SAT. JUNE 28: ALL OUT TO DC |
 |
Join people from across the country for an emergency national march on Washington this Saturday, June 28 to protest and demand "Stop the War on Iran!” Trump and Netanyahu have launched an unprovoked and illegal war of aggression against Iran, threatening to engulf the entire Middle East or even the world in devastating conflict. But the people of the United States reject this war!
This demonstration is being organized by the ANSWER Coalition, National Iranian-American Council, Palestinian Youth Movement, The People’s Forum, CODEPINK, Democratic Socialists of America and many other organizations.
Trump lied when he was running for office, pretending to be a pro-peace candidate. Now, just five months into his term, he has started a new forever war in the Middle East! Trump is also lying when he says Iran was about to get a nuclear weapon — even the US government’s intelligence agencies publicly say that is not true.
Trump is partnering with wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu to carry out this assault. This is an extension of the genocide the Palestinian people have been subjected to for the past 20+ months. And Israel is an extension of U.S. interests in the region, carrying out terrible atrocities with its arsenal paid for by our tax dollars.
As he announced that he had attacked Iran, Trump outrageously said that “now is the time for peace” and wants Iran to negotiate at gunpoint. But this could spiral at any moment into an open-ended US bombing campaign, a “boots on the ground” invasion, or an all-out regional war. Now is the critical moment to protest in huge numbers and stop this war!
Join us in Washington, D.C. to demand that Trump cease all aggression against Iran, and end all aid to Israel. All out to DC on June 28! |
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
|
|
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
| |||
| |||
|
Following FBI Raid in San Jose, We Say Anti-War Activism Is Not a Crime! Sign Onto the Call Now
>>> Sign onto the statement here: tinyurl.com/handsoffantiwar
In April 2025, San Jose anti-war activist Alex Dillard was subjected to the execution of a federal search warrant. FBI agents raided his home and seized his personal electronic devices, seeking evidence of alleged ties to Russia and implying that he may have been acting as a foreign agent.
We, as the broad progressive people's movements in the U.S. and around the world, as well as members of the San Jose community, stand in solidarity with Alex against these attacks. We assert that these accusations are entirely baseless. They constitute a clear act of political retaliation against Alex's First Amendment-protected beliefs, activities, and associations.
This incident is not isolated. It reflects a broader pattern of repression by federal agencies against activists, journalists, and organizers who speak out against U.S. imperialism, war, and systemic injustice. From the surveillance and harassment of the Black liberation movement to the targeting of Palestinian solidarity organizers, the U.S. government has repeatedly sought to silence dissent through intimidation and legal persecution.
We condemn this latest act of FBI repression in the strongest terms. Such tactics are designed to instill fear, disrupt organizing efforts, and criminalize activism. But we refuse to be intimidated. Our community stands united in defense of the right to dissent and to challenge U.S. militarism, corporate greed, and state violence—no matter how aggressively the government attempts to suppress these voices.
We call on all allies, activists, and organizations committed to justice to sign onto this solidarity statement and to remain vigilant and to push back against these escalating attacks. The government’s efforts to conflate activism with "foreign influence" are a transparent attempt to justify repression—but we will not allow these tactics to silence us. We will continue to speak out, organize, and resist. Solidarity, not silence, is our answer to repression.
Activism is not a crime. Opposing war and genocide is not a crime. Hands off our movements!
Sign onto the statement here: tinyurl.com/handsoffantiwar
Copyright © 2025 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
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
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky
In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries.
Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin:
“To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?”
Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine.
A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism.
To sign the online petition at freeboris.info
—Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024
https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine.
Petition in Support of Boris Kagarlitsky
We, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison.
Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles.
The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested.
On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release.
The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison.
The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences.
There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering.
Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course.
We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally.
We also call on the authorities of the Russian Federation to reverse their growing repression of dissent and respect their citizens' freedom of speech and right to protest.
Sign to Demand the Release of Boris Kagarlitsky
https://freeboris.info
The petition is also available on Change.org
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
1) Trump accuses a judge of lawless defiance in case of migrants he wants to send to South Sudan.
By Adam Liptak and Mattathias Schwartz, Adam Liptak reports on the Supreme Court, and Mattathias Schwartz reports on federal courts. June 24, 2025
The Trump administration returned to the Supreme Court on Tuesday in the case of eight men it seeks to deport to South Sudan, asking the justices to make clear that an order they issued on Monday was intended to apply to the group.
The clarity was apparently needed because the Supreme Court on Monday had issued only a brief order letting the government send migrants to countries with which they have no connection without giving them a chance to argue they would face torture. The court provided no explanation of its reasoning.
The Supreme Court’s order paused an injunction issued by Judge Brian E. Murphy, of the U.S. District Court in Boston, who had forbidden the deportations of all migrants to third countries unless they were afforded due process.
Soon after the Supreme Court ruled, lawyers for the men filed an emergency motion with Judge Murphy asking him to continue blocking the deportations of eight men currently held in Djibouti.
In a brief order Monday night, the judge denied the motion as unnecessary. He said that he had issued a separate ruling last month, different from the one the Supreme Court had paused, protecting the men in Djibouti from immediate removal.
That left the fate of the men unclear, as President Trump and a top aide cried foul.
Judge Murphy “knew absolutely nothing about the situation” and was “absolutely out of control,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and Mr. Trump’s top immigration adviser, said, “Expect fireworks tomorrow when we hold this judge accountable for refusing to obey the Supreme Court.”
D. John Sauer, the solicitor general, told the justices on Tuesday that the judge’s latest order was “a lawless act of defiance that, once again, disrupts sensitive diplomatic relations and slams the brakes on the executive’s lawful efforts to effectuate third-country removals.”
He asked the court for an immediate stay “to make clear beyond any doubt that the government can immediately proceed with the third-country removals of the criminal aliens from Djibouti.”
Though the judge’s initial ruling applied to many migrants, it captured public attention in May when the government loaded eight men onto a plane said to be headed to South Sudan, a violence-plagued African country that most of them had never set foot in.
Their flight landed instead in the East African nation of Djibouti, where there is an American military base, and they have been held there ever since. Judge Murphy ruled that the men must be given access to lawyers and a chance to challenge the government’s plan to send them to South Sudan.
The men, who have all been convicted of serious crimes in the United States, have been detained at Camp Lemonnier, the military base, for the past 34 days. According to court filings, they spend almost all of their time inside a modular, air-conditioned container that the military usually uses as a conference room. Under constant guard, they wear shackles around their ankles, except when showering, using the bathroom or meeting remotely with their attorneys, a member of their legal team said.
Before coming to the United States, they hailed from countries around the world — Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Laos, Cuba, Myanmar. Just one is from South Sudan. Three of the eight men have been interviewed as part of the due process required by Judge Murphy’s second order, according to a court filing by their attorneys. Another two interviews, an attorney representing the detainees said, were scheduled for Tuesday.
Mr. Sauer told the justices that the Judge Murphy’s order had resulted in “an unstable and dangerous situation” at the base, worsened by recent military action in the Middle East.
Mr. Sauer also suggested that the Supreme Court might want to rein in Judge Murphy. “This court may wish to direct the district court not to issue further injunctions in this case without first obtaining preclearance from this court,” he wrote. “In the alternative, given the lower court’s conduct, this court may consider ordering that the case be reassigned to a different district judge.”
The administration’s motion on Tuesday seeking clarification of Monday’s order was at least partly a consequence of that order’s lack of reasoning. In a lengthy dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, on the other hand, seemed to endorse Judge Murphy’s understanding of his two rulings.
“The district court’s remedial orders are not properly before this court because the government has not appealed them,” she wrote.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
2) Judge’s Ruling Casts Doubt on Trump Administration’s Claims Against Migrant
Attorney General Pam Bondi has disregarded departmental norms to level lurid public accusations at Mr. Abrego Garcia without first detailing evidence.
By Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer, June 24, 2025
Glenn Thrush reported from Washington, and Alan Feuer from New York.
Barbara D. Holmes, a federal judge in Nashville, cast doubt on accusations against Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia made by the Justice Department in a 51-page judicial rebuke. Credit...Mark Zaleski/The Tennessean, via Imagn
In early June, Attorney General Pam Bondi unveiled the indictment of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the immigrant mistakenly deported to El Salvador, with a pronouncement: “This is what American justice looks like.”
She predicted he would be easily convicted.
On Sunday night, 16 days later, a federal magistrate judge gave a far different assessment of the evidence presented so far: The department’s case had serious problems, relied heavily on deals with multiple informants, included dubious claims about his actions that bordered on “physical impossibility” and was rife with hearsay testimony.
The judge, Barbara D. Holmes, ordered Mr. Abrego Garcia to be released, but conceded he was likely to be detained for immigration violations as his case moves through the courts.
The decision to deny the department’s request to keep Mr. Abrego Garcia behind bars was hardly the final word about the criminal prosecution, nor was it a comprehensive or final reckoning about guilt or innocence. It was, nonetheless, the first time the charges have been subjected to judicial scrutiny and a blow to the government’s core contention that Mr. Abrego Garcia poses a danger to the community.
Although Judge Holmes did not mention Ms. Bondi by name, her 51-page ruling represented a rejection of efforts by top administration officials to publicly discredit Mr. Abrego Garcia by suggesting that he was a prominent member of the violent street gang MS-13, and that he trafficked women and minors.
Judicial rebukes have become commonplace in a conflict-courting administration run by a president intent on turning legal proceedings, including four recent criminal cases, into political mud fights.
Ms. Bondi, a longtime political ally of Mr. Trump’s who has shown a willingness to execute his directives without fuss or pushback, has adopted that approach. She has disregarded departmental norms to level lurid public accusations at Mr. Abrego Garcia without first detailing evidence in court filings, or through the sworn testimony of federal law enforcement officials.
The attorney general’s actions are in line with what her boss wants. Mr. Trump made his preferences clear earlier this month when Mr. Abrego Garcia was brought back to U.S. soil, describing the process of indicting and repatriating him not as an act of law but almost as a way to publicly shame him.
“The man has a horrible past,” Mr. Trump told reporters, “and I could see a decision being made, ‘Bring him back, show everybody how horrible this guy is.’”
The attorney general has sought to justify the deportation of Mr. Abrego Garcia by portraying him as a public menace, even as government officials acknowledged that he wound up in a notorious El Salvador prison in March because of an “administrative error.” Ms. Bondi, speaking during a brief appearance at the department on June 6 to announce the unsealing of the indictment, accused Mr. Abrego Garcia of trading “the innocence of minor children for profit” and of abusing “undocumented alien females.”
But Judge Holmes cast doubt on those accusations in her decision, writing that the allegations came from “at least three, if not four or more, levels of hearsay” and carried “no weight” legally.
“That the level of hearsay cannot even be determined renders the evidence patently unreliable,” she added.
Ms. Bondi’s assertions were based on information presented in a memo from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Middle District of Tennessee arguing for Mr. Abrego Garcia’s detention. Such documents require a lower standard of evidentiary proof than a criminal indictment, according to Justice Department officials.
Chad Gilmartin, a spokesman for the department, said Ms. Bondi believed the hearsay evidence, while not conclusive, suggested Mr. Abrego Garcia posed a serious threat to public safety.
“It would be very concerning,” he said, if having “allegations involving harm to minor children no longer makes a defendant a danger to the community.”
Judge Holmes also took issue with the government’s core argument in depicting Mr. Abrego Garcia as a dangerous criminal. She criticized testimony from Peter Joseph, a homeland security agent, who took the stand during a daylong detention hearing a week later, to accuse Mr. Abrego Garcia of trafficking immigrants, including minors.
The evidence presented by prosecutors, she wrote, supported more routine allegations that he was participating in the more common, if still illegal, practice of smuggling undocumented immigrants seeking to relocate to different parts of the country.
“To be clear, the offenses of which Abrego is charged are human smuggling, not human trafficking,” she wrote. “Although ‘smuggling’ and ‘trafficking’ were sometimes used interchangeably during the detention hearing, there is a distinct difference between the two under the law. They are not transposable.”
The ruling, issued late Sunday, did little to divert the administration from its unyielding position on the case.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, called the Salvadoran man “a dangerous criminal illegal alien” in a social media post after Judge Holmes released her opinion.
“We have said it for months, and it remains true to this day,” Ms. McLaughlin added. “He will never go free on American soil.”
Mr. Abrego Garcia’s new legal team, which includes a former prosecutor from the same U.S. attorney’s office that filed the indictment against him, seems to be highly aware of these extrajudicial attacks against their client.
And on Monday, they shot back at Ms. McLaughlin, castigating her in a new court filing that asked Judge Holmes not to put her order releasing the defendant on hold as the government appeals it.
The filing pointed out that prosecutors had gone to great lengths to do favors for some of the cooperating witnesses who had helped them secure the charges against Mr. Abrego Garcia. It even turned the knife an extra twist, noting that the favors were connected to helping the witnesses avoid the consequences of their own illegal immigration.
“It is notable that, in its attempt to keep Mr. Abrego behind bars, the government has already promised leniency to three people in their immigration proceedings, including the leader and a member of a domestic smuggling operation,” the lawyers wrote. “The former has been deported five times and has two prior felony convictions, and yet the government has granted him deferred action on deportation in exchange for his testimony, early release from prison to a halfway house, and is likely to grant him work authorization.”
“All to ensure,” the lawyers added, “that Mr. Abrego ‘will never go free on American soil.’”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
3) Democrats Are Getting Richer. It’s Not Helping.
By Thomas B. Edsall, June 24, 2025
Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.
Samuel Corum/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
There have been endless laments for the white working-class voters the Democratic Party lost over the past few decades, particularly during the 10 years of the Trump era. But detailed 2024 election analyses also make it clear that upper-income white voters have become a much more powerful force in the party than they ever were before. These upscale white voters are driving the transformation of the Democratic Party away from its role as the representative of working-class America and closer to its nascent incarnation as the party of the well-to-do.
A detailed analysis of data compiled by the Cooperative Election Study shows that in 2024, 46.8 percent of white Kamala Harris voters had annual household incomes over $80,000, while 53.2 percent earned less than that. In fact, according to data analysis by Caroline Soler, a research analyst for the Cooperative Election Study, the single largest bloc of white Democratic voters in 2024 — 27.5 percent — had incomes of $120,000 or more.
Along similar lines, Tom Wood, a political scientist at Ohio State University, provided The Times with figures from the American National Election Studies for 2020, the most recent year for which data is available. The numbers show that white voters in the 68th to 100th income percentiles — the top third — cast 49.05 percent of their ballots for Joe Biden and 50.95 for Donald Trump. White voters in the top 5 percent of the income distribution voted 52.9 percent for Biden and 47.1 percent for Trump.
These figures stand in sharp contrast to election results as recent as those of 2008. Among white voters in the top third of the income distribution that year, John McCain, the Republican nominee, beat Barack Obama 67.1 percent to 32.9 percent.
Frances Lee, a political scientist at Princeton, responded by email to my inquiries about this phenomenon: “An objective look at both party’s coalitions in the mass electorate would have to acknowledge that neither Republicans nor Democrats are the ‘party of the working class.’”
Instead, Lee argued:
Both parties are vulnerable to charges of elitism. Republicans really do push for tax cuts that benefit the wealthy. Democrats, meanwhile, take stances on social issues that appeal to socioeconomic elites.
The underlying truth, Lee continued, “is that the major parties in the U.S. today are not primarily organized around a social-class cleavage.”
This evolution of the two parties has been slow but steady over the past three decades, first emerging in the early 1990s as education polarization drove those with college degrees to the left while working-class voters without degrees moved right.
Frances Lee, a political scientist at Princeton, responded by email to my inquiries about this phenomenon: “An objective look at both party’s coalitions in the mass electorate would have to acknowledge that neither Republicans nor Democrats are the ‘party of the working class.’”
Instead, Lee argued:
Both parties are vulnerable to charges of elitism. Republicans really do push for tax cuts that benefit the wealthy. Democrats, meanwhile, take stances on social issues that appeal to socioeconomic elites.
The underlying truth, Lee continued, “is that the major parties in the U.S. today are not primarily organized around a social-class cleavage.”
This evolution of the two parties has been slow but steady over the past three decades, first emerging in the early 1990s as education polarization drove those with college degrees to the left while working-class voters without degrees moved right.
Sam Zacher, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southern California, has detailed both the shift and its policy consequences in a series of papers, including his 2023 article “Polarization of the Rich: The Increasingly Democratic Allegiance of Affluent Americans and the Politics of Redistribution.”
“Beginning in the 1990s,” Zacher writes,
the Democratic Party started winning increasing shares of rich, upper-middle-income, high-income occupation and stock-owning voters. This appears true across voters of all races and ethnicities, is concentrated among (but not exclusive to) college-educated voters and is only true among voters living in larger metropolitan areas. In the 2010s, Democratic candidates’ electoral appeal among affluent voters reached above-majority levels.
Zacher has developed his own system to measure affluence. It includes income but, he added, “I also rely on occupation and stock ownership.” As sources of information, he wrote, “I analyze data from the American National Election Studies, the Cooperative Election Study and the General Social Survey.”
What Zacher calls “this original, holistic assessment” reveals “that in today’s politics, Democrats and Republicans roughly split support among rich, upper-middle-income, high-income-occupation and stock-owning voters.”
Equally significant, Zacher writes, “While the voters in more advantaged economic classes who have increased their support for the Democratic Party are, on average, more educated and reside in larger metropolitan areas, this polarization of the affluent is spread across all races and ethnicities and is not only relegated to college-educated voters.”
The changing demographics of the Democratic Party, Zacher notes, “may make it more difficult to execute an economically redistributive agenda — in an era of rising inequality — since it would have to redistribute away from voters in its own coalition.”
“How affluent, exactly, are these new Democratic voters?” Zacher asks and writes:
C.E.S. uniquely began collecting data on family income categories up to $500,000 and above in 2011, which appear to be the highest income subcategories to exist in any over-time political survey data. $500,000 and higher (by family income) is roughly the top 1 percent of society; $200,000 and higher is roughly the top 10 percent (in 2020).
The $200,000+ category clearly preferred the Democrat in 2012, 2016, and 2020 — and even the $500,000+ category reported voting for the Democratic candidate more often than the Republican in 2012 and 2016.
Analysis of election data, Zacher writes, “yields evidence that the Democratic voting coalition of the 2010s has taken the form of a ‘U-shape’ by income, a departure from the past,” adding that “it is increasingly the case that the income groups that most prefer Democratic candidates are the lowest- and highest-income categories.”
Part of the shift Zacher describes results from the rapidly changing education levels of the very affluent:
In 2008, just 27.8 percent of the most-affluent voter group (at least $150,000 family income) had postgraduate degrees, while 41.4 percent of the group had less than a college degree — but by 2020, 35.8 percent of this affluent group had postgraduate degrees (an eight percentage point increase), and just 31.1 percent had less than a college degree (a 10.3 percentage point decrease).
Many political analysts and Democratic strategists find the changing demographics of the party worrisome.
I asked Mike Lux, one of the founders of Democratic Partners, a consulting firm serving progressive clients, if the rising affluence and education levels of white Democrats weaken the party’s claim to be the representative of the working class.
Lux replied by email:
Of course it does. The foundational idea that Democrats are the party of working people (and its corollary that Republicans are the party of business and the wealthy) has grown much more tenuous than it once was. Democrats are lost without that core idea.
Lux argued that conversations with working-class voters show they “want a candidate and a political party that will fight hard for you. Right now, they don’t think that is the Democrats.”
Does that make the party legitimately vulnerable to the charge of elitism?
Lux:
Both parties have some elements of elitism. The Republicans have a hard case to make when Trump’s cabinet is full of billionaires and they let big business write their own rules, and when they are cutting taxes for billionaires and paying for it by cutting Medicaid and V.A. benefits and food for hungry children.
But, yes, the Democratic Party has some elements of elitism. To survive, we need to re-emphasize our working-class identity and that we are fighting for regular folks. We need to not talk down to folks and not spend so much time hanging out with celebrities.
Is the demographic shift among white Democrats a factor in the loss of Black and Hispanic voters?
Lux:
Yes, there is a class element to the erosion in support among Black and Hispanic voters. That erosion is mostly coming from working-class folks in those communities. Just like with white folks, working- class voters want candidates to focus on economic issues, and they want people who will fight for them and their communities, to be their proxy.
Working-class voters’ perception, fed brilliantly by the Republican and right-wing media infrastructure, was that Democrats cared more about other issues and other people than they did about the essential economic needs of regular working families.
Ariel Malka, a professor of psychology and political science at Yeshiva University, tackled the same issues as Lux from a different vantage point, writing by email that Democrats need to “counter forces promoting an image as the party of left-wing cultural elites.”
That strategic approach, Malka cautioned, “comes with challenges”:
First, Republicans relentlessly define the Democratic Party in terms of woke excesses despite the fact that many Democratic officeholders reject these excesses, so it is not clear how much messaging and policy shifts would be rewarded with a more culturally moderate partisan reputation.
Second, cultivating a socially moderate reputation is challenging when influential progressives insist on aggressively left-wing social messaging, often without giving serious consideration to the notion that this might be electorally disadvantageous.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle, Malka wrote, is that developments in this country reflect “larger trends in the Western world” that
have consolidated highly educated and culturally liberal citizens within left-leaning parties over the last several decades, making it hard for them to maintain their reputations as working-class parties.
This — along with rising inequality and job displacement from global trade and technological advance — has yielded feelings of cultural and economic resentment that have redirected many working-class voters from left-leaning parties to right-wing populism.
In short, the Republicans are in a solid position to use hot-button cultural issues as a wedge, and the nature of the Democratic Party as a somewhat disjointed coalition of diverse interests and viewpoints makes it vulnerable to this.
For Yphtach Lelkes, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, the Democrats’ working-class image has been gone for decades. Lelkes wrote by email:
It is true that Democrats are increasingly perceived to be the party of the elite. That is certainly true to the extent that the only counties that swung left were the most educated counties in America.
The Democratic Party is clearly not a working-class party, particularly as its policy shifted from predistribution (which is most preferred by the less educated) to redistribution.
Despite these changes in the image of the party, Lelkes continued,
Democratic policy is more closely geared toward the working class than Republican policy. The majority of Black and Hispanic voters still vote for the Democratic Party. The Big Beautiful Bill will be the most regressive law passed in decades, and tariffs are a tax on the working class.
In contemporary elections, Lelkes argued, “perceptions are king, and the Republican Party has done a fantastic job in painting Democrats as out of touch, elite and extreme.”
Michael Podhorzer, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and a founder of the Analyst Institute Board, made the case in an email that “Neither party is genuinely ‘of’ the working class in terms of consistently addressing their core daily concerns or consistently siding with them over corporate interests — despite isolated gestures like Biden’s presence on the U.A.W. picket line.”
This fact may contribute to the sustained rejection of incumbents in recent years, Podhorzer argued:
The Democratic Party is as dependent on the failures of Trump and the Republican Party as Trump and the Republican Party are dependent on the failures of the Democratic Party.
In nine of the last 10, and 11 of the last 13 elections, the party in power has lost, a pattern with no historical precedent. At the presidential level, three consecutive party switches have happened only once, more than a century ago. That neither party offers what voters want is further evidenced by the fact that the 1.3 point average margin is the lowest for three consecutive elections in well over a century.
If, as Podhorzer argued, working-class interests are secondary in both parties, it may be because the divide over values has become central to partisan differences.
Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi, described this phenomenon in an email responding to my queries, citing
the stark divides in moral values and psychological orientations between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats tend to focus more on the moral values of care and fairness, while Republicans tend to hold stronger needs for order, security and certainty.
These innate needs for order, certainty and security are linked to a view that the world is a hostile place, where acceptance of outsiders is a risky decision that could harm a group’s cohesion and identity (where a group can be based on national identity, racial identity, or gender identity).
Yet, on average, Democrats don’t necessarily see the world in these terms, and as you mention, they tend to place higher values on other groups like racial minorities who have been traditionally marginalized and harmed. They don’t see these levels of acceptance as a threat to national, racial or gender identity — they are more fluid in how they view the world and the boundaries of the groups they belong to.
Stanley Feldman, a political scientist at Stony Brook University, reinforced Wronski’s argument, writing in an email that the gap between perception and image on one hand and substance and reality on the other is driven by the salience of cultural issues at the expense of economic policies:
The changes in the Democratic and Republican electorates over the past 25 years are a direct result of the move from political conflict structured around social welfare and the size of government after the New Deal to conflict being dominated more by cultural issues and concerns.
To the extent that partisan conflict is structured by issues like gay/transgender rights, abortion, immigration, race, and gender equality, the social liberalism of educated Democratic voters and activists makes it difficult for the party to develop appeals to more socially conservative and religious voters.
Feldman posed a rhetorical question: “Can you look at Democratic and Republican economic policies this century and believe that the Republican Party is winning less-educated voters because it is enacting policies that benefit them?”
The problem for Democrats, Feldman argued, is that “many less-well-educated voters are willing to set aside their economic self-interest for the socially conservative positions that dominate the Republican Party.”
The entire debate over partisanship and the working class is, according to Herbert Kitschelt, a political scientist at Duke, fundamentally off-kilter.
“The gist of my reasoning,” Kitschelt wrote in an email, “is to challenge the entire ‘working class’ nostalgia that has beset parts of the Democratic Party and public intellectuals.”
Kitschelt acknowledged that
blue-collar workers are now, in their majority, voting Republican; old mining regions and old industrial towns, once upon a time strongholds of the Democrats, are now often hegemonically Republican; and the alienation of blue-collar workers from the Democratic Party is not only one of economic abandonment, but also cultural abandonment of traditional religious piety, gender relations and sense of social conformism in the local community.
But, Kitschelt contended, “The well-meaning strategy-inducing conclusion that is directly or indirectly suggested by these empirical findings — namely that Democrats have to ‘win back’ the blue-collar working class — is false for many reasons and will in fact drive Democrats into the political wilderness.”
Why?
Because “the American industrial manufacturing working class has dramatically shrunk as a share of employment (and population) from about 25 percent to 30 percent of the labor force in the 1960s to barely 10 percent now.”
Kitschelt added:
Many of the “working-class” voters who now support Trumpist populism never voted in the past. Trump could mobilize an electorate that in the past never felt represented by any party, particularly many of those whites with strong xenophobic and racist opinions who never felt represented either by the Democrats or the older upper-middle-class moderate Republicans.
Last, the broad label “working class” masks key differences among non-college voters, preventing Democrats from adopting strategies designed to target those voters who might be most receptive to their message.
Kitschelt:
Many citizens who do not have four-year college degrees are not blue-collar “working class” in the sense that Democratic pollsters or ethnographers like to imagine, and the profile of defection from the Democratic Party has to be differentiated a great deal between those particularly receptive to Trumpism and those who are not.
Kitschelt places groups of voters into an “unreachable” category, as far as the Democratic Party is concerned: “higher-income, non-four-year-college-degree voters — often small businesspeople, in crafts, especially construction and real estate — who particularly experience the sense of downward mobility” and “white evangelical Christians who are substantially underrepresented among college-educated voters and who are particularly prone to subscribe to xenophobia, nationalism, racism and support of traditional paternalist and heterosexual gender roles.”
There are, however, Kitschelt continued,
many elements of the electorate without four-year college degrees that do not fit any of the templates of Trumpist populism:
They are wage earners in clerical-administrative jobs in banks, insurance companies, municipal administrations, logistics firms, tourism/travel and in sociocultural (semi-) professions in health care, education and a wide spectrum of cultural and social services.
These voters are more favorably disposed to and winnable by moderate Democratic Party strategies, although they have been put off by the more radical cultural-identitarian elements of Democratic progressivism.
The “radical cultural-identitarian” wing of the Democratic Party, Kitschelt argued, is concentrated among “four-year-college-educated voters who are not high-income earners by any stretch of the imagination.” Instead, they “typically have humanities or social science degrees and work in the sociocultural professions.”
This constituency of
lower-to-middle-income highly educated white progressive urban Democrats tends to press the cultural identitarian ethnic and gender agenda of the Democrats the most assertively, alienating formerly Democratic voters from that party, including many minority voters, above all Hispanics and Asians, but increasingly also African Americans, who are concerned about bread-and-butter issues of health, housing, education and public safety.
For the past decade, Kitschelt argued,
the Democratic Party has advanced an assembly of particularistic group demands that have alienated many voters. The party has been captured by specialized “rent-seeking” groups that have tried to carve out specific benefits for their respective unique constituencies.
What, then, is to be done?
Kitschelt had a thought:
The party has to embrace a universalism of political demands that rejects any kind of bias against citizens based on ethnic, religious, gender and other cultural grounds. The party should teach a conception of citizenship that acknowledges, recognizes and tolerates differences, albeit without ranking and prioritizing any particular way of life. This implies abstention from a divisive agenda of defining privileges and special tiers of consideration for specific groups that would precipitate the fragmentation of the party’s electoral coalition.
Kitschelt may well be right in theory, but to achieve his objective would require cunning and indeed genius we have not seen among party leaders in a long time.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
4) A New Political Star Emerges Out of a Fractured Democratic Party
The emergence of Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, is likely to divide national Democrats, who are already torn about what the party should stand for.
By Liam Stack, June 25, 2025
Zohran Mamdani delivered a closing argument at sunrise on Primary Day in Queens. Credit...Shuran Huang for The New York Times
The national Democratic establishment on Tuesday night struggled to absorb the startling ascent of a democratic socialist in New York City who embraced a progressive economic agenda and diverged from the party’s dominant position on the Middle East.
As elections go, Tuesday’s party primary for mayor was a thunderbolt: New York voters turned away from a well-funded familiar face and famous name, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, and in doing so made a generational and ideological break with the party’s mainstream. They turned to a 33-year-old, three-term state assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani, who ran on an optimistic message about affordability and the rising cost of living that has eluded many national Democrats.
What became vividly clear on Tuesday, as votes were counted across the racially and economically diverse neighborhoods of New York, was that Mr. Mamdani had generated excitement among some — though not all — of the traditional pillars of winning Democratic voter coalitions.
Democratic leaders badly want to win over young voters and minority groups in the coming 2026 and 2028 elections — two groups they have struggled to mobilize since the Obama era — but they also need moderate Democrats and independents who often recoil from far-left positions.
“It really represents the excitement that I saw on the streets all throughout the City of New York,” said Letitia James, the New York attorney general. “I haven’t seen this since Barack Obama ran for president of these United States.”
That Mr. Mamdani had such success while running on a far-left agenda, including positions that once were politically risky in New York — like describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide and calling for new taxes on business — may challenge the boundaries of party orthodoxy and unnerve national Democratic leaders.
His views on Israel are likely to force some national Democrats into an uncomfortable position, said David Axelrod, a native New Yorker and Mr. Obama’s chief strategist. But he said that Mr. Mamdani’s relentless focus on economic affordability resonated widely and could be a playbook for the party’s success as well.
“There is no doubt that Trump and Republicans will try and seize on him as a kind of exemplar of what the Democratic Party stands for,” Mr. Axelrod said. “The thing is, he seems both principled and agile and deft enough to confront those sort of conventional plays.”
The primary results raised questions about how Democrats on the national level would react. Would they embrace Mr. Mamdani as a next-generation leader of the party who can articulate a resonant economic message in a way that former Vice President Kamala Harris failed to do in November? Or would they distance themselves from his democratic socialist ideas and move more directly toward the center to court independent voters?
The enthusiasm that Mr. Mamdani generated among a swath of New Yorkers looking for fresh leadership called to mind the insurgent campaigns of Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her upset victory in a 2018 House primary.
All three are democratic socialists, a once fringe movement popularized by Mr. Sanders that calls for reining in the excesses of capitalism and curbing the power of the wealthy.
Mr. Sanders and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom endorsed Mr. Mamdani, remain popular progressive figures but have had only limited impact on changing the Democratic Party’s agenda and messaging.
A key question is how the Democratic donor class and business community, which was already unsettled by Mr. Mamdani’s rise, will react to his apparent victory. Business leaders may flock to his rivals in the general election in November, or try to use super PACs to stop him.
In the meantime, other Democratic elected officials are likely to be questioned on whether they agree with his positions.
“It’s a national election, not just a New York City election. People are going to be watching,” said James Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist. “Everybody will have to weigh in one way or another. Everybody is going to be asked, do they support him.”
Even before Mr. Mamdani addressed his supporters early Wednesday morning, Republicans were gearing up to caricature him.
The National Republican Congressional Committee gleefully declared Mr. Mamdani the “new face of the Democrat Party.” Senator Rick Scott of Florida predicted on social media that more New Yorkers would be fleeing to his state. And Representative Elise Stefanik of New York sent a fund-raising appeal on Tuesday saying her “stomach was in knots,” calling Mr. Mamdani a “Hamas Terrorist sympathizer.” (Mr. Mamdani has defended pro-Palestinian slogans like “globalize the intifada.” He has said that he supports an Israel with equal rights for all its citizens, but has not said if it has a right to exist as a Jewish state. He has emphatically denied accusations that he is antisemitic.)
As recently as last month, few people expected Mr. Mamdani to beat Mr. Cuomo, 67, who benefited from near universal name recognition, a deep war chest, and the endorsement of party heavyweights like former President Bill Clinton.
But the embrace of the party establishment may have done Mr. Cuomo no favors in a race that appeared to be marked by a deep hunger for change.
“Voters are not happy with the national party establishment and want to focus on building a movement,” said Basil Smikle, a professor at Columbia’s School of Professional Studies. “I think that’s key here. Mamdani created a movement around his candidacy.”
Mr. Mamdani ran a relentless and cheerful campaign focused on affordability in a city that has grown too expensive for an expanding circle of residents, with zippy videos and catchy tag lines like “freeze the rent” and “free buses” that told voters he cared first about their wallets.
That kitchen-table focus actually mirrored economic messaging that some in the center of the party have also urged Democratic candidates to embrace. Many Democrats were frustrated that did not occur with former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Ms. Harris during the 2024 election.
David Shor, a Democratic researcher and strategist who worked with the leading pro-Harris super PAC, Future Forward, wrote on X that Mr. Mamdani was “a great example of how far you can go if you genuinely center your campaign in an engaging way around the issue that voters overwhelmingly say in surveys they care the most about.”
Benjamin Oreskes, Reid J. Epstein and Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
5) The Israeli atomic energy commission says the war set back Iran’s nuclear program by ‘many years.’
By Adam Rasgon, Reporting from Jerusalem, June 25, 2025
The Israeli atomic energy commission said on Wednesday that U.S. strikes had made a key nuclear enrichment site in Iran inoperable, appearing to contradict initial private assessments by Israel that raised questions about the effectiveness of the attacks.
The assertion, by the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, came amid questions about the status of Iran’s nuclear program after Israeli and U.S. strikes over 12 days of war. The office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, which issued a statement on behalf of the commission, did not clarify how the commission had reached its conclusion about the enrichment site, the heavily fortified Fordo nuclear facility.
The statement, however, provided official Israeli backing to President Trump in the wake of uncertainty about the result of the U.S. strikes on Fordo. The White House shared the same statement with reporters about an hour before the Israeli prime minister’s office, and Mr. Trump read most of the statement aloud at a news conference at a NATO summit in the Netherlands.
According to the commission’s statement, “the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that preliminary Israeli damage assessments had raised questions about the effectiveness of the U.S. strikes on the Fordo site, which is south of Tehran. Israeli defense officials said that they had collected evidence that the underground facilities at Fordo had not been destroyed.
The Times also reported that a classified preliminary assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency said that the bombings set back Iran’s nuclear program by less than six months. Officials cautioned that the report was only an initial assessment and that others would follow as more information was collected and as Iran examined the three sites. Iranian state news outlets, which tend to amplify any foreign news developments that appear to support Iranian positions, widely reported on that assessment.
On Wednesday morning, however, Israel’s military said that Iran’s nuclear program had been significantly delayed.
“The assessment is that we caused significant damage to the nuclear program,” Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin, chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said in a video statement, adding, “I can also say that we pushed it back years.”
The Israeli military, General Defrin noted, was still investigating the results of its strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
Mr. Netanyahu has insisted that the war sent Iran’s nuclear program “into oblivion.” And President Trump, who on Wednesday pushed back on the classified preliminary U.S. intelligence, has claimed that the American strikes “obliterated” three Iranian nuclear sites: Fordo, and the Natanz and Isfahan facilities.
On June 13, Israel launched a wide-scale attack on Iran, targeting the country’s nuclear facilities, nuclear scientists and senior military commanders. Iran retaliated by firing barrages of missiles at Israel.
After more than a week of war, the U.S. military joined in and attacked the three Iranian nuclear sites. On Tuesday, Israel and Iran agreed to a cease-fire.
Vivian Yee and Michael D. Shear contributed reporting to this article.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
6) U.K. Says It’s Buying 12 F-35A Stealth Jets That Can Carry Nuclear Weapons
The decision means that Britain’s air force will have a nuclear role for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
By Steven Erlanger and Stephen Castle, June 25, 2025
Steven Erlanger reported from The Hague, and Stephen Castle from London.
A United States Air Force F-35A stealth aircraft landing at a British Air Force station in Lakenheath, England, in April. Credit...Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Britain said it would buy 12 F-35A stealth fighter-bombers, enabling the country’s military to once again have the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons from the air, in an announcement timed to this week’s NATO summit in The Hague.
The new planes, once delivered, can carry both conventional and nuclear bombs. For now, Britain has only one leg of the triad of nuclear weapons delivery systems: Trident submarines that can fire cruise missiles. Adding air capability, as the French also have, will make it easier for Britain to act in the case of a crisis. Neither country has any land-based nuclear weapons.
Britain also said on Tuesday that it would join NATO’s airborne nuclear mission, with allied aircraft being equipped with American B61 bombs stockpiled in Europe. The new planes reintroduce “a nuclear role” for Britain’s air force “for the first time since the U.K. retired its sovereign air-launched nuclear weapons following the end of the Cold War,” the government said.
Downing Street called it “the biggest strengthening of the U.K.’s nuclear posture in a generation.” It also strengthens the European pillar of NATO at a time of persistent doubts over the American commitment to use nuclear weapons to defend Europe in the case of a Russian attack.
Seven NATO members, including Germany and Italy, have dual-capable aircraft stored on European soil that can carry American B61 nuclear warheads.
Britain already operates F-35B jets that can operate from aircraft carriers, but they are not equipped to drop nuclear warheads.
Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, which specializes in security issues, said that the F-35A was cheaper, had greater range and could carry a broader array of weapons. “These include weapons designed to destroy Russian air defense systems,” he said, “which cannot fit into the smaller weapon bays of the F-35B.”
The announcement follows a stark warning from a government-commissioned security review, issued on Tuesday, that the country needs to prepare for the possibility of armed conflict on British soil.
“For the first time in many years, we have to actively prepare for the possibility of the U.K. homeland coming under direct threat, potentially in a wartime scenario,” the document said.
It added that the international order was being “reshaped by an intensification of great power competition, authoritarian aggression and extremist ideologies” and said that Britain’s armed forces would invest in “greater lethality, warfighting readiness, deeper stockpiles of munitions” and new technology.
The decision to add an airborne nuclear capability to Britain’s permanent at-sea deterrent was foreshadowed in a strategic defense review, published this month, that was led by George Robertson, a former NATO secretary general. That report identified Russia as posing an acute threat and called for Britain to build up to a dozen new attack submarines and invest billions of pounds in weapons.
The F35-A aircraft will be deployed as part of NATO’s nuclear mission, the government said, using weapons over which the United States retains ultimate control.
That prompted questions in the British Parliament where Mike Martin, a lawmaker for the Liberal Democrats and an army veteran, said: “In an age of uncertainty over the reliability of our U.S. allies, it does seem an odd choice to be leaning into them.”
Mr. Martin asked whether the decision on the F-35A jets was a “steppingstone to a fully sovereign U.K. capability.” Maria Eagle, a defense minister, said it wasn’t, adding that she hoped that the new aircraft would be delivered by the end of the decade.
David Blagden, of the strategy and security institute at the University of Exeter, said the main rationale for F-35A jets would be to deter Russia by having the option of limited nuclear strikes if the United States was unwilling or unable to protect Britain. But he noted: “Buying another U.S.-made aircraft, with U.S.-controlled source code, to carry U.S.-owned nuclear weapons actually deepens U.K. dependence on U.S. good will.”
After decades of relative peace in Europe, the size of the British army is currently lower than at any time since the Napoleonic era. The government is investing in a recruitment and retention drive and earlier this year said it would divert resources from its international development aid budget to military spending.
On Monday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed up to a new NATO target of devoting 5 percent of the country’s economic output to security by 2035. That would be made up of 3.5 percent on military spending with the remaining 1.5 percent coming from other security and infrastructure-related spending.
“We can no longer take peace for granted, which is why my government is investing in our national security, ensuring our Armed Forces have the equipment they need,” Mr. Starmer said in a statement.
With the government under acute financial pressure domestically and the British public facing continued cost-of-living pressures, some critics have questioned how the additional military spending commitments will be paid for and whether they will come at the expense of other priorities.
Lizzie Dearden contributed reporting.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
7) Kennedy Withdraws Funding Pledge to International Vaccine Agency
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that Gavi had “ignored the science” in immunizing children around the world.
By Stephanie Nolen, June 25, 2025
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday. Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
The United States will withdraw its financial support of Gavi, a global organization that helps purchase vaccines for children in poor countries, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the United States secretary of Health and Human Services, told the group’s leaders on Wednesday, accusing them of having “ignored the science” in immunizing children around the world.
Mr. Kennedy made the incendiary remarks in a brief, prerecorded video message sent overnight to a gathering of health ministers and other leaders in Brussels focused on raising funds to support the work of Gavi. It was to be played for the group later on Wednesday.
“When vaccine safety issues have come before Gavi, Gavi has treated them not as a patient health problem, but as a public relations problem,” Mr. Kennedy said in the address.
Mr. Kennedy said that Gavi’s leaders had been selective in their use of science to support vaccine choices, and that the United States would not deliver on a $1.2 billion pledge made by the Biden administration until the organization changed its processes.
“In its zeal to promote universal vaccination, it has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety,” he said.
In a statement, Gavi’s leaders rejected the suggestion that its vaccine purchases were driven by anything other than the best available evidence.
“Any decision made by Gavi with regards to its vaccine portfolio is made in alignment with recommendations by the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), a group of independent experts that reviews all available data through a rigorous, transparent and independent process,” Gavi’s statement said. “This ensures Gavi investments are grounded in the best available science and public health priorities.”
Mr. Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic who has upended policies on vaccination in the United States since taking over the top health job for the Trump administration. His comments to the meeting in Brussels came on the same day that a key vaccine advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was to meet in the United States. Mr. Kennedy fired all 17 of the previous members of the panel and replaced them with members he chose, several of whom have voiced vaccine skepticism mirroring his own.
Nevertheless, his address to Gavi came as a surprise; the organizers of the summit learned of it just two days in advance and scrambled to figure out where to put it on their program, which was otherwise full of technical panels on how to increase vaccination rates and a pep-rally-style pledging event at which countries would announce their commitment to support Gavi’s mission.
The United States was the largest donor to Gavi, whose work is estimated to have saved the lives of 17 million children around the world over the past two decades.
Mr. Kennedy’s remarks were the first indication that the Trump administration’s decision to end funding for Gavi was motivated by mistrust of vaccines, rather than as part of an overall reduction in foreign aid and support for multilateral institutions.
The summit is held by Gavi every four years to replenish its finances. Gavi had hoped to raise $9 billion for the 2026-2030 period, funds the organization said would allow it to purchase 500 million childhood vaccinations and save at least eight million lives by 2030. In addition to essential vaccines such as those against measles and polio, Gavi has in recent years helped countries introduce new vaccines into their immunization programs, including one to protect small children against malaria.
The philanthropist Bill Gates and Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the W.H.O., are both scheduled to speak at the Brussels gathering Wednesday.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
8) ICE Will See You Now
By Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist, June 25, 2025
“Successful authoritarian governments cultivate authoritarian cultures. Key to that project is the rejection of accountability, the embrace of impunity and the demand that ordinary people stand ready to be scrutinized by the state for any reason it deems necessary.”
Olga Fedorova/Associated Press
For President Trump, the United States is little more than his personal playground, Mar-a-Lago gone national.
In his mind, the nation has become his private property and he is entitled to do with it what he pleases. Accordingly, Trump seems to lack any sense of obligation or responsibility to the public. His chaotic and haphazard policymaking — if you can even call it that — is as disrespectful to the American people as any imaginable insult.
Just consider the disregard one must have for the lives of those in your care — for the lives of those who have cloaked you in the power of the world’s highest office — to carelessly destroy their livelihoods with ruinous tariffs and send their children to attack another country because you thought it would look good on cable television.
Ask not what you can do for your country, Trump might say. Ask what you can do for me.
In practice, as we have seen, the president’s disdain for responsibility (as well as any semblance of republican virtue) cashes out to a total rejection of democratic accountability and a sweeping assertion of absolute impunity (backed, in some cases, by the Supreme Court).
The president’s sense of his total impunity extends beyond him to his allies and agents. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the roving bands of immigration agents tasked with seizing anyone deemed “illegal.” In cities across the country, masked men and women are snatching people off the streets, forcing them into unmarked cars to be detained, without offering them the chance to contact family members or a lawyer. Just last week, bystanders captured footage of Narciso Barranco, a landscaper, being pinned down and battered by a group of masked agents. His son reported that Barranco was working when several masked men approached him. When he quite understandably ran away, his son said, he was pepper sprayed and beaten.
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, told The Los Angeles Times that “the agents took appropriate action and followed their training to use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation in a manner that prioritizes the safety of the public and our officers. He is now in ICE custody.”
As for the masks? According to Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, “officers wear masks for personal protection and to prevent doxxing.” Lyons also wrote, in a letter to The Washington Post, that ICE officers “have seen a staggering 413 percent increase in assaults against them,” but no one has been able to substantiate that number with actual evidence.
In any case, the point is that according to this line of thinking, ICE officers must wear masks so that the public can’t identify them. That is what it means to “dox” someone — to reveal his identity and address on the internet. But ICE officers aren’t anonymous commentators on a social network; they are representatives of the state, acting on its behalf and empowered to use force if necessary. As a federal agent, an ICE officer is a public servant whose ultimate responsibility lies with the people. And the people have the right to know who is operating in their government. If an ICE officer does not want to risk identification — if he does not want the public he serves to hold him accountable for his actions — then he can choose another line of work.
That ICE has claimed this right to anonymity — which is to say, the right to evade responsibility for its actions in the field — is a testament to the ways that Trump has, in his pursuit of impunity, warped and undermined the idea of a public trust.
“A public office is a public trust,” the 19th-century jurist Thomas M. Cooley wrote. “The incumbent has a property right in it, but the office is conferred, not for his benefit, but for the benefit of political society.” And as Dorman Bridgman Eaton, a pivotal figure in the effort to end the spoils system and reform the American civil service, observed in an 1878 essay for The Atlantic Monthly, the holder of such a trust is obligated to “bestow upon his public duties his paramount attention and to sacrifice whatever is not consistent with discharging them in a just, efficient and economical manner.”
Everyone engaged in public service, from the president to an officer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is bound by the nature of a public office to act with some fidelity to the public interest. At a minimum, they must be accountable to the people they serve, ready to accept responsibility when they abuse their power or violate the trust of the public.
What Trump has done, building on decades of near impunity for wrongdoing among American officeholders, is completely invert this dynamic in the most egregious way imaginable. Accountability separates those who govern from those who rule, and Trump, of course, intends to rule.
It is fitting that on the other side of the president’s authoritarian contempt for responsibility, accountability and the public trust is his demand for total compliance from ordinary people, under threat of state scrutiny and harassment.
Last month, my newsroom colleagues Sheera Frenkel and Aaron Krolik reported on the president’s effort to potentially build a “master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.” Working with Palantir — a data analysis and technology firm, named for one of the “seeing stones” in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series that enabled the fallen wizard Saruman to observe the world around him — the administration hopes to collapse the barriers separating the data collected by various federal agencies on virtually every American. (Interestingly, in “Lord of the Rings,” the palantír misleads and deceives as much as it shows and reveals.)
Under existing structures, this information is siloed. Only the Social Security Administration is allowed access to Social Security data; only the Department of Veterans Affairs is allowed access to veterans’ data; only the I.R.S. is allowed access to taxpayers’ data — you get the idea. The White House ostensibly wants to merge all this into a single repository for the purpose of developing individualized profiles of every American. As my colleagues note, “Mr. Trump could potentially use such information to advance his political agenda by policing immigrants and punishing critics.”
You, ordinary citizen, may not know the identity of the ICE officers who took your co-worker or your neighbor or your spouse or your child. But Trump will potentially know everything about you, so that he can pursue his goals, which may have nothing to do with your welfare or the welfare of the nation at large. The administration has already arrested legal residents for their political views and has already turned to social media to scrutinize those it wants to remove from the country. Who is to say that citizens aren’t next?
The sometimes narrow focus on whether Trump is really an authoritarian — or whether the United States is truly going down the path of authoritarianism — often misses the extent to which there is more to authoritarianism than the character of the leadership of the regime. Successful authoritarian governments cultivate authoritarian cultures. Key to that project is the rejection of accountability, the embrace of impunity and the demand that ordinary people stand ready to be scrutinized by the state for any reason it deems necessary.
The attempt to foster an openly authoritarian culture in the United States isn’t as flashy as some of the most overt expressions of despotism we’ve seen from the Trump administration, but it is very much part of the package. And if there is anything that might endure past Trump, it is whatever might come out of that effort.
The sad fact is that it is difficult to extricate a nation from authoritarian habits of mind and reorient a people toward liberty and equality. It takes time and effort to dismantle a democracy, but if you can bend citizens into subjects, then you’ve already won the most important battle, if not the war.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
9) Supreme Court Limits Nationwide Injunctions in Birthright Citizenship Case
In a major victory for President Trump, the court limited the ability of federal judges to pause his executive orders. The decision may reshape the way U.S. citizenship is granted, even temporarily.
By Abbie VanSickle, June 27, 2025
Protesters in favor of birthright citizenship outside the Supreme Court in Washington in May. Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
The Supreme Court on Friday limited the ability of federal judges to temporarily pause President Trump’s executive orders, a major victory for the administration. But the justices made no ruling on the constitutionality of his move to end birthright citizenship, and they stopped his order from taking effect for 30 days.
The court’s ruling also appeared to upend the ability of single federal judges to freeze policies across the country, a powerful tool that has been used frequently to block policies instituted by Democratic and Republican administrations.
The 6-to-3 decision, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and split along ideological lines, may dramatically reshape how citizenship is granted in the United States, even temporarily. The majority offered another path to challenging Mr. Trump’s orders on a nationwide basis: class action lawsuits.
In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the majority’s decision “a travesty for the rule of law.”
The majority stressed that it was not addressing the merits of Trump’s attempt to end automatic citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil to undocumented migrants and foreign visitors without green cards.
Here’s what else to know:
· The case before the justices arose from an executive order signed by Mr. Trump on the first day of his second term that appeared to upend the principle known as birthright citizenship, which has been part of the Constitution for more than 150 years.
· Federal trial judges have consistently ruled against the Trump administration, stymieing efforts to withhold funds from schools with diversity programs, to relocate transgender women in federal prisons and to remove deportation protections from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants.
· Mr. Trump’s order on birthright citizenship prompted immediate legal challenges from 22 Democratic-led states and immigrant advocacy organizations and pregnant women concerned that their children might not automatically be granted citizenship. Within days, federal judges in Washington State, Maryland and Massachusetts temporarily blocked the executive order.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
10) Justices Let Parents Opt Children Out of Classes With L.G.B.T.Q. Storybooks
Maryland parents have a religious right to withdraw their children from classes on days that stories with gay and transgender themes are discussed, the court ruled.
By Adam Liptak, Reporting from Washington, June 27, 2025
Supporters of parents seeking the ability to withdraw their children from classes with storybooks with L.G.B.T.Q. themes, seen outside the Supreme Court in April. Credit...Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Public schools in Maryland must allow parents with religious objections to withdraw their children from classes in which storybooks with L.G.B.T.Q. themes are discussed, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday.
The vote was 6 to 3, with the court’s liberal members in dissent.
The case extended a winning streak for claims of religious freedom at the court, gains that have often come at the expense of other values, notably gay rights.
The case concerned a new curriculum adopted in 2022 for prekindergarten through the fifth grade by the Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland’s largest school system.
The storybooks included “Pride Puppy,” an alphabet primer about a family whose puppy gets lost at a Pride parade; “Love, Violet,” about a girl who develops a crush on her female classmate; “Born Ready,” about a transgender boy; and “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” about a same-sex union.
At first, the school system gave parents notice when the storybooks were to be discussed, along with the opportunity to have their children excused. But school administrators soon eliminated the advance notice and opt-out policy, saying it was hard to administer, led to absenteeism and risked “exposing students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation.”
Parents of several faiths sued, saying the books violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion. The books, their complaint said, “promote one-sided transgender ideology, encourage gender transitioning and focus excessively on romantic infatuation.”
The parents said they did not seek to remove the books from school libraries and classrooms but only to shield their children from having to discuss them. (The school system has since withdrawn two of the seven books, including “Pride Puppy.” In court papers, officials said the books had been re-evaluated under standard procedures but did not elaborate.)
The school system defended the curriculum, telling the justices in a brief that it featured “a handful of storybooks featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer characters for use in the language-arts curriculum, alongside the many books already in the curriculum that feature heterosexual characters in traditional gender roles.”
The Supreme Court has in recent years steadily expanded the role of religion in public life.
The court has ruled in favor of a web designer who said she did not want to create sites for same-sex marriages, a high school football coach who said he had a constitutional right to pray at the 50-yard line after his team’s games and a Catholic social services agency in Philadelphia that said it could defy city rules and refuse to work with same-sex couples who had applied to take in foster children.
Lower courts ruled against the Maryland parents.
“There’s no evidence at present that the board’s decision not to permit opt-outs compels the parents or their children to change their religious beliefs or conduct, either at school or elsewhere,” Judge G. Steven Agee wrote for the majority of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Judge Agee, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, added that “simply hearing about other views does not necessarily exert pressure to believe or act differently than one’s religious faith requires.”
In dissent, Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., who was appointed by President Trump, said the parents had made a modest request.
“They do not claim the use of the books is itself unconstitutional,” he wrote. “And they do not seek to ban them. Instead, they only want to opt their children out of the instruction involving such texts.”
The school board, in its Supreme Court brief in the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, No. 24-297, wrote that the dispute was based on a misunderstanding about what lessons students were intended to draw from the books.
“The storybooks themselves do not instruct about gender or sexuality,” the brief said. “They are not textbooks. They merely introduce students to characters who are L.G.B.T.Q. or have L.G.B.T.Q. family members, and those characters’ experiences and points of view.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
11) Canadian Citizen Dies at ICE Detention Center in Florida
The death of Johnny Noviello, 49, came as ICE agents have made sweeping arrests across the United States as part of President Trump’s crackdown on immigration. The cause is under investigation.
By Hannah Ziegler, June 26, 2025
Johnny Noviello, 49, was found unresponsive on Monday at the Bureau of Prisons Federal Detention Center in Miami. Credit...Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press
The authorities are investigating the death of a Canadian citizen who died Monday in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency said in a statement.
The man, Johnny Noviello, 49, was found unresponsive on Monday at around 1 p.m. at the Bureau of Prisons Federal Detention Center in Miami, according to the statement, which was released on Wednesday. Medical staff administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation, automated external defibrillator shock and called 911, ICE said. Mr. Noviello was pronounced dead by the Miami Fire Rescue Department at 1:36 p.m., the agency said.
ICE said that it had notified the Canadian consulate of Mr. Noviello’s death. The Canadian consulate did not immediately return phone and email requests for comment on Thursday.
Mr. Noviello entered the United States in 1988 with a legal visa status and became a lawful permanent resident in 1991, the agency said. In October 2023, he was convicted of charges of racketeering and drug trafficking in Volusia County, Fla., and was sentenced to 12 months in prison.
Court records show that Mr. Noviello and his father were arrested and charged in 2017 with selling drugs, including hydrocodone and oxycodone, at an auto sales shop in Daytona Beach, Fla.
ICE agents arrested Mr. Noviello on May 15 at the Florida Department of Corrections probation office, and he was being detained pending removal proceedings because he had violated U.S. drug laws, according to the agency.
His death came as ICE agents have made sweeping arrests across the United States as part of President Trump’s crackdown on immigration. Mr. Trump has issued several executive orders this year aimed at deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, and ICE arrests in courts, restaurants, hotels and factories have prompted widespread protests.
Mr. Noviello is the 10th person to die in ICE custody this year and the fourth person to die in custody in Florida, according to the agency’s website.
Rylee Kirk contributed research.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
12) Plenty of Jews Love Zohran Mamdani
By Michelle Goldberg, Opinion Columnist, June 27, 2025
Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, New York’s Jewish comptroller, cross-endorsed in the ranked-choice Democratic mayoral primary. Credit...Heather Khalifa/Associated Press
In 2023, a branch of the Palestinian restaurant Ayat opened in Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park, not far from where I live. The eatery trumpets its politics; the seafood section on the menu is headed “From the River to the Sea,” which I found clever but some of its Jewish neighbors considered threatening. An uproar grew, especially online, so Ayat made a peace offering.
In early 2024, it hosted a free Shabbat dinner, writing on social media, “Let’s create a space where differences unite us, where conversations flow freely, and where bonds are forged.” Over 1,300 people showed up. To serve them all, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported, Ayat used 15 lambs, 700 pounds of chicken and 100 branzino fish. There were also sandwiches from a glatt kosher caterer, a six-foot-long challah and a klezmer band.
The event captured something miraculous about New York City, which is, for all its tensions and aggravations and occasional bursts of violence, a place where Jews and Muslims live in remarkable harmony. In Lawrence Wright’s recent novel set in the West Bank, “The Human Scale,” a Palestinian American man tries to explain it to his Palestinian cousin: “It’s not like here. Arabs and Jews are more like each other than they are like a lot of other Americans. You’ll see them in the same grocery stores and restaurants because of the halal food.”
Eating side-by-side does not, of course, obviate fierce and sometimes ugly disagreements. But while outsiders like to paint New York as a roiling hellhole, there’s an everyday multicultural amity in this city that’s low-key magical.
I saw some of that magic reflected in Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, and especially in the Muslim candidate’s alliance with New York’s Jewish comptroller, Brad Lander. They cross-endorsed, urging their followers to list the other second in the city’s ranked-choice voting system. The two campaigned together and made a joint appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” and Lander was beside Mamdani when he delivered his victory speech.
Mamdani’s pro-Palestinian politics have sparked enormous alarm among some New York Jews, but he’s also won considerable Jewish support. In a poll of likely Jewish voters done by the Honan Strategy Group in May, Andrew Cuomo came in first, with 31 percent of the vote, but Mamdani was second, with 20 percent. On Tuesday, he won most of Park Slope, a neighborhood full of progressive Jews, and held his own on the similarly Jewish Upper West Side.
“His campaign has attracted Jewish New Yorkers of all types,” wrote Jay Michaelson, a columnist at the Jewish newspaper The Forward. The rabbi who runs my son’s Hebrew school put Mamdani on his ballot, though he didn’t rank him first. And while Mamdani undoubtedly did best among left-leaning and largely secular Jews, he made a point of reaching out to others. After he gave an interview to Der Blatt, an ultra-Orthodox Yiddish newspaper, Rabbi Moishe Indig, the leader of a faction of Hasidic Jews, told The New York Times, “As mayor, we wouldn’t have a problem with him.” (Though Indig considered adding Mamdani to his endorsement slate, he ultimately decided against it.)
So it has been maddening to see people claim that Mamdani’s win was a victory for antisemitism. A Republican running for local office in Long Island posted on X that Mamdani will try to shut down “every single synagogue” and Jewish nonprofit in the city. “Evacuate NYC immediately,” wrote the Republican Jewish Coalition, a political group.
Some on the right have responded to his triumph with anti-Muslim hysteria. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a picture of the Statue of Liberty in a burqa, as if Mamdani, a man who campaigned with drag queens and promised public funding for trans health care, wants to impose Shariah law. Her House colleague Andy Ogles called for him to be denaturalized and deported.
I can certainly understand why Jews who see anti-Zionism and antisemitism as synonymous find Mamdani’s rise alarming. There’s no question that he sympathizes with the Palestinians over the Israelis. New York’s past mayors — even the left-leaning Bill de Blasio — supported Israel reflexively. After the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for the arrest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on war crimes charges, Cuomo joined his defense team. Mamdani, by contrast, has said he’d enforce the warrant if Netanyahu ever comes to New York.
One needn’t even be an ardent backer of Israel to have reservations about Mamdani. I’m worried about his inexperience, and I suspect he won people over by making economic promises that he can’t keep. Even though my own stance on Israel’s prime minister is closer to Mamdani’s than to Cuomo’s, I thought it was a terrible mistake for Mamdani to try to justify the phrase “globalize the intifada” on a podcast this month. He’s right, of course, that the literal meaning of intifada is simply “struggle,” but context matters. Mamdani should understand why many Jews find the words threatening, particularly after the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington and the firebombing, just this month, of people in Colorado demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages.
He has consistently denounced antisemitism, and has spoken movingly about Jewish fear, including on the podcast that tripped him up. But Mamdani shouldn’t give the nervous people he aspires to represent any reason to doubt that he’ll protect them. He struck the right tone on the night of the primary, when he promised that while he won’t “abandon my beliefs or my commitments, grounded in a demand for equality,” he would also “reach further, to understand the perspectives of those with whom I disagree, and to wrestle deeply with those disagreements.”
Ultimately, though, New York’s Democratic primary wasn’t about Israel, no matter how much Cuomo wanted it to be. Mamdani won because of his relentless focus on affordability and our quality of life, and his ebullience, optimism and authenticity. At a time when the Democratic Party is ossifying into a gerontocracy, its leaders dependent on focus-grouped talking points, he’s young and energetic and comfortable speaking extemporaneously. In a cynical and despairing time, he gave people hope.
He benefited, too, from being underestimated. No one is underestimating him now. In the general election, he’ll be facing the disgraced mayor Eric Adams, running as an independent, and possibly an independent Cuomo as well. The attacks on Mamdani during the primary were brutal, but now that he’s a national figure, those coming his way will be worse. His foes will try to leverage Jewish anxieties to smash the Democratic coalition. Adams is even planning to appear on the ballot line of a fake political party called “EndAntisemitism.”
Mamdani’s opponents will try to reduce him to a caricature, some mutant offspring of Jeremy Corbyn and Yahya Sinwar. They will say they’re doing it for the Jews, and plenty of Jews will believe them. But don’t forget that the vision of this city at the heart of Mamdani’s campaign — a city that embraces immigrants and hates autocrats, that’s at once earthy and cosmopolitan — is one that many Jews, myself included, find inspiring. He won in part because he is so obviously a product of the New York we love.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
13) El Salvador Police Say Quotas and Rumors Fueled Bukele’s Mass Arrests
Tens of thousands of people were jailed as part of President Nayib Bukele crackdown on gangs. Some police officers now admit they arrested people on flimsy or nonexistent evidence to meet quotas.
By Annie Correal, June 27, 2025
Annie Correal has been covering El Salvador and President Nayib Bukele’s prison system.
Relatives watched as recently arrested men were transferred to prison in April 2022, early in an anti-gang campaign that has imprisoned about 80,000 people. Credit...Daniele Volpe for The New York Times
The police arrested men based on neighborhood gossip or innocent tattoos, the families of those swept up in El Salvador’s mass arrests have long claimed.
Now, some police officers who were part of President Nayib Bukele’s sweeping crackdown on gangs are saying the same thing.
Nearly a dozen officers from El Salvador’s national police described facing intense pressure to meet arrest quotas, according to a Human Rights Watch report released this week, as well as three officers from that group who spoke directly to The New York Times, and the leader of the country’s main group advocating for police officers.
The quotas were imposed after Mr. Bukele declared a state of emergency in 2022, which remains in effect today, and oversaw a campaign of mass arrests, the officers and report said.
Mr. Bukele’s plan resulted in an astounding turnaround for the tiny Central American country, which for decades had been racked by gang violence. El Salvador quickly became one of the safest countries in the region, a feat Mr. Bukele touted at the White House after he imprisoned some of President Trump’s deportees.
But the officers and police group leader said arbitrary arrests helped drive that turnaround — as did a fear among the police that they, too, could be dragged to jail as gang collaborators if they defied orders.
They also said some officers abused their powers under the state of emergency.
“Bukele publicizes his security policies as a positive model for the world, but the police officers we spoke with tell a completely different story,” said Juanita Goebertus, the Americas director of Human Rights Watch.
Asked for comment, the Salvadoran police referred questions to a spokeswoman for the presidency, who did not respond.
Officers interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals. Like many Salvadorans, some stood by Mr. Bukele’s security strategy even as they described how it had gone too far.
“The tool is not badly designed,” said one officer. “It’s how it has been applied.”
Exhausting the database
Police officers said in interviews that the emergency decree, at first, helped them quell gangs like MS-13 that had terrorized communities.
But when police and security forces exhausted the database of known gang members, they nonetheless had to keep making arrests—because government officials believed there were tens of thousands of collaborators.
“That’s when we started to come out and say we didn’t agree,” one officer said, adding that his unit was told to keep making five arrests a day.
To meet quotas, officers resorted to flimsy evidence, including anonymous calls or neighbors’ tips, several officers said. The unofficial policy, one said, was “arrest first, investigate later.”
Months of chaos ensued, as officers snatched boys and men from work or their beds.
The head of the group of national police, Marvin Reyes, said in an interview that officers pushed back but faced punishment if they disobeyed. They were told, “Look, if you don’t come in with the daily quota, don’t come into the base at all.”
A teeming prison system
As officials demanded more arrests, El Salvador’s prison population soared from about 30,000 in early 2022 to about 110,000 this year, according to recent government figures.
Police had believed that people arrested in the early push would quickly be released after investigations, interviewed officers said.
But the legal system “crumbled completely” under Mr. Bukele, one officer said. Lawmakers lifted the limit on how long people brought in on gang charges could be held without a trial. Most of those detained in early 2022 are still behind bars.
“Their homes, their jobs. They’ve lost their lives,” he said. “Everything that defines them as a person.”
Demanding cash and sex
As Mr. Bukele extended the state of emergency, several officers said, some members of the police used the decree to extort people — demanding money or sometimes sex to stave off arrest.
People were detained on a whim. A food vendor was put in handcuffs for briefly blocking a police vehicle, one officer recounted.
Mr. Reyes said that incidents of extortion had become rare, and that officers implicated in such cases had been harshly punished. Now, he said, the police can only arrest people under the emergency powers if they have prior charges of gang violence, reducing arbitrary arrests.
But under Mr. Bukele, he said, the police force had been turned into a political tool and had violated human rights. The police had been ordered to arrest dissidents and anyone who spoke out, Mr. Reyes said, and the damage from mass arrests was irreparable.
“The people they incarcerated — they ruined their lives completely,” he said. Some had died in prison, he said. “Correcting that will not be possible.”
The psychological toll on officers, he added, had been significant.
One officer, who said he had refused to do anything “illegal” under the state of emergency, said he had been reassigned, demoted and ridiculed for refusing to carry out orders.
He said he would not quit, out of a survival instinct, if nothing else. If he left the force, he said, the authorities would build a case against him.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
14) Israel Suggests It Could Strike Iran Again to Counter New Threats
Israel’s defense minister said Israel would strike if Iran seeks to develop long-range missiles or advance its nuclear program, despite a truce.
By Erika Solomon and Johnatan Reiss, June 27, 2025
A woman in Tehran crying near her home, which was hit by an Israeli airstrike this week. Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Israel’s defense minister said he would pursue a “policy of enforcement” against Iran despite a cease-fire, aiming to prevent Tehran from rebuilding its air power, advancing nuclear projects or developing “threatening long-range missiles.”
The comments by Defense Minister Israel Katz to local news channels on Thursday evening suggested that Israel was contemplating more strikes on Iran even after President Trump announced a truce between the two countries on Tuesday.
Iran’s foreign minister warned on Thursday night that his country would respond to anything it considered a breach of the cease-fire.
Mr. Katz, speaking to Israel’s Channel 12, said the Israeli military was still finalizing what he called an “enforcement policy” with Iran.
“We have the determination to implement it: preserving aerial superiority, preventing the advancement of nuclear projects and preventing the advancement of threatening long-range missiles,” he said.
Such a wide-ranging Israeli interpretation of threats from Iran could imperil the truce, which ended a 12-day war that the United States briefly joined when its war planes bombed three Iranian nuclear sites.
The war did significant damage to Iranian nuclear sites and air defenses, and Iran may seek to rebuild its strategic infrastructure.
Mr. Katz’s comments may have been directed at his local audience, particularly the hawkish government’s base of supporters. But the remarks could also lay the groundwork for a confrontation with Washington.
It is unclear whether Mr. Trump would push back against the policy that Mr. Katz outlined. Israel may also choose to wait and see the results of any future diplomacy between Tehran and Washington.
Mr. Trump was outraged when the cease-fire got off to a shaky start, and both sides appeared to violate the truce with rocket fire in the early hours.
He directed his strongest criticisms at Israel, even at one point posting messages on social media when he was concerned it might strike Iran again. He warned it would be a “MAJOR VIOLATION” if Israel were to bomb Iran and demanded that the country “BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!”
Mr. Katz told Channel 12 that Israel does not need U.S. approval to attack Iran in the future.
“We are saying unequivocally, once the Iranians violate, we will strike.”
He said Israel’s policy would be similar to what it has done in the aftermath of its war against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon. The United States brokered a truce to end that war as well after Israel killed most of the group’s leadership.
Since then, Israel has bombed targets in Lebanon frequently, even though Hezbollah has refrained from attacks on Israeli territory.
Israel has justified some of those strikes by saying that they were aimed at preventing Hezbollah’s efforts to rearm. Mr. Katz told another network, Channel 13, that Israel’s policy on Iran would be “like in Lebanon — just times 100.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Aragchi, warned that “Iran is not Lebanon,” in an interview with state television on Friday.
“We do not accept any cease-fire or halt in operations that implies an agreed-upon arrangement,” he said, adding that he had “serious doubts” about Israel’s commitment to the deal.
He pointed to Israel’s frequent airstrikes in Lebanon and Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to break a cease-fire with Hamas in March to restart military operations in the Gaza war.
“They declare a truce, but assume that the other side is weak, then proceed to violate it themselves and attempt to prevent any response,” he said.
Iran still has ballistic missiles and launchers, despite the damage it has sustained from Israeli and U.S. strikes. It could still inflict blows that Israel would likely need to take into account should it choose to strike again.
Mr. Araghchi vowed that Iran would “decisively respond to any breach by the Zionist regime.”
Euan Ward contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
15) Starmer Backtracks on Planned Social Cuts After Pushback From His Own Party
The British prime minister had pressed ahead with the proposal, but a parliamentary vote on it was expected to fail.
By Stephen Castle, Reporting from London, June 27, 2025
Protesters in wheelchairs held placards reading “They say cut back, we say fight back” and “Welfare not warfare” during a demonstration outside Downing Street in central London in March. Credit...Benjamin Cremel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain reversed course on proposed cuts to a key social welfare benefit on Friday after pressure from critics, the latest in a series of political retreats that have shaken his leadership.
Numerous lawmakers in his own Labour Party had opposed the changes, which would have raised the eligibility requirements for payments to disabled people and were expected to affect hundreds of thousands of claimants. So the government said on Friday that it would weaken the proposals by applying them only to new applicants.
The legislation is designed to reduce the country’s ballooning welfare bill. The government is hoping that its concession will be sufficient to win a vote in Parliament, scheduled for Tuesday, that it had looked almost certain to lose.
Mr. Starmer’s reversal follows a similar retreat over a plan to restrict payments to help retirees with winter fuel costs, and a change of heart when he opted to hold a national investigation into child sexual exploitation and abuse — an inquiry that he had previously rejected.
The welfare changes were proposed in the hope of reducing government spending by 5 billion pounds, about $6.9 billion. But Friday’s turnabout leaves the government, despite its large parliamentary majority, in a political crisis less than a year after achieving a decisive general election victory.
Opposition critics have predicted that to make up the shortfall, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the Exchequer, will have to raise taxes, cut government spending elsewhere or break her self-imposed rules on borrowing.
Despite clear signs of opposition from more than 120 lawmakers within his governing Labour party, Mr. Starmer had insisted for days that he would press ahead with the initial plan, and even dismissed the protests.
The government put its best spin on its concessions, which were announced in the early hours of Friday, arguing that negotiations with lawmakers had strengthened its plans.
“We are moving forward with our reform plans, but we’re going to get it right,” Stephen Kinnock, a minister in the Department of Health and Social Care, told Times Radio. “My experience is the public really likes it when politicians listen, engage, recognize where changes are needed and take action accordingly.”
Under the revised plans, changes to the eligibility for some welfare benefits — including one known as personal independence payment, or PIP, which assists people who have both long-term physical and mental health conditions — will now apply only to future applicants, not to existing claimants as had been proposed.
A package of financial help to support people who are able to work to get back into employment is also expected to be fast-tracked.
Britain’s welfare costs have been mounting, and the government says that since the coronavirus pandemic, the number of approved PIP payments has more than doubled — rising from 13,000 a month to 34,000.
That surge has been largely driven by an increase in the number of people who report anxiety and depression as their main condition, and the government predicts that spending on working-age disability and incapacity benefits could increase to about £70 billion a year by 2029.
Ministers argue that, in addition to curbing the welfare system’s rising costs, they want to help people who can work to get back into employment.
Meg Hillier, one of the most prominent Labour rebels, said she would now support the legislation, an indication that the concession could be enough to win Tuesday’s vote. She described the move in a statement as a “positive outcome that has seen the government listen and engage” with the concerns of Labour lawmakers.
But some Labour lawmakers are unhappy with the changes, because new claimants for disability payments will be treated differently from those who currently receive the aid. One Labour lawmaker, Peter Lamb, wrote on social media that the concessions were “insufficient” and that he would vote against the bill.
The opposition Conservative Party similarly pointed to that split between current and future requirements.
“The latest ‘deal’ with Labour rebels sounds a lot like a two-tier benefits system, more likely to encourage anyone already on benefits to stay there rather than get into work,” Helen Whately, who speaks for the Conservatives on work and welfare-related issues, said in a statement
Within the Labour Party, some critics are blaming Ms. Reeves, because she was the driving force behind the plans to curb winter fuel payments that prompted the first retreat, as well as some of the proposed welfare cuts.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
16) Pro-Palestinian Activists Arrested Under Terrorism Law in U.K. Air Base Break-In
The powers used against the members of a group called Palestine Action are more usually employed in cases of planned jihadist or far-right violence.
By Lizzie Dearden, Reporting from London, June 27, 2025
“The ban would make it a criminal offense to be a member of Palestine Action, to raise money for the group, to “invite support” or arrange meetings for it, to display its logo or to fail to disclose information about any banned activities to the police.”
A demonstration in London on Monday in support of Palestine Action. The group posted footage online on June 20 showing two activists moving around an R.A.F. base on scooters before using red paint to damage two planes. Credit...Henry Nicholls/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The police in Britain have used a counterterrorism law to arrest three people over a pro-Palestinian group’s recent incursion at a British military base in a rare use of such powers against acts of vandalism.
This week, the British government announced an intention to ban the group, called Palestine Action.
The arrests were made on Thursday under a 2000 law that allows enhanced detention for those “suspected to be a terrorist,” the police said. The powers are commonly used against people suspected of planning jihadist or far-right attacks to give investigators more time to question them.
A police statement released on Friday did not identify the suspects but described them as a 29-year-old woman and two men aged 36 and 24. The police said that they had also arrested a 41-year-old woman on suspicion of assisting an offender.
The four arrested are being held during the investigation into the break-in by Palestine Action at Brize Norton, Britain’s largest Royal Air Force base, in the early hours of June 20. The group posted footage online showing two activists moving around the base on electric scooters before using red paint to damage two military planes.
Palestine Action has previously targeted facilities linked to military companies, including Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer. The group also vandalized President Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland in March.
Mr. Trump referred to its members as “terrorists” and called for them to be “treated harshly” after activists defaced the resort’s clubhouse with red paint and daubed “Gaza is not 4 sale” on part of the golf course.
The British home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who is responsible for law enforcement and national security, said on Monday that Palestine Action would be deemed a terrorist group and banned. She said that its actions had put Britain’s national security at risk and met the legal definition of terrorism because those terms included “serious damage to property.”
Orders to ban groups under terrorism laws are usually passed without a vote in Parliament. But some lawmakers opposed to the ban are expected to debate the measure when it is formally introduced on Monday. There is a mechanism that would prompt a vote, but the Labour government’s large majority means that, even in that case, the order would be most likely pass.
The ban would make it a criminal offense to be a member of Palestine Action, to raise money for the group, to “invite support” or arrange meetings for it, to display its logo or to fail to disclose information about any banned activities to the police.
Palestine Action will be listed alongside more than 80 groups that Britain has barred as terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, Hamas and the Islamic State, as well as the Atomwaffen Division and other white supremacist groups.
Jonathan Hall, the British government’s adviser on terrorism legislation, said in an interview that to his knowledge, the Palestine Action ban would be the “first time that a group has been proscribed on the basis of serious damage to property” rather than for carrying out or supporting serious violence.
Rights groups and several left-wing British politicians have opposed the ban, and Palestine Action has threatened to sue. It called the ban “unhinged” and said it was “plainly preposterous” to list the group with terrorist organizations like the Islamic State. Palestine Action has raised about $220,000 in crowdfunding for legal action against the British government.
Both the arrest powers used on Thursday and the move to bar Palestine Action are based on the Terrorism Act 2000, which was introduced under a Labour government headed by Tony Blair.
It defines terrorism as the use or threat of action that involves serious violence against a person or endangers someone’s life, involves serious damage to property, creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or is intended to seriously disrupt or interfere with an electronic system.
Under the law, such threats or actions must be intended to influence the government or intimidate the public, and be “for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.”
When the legislation was originally being debated in Parliament, several lawmakers questioned whether the terrorist definition would include activists who targeted Royal Air Force bases, military planes and submarines to stop their use in what protesters viewed as war crimes.
A Home Office minister at the time, Charles Clarke, said that the government did not intend for it to apply to “direct action” or any “domestic, industrial or environmental action,” and the clause on damaging property was subsequently retained.
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
17) Honey, We Shrunk the Cod
Two new studies add to the evidence that human activity, from fishing to urban development, is driving the evolution of wild animals.
By Emily Anthes, June 27, 2025
Call it the case of the incredible shrinking cod. Thirty years ago, the cod that swam in the Baltic Sea were brag-worthy, with fishing boats hauling in fish the size of human toddlers. Today, such behemoths are vanishingly rare. A typical Eastern Baltic cod could easily fit in someone’s cupped hands.
Experts have suspected that commercial fishing might be to blame. For years, the cod were intensely harvested, caught in enormous trawl nets. The smallest cod could wriggle their way out of danger, while the biggest, heaviest specimens were continually removed from the sea.
One simple explanation for the phenomenon, then, was that the fish were not actually shrinking: Rather, they were simply eliminated as soon as they grew big enough to be caught.
But a new study suggests that intense fishing was driving the evolution of the fish. Small, slow-growing cod gained a significant survival advantage, shifting the population toward fish that were genetically predisposed to remaining small. Today’s cod are small not because the big individuals are fished out but because the fish no longer grow big.
The data, which were published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, add to a growing body of evidence that human activities like hunting and fishing are driving the evolution of wild animals — sometimes at lightning speed.
“Human harvesting elicits the strongest selection pressures in nature,” said Thorsten Reusch, a marine ecologist at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel in Germany and an author of the new paper. “It can be really fast that you see evolutionary change.”
The imprint that humans are leaving on other species is not always quite so visible. In a second study published this week, researchers at the Field Museum of Natural History, in Chicago, reported that over the past century, increasing human development may have driven changes in the skulls of local rodents. But some of these changes were subtle, and they were not the same across species.
“We are comparing two species in the same area that were supposedly exposed to the same pressure,” said Anderson Feijó, the assistant curator of mammals at the Field Museum and an author of the rodent study, which was published in the journal Integrative and Comparative Biology on Thursday. “But the way they dealt is totally different, because their biology is different.”
Go Fish
In the new cod study, researchers studied a set of unusual biological specimens: a collection of otoliths, the tiny, bonelike structures located in the inner ear of most fish. Otoliths grow in size over the course of a fish’s life, adding rings much as a tree trunk does. By examining these rings, scientists can estimate the age and growth rate of individual fish.
The researchers used a newly developed chemical technique to analyze otoliths collected from Eastern Baltic cod harvested between 1996 and 2019, when the collapse of the population prompted a fishing ban. They found that fish harvested in more recent years were significantly smaller, with slower growth rates, than those from the beginning of the period. From 1996 and 2019, the average length of the cod declined by 48 percent.
Then, the researchers sequenced and analyzed the DNA of each individual fish. For the older specimens, this was a tricky task, requiring the researchers to recover degraded DNA from otoliths that had been stored in paper bags, at room temperature, for decades. “We had to work with a little dirt, a little slime, some blood traces that were sticking to the otoliths,” Dr. Reusch said.
Ultimately, the team identified a variety of genomic regions and variants associated with growth rate. A statistical analysis revealed that over time, these variants were changing in correlated, nonrandom ways — suggesting that there was some external selective force acting on the genome and the population.
That is a “signal of selection,” said Kwi Young Han, a postdoctoral researcher at GEOMAR and an author of the paper.
The results didn’t prove that fishing is what drove this selection; warming temperatures would also be expected to favor smaller cod. But the size changes that the scientists documented far exceed what would be expected from temperature alone.
The genetic changes could have long-term consequences for the population and help explain why it hasn’t bounced back since the 2019 fishing ban. “It’s 2025 right now, and we don’t see any big fish still,” Dr. Han said.
Rodent Roundup
In the second study, researchers examined hundreds of rodent specimens contained in the collection of the Field Museum of Natural History. The specimens had originally been collected from around the Chicago metropolitan area between 1898 and 2023. The scientists focused on the skulls of two different species: eastern chipmunks and eastern meadow voles. Each skull was analyzed for specific characteristics, including its particular collection site and how highly developed the area was.
The researchers found that over time, as Chicago grew more urban, the chipmunks’ skulls became larger — but their rows of teeth grew shorter. These seemingly opposing trends may have been driven by a change in diet, the scientists said. Urbanization, with its abundance of human food and trash, could have made it easier for chipmunks to pack on weight year round, leading to larger body sizes. At the same time, the robust teeth that helped chipmunks extract calories from nuts and seeds may have become less essential.
Voles, in contrast, did not show significant changes in skull size over time, perhaps because their more restrictive diets — mostly grasses and other plants — and reclusive natures made them less likely to dine on human food, Stephanie Smith, a research scientist at the Field Museum and an author of the study, said. “Voles are kind of much more secretive,” she said. “They’re not as out-and-about and stealing people’s French fries.”
But their skulls showed signs of other changes. Vole skulls collected from more urban areas were flatter than those found at less developed sites. The bony structure that houses parts of the middle and inner ear — known as the auditory bulla — also tended to be smaller in vole skulls from urbanized areas.
There is some evidence from other species that larger auditory bullae may be associated with enhanced hearing. Perhaps urban voles evolved smaller auditory bullae to help dampen the urban din, Dr. Smith said.
Voles live “down in the ground, near all of the train noises, all of the vibrations from people walking around, cars, buses, everything,” Dr. Smith said. “So our thought here is that, potentially, this change in the auditory bulla could be related to filtering out excess sound.”
It’s just a hypothesis, Dr. Smith stressed, and one that requires much more study. But the findings help illustrate the enormous diversity of ways in which humans are inadvertently reshaping other species, whether out in the open ocean or in our backyards.
“There is evolution happening everywhere, all the time,” Dr. Smith said. “You just have to know where to look for it.”
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*
