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How Trump Got Rich
It had nothing to do with brains!
President Trump’s executive order sent a signal to Republicans that the administration was serious about winding down the Education Department. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesSome excerpts from Wikipedia:
Donald John Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at Jamaica Hospital in the New York City borough of Queens, the fourth child of Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. He is of German and Scottish descent. He grew up with his older siblings, Maryanne, Fred Jr., and Elizabeth, and his younger brother, Robert, in a mansion in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens. Fred Trump paid his children each about $20,000 a year, equivalent to $265,000 a year in 2024. Trump was a millionaire at age eight by contemporary standards. Trump attended the private Kew-Forest School through seventh grade.
He was a difficult child and showed an early interest in his father’s business. His father enrolled him in New York Military Academy, a private boarding school, to complete secondary school. Trump considered a show business career but instead in 1964 enrolled at Fordham University. Two years later, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in economics.
He was exempted from the draft during the Vietnam War due to a claim of bone spurs in his heels. …Starting in 1968, Trump was employed at his father’s real estate company, Trump Management, which owned racially segregated middle-class rental housing in New York City’s outer boroughs.
In 1971, his father made him president of the company and he began using the Trump Organization as an umbrella brand. Roy Cohn was Trump’s fixer, lawyer, and mentor for 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1973, Cohn helped Trump countersue the U.S. government for $100 million (equivalent to $708 million in 2024) over its charges that Trump’s properties had racially discriminatory practices. Trump’s counterclaims were dismissed, and the government’s case was settled with the Trumps signing a consent decree agreeing to desegregate; four years later, Trumps again faced the courts when they were found in contempt of the decree.
Before age thirty, he showed his propensity for litigation, no matter the outcome and cost; even when he lost, he described the case as a win. Helping Trump projects, Cohn was a consigliere whose Mafia connections controlled construction unions. Cohn introduced political consultant Roger Stone to Trump, who enlisted Stone’s services to deal with the federal government.
Between 1991 and 2009, he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for six of his businesses: the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, the casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts company.
In 1992, Trump, his siblings Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Robert, and his cousin John W. Walter, each with a 20 percent share, formed All County Building Supply & Maintenance Corp. The company had no offices and is alleged to have been a shell company for paying the vendors providing services and supplies for Trump’s rental units, then billing those services and supplies to Trump Management with markups of 20–50 percent and more.
The owners shared the proceeds generated by the markups. The increased costs were used to get state approval for increasing the rents of his rent-stabilized units. …Trump has said he began his career with “a small loan of a million dollars” from his father and that he had to pay it back with interest.
He borrowed at least $60 million from his father, largely did not repay the loans, and received another $413 million (2018 equivalent, adjusted for inflation) from his father’s company.
Posing as a Trump Organization official named “John Barron,” Trump called journalist Jonathan Greenberg in 1984, trying to get a higher ranking on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans. Trump self-reported his net worth over a wide range: from a low of minus $900 million in 1990, to a high of $10 billion in 2015. In 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at $2.3 billion and ranked him the 1,438th wealthiest person in the world.
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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
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Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky
In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries.
Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin:
“To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?”
Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine.
A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism.
To sign the online petition at freeboris.info
—Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024
https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine.
Petition in Support of Boris 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
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
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
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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)
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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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1) The Trump Billionaires Who Run the Economy and the Things They Say
“You have to laugh to keep from crying,” one Republican pollster said about recent comments by the billionaires on the stock market, retirement funds and Social Security.
By Elisabeth Bumiller, Reporting from Washington, April 19, 2025
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, left, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, right, in the Oval Office with President Trump this month. The three men are each worth billions of dollars. Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times
Sometimes the billionaires running the federal government sound like they’re talking to other billionaires.
“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” President Trump wrote on social media last week, offering a stock tip that appeared aimed at the investor class rather than ordinary Americans watching their plummeting 401(k)s.
Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce, has said his mother-in-law wouldn’t be worried if she didn’t get her monthly Social Security check. Elon Musk, who is slashing the Social Security Administration’s staff, has called it a “Ponzi scheme.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has asserted that Americans aren’t looking at the “day-to-day fluctuations” in their retirement savings.
And if automakers raise their prices because of Mr. Trump’s tariffs? “I couldn’t care less,” the president told Kristen Welker of NBC.
Democrats say the comments show how clueless Mr. Trump and his friends are about the lives of most Americans, and that this is what happens when billionaires run the economy. Republicans counter that highlighting the quotes is unfair cherry picking, and that in the long run everyone will benefit from their policies, even if there’s pain now. Psychologists say that extreme wealth does change people and their views of those who have less.
Whoever is right, it is safe to say that almost no one thinks the comments have been politically helpful for Mr. Trump, or calming for Americans.
“You have to laugh to keep from crying,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster. “What did they say about the old New York Mets? ‘Can’t anybody here play this game?’” (Mr. Ayres was referring to what the manager Casey Stengel once said about his hapless 1962 Mets, and the subsequent title of a book by Jimmy Breslin.)
For the record, Forbes put Mr. Trump’s net worth at $4.2 billion on April 8, down $500 million from April 2, the day the president rolled out his tariffs. Forbes estimated the net worth of Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, as $364 billion on April 17 and Mr. Lutnick’s as $3 billion the same day. Mr. Bessent, formerly the top investor for the billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros, listed assets in excess of $700 million on his financial disclosure form this year but is thought to be worth much more.
The opposition has swiftly pounced on their comments. Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and minority leader, said that Mr. Trump and his rich friends live in a “billionaires’ bubble,” while Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, called out Mr. Lutnick on social media.
“Maybe your mother-in-law wouldn’t complain if she didn’t get her Social Security check, but tens of millions of seniors struggling to survive would,” Mr. Sanders wrote. “How out of touch are you, not to realize that?”
A lot, at least according to pollsters.
“If someone is concerned about their financial well-being, take them at their word,” said Frank Luntz, a longtime focus group leader, pollster and consultant, speaking about the widespread fears of rising prices and falling stocks brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs. He said the president understood voters’ anxieties during the 2024 campaign, when he repeatedly promised to bring down grocery prices, but seems to have forgotten them now.
“If you knew they were struggling in October, why do you dismiss their struggling in April?” Mr. Luntz asked. He added that “the word that is missing in all of this, from Elon and the president, is empathy.”
Paul K. Piff, an associate professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, has studied the psychology of the rich for nearly two decades. He said that research shows that as a person’s wealth increases, more often than not empathy and compassion for others decreases. Professor Piff cautioned that there are exceptions, and that he was not speaking specifically about the billionaires in the Trump administration.
But he said excessive wealth has profound effects on a person’s character. “You certainly have more power and more influence over people in your life,” he said. Money, he added, “buys you space and distance from people, and alongside that comes this increased focus on your own self. It’s not a difficult stretch to say that you lose touch for what it’s like for lots and lots of people.”
Susan Pinker, a Canadian psychologist who was a writer for The Wall Street Journal’s Mind & Matter column about human behavior and earlier wrote The Business Brain column for The Globe and Mail, said the rich live in their own world.
“The reason why the super wealthy at the helm of government can’t imagine how people might be distressed by some of their policies is that they don’t really see them that clearly,” she said. “We’re not really built from an evolutionary perspective to feel like we’re at home with everybody. The stronger our in-group, the more likely we are to exclude others.”
Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist who is Ms. Pinker’s brother, said he was not convinced that the billionaires’ comments were because of their wealth. “A more immediate cause may be cognitive dissonance,” he said, referring to the psychological state that can occur when people’s actions don’t align with their beliefs.
“In the case of the Trump administration,” Professor Pinker said, “they have little choice but to twist themselves into artisanal pretzels in order to defend the indefensible.”
A White House spokesman, Kush Desai, said in response to the criticism of Mr. Trump’s remarks about the stock market and potentially higher prices that “the only special interest guiding President Trump’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people — such as addressing the national emergency posed by our country running chronic trade deficits.” White House officials also point out that Mr. Trump has vowed not to cut Social Security benefits.
Recent polls show that Mr. Trump’s approval rating has declined since his inauguration, including a Quinnipiac survey conducted in early April that found that 53 percent disapproved of Mr. Trump and 41 percent approved. It was a significant shift from a Quinnipiac poll at the start of the administration, when 43 percent disapproved and 46 percent approved.
Although Mr. Trump’s drop in recent polls is similar to those of Presidents Joseph R. Biden Jr., Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at this point in their terms, he has had a sharp decrease in support among independents. In the recent Quinnipiac poll, 58 percent of independents disapproved of Mr. Trump and 36 percent approved, compared to 46 percent who disapproved of him in January and 41 percent who approved.
The polls do not show how much the recent turmoil over tariffs and the stock market has affected voters’ views of Mr. Trump. But the Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said most current surveys give Mr. Trump negative marks on his handling of the economy, a source of his strength against Mr. Biden during the 2024 campaign.
In her view, the remarks of the Trump billionaires show how much they talk among themselves.
“They play golf with billionaires, they have dinner with billionaires, they go to Mar-a-Lago,” she said. “When was the last time any of them bought a dozen eggs or a quart of milk?”
Or as Mr. Trump said when he kicked off a Mar-a-Lago dinner with friends after his tax cuts became law in December 2017, “You all just got a lot richer.”
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2) Israeli Attacks Kill Dozens in Gaza, Health Ministry Says
Israel was keeping up its intense bombing campaign in the enclave, which has exacted a heavy price on civilians struggling to find safe places to shelter.
By Adam Rasgon, Reporting from Jerusalem, April 19, 2025
The latest round of Israeli attacks in a renewed military offensive in Gaza has killed dozens of Palestinians, the territory’s health ministry said on Saturday.
The ministry said that 92 dead and 219 wounded people had arrived at hospitals over the past 48 hours. Gaza health officials do not differentiate between civilians and combatants in casualty counts.
Since the collapse last month of a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, Israel’s military has embarked on a major bombing campaign and seized territory in Gaza. Israeli officials have said that the military is targeting militants and weapons infrastructure in a bid to compel Hamas to release more hostages held in the enclave.
More than 1,700 people have been killed in Gaza since the cease-fire fell apart, and more than 51,000 people have been killed since the war began in October 2023, according to the health ministry.
Israel’s renewed offensive has exacted a heavy price on civilians struggling to find places to shelter and reinforced a feeling among Palestinians in Gaza that nowhere is safe.
On Friday, the Israeli military told The New York Times that Mawasi, a narrow strip of coastal land in southern Gaza, was no longer considered a “humanitarian zone.” Earlier in the war, the Israeli military repeatedly instructed Palestinians to go to Mawasi, which it had described at the time as a “humanitarian zone.”
Large numbers of Palestinians are still living in the Mawasi area in tent encampments.
Since the cease-fire broke down, Avichay Adraee, an Arabic-language spokesman for the military, has instructed some Palestinians to go to shelters in Mawasi without describing the area as a “humanitarian zone.”
While many Palestinians in Gaza were still under the impression that the area held a special status, it is not clear whether the Israeli military ever informed them that it was no longer designated a “humanitarian zone.”
The health ministry’s statement on Saturday did not clarify where the people were killed in the latest round of bombings. But the Palestinian Civil Defense, an arm of the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, said it had recovered bodies in northern and southern Gaza over the past two days.
Securing food and water in Gaza has become an increasingly difficult task as Israel continues to block the entry of aid supplies and commercial goods and as humanitarian groups struggle to guarantee the safety of their workers.
On Tuesday, the results of a survey of 43 aid groups showed that almost all had either suspended or reduced their operations in Gaza since Israel resumed its offensive in March.
“Survival itself is now slipping out of reach and the humanitarian system is at breaking point,” the leaders of 12 humanitarian groups said in a joint statement, adding that they were demanding that “all parties” ensure the safety of aid workers and permit “unfettered access of aid into and across Gaza.”
“Let us do our jobs,” they said.
On Thursday, UNRWA, a United Nations agency that aids Palestinians, said that the latest effort to vaccinate against polio in Gaza had been “postponed until further notice,” citing both Israeli airstrikes and evacuation orders.
Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza have received shots since 2024, according to UNRWA.
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3) Israel’s Military Cites ‘Professional Failures’ in Killings of Gaza Medics
In a statement summarizing its investigation into the deadly episode, the military said a deputy commander would be dismissed.
A still image from a cellphone video taken by a paramedic and released by the Palestinian Red Crescent showed the moments before he and other rescue workers were killed by Israelis in Gaza on March 23. Credit...via Associated Press
The Israeli military said Sunday that an investigation into its soldiers’ deadly attack on medics in Gaza last month had identified “several professional failures” and that a commander would be dismissed.
The military had previously acknowledged carrying out the attack in Rafah, southern Gaza, that killed 14 rescue workers and a United Nations employee who drove by after the others were shot. But it had offered shifting explanations for why its troops fired on the emergency vehicles and said it was investigating the episode, one that prompted international condemnation and that experts described as a war crime.
On Sunday — nearly a month after the attack — the military released a statement summarizing its investigation.
“The examination identified several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident,” it said.
The deadly shootings of the rescue workers resulted from “an operational misunderstanding” by troops on the ground “who believed they faced a tangible threat from enemy forces.” Firing on a U.N. vehicle, the statement added, involved “a breach of orders” in a combat setting.
Israeli troops fired on ambulances and a fire truck sent by the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the Civil Defense, as well as the United Nations vehicle that passed by separately, according to witness accounts, video and audio of the attack.
The military said on Sunday that “due to poor night visibility,” the deputy commander on the ground “did not initially recognize the vehicles as ambulances.”
Two weeks ago, the Israeli military acknowledged that some of its early assertions, based on accounts from troops involved in the killing, were partly mistaken.
Military officials had initially asserted, repeatedly and erroneously, that the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” toward the troops “without headlights or emergency signals.”
The military backtracked on that assertion a day after The New York Times published a video, discovered on the cellphone of one of the dead paramedics, that showed the clearly marked vehicles flashing their lights and coming to a halt before the attack.
Israeli soldiers later buried most of the bodies in a mass grave, crushed the ambulances, fire truck and a U.N. vehicle, and buried those as well.
In the statement on Sunday, the Israeli military said that “removing the bodies was reasonable under the circumstances, but the decision to crush the vehicles was wrong.”
The commander of the brigade involved will receive a reprimand “for his overall responsibility for the incident,” it said, while the battalion’s deputy commander will be dismissed because of his responsibilities “and for providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief.”
Bilal Shbair contributed reporting from Gaza, and Vivian Yee from Cairo.
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4) Bukele Proposes Deal That Would Free Deported Venezuelans
President Nayib Bukele said he would free the Venezuelans that the Trump administration deported to El Salvador if Venezuela released the same number of prisoners, including members of the opposition.
By Annie Correal and Julie Turkewitz, Published April 20, 2025, Updated April 21, 2025
Annie Correal reported from San Salvador, El Salvador.
President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador at the White House in Washington, D.C., last week. Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times
El Salvador’s president proposed on Sunday repatriating Venezuelan detainees sent to his country from the United States in exchange for the release of prisoners by Venezuela, including key figures in the Venezuelan opposition.
“I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that includes the repatriation of 100 percent of the 252 Venezuelans who were deported, in exchange for the release and surrender of an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners you hold,” President Nayib Bukele wrote in an X post directed at President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.
Since March, the U.S. government has sent Venezuelans and Salvadorans accused of being affiliated with the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs to El Salvador, where Mr. Bukele agreed to hold convicted criminals for the United States, for a fee.
Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, demanded the immediate release of the Venezuelans held in El Salvador late Sunday in a statement responding to Mr. Bukele. Mr. Saab didn’t say whether the Venezuelan government would consider the proposal.
The first flights to arrive in El Salvador carried 238 Venezuelans, many of whom were found not to have criminal records. Mr. Maduro responded explosively to the detention of Venezuelans by El Salvador’s government, telling Mr. Bukele not to be “an accomplice in this kidnapping.”
Among the political prisoners in Venezuela named in Mr. Bukele’s post were several people detained by the Maduro government in a crackdown last year.
He also said that as part of the swap, he would require Mr. Maduro to release “nearly 50 detained citizens of other nationalities,” including Americans.
As of last month, at least 68 foreign passport holders were wrongfully imprisoned in Venezuela, according to a Venezuelan watchdog group, Foro Penal. They are detained alongside roughly 900 Venezuelan political prisoners. The United Nations and independent watchdog groups have documented a pattern of human rights abuses by the Venezuelan government.
The detention of critics and other politically useful figures comes as Mr. Maduro has lost support at home and abroad and has sought new forms of leverage. His goals include pushing the United States to renegotiate sanctions on his government.
“Unlike you, who holds political prisoners,” Mr. Bukele wrote, “we do not have political prisoners. All the Venezuelans we have in custody were detained as part of an operation against gangs like Tren de Aragua in the United States.”
Despite Mr. Bukele’s assertion, his government has arrested and imprisoned current and former politicians from both opposition and governing parties, according to a 2023 State Department report. Media outlets have challenged the legitimacy of these detentions, but the Bukele administration insists the charges are valid.
Mr. Bukele said his government would send “the formal correspondence” and ended his message saying, “God bless the people of Venezuela.”
Mr. Saab said that the Venezuelan government would be pressing El Salvador’s attorney general and Supreme Court for a list of the names of those who were detained, along with “proof of life and a medical report for each one.”
Isayen Herrera contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela.
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5) Israeli Minister Says Freeing Hostages Not ‘Most Important’ Aim of the War
The far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the more crucial goal was ensuring that Hamas no longer ruled the Gaza Strip.
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Jerusalem, April 21, 2025
Protesters in Tel Aviv demanding the immediate release on Saturday of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Credit...Ariel Schalit/Associated Press
A far-right Israeli politician said on Monday that saving the hostages in Gaza was not Israel’s “most important goal” in its war with Hamas, further stoking the debate in Israel over its objectives for the war.
Bezalel Smotrich, the country’s powerful finance minister, suggested in a radio interview that ensuring that Hamas no longer ruled the Gaza Strip after its deadly 2023 attack in southern Israel was a higher priority.
“We have promised the Israeli people that at the end of the war, Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel,” said Mr. Smotrich, who has called for building Jewish settlements in the Palestinian enclave. “We need to eliminate the problem of Gaza.”
Israel launched the war in Gaza after the Hamas-led attack with at least two aims: One was to destroy Hamas and restore Israelis’ sense of safety after roughly 1,200 people were killed in the surprise attack. Another was to bring back the more than 250 people captured in the assault.
Both goals have proved elusive despite the devastating Israeli campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 50,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials, who have not said how many of the dead were combatants.
Hamas is demanding a permanent cease-fire in exchange for the release of any more of the remaining hostages. Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have insisted they will not end the war before Hamas surrenders.
Mr. Smotrich has expressed a similar sentiment before, but the timing of his remarks on an already sensitive subject touched a nerve in Israel, where a no-one-left-behind ethos has long prompted the country to make difficult deals in exchange for the release of captive Israelis.
The Hostages Families Forum, an advocacy group, denounced Mr. Smotrich, saying the Israeli government had “consciously decided to give up on the hostages” in favor of the war effort.
In January, Israel agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas, during which more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight more. Hamas also released five Thai captives during the truce.
Mediators, including the Trump administration, had hoped the initial truce would pave the way for a comprehensive end to the war and the release of the remaining hostages.
About two dozen living hostages and the bodies of more than 30 others are believed to still be in Gaza, according to Israeli officials.
But Israel ended the truce in mid-March with a bombardment that killed hundreds of people and sent ground troops to seize swaths of the enclave. Israeli leaders, backed by the United States, blamed Hamas.
Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged to achieve “ultimate victory” in the struggle against Hamas. The families of the remaining Israeli hostages fear that the pursuit of that goal will cost their loved ones their lives; they have increasingly demanded an end to the war in the hopes that it will lead to freedom for the captives.
More than 36 hostages have died during the 18-month war in the Gaza Strip, some of them in Israeli airstrikes. Hamas has continued to fight a dogged insurgency against Israel for well over a year despite heavy losses, leaving critics skeptical that the group can be destroyed completely.
Speaking on Saturday night, Mr. Netanyahu hit back at his critics, saying those calling for an end to the war as a way to bring back the hostages were “echoing Hamas propaganda word for word.”
The hard-right Israeli government hopes that the Trump administration will allow them a freer hand in Gaza than the Biden administration, and Mr. Smotrich’s remarks coincided with the official start on Monday of Mike Huckabee’s tenure as ambassador to Israel. He presented his credentials to Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, at a ceremony in Jerusalem.
Mr. Huckabee — one of the United States’ most prominent evangelical leaders — was formerly governor of Arkansas and a Republican presidential hopeful.
A trained Baptist minister, he is also a staunch supporter of the Israeli movement to settle and ultimately annex the West Bank, where millions of Palestinians live under Israeli military occupation.
Mr. Huckabee has said his support for Israel is rooted in his belief that God made a covenant with the Jews in the Old Testament. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Huckabee said in video published by BuzzFeed that “there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian.”
During his confirmation hearings, Mr. Huckabee sought to avoid discussing his previous public positions, saying that he was there to faithfully represent and execute Mr. Trump’s policies.
Settlers nonetheless hope that he will be a voice urging the United States to fully back their hopes to annex the West Bank, which critics say would be a death knell for the internationally backed Palestinian aspiration for statehood.
Ephrat Livni contributed reporting.
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6) An Immigrant Held in U.S. Custody ‘Has Simply Disappeared’
The Venezuelan man does not appear on a list of people sent to a prison in El Salvador, and his family and friends have no idea of his whereabouts.
By Miriam Jordan, April 22, 2025
Miriam Jordan is a national immigration correspondent.
Ricardo Prada Vásquez accidentally turned onto the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit with Canada. He was detained while attempting to re-enter the United States. Credit...Brittany Greeson for The New York Times
In late January, Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a Venezuelan immigrant working in a delivery job in Detroit, picked up an order at a McDonald’s. He was heading to the address when he erroneously turned onto the Ambassador Bridge, which leads to Canada. It is a common mistake even for those who live in the Michigan border city. But for Mr. Prada, 32, it proved fateful.
The U.S. authorities took Mr. Prada into custody when he attempted to re-enter the country; he was put in detention and ordered deported. On March 15, he told a friend in Chicago that he was among a number of detainees housed in Texas who expected to be repatriated to Venezuela.
That evening, the Trump administration flew three planes carrying Venezuelan migrants from the Texas facility to El Salvador, where they have been ever since, locked up in a maximum-security prison and denied contact with the outside world.
But Mr. Prada has not been heard from or seen. He is not on the list of 238 people who were deported to El Salvador that day. He does not appear in the photos and videos released by the authorities of shackled men with shaved heads.
“He has simply disappeared,” said Javier, a friend in Chicago, the last person with whom Mr. Prada had contact. The friend spoke about Mr. Prada on condition that he be identified only by his middle name, out of fear that he too could be targeted by the immigration authorities.
Mr. Prada’s brother, Hugo Prada, who is living in Venezuela, has also been trying to learn what happened. “We know nothing, nothing,” he said.
Mr. Prada’s disappearance has created concerns that more immigrants have been deported to El Salvador than previously known. It also raises the question of whether some deportees may have been sent to other countries with no record of it. The U.S. authorities have confirmed that he was removed from the United States. But to where?
“Ricardo’s story by itself is incredibly tragic — and we don’t know how many Ricardos there are,” said Ben Levey, a staff attorney with the National Immigrant Justice Center who tried to locate Mr. Prada. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ultimately confirmed that he had been deported but did not divulge his destination.
The matter may be a simple oversight, but it has raised alarm among immigrant advocates and legal scholars, who say Mr. Prada’s case suggests a new level of disarray in the immigration system, as officials face pressure to rapidly fulfill President Trump’s pledge of mass deportations. While hundreds of thousands of immigrants have been deported under various administrations in recent years, it is extraordinarily unusual for them to disappear without a legal record.
“This case shocks the conscience,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration scholar at Cornell Law School. “I have not heard of a disappearance like this in my 40-plus years of practicing and teaching immigration law.”
He added, “This case represents a black hole where due process no longer exists.”
The fate of the people sent to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center outside San Salvador has been the subject of an intense legal battle. A federal judge declared the deportations illegal because the men were not afforded due process, and they were ordered returned to the United States. The order that so far has not been fulfilled.
On Saturday, the Supreme Court temporarily barred the Trump administration from deporting another group of Venezuelans under the same wartime law that it had invoked when it transferred migrants to El Salvador last month.
Yet Mr. Prada’s family has no ability to go to court: His name does not appear on the list of people on the flights, nor does it appear anywhere else in the U.S. government’s record-keeping system for immigrants who have been detained or deported. The Venezuelan authorities have also not found any information about him, according to his family.
ICE officials did not immediately respond to requests for information or comment on Mr. Prada’s case.
The New York Times has reviewed immigration court records and traced Mr. Prada’s arrest and transfer to a detention facility in Michigan, as well as his deportation order. He no longer appears on the ICE detainee locator.
Mr. Prada was among tens of thousands of Venezuelans who migrated to the United States in recent years as their country descended into crisis under the government of Nicolás Maduro.
Despite having a few years of college, he did not see a future in Venezuela, his brother Hugo said. Another brother moved to Chile; a sister settled in Peru. Ricardo, the youngest of the four, migrated to Colombia around 2019 and worked as a private security guard.
He and his former partner gave birth to a son, Alessandro, who is now 4. Mother and child returned to Venezuela in 2022, after the couple broke up. Mr. Prada supported his son and spoke with him regularly, according to his mother, Maria Alejandra Vega.
In 2024, Mr. Prada set out for the United States over land.
He was admitted at a port of entry on Nov. 29, 2024, after waiting in Mexico to obtain an appointment through an app, CBP One, which the Biden administration had encouraged migrants to use in order to reduce chaotic crossings at the southern border, and was allowed to stay in the United States while his case was considered.
Mr. Prada joined Javier in Chicago, where he remained for about a little over a month until he decided to move to Detroit, according to his friend.
On Jan. 15, in broad daylight, Mr. Prada found himself on the Ambassador Bridge, on a one-way road that connects Michigan to Ontario. At about 1 p.m., he sent Javier a text with a pin of his location. “Look where I am,” he said in the text shared with the Times. He added an emoji of a shocked face.
When Javier next heard from his friend, Mr. Prada was at the Calhoun County Correctional Center in western Michigan. Using the CBP One app had allowed him to enter the country once, but he did not have permission to enter a second time and was subject to mandatory detention.
The friends stayed in touch, with Javier depositing money into Mr. Prada’s account so he could make calls. An immigration judge granted a postponement on Feb. 3, after Mr. Prada had requested more time to find legal representation. He failed to secure a lawyer, said Javier, and was ordered deported on Feb. 27. He was transferred to an ICE facility in Ohio and then to the El Valle Detention Facility in South Texas.
He managed to call his child, Alessandro, in the early weeks of detention, according to his mother. “Ricardo sounded defeated, sad,” she recalled.
On March 15, Mr. Prada phoned Javier and told him that it appeared that repatriations to Venezuela were imminent and that he might be included.
“I told him, ‘Tranquilo, everything will be OK,’” Javier recalled. “I thought, He’ll be home soon.”
That evening, the federal authorities transferred three planes carrying migrants to El Salvador, with Trump administration officials claiming that the men were members of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal gang.
A Times investigation found little evidence of any criminal history — or any association with the gang — for most of the men.
Mr. Prada had tattoos, but he was not a gang member, according to his family and friends. They assumed that he had been deported to one of several countries where Venezuelan immigrants had been sent in recent months, including Costa Rica, Mexico and Honduras. (Venezuela had not been accepting deportation flights.)
But days went by, and no one heard from Mr. Prada.
When a list of people who had been sent to the prison in El Salvador surfaced, they thought he might be on it. But he was not. (The New York Times and other news organizations obtained the list of immigrants who were on the flights to El Salvador, though that list was never officially published.)
“He fell off the face of the earth,” said Ms. Vega. “It was sheer agony.”
Together and Free, a nonprofit that has been helping families of deportees, searched the publicly accessible ICE database, contacted the detention facility in Texas, checked with the relevant ICE field office and headquarters and scoured inmate lists at jails.
“A lot of people have reached out to us, and we have been able to figure out where their family members are,” said Michelle Brané, executive director of the group. “In this case, we’re stumped.”
Mr. Levey said that he, too, had repeatedly tried to obtain information from ICE. Eventually, he said, an officer told him that Mr. Prada had been deported but refused to share further details, he said.
The Venezuelan authorities have not been able to help, Ms. Vega said.
“We have done everything to find him,” she said. “If he’s in prison, we want to know. We want to know if he is alive.”
Steven Rich contributed reporting.
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7) Mahmoud Khalil’s Wife Gives Birth as ICE Bars Him From Being There
Mr. Khalil, a permanent resident detained in Louisiana, had requested a monitored furlough for the birth. His request was denied in less than an hour.
By Jonah E. Bromwich, April 21, 2025
Dr. Noor Abdalla, wife of Mahmoud Khalil, at her home in New York, last month. She went into labor Sunday. Credit...Shuran Huang for The New York Times
The Department of Homeland Security denied Mahmoud Khalil permission to attend the birth of his first child, who was delivered at a New York hospital on Monday, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times.
Instead, Mr. Khalil experienced the birth by telephone from Jena, La., more than 1,000 miles from the hospital where his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, gave birth to a son. It is unclear when he will be able to see the baby.
Mr. Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the Columbia University campus, has been detained in Louisiana for more than a month. On Sunday morning, shortly after Dr. Abdalla went into labor, Mr. Khalil’s lawyers requested a two-week furlough so that he could attend the birth.
The lawyers proposed several ways for Mr. Khalil, 30, to be monitored. They said he could wear an ankle monitor and make scheduled check-ins.
“A two week furlough in this civil detention matter would be both reasonable and humane so that both parents can be present for the birth of their first child,” the lawyers wrote.
Less than an hour after they made their request, Melissa Harper, the director of the New Orleans field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, denied it. She wrote that the decision had been made “after consideration of the submitted information and a review of your client’s case.”
Mr. Khalil was able to communicate with his wife for some portion of the delivery, said one of his lawyers, Marc Van Der Hout. Dr. Abdalla and the baby, who was born early Monday morning, are both healthy.
“This was a purposeful decision by ICE to make me, Mahmoud, and our son suffer,” Dr. Abdalla said in a statement on Monday, adding, “My son and I should not be navigating his first days on earth without Mahmoud. ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom.”
Mr. Van Der Hout said that he had thought that a furlough might have been possible, given that no one had declared his client to be a danger to community or a flight risk.
“It was definitely just punitive,” he said. “It was an utter lack of humanity.”
Mr. Khalil, he said, was focused on supporting Dr. Abdalla “to the degree he can from detention and soaking in the joy of having a child for the first time, but he’s tremendously disappointed that he can’t be with his wife and baby boy.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It is unclear how often ICE allows furloughs in run-of-the-mill cases, let alone a case like that of Mr. Khalil, where the White House has weighed in.
In March, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, initiated deportation proceedings against Mr. Khalil, invoking a rarely used law that allows the secretary to move against anyone who can reasonably be considered a threat to American foreign policy. Mr. Khalil was arrested in the lobby of his New York apartment building, the first in a spate of high-profile arrests of campus demonstrators by the Trump administration, and his case raises significant questions about free speech and due process during President Trump’s second term.
Mr. Rubio argued in a memo that Mr. Khalil’s presence in the country enabled the spread of antisemitism, and Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, accused Mr. Khalil after his arrest of having “led activities aligned to Hamas.”
Mr. Khalil’s lawyers have denied that, and noted that in public remarks on CNN, Mr. Khalil said that “antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement.” The evidence submitted in his immigration case did not reveal any support for Hamas.
Earlier this month, a Louisiana immigration judge found that Mr. Khalil could be deported on the basis of Mr. Rubio’s memo. But a New Jersey district court judge has barred the government from removing Mr. Khalil from the country while he considers the constitutional issues in the case.
Mr. Khalil’s lawyers have several motions pending before the New Jersey judge, Michael E. Farbiarz. Also on Sunday, they asked Judge Farbiarz to consider a pending request for bail on an expedited basis. The judge declined to rush his decision, but the request is still pending, as is another asking that Mr. Khalil be transferred back to the East Coast.
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8) Protesters Chain Themselves to Columbia Gates, Calling for Activists’ Release
Demonstrators sought the release of Mohsen Mahdawi and Mahmoud Khalil, who organized pro-Palestinian protests and have been taken into ICE custody.
By Anvee Bhutani, April 21, 2025
Students protesting outside the gates to Columbia University, where some temporarily locked themselves to the gates in New York City, on Monday. Credit...Ryan Murphy/Reuters
About 10 demonstrators chained themselves to Columbia University’s campus gates at 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in New York on Monday afternoon, protesting the detention of two Palestinian student activists by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. They were part of a larger contingent that sat down outside the gate.
The protest followed the detention last week of Mohsen Mahdawi, who is finishing undergraduate studies in philosophy at Columbia’s School of General Studies. Mr. Mahdawi was taken into ICE custody during his naturalization appointment in Vermont.
Federal immigration officials detained Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate of the School of International and Public Affairs, last month. Both were organizers of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia.
Demonstrators on Monday called for the immediate release of Mr. Mahdawi and Mr. Khalil. They held signs reading, “Free all our political prisoners” and chanted, “We want justice, you say how? Free Mohsen Mahdawi now!” They also read aloud Mr. Khalil’s writings from the detention center in Jena, La., where he is being held.
A Columbia spokesperson said Monday that the university was “monitoring a disruption” and that its public safety officers had cut the locks of about 10 demonstrators.
“We will follow all applicable policies and procedures for addressing potential violations,” the Columbia spokesperson said. “This small disruption has not impeded the ability of our students to attend classes as normal; all scheduled campus activities have proceeded as planned.”
The New York Police Department said Monday evening that an unspecified number of people had been taken into custody and were being processed. It was unclear what charges they would face. One of those who was detained had been trying to pitch a tent, the police said.
It was the second protest this month in which demonstrators attached themselves to Columbia’s gates.
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9) U.S. Airstrike Hits Yemeni Capital, Killing 12, Local Health Officials Say
Witnesses said an airstrike on Sunday hit a densely populated area adjacent to the Old City in Houthi-dominated Sana.
By Shuaib Almosawa and Vivian Nereim, Published April 21, 2025, Updated April 22, 2025
Shuaib Almosawa reported from Sana, Yemen. and Vivian Nereim from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The remains of a market hit by an airstrike in the Farwah neighborhood in Sana, on Monday. Credit...Associated Press
An American airstrike hit a densely populated area of the Yemeni capital on Sunday, killing 12 people and injuring 30, according to the health ministry of the Houthi-led government.
Two witnesses who live in the capital, Sana, said that the attack struck a neighborhood near the Old City, a densely populated Unesco world heritage site that is filled with ancient towers. One witness, who identified himself only by his first name Yahya, said that a bakery in the Farwah neighborhood had burned down, killing its owner, and that the damage to nearby homes had displaced many people.
A man who identified himself as Yasir described seeing a large crater, and said that he could not imagine what the target could have been in a neighborhood which, he said, is inhabited by “simple people,” many of whom operate grocery stores and sell tobacco.
Both men spoke on the condition of partial anonymity to avoid retribution. The Iran-backed Houthis have ruled northern Yemen with an iron fist since they ousted the internationally recognized government in 2014.
The strike on Sunday appeared to be part of an escalating drive by the Trump administration against the Houthis. The militia has been firing rockets and drones at Israel and attacking ships in the nearby Red Sea, in a campaign that its leaders say is in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Anees Alasbahi, a Houthi health ministry spokesman, said that 12 people were killed and 30 injured in the strike in Farwah. The toll could not be independently verified.
The U.S. defense department, in a written response to questions about the Houthi claims, did not comment on this specific strike, saying only that the United States was targeting “Iran-backed Houthi locations every day and night in Yemen,” with the intention of restoring freedom of navigation and deterring the Houthis from further attacks.
For nearly a decade Yemen has been at war. After the Houthis, a once-scrappy tribal militia, took over the Yemeni capital, the country has been pummeled by a Saudi-led military coalition supplied with American bombs in an effort to defeat the them.
That coalition expected swift victory. Instead, hundreds of thousands of people have died from fighting, hunger and disease. And since the coalition pulled back several years ago, partly because of international pressure, the Houthis have only deepened their grip on power, evolving into a de facto government in northern Yemen.
The Houthis began their latest attacks in late 2023, after Hamas stormed into southern Israel, killing more than 1,000 people and taking hundreds captive, and Israel responded by bombarding Gaza, killing more than 50,000 people so far. The Houthis have described their attacks on ships in particular as an attempt to pressure Israel and outside nations to increase the free flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza, where more than two million Palestinians have struggled to obtain food and water.
The Houthis say they are attacking ships with Israeli or American ties, although many of the targeted vessels have had no clear link to either country.
The United States and Britain began bombarding Houthi targets last year, saying they were attempting to halt the Houthi attacks on shipping and on Israel.
The militia briefly stopped firing rockets at Israel during a two-month cease-fire between Israel and Hamas this year. But after a cease-fire ended in mid-March, Israel renewed its offensive in Gaza and the Houthis resumed firing ballistic missiles at Israeli territory.
The Trump administration began its own campaign of airstrikes in March.
So far the American campaign has not appeared to deter the Houthis. Yemeni scholars who study the group have repeatedly warned that American airstrikes will simply play into the militia’s agenda.
On Monday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a statement that the Houthis had attacked Israel with two drones and attempted to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Red Sea with drones and missiles.
“Dozens of U.S. airstrikes will not deter us from our supportive stance toward the oppressed Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, until the aggression against them stops and the siege is lifted,” Mr. Sarea said.
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10) More Than 180 Academic Leaders Condemn Trump ‘Overreach’
The statement came a day after Harvard University sued the administration over its decision to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding, following the schoo’s refusal to submit to a list of demands.
By Stephanie Saul, April 22, 2025
A day after Harvard sued the Trump administration over its decision to freeze billions in federal funds to the school, more than 180 higher education leaders from around the country released a joint statement on Tuesday condemning the administration’s efforts to control universities.
The government’s “political interference” and “overreach” is “now endangering higher education in America,” they wrote.
The signers come from a variety of colleges and universities from across the country, as well as higher education associations, illustrating the breadth of the threat they say President Trump poses to academia. Joining in the statement were officials from large public research universities like the University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and smaller private colleges such as Amherst and Kenyon.
The statement, circulated by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and signed by a total of 187 people as of Tuesday morning, focuses on concerns that the Trump administration is attacking academic freedom.
“We must oppose undue government intrusion into the lives of those who learn, live and work on our campuses,” the statement said.
Many of the presidents who signed, including Alan M. Garber of Harvard, also face financial risks as a result of the administration’s deep cuts to research contracts and grants. Dr. Garber on Monday said his school had chosen to sue the administration after it issued a list of demands that included auditing its professors for plagiarism and appointing an outside overseer to ensure its departments were “viewpoint diverse.”
Harvard refused to comply with the demands, and the administration said it would freeze $2.2 billion in federal money.
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11) Trump Says Undocumented Immigrants Shouldn’t Get Trials Before Deportation
The president claimed that countries were sending their prisoners to the United States and that he needed to bypass the constitutional demands of due process to expel them quickly.
By Luke Broadwater, Reporting from the White House, April 22, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/us/politics/trump-undocumented-immigrants-trials-deportation.html
“We’re getting them out, and a judge can’t say, ‘No, you have to have a trial,’” President Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
President Trump asserted on Tuesday that undocumented immigrants should not be entitled to trials, insisting that his administration should be able to deport them without appearing before a judge.
The remarks, which he made in the Oval Office in front of reporters, were Mr. Trump’s latest broadside against the judiciary, which he has said is inhibiting his deportation powers. Mr. Trump falsely claimed that countries like Congo and Venezuela had emptied their prisons into the United States and that he therefore needed to bypass the constitutional demands of due process to expel the immigrants quickly.
“I hope we get cooperation from the courts, because we have thousands of people that are ready to go out and you can’t have a trial for all of these people,” Mr. Trump said. “It wasn’t meant. The system wasn’t meant. And we don’t think there’s anything that says that.”
He claimed that the “very bad people” he was removing from the country included killers, drug dealers and the mentally ill.
“We’re getting them out, and a judge can’t say, ‘No, you have to have a trial,’” Mr. Trump said. “The trial is going to take two years. We’re going to have a very dangerous country if we’re not allowed to do what we’re entitled to do.”
He made similar statements in a social media post on Monday in which he wrote, “We cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years.”
Mr. Trump’s remarks have drawn swift backlash.
Representative Jonathan L. Jackson, Democrat of Illinois, wrote on social media: “‘We can’t give everyone a trial' — excuse me, what?! That’s straight-up #dictator talk. Due process isn’t optional because it’s inconvenient. This is the United States, not a banana republic. If you want to shred the Constitution, just say so.”
Mr. Trump’s comments came after the Supreme Court, early on Saturday, temporarily blocked the administration from deporting a group of Venezuelan migrants it accused of being gang members under the expansive powers of a rarely invoked wartime law.
Mr. Trump issued a proclamation last month invoking the Alien Enemies Act as a way to deport immigrants he alleged were members of Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan street gang. The law, which was passed in 1798, has been used only three times before in U.S. history, during periods of declared war.
The Supreme Court has ruled that those subject to the statute needed to be given the opportunity to challenge their removal.
The Trump administration has also been dogged by the case of a Salvadoran man living in Maryland who was deported because of an “administrative error.” The Supreme Court ordered the administration nearly two weeks ago to facilitate his return so he could go through the legal system in the United States, but the White House has so far not fulfilled that order.
The White House posted on social media that the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, was “never coming back.”
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12) Harvard Plans to Use Trump’s Haste Against Him as It Fights Funding Cut
Harvard’s lawyers suggest the administration was sloppy when it froze billions in federal funding. A mundane but crucial law is essential to the university’s case against the government.
By Alan Blinder and Michael C. Bender, April 22, 2025
Harvard University contends that the Trump administration moved too hastily in its move to pull the school’s funding, ignoring its own rules. Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times
In the three months since President Trump returned to power, his administration has prized speed and shock value.
Harvard University is wagering that White House strategy could be used against it.
The 51-page lawsuit the university filed on Monday, intended to fight the administration’s freeze of billions in federal funding, hinges largely on a statute that provides specific timelines for federal agencies to draft rules and impose penalties.
This wonky workhorse of American law, known as the Administrative Procedure Act, has been cited in a majority of lawsuits filed this year against the Trump administration, including complaints seeking to reverse funding reductions to the United States Agency for International Development, local schools and Voice of America.
While Mr. Trump’s strategy has generated headlines, the outcomes of these cases will determine whether that approach will also produce lasting policy victories.
In Harvard’s case, the university is seeking to fend off accusations of discrimination from the administration’s antisemitism task force, a group that was put together to move faster than typical federal civil rights investigators.
The administration preferred to work with Harvard and encouraged the university to “come to the negotiating table in good faith” instead of grandstanding, said Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman. “Harvard is showboating,” Mr. Fields said. “But they know more than anyone that not playing ball is going to hurt their team. They need to be in compliance with federal law in order to get federal funds.”
Harvard turned to the administrative procedure law after facing a crush of government demands that included, among other conditions, audits of its faculty for plagiarism and political views, along with changes to admissions and hiring. The university argues that Washington is seeking to exert unconstitutional sway — and that its effort is defined by sloppiness that blasted past due process.
In some ways, the administration’s zeal for speed has already proven costly. The list of demands emailed to the university on April 11 was sent by mistake, Trump officials have said. But while there have been differing accounts about why the email was mishandled, the demands were so onerous that Harvard officials decided they had no choice but to take on the White House.
Trump officials tried to reopen negotiations in recent days, but Harvard refused. Instead, the university has accused the administration of breaking the law.
“Defendants,” Harvard wrote in the lawsuit, “failed to comply with their own regulations before freezing Harvard’s federal financial assistance.”
In another section, Harvard notes that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which forbids certain kinds of discrimination, requires a detailed process before it can be a basis for freezing money. The Trump administration, Harvard says, did “the precise opposite.”
Elsewhere in its complaint, the university contends that the government’s moves against it were “arbitrary and capricious” and could not be explained, or explained reasonably.
For universities putting up legal fights against the Trump administration, and familiar with deliberative processes that traditionally govern federal grants, the procedure act may be their most essential tool.
In February, the law was the foundation of a challenge to the administration’s effort to change how universities are reimbursed for overhead costs related to National Institutes of Health research. Last week, universities and their industry associations turned to the law again after the Department of Energy sought to cut research funding. Harvard is now embracing much of the same playbook.
But for an administration that has signaled it would like to make an example of a top university — all the better to cow other universities — the deluge of abrupt pressure is part of the point.
To some of the administration’s allies, the government’s haste to curb what it contends is endemic campus antisemitism is a virtue. The federal government’s civil rights investigations are ordinarily long and steeped in procedures and policies that, the administration’s allies contend, can make bad situations worse.
“My greater worry has been with the slowness of investigations, historically, and with the great amount of time in which students are left without recourse or remedy,” Kenneth L. Marcus, the Education Department’s top civil rights official during Mr. Trump’s first term, said in an interview before the administration’s fight with Harvard fully erupted.
Catherine Lhamon, who was assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department during the Obama and Biden administrations, said that the process was too long for prosecuting civil rights violations, particularly when infractions affected students directly. But she added that those were issues for Congress to consider.
“Congress decided at a crucible moment in our nation’s history that there should be federal civil rights protections and a pretty onerous process for the government to say those laws have been violated and federal funds should not be spent,” Ms. Lhamon said. “What we’re seeing now is what Congress was worried about when those principles were written, which is that somebody might try to weaponize these particular protections.”
Harvard has also reached for concepts of American law — like First Amendment protections — that are less about bureaucratic procedures and easier sells in the still-essential court of public opinion.
But even part of Harvard’s First Amendment argument partially relies on the procedure act, which says that an action by a federal agency that runs “contrary to constitutional right, power, privilege, or immunity” is illegal.
“In terms of what Harvard is specifically doing, it is pushing back against agency action, and we have an entire legal framework,” said Osamudia R. James, a professor at the University of North Carolina whose specialties include administrative law.
Harvard officials are hoping that the government’s speedy tactics will steer the case toward a speedy end. The university’s lawsuit asked the Federal District Court in Massachusetts to expedite the case.
So far, Harvard has not requested an interim step, like a preliminary injunction. Although the university has not ruled out seeking some kind of short-term relief, its early approach is a signal that it believes the court may be able to act definitively and quickly on grounds that may not require much spectacle.
To make its case, Harvard has hired a roster of legal heavyweights, many of them with deep experience in Washington and close ties to the conservative establishment.
William A. Burck, who worked in George W. Bush’s White House and now is an outside ethics adviser to Mr. Trump’s company and sits on the Fox Corporation’s board, was the first lawyer listed in the lawsuit. Robert K. Hur, the U.S. attorney in Maryland during Mr. Trump’s first term and later the special counsel who investigated President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s handling of classified documents, came next.
Other lawyers representing Harvard include Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, who was one of Mr. Bush’s Supreme Court litigators; Steven P. Lehotsky, who worked in Mr. Bush’s Justice Department and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia; Mary Elizabeth Miller, who worked for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.; and Katherine C. Yarger, a former clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas.
Jonathan F. Cohn was a deputy assistant attorney general during Mr. Bush’s administration. Scott A. Keller is a former solicitor general in Texas who later worked as chief counsel for Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican.
The outcome of the legal case may be beside the point, Professor James said.
“If you lose ultimately at the court but millions of people now believe that all of these institutions are hotbeds of discrimination, that they don’t provide any benefits to the communities in which they operate, that they don’t produce anything of value,” she said, adding, “that might be a win if you are hostile to higher education institutions.”
Seamus Hughes contributed research.
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13) Trump Wants You to Think Resistance Is Futile. It Is Not.
By Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist, April 23, 2025
Daniele Volpe for The New York Times
The American constitutional system is built on the theory that the self-interest of lawmakers can be as much of a defense against tyranny as any given law or institution.
As James Madison wrote in Federalist 51, “The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.” Our Constitution is nothing more than a “parchment barrier” if not backed by the self-interest and ambition of those tasked with leading the nation.
One of the most striking dynamics in these first months of the second Trump administration was the extent to which so many politicians seemed to lack the ambition to directly challenge the president. There was a sense that the smart path was to embrace the apparent “vibe shift” of the 2024 presidential election and accommodate oneself to the new order.
But events have moved the vibe in the other direction. Ambition is making a comeback.
Last week, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland traveled to El Salvador, where he met with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a victim of the Trump administration’s removal program under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
Under their reading of the law, which allows the president to summarily detain or expel foreign nationals from the United States, the Trump administration has sent hundreds of alleged gang members, most of Venezuelan origin, to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia is one of the men trapped in this black zone. Despite his protected legal status, he was arrested, detained, accused of gang activity and removed from the United States. At no point did the government prove its case against Abrego Garcia, who has been moved to a lower-security prison, nor did he have a chance to defend himself in a court of law or before an immigration judge. As one of Abrego Garcia’s representatives in the United States Senate, Van Hollen met with him to both confirm his safety and highlight the injustice of his removal.
“This case is not just about one man,” Van Hollen said at a news conference following his visit. “It’s about protecting the constitutional rights of everybody who resides in the United States of America. If you deny the constitutional rights of one man, you threaten the constitutional rights and due process for everyone else in America.”
Later, in an interview with CNN, Van Hollen accused the Trump administration of ignoring the Supreme Court, which earlier this month told the White House to comply with a district court order to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return: “Facilitate does not mean you do nothing.” As for the president’s claim that Abrego Garcia is actually a dangerous gang member and so he wasn’t actually removed in error (as the administration acknowledged in a court filing), “What Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject,” Van Hollen said. “The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights.”
The goal of Van Hollen’s journey to El Salvador — during which he was stopped by Salvadoran soldiers and turned away from the prison itself — was to bring attention to Abrego Garcia and invite greater scrutiny of the administration’s removal program and its disregard for due process. It was a success. And that success has inspired other Democrats to make the same trip, in hopes of turning more attention to the administration’s removal program and putting more pressure on the White House to obey the law.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey is reportedly organizing a trip to El Salvador, and a group of House Democrats led by Representative Robert Garcia of California arrived on Monday. “While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Representative Garcia said in a statement. “That is why we’re here, to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”
“We are demanding the Trump administration abide by the Supreme Court decision and give Kilmar and the other migrants mistakenly sent to El Salvador due process in the United States,” Garcia added.
All of this negative attention has had an effect. It’s not just that the president’s overall approval rating has dipped into the low 40s — although it has — but that he’s losing his strong advantage on immigration as well. Fifty percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, according to a recent poll from Quinnipiac University, and a new Reuters poll shows Trump slightly underwater on the issue with a 45 percent approval to 46 percent disapproval.
Americans are even negative on the specifics of the president’s handling of immigration. Most Americans, 82 percent, say the president should follow federal court rulings even when he disagrees with them. A smaller but still significant majority says the president should stop deporting people in defiance of court orders. And Americans are broadly opposed to the deportation of undocumented immigrants who have lived in America for long periods of time, or who have children who are U.S. citizens, or who are law-abiding except for breaking immigration law.
Americans may have liked to hear the president talk tough on immigration, but when it came to real actions affecting real people, they are much less supportive. And in traveling to El Salvador, dramatizing the plight of Abrego Garcia and attacking Trump on the most unpopular aspect of his immigration policies, Democrats like Van Hollen are creating the kinds of negative attention for Trump that could turn more Americans against the president’s immigration policies.
These Democrats are also highlighting the vital importance of political leadership after months during which it seemed to have vanished from liberal politics in the United States. Despite a narrow victory with one of the smallest popular vote margins on record, there was a real sense — as Trump began his second term — that his vision had won America over. The United States was Trump country, and the best anyone could do was to adjust to the new reality.
Many elites and institutions that took a posture of opposition to Trump in his first term looked to cooperate — and in the case of Silicon Valley, even assisted — in his second. Likewise, powerful Democrats abandoned resistance in favor of a more measured, supposedly realistic approach. “It’s just accepting the reality that Trump won. And us just saying he’s a chaotic guy goes nowhere. That’s just baked into people’s consciousness,” Senator Peter Welch of Vermont said in January. “The fact is, people want change. So that means we have to be willing to change as well.” Or, as one unnamed Democratic adviser told Politico just after Trump’s inauguration, “The path to prominence is not in endless resistance headlines.”
Democrats would, in the words of a former administration, lead from behind. They would follow the public’s outrage if and when it materialized. Otherwise, they would work with the administration when it made sense. They might even hand him a little bipartisan success. As Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania put it in a January interview with ABC News, “the Republicans are going to drive the agenda, and I’m going to find a way to work together along on all of those kinds of priorities.”
This approach would make some kind of sense if Trump were a normal president in pursuit of a normal, albeit conservative, political agenda.
But Trump is not a normal president. And it’s hard to say that he aspires to be a president at all, if by president we mean an executive officer, bounded by the law, who serves ultimately at the pleasure of the American people. No, Trump wants to be a strongman. The undisputed leader of a personalist autocracy where no other institution — no other power — can meaningfully oppose him or his designs. Recall his promise to be “a dictator on day one.” Perhaps he means day 100 and beyond, too.
Cooperation with a leader of this ilk is little more than appeasement. It is little more than a license for him to go faster and push further — to sprint toward the consolidated authoritarian government of Trump’s dreams (and those, especially, of his most reactionary allies and advisers with their eyes on Hungary, Turkey and even Russia and China).
The individuals and institutions inclined to work with Trump thought they would stabilize the political situation. Instead, the main effect of going along to get along was to do the opposite — to give the White House the space it needed to pursue its most maximalist aims.
But all the while there was real weakness. There were the tens of millions of Americans who voted against Trump, still opposed him and remained dismayed by his lawless cruelty. There was the clear disorganization of the Trump administration, the fact that it was split between rival power centers and that Trump did not, in the four years between his first and second terms, become more able or adept at managing the executive branch. He looked exclusively for loyalty, and the result — following his initial blitz of executive orders — was haphazard incompetence across a number of different fronts.
For as much as Trump tried to project himself as an unstoppable force, the truth was that he was as vulnerable as he’s ever been. All it took was real political leadership to demonstrate the extent to which the Trump White House was more of a paper tiger than it may have looked at first glance.
It helped that the White House overplayed its hand again and again. When institutions like Columbia University effectively surrendered to the administration, they did not buy themselves grace as much as they were forced into Trump’s service as agents of his will. There would be no bargaining. There was no deal you could cut to save your Cloud City. You could either submit or resist.
It is in the last two months that we have finally begun to see resistance. Ordinary people began boycotts and took to the streets in large protests. Lawyers challenged the administration on virtually every one of the president’s illegal and unconstitutional executive orders. And Democrats began to tap into and amplify grass roots anti-Trump energy, from the anti-oligarchy rallies of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Booker’s record-breaking speech on the Senate floor. The courts have clearly taken note of the shift in public sentiment, delivering major defeats and decrying the president’s attacks on cherished American liberties.
The Trump administration is still pushing to realize its vision — and high-profile prisoners like Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk still face deportation — but the administration is no longer on a glide path to success. It could even careen toward failure. By exercising political leadership, by acting like an opposition, both lawmakers and ordinary citizens have turned smooth sailing into rough waters for the administration. And while there is still much to do — Abrego Garcia has not been released, there are reports that the administration has sent at least one detainee to Rwanda, and there is also at least one person who is missing from all records — it’s also true that Trump and his people are not an unstoppable force.
Trump wants us to be demoralized. He wants his despotic plans to be a fait accompli. They will be, if no one stands in the way. But every time we — and especially those with power and authority — make ourselves into obstacles, we also make it a little less likely that the administration’s authoritarian fantasy becomes our reality.
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