj Kadour contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
9) Judge Strikes Down Portions of Arkansas Law That Threatened Librarians
Republicans passed the law in 2023, joining other conservative states and counties that have sought to restrict the availability of certain books.
By Eduardo Medina, Dec. 24, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/24/us/arkansas-book-ban-law.html
Nate Coulter, executive director of the Central Arkansas Library System, in the main branch of the public library in downtown Little Rock, Ark. Credit...Katie Adkins/Associated Press
A federal judge has struck down portions of an Arkansas law that could have sent librarians and booksellers to prison for providing material that might be considered harmful to minors.
The ruling by Judge Timothy Brooks of the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Arkansas is certain to be appealed. But his decision on Monday provided at least a temporary victory to librarians and booksellers who have said that the law would create a chilling effect since anyone could object to any book and pursue criminal charges against the person who provided it.
“This was an attempt to ‘thought police,’ and this victory over totalitarianism is a testament to the courage of librarians, booksellers and readers who refused to bow to intimidation,” said Holly Dickson, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican, said in a statement that “schools and libraries shouldn’t put obscene material in front of our kids,” and she vowed to work with Tim Griffin, the state’s attorney general, to appeal the ruling.
Republicans passed the law, known as Act 372, in 2023, joining a wave of other conservative states and counties around the country that have increasingly sought to restrict the availability of certain kinds of books, particularly those with themes centered around race and L.G.B.T.Q. issues.
An earlier ruling in July 2023 blocked parts of the law from taking effect while it was being challenged in court.
The law required that any material that might be “harmful” to minors, including books, magazines and movies, be shelved in a separate “adults only” area. It also ended protections for librarians and educators that shielded them from prosecution if they used educational materials or provided books that some might find objectionable. The law also made it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison, for librarians and booksellers to distribute a “harmful item” to a minor.
Judge Brooks, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, described parts of the law in his ruling as “unconstitutionally overbroad,” writing that the measures would deputize “librarians and booksellers as the agents of censorship.”
“When motivated by the fear of jail time, it is likely they will shelve only books fit for young children and segregate or discard the rest,” Judge Brooks wrote.
Judge Brooks also wrote that Section 5 of the law would censor books that are constitutionally protected for adults.
Sections of the law that were less consequential went into effect last year, such as one that allows parents to monitor their child’s library records.
State Senator Dan Sullivan, who sponsored the bill, defended the law in an opinion piece last year in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
“We don’t exempt pharmacists from drug-dealing laws, slaughterhouses from animal-cruelty laws and doctors from sexual-assault laws,” Mr. Sullivan, a Republican, wrote. “Yet prior to my bill, teachers and librarians, who are the closest to our children, were 100 percent legally free to provide children obscene material at their jobs.”
Ben Seel, the senior counsel for Democracy Forward, which represented several Arkansas library associations, said in a statement that the state law “was written so broad and vague that librarians would have been forced to turn libraries into segregated vaults to avoid going to jail.”
Earlier this year, PEN America, a free speech group that gathers information from school board meetings, school districts, local media reports and other sources, said that more than 10,000 books were removed, at least temporarily, from public schools in the 2023-24 school year. That was almost three times as many removals as during the previous school year.
A fast-growing network of conservative groups, such as Moms for Liberty and Utah Parents United, has fueled the surge in book bans, describing its advocacy at school board meetings and in state legislative chambers as attempts to protect parental rights.
The materials they have targeted are often described in policies and legislation as sensitive, inappropriate or pornographic. But in practice, the books most frequently identified for removal have been by or about Black or L.G.B.T.Q. people, according to the American Library Association.
In May 2023, an Iowa law barred public K-12 schools from having books that depict sexual acts, with the exception of religious texts.
In South Carolina, new rules that went into effect in June state that school districts cannot have books or materials that include any depiction of sexual conduct, regardless of the grade level they are intended for. Critics have said the new rules could remove from shelves classics like “The Bluest Eye,” “1984” and “The Catcher in the Rye.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
