Memorial for David Johnson of the San Quentin 6
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A Trial Date Is Set on August 26 for Alejandro Orellana, Join the Call for National Protests to Drop the Charges!
https://stopfbi.org/news/a-trial-date-is-set-on-august-26-for-alejandro-orellana-join-the-call-for-national-protests-to-drop-the-charges/
A trial date of August 26 was set for immigrant rights activist Alejandro Orellana at his July 3 court appearance in front of a room packed with supporters. Orellana was arrested by the FBI on June 12 for protesting against ICE in Los Angeles. He faces up to 5 years in prison for two bogus federal charges: conspiracy to commit civil disorder, and aiding and abetting civil disorder.
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression is calling for a national day of protests on the first day of Orellana's trial, August 26th, to demand that the charges be dropped. To everyone who believes in the right to free speech, to protest ICE, and to say no to deportations, we urge you to organize a local protest on that day at the nearest federal courthouse.
Orellana has spent much of his adult life fighting for justice for Chicanos, Latinos, and many others. He has opposed the killings of Chicanos and Latinos by the LAPD, such as 14-year-old Jesse Romero, stood against US wars, protested in defense of others targeted by political repression, and has been a longtime member of the activist group, Centro CSO, based out of East LA. His life is full of examples of courage, integrity, and a dedication to justice.
In contrast, the US Attorney who charged him, Bilal Essayli, believes in Trump's racist MAGA vision and does a lot to carry it out. He defended Trump's decision to defy the state of California and deploy the California National Guard to put down anti-ICE protests. Essayli has charged other protesters, including David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California, who was held on a $50,000 bond.
Another Centro CSO immigrants rights activist, Verita Topete, was ambushed by the FBI on June 26. They served her a warrant and seized her phone. Orellana and his fellow organizers like Topete stand for the community that protested Trump last month. Essayli represents Trump’s attempts to crush that movement.
This case against Orellana is political repression, meant to stop the growth of the national immigrants rights movement. The basis for his arrest was the claim that he drove a truck carrying face shields for protesters, as police geared up to put down protests with rubber bullets. People of conscience are standing with Orellana. because nothing he did or is accused of doing is wrong. There is no crime in protesting Trump, deportations, and ICE. To protest is his - and our - First Amendment right. It’s up to us to make sure that Essayli and Trump fail to repress this movement and silence Orellana's supporters.
Just as he stood up for immigrants last month, we call on everyone to stand up for Orellana on August 26 and demand the charges be dropped. On the June 27 National Day of Action for Alejandro Orellana, at least 16 cities held protests or press conferences in front of their federal courthouses. We’ll make sure there are even more on August 26. In addition to planning local protests, we ask that organizations submit statements of support and to join in the call to drop the charges.
You can find protest organizing materials on our website, stopfbi.org. Please send information about your local protests and any statements of support to stopfbi@gmail.com. We will see you in the streets!
On August 26, Protest at Your Federal Courthouse for Alejandro Orellana!
Drop the Charges Now!
Protesting ICE Is Not a Crime!
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:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
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Dear Organization Coordinator
I hope this message finds you well. I’m reaching out to invite your organization to consider co-sponsoring a regional proposal to implement Free Public Transit throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
This initiative directly supports low-income families, working people, seniors, youth, and others who rely on public transportation. It would eliminate fare barriers while helping to address climate justice, congestion, and air pollution—issues that disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities.
We believe your organization’s mission and values align strongly with this proposal. We are seeking endorsements, co-sponsorship, and coalition-building with groups that advocate for economic and racial equity.
I would love the opportunity to share a brief proposal or speak further if you're interested. Please let me know if there’s a staff member or program director I should connect with.
A description of our proposal is below:
sharethemoneyinstitute@gmail.com
Opinion: San Francisco Bay Area Should Provide Free Public Transportation
The San Francisco Bay Area is beautiful, with fantastic weather, food, diversity and culture. We’re also internationally famous for our progressiveness, creativity, and innovation.
I believe the next amazing world-leading feature we can add to our cornucopia of attractions is Free Public Transportation. Imagine how wonderful it would be if Muni, BART, Caltrain, AC Transit, SamTrans, SF Bay Ferries, and all the other transportation services were absolutely free?
Providing this convenience would deliver enormous, varied benefits to the 7.6 million SF Bay Area residents, and would make us a lovable destination for tourists.
This goal - Free Public Transportation - is ambitious, but it isn’t impossible, or even original. Truth is, many people world-wide already enjoy free rides in their smart municipalities.
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is promoting free transit, with a plan that’s gained the endorsement of economists from Chile, United Kingdom, Greece, and the USA.
The entire nation of Luxembourg has offered free public transportation to both its citizens and visitors since 2020. Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, has given free transit to its residents since 2013. In France, thirty-five cities provide free public transportation. Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, offers free rides to seniors, disabled, and students. In Maricá (Brazil) – the entire municipal bus system is free. Delhi (India) – offers free metro and bus travel for women. Madrid & Barcelona (Spain) offer free (or heavily discounted) passes to youth and seniors.
Even in the USA, free public transit is already here. Kansas City, Missouri, has enjoyed a free bus system free since 2020. Olympia, Washington, has fully fare-free intercity transit. Missoula, Montana, is free for all riders. Columbia, South Carolina, has free buses, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has enjoyed free transit for over a decade. Ithaca, New York, and Madison, Wisconsin, offer free transit to students.
But if the San Francisco Bay Area offered free transit, we’d be the LARGEST municipality in the world to offer universal Free Transit to everyone, resident and visitor alike. (Population of Luxembourg is 666,430. Kansas City 510,704. Population of San Francisco Bay Area is 7.6 million in the nine-county area)
Providing free transit would be tremendously beneficial to millions of people, for three major reasons:
1. Combat Climate Change - increased public ridership would reduce harmful CO2 fossil fuel emissions. Estimates from Kansas City and Tallinn Estonia’s suggest an increase in ridership of 15 percent. Another estimate from a pilot project in New York City suggests a ridership increase of 30 percent. These increases in people taking public transportation instead of driving their own cars indicates a total reduction of 5.4 - 10.8 tons of emissions would be eliminated, leading to better air quality, improved public health, and long-term climate gains.
2. Reduce Traffic Congestion & Parking Difficulty - Estimates suggest public transit would decrease traffic congestion in dense urban areas and choke points like the Bay Bridge by up to 15 percent. Car ownership would also be reduced. Traffic in San Francisco is the second-slowest in the USA (NYC is #1) and getting worse every year. Parking costs in San Francisco are also the second-worst in the USA (NYC #1), and again, it is continually getting worse.
3. Promote Social Equity - Free transit removes a financial cost that hits low-income residents hard. Transportation is the second-biggest expense after housing for many Americans. In the Bay Area, a monthly Clipper pass can cost $86–$98 per system, and much more for multi-agency commuters. For people living paycheck-to-paycheck, this is a significant cost. People of color, immigrants, youth, seniors, and people with disabilities rely more heavily on public transit. 55–70% of frequent transit riders in the Bay Area are from low-to moderate-income households, but these riders usually pay more per mile of transit than wealthy drivers. Free fares equalize access regardless of income or geography.
Free transit would help people 1) take jobs they couldn’t otherwise afford to commute to, thus improving the economy, 2) Stay in school without worrying about bus fare, 3) Get to appointments, child care, or grocery stores without skipping meals to afford transit.
To conclude: Free Public Transit should be seen as a civil rights and economic justice intervention.
The Cost? How can San Francisco Bay Area pay for Free Transit throughout our large region?
ShareTheMoney.Institute estimates the cost as $1.5 billion annually. This sum can acquired via multiple strategies. Corvallis, Oregon, has had free public bus service since 2011, paid for by a $3.63 monthly fee added to each utility bill. Missoula, Montana, funds their fare-free Mountain Line transit system, via a property tax mill levy. Madison, Wisconsin’s transit is supported by general fund revenues, state and federal grants, and partnerships/sponsorships from local businesses and organizations.
Ideally, we’d like the funds to be obtained from the 37 local billionaires who, combined, have an approximate wealth of $885 billion. The $1.5 billion for free transit is only 0.17% of the local billionaire's wealth. Sponsorship from the ultra-wealthy would be ideal. Billionaires can view the “fair transit donation” they are asked to contribute not as punishment or an “envy tax”, but as their investment to create a municipality that is better for everyone, themselves included. They can pride themselves on instigating a world-leading, legacy-defining reform that will etch their names in history as leaders of a bold utopian reform.
Our motto: “we want to move freely around our beautiful bay”
——
Hank Pellissier - Share The Money Institute
Reverend Gregory Stevens - Unitarian Universalist EcoSocialist Network
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Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical Defense Fund, Official 2024
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Updates From Kevin Cooper
A Never-ending Constitutional Violation
A summary of the current status of Kevin Cooper’s case by the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
On October 26, 2023, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP wrote a rebuttal in response to the Special Counsel's January 13, 2023 report upholding the conviction of their client Kevin Cooper. A focus of the rebuttal was that all law enforcement files were not turned over to the Special Counsel during their investigation, despite a request for them to the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office.
On October 29, 2023, Law Professors Lara Bazelon and Charlie Nelson Keever, who run the six member panel that reviews wrongful convictions for the San Francisco County District Attorney's office, published an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle calling the "Innocence Investigation” done by the Special Counsel in the Cooper case a “Sham Investigation” largely because Cooper has unsuccessfully fought for years to obtain the police and prosecutor files in his case. This is a Brady claim, named for the U.S. Supreme court’s 1963 case establishing the Constitutional rule that defendants are entitled to any information in police and prosecutor's possession that could weaken the state's case or point to innocence. Brady violations are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. The Special Counsel's report faults Cooper for not offering up evidence of his own despite the fact that the best evidence to prove or disprove Brady violations or other misconduct claims are in those files that the San Bernardino County District Attorney's office will not turn over to the Special Counsel or to Cooper's attorneys.
On December 14, 2023, the president of the American Bar Association (ABA), Mary Smith, sent Governor Gavin Newsom a three page letter on behalf of the ABA stating in part that Mr.Cooper's counsel objected to the state's failure to provide Special Counsel all documents in their possession relating to Mr.Cooper's conviction, and that concerns about missing information are not new. For nearly 40 years Mr.Cooper's attorneys have sought this same information from the state.
On December 19, 2023, Bob Egelko, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle wrote an article about the ABA letter to the Governor that the prosecutors apparently withheld evidence from the Governor's legal team in the Cooper case.
These are just a few recent examples concerning the ongoing failure of the San Bernardino County District Attorney to turn over to Cooper's attorney's the files that have been requested, even though under the law and especially the U.S. Constitution, the District Attorney of San Bernardino county is required to turn over to the defendant any and all material and or exculpatory evidence that they have in their files. Apparently, they must have something in their files because they refuse to turn them over to anyone.
The last time Cooper's attorney's received files from the state, in 2004, it wasn't from the D.A. but a Deputy Attorney General named Holly Wilkens in Judge Huff's courtroom. Cooper's attorneys discovered a never before revealed police report showing that a shirt was discovered that had blood on it and was connected to the murders for which Cooper was convicted, and that the shirt had disappeared. It had never been tested for blood. It was never turned over to Cooper's trial attorney, and no one knows where it is or what happened to it. Cooper's attorneys located the woman who found that shirt on the side of the road and reported it to the Sheriff's Department. She was called to Judge Huff's court to testify about finding and reporting that shirt to law enforcement. That shirt was the second shirt found that had blood on it that was not the victims’ blood. This was in 2004, 19 years after Cooper's conviction.
It appears that this ongoing constitutional violation that everyone—from the Special Counsel to the Governor's legal team to the Governor himself—seems to know about, but won't do anything about, is acceptable in order to uphold Cooper's conviction.
But this type of thing is supposed to be unacceptable in the United States of America where the Constitution is supposed to stand for something other than a piece of paper with writing on it. How can a Governor, his legal team, people who support and believe in him ignore a United States citizen’s Constitutional Rights being violated for 40 years in order to uphold a conviction?
This silence is betrayal of the Constitution. This permission and complicity by the Governor and his team is against everything that he and they claim to stand for as progressive politicians. They have accepted the Special Counsel's report even though the Special Counsel did not receive the files from the district attorney that may not only prove that Cooper is innocent, but that he was indeed framed by the Sheriff’s Department; and that evidence was purposely destroyed and tampered with, that certain witnesses were tampered with, or ignored if they had information that would have helped Cooper at trial, that evidence that the missing shirt was withheld from Cooper's trial attorney, and so much more.
Is the Governor going to get away with turning a blind eye to this injustice under his watch?
Are progressive people going to stay silent and turn their eyes blind in order to hopefully get him to end the death penalty for some while using Cooper as a sacrificial lamb?
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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1) Anger Over Starvation in Gaza Leaves Israel Increasingly Isolated
Global outrage at the Netanyahu government’s actions has grown since the war began, and the suffering of children in the enclave has accelerated the disdain.
By Steven Erlanger, July 31, 2025
Steven Erlanger, a former bureau chief in Jerusalem, has covered the Israeli-Palestinian issue for many years.
A demonstration in support of Gaza outside the U.N. headquarters in New York on July 25, 2025. Bing Guan for The New York Times
Some of Israel’s most important Western allies, under political pressure from voters appalled by mounting evidence of starvation in Gaza, now say that they will recognize a Palestinian state. President Trump, himself convinced that Gazans are starving, has sent his Mideast envoy to Israel for the first time in months to look at the chaotic food distribution system.
More scholars are debating whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Opinion polls in the United States and elsewhere show an increasingly negative view of Israel. And there is no clear plan to bring the war against Hamas to an end.
The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has responded angrily to the growing skepticism. He has said that the reports of starvation are exaggerated, that Hamas must be destroyed, that critics are often antisemites and that Western recognition of a Palestinian state is a reward to Hamas for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed more than 1,000 people.
“The usual Israeli view is that this crisis is another temporary problem,” said Natan Sachs, an analyst of Israeli politics. “But that’s a misreading of the world, because it’s accelerating a global turn against Israel that has dramatic effects, especially among young people.”
As anger grows over widespread hunger in Gaza, Israel risks becoming an international outcast. The deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023 remains a vivid, salient event for many Israelis. But for others around the world, the devastation and hunger in Gaza have become more visible and urgent.
Since Israel cut off aid in March to try to force Hamas to give up hostages, Israel’s effort to install its own distribution system has been marred by chaos and casualties while hunger has increased. Scores have been killed as Gazans rushed to get food.
And no one has a clear idea of how the war will end, even as Israel has retaken large areas of Gaza several times over. The number of dead in the enclave has reached more than 60,000, a majority of them civilians, according to the United Nations. Mr. Netanyahu has not outlined what he has in mind for Gaza or who should try to rule it instead of Hamas. He has refused to engage with the countries most likely to help do that — the Persian Gulf states, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Trump remains a strong supporter of Israel in its fight against Hamas, and he has in the past given Mr. Netanyahu carte blanche in how to do it. But even Mr. Trump has seemed shocked by the televised videos of hunger in Gaza, and some of his most fervent supporters are publicly questioning the relationship with Israel.
The increasing debate over whether Israel is committing genocide is also reflective of how “something fundamental has shifted in how Israel is perceived,” said Daniel Levy, a negotiator under former Labor Party-led governments in Israel and current president of the U.S./Middle East Project, a nonprofit.
He points to a sharp cultural shift, with anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian and sometimes antisemitic demonstrations at places including opera houses and music festivals. Pop stars like Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande have made strong appeals for a cease-fire and for the delivery of aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
“For a long time, Israel thought that if we throw antisemitism and the Holocaust at them loudly enough, it will all go away,” Mr. Levy said. “But the zeitgeist is shifting, and the Israeli attempt at outrage works with an ever-smaller cohort.”
Opinion polls reflect the change. A Pew poll in April found that American views of Israel had turned more negative. About 53 percent of U.S. adults now express an unfavorable opinion of Israel, up from 42 percent before the Hamas attack. Of those, the share who voice very unfavorable views of Israel went up to 19 percent of adults this year, from 10 percent in 2022.
Another Pew poll, conducted last month, found that in 20 of 24 countries surveyed, half or more of adults had an unfavorable view of Israel. Around three-quarters or more hold this view in Australia, Greece, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. The figures are higher among younger people — and one of the largest gaps between young and old is in the United States.
The largest danger to Israel in the future is not the stances taken by European leaders or its most passionate critics, Mr. Sachs, the analyst, argued. “From the Israeli perspective, the most troubling phenomenon is the people on the fence. Either they don’t know about the issue or want to stay away from it, because it’s toxic,” he said. “The average person who might normally support Israel would rather stay away.”
Mr. Netanyahu has been too slow to understand the reality of the shift and its cost to his country, said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel. It is difficult to know the full reality in Gaza, because Israel does not allow foreign journalists to enter independently. But aid groups have described mounting malnutrition and cases of starvation.
“There is some truth to the privation and even limited numbers of cases of starvation in Gaza, and there is some antisemitism in the reactions,” Mr. Freilich said.
“But whatever the causes, it doesn’t matter,” he added. “The bottom line is that Israel is or is becoming an international pariah, and Israel cannot afford that.”
Israel needs diplomatic support, he said. And it desperately needs good economic relations with Europe and the United States, said Bernard Avishai, an Israeli American professor and analyst.
“Israel made a fantastic bet on globalization, and its economic life depends on its technological elites finding partners in developed countries,” Mr. Avishai said. “What happens when companies like that get a cold shoulder from people around the world?”
There is built-up anger in the West at having been pushed for years to keep down criticism over Israeli actions like the occupation of the West Bank, Mr. Avishai said, and that anger is now coming out more strongly over Gaza. “What’s happening in Gaza is appalling,” and it diminishes the willingness of people to travel to Israel and to work with its scientists and companies, he said. “For the Israeli economy,” he noted, “this is already devastating.”
Pushed by public reaction and by his own frustration, President Emmanuel Macron of France has said that his country will recognize Palestine as a state at the United Nations in September. Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said Wednesday that his country would do the same. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made Britain’s recognition conditional, but the moves nonetheless reflect how swiftly views of the war — and of Israel — have changed among Western countries.
Recognizing a Palestine that doesn’t yet exist is more of a symbolic gesture — 147 nations already do. But if both Britain and France join in, it will isolate the United States as the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council that does not. And it would likely force Washington to veto such recognition.
While still blaming Hamas for rejecting a cease-fire, Mr. Trump now seems to understand that Mr. Netanyahu has little interest in ending the war. A lasting truce would force Mr. Netanyahu to make a political choice about Gaza’s future that could collapse his governing coalition, which depends on support from far-right Israeli politicians who favor annexing and resettling the enclave.
Even to allow more aid into Gaza and to institute a temporary halt in hostilities in a belated response to criticism, Mr. Netanyahu had to hold a security cabinet meeting on the Sabbath last week, when his far-right ministers would be unavailable to attend.
Jeffrey C. Herf, emeritus professor of history at the University of Maryland, said that he had seen a shift toward anti-Zionism in academia and society and that he expected it to last. He blames Mr. Netanyahu for failing to understand that the war against Hamas was also one of political narrative.
“The backlash now is a sign of Israeli incompetence, falling into the trap of Hamas’s cynical and long-term strategy to use the suffering of Gazans for its own advantage,” he said.
After World War II, the Allies aided German civilians, arguing that they had freed them from a mad dictatorship, Mr. Herf said. “Israel should have come to Gaza to liberate the people from Hamas, the way the Allies liberated the Germans from the Nazis,” he said. “But now the world hates Israel.”
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2) This Is What Basic Food Costs in Gaza Now, if You Can Find It
Obtaining humanitarian aid can be difficult and dangerous, and though some essentials are available at markets, they are prohibitively expensive for many Gazans.
By Adam Rasgon and Ashley Wu, July 31, 2025
Adam Rasgon reported from Tel Aviv, and Ashley Wu from New York.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/world/middleeast/gaza-market-prices-flour.html
Deadly chaos and violence have engulfed aid distribution in Gaza since Israel reconstituted the system in May as part of what it said was an effort to keep aid out of the hands of Hamas.
The mayhem — and the limited amount of aid entering the enclave in the first place — has led many Palestinians to give up trying to get humanitarian aid, even though starvation is mounting.
One of the few alternatives has been to buy food from markets in Gaza, which are stocked with a combination of aid materials — some of which may have been looted — commercial goods, and small amounts of locally grown produce. But the prices of many basic goods have skyrocketed.
“Have I ever seen this anywhere else to this extent?” Arif Husain, the chief economist at the U.N. World Food Program, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Absolutely not.”
Sugar now costs about $106 per kilogram compared with 89 cents before the war, flour is $12 per kilogram compared with 42 cents, and tomatoes are $30 per kilogram compared with 59 cents, according to data published this week by the Gaza Governorate Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The data were collected by some of the chamber’s staff members, who have been conducting surveys at markets in Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. An emergency committee representing chambers of commerce in multiple areas of the enclave authorized the Gaza Governorate chamber to conduct the surveys and publish the results.
“The prices are insane, totally insane,” said Mohammad Fares, 24, a resident of Gaza City who was staying with a relative alongside his parents and two brothers because his family’s home was destroyed earlier in the war. He has lost more than 50 pounds since the start of the war, he said.
Mr. Fares said that he was unwilling to risk his life by going to aid sites, describing them as “death traps” where Israeli soldiers fatally shoot people and desperate Palestinians threaten one another with knives. (The Israeli military has said that its forces have fired “warning shots” when people approached its forces outside aid sites in what it described as a threatening manner.)
Staying alive, Mr. Fares said, required his family to dig into what remains of its savings to purchase small quantities of flour and lentils. His family was no longer purchasing vegetables and fruits, which had long exceeded what it can afford, he added.
“At a certain level, people get priced out,” Mr. Husain said. “The prices are so high that they become meaningless.” The focus, he said, becomes on getting small amounts of the most essential goods.
The instability in the supply of goods has caused drastic price fluctuations. For example, the price of flour reached $891 for a 25-kilogram sack on July 20, dipped to $223 on Sunday and climbed to $334 on Wednesday, data from the enclave’s Chamber of Commerce showed. The same amount of flour cost a little over $10 before the war.
Ayed Abu Ramadan, the chairman of the Gaza Governorate Chamber of Commerce, said his biggest takeaway from the surveys was that prices rise and fall as restrictions on the entry of goods are tightened or loosened.
During a cease-fire this year, the cost of basic goods fell significantly as thousands of trucks entered Gaza, but a blockade between March and May caused prices to shoot up once again, he said.
“We’re not just facing a war in terms of bombs — we’re facing a war in terms of prices, hunger and thirst, too,” said Mr. Abu Ramadan, who also leads the emergency committee for the chambers of commerce across Gaza.
The prices of nonfood items have also been extraordinarily high.
A bar of soap is about $10, compared with 59 cents before the war; a pack of 40 diapers is $149, compared with $8.61; diesel is $36 per liter, compared with $1.87; and 400 grams of baby formula is $51, compared with $7.43, according to recent surveys. By comparison, in the United States, diesel costs about a dollar per liter, and 40 diapers can be bought for about $5.
Another challenge is getting hard cash, which many Palestinians can find only on the black market in exchange for exorbitant commissions. With banks and A.T.M.s in ruins or shut down, people stockpiling cash have been selling Israeli shekels, the predominant currency in Gaza, at internet cafes and street corners in the enclave for commissions of around 50 percent.
“There’s suffering built into every aspect of life,” Mr. Fares said. “Suffering on top of suffering.”
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3) As Trump Shifts Blame to Hamas, His Envoy Plans to See Hunger Crisis Firsthand
Steve Witkoff met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was expected to visit an aid distribution site in Gaza, as desperation there widens.
By Natan Odenheimer, Reporting from Jerusalem, July 31, 2025
Steve Witkoff’s visit to Israel on Thursday is the first time he is known to have visited the country in months. Credit...Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy, was holding talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Thursday, his first known visit to the country in months, as global outrage intensifies over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Mr. Witkoff was set to visit an aid distribution site in Gaza operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to an Israeli official and a person familiar with the details who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the trip publicly.
His visit comes as the Gaza health ministry said 111 Palestinians had died in the territory over the past 24 hours, including 91 people who were seeking aid. The circumstances of the deaths was unclear. The ministry, which is managed by Hamas, does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures.
Mr. Witkoff, the Trump administration’s lead negotiator in the cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas, met with Mr. Netanyahu at his office in Jerusalem on Thursday afternoon, hours after the families of Israeli hostages had protested outside and called for a cease-fire.
Israel and the United States pulled back last week from negotiations to try to agree another truce and to secure the release of hostages.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump called for Hamas to release the captives. “The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!” he wrote on social media. The comments were a shift in tone from remarks earlier in the week, when he implied that Israel bore primary responsibility for improving humanitarian conditions in the territory.
Mr. Witkoff’s visit comes as Palestinians in Gaza are facing a hunger crisis, with a U.N.-backed food security group warning this week that “famine” was unfolding across the territory. The food crisis has become especially acute after Israel cut off all food supplies to the enclave between March and May. Israel has said without evidence that Hamas was routinely stealing U.N. aid supplies.
The crisis has been exacerbated by Israel’s decision, backed by the Trump administration, to introduce a new aid-distribution system led by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private American organization. It has given out food at a only a few sites in Gaza in areas that are controlled by the Israeli military. But amid chaotic scenes at the sites, hundreds of people have been killed while seeking food, according to the Gaza health ministry. In many cases, Israeli soldiers have been accused of firing on crowds. The Israeli military said that it had fired warning shots into the air.
In recent weeks, dozens of people have died from starvation, including children, according to the Gaza health officials. The worsening conditions in the territory have prompted a growing wave of international outrage toward at Israel. Canada said on Wednesday that it would recognize a Palestinian state, following similar moves by Britain and France in the past week. All three countries are longstanding allies of Israel.
The war began after a Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and saw roughly 250 people taken as hostages into Gaza. In response, Israel launched a sweeping military campaign that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Israel pulled out of a U.S.-brokered cease-fire in March and resumed its attacks on Gaza after accusing Hamas of refusing to release the hostages. About 50 hostages are believed to be held in Gaza, though Israeli officials say some are presumed to have been killed.
On Thursday, a group of mothers and family members of the hostages held a protest outside the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem to call on Mr. Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring the remaining captives home.
In recent weeks, international organizations have become increasingly alarmed about the spread of hunger in Gaza.
Outrage inside Israel over the scale of the crisis has also been growing.
Separately, in a letter sent to the government and military, 16 Israeli law professors warned that the death and suffering of Gaza’s civilian population “amounts to violations of the gravest offenses under international law and constitutes a serious moral stain on the army, the government, and Israeli society as a whole.”
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4) Energy Dept. Attacks Climate Science in Contentious Report
The agency asked five climate skeptics to write a report criticizing the consensus on global warming. Scientists are pointing out its errors.
By Maxine Joselow and Brad Plumer, Reporting from Washington, July 31, 2025
The Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. Credit...Eric Lee/The New York Times
Sea level rise is not accelerating. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be good for plant growth. The computer models used to predict global warming tend to exaggerate future temperature increases.
These arguments, routinely made by people who reject the scientific consensus on climate change, were included in an unusual report released by the Energy Department on Tuesday. The report, which is meant to support the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to roll back climate regulations, contends that the mainstream scientific view on climate change is too dire and overlooks the positive effects of a warming planet.
Climate scientists said the 151-page report misrepresented or cherry-picked a large body of research on global warming. Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth and the payments company Stripe, called the document a “scattershot collection of oft-debunked skeptic claims” that “are not representative of broader climate science research findings.”
The report demonstrates the extent to which President Trump is using his second term to wage a battle against climate change research, a long-held goal of some conservative groups and fossil fuel companies. While the first Trump administration often undermined federal scientists and rolled back more than 100 environmental policies, officials mostly refrained from trying to debate climate science in the open.
This time, Trump officials have gone much further.
The Environmental Protection Agency this week cited the Energy Department report in its proposal to repeal a landmark 2009 finding that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, pose a threat to public health. That determination, known as the endangerment finding, underpinned the agency’s legal authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other industrial sources of pollution.
The new report also comes months after the Trump administration dismissed hundreds of scientists and experts who had been compiling the federal government’s flagship analysis of how climate change is affecting the country. That analysis, known as the National Climate Assessment, was set to explore how rising temperatures will influence public health, agriculture, fisheries, water supplies, transportation, energy production and other aspects of the economy.
“It is a coordinated, full-scale attack on the science,” said Dave White, who directs the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University. “This was present in the first Trump administration, but it’s being exacerbated in the second.”
The vast majority of climate scientists agree that carbon dioxide, which is released by the burning of fossil fuels, is accumulating in the atmosphere and raising global temperatures. This warming is increasing the risk of destructive storms, droughts, wildfires and heat waves around the globe.
The Energy Department commissioned its own report from five prominent skeptics of the consensus view. They include Steven E. Koonin, a physicist and author of a best-selling book that calls climate science “unsettled”; John Christy, an atmospheric scientist who doubts the extent to which human activity has caused global warming; and Judith Curry, a climatologist who has said there is too much “alarmism” about warming.
An Energy Department spokesman, Ben Dietderich, wrote in an email that the report “critically assesses many areas of ongoing scientific inquiry that are frequently assigned high levels of confidence — not by the scientists themselves but by the political bodies involved, such as the United Nations or previous presidential administrations. Unlike previous administrations, the Trump administration is committed to engaging in a more thoughtful and science-based conversation about climate change and energy.”
In response to emailed questions, four of the report’s authors wrote that they would address any criticism during their report’s 30-day public-comment period.
“Is the final draft perfect? No,” Dr. Christy wrote. “We will be sifting through numerous public comments to fix the mistakes that we may have made or to include evidence we overlooked.”
During Mr. Trump’s first term, Dr. Koonin proposed that the E.P.A. conduct a “red-team, blue-team” exercise to challenge mainstream climate science. A “red team” of climate skeptics would critique major scientific reports on global warming, and a “blue team” of climate scientists would rebut the claims.
But that plan was ultimately blocked by John F. Kelly, then the White House chief of staff. He and other White House aides worried that the exercise could harm Mr. Trump’s re-election chances and distract from the administration’s efforts to repeal Obama-era environmental regulations.
Now, however, the views of Dr. Koonin and other skeptics are prominently featured in the Energy Department report. Its title is “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate.”
The report does not directly dispute that carbon dioxide is heating the planet. And it does not attempt to deny many effects of global warming, such as the melting of vast ice sheets that sit on top of Greenland and Antarctica that are contributing to rising sea levels around the world.
But in many cases, the authors question established research on the significance and the risks of this warming.
For instance, the report suggests that solar activity may be an “underestimated” contributor to warming, citing a recent paper that has been sharply criticized. In contrast, a 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was compiled by hundreds of scientists, determined that human activity is responsible for essentially all of the global warming seen to date, while natural factors like sunspots have played little role.
The Energy Department report also repeatedly highlights the positive effects of carbon dioxide, saying that “rising CO2 levels benefit plants, including agricultural crops.” The report does not mention recent research that found that rising global temperatures can have an adverse effect on yields of staple crops like rice, soybeans and wheat.
The report’s authors “are right that crops breathe CO2, just like we breathe oxygen,” said Andrew Hultgren, an assistant professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. But exposure to extreme heat reduces the ability of plants like corn, wheat and other staples to produce food, he said, “and that’s where they get things wrong.”
The authors also wrote that U.S. tide gauges “show no obvious acceleration in sea-level rise beyond the historical average rate.” But satellite measurements for the past 30 years have found that sea level rise is accelerating globally. The authors seem to have selectively chosen data from certain tide gauges that supported their point, said Robert Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University.
Experts said they were struck by how quickly the Energy Department’s report was put together. When the federal government has previously compiled National Climate Assessments, it has convened hundreds of scientists who spend years gathering research and go through several rounds of peer review.
In contrast, the five scientists assembled by the Energy Department began work in early April and finished by a May 28 deadline, according to the report. “The short timeline and the technical nature of the material meant that we could not comprehensively review all topics,” the authors wrote.
Some experts said that a push for more debate on certain aspects of climate science could be productive.
Roger Pielke Jr., a political scientist, has previously criticized other climate researchers for misrepresenting evidence on how global warming has affected extreme weather to date. He said that parts of the report appeared reasonable, such as its point that some of the very worst-case scenarios used in climate research are now widely seen as unrealistically dire. He added that it was a problem for climate science when dissenting views get marginalized.
“These scientists have said they want to motivate discussion and debate,” said Dr. Pielke, who is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “So let’s see if they live up to that expectation.”
But others were skeptical that the Trump administration was merely trying to start a discussion, particularly since the E.P.A., in its proposal to repeal regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, was leaning on the Energy Department’s scientific review to make its case.
Raymond Zhong contributed reporting from London.
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5) How Did Hunger Get So Much Worse in Gaza?
By Aaron Boxerman, Samuel Granados, Bora Erden and Elena Shao, Aug. 1, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/08/01/world/middleeast/gaza-hunger-aid-sites-deaths-israel.html
Carrying handouts from the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in central Gaza on Friday. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the past two months while trying to secure aid. Credit...Reuters
Over the past several weeks, obtaining food in Gaza has been more than difficult — it has been deadly.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed while heading toward aid sites, many of them by Israeli forces. Many others have serious malnutrition, which Gazan health officials say has caused scores of deaths.
According to Israel’s own data, less food is going into Gaza now than during most other times in the war, when deliveries were generally far below what aid agencies said was necessary and people often went hungry.
How did it get so much worse?
After a total aid blockade, an Israeli plan created fewer and farther aid sites
In March, Israel imposed an aid blockade on Gaza in an effort to squeeze concessions from Hamas; it also said, without providing evidence, that the militant group was systematically stealing the supplies. That didn’t force the group to accept Israel’s terms, but it did cause widespread hunger among Gazans.
Amid growing international pressure, Israel established a new aid system in May in southern and central Gaza that would allow it greater control over aid deliveries.
Much of the aid used to go in through a system coordinated by the United Nations, which distributed it at hundreds of sites across the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s new system, run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (G.H.F.), had just four sites. At times, only one would be open per day. And none were in northern Gaza.
The result: Gazans would often have to walk for hours through a war zone to get food from the sites.
When Israel resumed allowing food into Gaza in late May, it also permitted the United Nations to bring in some aid, as well — albeit in a diminished role. Israel has blamed the U.N. for not bringing in more food, while the U.N. argues that Israel frequently denies or delays its requests to bring in convoys, among other challenges.
People are being asked to cross military lines
Israel wanted the new G.H.F. aid sites to be in zones controlled by the Israeli military. Israeli officials said that was the only way to ensure the food wouldn’t get into the hands of Hamas.
But that meant thousands of Palestinians would have to cross Israeli military lines to get a box of food from the distribution points.
The result has been deadly. More than 600 people have been killed while trying to reach the new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, according to the Gazan health ministry. The G.H.F. has disputed reports of shootings at or around its sites, although they acknowledge the areas beyond their perimeter are still an active war zone.
Photos and videos near the sites have shown crowds of people in close proximity to Israeli tanks.
The military has used live ammunition
Palestinian witnesses say Israeli soldiers have used live fire near aid hubs as Gazans headed toward the sites. The Israeli military says its forces have opened fire to disperse crowds or as warning shots when people approached in what it says was a threatening manner.
An Israeli military official who briefed reporters later conceded that Israeli forces had killed at least some people, including with artillery shells, as huge crowds tried to reach the sites.
The official said they were isolated episodes and argued that the overall death toll was exaggerated. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to comply with military protocol.
Sites are open for very short, unpredictable amounts of time
Gazans have frequently found it hard to know when and how to get aid from the Israeli-backed sites, creating further chaos and confusion.
The new distribution points have opened with little warning and have closed almost immediately as food runs out. Hoping to secure a box of food, Palestinians began arriving hours in advance, waiting in the middle of the night for the sites to open.
In mid-June, the G.H.F. announced via Facebook only about a half-hour or less in advance that sites would open. The sites then closed less than 15 minutes later, with the G.H.F. saying the food had run out.
People have tried to cut ahead in line, sometimes leaving the routes mandated by the G.H.F. At times, Israeli soldiers have opened fire when crowds of Palestinians approached them when the sites weren’t open, according to the Israeli military.
The safe routes to the sites have not always been clear. The Israeli military says it has since added signs in an effort to make sure Palestinians know where to go.
The foundation defends its record, saying that it has delivered more than one million boxes of aid at its sites to Gazans under challenging circumstances.
Sites don’t have the basic protections that aid organizations say should be standard
When the new Israeli-backed sites open generally for very short periods of time, Palestinians have often found themselves in a desperate race for food. Instead of forming an orderly line to receive aid, the strongest and fastest run as fast as they can to grab whatever’s lying on the ground. Many others have left empty-handed.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites don’t appear to have well-organized infrastructure or even shade. Footage from the scene suggests a flattened area with some fences surrounded by dirt barriers. In a rush to obtain food, people hurdle down the site’s steep barriers and climb over what appears to be barbed wire at the top of the fences.
Sometimes, the American security contractors at the sites have thrown tear gas grenades at people crowded into narrow, fenced-in lines with seemingly nowhere to go, footage shows. About 20 people were killed in a stampede at one of the sites in mid-July; the foundation claimed Hamas-linked instigators had started it.
The danger created more desperation
Doctors in Gaza are reporting spiraling rates of malnutrition. The World Food Program says more than one in three people aren’t eating for multiple days. Gaza health officials say severely malnourished children have died.
In addition to the new distribution system, the United Nations has been delivering aid in areas of Gaza where Israel allows it to operate. As global outrage grew over the past week, Israel paused its operations in parts of Gaza for several hours per day and designated secure routes for U.N. convoys.
But Palestinians say finding food remains incredibly difficult and dangerous. In recent days, hundreds of people have converged on U.N. convoys, desperate for food.
Videos from near aid trucks show crowds of men jostling for food.
Many Gazans are too old, too weak or too terrified to risk going to the aid sites. Instead, they pay astronomical prices for whatever food — much of it resold aid — reaches the enclave’s markets.
The cost is onerous for people already impoverished by 22 months of war and devastation. A kilogram of tomatoes can cost around $30, while a kilogram of sugar can cost more than $100, according to the Gaza Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Airdrops of aid are unlikely to solve the problem
After growing international fury over the humanitarian crisis, the Israeli military announced on Saturday that it would revive airdrops of aid into Gazas.
Some countries, including Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, have begun dropping boxes of aid.
Aid experts warn that airdrops are dangerous, expensive and insufficient to tackle the widening hunger crisis there. It costs many times as much as sending in an equivalent amount of aid through land crossings, which Israel controls.
The airdrops have at times included roughly 10 tons of supplies per drop. A single truck crossing the Gaza border can carry double that far more cheaply.
Last year, other countries stopped parachuting aid into Gaza after several people were killed by the airdrops. In other attempts, the aid has landed in Israel or out at sea.
“Airdrops alone are not the answer,” Britain’s foreign ministry wrote on social media on Wednesday. “Only trucks can deliver at the scale needed.”
Nader Ibrahim contributed reporting and video production.
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6) A Desperate Measure for a Desperate Land
A photographer accompanied a Jordanian aircrew as it dropped aid to Gaza, where starvation is rising.
Visuals by Diego Ibarra Sanchez, Written by Eric Nagourney and Diego Ibarra Sanchez, Aug. 2, 2025
Diego Ibarra Sanchez reported from aboard a Jordanian Air Force C-130.
A view from an aid plane of the Gaza Strip on Thursday after more than a year and a half of war.
Airdrops are not known for their precision.
On Thursday, after sweeping over the devastated landscape that is now Gaza, a Jordanian Air Force plane descended and banked. Following a brief countdown, its rear doors opened and, with two crew members tethered at the edge, pallets of food were dispatched to an uncertain fate.
The method is notoriously unreliable, the amount of food insufficient, but Gazans are starving, and so after a hiatus of months, Jordan is one of several countries that have resumed the drops in recent days.
“I feel bad,” a load master on the flight, Saif Alzahrawy, said quietly, of the situation in Gaza. “We hope this is enough. But I want to do more.”
The airdrop on Thursday was one of two conducted by the Jordanian Air Force in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates. In all, it said, some 20 tons of food and other basic necessities were parachuted over the territory, where Israel has been at war with Hamas since the group’s deadly attack on southern Israel in October 2023.
International aid drops to Gaza resumed this week after Israel lifted a prohibition on them that had lasted for almost nine months.
Aid officials have warned that Gaza’s two million people are facing mass starvation, with many countries, including some of Israel’s allies, holding the Israeli government responsible for the situation. Israel has said it is doing everything it can to allow aid into the enclave and has argued that relief agencies need to do more to distribute food already inside.
Since Sunday, international airdrops have delivered about 100 tons of aid to Gaza, the Jordanian military said, and the operation is expected to continue for two weeks. Among other countries taking part besides Jordan and the Emirates are Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany and Spain.
Airdrops can go astray, damaging buildings and injuring people. Gazans have drowned wading into the sea to retrieve boxes of foods. Others have been hurt in melees set off by the deliveries.
More important, aid experts say, trucks can carry far more food and deliver it to chosen destinations.
The Jordanians themselves say airdrops are far from ideal. But what they do still matters, members of the air force believe.
“I feel proud of myself when I’m helping my brothers,” said Rami Alslaheen, 24, an airframe technician who did not take part in Thursday’s aid runs. “I do what I can.”
Conversation on board was kept to a minimum on the two-hour flight from the King Abdullah II air base and back again. The roar of the C-130 Hercules engines discouraged small talk.
Oil and rice were among the provisions dropped somewhere over southern Gaza.
As the pallets floated down, people could be seen through a telephoto lens scattered below. Some waited under palm trees to escape the harsh summer conditions. Others walked along the road, or stood in the middle of the open landscape.
What happened after that was unknown. By the time the aid landed, the plane was already heading back home.
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7) Judges Keep Restrictions on L.A. Immigration Arrests, in Setback for Trump Agenda
An appellate panel upheld a finding that federal agents appeared to rely exclusively on race and other factors, such as speaking Spanish, in making arrests.
By Miriam Jordan and Tim Arango, Aug. 2, 2025
Miriam Jordan is a national immigration correspondent based in Los Angeles. Tim Arango covers criminal justice.
Federal agents blocked people protesting an immigration raid at a licensed cannabis farm near Camarillo, Calif., in July. Credit...Mario Tama/Getty Images
The Trump administration’s agenda suffered another setback late Friday when an appeals court upheld a decision that temporarily halts federal agents from making immigration-related arrests in the Los Angeles area without probable cause.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s finding that the raids appeared to exclusively rely on a person’s race and other factors, like speaking Spanish.
The administration’s immigration raids have stirred protests and fear for many Latinos across the city, its suburbs and agricultural regions. The panel’s decision merely allows a temporary restraining order that had been imposed by the lower court to remain in place. It curtails, for now, the far-reaching operations that began in June as the case proceeds through the courts.
Judge Maame E. Frimpong of Federal District Court in Los Angeles has scheduled a hearing in late September as she weighs a longer-lasting order known as a preliminary injunction.
In their ruling on Friday night, the appellate judges wrote that the plaintiffs “are likely to succeed” in showing that federal agents made arrests based on how people looked, how they spoke and where they lived or worked.
Civil-rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Public Counsel filed suit on July 2 accusing the Trump administration of unconstitutional sweeps since early June. Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested.
American citizens and immigrants who are legally in the United States have been caught in the dragnet, which fueled protests in Los Angeles and across the country. President Trump had said that other Democratic-led cities would also be targeted, suggesting that the aggressive enforcement tactics deployed in Los Angeles might be replicated elsewhere.
In their 61-page ruling, the appellate judges, all of whom were appointed by Democratic presidents, said it was likely that the arrests were made without “reasonable suspicion.”
The judges added that because the arrests were “part of a pattern of officially sanctioned behavior,” they were “likely to recur” without court intervention.
Mohammad Tajsar, an attorney with the A.C.L.U. representing the plaintiffs, said the decision was “further confirmation that this administration’s paramilitary invasion of Los Angeles violated the Constitution and caused irreparable injury across the region.”
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, who has repeatedly called on the White House to end the aggressive enforcement actions, called the ruling “a victory for the rule of law and for the city of Los Angeles” and called on residents to “stand together against this administration’s efforts to break up families who contribute every single day to the life, the culture and the economy of our great city.”
The City and County of Los Angeles and seven other municipalities joined the lawsuit after heavily armed federal agents, escorted by National Guard troops, marched through MacArthur Park, in the heart of a bustling Latino enclave near downtown Los Angeles, on July 7 in a show of force.
The government now has two options. It can ask all the active Ninth Circuit judges to reconsider the panel’s Friday night decision, or it could ask the Supreme Court to issue a stay of Judge Frimpong’s order.
The judge issued her order on July 11, saying that “roving patrols” of federal agents were making arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The Trump administration filed an emergency request to pause the order, arguing that it had undermined its enforcement efforts.
At a hearing on July 28, the three Ninth Circuit judges seemed skeptical as they questioned a Justice Department lawyer about the administration’s tactics.
The lawyer, Yaakov Roth, denied there was a policy to target people in the manner described by the plaintiffs, insisting that detentions were made with probable cause.
Judge Jennifer Sung, who was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden Jr., asked him, “What is the harm to be told not to do something that you claim you already are not doing?”
Mr. Roth replied that the government objected to broad restrictions on whom it decides to detain and that cases should be decided on an individual basis. He also said that the order had a chilling effect on agents, who could be subject to contempt charges if it was later determined that they violated the order.
In addition, Mr. Roth said, there might be instances where factors, such as someone’s inability to speak English, could support “reasonable suspicion.”
Mr. Roth was repeatedly asked whether the Trump administration had set a quota of 3,000 immigration arrests a day, which put pressure on agents. Stephen Miller, a senior White House official who is an architect of the immigration crackdown, cited that number on Fox News in May.
“I’m just trying to understand what would motivate the officers who did the roundup of aliens here to grab such a large number of people so quickly, and without marshaling reasonable suspicion to detain,” said Judge Ronald M. Gould, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton.
Mr. Roth said he did not know about a quota, and the judges ordered him to file a letter with the court addressing the issue.
The letter, filed on July 30, denied that a quota was in place. In the letter, the administration said it “conducts its enforcement activities based on individualized assessments, available resources, and evolving operational priorities — not volume metrics.”
The administration has criticized the lower court’s ruling, stating in court documents that it was based on “nothing more than media speculation and a series of declarations by individuals who say they were detained by federal agents.”
Videos of arrests have shown agents appearing to randomly grab Latinos in working-class neighborhoods.
In early June, the Trump administration began flooding Los Angeles with officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies, like the Border Patrol, that traditionally do not detain people in the country’s interior. Groups of masked men, often without insignias to identify their agency, arrested people at bus stops, carwashes, swap meets and outside Home Depot, among other places.
In the weeks since Judge Frimpong’s order, enforcement around Los Angeles has abated, and the Trump administration has released all but about 250 of the nearly 5,000 troops who were deployed to assist federal agents and help quell protests. But in the San Diego area, which is not covered by the judge’s order, raids have continued to occur, such as at a Home Depot in Encinitas on July 27.
Shawn Hubler contributed reporting.
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8) Stolen Weapons and Kidnappings: How an American Contract in Haiti Went Wrong
A Haitian American Navy veteran and his police officer cousin who were working in Haiti with Studebaker, an American military contractor, are missing and presumed dead.
By Frances Robles, David C. Adams and André Paultre, Aug. 2, 2025
Frances Robles and David C. Adams reported from Florida, and André Paultre from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Miot Patrice Jacquet was an assistant hotel manager in Haiti and was hired to handle logistics by Studebaker Defense, an American military contractor.
Miot Patrice Jacquet, a U.S. Navy veteran, did not think twice about helping an American military contractor with a dangerous mission in his native Haiti.
The company, Studebaker Defense, had an impressive pedigree: Its board is run by Wesley K. Clark, a retired American general and a former NATO supreme allied commander.
But instead of helping wrest Haiti back from gangs, the operation collapsed. The American team was forced to leave early, a cache of AR-15-style rifles was stolen and seven months ago, two people working with the team — including Mr. Jacquet — were abducted, remain missing and are most likely dead.
Suspicion has focused on corrupt police officers, according to two high-ranking Haitian police officials.
With Haiti engulfed in gang-fueled violence and other nations largely unwilling to send significant military aid, the government says it has no choice but to turn to private defense contractors, including the Blackwater founder Erik Prince, to regain control of the country.
But the aborted Studebaker mission — and the abductions and possible killings of a police officer, Steeve Duroseau, and his Haitian American cousin, Mr. Jacquet, an assistant hotel manager in Haiti who worked with Studebaker — underscores the complicated risks of private military contract work in a country where graft, killings and kidnappings are rampant.
This account is based on interviews with diplomats, two high-ranking police officials, a senior Haitian government official, the victims’ relatives and other people familiar with the case. Many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because of grave concerns about their safety and a sense that the case leads to the highest levels of power in Haiti.
For months, the kidnappings of Mr. Duroseau and Mr. Jacquet, a father of eight who once served at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, barely made a ripple in Haiti.
The senior Haitian government official said the authorities believed high-ranking members of the Haitian National Police working with gangs were behind the abductions, perhaps in retaliation for a failed attempt overseen by Studebaker to capture a notorious gang leader.
The Haitian government did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The police chief, Normil Rameau, in a brief comment, vowed to investigate “to the end.”
Studebaker arrived in Haiti late last September to a country in chaos after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Even worse violence exploded in early 2024, when a coalition of rival armed groups banded together in coordinated attacks.
Garry Conille, then the prime minister, faced a daunting task: reduce killings and elect a new president.
He quietly turned to Studebaker, a reputable defense and intelligence company with two retired American generals on its board, including Mr. Clark, who had been involved in planning the 1994 U.S. invasion of Haiti and ran the U.S. Southern Command.
For around $150,000 a month, Studebaker sent about 10 former U.S. soldiers to train Haitian police officers.
The goal was to teach a special police unit international standards and tactical proficiency, the company said in a statement. But the Studebaker team encountered resistance. It was once fired upon by the palace guard, according to three people familiar with the episode.
The men Studebaker hired initially stayed at the Karibe Hotel in a suburb of Port-au-Prince, the capital, where most government gatherings are held and where Haiti-based U.N. employees live.
Mr. Jacquet, the hotel’s night manager whom the Studebaker team had hired to assist with logistics, found them a luxury villa to rent nearby.
Known as a well-connected smooth talker, Mr. Jacquet, 52, had a long career with the Navy and in the hospitality industry in South Florida.
Proud of his new gig, Mr. Jacquet introduced his son Isaac, a U.S. Army veteran, to the Studebaker team over a video call.
“I asked what they were doing,” said Isaac Jacquet, 24. “‘Just keeping people safe,’ they said.”
Mr. Jacquet found Studebaker a compound with three apartments to rent for about $10,000 a month; hired a cook; secured armored cars; and enlisted his cousin, Mr. Duroseau, a Haitian police officer assigned to prisons, to drive and serve as Studebaker’s police liaison.
The company’s team trained a special unit that cleared two gang-controlled compounds, leading to the recovery of weapons, equipment and police uniforms, according to an after-action report by Studebaker that was reviewed by The New York Times.
The Studebaker team also oversaw an attempt to capture or kill a gang leader, Vitel’homme Innocent, according to several people familiar with the operation.
The gang leader, who had a $2 million bounty on his head, escaped — Studebaker’s report said the police hesitated — and word got out that private “mercenaries” were operating in Haiti.
A presidential council that runs Haiti in the absence of an elected president accused Mr. Conille, the prime minister, of hiring Studebaker without authorization. He was fired. And so was Studebaker.
Less than two months after arriving in Haiti, Studebaker “was asked to initiate a strategic pause in its operations,” the company’s statement said.
What happened next is murky.
Studebaker said that its team left the country and that the police-issued weapons assigned to them were secured in locked containers and “officially transferred” to the police liaison.
The head of the Haitian National Police was notified that the guns were at the villa, Studebaker said.
But according to the Haitian police, Mr. Jacquet’s family and others who have been briefed on the case, that is not what happened.
The weapons were secured at the villa, but Mr. Jacquet removed them after the lease expired, the landlord said.
Mr. Jacquet put cases containing nine AR-15-style rifles in the back of his armored BMW S.U.V., which he parked at his house. The family said the plan was for Mr. Duroseau to return them to the Haitian police, but it was unclear why he did not do so immediately.
There is no indication that Mr. Duroseau or Mr. Jacquet did anything illegal, like try to sell the weapons, the police officials said.
“All assigned defensive equipment was secured and officially transferred to the designated PNH (Haitian National Police) liaison prior to the temporary departure of our personnel, in coordination with our logistics provider,” the Studebaker statement said.
In other words, even in Studebaker’s version of events, a hotel night manager and his police officer cousin wound up with highly sought-after weapons that are worth up to $72,000 on Haiti’s black market.
Guns are so valuable that about 1,000 firearms have been stolen from the Haitian police inventory in the past four years, according to the United Nations.
Studebaker left Port-au-Prince on Nov. 21, and Mr. Jacquet cleared out the weapons from the villa on Dec. 10, according to the housekeeper.
After spending the weekend working at the Karibe, Mr. Jacquet got home on Monday, Dec. 16, to some very bad news.
His house watchman told him that three days earlier, gunmen dressed in police uniforms attacked him, broke into the BMW and took the weapons, according to the two Haitian police officials.
The same day the weapons were stolen, Mr. Duroseau went missing.
Mr. Duroseau, a married father of two, was a 16-year veteran of the police.
He has not been heard from again.
Mr. Jacquet was in a panic. Not only were the rifles gone, but he could not get a hold of his cousin. He hopped in a car with a friend and headed to meet Mr. Duroseau’s sister, also a police officer, to see if she knew his whereabouts, Isaac Jacquet said.
Shortly after Mr. Jacquet left his house, in the Vivy Mitchell neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, armed men in two vehicles — including a Toyota Land Cruiser donated to the Haitian Police by the U.S. State Department — opened fire on his car. The friend was shot but survived, and Mr. Jacquet was abducted, the Haitian police said.
There has been no news of him since.
The police know the whereabouts of the Land Cruiser, have identified suspects in the case and have issued summonses for them, but only the house watchman has been arrested, the two police officials said.
The men who took the guns paid the house watchman to alert them when Mr. Jacquet got home, making him legally culpable as an accomplice, the police officials said.
Donated vehicles are generally equipped with trackers, but it is unclear whether investigators have the location data for the days of the weapons theft and kidnappings.
In an effort to bolster the struggling police agency, the U.S. government has provided nearly $250 million, including 159 vehicles, to the Haitian National Police since 2021, the State Department said.
Calling Haiti a “complex operational environment,” the State Department said that to avoid misuse of its donations, it vets the security forces who receive training and assistance.
But for the families of the missing men, the blame rests with Studebaker.
“Studebaker conducted a sloppy op,” Isaac Jacquet said.
Studebaker’s contract was troubled from the start because in Haiti’s deeply fractious government, few officials even knew about it, critics said. That secrecy prevented Studebaker from working with a variety of government officials on a coordinated exit plan, taking into account all possible contingencies, including safeguarding the custody of weapons, people familiar with the case said.
Studebaker defended its work.
“Studebaker Group stands by the integrity of its mission and remains fully confident in the professionalism, accountability and lawful conduct of its personnel,” the company said in its statement. “We categorically reject any implication or assertion to the contrary.”
Studebaker said that after the team left Haiti, its employees did not speak to Mr. Jacquet or his cousin and considered its business there concluded.
Mr. Jacquet’s family said it reached out to Florida legislators in the hopes of engaging U.S. law enforcement agencies.
In an April letter to Senator Ashley Moody, Republican of Florida, the F.B.I.’s international operations division said disappearances of Americans abroad fell to the host country, “unless a criminal nexus to the United States is established.”
The F.B.I. declined to comment.
Security and international experts who followed the case said the episode reflected the challenges Haitian officials face as they lean more heavily on foreign defense contractors.
“A major problem is holding private security firms accountable for their actions,” said William O’Neill, the U.N.’s human rights expert for Haiti. “While these firms are bound by international human rights and humanitarian law, enforcing these rules has been a major challenge.”
León Charles, a former Haitian police chief who is Mr. Jacquet’s cousin, said Studebaker should have maintained better control of the weapons.
“They made a mistake. They were careless,” Mr. Charles said. “Those guns are very tempting in Haiti.”
Mr. Charles said U.S. law enforcement should be doing more, particularly because Mr. Jacquet was helping an official mission paid for by the Haitian government.
“He is an American citizen,” he said. “They need to find out who did it.”
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9) ‘Hot Wasps’ Found at Nuclear Facility in South Carolina
Four radioactive wasp nests may indicate previously undetected environmental contamination at the decades-old Savannah River Site. Here’s what to know.
By Emily Anthes, Aug. 1, 2025
Workers with the Department of Energy decommissioning the heavy water components test reactor of the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., in 2011. Credit...U.S. Department of Energy
Four radioactive wasp nests have been discovered at a South Carolina nuclear facility, according to federal officials.
The first nest, which was found by workers at the Savannah River Site early last month, was recently disclosed in a report from the Department of Energy, which owns the site. The facility, near Aiken, S.C., produced material for nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War.
Three additional nests have since been discovered at the site, officials told The Times on Friday.
“The U.S. Department of Energy is managing the discovery of four wasp nests with very low levels of radioactive contamination,” Edwin Deshong, the manager of the department’s Savannah River Operations Office, said in an emailed statement. “The nests do not pose a health risk to SRS workers, the community, or the environment.”
But the discovery raised questions about the extent of the environmental contamination at the site, said Timothy Mousseau, a biologist at the University of South Carolina who studies organisms and ecosystems in radioactive regions of the world, including Chernobyl, Ukraine, and Fukushima, Japan.
“This is an indicator that there are contaminants spread across this area that have not been completely encased and protected,” Dr. Mousseau said.
The discovery of additional radioactive nests, he added, “indicate that much greater effort must be made to assess the possible risks and hazards of what appears to be a significant source of radioactive pollutants.”
Here’s what to know:
What is the Savannah River Site?
The Savannah River Site, formerly known as the Savannah River Plant, sits on 310 square miles in the sandhills of South Carolina, close to the Georgia border. The facility was built in the 1950s to produce materials for nuclear weapons. For decades, the site produced plutonium and tritium, a key component of hydrogen bombs.
The production of material for nuclear weapons ramped down after the end of the Cold War, and the Department of Energy began cleaning up the site in 1996. But the process has dragged on well past its initially projected completion date. Officials now say that cleanup activities will be complete by 2065.
In 2018, the first Trump administration announced plans to repurpose an unfinished building at the site to produce plutonium “pits” — the cores of nuclear weapons. Production is expected to begin in the 2030s.
What did workers find?
Workers at the site routinely monitor the grounds for signs of radioactivity. On July 3, they discovered a radioactive wasp nest on a post near a tank used to store nuclear waste.
“The wasp nest was sprayed to kill wasps, then bagged as radiological waste,” the federal report said. “The ground and surrounded area did not have any contamination.”
But the report omitted key details, Dr. Mousseau said, including the absolute level of radioactivity in the nest and the specific isotopes that were found, which would provide clues about the source of the contamination.
Three additional nests were subsequently discovered during “routine work activities,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy said in an email on Friday.
How did the nests become radioactive?
It’s not entirely clear, but the initial Department of Energy report said that the radioactivity resulted from “on-site legacy radioactive contamination,” rather than from a leak or “loss of contamination control.”
That’s a reasonable explanation, said Dr. Mousseau, who has studied birds at the site. “There’s some legacy radioactive contamination sitting around in the mud in the bottom of the lakes, or, you know, here and there,” he said.
The report did not disclose the species of wasp involved, but many wasps make their nests out of wood that they chew into a pulp. It was not far-fetched to imagine that they came across some contaminated rotting wood that had escaped previous detection and used the material to make their nest, Dr. Mousseau said.
How alarming is the discovery of radioactive wasp nests?
Wasps don’t typically travel far from their nests, Dr. Mousseau said, and the “hot wasps,” as he called them, probably posed little direct risk to the public.
But there are other potential risks. “The main concern relates to whether or not there are large areas of significant contamination that have escaped surveillance in the past,” he said. “Alternatively, this could indicate that there is some new or old radioactive contamination that is coming to the surface that was unexpected.”
In 2017, workers found radioactive bird droppings on the roof of a building at the site, and birds can carry radioactivity long distances, spreading it across the landscape, Dr. Mousseau said.
The wasp nests are a “red flag” that should lead to more surveillance and investigation, he added.
“We would like to know a lot more about what this actually represents, and just how common it is and whether there is any evidence of these radionuclides being moved through the ecosystem,” Dr. Mousseau said.
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