Bay Area: All Out for Nakba 77 - The People Stand with Palestine
Saturday, May 17th, 2:30 pm
16th and Valencia Streets
Join the JVP-Bay Area contingent at 2:15 pm at 17th and Valencia. Look for the banner that says “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel”.
For 77 years, the Palestinian people have been subjected to occupation, forced displacement and ethnic cleansing under Israeli settler colonialism. Israel, with the support of the United States, is committing genocide in Gaza, using starvation as a weapon in addition to brutal military force. No humanitarian aid has been allowed into Gaza since March 2, 2025. Israel is also escalating its repression and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
Despite this, the Palestinian people continue to resist all attempts to displace them and insist on the right to their land, their liberation and their return.
It is more important than ever that on this 77th anniversary of the ongoing Nakba, all those with a conscience make it a priority to say loudly and clearly: THE PEOPLE STAND WITH PALESTINE, and to lift up these demands:Rallies will be taking place throughout the world.
- An end to the genocide in Gaza;
- A full and immediate two-way arms embargo on Israel;
- The release of all Palestinian political prisoners;
- Immediate humanitarian aid and reconstruction for Gaza;
- An end to the Zionist occupation of all Palestinian land.
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FWD from Leslie London (professor of public health at University of Cape Town):
Dear friends and colleagues
We write as academics, scientists and researchers in the health sector who have experienced the shutting down of our efforts to address the genocide in Gaza by our own professional organisations.
Many of you will have similar experiences of being blocked when trying to get your professional organisations to respond appropriately to the decimation in Gaza and the complete abnegation of professional solidarity in the face of the destruction of the Gazan health system and attacks on health workers.
We felt that one thing we could do is get together with like minded defenders of human rights to share experiences and explore across organisations what strategies could be useful to help stop the genocide and protect the people, the environment and what is left of the health care system in Gaza.
We are not organising this in the name of any organisation but rather as a loose network of individuals who have tried hard in our own organisation, without evident success, and we now feel that learning, sharing and building solidarity with others in similar situations might be the strongest strategy now.
We are therefore inviting you to a Webinar we will be hosting on the 19th at 5pm CET to explore how health professional organisations’ responses have failed Gaza and what can be done when your organisation turns a blind eye to Injustice.
Please circulate to those you feel would value such a discussion.
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May 25th
TO MARK THE 5th ANNIVERSARY OF GEORGE FLOYD'S MURDER & OPPOSE TRUMP'S ANTI-GEORGE FLOYD ACT EXECUTIVE ORDER
On April 28th, 2025, Donald Trump signed the so-called “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens” Executive Order (EO) into law, signifying a continued push towards the expansion of the police and prison state. This EO is the Trump administration’s attempt to undo any and all restraints put on police departments after the George Floyd rebellion. It is the Anti-George Floyd Policing Act. The EO gives police carte blanche to double down on their crimes against the people along with expanding prisons. We knew Trump’s return to office would embolden racist and repressive policing. This EO makes it plain.
George Floyd was murdered by racist killer cop Derek Chauvin on May 25th, 2020. Following his murder, the Minneapolis community, including our National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) branch, the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice, quickly mobilized and sparked a fire that led to millions hitting the streets worldwide to fight for justice for George Floyd and all victims of police terror. NAARPR played a conscious role in all cities where we have branches and affiliate organizations present in advancing the struggle on the streets. Five years later, we have experienced the failures of the previous presidential administration in passing any substantial police accountability measures. Now under Trump and his new EO, we see the forces of police terror seeking to advance their agenda at the expense of the voice of the people.
We call on all NAARPR branches, affiliate organizations to take action and unite with as many forces as possible on the 5 year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder to fight back against Trump’s anti-George Floyd executive order. We call on all strains of the people’s movement to unite and fight against Trump’s police and prison state agenda along with the local struggles with the families of police crime victims. Only through uniting with all who can be united, can we build a united front to win community control of the police and make advancements towards ending police terror.
All out for May 25th!
Justice for George Floyd and all victims of police terror!
Rescind Trump’s police and prison state Executive Order!
Pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act!
Community Control of the police now!
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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) White South Africans Granted Refugee Status by Trump: What We Know
The first group of Afrikaners have arrived in the United States, claiming they were victims of persecution or had reason to fear persecution in their home country.
By The New York Times, May 13, 2025
"'Farmers are being killed,' he told reporters. 'They happen to be white. Whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me. White farmers are being brutally killed and the land is being confiscated in South Africa.' Police data do not support that narrative, showing that killings on farms are rare and that the victims are mostly Black."
https://www.nytimes.com/article/afrikaner-refugees-trump-south-africa.html
Newly arrived South Africans listen to Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar deliver welcome statements, near Washington Dulles International Airport, on Monday. Credit...Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Trump signed an executive order in February establishing refugee status for Afrikaners, the white ethnic minority in South Africa that created and led the brutal system of apartheid.
As part of the executive order, the Trump administration created an expedited path for Afrikaners to resettle in the United States, even as the administration has barred most refugees from countries afflicted by war and famine.
While waiting at the airport in Johannesburg, the passengers said the U.S. Embassy had instructed them not to speak with the news media. The first group of Afrikaners arrived in the United States on May 12.
Who are the Afrikaners?
The Afrikaners who arrived in the United States on Monday are the descendants of the European colonizers who came to South Africa approximately four centuries ago. They later created the brutal system of apartheid in 1948.
Decades after the end of apartheid, some Afrikaners now say they are being denied jobs and have been targeted by violence because of their race.
“No white person in their right mind would stay in this country,” said Jaco van der Merwe, 52, an Afrikaner living in Johannesburg. “I believe South Africa is finished.”
Forty-nine Afrikaners — including parents and children — boarded a flight in Johannesburg to the United States on Sunday night, according to a spokesman for South Africa’s airport authority.
The U.S. State Department said in March that it had received 8,000 inquiries from people seeking information about the refugee program. It is unclear if the U.S. government will admit more families.
Organizations such as the Amerikaners have been set up to help “support disenfranchised South Africans seeking a new future in the United States.” Some leading Afrikaner activists say they would prefer Mr. Trump help their cause at home rather than offer refugee status in the United States.
What does land have to do with it?
Much of the discontent among Afrikaners centers on their experience in rural communities and frustration over land ownership.
Many Afrikaners farm to make a living. During apartheid, the government denied Black South Africans the right to own prime agricultural land. That meant that almost all of the country’s large-scale commercial farms were white-owned enterprises. This remains true today.
Although white South Africans make up only 7 percent of the population, they own farmland that covers about half the country. The South African government has tried to address this inequality with various land reform programs, including the recent Expropriation Act, which allows the government to acquire privately owned land in the public interest without providing compensation to the owner.
When Mr. Trump signed the executive order announcing his plans to resettle “Afrikaner refugees,” he said it was because the South African government had created a system that “racially disfavored landowners.”
Why are Afrikaners being granted refugee status?
Refugees can often wait years before they are processed and approved to travel to the United States. The Afrikaners who arrived on Monday had to wait no more than three months.
The president has equated efforts by the South African government to undo racial inequalities to anti-white discrimination. He said on Monday that the Afrikaners were victims of a “genocide.”
“Farmers are being killed,” he told reporters. “They happen to be white. Whether they are white or Black makes no difference to me. White farmers are being brutally killed and the land is being confiscated in South Africa.”
Police data do not support that narrative, showing that killings on farms are rare and that the victims are mostly Black.
South African officials have described the administration’s moves as politically motivated. Mr. Trump has criticized the South African government for its ties to Iran and for bringing a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice over the war in Gaza.
“It is most regrettable that it appears that the resettlement of South Africans to the United States under the guise of being ‘refugees’ is entirely politically motivated and designed to question South Africa’s constitutional democracy,” Chrispin Phiri, a spokesman for the South African government, said in a statement.
How will they be resettled in the United States?
Mr. Trump said on Monday the United States would grant citizenship to the Afrikaners.
The administration plans to rely on a refugee office in the Department of Health and Human Services to assist with resettlement. The office has reached out to refugee organizations in recent days to prepare for the arrival of the Afrikaners, according to a department memo obtained by The New York Times.
According to the memo, the administration will help the Afrikaners find “temporary or longer-term housing” and “basic home furnishings, essential household items and cleaning supplies.”
The administration is also planning to help the Afrikaners secure “groceries, weather-appropriate clothing, diapers, formula, hygiene products and prepaid phones that support the day-to-day well-being of households,” the memo said.
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2) Workers vs. Capitalism
Some ideas on how to change the balance of power
By Bonnie Weinstein
https://socialistviewpoint.org
Photo of the bombing of Dresden—a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, at the end of World War II, from February 13, 1945 - February 15, 1945. The war officially ended on September 2, 1945.
“There are decades where nothing happens; and then weeks where decades happen.” —Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
On April 5, 2025, millions of people took to the streets in major cities and small towns across the country and in other countries around the world in opposition to the Trump/Musk assault on democracy. Many of the demonstrators also expressed opposition to the U.S./Israeli genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
Everyday Trump and Musk bombard us with ever-more racist, bigoted, anti-worker, anti-free speech, pro-genocide edicts.
It is now against the law, according to Trump, to speak or organize actions critical of Israel. Any criticism of Israel, he says, is antisemitic, unlawful, terrorist and pro-Hamas—especially on college campuses.1
The truly horrifying thing is that many universities, newspapers, news programs and employers are caving in to Trumps dismantling of civil and human rights including the democratic rights to free speech, assembly and protest.
Even worse, on April 3, 2023, the Trump administration, in an amazing, jaw-dropping edict—threatened to withhold funds from public schools that have not eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. 2
At the same time, the Trump administration has granted refugee status to pro-apartheid Afrikaners in South Africa even though, according to the New York Times, “…white people make up seven percent of the country’s population, [but] they own at least half of South Africa’s land.”3
Cold is hot and hot is cold
The American people are opposed to these attacks against people of color, immigrants, women, the LBGTQ community, unions, all working people and the poor, and the environment.
They are also opposed to the ever-increasing prices on all basic necessities—food, housing, healthcare, utilities, and education. And now, Trump’s punishing tariffs will drive even higher price-increases for the foreseeable future.
It’s clear to everyone that every time Trump or Musk speaks, they turn everything on its head in astonishing ways, like speaking fiercely about the need to fight racism against white people. And declaring that any student—or person—who criticizes Israel is a terrorist and will be deported or jailed. It’s like claiming that the whistling tea kettle is cold as ice.
Meanwhile, the members of the American ruling class are vying for his favors. He is not being challenged. He is being obeyed. Columbia University has caved in to Trump’s demands. 4
Fighting the Trump/Musk
new world order
Trump, the primary representative of the American capitalist class, is conducting a grand experiment devised by billionaires to see how far he can go carrying his fascist banner.
Trump sent J.D. Vance to Germany in February to encourage the German government to embrace the far-right, pro-Nazi party, Alternative for Germany. 5
All over the world the right wing of the capitalist class is advancing into power while the so-called more liberal governments are moving further and further to the right in competition with them.
Working class youth are leading the way against capitalism’s right-turn toward fascism
While there have been massive protests against the Trump/Musk agenda of genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and the all-out assault on human rights and free speech and assembly at home, the youth have begun to discuss forming their own, independent organizations to fight against the U.S./Israeli war on Gaza, the ICE raids and the assault on free speech and assembly.
The TV news here in the Bay Area have been reporting about local student walkouts protesting ICE from coming into their schools and to their parents’ places of work.
Many of these kids are immigrants or children of immigrants.
Their fear is real—they fear they will come home to an empty house because their parents have been taken by ICE, or that ICE will come and take them from their school.
But they are very bravely fighting back and not backing down. They have been extremely articulate critics of the Trump/Musk ultra-right agenda.
One day in mid-February in the Bay Area, as reported on TV news, children from multiple schools walked out spontaneously in protest of ICE raids. In the midst of the walkout, the students from the different schools found out about each other over social media and began texting each other. They arranged to meet up and join together for an impromptu rally.
These students were protesting against much more than ICE raids. To them, the whole system is against them!
Some of the kids who met up from the different schools spoke to reporters on the scene. They spoke about trying to encourage everyone to join together to build a united movement for immigrant rights and free speech at all their schools.
One cluster of kids interviewed said they wanted to organize their own political organizations independent of both major parties in time for the next presidential elections.
Even those far too young to vote had strong opinions in opposition to both the Democratic and Republican parties.
In fact, one young woman said she would not make the same mistake as her mom and would not support either party in the next presidential election. She said she’s hoping that a new, independent party will be formed that represents her and her friends.
The kids have the right idea!
An attack against one is an attack against all
Millions have been protesting the Trump/Musk swift move toward fascist rule because it is impacting and causing hardships, in every way, for the overwhelming majority of workers and the poor—not just here in the U.S.—but everywhere. Leaders of nations across the world are modeling themselves after Trump and Musk—moving further and further to the right and against the working class.
Organizing workers’ power
The intent of the Trump/Musk bold assaults against the working class—deportations, arrests, firings, raising prices on everything, imposing tariffs on imported goods, cutting aid to the neediest—serve the dual purpose of scaring us into submission while increasing profits for themselves.
Workers are told that what’s good for American businesses is good for us—that when the stock market goes up—it’s good for American workers—because many of us own stocks through pension and retirement plans. What they don’t tell us is that ten percent of Americans—the wealthy elite—own 93 percent of those stocks.6
The only way to combat their fascist agenda is to refuse to submit en masse to their bullying campaign. And that will take working-class unity, solidarity and independence from capitalist parties and politicians.
It requires the formation of independent, mass-based united front coalitions against the Trump/Musk anti-worker, anti-humanity, anti-environment agenda—the agenda of the American capitalist class.
Some people still seem to be waiting around for the Democratic Party to do something—but they are doing less than nothing—they are voting Trump’s way.
Organized labor must break with the Democratic and Republican parties and start organizing independently of all capitalist parties and boldly take up the banner of all who are under attack by the U.S. government.
The labor aristocracy is silent
Clearly, the organized labor aristocracy is not taking any leadership role in opposition to Trump at the present time. They are still wallowing in the morass of the Democratic Party that is, in fact, moving further and further to the right.
They have not yet come to terms with the rug being pulled out from under them by the Democratic and Republican competing parties for capitalist rule.
Some union leaders are even groveling for the good graces of Trump instead of organizing defiance of the Trump/Musk agenda!
Begging for crumbs from the Trump administration or any capitalist administration, in the name of labor, is a vast betrayal of all workers.
The current partnership that the labor aristocracy has with capitalism—when the union leaders sit down with the bosses at the bargaining table and try to come up with some agreement as to how much of a cut the boss can get away with—is a partnership with the devil.
You can’t bargain with someone who’s out to get you. As long as labor continues to partner with the bosses, we are freely turning our power over to them.
A new leadership has to emerge who will break this corrupt partnership, take the power into our hands and organize our own defense for the benefit of all workers—the capitalists don’t need our help.
There’s real power when workers stop being silent and take the lead
Workers, organizing together, have the power to end deportations, the U.S./Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people, and the administration’s overall attack on the poor and working class.
Ultimately, taking the means of production into our own hands—controlling our own destiny—is the only way to end the atrocities of capitalism.
Anti-labor laws
We can strike. We can walk off the job or occupy the worksite until our demands are met industry-by-industry or job-by-job—but it’s illegal under U.S, capitalist law for one union to go out on strike in sympathy of another union’s demands—even though those demands could benefit them as well.
We must find a way around this and other anti-labor laws because these laws can get us arrested, fired from our jobs or even killed for standing in solidarity with our fellow workers.
The labor laws fortify capitalism’s control over workers by outlawing labor solidarity—the general strike—the ultimate power the working-class majority has over the capitalist minority.
Organizing against anti-union,
anti-worker laws
Say, you’re a union painter and you show up one morning to the job and you see a plumber’s picket line around the building. The plumbers, your fellow workers, are on strike—and for good reason—but you have to cross the picket line or be fired.
The law, drawn up by capitalist lawyers and on their behalf, says the boss has the right to fire you if you refuse to cross a picket-line in support of a strike by workers from another union.
This means that the whole working class has to put our heads together to form democratically functioning organizations that can consolidate our power into a force strong enough to defend worker’s rights and defeat capitalism’s descent into fascist rule and, ultimately, back to barbarism.
The general strike
The general strike—workers everywhere walking off the job together nationally and internationally—may be against the law, but it’s the ultimate and unbeatable challenge to capitalist rule.
With the full participation of the masses of the workers, the general strike can overturn the balance of power from rule in the interests of the minority to rule in the interests of the majority.
As it stands now, if one person refuses to cross a picket-line, they are powerless against getting fired. If everyone refuses to cross the picket-line, no one works, and no profits are created for the capitalists to steal.
Mass, general strikes are a direct challenge to capitalist rule. By organizing, carrying out, and winning a general strike, the working class displays the power we have to control our own destiny.
Strategizing our road to victory
I had been pondering what steps could be taken to build steppingstones to the general strike—what kind of organization would be needed to build toward such a challenge to capitalist rule—and I was reminded of an article we printed in 2006, by a UAW autoworker, Gregg Shotwell. Gregg was a member of a group within the union called Soldiers of Solidarity that carried out a very unique tactic during negotiations for a new contract. They slowed down production at their jobsite by following each and every safety rule on the books. They called it, “work to rule.7” And they won a good contract.
I began to contemplate how that tactic could be used to organize resistance to Trump and Musk’s creeping fascist agenda at the workplace—actually slowing down production in protest of their agenda—without endangering the livelihoods of the workers on the job.
While it’s against the law for one union to go out on strike in support of another union, it is not against the law to encourage all workers to abide by all the safety rules on their job. Safety rules are there to protect workers and the public from harm.
In the real world, workers are routinely forced to ignore safety rules to keep up with the bosse’s constant pressure to speed up production. The boss doesn’t care if there’s an accident, they can simply blame it on the worker for not obeying some rule or another. The boss is off the hook and the worker pays—sometimes with their life.
Now, let’s say that the theoretical painter, referred to above, who didn’t want to cross the plumber’s picket line was the Painters Union representative on the job. What, if he spoke to his crew and instructed them to take extra care to follow all safety rules on the job until the plumber’s strike was satisfactorily settled? Then what if they encouraged all the other workers on the job to do the same?
There’s nothing illegal about it. Workers can’t be fired or punished for following the rules. And it has the potential to add much more weight and encouragement to the plumber’s strike—ultimately leading them to victory—and reinforcing solidarity and pride and power among all the other workers involved.
Slowing down production as a prequel to the general strike
The boss knows that strictly abiding by all the safety rules certainly does slow down production.
But not only is it totally legal to insist that workers abide by all the safety rules—it’s required! And it’s required on virtually all jobs—union and non-union, in service, office or industry, in every state and in most countries across the world.
Shotwell reminds us that “work to rule,” has been used as a form of resistance by workers and slaves throughout history.
It is empowering. It encourages unity and solidarity and empathy with each other. It builds confidence in the working class. It builds workers up and diminishes the power of the bosses. It fills workers with the realization that actions taken on behalf of workers, in unity and solidarity, gives us real power over the bosses.
Today’s labor unions could use this as a powerful tool to organize the unorganized while at the same time defending workers who are under attack from the fascist agenda of the capitalist class on the job, in our communities and in our schools.
Working to the rules is another way of hitting the capitalist class where it hurts the most—in their profit margins.
It fortifies our power and diminishes the power the capitalist class has over us.
It could be a prequel to a national and international general strike of the entire working class—one that can actually challenge the power of capitalist minority rule everywhere and win!
Actions such as strikes, work to rule, and cutting all ties to the Democratic and Republican parties—and all capitalist parties—are what the labor movement must begin to organize on a mass scale.
It is a fact that the masses of humanity—workers, employed and unemployed and their class allies—outnumber the capitalist class by more than billions-to-one.
We have much more in common among ourselves than we have with members of the capitalist class.
They comprise less than .01 percent of humanity yet claim ownership to all the wealth produced by the working people of the world. They own the corporations, businesses, military manufacturers—they own all the means of production in virtually every country—and every penny of that profit is stolen from labor.
Trump is running the country like it’s a business. And businesses are the oxymoron of democracy—they are rule from the top.
Every worker knows this. The boss is the boss! They will pay you as little as they can get away with.
The American capitalist class controls and dominates the wealth of the world. It has the most massive military power. They carry out, and financially support, bombings and genocide while at the same time, taking advantage of the strife they have created in order to bargain for the ownership of natural resources—or, as a last resort—forcefully take them from countries around the world.
The capitalists employ fascist repression when their system is in danger of collapse. They employ any and all means necessary to destroy resistance to their rule including paramilitary forces and the threat of death.
But every worker must learn, too, that it is we who have power to do away with capitalism and take the ownership and control of production into our own hands and for the good of all.
Leave it to the youth
And here’s where the kids were so prescient. They have learned that united together in unity and solidarity for freedom, justice and equality they have the power to create a new world. That conclusion is logical to them. What they have witnessed in their short lives has not frightened them, it has empowered them into action on their own behalf and on behalf of all of us.
These are the weeks where decades happen
Workers, young and old, planning production democratically can free humanity from the tyranny of capitalism’s for-profit production methods that wastes precious resources and pollutes the environment—all in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
We are living in a critical time—time to take the weapons of death out of the hands of the capitalist class and dismantle them so they can never be used again. And we must use every means available to us in order to win.
If workers become the boss—the collective owners of the means of production—we can produce to satisfy the needs and wants of all and bring an end to war forever.
Our collective profit will be the well-being of all and the health of the planet we share.
1 “California international students on alert as Trump ramps up arrests of pro-Palestinian activists”
2 “Trump Administration Threatens to Withhold Funds From Public Schools”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/03/us/politics/public-school-funding-trump-dei.html
3 “Trump Tries to Use White South Africans as Cautionary Tale”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/15/world/africa/south-africa-whites-trump.html
4 “Columbia Agrees to Trump’s Demands After Federal Funds Are Stripped”
5 “German Chancellor Rebukes Vance for Supporting Party That Downplays Nazis”
6 “Stock Ownership Is What Really Divides Americans”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/12/opinion/stock-market-tariffs.html
7 “Workers Will Rule When They Work to Rule” elsewhere in this magazine.
8 “Stock Ownership Is What Really Divides Americans”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/12/opinion/stock-market-tariffs.html
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3) Newsom Proposes Scaling Back Health Care for Undocumented Immigrants in California
Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to charge monthly premiums for undocumented immigrants and prevent new enrollees in the program as soon as January.
By Laurel Rosenhall, Reporting from Sacramento, May 14, 2025
Gov. Gavin Newsom will propose curtailing health care benefits for undocumented immigrants as part of his budget proposal on Wednesday. Credit...Andri Tambunan for The New York Times
Gov. Gavin Newsom will call Wednesday for California to scale back health care for undocumented immigrants to help balance the state budget, retrenching on his desire to deliver “universal health care for all.”
The move comes days after the Trump administration targeted a different state-funded program for immigrants in California and signaled that it would continue to scrutinize benefits for undocumented individuals.
In a budget presentation on Wednesday, Mr. Newsom will propose freezing enrollment of undocumented adults in the state’s version of Medicaid, known as Medi-Cal, as soon as January. He also will seek to charge those who remain in the program $100 a month beginning in 2027. The governor estimates that the changes combined would save the state $5.4 billion by fiscal year 2028-29.
The cuts come as the Trump administration is using its federal powers to pressure Democratic-led states to eliminate benefits for undocumented immigrants. As she targeted a California cash aid program, Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said Monday, “If you are an illegal immigrant, you should leave now. The gravy train is over.”
California faces a budget deficit this year because of stock market and economic volatility, as well as the potential for the federal government to curtail funding to states.
Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, blamed California’s shortfall partly on a projected $16 billion drop in tax revenues resulting from President Trump’s turbulent trade wars, saying the tariffs have weakened the state’s economy. He began referring to the impacts as a “Trump Slump.”
But it has been clear for months that California’s Medi-Cal program has been spending billions more than expected, raising questions about whether the state can afford to continue its progressive ambitions.
Providing health care to undocumented immigrants has turned out to cost billions of dollars more than California leaders anticipated when they made Medi-Cal available last year to all low-income residents, regardless of immigration status.
California Democrats have been driven by a belief that providing health care to the poor is a moral imperative, as well as more cost effective than immigrants relying on emergency room visits for standard treatment. Under federal law, undocumented immigrants are entitled to emergency care but not Medicaid benefits.
Mr. Newsom faced a conundrum in trying to rein in Medi-Cal costs. He could either reduce benefits to all recipients, including citizens; focus on cutting immigrant benefits; or pursue some combination of both. His proposal will now be considered by state lawmakers, who must pass a budget next month.
“The state must take difficult but necessary steps to ensure fiscal stability and preserve the long-term viability of Medi-Cal for all Californians,” Mr. Newsom’s office said in a statement.
Coverage for undocumented immigrants is not the only reason the Medi-Cal budget is running a deficit. Prescription drugs have cost more than expected, and more seniors have enrolled than the state projected.
But the cost of insuring undocumented immigrants has been a significant factor in the budget. And it has become a particularly sensitive issue for Democrats in California because of President Trump’s focus on deportations and the electorate’s interest in scaling back illegal immigration.
Medi-Cal benefits for undocumented immigrants have cost the state at least $2.7 billion beyond the $6.4 billion the state anticipated last year. More undocumented immigrants signed up for Medi-Cal than expected, and the costs for their prescriptions were higher than projected.
“There was so much fanfare around the 2024 expansion to the 26-to-49 age group,” said Paulette Cha, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. “This was extremely well publicized.”
While Democrats see the large enrollment numbers as a mark of success in their aim to insure all residents, Republicans see it as a sign that California is too generous.
As the nation emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic, public support grew for providing coverage to undocumented immigrants. When lawmakers passed an expansion in 2021, 66 percent of Californians favored providing health care to the state’s undocumented residents, according to a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California.
But by 2023, PPIC’s surveys showed, support had dipped to 55 percent.
A poll this month by the Institute for Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, found that Californians prioritized covering undocumented children over undocumented adults.
“California obviously did a really big, bold experiment,” Ms. Cha said.
Other Democratic-run states that want to cover undocumented immigrants may look to its experience, Ms. Cha said, and think that “maybe we’ll just try to be a little bit more cautious on budgeting.”
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4) Wisconsin Judge Indicted on Charges That She Helped Immigrant Evade Agents
Judge Hannah C. Dugan was accused of helping an undocumented immigrant elude federal agents who were waiting to arrest him outside her courtroom.
By Mitch Smith and Dan Simmons, Dan Simmons reported from Milwaukee, May 13, 2025
Judge Hannah C. Dugan of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court speaking at a rally in Milwaukee in February. Credit...Lee Matz/Milwaukee Independent, via Associated Press
The Wisconsin judge arrested last month and accused of helping an undocumented immigrant evade federal agents was indicted by a federal grand jury on Tuesday on charges of concealing a person from arrest and obstruction of proceedings.
The indictment of the judge, Hannah C. Dugan of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, was a routine but significant step in the Justice Department’s case against her. The Trump administration has defended the prosecution as a warning that no one is above the law, while many Democrats, lawyers and former judges have denounced it as an assault on the judiciary.
Judge Dugan, who has been temporarily removed from the bench by the Wisconsin Supreme Court while the case against her advances, has indicated through a lawyer that she intends to fight the charges. She is expected to appear in court on Thursday.
“Judge Hannah C. Dugan has committed herself to the rule of law and the principles of due process for her entire career as a lawyer and a judge,” her lawyers said in a statement shortly after she was arrested. They added on Tuesday that “Judge Dugan asserts her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court.”
The indictment was announced during a short hearing on Tuesday evening at the federal courthouse in downtown Milwaukee. After 20 members of a grand jury entered a wood-paneled courtroom and took their seats, a judge examined paperwork and indicated that Judge Dugan, along with other defendants in unrelated cases, had been indicted.
Judge Dugan’s transformation from a little-known local jurist to a face of the national immigration debate began on April 18 with a pretrial hearing in a domestic abuse case against Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican immigrant.
Several federal officials from different agencies had gathered in the hallway outside Judge Dugan’s courtroom and had planned to arrest Mr. Flores-Ruiz, who they said was in the country illegally, after his court appearance. The federal agents had told courthouse security officers and the judge’s courtroom deputy about their plans, according to an F.B.I. charging document.
When Judge Dugan became aware of the federal agents, the charging document said, she became “visibly upset and had a confrontational, angry demeanor.” According to the criminal complaint, the judge confronted the agents and told them to talk to the chief judge of the courthouse. She then returned to her courtroom and, according to the charging document, directed Mr. Flores-Ruiz through a different exit than the public door that led to the hallway where agents were waiting.
“Despite having been advised of the administrative warrant for the arrest of Flores-Ruiz, Judge Dugan then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse,” according to the complaint, which was written by an F.B.I. agent.
Mr. Flores-Ruiz made it outside the courthouse, the charging document said, where a Drug Enforcement Administration agent spotted him. Agents approached him on the street outside the courthouse. “A foot chase ensued,” the complaint said. “The agents pursued Flores-Ruiz for the entire length of the courthouse” before catching and arresting him, the complaint said. Federal agents said Mr. Flores-Ruiz was removed from the United States in 2013 and that there was no record of him seeking or receiving permission to return.
Judge Dugan was arrested and charged with obstructing a proceeding of a federal agency, and concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest.
The arrest of the judge marked an escalation of the Trump administration’s warnings that local officials must not impede federal efforts to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Attorney General Pam Bondi and other administration officials have defended the case against Judge Dugan.
“It doesn’t matter what line of work you are in, if you break the law, we will follow the facts and we will prosecute you,” Ms. Bondi said in a video.
Elected Democrats in Wisconsin and beyond have criticized the case against the judge and accused prosecutors of politicizing the situation. And earlier this month, more than 150 former state and federal judges signed a letter to Ms. Bondi calling the arrest of Judge Dugan an attempt to intimidate the judiciary.
“This cynical effort undermines the rule of law,” that letter said, “and destroys the trust the American people have in the nation’s judges to administer justice in the courtrooms and in the halls of justice across the land.”
Julie Bosman contributed reporting.
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5) Hawaii’s Prized Kona Coffee Fields Have Become a Target for ICE
The Trump crackdown has reached the volcanic Island of Hawaii, where immigrants, some of them undocumented, are crucial to cultivating the rare coffee.
By Miriam Jordan, Photographs by Michelle Mishina Kunz, May 14, 2025
Miriam Jordan reported from the Island of Hawaii.
On the mist-wreathed slopes of Mauna Loa, where the earth is rich with volcanic memory and the Pacific glimmers in the distance, a coveted coffee — Kona — is coaxed from the soil.
Nurtured by the Island of Hawaii’s unique mingling of abundant sunshine, afternoon rain and lava-infused soil, Kona coffee retails for more than $30 for an eight-ounce bag. With a devoted following around the world, the distinct coffee has been a point of pride for the Big Island, and for the thousands of immigrants from Latin America who for decades have handpicked the beans in the Kona fields.
Now the fate of many of those immigrant workers is uncertain, as is the future of the island’s coffee industry.
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has reached this remote, rugged island a 45-minute flight from Honolulu.
Federal agents have flown in several times since February, most recently last week, often remaining for days as they search for undocumented immigrants among the 200,000 or so people who live on the island.
Compared with widely publicized operations in big cities like Denver and Los Angeles, the actions on the island have been relatively small, with just a few dozen people known to have been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
But ICE enforcement actions have sent waves of fear across the rural island, and underscored how the immigration dragnet has expanded, sweeping in men and women with no criminal records, as well as children.
“Regardless of the number of people detained, the consequence of this is massive,” said Jeanne Kapela, a Democrat who represents the area in the State Legislature.
Kona’s coffee industry is composed of hundreds of family-owned orchards, usually three to five acres in size, and their immigrant workers often come from mixed-status families, with some members who may be naturalized citizens or green card holders and others who are undocumented.
“The futures of coffee farmers and these workers are tied together, whether we like it or not,” said Ms. Kapela, whose family grows coffee.
The industry is vital to her constituents, she said. “If it dies, I don’t know how we come back.”
The immigrant community has grown increasingly uneasy. In March, a widely shared video showed agents leading a woman and three children away from their home. The next month, a boy in first grade was pulled from class after his father was detained.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in an email that agents had conducted “a number of targeted enforcement actions” to arrest criminals on the Big Island. In addition, she said, “non-targeted illegal aliens were encountered and detained.” She did not respond to a question about how many immigrants were taken into custody.
Bruce Cornwell, 72, who grows and processes his coffee and that of other farmers for the U.S. and international markets, said: “These are good, hard workers. They aren’t gang members.”
Unlike industrial farms, small-scale coffee growers cannot readily make use of the government’s seasonal agricultural visa program, which is complex, costly and requires extensive paperwork.
Mr. Cornwell said that workers should be offered pathways to immigrate legally, rather than be rounded up.
“If we don’t have these immigrant workers, our coffee will be hurting,” he said, standing near his orchard, where coffee cherries were ripening. “The government should make it easier for these people to come here and work.”
Hawaii is the only U.S. state with significant commercial coffee production, led by the Big Island, where coffee cultivation began in the 1820s. In 1873, Henry Nicholas Greenwell, an English immigrant who settled on the island and whose descendants still grow coffee, took Kona to the World’s Fair in Vienna and won an award there for excellence.
In the early 1900s, Japanese workers escaping harsh conditions on Hawaii’s sugar cane plantations began leasing small parcels of land to grow coffee.
In the mid-1980s, the global embrace of specialty coffee catapulted Kona cultivation. Since then, thousands of Mexican and Central American workers have migrated to the Big Island, and some have become growers themselves.
Among them are Mexican Americans like Armando Rodriguez, whose family crossed the border into the United States illegally when he was 8 years old. He obtained a green card through his father, whose status was legalized in 1986 under the most recent amnesty for undocumented immigrants, and later became a citizen.
Today, his extended family grows and mills coffee on 13 acres. They ship their award-winning coffee, Aloha Star, across the country.
Mr. Rodriguez is worried about the harvest, he said. Workers who he normally hires for the season have informed him and other growers that they will not return from the mainland United States, even though they are green card holders.
“They’re afraid that they’ll be detained at the airport, or their green card is going to be taken away,” Mr. Rodriguez said as he drove along the Mamalahoa Highway, a narrow, winding coastal road with turnoffs on either side that lead to dozens of coffee farms.
On a recent morning, workers moved along a row of baby coffee plants on the three-acre farm of Don Davis, a retired Navy pilot who flew for Delta Air Lines.
The workers are on their feet for 11 hours a day, said Mr. Davis, who pays them $30 an hour. He had just hung a “no trespassing” sign on his gate in the hope of deterring ICE agents from entering his property. He said that he worried for his workers, even though they had legal status.
“There is nobody else who is going to pick this,” Mr. Davis said of his crop.
During a lunch break, Salvador Cancino, 47, who has devoted his working life to coffee, said that he and others in his extended Mexican family were long-timers on the island. They have green cards and American citizen children, and own their homes.
But he said that younger undocumented immigrants had been arriving in recent years to replace aging pickers. Many of the newcomers are Hondurans who grew coffee in their homeland, which for years has been plagued by one of the world’s highest murder rates.
Several of those workers unloaded 100-pound bags of coffee at a mill on a recent Sunday.
“There is a lot of work here, and you can make good money,” said Darwin, 26, who arrived in the country four years ago and who spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name because of his immigration status.
He said he made $400 a day working the harvest, and had his wife join him in Hawaii.
She gave birth to a newborn in March, and days later, when others who live in the same house were away, she noticed an S.U.V. approaching. She said she locked herself and the baby in the bedroom with the curtains drawn. Agents banged on the front door for a while, and then left when no one responded.
Since then, the couple have been rethinking whether to stay. “We’ve been happy here, but the immigration situation now has us extremely worried,” Darwin said.
It was in March that Ms. Kapela, the state legislator, received frantic calls from schoolteachers and others about “the chaos that had ensued” from enforcement actions, she recalled. Children had disappeared from classrooms, she said, and frightened families were in hiding or sleeping in their cars.
“No one knew what to do,” Ms. Kapela said.
There are no immigration lawyers practicing on the island, and immigrants who have court hearings must fly to Honolulu, where immigration proceedings are held. Missing a hearing can result in a deportation order from a judge, making the immigrants targets for enforcement.
In early April, ICE agents returned to Kona.
John Redden, who grows certified organic coffee, left to run errands one day and did not close the gate behind him. When he returned, a neighbor informed him that federal agents had been on his property off the Mamalahoa Highway.
No workers were on his land when the agents were at his farm, Mr. Redden said, but even so, he was irate. On April 5, he joined a protest, brandishing a sign that read, “ICE invaded my farm.”
A community meeting was held on April 29 at the elementary school where the first grader, who was from Honduras, was removed and deported. At the meeting, Mr. Rodriguez, the coffee farmer and founder of Aloha Latinos, a nonprofit, asked whether local police officers were assisting federal agents.
The island’s police chief, Benjamin Moszkowicz, responded that his department “has not, does not and will not conduct immigration enforcement,” which he said is a federal matter. He received rousing applause.
Gollita Reyes, who makes tamales for mini markets that cater to immigrants, said that orders for her tamales had plummeted with each enforcement action.
“People are missing work because they’re afraid, and running out of money,” Ms. Reyes said. “Others are gone.”
Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
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6) Israeli Airstrikes Kill Dozens in Northern Gaza Overnight, Health Officials Say
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A military spokesman had warned of an impending attack in northern Gaza.
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Jerusalem, May 14, 2025
Bodies at the Indonesian Hospital in the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza on Wednesday. The facility’s director said the hospital received dozens of casualties from overnight strikes. Credit...Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Israeli strikes killed dozens of Palestinians in northern Gaza overnight, Palestinian health officials said on Wednesday, as Israel threatens to ramp up its military campaign in the enclave despite mounting international pressure.
The bodies of more than 50 people killed overnight had arrived at the Indonesian Hospital by noon on Wednesday, according to Marwan Sultan, director of the medical facility in the town of Beit Lahia. He said children were among the dead and that dozens more people had been injured. Gaza’s health ministry also said that about 70 people had been killed on Wednesday, without specifying where.
Gaza health officials do not distinguish between combatants and civilians when reporting death tolls.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Avichay Adraee, an Israeli military spokesman, had warned on Tuesday night of an impending attack on parts of northern Gaza where he said militants had been firing rockets at Israeli territory.
The Trump administration has been seeking to broker an end to the 18-month war, which Palestinian health officials say has killed more than 50,000 people and brought the enclave to the brink of starvation.
After Israel ended a two-month cease-fire with Hamas in March, Israeli forces resumed bombarding the Gaza Strip. Ground forces have also advanced deeper into the enclave, recapturing areas they had withdrawn from during the cease-fire.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has more recently threatened an “intensive” escalation in Gaza unless Hamas lays down its weapons and turns over the hostages it still holds. The Israeli military has called up thousands of additional soldiers to bolster the war effort, and the government has vowed to seize additional territory there until Hamas complies.
The leaders of Hamas have refused to disarm and have said that they will not free the remaining hostages unless Israel ends the war and withdraws from the Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday night, Israeli fighter jets bombarded the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis in an effort to kill Muhammad Sinwar, one of the group’s top remaining military commanders. The Israeli military said it had targeted a Hamas complex underneath the European Hospital near Khan Younis.
Neither Israel nor Hamas have publicly commented on whether Mr. Sinwar was killed in the bombardment.
Israeli officials said they hoped eliminating Mr. Sinwar, one of Hamas’s most intransigent negotiators, would make the group more flexible on the demands for a truce. But Israel has assassinated numerous Hamas leaders since the beginning of the war, without compelling the group to accept its terms.
Mr. Sinwar’s older brother, Yahya Sinwar, led Hamas in Gaza and was one of the main planners of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that ignited the war. After Yahya Sinwar was killed by Israeli forces last year, Muhammad Sinwar assumed a more prominent role inside the group.
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7) Militant’s Death Would Be Blow to Hamas, but May Have Limited Long-Term Consequences
Israel tried to kill Muhammad Sinwar, a key Hamas leader in Gaza. If confirmed, his death would deprive the group of another top commander, but it might not lead to a strategic shift.
By Patrick Kingsley and Adam Rasgon, Reporting from Jerusalem, May 14, 2025
"'The main problem in Gaza is 'not who leads Hamas,' said Ahmad Jamil Azem, a Palestinian political scientist at Qatar University. 'The insistence of the Israeli government to continue the war is the actual problem.'"
”https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/world/middleeast/muhammad-sinwar-hamas-leader-gaza-israel.html
The assassination of Muhammad Sinwar, the influential Hamas leader whom Israel tried to kill on Tuesday in an airstrike, would be a major tactical success for Israel but its long-term significance is unclear. The group has survived for decades despite Israel’s systematic assassination of its leaders.
Mr. Sinwar, whose fate is unknown, is considered one of Hamas’s top military commanders in Gaza. He is the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, an architect of Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel in October 2023, whom Israeli troops killed last year. Israeli and Middle Eastern officials have concluded that Mr. Sinwar is one of the biggest obstacles to a new cease-fire in Gaza: They say he is among the Hamas officials most opposed to relinquishing the group’s arsenal — an Israeli precondition for any long-term truce.
Mr. Sinwar is powerful but he is just one of several senior Hamas military leaders in Gaza, and far from the only one opposed to concessions to Israel. His killing would undermine the group, analysts said, but might not change Hamas’s strategic outlook and operational abilities, or soften Israel’s uncompromising approach to cease-fire negotiations.
“If confirmed, his death would definitely be another big blow to Hamas — many of their senior military and political leaders have been killed, and Hamas can’t replace all of them,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist from Gaza.
“But I’m not sure if his death will lead to a compromise with Israel, and it might even backfire, if his successor turns out to be even more radical than Sinwar,” he added. “Hamas is not a one-man show and its negotiations with Israel still depend on a collective decision.”
Mr. Sinwar’s death would also be unlikely to change Israeli battlefield calculations. Israel’s aims extend far beyond killing specific commanders, as it seeks “total victory” over Hamas, even if Israeli leaders have struggled to define what that means.
For decades, Hamas has weathered the assassinations of scores of its top leaders, repeatedly proving that its survival does not depend on any single individual. That has again proved true during this war. In addition to Yahya Sinwar, Israel has killed other leaders, including Ismail Haniyeh and Muhammad Deif — but failed to defeat Hamas as a military and governing force.
If anything, Hamas has become more intransigent in the immediate aftermath of major assassinations. The group has been reluctant to display weakness, even if it has sometimes become more malleable in cease-fire talks several months later.
After Israel killed Mr. Haniyeh, a top Hamas negotiator, last July, American and Palestinian officials said that it had had a harmful effect on talks over a truce. After the killing of Yahya Sinwar, Hamas said his death had strengthened its resolve and pledged to continue along the same path. Yet three months later, the group agreed to a truce, after concessions from both Hamas and Israel.
That mutual compromise points to another reason Mr. Sinwar’s death could have limited long-term consequences: The war’s trajectory is as dependent on Israel as it is on Hamas.
Israel seeks either a temporary truce to free more of the roughly 60 hostages still held in Gaza or a permanent deal that guarantees Hamas’s defeat. But Hamas opposes both scenarios, so the war will likely drag on unless Israel softens its position. Israel has already pledged to vastly expand its military operations in Gaza in the coming days.
For some, that makes Israel a bigger obstacle to a cease-fire than Hamas. The main problem in Gaza is “not who leads Hamas,” said Ahmad Jamil Azem, a Palestinian political scientist at Qatar University. “The insistence of the Israeli government to continue the war is the actual problem.”
Even without Mr. Sinwar, Hamas still has experienced commanders in Gaza, including Izz al-Din al-Haddad, who oversees Hamas’s brigades in northern Gaza, and Muhammad Shabaneh, a senior officer in southern Gaza.
Despite big losses, Hamas has also been able to replace slain members of its lower ranks. A recent Israeli intelligence assessment suggested that Hamas had more than 20,000 fighters — roughly the same as before the war — despite thousands being killed since October 2023.
Hamas also fired a barrage of rockets at southern Israel on Tuesday night, one of its largest bursts in months. The attack highlighted that Hamas retains some short-range projectiles and launchers to force Israelis into air raid shelters at a few seconds’ notice.
A senior Middle Eastern intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters, said that Hamas still has a strategic network of tunnels under parts of Gaza City. The official also said that Hamas’s military intelligence unit had survived the war without significant damage and continued to play a major role in maintaining Hamas’s grip on power.
Hamas seeks to turn the war into a stalemate, and to survive as a movement. Those two relatively modest targets allow it to weather a high level of carnage and bloodshed.
In contrast, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks Hamas’s total defeat, as well as the return of the hostages held by the group, both living and dead. Israeli generals have long concluded that these two goals are mutually incompatible.
Ibrahim Dalalsha, a Palestinian political analyst, said that Israel’s strategic incoherence “strongly suggests that this, too, will become just another footnote — rather than a transformative turning point.”
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8) Finding Stats, and Stories, About ‘Crime-Free Housing’ Laws
An investigation from The New York Times and The Illinois Answers Project found that renters in Illinois risked eviction if they had too much contact with the police.
By Sidnee King Pineda, May 13, 2025
I met Catherine Lang at a Starbucks in Tinley Park, Ill., one day last summer.
We exchanged niceties, acknowledging that it was, in fact, a bit weird to tell one’s story to a total stranger. Then she shared with me, in great detail, how crime-free housing policies had changed her life.
In 2021, when Ms. Lang was 31, she was arrested and charged with driving drunk. The police told her landlord that, because of her arrest, she would need to be evicted from her apartment in Tinley Park within a few weeks.
Months later, a jury found her not guilty. But by then, Ms. Lang had moved into her parents’ home a town over and was saving up to buy a place of her own. She was done with renting — it no longer felt safe, she said.
For Ms. Lang, it seemed the interview was an opportunity to share her side of the story. For me, it was the culmination of months of reporting. It was the first time I had been able to sit down in person with someone who had found themselves on the wrong side of what are known as crime-free housing laws, local laws that can penalize renters for contact with law enforcement.
In an investigation published today, The New York Times and The Illinois Answers Project found that, from 2019 to 2024, there were more than 2,000 cases across 25 Illinois cities in which city officials told landlords that their renters were in violation of crime-free housing ordinances.
These ordinances are meant to keep neighborhoods safe by evicting dangerous criminals. But more than 1,300 cases, we found, were based on misdemeanors or noncriminal offenses.
We found nearly 500 cases in which tenants — and sometimes, entire households — had been evicted from their homes between 2019 and 2024, in many cases for minor crimes or allegations that had not been fully investigated or that had gone unproven.
The idea for the story came across my desk almost two years ago. I received a tip from a lawyer about a woman who was suing the village of Richton Park for evicting her under crime-free housing laws after she called the police to report a shooting on her block. At the time, I thought her story would be one of very few.
But when I dug into crime-free housing policies in Illinois, I learned that housing advocates, who say the ordinances disproportionately affect people of color and low-income residents, had been trying to compile enforcement cases in the state for more than a decade, to little avail. Most of them told me it was difficult to track down people who had been affected by crime-free housing enforcement.
I spoke with lawyers who had helped their clients sue cities over particularly egregious cases. One woman was threatened with eviction after her son’s friend gave the police her address as his residence when he was arrested on shoplifting charges.
Each story made me more eager to find a systematic way to track crime-free enforcement cases in Illinois.
I looked at every city in the state that had a law written into its municipal code that penalized landlords or tenants for contact with law enforcement. Fifty-five of those municipalities had crime-free housing programs that were run by the city or local police departments, which trained landlords to closely monitor criminal or nuisance activity in rental properties. I filed records requests in every one of those towns. Thirty cities denied or did not respond to requests made through the Freedom of Information Act, or said they did not keep records of ordinance enforcement.
When municipalities did respond, the records often included enforcement letters informing landlords of criminal or nuisance activity, eviction case records and internal reports from city and police officials.
The records were a start, but they were often incomplete or had been redacted to exclude tenants’ names and demographic information. The advocates were right: It was difficult to get in touch with people personally affected by crime-free housing.
Tenants often left their homes after receiving a 10-day notice from the city or their landlord, leaving no paper trail. When they were evicted through a court order, eviction records typically did not cite crime-free housing as the basis for the case. And, in many cases, the pain and embarrassment of losing a home was just something people did not want to talk about.
I drove around the suburbs of Chicago, knocking on doors and leaving fliers on porches, asking if people felt they had been wrongly evicted and offering my contact information if they wanted to share their story. I spent hours at courthouses taking notes on eviction and criminal cases. And I sent dozens of direct messages to people on Facebook and Instagram.
Ms. Lang was the first of what would be a number of other interviews.
We cataloged dozens of cases in which tenants had had their housing threatened over offenses committed by someone other than the leaseholder. I spoke with tenants who had been forced to live in their cars or crash on friends’ couches while they tried to find a new place to live.
I also spoke with supporters of crime-free housing programs who pointed to the hundreds of cases in which tenants had been flagged for repeat problems or dangerous and violent behavior. The main arguments for strengthening crime-free housing programs hinge on a belief that cases like the hundreds we found were the exceptions, not the norm.
Crime-free housing was intended to keep neighborhoods safe. Our investigation contributes to a conversation about whether that model, which can sweep up people not yet proven guilty of alleged crimes, is doing more harm than good.
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9) Supreme Court Hears Case on Birthright Citizenship and Judicial Power
The Supreme Court could use the case to limit nationwide injunctions and reshape how federal courts handle challenges to President Trump’s policies.
By Abbie VanSickle, Supreme Court reporter, May 15, 2025
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could limit the power of federal judges to hobble President Trump’s agenda while challenging the long-held belief that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to all children born in the United States.
On issue after issue, individual judges have frozen Mr. Trump’s initiatives in place while they are litigated in court using nationwide injunctions, which block policy across the country and not just for the parties who sued. The justices will consider a dispute that stems from the president’s executive order to end the automatic practice of birthright citizenship, a change blocked almost immediately by federal judges who ruled that it was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court could use the case to limit nationwide injunctions and reshape how federal courts handle challenges to Mr. Trump’s policies, curbing the power of federal judges to swiftly block executive actions and increasing presidential power. Groups opposing Mr. Trump’s actions would most likely have to bring many individual claims, or pursue other legal pathways, such as class action lawsuits.
It is not clear how much the justices will engage with the substance of Mr. Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. In 1898, the Supreme Court affirmed that right in a landmark case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
Here’s what else to know:
A long dispute: Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum have said they are troubled by at least some nationwide injunctions, and several have long called for the court to address their scope.
Birthright citizenship: The practice of granting citizenship to people born in the United States, even to parents who are not citizens, has long been considered a tenet of immigration law. The 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Government’s argument: Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, argued that the 14th amendment’s provision of birthright citizenship was meant, at the time of its passage, for freed slaves, not immigrants to the United States. It is a once-fringe theory that has been rejected by most scholars and courts.
Many injunctions: Judges have issued more than a dozen nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration, including its effort to revoke Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, which allowed them to legally work and remain in the United States.
Unusual case: Several aspects of this case are unusual, including how quickly it made it to the court, that it extended the court’s typical calendar, and even that oral arguments are happening at all.
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that could limit the power of federal judges to hobble President Trump’s agenda while challenging the long-held belief that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to all children born in the United States.
On issue after issue, individual judges have frozen Mr. Trump’s initiatives in place while they are litigated in court using nationwide injunctions, which block policy across the country and not just for the parties who sued. The justices will consider a dispute that stems from the president’s executive order to end the automatic practice of birthright citizenship, a change blocked almost immediately by federal judges who ruled that it was unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court could use the case to limit nationwide injunctions and reshape how federal courts handle challenges to Mr. Trump’s policies, curbing the power of federal judges to swiftly block executive actions and increasing presidential power. Groups opposing Mr. Trump’s actions would most likely have to bring many individual claims, or pursue other legal pathways, such as class action lawsuits.
It is not clear how much the justices will engage with the substance of Mr. Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship. In 1898, the Supreme Court affirmed that right in a landmark case, United States v. Wong Kim Ark.
Here’s what else to know:
A long dispute: Supreme Court justices across the ideological spectrum have said they are troubled by at least some nationwide injunctions, and several have long called for the court to address their scope.
Birthright citizenship: The practice of granting citizenship to people born in the United States, even to parents who are not citizens, has long been considered a tenet of immigration law. The 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, declares that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”
Government’s argument: Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, argued that the 14th amendment’s provision of birthright citizenship was meant, at the time of its passage, for freed slaves, not immigrants to the United States. It is a once-fringe theory that has been rejected by most scholars and courts.
Many injunctions: Judges have issued more than a dozen nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration, including its effort to revoke Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, which allowed them to legally work and remain in the United States.
Unusual case: Several aspects of this case are unusual, including how quickly it made it to the court, that it extended the court’s typical calendar, and even that oral arguments are happening at all.
The original case that established birthright citizenship was decided in 1898.
By Amy Qin
In August 1895, a young cook named Wong Kim Ark was about to disembark from the S.S. Coptic, after a long journey home to San Francisco from China, when U.S. customs officials denied him re-entry.
He was not a U.S. citizen, they said. Never mind that Mr. Wong had been born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, not far from the port where he was now being held. The 14th Amendment’s provision for automatic citizenship for all people born on U.S. soil did not apply to him, officials later argued, because he and his parents were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States at the time he was born.
Rather than back down, Mr. Wong took his case to the courts — and won.
In Mr. Wong’s case, the Supreme Court affirmed in 1898 the constitutional guarantee of automatic citizenship for nearly all children born in the United States, a right that has deep roots in common law. That expansive understanding of birthright citizenship has been the law of the land since.
Now, the Trump administration wants to roll back the Wong Kim Ark ruling as it moves to crack down on immigration.
On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order declaring that the government would stop treating U.S.-born children of parents who are undocumented or are in the country temporarily as U.S. citizens.
The Trump administration is pushing forward a reinterpretation of the 1898 decision, drawing on ideas from a small group of legal scholars like John Eastman, a lawyer known for drafting a plan to block congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election.
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10) Gazans Once Escaped To Rafah. Now Israel Is Razing It.
By Samuel Granados, Aric Toler and Aaron Boxerman, May 15, 2025
Razed in last few weeks. Razed before the cease-fire. Newly built road.
Before the cease-fire in January, Israel had demolished areas of Rafah along Gaza’s borders. But in areas of Rafah away from the borders, many buildings were still standing, though damaged.
The recent destruction is much more far-reaching, flattening mosques, schools, greenhouses and even greenery.
In early April, after the fighting resumed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggested that Israel’s goal was to cut Rafah off from the rest of Gaza. Now, the images show that the Israeli military has completed a ring of destruction around the city.
Last year, a million Palestinians fled to Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, to escape the brunt of Israel’s bombardment in its war against Hamas. When Israeli forces later invaded Rafah itself, they flattened areas along the border with Egypt, but many neighborhoods were largely spared the worst of the war.
That is no longer the case.
The Israeli military has destroyed extensive parts of Rafah since it ended a cease-fire in March after talks with Hamas collapsed. In early May, after much of the destruction was already complete, Israel announced it would soon launch an “intensive” escalation of its campaign in Gaza. Over the previous two nights, strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians in Gaza, Palestinian officials said. On Tuesday, the Israeli military targeted Muhammad Sinwar, a top Hamas leader in Gaza, near a hospital in Khan Younis.
Satellite images analyzed by The New York Times show that the Israeli military has flattened large areas in and around the city of Rafah and built new military infrastructure in the last two months.
Before the cease-fire in January, Israel had demolished areas of Rafah along Gaza’s borders. But in areas of Rafah away from the borders, many buildings were still standing, though damaged.
Israeli leaders say capturing more territory inside Gaza will pressure Hamas to surrender and release the remaining hostages that the group has held since it led a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel’s defense minister vowed that Israeli forces would “clear out” the areas and “prevent any threat,” including in Rafah.
Israeli security officials have previously said that tunnels between Egypt and Gaza have allowed Hamas to stock up on weaponry and other supplies.
In response to a question from The Times about the Israeli military’s operations in Rafah, the military said that it was part of an effort to secure operational control and conduct counterterrorism operations.
“We will replicate the model implemented in Rafah in other areas of the Strip as well,” said Effie Defrin, the Israeli military spokesperson, in a press briefing last week.
Demolishing Block by Block
Here is what the operation looks like on the ground: Four excavators could be seen in a video verified by The Times tearing down a row of buildings in Rafah’s Shaboura neighborhood in April. The video, first shared on an Israeli Telegram channel, was taken from an armored vehicle.
Satellite imagery shows that hundreds of buildings were destroyed in this neighborhood during the month of April, including on the block where the video was filmed.
Earlier this month, the Israeli security cabinet approved a new plan to call up tens of thousands of additional soldiers, to seize and hold territory in the embattled enclave, and to forcibly displace Palestinians to the south. But the satellite imagery shows the areas of the south where buildings are still standing are getting smaller and smaller.
Another video shows four buildings destroyed in a controlled demolition. The video, uploaded on an Israeli soldier’s Instagram account and shared by the Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi on his X account, was filmed in northern Rafah, where much of the destruction has taken place. Satellite image shows that the demolition took place sometime in April.
New Construction
Israeli forces are not just clearing land. They are building on it.
One new road already stretches more than three miles from the Israeli border across Rafah into agricultural areas. It is protected by berms, trenches and several military outposts.
And other construction is moving at a rapid clip, the satellite images show.
Several new military outposts, often graded, paved and surrounded by defensive walls, have been built across southern Gaza in the past month. Soldiers have also commandeered buildings to use as bases, such as an under-construction hospital.
Israel calls the road it has constructed from the Israeli border the “Morag Corridor,” which Mr. Netanyahu said last month was intended to cut Rafah off from the rest of the enclave. The name is a reference to a Jewish settlement that existed in the area until Israel withdrew its soldiers and civilians from Gaza two decades ago.
What the construction might mean for the long term is uncertain. Some Israeli officials have agitated for Israel to rebuild Jewish settlements in the enclave, but Mr. Netanyahu has rebuffed the prospect for now.
Mr. Netanyahu said last week, after much of the construction and razing in Rafah was already in progress, that Israel was “on the eve of a forceful entry to Gaza.”
Riley Mellen contributed reporting.
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11) Israeli Strikes Kill Dozens in Gaza, Health Ministry Says
Israel has threatened to escalate its military campaign against Hamas, despite a U.S.-backed push for the two sides to agree a new cease-fire.
By Aaron Boxerman, Reporting from Jerusalem, May 15, 2025
The aftermath of an Israeli military strike on northern Gaza on Thursday. Credit...Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Dozens were killed in Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, the territory’s health ministry said, in another powerful wave of attacks that came as Israel threatened to intensify its campaign.
Dozens more were injured in the attacks, according to the ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel has threatened a significant military escalation in the coming days unless Hamas lays down its arms and frees the remaining hostages it holds. But the Palestinian armed group has rejected Israel’s conditions, demanding an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal in exchange for releasing the captives.
The Trump administration is seeking to broker an end to the war, but U.S.-backed attempts to push Israel and Hamas to agree to a new cease-fire remain deadlocked. Israel’s campaign began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 people taken to Gaza as hostages.
Israel’s subsequent military campaign against Hamas has killed more than 50,000 people, including thousands of children, according to Gaza health officials. Gaza’s health ministry said that more than 50 people had been killed in the latest strikes. Despite its immense toll, the war has failed to either decisively subdue Hamas or free all of the hostages.
Over the weekend, the United States and Hamas reached a separate agreement to free Edan Alexander, the last American hostage left alive in Gaza, effectively bypassing Israel. President Trump wrote on social media that he hoped it would be the “first of those final steps necessary to end this brutal conflict.”
Israeli negotiators traveled to Qatar this week for the latest round of indirect cease-fire talks with Hamas to free the remaining hostages. The following day, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he had spoken with Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, as well as the Israeli negotiating team.
But an Israeli official familiar with the talks said there was little expectation of a breakthrough. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Israeli military campaign, however, has not stopped. On Tuesday, Israeli aircraft bombarded the area around the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis in an attempt to kill Muhammad Sinwar, one of Hamas’s top leaders in Gaza. Mr. Sinwar’s older brother, Yahya Sinwar, masterminded the Oct. 7 attacks and led Hamas before he was killed by Israeli forces last year.
Neither Israel nor Hamas has publicly commented on the fate of the younger Mr. Sinwar.
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12) Ben & Jerry’s Founder Arrested at Senate Hearing After Protesting War in Gaza
Ben Cohen, a co-founder of the ice cream brand, was among a group that interrupted a Senate hearing on Wednesday, protesting Congress’s funding of Israel’s military.
By Isabella Kwai, May 15, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/us/ben-jerrys-ben-cohen-arrested-rfk-senate-gaza.html
Mr. Cohen and Jerry Greenfield founded Ben & Jerry’s in 1978.Andrew Kelly/Reuters
One of the founders of Ben & Jerry’s, Ben Cohen, was arrested on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., after he interrupted a Senate committee hearing to protest Congress’s funding for Israel’s military as it wages war against Hamas in Gaza.
Mr. Cohen, 74, was among a group of protesters that disrupted a Senate health committee hearing as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, promoted President Trump’s budget for the next fiscal year.
The protesters shouted and held up signs as Mr. Kennedy was speaking before Capitol Police officers escorted them out, according to a broadcast of the hearing. A video posted by Mr. Cohen on social media showed him being detained by police officers, his hands behind his back.
“I said that Congress is paying to bomb poor kids in Gaza and paying for it by kicking poor kids off Medicaid in the U.S.,” Mr. Cohen can be heard saying in the video he posted. He also called on lawmakers to do more to get food into Gaza, where the United Nations and other aid agencies have said a famine is looming.
“They need to let food to starving kids,” he said.
Mr. Cohen was charged with crowding, obstructing or incommoding, the Capitol Police said in a statement, a misdemeanor that can be punishable by up to 90 days in prison and a $500 fine if convicted.
Six other people were also arrested on charges that included assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. Mr. Cohen has been released from custody, the police said.
Mr. Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the two founders of the ice cream brand, have long been outspoken about political issues, including criticizing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. They gave up most involvement with the company when it was sold to Unilever in 2000, but have remained outspoken, as has the company.
Ben & Jerry’s in 2021 said it would end sales in the Israeli-occupied West Bank because it was “inconsistent” with the company’s values. The co-founders, who are both Jewish, wrote in a 2021 New York Times Opinion essay that they supported the company’s decision.
“As Jewish supporters of the State of Israel, we fundamentally reject the notion that it is antisemitic to question the policies of the State of Israel,” they wrote.
That decision led to backlash in Israel and hurt sales at Unilever, which eventually sold the Ben & Jerry’s business in Israel to a local partner. In March 2024, Unilever said it would spin off its ice cream unit, which includes Ben & Jerry’s, to reduce costs.
Ben & Jerry’s last year sued Unilever over accusations that it had fired the ice cream brand’s chief executive because of its social activism and had censored the ice cream maker’s attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees. Unilever has rejected those claims and called for the suit to be dismissed.
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